The aftermath was grim. The reckless assault had cost three hundred lives, and with his prestige shattered, King Erik saw more than half his followers drift to Ragnar's banner. The field still stank of charred flesh where the defenders had poured boiling pitch and set it alight. Ravens wheeled overhead, croaking as they tore at corpses too broken or blackened for burial. Among the Vikings, the bravado of the morning had soured into silence. Even the most hardened warriors muttered beneath their breath, as if their own gods had turned away from them.
No one dared propose another storming of the walls. Thus began the long and weary business of siege—a form of war the Norse hated, for it starved them of movement, of loot, of glory.
York lay hard by the River Ouse. To choke the city's lifeline and prevent food or messages from slipping upriver, an outpost was required on the western bank. Erik, eager to recover some measure of standing, volunteered for the task. Yet his following, once a proud column of spears, withered day by day. By the week's end he commanded scarcely a thousand men. The rest, like iron drawn to a stronger magnet, melted into Ragnar's camp.
So the host split in two. Ragnar's eastern camp grew into a bristling palisade of earthworks and timber. His men dug trenches, sharpened stakes, and bent their backs to the building of ladders, towers, and hurling engines. Smoke rose daily from their forges as carpenters and smiths labored side by side, a vision of order rare among sea-wolves. Erik's west camp, by contrast, lay more like a fairground than an army: hides and cloths strung as awnings, dice rattling on boards, the shrieks of women taken in plunder. Instead of engines they brought home sheep, ale, and silver plate from the villages, caring little for the greater prize.
By mid-June, riders were sighted more often upon the distant ridges—thin black silhouettes against the pale sky. Rurik, standing with narrowed eyes, understood the signs. Northumbria was mustering her strength. In his tent, he set out to reckon it.
He recalled the Domesday Book, compiled two centuries later when William the Norman sought to weigh every acre and every peasant in his grasp. It had counted a million and a half souls in England, most of them bound to the soil. Reasoning backwards, Rurik judged the ninth century must have held fewer still.
"Of the seven kingdoms," he murmured as his reed-pen scratched the papyrus, "Wessex is the mightiest, Mercia and Northumbria next. Let us suppose one million two hundred thousand souls in all: Wessex holds three hundred thousand, Mercia and Northumbria two hundred and fifty each, the others but a hundred thousand apiece. On that reckoning, Northumbria could levy six or seven thousand fighting men—three percent of her folk."
He set down the pen and rubbed his brow. "That will be no easy prey."
When next he entered Ragnar's tent, he found Ivar and Lennard bent over a map of the countryside, tracing rivers and roads with their knives. They spoke not of engines or supplies but of villages.
"Erik fattens himself on plunder," Ivar admitted bluntly. "He boasts already of raiding Sheffield. If we sit idle, our own men will grow restless and drift back to him."
Rurik ground his teeth. With the enemy gathering, still they quarreled over scraps. He spread his calculations before them and outlined a plan: ignore the city, let it rot within its walls, and instead strike at every relief army that dared march. "Encircle, intercept, and bleed them dry," he urged. "Six months of patience, and Northumbria's strength will be ground to dust."
Ragnar listened, his broad hand resting on the hilt of his sword. At last he clapped Rurik's shoulder, eyes both warm and regretful.
"You see farther than the rest, Rurik. But men think first of meat, of ale, of a woman's thighs, before they think of kingdoms. A chieftain must sometimes bow to such hunger. One day, when you command, you will know this bitter truth."
And so Rurik's counsel was set aside. Raiding parties grew ever larger—five hundred men at a time—spilling like wolves into the hills and dales. Their lust for loot was a fire that no victory could quench.
In the camps, rumors thickened. Some whispered that Ragnar's true aim was not silver nor renown, but the throne of Northumbria itself. Why else lay such siege to York, heart of the kingdom? Ragnar, stung to fury, swore he fought only for the host's gain. To quiet the whispers, he sanctioned still more raids, giving the men what they craved, though it bled discipline from his command.
By mid-July the army was a husk of itself. Two-thirds of the host ranged the countryside, some never returning. Neither Ragnar nor Erik could master them. The siege-lines grew quiet; the city within drew breath again.
Then, on the fifteenth day, word came like thunder. King Ælla, thought long dead, had risen. He marched at the head of two thousand militia, their spears bristling as they came down the western bank of the Ouse.
The red-and-gold banner rose above them, snapping in the wind. From York's walls there swelled a roar—men, women, and children surging to the battlements, crying to their sovereign. The bells of St. Peter's Minster rang out in peals of triumph, mingling with the voices until it seemed a savior had descended upon them.
"Warriors!" Ælla's sword flashed as he pointed it toward the Norse camps. "Drive these filthy heathens from our land!"
Two thousand men locked their shields and began the advance, their boots thudding as one.
But Erik was not there to meet them. He was far south, gorging himself on Sheffield's spoils. His west camp held only a hundred drunken idlers sprawled in their tents—and two hundred sheep, bleating amid filth.
Rurik, from a rise, watched in despair as the west camp dissolved. The few Norsemen there panicked like wildfowl startled from a marsh, splashing into the shallow Ouse. Arrows cut down thirty before the rest staggered across, terror blazing in their eyes. They carried that terror with them into Ragnar's camp, where it spread like a plague.
Two days later Erik returned, wagons laden with iron and wool. He surveyed the charred ruin of his camp without concern, declaring the venture a triumph.
At the war council, his words were smooth with mead.
"Fortune does not smile forever. We have taken our fill. Only a fool lingers too long at a feast. Our roots lie in the North, not in this perfumed isle."
Ivar pressed him. "Two months we have besieged this place. Rurik has forged engines enough to strike—shall we slink away without one blow, and be called cowards?"
Erik tilted back his wineskin and drank deep. "Let them call what they will. I came for silver, not for Northumbrian soil."
And many nodded. Even Ragnar's companions wavered. Ragnar himself, seeing the mood, chose not to fight it. Instead he called for a feast of victory, declaring that the gods themselves had blessed the venture.
The tables groaned with what Britain had yielded: a pig roasted whole until its skin crackled; mutton stewed with leeks; goose stuffed with minced meat, hazelnuts, and herbs; clam chowder rich as cream; and eels fried in butter till they glistened.
Most prized of all was the wine, drawn from Frankish vineyards, deep ruby and sweet upon the tongue. The Norsemen raised cup after cup, until even their beloved mead was forgotten.
By firelight Ragnar rose, his voice carrying through the smoky hall. He praised Erik and the nobles, calling them the boldest of sea-kings. He vowed their deeds would be sung by skalds until the world's ending, their names carved into the memory of men as bright as Odin's own heroes.
And so they feasted, as beyond the walls York endured, and Ælla's banner still rippled in the summer wind.