Chapter 128: Winter Grain and Wolf Banners
King Cnut sat in quiet contemplation beneath the arched rafters of his hall in London. The hearth at his feet burning low, its embers casting shadows like creeping fingers across the iron-bound floorstones.
The wind from the north still howled against the slanted slate rooftops of the keep, though spring was near. And yet, even with warmer days promised, Denmark and Norway remained famished.
The winter of 1029 had been a cruel one.
Snow fell early and lingered long. The harvest before it had been poor, and now the silos once brimming with barley and rye lay bare.
Oxen had been slaughtered for meat. Peasants boiled bark to make soup. Mothers sold their sons into service for sacks of frozen grain.
And the Pope’s promised aid, whether in silver or sanctified support, had yet to arrive.
Around the king, the council murmured like crows above a battlefield.
“To open talks with the White Wolf is madness,” hissed Bishop Aethelward of Canterbury, his robes stiff with embroidered thorns. “He is a pagan. A blasphemer. An enemy of the Latin rite. We would shame Christ Himself to treat with such beasts.”
“And yet,” came the gravel-voiced reply from Ealdorman Godwin of Wessex, “our Christ has left us hungry.”
All eyes turned to the broad-shouldered Saxon noble. His words carried the weight of English pragmatism, hardened by war and scarcity.
Godwin stepped forward and placed a weather-stained hand upon the king’s armrest.
“Your Grace,” he said, “when the Danes ruled the Danelaw, we did not ask who a man worshipped when we needed grain. If the Great Northern Realm has harvest to spare, we would be fools not to seek it.”
A younger voice interrupted.
“And what would you trade, Godwin? Your daughter’s hand? Your honor?”
It was Thorkell the Tall, the aged jarl still proud despite his years, his beard streaked with grey.
“We traded blood for Christendom. Will you now trade it back for bread?”
Godwin did not flinch. “I would trade blood for life.”
The chamber quieted again.
King Cnut, ever the conqueror turned ruler, finally raised his hand. His voice, when it came, was neither wrathful nor weak. It was level.
“I have heard the rumors,” he said. “That ships bearing ochre banners bring honeyed mead, woven linen, and clean steel to Novgorod. That their ports offload goods from lands we do not even name on our charts.”
He paused, his brow darkening.
“And I have heard they build roads of stone in the north, as the Romans once did. That their men do not starve, even in the frost.”
Bishop Aethelward scoffed. “And you believe pagan lies?”
Cnut turned his gaze on the bishop, eyes like winter glass. “I believe famine.”
It was Guthrum of Jutland who stepped forward next, ever the merchant among warriors.
He bore scrolls from Kievan traders: copies of ledgers from Smolensk, written in Norse and Rus alike, detailing quantities of grain, salted meat, and even parchment arriving from across the whale-road.
“This is not myth,” Guthrum said. “It is commerce. The empire of the White Wolf does not only raid. It sells. It ships. It trades with the east, the far steppe, even the Caliphates.”
He unfurled a second scroll.
“These came with a Christian scribe from Armenia who claimed to see a bathhouse in Reykjavik large enough to hold a hundred men, heated from beneath by the earth itself, and attended by slaves from every coast.”
The bishop turned red.
“More heathen luxury. You admire it?”
Guthrum did not blink. “I admire warmth.”
Another voice joined now, calm and colder. Emma of Normandy, Cnut’s queen, draped in the blues and whites of winter linen, stepped from her seat and bowed lightly.
“My husband,” she said, “this is not only about grain. This is about precedent. If we send an envoy, it must not be to beg. It must be to match terms.”
“A pact of sovereigns,” Cnut mused.
Emma nodded. “Let them know we are not Rome’s lapdogs. Nor are we blind to opportunity.”
Thorkell, ever ready to argue, scoffed. “The Pope will excommunicate us.”
“Let him,” Emma said. “He excommunicated a dozen kings who lived longer and died richer than their peers.”
The fire snapped beside him.
“Then what say you all?” he asked. “Shall we starve with sanctity, or dine with wolves?”
No one answered at first.
But one by one, eyes lowered. Heads bowed.
It was Godwin who spoke.
Cnut nodded. “Then we send it not as supplicants. But as equals.”
The decision made, the council rose, not with cheers, but with resignation.
Cnut remained behind, staring into the fire.
In the coals, he thought he saw a wolf’s eye blink.
The hall of the Lateran was colder than usual, the great braziers burning low despite the lingering chill of early spring.
Outside, the streets of Rome echoed with beggars’ cries and ox carts grinding across wet stone.
Inside, behind tall shutters and red-draped doors, the Cardinals of the Church spoke in low tones.
Pope John XIX sat cloaked in heavy wool, his fingers curled over the edge of his seat. His expression was unreadable, save for the dull flint behind his eyes.
A scroll lay open on the table before him. Wax-stamped with a seal not Roman, but Danish.
“It is true, then,” murmured Cardinal Innocenzo of Amalfi, squinting at the contents. “Cnut of Denmark has sent envoys to the wolf-king’s realm. Under cover of grain trade, no less.”
Another cardinal, old Orso of Ravenna, gave a dry cough. “They say he will not last another winter without aid. His silos are empty. The merchants of Francia refuse to sell without exorbitant tribute, and the Holy Roman Emperor sends prayers but no bread.”
“And so the Dane turns north,” said the Pope flatly. “To pagans. To heathens who worship stones, trees, and bones, and teach their children to spit on the Cross.”
The room was silent for a moment. The fire snapped faintly in the brazier behind them, casting long shadows of crucifixes on the walls.
“It’s said the northern realm, this Vetrland, has wheat, beans, and barley enough to fill a hundred hulls,” said Innocenzo. “That even the Rus now barter with them directly. That caravans from the east meet Norsemen at river ports with silks and spice.”
“The North was meant to be a wilderness,” muttered Cardinal Humbert, staring at the scroll as if it might bite him. “Yet now it boasts roads, aqueducts, hot baths, and a coin that rivals our own. How long until others follow Denmark’s path?”
Pope John’s gaze sharpened.
He stood slowly, his robes falling like storm clouds over his chair.
“This wolf-king, this Vetrúlfr, he builds in the shadow of Rome, but not under its blessing. He is a heretic. A deceiver. And like all deceivers, he thrives in famine.”
The cardinals murmured.
“Then what shall we do?” asked Orso. “Issue a condemnation? Call a council?”
“No,” said John. “We must strike at the illusion, not the man. We must make it known that to trade with the North is to make a pact with the Devil.”
Innocenzo hesitated. “But many of our allies already do so… unofficially. The Normans in Rouen have taken timber from Icelandic ports. Rus merchants report copper coins bearing the wolf’s face in their markets.”
The Pope’s lips curled. “Then we name the coins cursed. We decree that all trade with the Great Northern Realm is interdicted. Any who purchases food, iron, or timber from them is to be refused Communion.”
“That will cause unrest,” said Cardinal Humbert. “Among the poor especially.”
“So be it,” said the Pope. “Let them grow hungry, but faithful. Better empty bellies than full hearts fed by wolves.”
“But what of Cnut?” asked Orso. “If the Danes proceed despite this…?”
“Then we remind him he sits on his throne by grace of the Church. We remind him that crowns may be withdrawn. That canon law may strip legitimacy like bark from a tree.”
Then John spoke again, softer this time. Measured.
“We must also offer another hand. Quietly. We will commission shipments of our own to reach Denmark by way of Saxony. Rationed, of course. Enough to show our mercy. Enough to show the difference between Rome’s charity… and Vetrúlfr’s bargain.”
“And if the wolf sends ships of his own to the Danes?” asked Innocenzo.
John turned to the crucifix behind his throne.
“Then we pray for storm and fire. And remind the faithful that wolves may feed, but only until the shepherd awakens.”
John then dismissed the court, sitting silently on his throne gazing across the room with little focus in his eyes.
Sighing heavily, he could not help but release his truest thoughts to the void.
“Damn fools… By relying on his grain you will bind your hand to the Pagans for eternity…”
The Pope could only shake his head. His actions might be cruel in the face of ever growing despair, caused by the cruelty of winter.
But he would not have centuries of progress undone because the Kings of Christendom had failed to properly prepare for the reality of nature.
The pagans were nearly extinct. Now was not the time to bargain and trade with them. Now was the time for the sword and the axe!