The first ships had brought them across gray waters, Mercian villagers in rough wool, clutching what little they carried from hearth and home.
They arrived gaunt, weather-bitten, still half-believing they were bound for chains or sacrifice. Instead, the gates of Ullrsfjörðr opened, and fields long prepared for them waited.
The druids and seidkonur marked their foreheads with ash and oil, naming them born anew beneath the hammer of Thor and the blessing of Brigid.
In Greenland, Vinland, and even in Svalbard’s icy settlements, land was parceled, plows given, seed shared.
By midsummer, their labor bore fruit.
Mercians worked alongside Norse settlers, guiding irrigation channels through Iceland’s volcanic soil, tilling Greenland’s fragile plots, and in Vinland, clearing forests for grain and grazing.
Where once they prayed in cold, empty churches for grain that never came, now they raised barns with their own hands, smoked fish in great communal halls, and drank from horn and cup beside men who once frightened them as wolves.
Children learned both the Norse tongue and the runes of their ancestors, scratched into slate tablets.
Women who had starved through English winters now wove wool and linen in bright colors.
The Mercians marveled at the hypocaust fires beneath their new halls, warmth in winter unlike any they’d known in stone chapels.
When the harvest came, the surplus astonished them.
Terraced fields in Vinland yielded rye and beans in abundance. Iceland’s beekeepers gave honey enough for mead.
Goats and hardy horses, bred for endurance, multiplied in the pastures.
Mercians and Northumbrians alike became part of the lifeblood of trade.
Some sailed on knarrs to Greenland or Vinland, bringing back timber, walrus ivory, and furs.
Others helped man the forges where damascene steel was hammered, watching the sparks fly like stars, as though wielding a fragment of Constantinople itself.
And still others joined the ranks of scouts and huskarls, for the Norse knew well that farmers could be soldiers if need called.
By winter’s deep frost, they gathered in halls not as strangers, but as kin.
The Mercians who once bent knee before Cnut’s reeves now stood proud beneath wolf-banners.
Feasts filled the night: venison roasts, salmon, bread from fields they themselves had sown.
Skalds sang their story: not of thralls taken in chains, but of kin returned. "The sons of Mercia and Northumbria," they recited, "fled hunger and cross alike, to live as free folk in the wolf-king’s realm."
Where once famine hollowed them, now their children grew fat on porridge and stew.
Where once the Pope threatened damnation, now they offered sacrifice to Ullr for the hunt and to Skadi for the winter’s beauty.
What was once a desperate flight had become proof. Proof that in the north, the "wolves" offered not chains, but bread. Not ashes, but fire. Not a cross, but gods who answered.
Word spread faster than the ships could sail, that in Ullrsfjörðr and Vinland, men and women of Christ’s flock lived warmer, fuller, freer than in Christendom’s starving courts.
And though the Pope’s words thundered from Rome, the truth whispered louder across the seas: the North was rising, and its hearths burned brighter than the altars of Europe.
The winter was harsh, and the siege of the Wolves was withdrawn.
As Cnut Mustered his forces north to meet with Duncan, Vetrulfr and his forces raided and ravaged.
Eventually finding themselves besieging a city to claim as their encampment to endure the winter.
By the time the first snows fell in England’s borders, the Vegisvir rose above Nottingham.
There the wolf waited out the winter, while Duncan, and Cnut froze in the field beyond the warmth of hearth and home.
Across the English channel the marketplace smelled of wet hay, horse dung, and roasted chestnuts.
Merchants huddled in their stalls beneath canvas awnings, shouting over the drizzle to sell their wares, iron nails, dyed cloth, barrels of Rhine wine.
Among them stood Erik of Bremen, his beard streaked with gray, his eyes sharp as a hawk’s.
At his side, two younger traders carefully loaded bundles of furs and wax into a cart bound for the docks.
The goods would be transferred onto river barges, then to the open sea.
Not west, toward England. East and north, where the wolves traded.
"Word is, Ullrsfjörðr pays in silver, not promises,"
Erik muttered to his companion, a Flemish trader with a crooked nose. "And they want more than furs now. Grain, nails, horses, even parchment for their scribes. Their coffers are bottomless. They pay what Cnut cannot."
The Flemishman spat, glancing nervously at the spire of the cathedral rising above the mist. "And if the bishop’s men catch you?"
Erik’s mouth twisted into something between a grin and a sneer.
"What then? The bishop cannot eat sermons, nor warm himself with prayers. My family must eat. My men must eat. If the White Wolf buys my goods at fair price, I’ll not ask what gods he bends his knee to."
From behind them, a sharp voice cut through the market noise. "Blasphemy!"
A Dominican novice, scarcely more than twenty, had overheard.
His face flushed red as he pointed a trembling finger. "You would sell to pagans while Christian villages burn? You risk your soul for silver!"
The traders went quiet. Some turned away; others pretended not to hear. But Erik did not flinch.
"My soul will not freeze when winter comes," he said flatly. "Can you say the same, brother?"
The novice stammered, unable to answer.
In the silence that followed, the clatter of hooves echoed off the cobblestones.
A wagon rolled by, its canvas flap drawn tight, but inside, everyone knew, were casks of salted meat bound northward.
The bishop of Cologne would thunder against it from his pulpit. The pope himself might condemn it.
But the Rhine still flowed. The markets still lived. And men still traded with wolves.
The Vatican’s marble halls were cool even at midday. Winter had passed and a new year arrived. And yet the world seemed to grow colder with each passing day.
The war Gold-leafed mosaics of saints glimmered faintly in the torchlight as Pope John XIX listened with a stony face.
Before him knelt Cardinal Hildebrand of Cologne, fresh from the north, his cloak still smelling of damp wool and river mist.
"Your Holiness," the cardinal said, his voice tight, "our flock is straying. Merchants along the Rhine, in Cologne and Mainz alike, are selling to the heathens of Iceland and Vinland. Grain, timber, even horses. They know your edict, and yet they ignore it. They whisper that the White Wolf pays in silver more honest than the promises of kings."
The pope’s jaw tightened. "So they would fatten the wolves that prowl at our gates? For coin?"
Hildebrand hesitated, then bowed his head lower.
"It is worse, Holy Father. Some... some claim the pagans are blessed. That Ullr and their gods give bounty where Christendom withholds. There are whispers growing. At first we thought they were unfounded. Or so minor that we need not worry. But now the number has appeared to increase. The people have begun to linger in forests, and worship gods once thought slain by Charlemagne...."
A hush fell across the chamber. The other cardinals exchanged uneasy glances, but none dared speak.
John XIX rose from his throne, the hem of his robe sweeping the mosaic floor. His voice cracked like a whip.
"Fools! Blind fools! Have they forgotten Verden? Have they forgotten the Saxons broken for their idols? If Christendom once crushed the heathen root, we will do so again."
He paced, fury giving him an almost leonine stride. "But mark this well: the merchants who trade with wolves are no better than wolves themselves. They bleed the body of Christendom for silver."
A younger cardinal ventured a question, timidly: "And if even kings turn their eyes away? Normandy refuses your call. The Emperor delays. If trade cannot be stopped by word..."
The pope turned, eyes burning. "Then it must be stopped by fear. If the purse deafens their ears, let the pyre open their eyes. Heresy spreads not from faith, but from weakness. And I will not allow Christ’s realm to weaken while wolves howl."
He lowered his voice then, to a cold whisper.
"Send word to every bishop and abbot. Those who deal in secret with the North will be branded traitors to the faith. Their silver will buy them nothing but a grave."
Cardinal Hildebrand bowed. Yet even as he did, he wondered: would threats alone suffice, when the people saw prosperity carried on ships with wolf-prows?
When the pope was finally alone, he sat on his throne sighing heavily. He could feel it in his bones, the angel of death was near. Lurking always.
A sigh escaped his breath, and the warmth of it turned to mist around him.
"I fear I will not live to see Christ emerge victorious over the devils of the North... This... This will be my last year. I must end these heathens by the time Azrael takes me.... If not, I fear the worst."