Chapter Twenty-two               

“ H rólfr seems to have accepted your engineer, then?” Reyes said in Gabe’s ear. He was standing at the summit of a hill near the Norsemen’s fort. The altitude wasn’t really necessary to confer with Reyes; they were too far apart for direct contact, so they were using Andrea Luhman as a relay, using the channel they’d agreed upon for ground-to-ground communications. Of course, there was no way to keep Mallick or anyone else aboard Andrea Luhman from listening in if they wanted to. Generally that wasn’t a problem, but there were elements of this operation that Reyes had wanted to keep the captain in the dark about. Hence her cryptic question.

“Yes,” Gabe replied. “We’re on our way to being back in Hrólfr’s good graces. We’ll need his help going forward, as we’re going to need a lot of resources from Frankia, and pretty soon he’s going to control all of Normandy.” This was all true, but it had little to do with their real reason for offering Ibrahim ibn Muhammed to Hrólfr.

“So this Ibrahim guy, he’s the real deal?”

“Looks like it. He’s already completely reorganized the teams of workmen Hrólfr had in place. Much better division of labor. Hrólfr’s guys were tripping all over each other. It’s going to be slow going for a few weeks, as he’s having them tear apart everything they’ve built over the past six months, but I can see what he’s doing, and it makes sense. The new mangonels will require half as many men to operate and the ballistae will fire much more accurately. Rouen won’t stand a chance.”

“Rouen was supposed to have fallen to the Vikings ten years ago.”

This was an odd discrepancy in the historical record Carpenter had found in his research: according to several sources, Hrólfr had taken Rouen in the year 876, but in 885 it remained in Frankish hands. The discrepancy occurred too early for it to have been caused by the spacemen’s interference in events; the only explanation was that the historical sources were wrong.

“I’ve looked into that a bit,” Gabe said. “It does seem that Hrólfr attacked and nearly destroyed Rouen in 876. They were bought off with offers of land around the Seine—which explains how they ended up where they are. They’ve left the city alone since then.”

“So the Franks bought themselves ten years of peace. But we don’t know if Hrólfr attacked again after that?”

“The record is unclear. We know Hrólfr became the Duke of Normandy in 911, and he made Rouen his capital in 912. Whether the Vikings took the city in the intervening years or whether King Charles ceded it when he made Hrólfr a Duke is unknown.”

“Then this attack Hrólfr is planning…?”

“We don’t know whether or not it actually happened,” Gabe replied. “If it did, it didn’t make much of an impression. But that’s all right. We’re not here primarily for the loot from Rouen.”

“It’s just funny how uncertain all of this is, considering it’s already happened,” Reyes said. “Or not happened, as the case may be.”

“What can I say? Record-keeping was spotty in the ninth century.”

“But we’re sure about Paris?”

“Yeah, Paris is a known factor. Hopefully we’ll be out of here by then. With a few pounds of silver to show for it.” Their deal with Hrólfr would allow them to keep a share of any ransom paid by the city to forestall an attack.

“Any word on Harald? ”

“Not yet,” Gabe replied. He nearly said more but bit his tongue. It was better at this point not to give Mallick any more hints about what they were up to.

“How’s Sigurd?”

“Sigurd is Sigurd,” Gabe said. This was a sort of code phrase between them. It meant that Sigurd was acting as expected, but it was still impossible to know what he would do when the moment of truth came.

“Understood. When do you think you can get back here?”

“I was planning on sticking it out here with Sigurd until the Rouen attack. That is, until whatever happens at Rouen. Why? You need me back there sooner?”

“Things are heating up with this guy, Torben. He’s stirring people up in the nearby settlements, telling people we’re bribing jarls to keep our secrets.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Just one, so far, and I’ll be damned if I know how Torben found out about it.”

“You think they’re going to get violent?”

“Hard to say at this point. But Gabe, if they do, we’re in trouble. Other than a few black powder bomb prototypes O’Brien threw together before he left, we’ve got nothing but spears and axes, and we have less than a dozen people capable of fighting. Our defenses are nonexistent. We’ve spent all our resources building houses. If Torben can raise thirty men and the jarls don’t intervene….”

“Understood,” Gabe said. “Even if I leave now, though, I’m not sure how much difference I can make by myself. I left my railgun in Norway.”

“I know, I know,” Reyes said. “Do what you need to do there. Hopefully I can still defuse the situation here. I’ll let you know if things escalate.”

“Copy that.”