CHAPTER 154: THE SHIELD THAT GUARDS THE SHORES

The vaulted hall of King Robert’s palace in Paris was heavy with murmurs when the Duke of Normandy’s reply was read aloud.

The words were precise, deliberate, couched not in defiance but in the careful language of feudal law.

Robert of Normandy professed his loyalty to the crown, acknowledged the Pope’s summons, and lamented that he had "but sufficient men to guard the coasts of Normandy, as the kings of France entrusted to my fathers and to me." He offered prayers for Christendom’s cause but withheld his swords.

The parchment was set aside, its seal broken, and silence fell.

The King’s gaze swept across his gathered magnates, counts of Blois, Anjou, Vermandois, and others, each whispering into the ear of a neighbor, weighing words not yet spoken.

At last, Count Odo of Champagne leaned forward.

"So the Norman plays the lawyer’s game. He denies us not through rebellion, but through legality. He claims his oath binds him to his shore alone. If this is not open refusal, sire, it skirts close to it."

Another, the Count of Anjou, shook his head. "Nay, it is no rebellion. Normandy’s charter was given by Charles the Simple to Rollo’s blood. Their charge has ever been to guard the sea-gates of Francia. The Duke’s words are harsh, aye, but not false. If he empties his land to aid England, who guards our coast?"

The murmurs swelled. Some nodded. Others scoffed.

King Robert II remained still, fingers tapping against the arm of his throne. At length he spoke, his tone calm, but edged with steel.

"Normandy’s duke is clever. Too clever. He shields himself with the old words of law and grants us sympathy without a single knight to show for it. Yet he is not wrong. Were the wolves to come for us by sea while our knights bled in Albion, who would bar their way? The Normans alone."

Gautier’s name was mentioned by one of the clerks who read the letter.

The Marshal of Normandy had witnessed the burning of the king’s summons and carried the Duke’s explanation.

His presence in the reply was proof that Normandy’s court stood united.

The King let the weight of it settle before turning back to his barons.

"So let it be recorded," Robert said. "The Duke of Normandy swears fealty still. He claims his men are too few to answer both the sea and the summons. I do not doubt his words. But let every man here understand: France will fight for Christendom with those who can be spared. Normandy holds the shore. The duty is divided."

A sigh of both relief and discontent rippled through the hall. The French king had not condemned his powerful vassal, nor excused him entirely.

The matter was left balanced upon the blade of a knife, where it would linger.

And beyond the walls of Paris, the wolves of the north grew bolder by the day.

---

The great hall of Rouen crackled with firelight as Robert of Normandy strode across its length, his cloak heavy with fox fur, his brow set in iron.

He had just received word from Paris, the King of France had relented.

His own refusal to march across the sea was to stand unchallenged, couched in feudal law, accepted as his duty to defend the Norman coast.

Robert turned to his marshal, Gautier, and his gathered captains. A wry smile curved his lips as he spoke, voice low and sharp enough to cut the smoke that clung to the rafters.

"I did not prepare these last few winters for the invasion of the Norsemen simply so that fool who shares my name could march off and die in Albion with all of it."

The words struck like a hammer. Gautier inclined his head, neither in agreement nor dissent, but his weathered eyes betrayed a spark of approval.

Robert swept his arm toward the maps pinned upon the oak table, where wooden blocks marked castles, granaries, and mustering grounds.

"Look at it. Every village with a fortified motte. Every river ford with a stockade. Every road between here and Bayeux watched by riders. Our granaries are full. Our smithies work day and night. We have forged more blades and mail-shirts in these three winters than in the last three decades. And our knights? They are not mere levies, plucked from the plow at harvest. They are drilled, armored, and paid. I will not squander them on Cnut’s war. Their blood belongs here."

One of the captains, bold and young, shifted uneasily. "Yet, my lord, should the King call again? Should Rome press harder?"

Robert’s laughter was short, bitter.

"Let them press. Normandy was given to my forefathers to guard France’s gate. That is our charge, and in that duty we will not fail. If the Pope wishes me to empty my halls for Albion, then let him march his priests to the sea with spear and shield."

Gautier stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back. His voice was calm, but carried weight.

"The men trust you, my lord. They see what has been built. They know you took the threat of this White Wolf more seriously than any other prince. But if Vetrúlfr does not come here... if his hunger lies only in England, then all of this may be seen as paranoia."

Robert’s gaze turned flinty.

"And if he does come here, Gautier? What then? Who else in Christendom has prepared? The French bicker. The Saxons bleed. The Danes starve. Only Normandy has its walls raised, its granaries full, its armies ready. When the wolves descend, it will be us they break upon. And when that day comes, I intend to meet them not with prayer, but with steel."

The captains murmured in approval. The Marshal’s face softened, just slightly.

Robert leaned over the map once more, pressing his palm against the wooden block that marked Rouen.

"Let the kings of Christendom play their games across the sea. Normandy waits. And if the gods truly have raised this Vetrúlfr as some northern Hannibal, then I will meet him here, with an army greater than he has ever dreamed."

The hall thundered with the strike of mailed fists upon oak shields.

---

The village was gone.

What once had been a scatter of wattle-and-daub huts stood now as blackened stumps, the air thick with the acrid stench of charred grain and flesh.

The flames had died, but smoke still curled in lazy pillars, drifting toward a sky the color of slate.

Vetrúlfr stood at the center of it, silent.

His wolfskin cloak stirred in the wind, though he himself did not move. In his hand was a trinket.

Some crude brooch of bronze and bone that had somehow survived the inferno.

He turned it once in his palm; the soot smearing across his fingers, before letting it fall to the ash.

Behind him, the world carried on with the rhythm of war.

His huskarls drove captives toward the carts, chains clinking as women and boys stumbled forward, eyes wide with shock.

His thegns oversaw the plunder, tallying sacks of grain and bundles of cloth that would be sent north to Scotland’s harbors and carried beyond to Iceland’s shores via the sea.

His riders led off the finest of the captured horses, each one branded now with the mark of the wolf.

The Jomsvikings laughed as they worked, brutal and efficient, their iron helms flashing in the haze.

Armodr pushed through the smoke, soot streaking his mail shirt, his scarred face lit by the glow of smoldering timbers.

He came to stand beside Vetrúlfr, his voice rough with smoke and mead both.

"What now, Wolf-King?"

Vetrúlfr did not answer immediately. His pale eyes remained on the horizon, on the faint southern smudge where the land rolled toward Mercia.

Only when the silence had stretched thin did he speak, his voice low, cold, unyielding.

"Cnut still hides in London, behind its thick timber walls." He spat into the ash.

"Duncan marches ever south, hungry for vengeance. And the earls of what was once Northumbria? They scatter like frightened deer, fleeing into the lands our forefathers called Mercia."

He turned then, the firelight catching on the steel rings of his mail and the frost-pale scar that marked his cheek.

"We will follow them. We will bleed them. We will make the land itself howl beneath their feet until the cowardly king in the south is forced to reveal himself."

Armodr’s grin widened, wolfish. "And when he does?"

Vetrúlfr’s smirk was cruel. He reached down, lifting a charred beam and snapping it in half with one hand. The sound cracked like a bone.

"Then," he said, tossing the blackened timber into the ruin of a hearth, "we will feed him to the fire he has kindled."

Behind them, the last hut collapsed into cinders, and the howls of the wolves of the North rose over the ashes.

Vetrúlfr gazes to the north one last time. Smoke rising from a dozen villages, accompanied by the scent of blood and decay.

"The gods demand a great sacrifice... and there is still more blood to be shed."