Legends Never Die: Passage of Time (ch. 130) (Patreon)

“I am going to wring his damn neck!” Jill thundered as she paced the room, as angry as Jasmine had ever seen her. She marched like a woman off to war, practically bouncing off the wall, just to turn on her heel to continue her pacing. It was a struggle to keep her amusement off her face, and she distracted herself by playing with Radahn's small hands. “How could he put himself in that position? Surrounded on all sides by three hundred men? All of them wanting him dead?! I-” Jill had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from shouting. 

Morrigan, far more willing to display her amusement, wore a delighted smirk. “It worked, did it not? One risk and a conversation later, and his army grew by three hundred men. Many of whom have been recruited into the Rangers.” Jasmine had to fight her growing smile when Jill whipped around to glare in Morrigan's direction. 

“That will simply encourage him, Morrigan! That's the issue! He was rewarded for taking a foolish, needless risk!” Jill hissed, before the moment of stillness proved too much for her and her pacing resumed. She was possessed by a nervous energy, her anger fueled by concern. “He wrote about the man's cleverness, but it's not the clever ones I fear. It's the idiots that don’t think about the consequences, who would have attacked him and spurned the others to do the same!” 

A fair point, Jasmine could admit to herself. The meeting with the rebel Geats had gone well, but it only took one fool to ruin things for everyone. 

“What's more, like a child, he hid this little indiscretion from us until winter was over!” Jill continued to rant. “He hid it because he knew we'd be angry. Oh, I finally see where Magnus and Ragnar get it from.” 

“Hid it from you, perhaps. T'is little wonder, in that case,” Morrigan prodded, stirring the pot merely because she could. Of all of her husband's lovers, Morrigan had been the one that she understood the least for the longest time. She wasn't a wife, and she would take any such insinuation with the greatest offense. In the end, it was only when Astrid made an offhanded remark that Jasmine felt like she could finally understand the woman. 

Morrigan was like a stray cat. One that expected you to feed her and offer a cup of cream but would hiss and growl the moment you tried to pet her. She would never come indoors, but she fully expected a warm bed at the door so she could come and go as she pleased. The comparison was entirely too accurate, to the point that Jasmine couldn't unsee it. 

All the more so with the… Blessing. 

Morrigan: 

Arrogant, Callous, Fickle 

Then her gaze slid to Jill, who continued her pacing as she sent a very annoyed glare over to Morrigan. 

Gunjill:

Calm, Patient, Compassionate

It was quite strange to think that the two could call each other friends. She could only see but a few traits, the largest of them that acted as the cornerstones of their personalities, but they seemed entirely incompatible. And, from what Jasmine had heard, that had been the case at one point in time. 

“Send a letter,” Jasmine mediated. “So much of this war relies upon his reputation. Convincing three hundred enemies into becoming three hundred allies is a story worth telling, so I would say that the risk was worth it. However, privately, we shall give him a proper scolding for not mitigating those risks… and for taking measures to hide the scope of the danger he was in.” Morrigan pouted that Jasmine had doused the smoldering embers of Jill's anger rather than fanning them. 

“I shall do just that,” Jill decided, and based on the smile she now wore, Jasmine suspected that it would be a… rather sternly worded letter. 

It was a victory, as they could now focus on the tasks that brought them together. “Beyond Siegfried's bout of foolishness, the first year of the conquest has gone according to plan. Winter has come and gone, and the second year of the conquest has begun. Have there been any noteworthy difficulties?” 

At the mere mention of winter, Jasmine repressed a shiver. Siegfried and the others had spoken at length about the harshness of winter in this far off land, and Jasmine had earnestly believed that she had prepared herself for it. Despite what most visitors assumed, winters in the Abbasid Caliphate could be quite punishing. But she hadn't been at all prepared for her first winter in Denmark. 

What the Norse called a ‘mild winter’ was the kind that the people of her homeland would have remembered for a generation for its harshness. The snow fell in such volume that it came up to her knees, the wind howled like great beasts lurking in the darkness, and even the chill was harsher. This second winter was ‘less mild’, with snow coming up to her waist, and for a month, it was outright impossible to leave one's home. And by the reports she'd read, the winters in Sweden were even worse. 

It was baffling that anyone would choose to live here willingly. Somedays, she wondered why Siegfried didn't gather all of his people from these frozen lands and take them to the Mediterranean. 

“For the Sami and Finns?” Jill replied, at last taking a seat. “Nothing in particular worth mentioning. Some tribes have already submitted, others continue to resist, but by all accounts, the invasion is on schedule. If not ahead of it.” 

Jasmine reclined in her own lounge chair as she swept her eyes over the chosen meeting room. It was similar in make to the spinning room that Siegfried had left behind in Crete -- a spinning room made of marble. Despite the harshness of the weather, it was still left open air, though come winter, the open arches would be covered. The ceiling was a dome, and at the top of it, there was a stained glass story of Odin killing himself to become a god. She tried not to let her gaze linger and instead focused on her squirming son in her lap. 

Radahn was like his sisters, only rather than displaying a fierce determination to battle against everything that moved, Radahn… as soon as he was able to walk, he was determined to see the world. 

“The Finns and Sami were never going to be the issue. Too small and too dispersed,” Morrigan dismissed them out of hand. “It is the tribes that reside on the other side of the Baltic that will be the true challenge.” 

“We've developed trade relations with a number of tribes,” Jasmine pointed out, even as she poked Radahn's adorably chubby cheeks. “All within the most fractious locations,” which was quite the issue for her. 

It was uncommon for women to wield the amount of power that they did. While the conquest was underway, Siegfried's mother had been named regent, but each of them had their own realm of responsibilities. Jill was the diplomat, who held endless meetings with lords and merchants and even local leaders, both from within the realm and from afar. Morrigan was the master of secrets, learning every hidden intention or unspoken alliance. 

She, on the other hand, had chosen trade to be her realm of responsibility. It was an interest that she’d developed in Crete, but it was a responsibility that was deceptively heavy. Money was the lifeblood of an empire, with trade being how that blood flowed from its heart to the tips of its fingers and toes. It was a responsibility that needed to be done well and fast, as the moment a land was conquered and the surveyors confirmed the material wealth, be it stone, ore, gemstones, or food, it needed to be cultivated, developed, and sent off to other parts of the kingdom. 

“They're becoming fond of our wares. The first year was worryingly thin, but this year Miklagard's port was overflowing with merchant vessels,” Jasmine continued with some pride. All of it was carefully crafted to aid the conquest. 

She would never utter the words out loud, but when she first arrived in Norway, the seat of Astrid's father, who was King of Norway… she despaired. The seat of his power looked like a rural village, and as beautiful as the land could be, it stood out like a brutal, ugly thing. Small, cramped houses where an entire clan a dozen strong would share a single room with every farm animal that they owned. There were no man-made wonders to be found -- only a brutal practicality that had stripped away everything that wasn't necessary for survival. 

To many of the tribes, the goods that they offered were at a level of quality that they couldn't even dream of. Siegfried had admitted as much to her privately years ago how he had been humbled when he beheld Rome. How he felt like a clumsy child trying to recreate perfection. Everything that they sold, be it furs, jewelry, alcohol -- all of it was beyond their ability to reference. It was the same for the ludicrously expensive roads, buildings, and monuments -- Siegfried was revealing a part of the world to the people of these lands that they had never thought  could be possible. 

For that reason, every merchant ship that left their port or sailed to one along the coast was a dagger delivering a cut to whatever alliances they were trying to build. Deals were in a constant flux -- a bottle of wine would be sold to a noticeably lower price to one tribe, then another bottle of the same make would sell for a higher price to another. That difference would speak of preferential treatment, inflaming tensions and old rivalries as the one that was forced to pay the higher price would suspect the other. 

None of the cuts were fatal, but they didn't need to be when the hastily made alliances were dying by a thousand of them every day.  

An effort that was compounded upon by Jill diplomatically. Since Geatland and Sweden were so swiftly claimed, it ignited a wildfire across the other tribes who sent an army of envoys. Some offered tribute, some delivered threats, others tried to position themselves to take advantage of the invasion, while others tried to convince them to abandon it entirely. Those envoys would see the palace, the city, and their armies. 

They would also see the envoys of rival tribes. They would see how they were treated. They would hear the rumors that were deliberately dropped into their ears like a poison. Then they would return home to regurgitate what they saw and the rumors that they heard. 

None of it would be possible without Morrigan, who wove her web of secrets until it stretched back to the Mediterranean. Even now, Jasmine suspected Morrigan was as much across the sea as she was in the room with them. 

“Our treasury?” Jill questioned, making Jasmine's lips thin. 

“Siegfried stole a kingdom's worth of wealth, but it'll cost at least that much to build one,” Jasmine replied. Siegfried had gathered a truly insane amount of wealth during his time in the Mediterranean, and she'd always known that in a… distant sense. After all, it was his success that attracted so many people to his army despite his being a pagan and a foreigner. But it wasn't until she saw what that wealth could build that she understood the absurdity of his success. It was a true miracle that the boats used to transport his hoard had not sunk under the weight of gold and silver. “Trade and spoils help mitigate the costs, but at the rate we are going our coffers will be empty within the decade.” 

Something Siegfried was well aware of. Everything he did was telegraphed well in advance. History would remember him fondly, Jasmine thought, but it would likely forget the hours-long meetings every day that led to the decisions he made. That path was to burn through an overflowing treasury that could leave the empire rich until his great grandchildren's time to rule in order to set the bones of an empire that would one day rival the Abbasid Caliphate and Rome. 

To do such a thing… 

It had been no surprise what his traits were. 

Siegfried: 

Ambitious, Diligent, Wrathful. 

The first two were almost expected, Jasmine had thought. But the last trait was a surprise. She would sooner expect the trait Calm or Patient, and when she had said as much to both Jill and Morrigan… they had said little, but voiced the opinion that it was a trait that was earned. Siegfried simply had better control of his wrath by the time they met- or, rather, by the time he had her kidnapped. 

“After the conquest, provided that there are no truely disastrous setbacks… that deadline would be extended past the decade. By a year, perhaps two,” Jasmine finished. Something that Siegfried planned for, and why it was important that he finished the Conquest so quickly so the integration could begin in earnest.  “How likely is that?” 

“Not very,” Jill sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We received the reaction that we expected, but I struggle to see how we can pacify that coastline in a mere seven years.”

“T'is possible, provided that we break the right legs and wills,” Morrigan voiced, sounding a bit bored of the conversation. It was… understandable. It felt like they were constantly forced to retread topics as new information came to light which offered other opportunities, some greater than what they currently worked with. 

“Jarl Varg, King Eyvindr, Jarl Radulfr, and Jarl Gunnvaldr,” Jill echoed the names of the bedrock of an alliance they allowed to fester. Jarls and a petty king that managed to unite their local tribes by using fear of Siegfried's inevitable arrival, but were distant and decidedly fractious enough that it wasn't likely that they would unite to defeat Siegfried and Astrid. 

The dense woodlands of the south-eastern coastline of the Baltic was both more and less populated than Jasmine would have suspected. According to Roman records, the various tribes, when unified, could field an army in the hundreds of thousands. An exaggeration, almost certainly, but it was a possibility that Siegfried treated seriously. He was… whatever he was, but twenty thousand men against two hundred thousand? 

It felt dangerous to even allow a few leaders to unite at all, but Siegfried made an argument that none of them had been able to best -- integration purely through diplomacy or trade would keep their pride intact. There would be a generation that felt like they were robbed of their independence, just as the older generations would resist as their ways were changing. Allowing them to unify, to field the greatest armies that they had ever forged, and still lose… that would break their pride enough. 

They would have fought and they would have lost. Then they suffered the fate of the defeated. Such was the way of things, and that, in a strange twist of fate, would make their integration easier. Trying and failing was better than never trying at all. 

‘Men and their pride,’ Jasmine thought with a snort. 

“They will be watched,” Jill continued, a certain kind of steel in her tone that rarely revealed itself. “They still have a year to prepare, and they aren't the type to waste that time.” 

With that, the meeting continued at a much more subdued pace. There was plenty to talk about -- Denmark was still adjusting to its new reality, there were issues with Norway's integration, as well as news from Saxony about the raids into the kingdom resuming. The meeting continued for a long few hours, but it was Radahn who brought it to an end by finally getting fed up with sitting still. 

That wasn't to say that the day was over for her. 

Her day began at the crack of dawn and it only ended in the twilight of night, just to begin anew the next morning. There were times when she felt like she was being run ragged, and then times when she was absolutely certain of it. But whatever complaints that she had fell away when she saw how hard Jill and even Morrigan worked, though the latter did her best to pretend otherwise. Not to mention, there was the sense that they were playing vital roles in something momentous. And Jasmine feared being the weakest link. 

On the rare occasion where she did have any free time, Jasmine found that she spent most of it in the gardens -- a brief moment where she could be alone from spending all day being around others. 

That was the thought, at least. 

Ragnar was dragging his sibling behind him, and it seemed so strange to see the boy now. He wasn't a baby any longer, but seven years old. His eyes burned with the same fierce intelligence that his father's did, and a smile seemed ever present on his face. Magnus trailed behind him, doing his best to look dignified, taking every etiquette lesson to heart. Scáthach and Aífe trailed behind them, and Jasmine had yet to see them not picking a fight with someone-- usually each other, but they were perfectly happy teaming up when the pair felt challenged. 

It wouldn't be too much longer before Radahn and Bjorn joined them, walking about the palace grounds with a determination to find every scrap of trouble they could find. 

She smiled at them as Ragnar stepped forward, “Can we borrow Rajah? We're going on an adventure!” He decided, and she supposed that it was worth rewarding them for asking. This time. 

The old tiger at her feet was already rising up, ready to acquiesce to their demands. Her heart clenched ever so slightly as he did, lumbering over partly because he knew that the children of Siegfried were not the type to relent. “It seems like he wants to go on an adventure with you. Just don't go too far, hm?” She requested with a strained smile. The children didn't notice, thankfully, as they happily made way to cause trouble for someone. 

‘He's getting old,’ Jasmine knew, watching her oldest friend move with a stiffness that hadn't been there a few years ago. Tigers lived to be around fifteen years at the eldest, and Rajah was already thirteen. She knew that she would have to say goodbye at some point… but once he was gone, so would the last piece of her home. 

And, all of a sudden, Jasmine felt incredibly homesick.