Chapter 429: Ignorance of the Blessed
"King Ragnar... with all due respect, that is impossible," Richard argued. "I have studied the ancient maps in Paris. I have read the old Roman texts. The western ocean is an endless, empty void. If a landmass that large actually existed out there, it would throw the entire balance of the world off."
However, Ragnar didn’t yell at him for his insolence. He tapped his finger against the parchment on the far left edge of the map.
"The Romans were full of shit, Richard." Ragnar said plainly, causing Domnall the Scot to let out a rough chuckle in the background.
"They didn’t know everything... out there, across the deep water, lies a land untouched by our stupid southern politics and our endless holy crusades."
Ragnar leaned over the table.
"There are deep pine forests so thick and vast that a man could walk for months and never see the end of the trees,"
"There are rolling green plains that stretch further than the human eye can even see. Rivers entirely wider than the English Channel.
Mountains packed so full of gold, silver, and raw iron ore that it is just waiting to be pulled right out of the dirt."
Erik of Iceland stepped forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table.
"Iron and timber?" Erik whispered, his eyes wide.
"And life." Ragnar added. "There is soil there so rich and fertile that it could easily feed the entire world. No more starving peasants during the harsh northern winter. No more fighting over tiny, miserable strips of muddy farmland in Flanders. There are endless herds of beasts roaming the plains, and the rivers are choked with fish."
"If there is such a perfect land, King Ragnar," Domnall the Scot spoke up. "Why hasn’t any man claimed it yet? Why are we the first to hear of it?"
"..."
"Because the rest of the world is too scared of the deep water..."
"They hug the coasts in their fragile little wooden boats. But we have ironclads now. We can conquer the deep ocean."
Though the promise of endless wealth and food was entirely intoxicating, Richard’s logical brain was actively screaming at him.
"How?" Richard blurted out, forgetting his manners and stepping closer to the Iron King.
Ragnar slowly raised an eyebrow. "How what?"
"How do you know?" Richard demanded, his eyes darting between Ragnar and the edge of the map.
"...no one has ever sailed that far west and returned alive!
The ocean storms crush standard wooden ships... even your ironclads would need an incredible amount of coal to make a journey like that without starving the crew."
"He is right, my King," Eadberht, the Anglo-Saxon marshal, chimed in quietly from the back of the room. "We have veteran sailors in York who swear the western ocean just drops off into abyss. How can you speak of these rolling plains and rivers with such certainty?"
Wulfhere nodded in agreement. "Have you seen it with your own eyes, King Ragnar? Did you secretly sail there before you built City Titan?"
Erik looked confused as well.
He scratched his red beard, frowning deeply.
"Yeah... you have been busy building steam engines and shooting Frankish knights for the last few years. When the did you find the time to map a continent that doesn’t even exist yet?"
Everyone stared intently at the Iron King, waiting for him to reveal some grand, mystical secret.
Maybe he had found a lost ancient scroll in a forgotten tomb...
Maybe a dying sailor had washed up on his shores with a hidden map clutched in his hands.
Ragnar slowly looked around the room. He looked at Richard’s face. He looked at Erik’s confused, entirely genuine frown.
He looked at the three foreign marshals waiting patiently for a logical answer.
And then, Ragnar started to laugh.
"My King?" Richard asked, baffled by the sudden outburst.
Ragnar slowly caught his breath, wiping a small tear of pure amusement from his eye.
"You people are unbelievable..." Ragnar grinned, a wild, energy finally returning to his exhausted face.
"What is so entirely funny, Ragnar?" Erik grunted.
Ragnar pointed a finger at Richard’s chest.
"I literally handed you repeating rifles that can shoot fifteen lead balls in a minute," Ragnar stated, his voice ringing loudly in the hall.
"...I built iron ships that move without sails or wind. I forged steam engines that can haul thirty tons of steel across the dirt. I taught your engineers exactly how to mix raw sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal to create an explosive powder that can shatter a stone castle!"
Ragnar leaned over the table. "I brought you technology that shouldn’t exist for another thousand years... and yet, not a single one of you bastards ever walked up to me and asked, ’Hey Ragnar, how do you know how to build a high-pressure steam boiler?’"
"You just happily took the rifles!" Ragnar laughed, throwing his hands up in the air. "You took the massive ironclads! You took the powder and blew up a Frankish vanguard without a single second thought! But the second I tell you there is a large chunk of dirt sitting across the ocean... suddenly you all want to be fucking skeptics?!"
The men in the room just stared at him, speechless.
"How do I know?" Ragnar mocked playfully, shaking his head. "You are asking me how I know about a continent, when you should be asking me how I know literally everything else!"
Richard swallowed hard, his throat dry.
They were so incredibly desperate to survive the Emperor’s armies that they just blindly accepted the impossible miracles Ragnar handed them...
They never stopped to genuinely question the absolute source of the madness.
"I know about the new world, Richard, because I know exactly how this entire board is laid out," Ragnar said quietly. "I know exactly where the gold is. I know where the sulfur is. And I know exactly how to get us there safely. But first, we have to finish breaking Emperor Louis’s teeth."
Ragnar turned his broad back to the table.
"Erik, get those 4,000 settlers moving to Iceland immediately," Ragnar ordered sharply. "Domnall, Eadberht, Wulfhere... we march for the river camp at first light. If Lord Lothair wants to push his cannons out of the mud, we are going to bury him in it."
"Yes, my King!" the three marshals saluted in unison.
As the men began to discuss the movements for the morning, Richard slowly backed away from the map table.
He looked at the back of the Iron King, a man who casually handed out impossible miracles and apparently knew the secrets of the entire earth.
Ragnar was right... why didn’t they ever ask?
Why had they just accepted the impossible steel, the steam, and the explosives without ever wondering where the knowledge came from?
Richard stared at the man in the dirty blacksmith apron, a shiver running down his spine despite the blazing heat of the center fire.