Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry

The American expedition was the culmination of years of resource allocation, agricultural engineering, and shipbuilding.

To halt it for a primitive Irish warlord defied all established patterns of the Iron King’s behavior.

Unless, of course, it wasn’t about the lands of Ulster at all...

Alfred turned away from the harbor, pacing the length of the warehouse.

"It makes no sense, Aethelhelm," Alfred muttered. "The Irish tribes possess no blast furnaces, no deep-water ports, and no unmined veins of high-yield coal. Why would he divert the western armada to crush a pig-farmer who calls himself a Prime Minister?"

Aethelhelm swallowed hard. "Perhaps... perhaps the Listener has whispered the truth into the Sovereign’s ear. If Gyda’s intelligence network has penetrated our couriers..."

Alfred raised a hand, silencing the older man.

The very mention of Gyda, the head of Ragnar’s spy network, sent a chill down his spine.

Yet, as Alfred forced his breathing to slow, he began to dissect the landscape of the Iron Kingdom.

The reality of the situation was far more complex than a single treasonous plot.

While Ragnar Ulfsson engineered the future, the lords of the British Isles and the continent were still hopelessly addicted to the treacherous games of the past.

Alfred knew for a definitive fact that he was not the only lord engaging in high treason; he was simply the most ambitious.

The Iron Kingdom was built on a foundation of centralized loyalty, but beneath the surface, it was a rotting tapestry of medieval greed.

Alfred’s own localized spy network had uncovered numerous betrayals over the past year.

He knew that the powerful Earls of the North were secretly corresponding with the exiled lords of Denmark, trading low-grade Iron Kingdom steel for Danish silver to line their own coffers.

He knew that the lords guarding the Scottish borders had opened clandestine channels with the tribal chieftains of Sweden, offering them outdated blueprints for basic water mills in exchange for exotic furs and mercenary loyalty.

Even the wealthy merchant lords of the eastern coast were engaging in highly illicit trade agreements with the merchants of Flanders, bypassing the Iron Kingdom’s strict tariffs and taxation quotas.

Every single native lord was playing the game, desperately clawing for an ounce of autonomy and leverage under the crushing weight of Ragnar’s industrial monopoly.

They were all acting in what they perceived to be their own best interests, blinded by the hubris of their ancestral bloodlines.

And yet, Ragnar had done nothing...

For over a year, the Iron King had remained silent regarding these transgressions. There had been no public executions, no confiscation of lands, and no midnight raids by his elite riflemen.

Alfred pressed his fingers to his temples. "Consider the other lords, Aethelhelm. The northern earls bleed our steel to the Danes. The eastern merchants line their pockets with Flemish gold. We know this. So the question remains: does Ragnar know?"

"If he knows, my Lord, why does he let them live?" Aethelhelm asked. "If he knew the extent of the corruption, he would have mounted their heads on the gates of Titan."

A thought suddenly pierced Alfred’s logic, freezing the blood in his veins.

"Ivar the Boneless..." Alfred whispered. "How did a crippled pagan warlord suddenly acquire the knowledge to centralize a bureaucracy? How did he acquire the smoothbore muskets and the standardized steel necessary to field a professional standing army? We provided him with gold and intelligence, yes, but we did not provide him with the actual armaments. We do not have access to the royal armories."

Alfred leaned against a stack of crates. "Who sold those weapons to that man?"

If Alfred hadn’t supplied the weapons, and if Ivar couldn’t produce them himself, then they had to have been leaked by another high-ranking lord within the Iron Kingdom’s hierarchy.

Or worse...

What if Ragnar Ulfsson had orchestrated the entire scenario?

What if the Iron King had deliberately leaked obsolete weapons to Ivar, allowing the warlord to build a centralized army, merely to create a justifiable pretext to invade Ulster and subsequently purge the treasonous lords of Wessex?

For a agonizing minute, Alfred was convinced that Ragnar was an omniscient god who knew every whisper, every secret alliance, and every treacherous thought that crossed the minds of his vassals.

But then, the deeply ingrained arrogance of the nobleman flared up within Alfred, battling back the panic.

He was a master of statecraft, a man who had navigated the treacherous waters of Anglo-Saxon politics for decades before Ragnar ever arrived.

He could not allow himself to be paralyzed by the phantom of an all-knowing sovereign...

Alfred fiercely shook his head, rejecting the hypothesis.

"It is simple logic," Alfred said, pacing once more. "Gyda’s spy network is vast, yes, but it is stretched thin across the continent. She is watching the Franks, the Umayyads, the Danes. She cannot possibly monitor the internal thoughts of every merchant and lord in the British Isles."

Alfred gestured toward the east. "If Ragnar knew everything, the northern earls would already be dead. The Flemish smugglers would be hanging from the cranes in this very harbor. He has not acted against them because he is blind to their localized corruption. He relies on men like me to manage the minutiae of his empire."

Alfred convinced himself that Ragnar’s pivot to Ulster was a mere coincidence of timing.

Perhaps Ivar had simply become too loud, raiding a coastal Iron Kingdom supply ship and forcing Ragnar’s hand...

Yes, that had to be it.

The Iron King was responding to a localized threat, ignorant of the grand conspiracy Alfred had woven.

Aethelhelm let out a long breath. "Then we proceed with the sabotage of the rail lines?"

"Exactly as planned," Alfred confirmed. "When the musketeers are bogged down in Ulster, we will sever the supply chains. Louis’s regency will collapse under its own weight, and Wessex will rise again."

As Alfred watched the steam-cranes continue their endless work through the warehouse windows, a tiny, insidious splinter of doubt remained lodged deep within the back of his mind.

His logic was sound. His rationalization was perfect. But the chilling question remained unanswered.

If Ragnar truly was blind to Alfred’s treason... and if Ragnar truly was blind to the treason of the Danish sympathizers and the Flemish smugglers...

Why hadn’t Gyda reported any of it?

Alfred realized with a sickening lurch in his stomach that he did not actually know the true depth of the other lords’ betrayals.

And more importantly, he did not know if they had already sold him out to save themselves.