Valkyries Calling

The papal ship creaked into Heimaey's harbor under heavy fog and the grim gaze of carved wooden gods that lined the docks.

A black-and-gold banner bearing the keys of Saint Peter flapped in the ocean wind.

A foreign thing in a land ruled by wolves and storm gods.

When the envoys stepped ashore, four men in thick woolen cloaks over their vestments, their Latin tongues sharp and stiff, no horn greeted them, no banner was raised, no crowd gathered.

Only cold.

And warriors.

Men in oiled mail and fur, axes slung casually on their backs, eyed them like foxes staring down a chicken coop.

"Is this Ullrsfjörðr?" asked one of the envoys, stepping forward with a mixture of arrogance and shivering pride.

A bearded warrior grinned through frostbit lips. "Nay. You'll not walk into Ullrsfjörðr. Not if your cloaks stink of Rome and crosses."

Another envoy frowned. "We were sent by Pope John the Nineteenth himself. We are here to speak with your king. Vetrúlfr."

The guard chuckled and then spat. "Then the Pope should've come himself."

The envoys bristled, but the man pointed toward the eastern gate of the harbor settlement.

"Jarl Gunnarr holds court in this town. You'll speak with him if he bothers to listen."

The hall in Heimaey was no cathedral. Thick stone, dark wood, and iron-forged lamps set the mood. Smoke curled in the rafters. Shields lined the walls like a gallery of death.

Jarl Gunnarr, tall and lean with long gray hair braided back, sat on a stone throne carved with wolves, sea serpents, and crescent moons.

He listened to the envoys with visible boredom.

"…the Holy Father extends an invitation to enter the peace of Christendom, to rejoin the fold of Europe under the guidance of Rome," droned the lead envoy. "To cease your pagan heresies, your idolatry, your sorcery, and your aggression against the houses of the Lord."

Silence followed.

A long one.

Then Gunnarr leaned forward and asked in flawless Latin: "And what price will your Christ pay for such a gift?"

The envoys stiffened.

"You misunderstand," one snapped. "It is not we who pay. It is you who must repent. For your crimes, your barbarism. Your people worship sea-witches and hunt priests. You bar Ullrsfjörðr to the servants of God."

Gunnarr's eyes gleamed. "Aye. We bar the gates to all Christians… unless they pay a price."

He rose, boots heavy on the stone.

"Not in gold. In blood."

The envoys looked horrified.

Another continued. "We demand to speak with your king. You cannot deny the Holy See audience -"

"I can. And I have," Gunnarr said coldly. "He does not recognize your priest. Not as a king. Not even as a man worthy of bearing a crown. And if your Pope wishes words with him, he may come dressed in iron, bearing a sword, and knock on the gates of Ullrsfjörðr himself."

The hall erupted in murmurs and laughter. Men slammed the butts of their spears into the stone. One jarl mockingly chanted, "Petrus! Petrus!" before spitting into the hearth.

The lead envoy turned red with fury. "This is sacrilege. You court excommunication!"

Gunnarr stepped closer, towering now, face inches from the envoy's. "You're in the land of wolves, priest. And here… we do not fear exile from your heaven."

---

The chamber was dim, the only light filtering in through stained glass depictions of saints who stared eternally downward.

Rome's summer heat had long passed, but in the deep heart of the Lateran Palace, the air was still thick with incense and political rot.

Pope John XIX stood before a semicircle of crimson-robed cardinals, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out the arched windows toward the horizon, northward.

One of the older cardinals, Lucius of Ravenna, cleared his throat. "Holiness… word has reached us. The envoys never reached the capital of this so-called 'Kingdom of the North.' They were turned away. Some say humiliated."

Another added, "The Norse, the White Wolf's people, they barred entry to Christians. They demanded a price… in blood. Gunnarr of Heimaey mocked the See openly. We are not even sure if their king knew they had come."

John XIX didn't flinch. His voice was calm, deliberate.

"I know."

A younger bishop leaned forward. "Then why, Holy Father, did you send them at all? If you knew the wolves would close the gates… if you knew they'd show us only contempt, why risk it? Why provoke them?"

The Pope turned, finally facing his council. His eyes were dark with sleepless cunning.

"Why else would I send them?"

The room fell silent.

"When the wolves inevitably hunt our priests, we will have the one thing we have lacked: a cause."

He stepped forward, his voice rising.

"Until now, the fools who call themselves kings and emperors in Christendom squabble like pigs in a sty. The Frankish lords eye one another's lands. The Holy Roman Empire pulls itself apart at the seams. Even the Saxons and Danes now play at crowns, ignoring the menace in the fog."

He raised his hand, trembling with fervor.

"But soon… they will see. They will all see."

He walked to the table and placed a single sealed scroll upon it, the final message received from Heimaey.

"They burned the cross. They spit upon Saint Peter's keys. They mock us to our faces and call themselves kings in the name of heathen gods…"

He looked up, eyes gleaming.

"I'll give Christendom a reason to care."

The cardinals trembled as the Pope burned the letter in front of them.

And had his intentions not been bad enough, he made them clearer as he sat back down upon his gilded throne and sighed.

"For too long I have had to watch these fools fight among themselves for power. Never truly paying what is owed to Rome. This white wolf, this so-called son of Ullr. He will be the cause we need to rally Christendom under the rule of Rome once more. And by the time those illiterate fools who call themselves kings have realized what I have done it will be too late."

---

The tavern in Heimaey was warm with firelight, but colder than death in every other sense.

Three priests, still clad in dusty travel robes marked with the seal of Saint Peter, sat hunched around a low wooden table.

Their goblets, filled more with melted snow than ale, shook slightly in their hands, not from cold, but from the weight of the stares pressing in around them.

They had been granted permission to stay for a fortnight only, and even that required registering their names, purpose, and route with Jarl Gunnarr's men, as if they were foreign merchants, not envoys of God's own Vicar.

Father Tiberius slammed his cup on the table, jaw clenched. "They made us sign our names… in the ledger of a jarl. Like cattle at market. Do they not understand who we serve?"

"They understand," muttered Brother Alaric, rubbing the bruise just beneath his eye. "They simply don't care."

A third priest, Father Gianni, leaned in close, his voice barely above a whisper. "Did you see them spit? Every time I spoke the Pater Noster, some lout spat at my feet. Deliberately. One even called Christ a 'dying man on a crooked tree.'"

Tiberius's lips curled. "And still we sit here like beggars. Humiliated. These heretics should be beneath us."

Gianni's hand drifted near the dagger hidden in his robes. "One of them said… if we weren't wearing our black robes, we'd already be in the dirt. Buried under stones, face down."

Alaric glanced around the tavern. The Norsemen and women filled the hall with quiet murmurs and ale-laced laughter, but none of them looked at the priests with kindness.

Eyes followed their movements. One old warrior near the hearth openly sharpened a seax as he watched them, his expression somewhere between boredom and promise.

"They know we're marked," Alaric said flatly. "They see the seal. The Cross. And it means less than ash to them."

Tiberius leaned forward, lowering his voice. "And the worst part? They enjoy this. This is vengeance. Not for anything we did—but for what Rome did long ago. This land remembers wounds."

A man passed by their table then, grinning, muttered something in Old Norse, and spat deliberately between Father Gianni's feet.

The priests stared, furious, but said nothing.

Outside, the wind howled like wolves in the dark.

And yet, not the slightest trace of the cold kissed their cheeks as they sat there drinking their ale.

It was only then that Father Gianni came to a realization.

"Have any of you noticed how far away the hearth is, and yet how warm it is where we sit?"

The other priests looked up at the father, at first with little amusement, and then with revelation.

At least one of them looked around at his surroundings and spotted the nearby flue channels built into the wall.

His voice trailed in awe as he understood that there was more than meets the eye to this simple timber-framed building.

"Hypocausts.... My God.... The rumors are true... These savages have built their kingdom on Roman foundations...."

And suddenly a dreadful silence overtook the priests as they realized if that were true, what else were the sailors, whalers, and fishermen also telling the truth about regarding this pagan empire in the great north?