Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 199: Aftermath

Ignoring Sola's dying pleas, Aslaug ordered the guards to smash the door open.

To her surprise, Ubbe had already escaped through the window. Perhaps Sola had intentionally blocked the door to buy her son a little more time to flee.

"Notify the city defense forces to lock down the city. Find Ubbe, and kill him!"

With things escalating to this point, it no longer mattered whether Sola and Ubbe had actually conspired to murder Sigurd. Aslaug had no choice but to seize this opportunity to eliminate Ubbe, entirely preventing him from seeking revenge in the future.

After handling various affairs, the Queen Mother returned to her son's bedroom, still covered in blood. He remained deeply unconscious. Two groups of clerics stood on opposite sides of the bed, their expressions filled with deep anxiety. They were terrified that this madwoman might kill them to vent her frustration.

It had been years since she had killed someone with her own hands, yet Aslaug felt no fear. Instead, a long-lost surge of vitality welled up within her, making her feel as though she had returned to her thrilling and dangerous youth. She casually tore off her hairband, letting her crimson hair cascade down like a demon from purgatory, and stared coldly at the unlucky fools before her. "Have you figured out a solution?"

The priest suggested administering herbal medicine and holy water.

The shamans recommended conducting a ritual to beg the gods for their blessing.

Gripping her bloodstained iron axe, Aslaug paced back and forth across the room, finally ordering them to do everything in their power.

With trembling hands, the priest retrieved two herbs from a medical chest carried by a nun. After crushing them with his tools, he pulled a small silver flask from his robes, poured out a little holy water, and slowly brewed the mixture over a gentle fire.On the other side, the shamans brought in a brazier. One took charge of burning specially prepared dried grass, while another sat on the floor with his eyes tightly shut, seemingly communicating with the gods. Two others circled the brazier, chanting prayers. In their panic, they flubbed their lines in several places. Fortunately, the Queen Mother could not understand a word of it, otherwise their lives would have surely been forfeit.

Once the treatments concluded, Aslaug reached out to touch her son's forehead. His temperature had dropped slightly. She let out a long breath of relief and instructed the maids to arrange quarters in the Royal Palace for the two groups of clerics to rest.

"Leave us," she commanded.

After dismissing everyone, Aslaug slumped powerlessly onto the edge of the bed, gazing at Sigurd's pale and feeble face. If given the choice, she would have much rather been the one who was poisoned.

An unknown amount of time passed until the candles on both sides of the room burned out, plunging her vision into sudden darkness. Unable to hold back any longer, she covered her face with her hands and let out deeply muffled sobs.

Outside the palace walls, the streets echoed with shouts of "The King has been assassinated! Lock down the city!" Hrolf, as the former Sheriff, was well-informed; sensing the imminent danger, he had immediately fled. Wearing a heavy cloak, Ubbe scurried through the chaotic streets. When he discovered that his uncle's house had already been sealed off by the Palace Guards, he had no choice but to duck into the alleyways to seek out the help of an old street urchin friend.

"Ron, save me!"

Ubbe found the brown-haired youth nicknamed "Rotten Tooth" in a secluded courtyard. Having already heard the news of the King's assassination, Ron repeatedly looked the prince up and down.

"Beautifully done, you really did yourself proud. I always thought you were just a simple-minded meathead. I never expected you to have this kind of ruthless cunning. I guess I misjudged you."

Ron gladly accepted the prince's plea for help. To be fair, he had briefly considered selling Ubbe out for the bounty, but doing so went against his core principles. When surviving on the streets, reputation was everything. If he sold out a friend, how could he ever show his face as a proper rogue again?

After a moment of thought, the youth led his friend toward a hidden sanctuary.

"During his tenure, the former Prime Minister, Wigg Teyne, ordered the clearing of the sewers that had been blocked for years. After he resigned, that idiot uncle of yours halted the project. Haha, as a result, it became a hidden haven for us brothers to stash all kinds of smuggled goods. I never expected it would save your life today."

Moving as quickly as possible, Ron settled Ubbe into his own personal storage alcove before heading back out to wait for an opportunity to gather news from the surface.

For the first two days, the atmosphere on the streets was incredibly tense. Most residents huddled in their homes, peering through cracks in their doors at the marching squads of soldiers. By the third day, the frequency of the Royal Guard's searches dropped drastically. Sitting idly in a tavern with a mug of weak ale for an entire afternoon, Ron managed to glean two crucial pieces of information from the soldiers' complaints.

First, it stood to reason that a generous bounty should have been distributed upon the coronation of a new King, but there had been no news of any such payout. Discontent was spreading widely among the Royal Guard.

Second, after the frantic, haphazard treatments by the clerics, Sigurd's high fever had broken. Though his body was still a bit weak, he had at least regained consciousness. Looking at it this way, perhaps he had never been poisoned in the first place, but merely happened to fall severely ill, which served as the spark that ignited the long-suppressed conflict between the two Queen Mothers.

With all these conflicting emotions swirling around, the enthusiasm of the Royal Guard waned. They had sworn to the gods to serve King Ragnar, not Aslaug. Now that the new King was not dead and Ubbe's supposed crimes were unsubstantiated, the Royal Guard had no reason to execute the late King's fourth son.

That night, Ron returned to the sewers carrying a jug of weak ale and a piece of air-dried salted mutton. He relayed the news to his friend. "...I'll ask you one more time. Did the King's illness have anything to do with you and your mother?"

"Of course not! The day after the new King ascended the throne, Aslaug started shuffling the palace staff. Now, almost everyone in the Royal Palace answers to her. How would we have ever found an opportunity to strike?!"

Ron scratched his short brown hair. "Let's drop the subject for now. What are your plans for the future?"

Chewing vigorously on the mutton jerky, Ubbe mumbled, "Denmark. The late King's edict named me Duke of Denmark. You should escort me there. You can pick any fiefdom you want."

Ron declined the offer. He was just a lowly street thug born and raised in Londinium, a part-time smuggler and petty thief with terrible combat skills. He didn't speak a lick of the Viking tongue and would never be accepted by the people of Denmark.

"Forget it. Everyone has their own destiny. I'm only suited for Londinium. I'm so used to living the rogue life that I wouldn't even want to be King."

A week passed, and the streets finally returned to normal. Following Ubbe's request, Ron found a Knarr ship at the port preparing to set sail for Northern Europe.

On the night before departure, the two secretly slipped into the ship's hold. Ron pried open an oak barrel, dumped most of the grain into the water, and then had Ubbe climb inside. He tossed in a large water skin filled with clean water, two loaves of black bread, and an iron axe.

"These supplies will only last until the merchant ship hits the open sea. Have you figured out what you're going to tell the captain and the crew?"

Ubbe nodded heavily. "I am a son of Ragnar, the Duke of Denmark, and an heir to the kingdom. I have more than enough bargaining chips to buy their loyalty. Goodbye, brother. Remember to come find me in Denmark, or perhaps one day, when I lead an army back to Londinium, I'll make you Prime Minister."

Showing absolutely no interest, Ron picked up the barrel lid, securely sealed the oak barrel back up, and whispered, "I'm leaving."

Upon returning to the deck, he saw the night-watch sailor still dozing off near the square sterncastle. Without disturbing a soul, Ron slipped away from the dockyards like a phantom, bringing a quiet end to this thrilling journey.

The only regret was that he couldn't brag about this adventure to anyone in the taverns—at least, not until Aslaug's ultimate downfall.

"Pulling off something so massive but not being able to boast about it, forced to just savor the memory all by myself... Sigh, what a bummer."