feiniaonovel Chapter 357: Bleeding
Chapter 357: Bleeding
Just seconds later, a chaotic flurry of footsteps echoed loudly from the main spiral staircase.
"...What the fucking hell is going on up here?" King Ecgberht’s voice shattered the silence of the hallway.
The King of Northumbria, completely out of breath and still holding a half-eaten turkey leg in his hand, came rushing up the stairs.
Right behind him was Prince Alfred of Wessex and King Burgred of Mercia, flanked by a dozen of their own heavily armed royal guards.
They all stopped dead in their tracks... The foreign royals stared in shock at the black smoke pouring out of the door, and then their eyes locked onto the red blood dripping freely from Ragnar’s broad shoulder.
"By the gods..." Burgred gasped, taking a frightened step backward. "King Ragnar... You are bleeding!"
"What happened?!" Ecgberht roared, dropping his turkey leg onto the floor and drawing his sword. He looked at Ragnar’s murder-filled expression. "Who made you look like you are about to burn the entire world to ash..?"
Ragnar leaned the back of his head against the wall and closed his eyes for a brief second. "Just a minor disagreement about farming techniques..."
Prince Alfred stepped forward, his mind ignoring the joke.
He looked at the lock on the door and the Frankish prince sitting on the floor. "...A spy managed to infiltrate your personal keep. What did they take from you?"
Before Ragnar could answer the young prince, another wave of heavy boots echoed from the opposite end of the corridor.
A dozen elite Home Guards marched into view, forming a tight protective wall of gray wool and cold steel.
In the very center of their formation was Queen Gyda. She was holding little three-year-old Magnus tightly by the hand, while a shaking royal nurse trailed close behind, cradling baby Floki in bear furs.
"The royal family is secure, King Ragnar!" the lead guard shouted, slamming his fist against his chest in a salute. "The lower levels are locked down. Everything is fine!"
"I can see that..." Ragnar sighed.
"You..!"
Gyda dropped to her knees right there in the hallway, tearing the bloody white handkerchief out of Louis’s hands. "I leave you alone for ten minutes to go check on the children, and you somehow manage to get stabbed in your own castle!"
"I didn’t get stabbed," Ragnar chuckled weakly, wincing sharply as she pressed the cloth hard against his open wound. "I got a dagger thrown at me. There is a huge difference in the skill level required to pull that off."
"Shut up," Gyda hissed. She quickly pulled a clean linen bandage from the small leather pouch on her belt and started wrapping it tightly around his shoulder, "Who did this? Leofric, why is my King bleeding on the floor?!"
Leofric lowered his head, "A spy, my Queen. He slipped past the outer walls using the coronation festival as a distraction. He stole the blueprints for the deep-earth coal mines..."
"A Byzantine spy," Ragnar added, "He had the accent. Basil sent him to smile in my face and steal our industry right out from under our noses."
"W-wait... King Ragnar, are you sure he was from Byzantium?" Louis the Stammerer suddenly spoke up.
Ragnar frowned, looking down at his friend. "He literally told me his Emperor would pay him a mountain of gold for the papers, Louis. And he sounded like every single Greek merchant I have ever traded with."
"That is the problem," Louis said. "...if you were Emperor Basil the First, and you had just signed a secret peace pact with the Iron Kingdom to get iron cannons to fight the Arabs... would you send a spy who clearly talks like a Roman?"
"The prince is right," Alfred whispered, "A true spy hides his origin. He blends in... He pretends to be a local."
"Unless..." King Ecgberht muttered, scratching his beard. "Unless the bastard wanted you to know he was Byzantine."
"Or unless he was pretending to be one," Louis finished, looking up at Ragnar eyes. "What if the spy isn’t Roman? What if someone else... the Aghlabid Arabs, the Franks, or maybe someone even closer... hired him to frame Emperor Basil?"
If Ragnar had declared war on Byzantium because of this theft, whoever actually stole the Agricultural blueprint would get to sit back in the shadows and watch the two empires destroy each other.
Gyda tied the final, tight knot on Ragnar’s linen bandage, pulling it sharply to ensure it held. "There. The bleeding has stopped... We need to cancel the rest of the coronation feast and lock down the city until Richard finds that spy."
"Cancel the coronation?" Ragnar asked, looking at his wife.
He slowly pushed himself away from the wall, rolling his shoulders and testing the movement of his left arm.
It hurt like absolute hell, a burning pain radiating down his bicep, but he could still swing a broadsword if he had to.
"Get your ass up, Commander," Ragnar ordered. "Tell the men to put on their finest gray uniforms and polish their bayonets until they shine like the sun."
Leofric stood up, "My King? What are we doing?"
"Shall we continue the coronation, my beautiful Queen?" Ragnar grinned, turning to Gyda and offering his good arm with a bow.
Gyda smiled, she knew what her husband was doing. "A military parade, Ragnar?"
"Oh, much more than a simple parade." Ragnar chuckled, turning his head to look at the vassal kings.
King Ecgberht grinned, forgetting about his dropped turkey leg. "Now that is a fucking party!"
...
Though the corridors of the royal keep were still echoing with the shouts of guards searching for the escaped spy, Ragnar walked toward his private chambers with a slow calmness.
He pushed open the door to his bedroom and let out a long sigh, finally allowing his broad shoulders to slump.
Gyda was already inside, having handed little Magnus and baby Floki over to the trusted royal nurses in the nursery next door.
She stood by the large wooden wardrobe, while she sorted through a pile of clean clothes.
"Are you sure you want to host a military parade now? You just lost a lot of blood."
"I am fine," Ragnar groaned, using his good arm to pull the red wool tunic over his head and toss it onto the floor. "I have to do this..."
Gyda rolled her eyes, but a soft smile touched her lips. She knew he was right.
"Fine. But you cannot wear that ruined wool," Gyda said, reaching deep into the wardrobe. "If you want to look like an emperor, you have to wear something that suits that look."
She pulled out a folded bundle of bright fabric and tossed it onto the bed.
Ragnar walked over and picked it up.
It was a long, beautifully tailored tunic, but it wasn’t made of wool, linen, or heavy leather, it was made of crimson silk. It had long, wide sleeves, intricate black and gold embroidery depicting roaring dragons along the collar, and a high neck that looked foreign to the north.
"What the fucking hell is this?" Ragnar asked, rubbing the soft material between his thumbs.