Master O Britain (不列颠之主）

2. In the name of Odin (Part 2)

When Gift died, I could barely lift a sword, something I made my mind up to do.

15 days after gift died, father sought out an old noble in the south who lost his land to teach me riding, fencing, and hunting. He comes from a place called 'Frank', and claims it to be the strongest Kingdom of the south. I've heard some priests refer to it as the 'Holy Roman Empire'. 

My father told me the old noble lost his land because his lords discovered that he was planning a rebellion, at the time I didn't know what 'planning a rebellion' meant, so I asked my servants, they didn't understand either.

When I asked the resident priests, they will only hold the cross in their hands and say, "All glory to the Lord, may the world be at peace.

When I asked my father, he would say, :' When people are unaware of their situation and are delusional enough to think they have the capacity to challenge authority.'

When asked the rebellious old noble himself, he shook the bottle of the wine he had stolen from the kitchen and said, "If thou lose, thou art a rebellion. If thou win, thou art the truth!"

"Only when you wield absolute military power can thou rule over those pesky peons and achieve thy lofty and far-sighted goals." He added.

"But the priest said that the power of words is far sharper than a sword." I retorted. 

"Cow-fart, then let thy priest cut thy bread and meat with his 'words' , and let his dogma fill the shriveled finances of your territory."

"It's true, the priest said that with such power, the messenger of God came back to life after being crucified for seven days."

"Enough, no matter what I say, thou always have to retort, shut up."

"Teacher, why did you rebel? I heard that your manor used to have hundreds of servants."

"Followed the wrong lord, If I chose the right person, my territory will be three times bigger than thy father's, if I did follow the right person, everyone, even the king, will call have to call me 'Thy Excellency'."

This old aristocrat, who has a distant blood kinship with me, only taught me for four months, but everything he taught me has benefited me for a lifetime.

For example, when killing someone, you have to look him in the eye and find where he is weak.

When you have the opportunity to bully the lesser with a population advantage, do not hesitate. Compared with death, honor is worthless.

There is one more thing that never left my memory, the old noble loved women.

He would not reject any women to bed, may she be fat or thin. Once, when he was sweating profusely while attending his guest in bed, I hid in the bedside cabinet and watched.

I couldn't understand what was happening at that time, why people acted and sounded so much like animals.

Was such a deed really so exuberating? 

I wanted to try it.

When I was at age of eight, a group of uninvited guests arrived, they called themselves the Norse, but my father called them 'the Vikings'.

Their hair was yellow, as if ground-up gold was sprinkled on it, and their skin was rough, it is really difficult to find parts of their body without scars. Both their men and women had strong arms.

This group of "friendly" guests disembarked.It was the first time I saw their "long boat", and it was hard to imagine that such a tiny boat could pass through the endless waves of the sea. There was no protection on it, and it relied on human power to cross the evil sea. They were here to do 'business'.

Our cattle and sheep, men and women, gold and silverware, domestic dogs, carpets, clothes...were forced to "be sold" in large quantities.

The mud marks on the soldiers' faces and the ash they left behind are a Norse specialty they used to 'trade' with us. "Silt" from the Vikings in exchange for goods of the land.

"For Odin!" "Charge!"

They yelled

Only later did I find out what their "trading call" exactly meant.

The civilians fled, the women screamed, and the eyes of the men were full of anger or fear. I went up the city wall, only to be hit in the shoulder by a Viking sling, leaving a long scar. 

Then I hid in the secret cell of the castle.

After that, I couldn't remember very clearly, but I became a child slave, and the shoulder injury left me incapable of carrying heaving objects on them.

Three months of slavery have left my body malnourished and diseased.

"If no one comes with your ransom, next time we rob 'Rome', we'll sell you to those nobles."

I've studied geography and Latin, and I know that the Vikings referred to the southeast as 'Rome'. There are three Romes on lands, a "City of Rome" on the far southern peninsula, ruled by priests, and the center of theology - the place where the light never falls.

The other two Romes, "West Rome" was another name for the Franks, but "Eastern Rome", was really land around a fortress referred to as "Constantinople".

The Vikings often sold their captured young noble to Constantinople, so that these teenagers forever lose their chance or will of vengeance.

Every day I was afraid of being murdered by Vikings in my sleep.Fortunately, one day my father collected enough silver coins for my ransom.When the hostages were released, I looked back at the Viking village a few times,  one person laughed at me and said, 

"Why, art thou addicted to thy slavery, then thou shalt cut have thy hair cut, thy skin tattooed, pass the trials and become an Odin's warrior!"

The laughter of the Vikings made my face flush red and my fists clenched tight."I will forever erase the word Viking from the maps!" I secretly made up my mind.