[Fic] As Long As the Beech Reflects Its Top in the Blue Wave
Title: As Long As the Beech Reflects Its Top in the Blue Wave
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,564
Summary: Pertaining to the invasion of England by Denmark under Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013. A few others can come, too.
Notes: A Hetalia/Vinland Saga crossover, because it needed to be done. Footnoted slightly at the end.
Warnings: Danes Behaving Badly, reference to plot elements of Vinland Saga. Your mileage may vary; if you haven't read it? You totally should. If for no other reason than the mind-melting awesome.
A missive arrives pretty late in the summer campaign, a message from Norway to Denmark telling him how things are going back home and warning him not to trust in the songs of river-maidens or the promises of ash-children. Painfully cryptic; fucking typical Norway. Denmark folds the letter and tucks it against his breast for safekeeping.
He rises early on Saturday morning, well before dawn, to pen a short letter to his brother by oil lamplight:
‘Should arrive at London tomorrow. Will either talk with Aethelred or the runt, or lay siege- whichever winds up being easier. Bet you neither bathes.’
Nice and simple, just like that. He rolls the paper into a tight cylinder, seals it with both cord and wax, and hands it off to a lithe-looking herald who isn’t one of his people. He sends the man along with instructions to deliver the message to Norway by way of his king (“And if they give you trouble, tell them it’s from family,” he says), and with a little extra gold to make him lighter on his feet. Chalk it up to all that Christian charity he’s picked up with the years, he thinks, when he realizes it’s left his own coin pouch a little lighter at his hip. It’s made him soft. Maybe even a little bit too nice for his own liking.
Ah, well. Changing flow of the times and what have you, he supposes. He puts away his quill and ink, and he goes to clean himself up.
And, hey, what is he if not charitable these days? He washes his face, cleans his teeth, and combs his hair a little bit, but only just a little, which in and of itself is a move of charity. No need to go stealing the brat’s women as well as his throne. He sends along a second herald not too long afterwards, this time to England, and with an offer to parley with the kid, since he’s such a thoughtful guy. The word going around has it that Aethelred’s already picked up and ran for the hills, and even if Forkbeard’s eager to keep on marching for London, Denmark’s hesitant to just roll over and crush the kid.
Yeah. All this ‘love thy neighbor’ shit is starting to get to him, and in no small way.
The herald returns before sunset, with the same note Denmark sent him off with. The seal has been broken, he notes, and there is no reply message.
Well, then so be it, he thinks. If the kid wants a fight, he’ll get a fucking fight and he’ll get a Danish king on Aethelred’s empty throne before he can say “pater noster” five times fast, too. It’s no skin off his back.
Before going to sleep, he lays his axe down beside him, combs his hair again, and kneels to say his prayers- one for himself, one for his men, and one for the Englishmen who won’t live to pay tribute to their new king come Monday morning.
If green is the color of nature, then the color of man must be red, Denmark thinks. Deep, dark red, like blood, red to turn the colors of England’s fields. Except there are no fields in London, just chimney smoke and chickens and houses as far as the eye can see. Lots and lots of houses, and lots of angry Christians on a bridge. With arrows. And rocks.
And Denmark hates rocks.
But most of all, he hates really, really big rocks when they’re in Thorkell’s hands and Thorkell’s standing atop London bridge and just laughing his crazy ass off, because hello. He’s kind of trying to cut England a break, here, you know. And that’s just a fucking fine how-do-you-do from the kid. He’s stuck onshore with Forkbeard and far from the action, but he can hear the sounds of his men shouting to steer their vessels clear of the onslaught from the bridge and he can imagine England hiding at Thorkell’s ankles- little, filthy England with his clumsily-carved bow and his quiver full of arrows pulled from the throats of his own dead.
Little, filthy, kingless England.
(Well, nice to see you, too, brat, he thinks.)
He leans over to whisper to Sweyn:
“Yanno, I don’t speak English so good, but I’m pretty sure Thorkell’s saying he’ll be sticking with them.”
Sweyn says nothing, just grunts and rubs at his chin, and you know what? Fine, Denmark thinks. If he wants to be abstruse, let him. The fuck does he care. He goes on.
“Then again, if I know the crazy old bastard like I think I do, he’s in it just for kicks.”
And Denmark can grant him that. Thorkell’s a decent guy. In this day and age, he stands for a lot that Denmark wishes he himself still could, but what can you do? Changing flow of the times and all that crap. He goes where his king goes, and he says as his king says. So even though he wears a cross now and has to do his state building with words in the way of cowards and liars, he can respect all that Thorkell is and does.
The thought leaves him with some nasty pangs in his chest, but he tries not to think about that too hard.
Another grunt and moment later, Sweyn speaks- slowly. Calculating.
“What do you think of Askeladd and his men?”
“I think I wouldn’t trust him nearly as far I as I could throw him, Forkbeard,” he says. “Hell, definitely not as far as you could throw him.”
Askeladd says he goes where the money’s good, but Denmark knows. He can feel it, his sense for the guy isn’t as strong as it is with the king or any of his other people. Part of him’s Dane, but the other part isn’t even partly there. So while Askeladd might be backing him for now, that’s not to say his loyalties don’t lie elsewhere, not by a long fucking shot. He’s not sure how to break this to his king, though, since he’s never been good with using words to make an ugly situation sound pretty. And it’s a pretty fucking ugly situation they’ve got on their hands if he’s ever seen one. But Floki steps in with perfect timing, so he’s spared dealing with that shit show.
Sweyn manages to throw a quick -“that’s ‘your majesty’ to you, my State”- at him and Denmark rolls his eyes, because yeah, whatever, and they turn their attention to Floki.
“My liege,” he says, bowing low, all deferential-like. Fucking ass-kisser. Denmark doesn’t even bother to stand up straighter beside the king. “Thorkell has refused to surrender.”
“Toldja so,” Denmark sneers.
Sweyn nods.
“Very well, then.” He dismisses Floki with a wave of his hand. “Continue the siege.”
They do, for what it’s worth.
Not much, it seems.
Up close and personal, Thorfinn doesn’t really look like much.
Granted, he doesn’t look like much from a distance, either, but Denmark’s willing to bet that has a lot to do with Thorkell having been swinging him around up and down London Bridge like a ragdoll at the time. The kid might put up a decent fight against any old schmuck, but Thorkell the High’s a whole other beast entirely. And after he’s finished trashing the kid and Denmark’s split to go fish the kid out of the Thames and drag his sorry ass back to Askeladd, he dumps him in some hay in an abandoned barn near where they’re crashing for the night, the better to sleep things off. That done, he drops himself down onto a wooden crate to rest and get a look at the kid. And lying all limp like that with his face halfway to bashed-in, he’s gotta say, Thorfinn looks really fucking small. Pretty hard to believe this is the kind of trump card a guy like Askeladd keeps. Then again, fat lot of good it did him back at the bridge.
“Man,” he thinks more than says. “Tough, but cares for himself like an Englishman. I better not walk out of here tonight with any fleas.”
Askeladd doesn’t even give the kid so much as a once-over to check he isn’t dead, and Denmark winces a little despite himself. He’s all for tough love, sure, but that’s just brutal. He wonders if the guy wouldn’t leave the kid to die, if it came to that.
He probably would.
“And yet, you looked after him. Awfully generous of you,” Askeladd murmurs, with a quirk of his brow. Denmark isn’t sure how to read an expression like that, and if he didn’t like the guy before, well, shit. For that alone he finds himself disliking the guy even more. The sneaky bastard.
“He’s an interesting kid,” Denmark says. “And you don’t get to Valhalla if you go out facedown in the water.”
Askeladd gives him another one of those fucking brow quirks, this time one he’s pretty sure says “That, from a Christian state?” but he can’t really be assed to care.
“I mean, sure, he looks like a starving animal. Probably acts like one, too, the fuck do I know. But he took two fingers off of Thorkell,” he reminds the sly fucker. “And he’s like, what. Fifteen? Give him a few years to take on some height and get a little muscle on him. Then. Then, I bet he could give the guy a hell of a fight.”
Askeladd nods, hums a bit to himself.
“What?” Denmark asks.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Askeladd assures him, but a glance at his smile tells Denmark it’s not even close to nothing. Even if he can only read part of the guy, he knows Askeladd isn’t a man of idle thoughts. He’s being cute, Denmark thinks, the bastard. So he repeats himself, and he wonders if it isn’t worth shouldering his axe to make it extra clear that he really, truly wants to know:
“What?”
“Well…” and he trails off like he’s thinking real hard about this, like he hasn’t had it all lined up in his head from the get-go. “I suppose it’s possible. He is Thors’ son, after all.”
Denmark nearly pisses himself then and there.
“Thors?” He hops down off the crates, steps right in front of Askeladd so he can’t not meet his eyes. “Y’mean, as in Thors the Troll, Thors?”
He stares Askeladd down and Askeladd keeps on staring right back at him and through him. Behind them, Thorfinn stirs in his sleep, whimpering softly into the hay.
“Just the one.”
“…well, fuck me,” Denmark says. “The son of the Troll.”
“Don’t get too excited, now,” Askeladd warns him, turning towards the door. “He’s born and raised an Icelander.”
Denmark watches the kid toss and turn and moan in his sleep a while after Askeladd leaves. And when he’s good and tired and ready to get some sleep himself, he bends to gather his cloak from the ground and heads off to find his king.
Jesus Christ, the son of the Troll.
A herald stands waiting for him at the barn door, and he comes bearing a folded, sealed message. Denmark’s gotta wonder how long he’s been standing there like that; since he doesn’t know, though, he gives the guy some gold for his promptness and directs him towards some decent wine for his pains. When he’s alone, he opens the message.
It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the English on the page. Reading is still pretty new to his people, he’s only been doing it with relative ease for about a century or so. And hell, that’s even in his own tongue, so you’d better believe that making sense of English words on paper isn’t any kind of small task. But it’s not like too many of his men are any good with England’s clunky words or Latin script, and like hell would he trust Askeladd with a missive from the brat. So even though it takes a couple of read-throughs, he manages to glean what matters from the note.
They will meet at sunrise. Their kings are to stay out of this.
Okay, fine. He thinks he can do that.
When they convene beneath the bridge (and you know, it’s really more like a fortress than a bridge, his men weren’t kidding about that), the sun’s already begun to stain the sky red-gold; by then Denmark hasn’t slept much, and sure enough, England hasn’t bathed, either.
Figures.
Denmark arrives first, and when he sees England approaching, he stands, lifts a hand. He does it partially as a genuine greeting, yeah, but mostly it’s to show that he’s left his weapons behind him in good faith. The brat must’ve been counting on that, too, because he looks Denmark up and down real careful before getting anywhere near close to him. Denmark snorts.
“Easy, kiddo,” he says. “You asked for a talk, so I’m here to talk.” When England draws nearer, slinging his bow over his back, he asks, “So, now that we’re ready to play like civilized people…what’s the story?”
“Don’t be cute with me, you know damn well why I wrote.”
“’Fraid not!” And with this, Denmark throws on his most amicable-like grin. “Seeing as I coulda sworn I offered you a parley before!”
“Things were different before.”
“Think we both had a few men extra apiece before.”
England spits on the ground.
“I didn’t come here for a pissing contest,” he hisses. “You already know what became of Aethelred.”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about! Of course I know- when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled!”
Ooh, ouch, that one must’ve stung to the quick, Denmark thinks. He can see England’s fists balling up at his sides. He wonders if he can push the kid hard enough that he’ll actually point an arrow at him. He probably can- the kid’s small and dirty and kingless, and he’s got a sour-ass temper on him. It probably wouldn’t take much.
“Fuck you,” England snarls. “Your king’s already got what he wants, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, actually. Yeah he does. Which is why,” Denmark says, leaning back against the bridge supports, “I can’t even fucking imagine what’s left to talk about. You’re not about to ask me to hand the throne back over, are you?”
One of England’s hands goes to the bow, and strike one for Denmark.
“Leave your king. Leave his main forces, too, if you have to. But you take all other groups you’ve contracted and clear them out of here. I want them out, and away from my people.”
“Yeah?” Denmark sneers. He’s gotta admit, it’s a pretty ballsy move on the kid’s part to even ask, and he’s not the kind of guy to not give credit where credit’s due. He looks at the kid, and really, truly looks at him, right in the eye and asks, “And why should I?”
England looks right back at him, and tells him:
“Thorkell has plans to set out and capture your Forkbeard’s son.”
Well, he assures England, that’s what Askeladd’s hanging around for, and England bursts out laughing so hard, Denmark’s damn near sure the kid’s lost his mind for a moment there. But when he reminds the kid that this is Askeladd, son of Olaf they’re talking about, here, England can barely breathe, let alone force out the words-
“That's Lydia's son. You mean the son of Lydia.”
[1] The specific portion of the story here referenced.
[2] About Aethelred "the Unready" and the Danish seizure of England.
[3] About the askeladden, or "Ash-Lad" of Norwegian folklore.
[4] The Danish National Anthem, from which the title is drawn.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,564
Summary: Pertaining to the invasion of England by Denmark under Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013. A few others can come, too.
Notes: A Hetalia/Vinland Saga crossover, because it needed to be done. Footnoted slightly at the end.
Warnings: Danes Behaving Badly, reference to plot elements of Vinland Saga. Your mileage may vary; if you haven't read it? You totally should. If for no other reason than the mind-melting awesome.
A missive arrives pretty late in the summer campaign, a message from Norway to Denmark telling him how things are going back home and warning him not to trust in the songs of river-maidens or the promises of ash-children. Painfully cryptic; fucking typical Norway. Denmark folds the letter and tucks it against his breast for safekeeping.
He rises early on Saturday morning, well before dawn, to pen a short letter to his brother by oil lamplight:
‘Should arrive at London tomorrow. Will either talk with Aethelred or the runt, or lay siege- whichever winds up being easier. Bet you neither bathes.’
Nice and simple, just like that. He rolls the paper into a tight cylinder, seals it with both cord and wax, and hands it off to a lithe-looking herald who isn’t one of his people. He sends the man along with instructions to deliver the message to Norway by way of his king (“And if they give you trouble, tell them it’s from family,” he says), and with a little extra gold to make him lighter on his feet. Chalk it up to all that Christian charity he’s picked up with the years, he thinks, when he realizes it’s left his own coin pouch a little lighter at his hip. It’s made him soft. Maybe even a little bit too nice for his own liking.
Ah, well. Changing flow of the times and what have you, he supposes. He puts away his quill and ink, and he goes to clean himself up.
And, hey, what is he if not charitable these days? He washes his face, cleans his teeth, and combs his hair a little bit, but only just a little, which in and of itself is a move of charity. No need to go stealing the brat’s women as well as his throne. He sends along a second herald not too long afterwards, this time to England, and with an offer to parley with the kid, since he’s such a thoughtful guy. The word going around has it that Aethelred’s already picked up and ran for the hills, and even if Forkbeard’s eager to keep on marching for London, Denmark’s hesitant to just roll over and crush the kid.
Yeah. All this ‘love thy neighbor’ shit is starting to get to him, and in no small way.
The herald returns before sunset, with the same note Denmark sent him off with. The seal has been broken, he notes, and there is no reply message.
Well, then so be it, he thinks. If the kid wants a fight, he’ll get a fucking fight and he’ll get a Danish king on Aethelred’s empty throne before he can say “pater noster” five times fast, too. It’s no skin off his back.
Before going to sleep, he lays his axe down beside him, combs his hair again, and kneels to say his prayers- one for himself, one for his men, and one for the Englishmen who won’t live to pay tribute to their new king come Monday morning.
If green is the color of nature, then the color of man must be red, Denmark thinks. Deep, dark red, like blood, red to turn the colors of England’s fields. Except there are no fields in London, just chimney smoke and chickens and houses as far as the eye can see. Lots and lots of houses, and lots of angry Christians on a bridge. With arrows. And rocks.
And Denmark hates rocks.
But most of all, he hates really, really big rocks when they’re in Thorkell’s hands and Thorkell’s standing atop London bridge and just laughing his crazy ass off, because hello. He’s kind of trying to cut England a break, here, you know. And that’s just a fucking fine how-do-you-do from the kid. He’s stuck onshore with Forkbeard and far from the action, but he can hear the sounds of his men shouting to steer their vessels clear of the onslaught from the bridge and he can imagine England hiding at Thorkell’s ankles- little, filthy England with his clumsily-carved bow and his quiver full of arrows pulled from the throats of his own dead.
Little, filthy, kingless England.
(Well, nice to see you, too, brat, he thinks.)
He leans over to whisper to Sweyn:
“Yanno, I don’t speak English so good, but I’m pretty sure Thorkell’s saying he’ll be sticking with them.”
Sweyn says nothing, just grunts and rubs at his chin, and you know what? Fine, Denmark thinks. If he wants to be abstruse, let him. The fuck does he care. He goes on.
“Then again, if I know the crazy old bastard like I think I do, he’s in it just for kicks.”
And Denmark can grant him that. Thorkell’s a decent guy. In this day and age, he stands for a lot that Denmark wishes he himself still could, but what can you do? Changing flow of the times and all that crap. He goes where his king goes, and he says as his king says. So even though he wears a cross now and has to do his state building with words in the way of cowards and liars, he can respect all that Thorkell is and does.
The thought leaves him with some nasty pangs in his chest, but he tries not to think about that too hard.
Another grunt and moment later, Sweyn speaks- slowly. Calculating.
“What do you think of Askeladd and his men?”
“I think I wouldn’t trust him nearly as far I as I could throw him, Forkbeard,” he says. “Hell, definitely not as far as you could throw him.”
Askeladd says he goes where the money’s good, but Denmark knows. He can feel it, his sense for the guy isn’t as strong as it is with the king or any of his other people. Part of him’s Dane, but the other part isn’t even partly there. So while Askeladd might be backing him for now, that’s not to say his loyalties don’t lie elsewhere, not by a long fucking shot. He’s not sure how to break this to his king, though, since he’s never been good with using words to make an ugly situation sound pretty. And it’s a pretty fucking ugly situation they’ve got on their hands if he’s ever seen one. But Floki steps in with perfect timing, so he’s spared dealing with that shit show.
Sweyn manages to throw a quick -“that’s ‘your majesty’ to you, my State”- at him and Denmark rolls his eyes, because yeah, whatever, and they turn their attention to Floki.
“My liege,” he says, bowing low, all deferential-like. Fucking ass-kisser. Denmark doesn’t even bother to stand up straighter beside the king. “Thorkell has refused to surrender.”
“Toldja so,” Denmark sneers.
Sweyn nods.
“Very well, then.” He dismisses Floki with a wave of his hand. “Continue the siege.”
They do, for what it’s worth.
Not much, it seems.
Up close and personal, Thorfinn doesn’t really look like much.
Granted, he doesn’t look like much from a distance, either, but Denmark’s willing to bet that has a lot to do with Thorkell having been swinging him around up and down London Bridge like a ragdoll at the time. The kid might put up a decent fight against any old schmuck, but Thorkell the High’s a whole other beast entirely. And after he’s finished trashing the kid and Denmark’s split to go fish the kid out of the Thames and drag his sorry ass back to Askeladd, he dumps him in some hay in an abandoned barn near where they’re crashing for the night, the better to sleep things off. That done, he drops himself down onto a wooden crate to rest and get a look at the kid. And lying all limp like that with his face halfway to bashed-in, he’s gotta say, Thorfinn looks really fucking small. Pretty hard to believe this is the kind of trump card a guy like Askeladd keeps. Then again, fat lot of good it did him back at the bridge.
“Man,” he thinks more than says. “Tough, but cares for himself like an Englishman. I better not walk out of here tonight with any fleas.”
Askeladd doesn’t even give the kid so much as a once-over to check he isn’t dead, and Denmark winces a little despite himself. He’s all for tough love, sure, but that’s just brutal. He wonders if the guy wouldn’t leave the kid to die, if it came to that.
He probably would.
“And yet, you looked after him. Awfully generous of you,” Askeladd murmurs, with a quirk of his brow. Denmark isn’t sure how to read an expression like that, and if he didn’t like the guy before, well, shit. For that alone he finds himself disliking the guy even more. The sneaky bastard.
“He’s an interesting kid,” Denmark says. “And you don’t get to Valhalla if you go out facedown in the water.”
Askeladd gives him another one of those fucking brow quirks, this time one he’s pretty sure says “That, from a Christian state?” but he can’t really be assed to care.
“I mean, sure, he looks like a starving animal. Probably acts like one, too, the fuck do I know. But he took two fingers off of Thorkell,” he reminds the sly fucker. “And he’s like, what. Fifteen? Give him a few years to take on some height and get a little muscle on him. Then. Then, I bet he could give the guy a hell of a fight.”
Askeladd nods, hums a bit to himself.
“What?” Denmark asks.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Askeladd assures him, but a glance at his smile tells Denmark it’s not even close to nothing. Even if he can only read part of the guy, he knows Askeladd isn’t a man of idle thoughts. He’s being cute, Denmark thinks, the bastard. So he repeats himself, and he wonders if it isn’t worth shouldering his axe to make it extra clear that he really, truly wants to know:
“What?”
“Well…” and he trails off like he’s thinking real hard about this, like he hasn’t had it all lined up in his head from the get-go. “I suppose it’s possible. He is Thors’ son, after all.”
Denmark nearly pisses himself then and there.
“Thors?” He hops down off the crates, steps right in front of Askeladd so he can’t not meet his eyes. “Y’mean, as in Thors the Troll, Thors?”
He stares Askeladd down and Askeladd keeps on staring right back at him and through him. Behind them, Thorfinn stirs in his sleep, whimpering softly into the hay.
“Just the one.”
“…well, fuck me,” Denmark says. “The son of the Troll.”
“Don’t get too excited, now,” Askeladd warns him, turning towards the door. “He’s born and raised an Icelander.”
Denmark watches the kid toss and turn and moan in his sleep a while after Askeladd leaves. And when he’s good and tired and ready to get some sleep himself, he bends to gather his cloak from the ground and heads off to find his king.
Jesus Christ, the son of the Troll.
A herald stands waiting for him at the barn door, and he comes bearing a folded, sealed message. Denmark’s gotta wonder how long he’s been standing there like that; since he doesn’t know, though, he gives the guy some gold for his promptness and directs him towards some decent wine for his pains. When he’s alone, he opens the message.
It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the English on the page. Reading is still pretty new to his people, he’s only been doing it with relative ease for about a century or so. And hell, that’s even in his own tongue, so you’d better believe that making sense of English words on paper isn’t any kind of small task. But it’s not like too many of his men are any good with England’s clunky words or Latin script, and like hell would he trust Askeladd with a missive from the brat. So even though it takes a couple of read-throughs, he manages to glean what matters from the note.
They will meet at sunrise. Their kings are to stay out of this.
Okay, fine. He thinks he can do that.
When they convene beneath the bridge (and you know, it’s really more like a fortress than a bridge, his men weren’t kidding about that), the sun’s already begun to stain the sky red-gold; by then Denmark hasn’t slept much, and sure enough, England hasn’t bathed, either.
Figures.
Denmark arrives first, and when he sees England approaching, he stands, lifts a hand. He does it partially as a genuine greeting, yeah, but mostly it’s to show that he’s left his weapons behind him in good faith. The brat must’ve been counting on that, too, because he looks Denmark up and down real careful before getting anywhere near close to him. Denmark snorts.
“Easy, kiddo,” he says. “You asked for a talk, so I’m here to talk.” When England draws nearer, slinging his bow over his back, he asks, “So, now that we’re ready to play like civilized people…what’s the story?”
“Don’t be cute with me, you know damn well why I wrote.”
“’Fraid not!” And with this, Denmark throws on his most amicable-like grin. “Seeing as I coulda sworn I offered you a parley before!”
“Things were different before.”
“Think we both had a few men extra apiece before.”
England spits on the ground.
“I didn’t come here for a pissing contest,” he hisses. “You already know what became of Aethelred.”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about! Of course I know- when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled!”
Ooh, ouch, that one must’ve stung to the quick, Denmark thinks. He can see England’s fists balling up at his sides. He wonders if he can push the kid hard enough that he’ll actually point an arrow at him. He probably can- the kid’s small and dirty and kingless, and he’s got a sour-ass temper on him. It probably wouldn’t take much.
“Fuck you,” England snarls. “Your king’s already got what he wants, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, actually. Yeah he does. Which is why,” Denmark says, leaning back against the bridge supports, “I can’t even fucking imagine what’s left to talk about. You’re not about to ask me to hand the throne back over, are you?”
One of England’s hands goes to the bow, and strike one for Denmark.
“Leave your king. Leave his main forces, too, if you have to. But you take all other groups you’ve contracted and clear them out of here. I want them out, and away from my people.”
“Yeah?” Denmark sneers. He’s gotta admit, it’s a pretty ballsy move on the kid’s part to even ask, and he’s not the kind of guy to not give credit where credit’s due. He looks at the kid, and really, truly looks at him, right in the eye and asks, “And why should I?”
England looks right back at him, and tells him:
“Thorkell has plans to set out and capture your Forkbeard’s son.”
Well, he assures England, that’s what Askeladd’s hanging around for, and England bursts out laughing so hard, Denmark’s damn near sure the kid’s lost his mind for a moment there. But when he reminds the kid that this is Askeladd, son of Olaf they’re talking about, here, England can barely breathe, let alone force out the words-
“That's Lydia's son. You mean the son of Lydia.”
[1] The specific portion of the story here referenced.
[2] About Aethelred "the Unready" and the Danish seizure of England.
[3] About the askeladden, or "Ash-Lad" of Norwegian folklore.
[4] The Danish National Anthem, from which the title is drawn.