Two weeks passed, and November of 865 was making its presence fully felt. The winter cold froze the vegetation and blanketed the paths of the Kingdom of Alba in white.
King Constantine I and his eight hundred men finished setting up camp a few miles from Dunkeld, immediately sending his scouts to check the city’s surroundings.
Hárekr, aware that the time had come, inspected the noble women. They looked well presented, much better than when he found them in the monastery. He looked at Thorir, who would be in charge of the transfer, and he nodded instantly.
Accompanied by three mounted warriors, Thorir guided the twenty noble women out of the city. They came out lined up one behind the other, tied to each other by a rope.
They advanced at a good pace and, shortly after, the Pictish scouts and the army’s main strategist discovered them. Seeing them approach alongside the four mounted Vikings, the Pictish commission came out to meet them. The strategist observed Thorir carefully and asked in a calm tone:
"Where do you come from... From Norway?"
Thorir stared at the man, immediately noticing he wore excellent quality armor and had the bearing of a high military commander. True to his instructions, he did not say a single word.
It was the oldest noble woman who took the floor, her voice trembling with nervousness:
"This warrior is the sworn brother of the Nordic leader... The son of Lagertha and Ragnarr."
The Pictish strategist was startled upon hearing the translation of those words. The feats of Ragnarr, the man who had scourged the island’s coasts for years, were well known throughout the territory, as was the reputation of his sons. Surprised, the strategist asked:
"Aren’t the sons of Ragnarr camped to the south, in East Anglia?"
The Pictish woman replied full of fear:
"I do not know... Lord Cináed, that Viking is too cruel..."
The strategist looked the women up and down: they wore clean clothes, were not beaten, and looked healthy. He thought to himself: ’Cruel?’. He doubted the old woman’s exaggeration, but preferred to keep listening. The woman continued:
"The Viking chieftain is willing to release the nobles he has locked in the city... But only under one condition."
The Pictish commander gripped his horse’s reins tightly. Deep in his mind, he already perfectly suspected where this new Nordic leader’s blackmail was aiming.
The woman took a breath and finished pronouncing Hárekr’s demands:
Saying this, the old woman became extremely nervous. She knew very well that Thorir and his three warriors had a strict order: if the negotiations failed, they were to kill them right there without the slightest mercy. Trembling, she begged Cináed:
"Only then will they leave the Pictish soil... And they will not raid these lands again."
The Pictish strategist, trying to buy some time, replied:
"I must notify the king of this immediately."
He implied that the king himself was traveling with the army, which complicated any attempt at negotiation. The noble woman, hearing this, fell to her knees in the snow, crying with fear and crying out for compassion. Cináed turned his horse around and signaled a scout to ride out at a gallop to inform the king.
Thorir and his men watched the whole scene in silence. Beside him, the Norwegian interpreter listened carefully to every word and murmured to Thorir in a low voice:
"They are going to warn the king... Apparently, the king himself is here with his troops."
Thorir and the warriors nodded coldly; they cared exactly nothing if the king himself was a few miles away. As a mere tactical precaution, they backed their horses up a few meters to keep their distance.
Half an hour passed until the ground began to rumble. In the distance, a large column of cavalry appeared headed by the other two chieftains of the Pictish army. One of them shouted at Thorir with arrogance:
"We are going to war, Northmen! There will be no kind of negotiation with you!"
The interpreter looked at Thorir, who had already grasped the enemy man’s defiant attitude. The other Pictish chieftain added with contempt:
"Cowards... Trying to negotiate hiding behind simple women."
Behind the cavalry, hundreds of foot soldiers began to deploy, displaying all their military might. However, neither Thorir nor the three warriors accompanying him changed their expression. Without showing the slightest doubt, they drew their bows and aimed directly at the noble women. They would fulfill Hárekr’s order without hesitation.
Cináed, seeing the arrows ready to be fired, shouted desperately at the other chieftains. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
"Those women are the wives of the nobles of Dunkeld! If they die this way, the families of the entire kingdom will rise up against us."
The two newly arrived chieftains changed their expressions, showing a slight trace of nervousness. They had underestimated the bloody determination of the Northmen.
Thorir was already about to give the order to release the strings, when suddenly...
The very King Constantine I made his way through the ranks. He rode a steed with finely embroidered caparisons and wore a crown of wrought gold at his temples. The king observed the prisoners and asked them with absolute coldness:
"You are going to die for the kingdom. Are you in agreement?"
He said it with a completely detached tone. The women, terrified, burst into inconsolable tears on the snow.
Thorir saw the man arrive. Without flinching, he dictated precise words to the Norwegian interpreter, who translated them shouting so they would resonate across the field:
"Enemy king! The one who occupies your lands is not just any Viking... It is Hárekr Ragnarrsson himself, son of Ragnarr!"
The interpreter loaded the surname with all the weight of Viking nobility and ferocity, then added:
"Accept the negotiation and the warriors of the fjords will leave in peace! If you refuse, the entire Kingdom of Alba will be filled with frozen blood."
Constantine I hesitated. Knowing he was facing a direct son of Ragnarr, added to the rumors of the immense army gathering in the south, made him doubt for a second. However, two of his chieftains tried to revive his pride:
"My king, do not fall for the threats of these pagans!"
"Let us attack at once!" —added the other.
The king turned his gaze toward Cináed, his trusted strategist. He approached and advised him in a low voice:
"My lord, let us ask them for time to think about it... We do not know how many men he really has. If he is the son of that Viking king, he must have landed with a numerous host."
Cináed looked at the frozen ground before concluding:
"Marching to a war of attrition in the middle of winter is madness. And besides... There are nobles in the capital waiting for any excuse to rebel against the crown."