"If men built it, then men can tear it down."
"Not if God protects it." Humbert's free hand made a strange sign, touching his head, chest, and both shoulders. He had seen Toki's wife, Halla, make the same signs in her prayers to the dead god. Several of the crew eyed Humbert suspiciously, though Ulfrik shook his head and returned to the tiller. Toki waved and shouted across the waters.
"I hope the Franks pay the ransom."
Ulfrik waved agreement, and the two ships continued forward with the main fleet. Ulfrik had managed a position close to Hrolf's and Gunther's ships, which were behind the front of the formation. Sigfrid led the way to Paris, and though nominally all ships were under his command, his personal count was still higher than any single jarl. Additionally, his ships towed massive war engines and siege supplies stored on crewless vessels. During the journey south, Ulfrik had seen them disassembled, tied down, and covered against the weather, and wondered how they would be used. Gunther One-Eye told him Sigfrid had experienced men to work them, and in one day the machines would turn any city into rubble. He trusted Gunther's assessment, and spit on the deck to dismiss his worries.
Following Sigfrid's lead, the massive fleet pulled onto the shore northwest of Paris. While plans had been shared, not everyone remembered or followed them. Some ships continued forward while others dropped anchor, and others collided amid shouts and the cracking of broken oars. Being close to Hrolf guaranteed he understood the plan. Sigfrid would allow Paris to buy their lives at a dear price before he attacked.
"By Odin's one eye, can you smell that?" Snorri asked as he assisted with taking in the sail. "Did all of Paris shit their trousers at once?"
"It's the smell of big cities," said a flat-nosed man called Thorkel. "London is the same. I visited there with my uncle as a boy. They smell worse inside."
Thrand glared with his good eye at Humbert, who still leaned over the railings and watched Paris like it was his lover. "So is shit what you've got waiting for you, slave? Is that your treasure?"
Humbert ignored Thrand, but Ulfrik hissed through his teeth. He fell silent and returned to his task. Thrand's carelessness with their secret began to grate on Ulfrik. Had he not been a better man before drinking consumed his wits, Ulfrik would have dismissed him. Yet Thrand had once risked his life to save his wife and son, and he could not put aside that debt. Thrand, for all his careless bluster, deserved respect.
Ulfrik and his crew disembarked, taking their shields off the racks but leaving their mail aboard. The bank of the Seine was muddy and soft, and the forest grew nearly to the river's edge. Sigfrid had found a cleared section for enough of the fleet to gather. Masses of excited men clustered and pointed at Paris, many hurled curses and insults at the fat block of stone plunked into the heart of the river. Ulfrik arranged his men in loose groups and waited for orders. Soon, Gunther One-Eye shoved through the crowd.
"Hrolf wants you at the parley," Gunther proclaimed without preamble. He stood as if he had just awarded Ulfrik the kingdom of Frankia. "Meet at Sigfrid's ship."
"And why me and not one of his other boot-lickers?"
"He needs men thinking men. That'd be you and me."
"I'll bring my slave to translate." He pointed at Humbert, who suddenly became wide-eyed and pale.
"No." Gunther pushed Ulfrik's arm to his side. "Just you. Besides, we've got Franks who speak Norse on our side. Now get into your war gear and be fast."
Gunther slipped away into the crowd, and Ulfrik gave bemused looks to his crew. Toki congratulated him.
"It's an honor to go. You bring glory to all of us."
Nodding, he clapped Toki's back and boarded his ship to wear his mail hauberk. He ensured his silver armbands showed beneath the short mail sleeves. The lack of silver and gold adornments fed his self-consciousness. The entire time he wore his mail and traveled to Sigfrid's ship, he fretted over his status. No matter how close he stood to Hrolf, he would look like a farmer playing at a lord.
Before he had left, Snorri had surmised his thoughts and grabbed him close to growl confidence into him. "You're every bit their equal. What you wear on your arm is not as important as what you carry in your heart."
The words buoyed him, but now standing in the ring of men attending the parley, his confidence fell out. Sigfrid was his usual self, a glittering mound of iron and gold. He took three bodyguards who wore mail and helmets scoured to unusual brightness. One shouldered an ax engraved with coiling dragons. The wealth of his three men glistened like scales of a fish. Only Hrolf, Gunther, and himself wore more practical gear.
Sigfrid snorted and spit, then frowned at all of them. "If you've got a message for the Franks, let's hear it now. When we get up there, I do the talking."
"You'll do well to remember we're all equals here," Hrolf chided, though Ulfrik knew he bridled the power of his voice.
"And you'll remember I invited you to the feast, and that I dumped my fortune into the machines that'll tear up their walls. So I do the talking. Clear?"
Muscles twitched about Hrolf's jaw, though he remained silent.
They boarded Sigfrid's high-sided ship and a crew of thirty men rowed them up the current to where the mighty tower brooded in front of the bridge. Each jarl gathered his own men, Hrolf herding them to the prow where no one else stood. "Sigfrid places himself over us," he said to Ulfrik and Gunther. "He is like clear ice on a pond. I can see to the bottom of what he desires. But know this, I bend a knee to no one and you two only bend a knee to me. We decide whether to listen to Sigfrid. Remember that."
As the distance closed, Ulfrik observed the bridge, which was constructed of stone. Sitting low to the water, no ship could pass beneath. The sides of the bridge provided cover for defenders and prevented scaling. Ulfrik admired the clever construction and anticipated crossing it in victory. Parisians already lined it, the tops of their conical helmets glinting. Many of the crew began to joke about children wearing their father's armor, but Ulfrik was more interested in the walls of Paris itself. From this distance, he could see no way inside. Humbert, if he had been honest, promised a secret entrance. While he did not expect to see it at a glance, he could not imagine where it existed. Every approach to the walls was observed from multiple angles. He wiped his face and shoved the worry aside for another day.
Sigfrid pulled ashore a safe distance from the tower, then gathered them on the banks. His crew remained with the ship, but one man joined the group. He was a head shorter than all of them, dressed in plain clothes of green and gray but bearing a shield with Sigfrid's colors of black and yellow. He looked at no one, and went directly to Sigfrid's side. Curiously, he unfurled a white flag and held it aloft.
"What is that standard?" Ulfrik whispered to Gunther.
"Not a standard. It shows the Franks we come in peace."
Ulfrik swallowed his laughter. "The bright white blinds them to the thousands of berserks waiting behind us?"
Gunther and Ulfrik followed behind Hrolf, and all of them watched as the gates of the tower popped open and a party of armed men emerged.
"They're like children," remarked one of the men, and Sigfrid laughed.
"Makes it easier to crack open their heads," he replied. "Don't have to swing too high."
Nervous laughter filled the moments it took for the Frankish party to cross the grass. Ulfrik's eyes flicked between the parley group and the Franks of the tower and bridge, expecting treachery from men who he did not expect to understand honor. The foul odor of the city hung in his nostrils, and that repulsiveness transferred to the Franks who arrived before them.