Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 195 Royal Palace
After hearing the vassal's words, Sora and Asura exchanged a glance, thinking they had misheard.

This person refuses to pay inheritance tax, yet dares to ask me for money?
Outrageous!

Sora's tone was icy. "My lord, are you deliberately picking a fight?" As soon as she finished speaking, the palace guards around her stepped forward in unison, their right hands gripping the hilts of their swords.

Esselbad, 25, was impulsive and roared in the hall, holding up a note: "Why should the Prime Minister deny the loan on behalf of the Royal Family?"

Aslaci: "We acknowledge the debt, but it was agreed last year that, with the unanimous consent of the nobles, this type of debt would be temporarily frozen and repaid in installments starting three years later. My lord, if you wish to inherit the title of Wessex, please surrender silver, or goods and land of equivalent value."

“Where would we get the money?” Esselbad’s voice was still deep and strong. “In the last two years, the royal family has raised the export tax on wool, and my family’s income has shrunk dramatically. My father is the Minister of the Sea in the cabinet, and he hasn’t earned a penny in salary. You even forced him to borrow a thousand pounds. We’re broke. We’re completely broke!”

His face flushed red, and the veins on his neck bulged; he was clearly furious. The two queens exchanged glances, and this time it was Sora's turn to speak.

"My lord, rules are rules. Please pay up, or the royal family will not recognize your rule over Wessex."

Having said that, Esselbad calmed down. "Fine, then so be it. I'll wait for you to send troops to take over Winchester. I want to see how the nobles across the country will react."

After uttering those harsh words, Ethelbad strode away. Outside the palace gates, a servant approached him and whispered a suggestion, only to be rudely pushed away. "I won't pay! I won't pay silver, I won't pay supplies, not a single hair!"

Now that the king is in a coma, the royal family's prestige has been greatly damaged, and the royal guard has lost more than half of its troops, Esserbad is not afraid of these more than a thousand defeated soldiers.

Of course, the two queens could use their position as regents to summon the feudal lords to launch a joint attack. The question is, would the powerful nobles send troops?

Upon returning to Winchester, Ethelbad officially took charge of affairs in the name of the new Duke, ignoring the royal condemnation.

By November, the two queens felt they had lost face and were determined to eliminate this traitor. They convened their cabinet members to discuss plans to send troops to Wessex.

Suddenly, War Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Guard, Orm, spoke up: "Your Majesty, I have some matters to attend to and need to leave for a while."

Not long ago, Om received news that his eldest son had died of illness in a prisoner-of-war camp in West Frankish, and his second son had been shot in the arm with an arrow during the Battle of Auxerre and was in equally poor health, and was estimated not to survive much longer in the prisoner-of-war camp.

Since the two royal families could not reach an agreement, Om decided to raise the money himself to redeem his second son.

He commissioned a priest to go to Calais to gather information, and Lambert agreed to help, offering five hundred pounds, since he was the only male heir and the price should be higher.

Clearly, Orm couldn't afford the money. He was in a hurry to return to Sussex to take stock of his assets and write to his colleagues to borrow money, hoping to rescue his second son as quickly as possible.

The commander of the royal guard requested leave to return to his hometown, and the queens tentatively wrote letters to Ivar, Vig, Nils, and others, only to be met with perfunctory replies or harsh rejections.

Aside from Duke Ivar, who was heavily indebted, the royal family owed money to all the high-ranking nobles, and hadn't even paid their overtime wages for this year, nearly triggering a mutiny among the lower-ranking soldiers. Everyone harbored resentment, but they just didn't show it; today they were attacking Wessex, and who knows, tomorrow it might be their turn.

In December, the conflict between the two sides turned into a farce, with the citizens of Rendeneum betting on which side would back down first. Through the mediation of Prime Minister Goodwin, both sides compromised, and Ethelbad agreed to pay 150 pounds sterling in exchange for royal recognition.

From the outside perspective, the royal family undoubtedly lost this conflict. They almost broke with their vassals over such a small sum of money and subsequently showed signs of weakness and incompetence, causing nobles and merchants to gradually have other ideas.

In early 857 AD.

At dawn, heavy snow fell, and a large flock of black ravens circled above the palace. Sora, annoyed by the noisy birds, could only tease her small, snow-white pet dog.

"Good boy, pick him up."

The Queen sat on the edge of her bed in the bedroom, repeatedly tossing an embroidered ball to her pet dog to fetch and return it to her. After some time, the fourth prince, Uber, burst into his mother's room.

"Mom, give me the money."

"What do you want to buy now?" Sora gestured for the maid to take the pet dog away, then looked at her soon-to-be fifteen-year-old son with a stern face.

"I've made some new friends and I'm planning to treat them to drinks."

Viking social activities were always inseparable from alcohol. The lower classes drank beer and ale, while Ube, as a prince of high status, would naturally entertain his friends with mead and wine.

Her son would be turning fifteen next month. As an adult, he would have many things to handle and needed to build a wide network of connections to avoid repeating Hafdan's mistakes. Thinking of this, Sora used a brass key to open the bottom of the dressing table and pulled out a small stack of gold coins.

"The national treasury is empty recently, so we should be careful with our spending."

Sora handed over the gold coins with her left hand, her right hand unconsciously reaching for her son's hair. Uber was very uncomfortable with this childhood treatment; he snatched the money and rushed out of the bedroom as fast as he could, his rough, hoarse voice echoing down the hallway.

"Mom, I won't be coming home to stay overnight for the next few days. Tell the guards not to bother me!"

After her son left, Sora sighed softly, put on her coat, and strolled in the snow to clear her mind. In the distance, she saw Sigurd, Enya, and a group of children having a snowball fight. She felt inexplicably sad and couldn't help but miss the way Uber looked when he was a child.

At noon, Sora managed to eat some beef stewed in red wine, slept for a little over two hours, and chatted with several wealthy ladies who had come to visit. Time passed unnoticed, the sky outside the window gradually darkened, the ladies dispersed one by one, and the dull and tedious day finally came to an end.

After dinner, Sora read Northrend novels by candlelight. These books came from Tyneburg and covered a wide range of themes, including dragonborn, assassins, and witchers. Some nobles in Lundinium were particularly obsessed with them, and some even treated the plots of the novels as reality, having blacksmiths forge many strange and unusual weapons.

After a long while, Sora closed the book, rubbing her tired and sore eyes. "What a womanizer, just how many lovers does he intend to have?"

Meanwhile, the ravens above the palace grew increasingly noisy. Sora cursed under her breath, then had a maid cook a small pot of cinnamon stewed in red wine. After drinking it, she fell into a deep sleep.
Early the next morning, the Queen was shaken awake by her personal maid, who looked terrified and muttered, "Your Majesty has woken up. The shaman requests your presence immediately."

(End of this chapter)