Episode 12: The Land on the Far Bank

Askeladd approaches a man dozing over a fishing line who admits his real trade is running the ferry. Rather than pay to move his whole band, the mercenary hands over a single letter and instructs that it reach one of the elders, signed as Askeladd, son of Lydia. The courier hurries off at once. Back in the ranks, Ragnar demands to know why the march has stalled, and Ear, straining to listen, reports that the pursuing enemy has closed to a single day behind them.

Askeladd reveals he has called for reinforcements and orders the men to keep running until relief comes. Bjorn notes that the leader has grown strange ever since glimpsing Canute's face, and Askeladd credits decades among criminals for his ability to read a man at a glance, concluding the prince is no king yet still a child with a future ahead. After several grinding days without sleep, the column emerges from fog to find two riders waiting on a bridge, and a whistle summons a ship from the mist to carry everyone across.

Thorkell arrives to learn a non-Norse vessel has spirited Askeladd over the river, and he explains to his men that the far shore is not England but Wales, a mountainous, resource-poor region that never unified after Rome and answered the mercenary's plea through one of its kingdoms. On the eastern edge of Morgannwg, Ragnar hopes to sail home to Gainsborough, but Askeladd refuses to seize the small kingdom's precious warships and insists on continuing by land. He assigns Thorfinn to guard Canute, who cowers behind Ragnar at the young warrior's glare, and promises Thorfinn a duel once they reach Gainsborough.

The Welsh commander, introduced as Gratianus, general of Morgannwg, sizes up the prince's weak eyes and doubts he could ever rule England. He states Wales aids Canute only to secure a treaty of non-aggression, and grows irritated when Ragnar answers on the prince's behalf, choosing to postpone the matter and draft a document. As the march climbs into the hills, the men fantasize about Sweyn's reward and his hundred women, while Willibald insists that gold and women mean nothing without the thing he prizes, which he calls love.

Nearing Brycheiniog, Gratianus explains that its people act out of fear that England may one day invade, and he presses Askeladd on whether Canute is truly his king. When the mercenary voices high hopes for the prince, the general counters that his people descend from Britannia and will follow no Danish ruler, still clinging to the legend of Artorius returning from Avalon to restore their nation.

Ear catches a warning sound and relays it to Bjorn, and Askeladd stops Gratianus just as two Brycheiniog messengers appear. The envoys realize they have been found out but declare it too late, and moments later archers rise along the hills and rain arrows down on the column. Far away, the trader Leif spots a fair-haired young slave and briefly mistakes him for Thorfinn, a thread the episode leaves dangling.