Chapter 48: Reunion

In 1014, Danish-held York, which its Viking rulers call Jorvik, brims with English captives sold off from the war. Leif Ericson questions a slaver, explaining he seeks Thorfinn, the son of his old friend Thors, missing for eleven years since the age of six or seven. The trader doubts a child that young could still be alive but agrees to buy him on sight, and Leif offers to pay double, adding that the boy has blond hair and brown eyes.

Aboard his knarr, Mols gently argues that after eleven years and many wasted purchases it may be time to give up, but Leif insists the debt owed to Thors, who once saved them from pirates, must be repaid, and suspects Thorfinn stowed away aboard those raiders to avenge his father. Their talk breaks off as men clear the pier for an incoming procession of important ships. Canute's retinue glides in, and the prince asks Askeladd whether they are ready for whatever Sweyn intends. Askeladd predicts the king will grant Canute and Thorkell separate territories to split their forces under the guise of reward, and floats a bolder scheme: letting the prince appear to die.

From his deck Leif recognizes Askeladd as the pirate who killed Thors. In the crowd overlooking the docks, a cloaked man raises a crossbow and puts a bolt into Canute's chest. Askeladd bellows that the prince is hit and orders shields raised. As the attacker moves to ditch his weapon, Thorfinn cuts him off. Desperate for any thread leading to the boy, Leif leaps onto the docks and runs after the ship; the wounded assassin collapses at his feet, and Thorfinn drops down to finish him, then turns to find a stunned Leif staring back.

Leif searches Jorvik's slave markets for Thorfinn and refuses Mols's plea to abandon the hunt, honoring his debt to Thors. Canute and Askeladd discuss countering Sweyn's plan to divide their forces, with Askeladd hinting at faking the prince's death. A hidden crossbowman shoots Canute; Thorfinn intercepts and kills the assassin on the docks. Leif, recognizing Askeladd, rushes ashore and comes face to face with the grown Thorfinn.

Titled Saikai in Japanese, this forty-eighth chapter continues Volume 7 and was adapted in Episode 21. It reunites Thorfinn with Leif Ericson for the first time since his childhood in Iceland and quietly plants the ruse of Canute's body double, whose truth is revealed in the following chapter. Floki's confidence that his cards will trump Askeladd's foreshadows the coming reversal at York.