Chapter 61: The Way of Blood

Following King Sweyn's death in 1014, the English take up arms against the Danes once more, with both Canute, who seized power, and Ethelred the Second, returned from Normandy, claiming the rightful crown. In 1015, near the frontier between Mercia and the Danelaw, Canute rides with Gunnar through a ravaged countryside. Learning that his advance troops are looting and hunting girls to enslave, Canute condemns the practice as outlawed and orders every offender beheaded, their heads mounted on spikes along the road as a warning. Gunnar protests that plunder is an accepted custom of war, but Canute answers that anyone who defies his army's laws is no soldier of his.

Floki kneels and welcomes Canute, insisting the negotiations hardly require his personal presence, but Canute overrides him and dismisses the idea that Eadric's timid nature makes him worthless, saying a man's character and his usefulness as a pawn are separate matters. He admits he also came to settle Thorkell, who charges up, greets him with insults, and rages at being pulled from battle when Mercia sued for truce. Thorkell fumes that a fight is not finished until the enemy commander falls and that Eadric's head was nearly his.

Floki reports that Ethelred's son Edmund is stirring suspiciously in the east and that Thorkell's strength will be wanted there. Thorkell brushes him off and reminds Canute of his own words, that he would watch what the prince becomes with his own eyes. He warns that Canute, still a green boy who is not yet King of England, cannot keep avoiding his battles and must cut through the road ahead by blood and iron as Askeladd did, then walks away, granting Canute leniency only this once. When Gunnar bristles at the insolence, Canute calls the advice sound and admires Thorkell's openness. Riding on to Eadric, Canute is presented a hoard worth roughly four thousand pounds of silver in exchange for pulling his troops from Mercia. He calls the offering far too cheap.

War resumes in England after Sweyn's death, with Canute and Ethelred the Second both claiming the throne. Canute orders his own pillaging soldiers beheaded to enforce his army's laws. Thorkell confronts him for halting the fight against Mercia and demands he stop avoiding his own battles. Floki reveals Edmund's suspicious movements in the east. Canute meets Eadric of Mercia and rejects his bribe of some four thousand pounds of silver as too cheap.

The sixty-first chapter belongs to Volume 9 and was adapted in Episode 29. Its epigraph comes from Canute as he demands the execution of his lawbreaking troops, underscoring the harsh discipline of the ruler he is becoming.