Chapter 72: The Curse of the Head

Following King Sweyn's death in 1014, his lands were divided between his sons, with Denmark passing to the elder Harald and England to the younger Canute. The brothers remained close, and Harald even lent a great fleet to help Canute subdue England, but after Canute took the English throne in 1018 Harald fell ill with no heir to follow him. Arriving at Harald's base in Jelling, Canute lingers outside to watch children at play and feel the wind, having been away for years. Wulf welcomes him and reports that Harald's sickness has advanced so far he can no longer hold a conversation, and Canute accepts that his brother has only days left.

Recalling how Harald never let succession rivalries poison his affection and how much he aided the English campaign, Canute watches a stray ball roll toward him and, wide-eyed, briefly sees it as Sweyn's severed head. At the bedside his younger sister Estrid greets him too familiarly and is reminded to call him Your Majesty. Harald wakes, weakly clasps Canute's hand, and declares he is leaving him Denmark; Canute urges him not to speak as though death were certain. Then Harald's face becomes Sweyn's, mocking Canute for how convincingly he now lies and for offering deathbed comforts to the very brother he poisoned. The apparition insists Harald's death serves not Canute's dreamed-of paradise but his raw hunger to rule the North Sea, naming this the curse of the crown from which there is no escape, and warns that bearing two crowns will double his suffering. Snapped back by a worried Estrid, Canute claims mere dizziness and retires to a chamber, where he refuses an offered drink whose source no one can name. There the head reappears on the floor, taunting that Canute dreads poison because he is a poisoner, and that daylight visions mean the curse nears its peak. After sending away an eavesdropping servant, Canute confesses that his paradise demands a single unified realm and that two kings could only breed conflict, then laughs that the father he once hated and wished dead has become the only one he can speak to freely. Donning the crown, he proposes they be friends as fellow bearers of the curse, and the head fades away.

The chapter recaps the 1014 division of Sweyn's realm and Harald's aid to Canute's conquest of England. On his deathbed in Jelling, the heirless Harald bequeaths Denmark to Canute, uniting both crowns under him. Canute is revealed to have poisoned his own brother, and he is haunted throughout by the hallucinated severed head of King Sweyn, who names his ambition the curse of the crown. Canute embraces the curse, accepting the throne and confessing that Sweyn's specter is now his only honest confidant.

The chapter shifts from the farm to the royal storyline, charting Canute's transformation into a ruthless king willing to murder family for his vision of a unified kingdom. Sweyn's recurring apparition continues the psychological haunting introduced in the earlier arc. The events were adapted in Episode 34 of the anime.