Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 38: Auditor’s Long Night

York (Governor’s Quarters)

Princess Gyda, the Mistress of the Ledger and arguably the most dangerous woman in Northumbria, sat alone.

The only flaw in the scene was the expression on her face. It was a look of profound irritation.

She was dismantling a Torsion Spike trigger mechanism, cleaning the springs with an oiled rag.

"Sigh.."

She let out a breath that ruffled the papers on her desk. It had been a month since the wedding at Jernheim. A month since the conquest of York. And in that time, her husband, the Director of Industry, had spent exactly three nights in their shared bed.

She had sent Bjorn to find him multiple times. Every time, the giant would return with the same sheepish report:

"He is in the Foundry, Sister. He is yelling at the carbon mixture."

"He is in the School, Sister. He is teaching the thralls how to calculate hypotenuses."

"He is in the sewer, Sister. He says the drainage is inefficient."

Gyda reassembled the trigger with a violent snap.

For a fleeting moment, a dark thought crossed her mind. Was there someone else? A shield-maiden? A captured Saxon noblewoman?

But she immediately rejected the idea. Ragnar didn’t have the social bandwidth for an affair. He barely had the bandwidth for a conversation that didn’t involve metallurgy. When they had courted, he had given her a crossbow. When they married, he gave her a steel ring. If he were seeing another woman, he would probably try to optimize her walking speed or standardize her jewelry.

No, his mistress was Industry. And she was a demanding lover.

Gyda knew that building an empire was hard. Her father, King Horik, had spent years raiding. But raiding was simple: you go, you kill, you take, you leave.

Ragnar was trying to do something impossible. He was trying to make Vikings stay. He was trying to turn wolves into shepherds, and raiders into accountants. The sheer mental load of the "Education Act" and the "Caste Reform" was enough to crush a lesser man.

Still, being abandoned for a Blast Furnace stung.

Her mind began to wander. Was he eating? Was he sleeping? Or was he going to collapse into a vat of molten iron and leave her to manage the entire budget alone?

"If he dies from stupidity," Gyda muttered to the empty room, "I will resurrect him and kill him again."

A sound came from the heavy oak door. Not a knock. It sounded more like a large, wet sack of potatoes hitting the wood.

Gyda stood up instantly. Her hand went to the Valkyrie’s Sting on the table. She moved silently to the door, her leather boots making no sound on the stone.

"Identify," she commanded, her voice sharp.

"Inventory..." a voice croaked from the other side. "Delivery..."

Gyda’s eyes widened. She threw the bolt and yanked the heavy door open.

She expected an assassin. She expected a messenger.

Instead, she found a creature that looked vaguely like her husband.

Ragnar stood in the hallway. He was covered head to toe in a mixture of charcoal dust, white lime powder from the paper mill, and what looked suspiciously like squid ink. He smelled of sulfur, sweat, and burnt hair.

He blinked at her, his eyes red-rimmed and unfocused.

"Gyda," he whispered, a lopsided grin appearing through the grime. "I fixed... the curriculum. The thralls... they know the alphabet."

He stepped forward, arms wide, as if to embrace her.

"I missed you," he mumbled.

Gyda, whose reflexes were honed by weeks of target practice, instinctively side-stepped to avoid the avalanche of filth.

"Do not touch the silk!" she warned.

Ragnar, expecting a supportive wife to catch him, found only empty air. Momentum carried him forward.

He face-planted onto the bear-skin rug. He didn’t move. He just lay there, a pile of industrial byproduct in the shape of a man.

"..."

From the hallway, the two Huscarl guards members of Jernheim’s elite security stared at the fallen Director. They bit their lips. Their shoulders shook. One of them turned purple trying to hold back a laugh.

Gyda shot them a glare that could have frozen magma.

"If you laugh," she said softly, "I will audit your pay for the last three years."

The guards instantly stood at attention, their faces stone-cold. "We see nothing, Mistress. The floor is... slippery."

Gyda looked down at Ragnar. He was snoring softly into the fur.

The irritation vanished, replaced by a strange, grudging affection. He looked pathetic. He looked like a boy who had played too hard in the mud. But she knew that "mud" was the foundation of a kingdom that terrified the rest of England.

"Idiot," she sighed. "Brilliant, dirty idiot."

She couldn’t leave him there. The floor was cold, and he was the most valuable asset in the army.

She crouched down and grabbed him by the back of his tunic.

"Up," she grunted.

He was heavy. Dense. It was all that muscle he’d built swinging hammers, combined with the weight of the sheer exhaustion dragging him down.

She dragged him across the room. His boots scraped across the stone.

"Calculated..." Ragnar mumbled in his sleep. "The vector... is optimal..."

"The only vector right now is towards the bath," Gyda cursed, hauling him onto the sofa.

She looked at him. He was too dirty for the bed. But he was too tired to wash.

She compromised. She pulled off his heavy, soot-stained boots. She unbuckled his belt with the heavy tools attached. She took a wet cloth and wiped the worst of the charcoal from his face, revealing the pale skin and the dark circles underneath.

"You smell like a dragon’s armpit," she whispered, covering him with a heavy wool blanket.

She sat on the edge of the sofa, watching him sleep. His breathing was deep and rhythmic. For the first time in a month, the manic energy was gone. The machine was powered down.

Gyda touched his cheek. It was rough, but warm.

"Rest, Engineer," she said softly. "The ledger is balanced for tonight."

She blew out the candle and went to her own bed, sleeping with one hand near her dagger and the other reaching out toward the sofa.

...

The Next Morning

Ragnar woke up with a sound like a rusty hinge.

"Urgh."

His body felt stiff. His head felt like it had been used as a target for the Torsion Spikes.

He opened his eyes. He wasn’t in the foundry. He wasn’t in the school. He was in a room that smelled of lavender and old books.

He sat up. A blanket fell off him.

He looked down. He was still wearing his tunic, but it was cleaner than he remembered. His boots were neatly lined up by the door.

"You’re awake," a voice said from the desk.

Ragnar turned. Gyda was sitting there, fresh as a daisy, drinking tea from a delicate porcelain cup (looted from a Frankish trader).

"Gyda," Ragnar croaked. "Water."

She pointed to a pitcher on the table. He grabbed it and drank straight from the spout, draining half of it in one go.

"Did I... did I come home last night?" Ragnar asked, wiping his mouth. "I have a vague memory of... falling."

"You attempted a tactical entry and failed," Gyda said, dipping her quill in ink. "You collapsed. I dragged you. You owe me a new rug; the bear skin is covered in soot."

Ragnar looked at the rug. It did indeed look like a chimney sweep had rolled on it.

"Sorry," he muttered.

But then, the memory of the last month flooded back.

The Education Act. The Caste Reform. The establishment of the Courts. The sheer, grinding effort of forcing a medieval society to accept modern systems.

It was done. The framework was laid. The "software" update was complete.

"I’m hungry," Ragnar realized suddenly. His stomach gave a loud growl that echoed in the stone room.

"There is porridge and bacon," Gyda said, gesturing to a tray. "Eat. You have a meeting in an hour."

"With who?" Ragnar groaned, reaching for the bacon. "If it’s Jarl Einar complaining about the thralls again, I will shoot him."

"No," Gyda smiled, a shark-like glint in her eyes. "It’s the Weasel. The reports from Mercia are in."

Ragnar froze, a piece of bacon halfway to his mouth.

"The brittle swords?"

"The brittle swords," Gyda confirmed. "And the maps. The Mercian lords are buying them. They think they are preparing for war against us."

Ragnar took a bite of the bacon. It tasted like victory.

"They are preparing for their own funeral," Ragnar said, his energy returning. "And they are paying for the coffin."

He stood up, stretching his back. The stiffness was gone. The exhaustion was gone. The Engine was running again.

"Gyda," Ragnar said, grabbing his boots. "Get the ledger. We need to calculate the projected revenue from the conquest of Mercia."

Gyda stood up, closing her book with a satisfying thump.

"Already done, Director," she said. "Now go take a bath. You still smell like sulfur."

Ragnar laughed. He grabbed her hand the one not holding the dagger and kissed it.

"Yes, Ma’am."