Ragnar gives a speech and Ivar plays chess.
Little Ivar and Little Alfred play chess.
One game moves toward an inevitable conclusion.
Credit: Bernard Walsh
Ragnar asks Ecbert if he can speak to his son.
He knows this will be their final moment together.
He tells him anger is a gift and he is unpredictable.
Use your anger intelligently, says Ragnar.
I wish I wasnt so angry all the time, says Ivar.
Then you would be nothing, says his father.
I might have been happy.
Final wisdom and a final message.
Ragnar whispers in his sons ear, revealing a final twist in his strategem.
It is Aelle who will kill Ragnar, but that is not the subject of Ragnars final vengeance.
You must seek revenge, he tells his son.
But not on Aelle.
And so, Ivar the Boneless leaves Wessex with a final gift from Alfred.
Soon enough, Ecbert has also sent Ragnar away.
I will never forget you, says young Alfred.
Nor will Alfreds grandfather.
Struggling with guilt, Ecbert confides in Judith.
Am I to wash my hands of him?
(Surely, Ecberts long beard would practically rival any gods.)
Ecbert, like Ragnar, has always been curious about other cultures.
And on that day, Ragnar would be no more.
As it happens, the man who drives Ragnars final carriage is blind.
Ive heard a lot about you, the man jokes.
Killed thousands of my countrymen.
The blind man assures Ragnar his eyesight is perfect in one regard.
I can see you, Ragnar Lothbrok.
I can see you.
But they will not arrive at their destination for another day.
Thus, Ragnar declares his victory over the gods.
I guided my fate, he says.
I fashioned the course of my life and my death.Me!
Not you, not the gods, me!
To this imaginary seer does Ragnar make his final statement.
Man is a master of his own fate, not the gods, he says.
The gods are mans creation to give answers that they are too afraid to give themselves.
The Seer responds, serene and disappointed as always.
I have walked among the lowest of the dead, and I have groped for meaning.
And I may have been wrong.
Is it, somehow, truly the Seer admitting his religion is a farce?
Or is this Ragnar speaking to himself?
Hasnt the great King Ragnar Lothbrok walked among the lowest of the dead?
Hasnt he groped for meaning?
Could he have been wrong?
King Aelle does not struggle with his belief.
They beat Ragnar, burn him; Aelle cuts a cross into his head.
Still, Ragnar will not repent.
Still, he walks back into his cage, satisfied in his final act.
He sleeps his final sleep and remembers Athelstan, teaching him to pray to Our Father.
He awakens on his final day to see the assembled citizens of Northumbria praying him towards death.
It gladdens me to know!
Ragnar declares, that Odin prepares for a feast!
Soon I shall be drinking ale from curved horns.
This hero that comes into Valhalla does not lament his death.
I shall not enter Odins hall with fear.
There, I shall wait for my sons to join me.
And when they do, I will bask in their tales of triumph.
The Aesir will welcome me.
My death comes without apology.
And I welcome the Valkyries to summon me home!
It is a fine speech, and it is not much Ragnar truly believes.
He told Ecbert it was just for his sons.
Or perhaps he closed them himself.
Does he see King Ecbert, the wanderer, staring over the rim of his final resting place?
No one can say; not even the gods, if Ragnar was correct.
As the snakes fill his body with poison, Ragnars eyes close.
And the doors of the pit close over him, like the slamming doors of Valhalla.
At home in Kattegat, Ragnars son, Ivar, meets his brothers.
He tells them their father is dead; they tell him their mother is dead.
Ivar holds Alfreds chess piece in his hand, holds it tight, until it is covered in blood.
Blood, blood, blood.
