Vinland Saga IF – The Tale of the Other Queen, Rím
Rím, the woman who served as King Canute's shadow and devoted everything to him, now gets her own tale, a story that never came to be in the original saga.
Just as he is about to unify England, Canute is poisoned and falls into a deep coma. In her despair, Rím holds onto one secret knowledge: the dream of Vinland, the ideal land that Canute secretly yearned for deep in his heart, a legacy of the man named Askeladd.
"I'll show him Vinland myself!"
With that wild declaration, Rím secretly organ
Vinland Saga IF – The Tale of the Other Queen, Rím - Fireball Sister, Laughing at Rock Bottom
The air was heavy.
Though it was morning, dull gray clouds hung low over the River Ouse docks, and the scent of the tide pricked the nose more sharply than usual. Even the cries of the seagulls sounded distant, somehow.
Rimu climbed the gangplank of the Fimbul, planting each step firmly, one after another. On her left arm was the leather vambrace Sverting had given her. The burn beneath it throbbed faintly.
(*Something feels wrong.*)
The moment she stepped onto the deck, her feet stopped.
No one was there.
Normally, this was the hour when the sailors would be checking ropes, mending sails, bustling about before dawn. Yet now, it was too quiet.
"…Something's not right."
A sense of foreboding gnawing at her, she pushed open the door to the captain's quarters near the stern. The room was empty. The charts, the personal effects—everything was gone. Only a single sheet of parchment remained on the desk.
She picked it up. She didn't even need to read it aloud to understand.
"…No."
With trembling fingers, she headed for the navigator's quarters. The same. Nothing left. One sheet of parchment.
The next room, too. And the next.
Rimu ran. She raced through every cabin except the sleeping quarters in the hold, then returned to the deck and stood frozen.
In her hands, a bundle of farewell letters—each one a betrayal.
Not just one. Five. Ten. She didn't want to count anymore.
"That… rotten vulture…!!"
Her voice shook, hoarse.
The parchment crumpled in her clenched fist with a dry, crunching sound. Hervor Thorsteinson. That man had, with a hundred silver coins as advance payment, poached every last one of them—the captain she had hired, the navigator, the entire crew—in the dead of night. The day before departure.
" Knew it—he got you, didn't he!"
Along with heavy footfalls, Gudrun Halfdan came up the gangplank. In her hand, she clutched a loaf of freshly baked bread, apparently bought at the morning market. Her silver hair tied back in a single tail, she took one look at the bundle of parchment in Rimu's hand and burst into a guffaw.
"The whole harbor's been in an uproar since dawn. Word is, the entire crew of the Fimbul up and quit."
"This is no laughing matter, Lady Gudrun!"
"What else can you do but laugh, when they've done you this dirty?"
Gudrun flicked Rimu's forehead with a finger, the gold ring on her left hand glinting.
"But the real trouble's only just beginning. There's a rumor spreading through the docks now, and people are swallowing it whole."
"A rumor?"
"Aye. They're saying that handmaiden is a black sorceress who carries dead men to Vinland and brings them back to life. That anyone who gets close to Rimu will be cursed, so no one should set foot on her ship. Gotta hand it to him—for one of Hervor's schemes, it's elaborate. The superstitious sailors are all shaking in their boots."
The color drained from Rimu's face.
A black sorceress who brings the dead back to life.
"…Me?"
"Aye. The fireball sister whose love runs so deep she'd set the sea itself ablaze—now she's a black sorceress. You've come up in the world, eh?"
Rimu ground her back teeth.
*No. That person isn't dead yet. He's only sleeping.* And yet, this… this filthy, underhanded trick.
Past midday. Inside the harbor tavern, The Broken Oar, a strange atmosphere hung over the room.
The old ship's wheel mounted on the wall, the cracked navigational chart—usually they quietly watched over the sailors' boisterous clamor, but today, the silence grated on the ears. Only Inga, the innkeeper behind the counter, was there, polishing a tankard in silence.
Rimu stood before Sverting's mercenary band, gathered in the center of the room.
Dozens of rough, hardened men. But their eyes were all fixed elsewhere. Arms crossed, gazes dropped to the floor, or staring up at the ceiling—not one of them would look at her.
"…I assume you've all heard by now."
Rimu's voice was quiet. She clenched her fists tightly, struggling to suppress the trembling.
"The captain is gone. The navigator, too. On top of that, there's a rumor spreading through the harbor that I'm a black sorceress."
One of the mercenaries clicked his tongue softly. Another rose heavily from his seat.
"Sis… sorry, but… I think you're one hell of a woman. When I saw you jump into that fire the other day, your own arm burning, I thought you were incredible."
The man looked Rimu straight in the eye.
"But setting sail with no navigator, on a ship with no one who can read a chart—that's the same as sailing off to die. I've got a family. I'm sorry."
He placed a leather pouch of silver coins on the table. It meant he was returning his advance payment.
"Me too."
"Sorry, Sis."
"We're hired for coin. Didn't sign up to sell our lives."
One by one, they placed their silver down and left.
Before long, nearly half of the assembled mercenaries had vanished from the tavern.
"…Wait."
Rimu's voice rang out.
It was trembling. She knew it herself. A pitiful voice. But she couldn't stop.
"I just… I just want to show him—King Canute—Vinland."
She drew a breath. Her throat burned.
"He always had… a dream he could never tell anyone. A paradise at the edge of the sea, spoken of by his former right hand—a man named Askeladd. A land without conflict, fragrant with grapes. A fairy tale like that… he'd been yearning for it, deep in his heart, all this time."
Tears threatened to spill over.
She held them back desperately. *If I cry now, no one will follow me.*
"I was… his shadow. All this time, just a shadow. Protecting him as his food taster—that was my entire existence. I wasn't even allowed to tell him I loved him. Even so, that was enough for me. If I could just remain his shadow, that was…"
Her voice trembled even more.
"But now, it's different. He's asleep. He can't move. Then the shadow has no choice but to move in his place. The shadow will take him. It's absurd, isn't it? I always knew it would never be rewarded. So why… why is this…"
Rimu's speech broke off there.
The remaining mercenaries said nothing. They just watched. With lukewarm eyes, they simply stared.
(*Ah, it's no use. My words aren't reaching anyone.*)
"…Enough."
Rimu hung her head—and that was when it happened.
"Dismissal will wait until dawn."
A low voice, as if rumbling from the depths of the earth. Sverting Jarnkjaft, his massive frame swaying, stepped forward. *Click.* His iron jaw sounded.
Saying only that, he silently scooped Rimu up. Like a piece of luggage, he hoisted her onto his shoulder.
"Wha—hey, Sverting!?"
"Be quiet."
Just like that, he kicked open the tavern's back door and strode outside.
The mercenaries left behind watched his enormous figure go, dumbfounded.
"…Honestly, that bear."
Gudrun, draining a tankard at the counter, wore a wry smile.
Evening drew near, and a cold wind began to whip through the harbor.
An empty pier.
The salt breeze blowing in from the strait roughly tossed Rimu's short-cropped, singed auburn hair. The burn on her left arm throbbed with the cold.
How long had it been since Sverting set her down here?
He stood a short distance away, saying nothing, just gazing out at the sea.
(*It's over.*)
Rimu sank to her knees.
That speech. That was my true heart. All of it, the honest truth. But my words reached no one. A feeling too pure was nothing more than a painful, ludicrous soliloquy.
"…Uu, aaaaaaahhh!!"
The tears burst forth.
Throwing away reason, pride, everything, Rimu wailed on the harbor pier. It was a beast-like cry.
"Why… why won't anyone understand…!"
She pounded the wooden planks with her fist. Again, and again.
"I just want… to make his dream come true for him…!!"
She struck with her burned left arm, and blood seeped through the bandages. Still, she felt no pain. What she felt was something else entirely—a pain that clawed at the depths of her chest.
Her funds had run dry. No captain, no navigator. No one believed in her.
After coming this far, was she still nothing more than a powerless handmaiden after all?
Staggering to her feet, Rimu climbed the Fimbul's gangplank. Sverting followed behind her in silence.
She descended the stairs leading to the hold. A dim, enclosed space thick with the scent of medicinal herbs. On the suspended bed, King Canute lay as he always did, breathing in shallow, repeating slumber. A pale face. Closed eyes. A king who spoke nothing, like a wax figure.
Rimu clung to that bed.
"…Tell me, my king."
Her voice trembled.
"All this time, if I could just be your shadow, that was enough for me. Even if you loved someone else, just watching was enough. Even if it was never rewarded, that was enough."
She took the king's cold hand. Fingertips like ice.
"And yet… now, the shadow is trying to take you away. It's absurd, isn't it? For a mere shadow, what am I even doing?"
Tears fell, one by one, onto the back of the king's white hand.
"I don't know anymore. I have no idea what to do. Everyone's gone. My words reach no one. You won't say anything to me. Please, my king… what should I…"
Her sobs were swallowed by the dark cabin.
How long had she been like that?
"—If you're the one crying, then who's going to take that king of yours?!"
A thunderous rebuke echoed through the cabin.
Turning, Rimu saw Gudrun standing there, arms crossed. Her usual boisterous grin was gone. Sharp gray eyes pierced Rimu.
"Lady… Gudrun…"
"Drop the 'Lady.' Honestly, I can't bear to watch."
Gudrun strode over, forcibly grabbing Rimu's shoulders and pulling her up.
"The man you fell for is lying there sleeping, isn't he? So what good does it do to let him see the woman who loves him crying? In a hopeless rock-bottom like this, what are you doing losing? If you give up, who's going to take this king to Vinland!"
"But… but I…"
"But me no buts!"
Gudrun thrust the gold ring on her left hand before Rimu's eyes.
"Listen here. I, too, lost my husband and son to the sea. That day, all I could do was stand at the harbor and cry. I cried, and cried, and wailed… but no one came back. The sea is cold, and merciless, and crying changes nothing. Your weeping, before the sea, is less than a seagull's cry."
Gudrun's voice trembled faintly.
It was the first time she had spoken of that winter storm, of losing her family.
"But you—you're different. You can still take him. The man you love, with your own hands. No matter how reckless, how foolish, no matter that no one believes in you—if you don't do it, who will?"
Gudrun's hands gripped Rimu's shoulders tightly, embracing her.
"Save the crying for when it's all over. I'll be right there with you."
"…Gudrun."
Her voice choked, Rimu clung to that warmth.
A short while later.
When Rimu wiped her tears and finally lifted her face, Sverting was standing at the cabin entrance, unnoticed. Wordlessly, he held out a leather waterskin and a chunk of dried meat.
"…Eat. Drink. Then come to the deck."
"Did something happen?"
"The mercenaries who stayed have been keeping watch all night."
Rimu's eyes widened.
"…Why? Didn't everyone leave the ship…?"
Sverting fell silent for a moment. Then, he muttered the longest line he had ever spoken.
"It's because of those eyes of yours. No one can explain it, but it seems they think that with you, they wouldn't mind dying. …Honestly, nothing but fools."
*Click.* His iron jaw sounded.
Tears welled up in Rimu's eyes again.
But this time, they weren't the tears of despair from before.
"…In that case."
Rimu wiped her tears and forced a smile. It was a smile so strained, so utterly lacking in force, that it was impossible to tell if she was crying or laughing.
"In that case, I'm going to find the next fool. I'll row even if I have to swim."
"…………What?"
Sverting's brow moved, just barely. For the expressionless man, it was the first glimpse of "bewilderment."
"You're going to… swim the ship?"
"Giving up before trying goes against his philosophy. Besides
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