Synopsis of Book 1
Plunder (981 - 985 AD)
Born a prince of Norway and robbed of his inheritance as a child, Olaf Tryggvason grew to manhood in exile, slavery, and war. Known to the world under borrowed names, he survived by the blade and helped forge the most feared warriors of the North, the Jomsvikings.
In Wendland, he found both love and power. He found Geira, a widowed ruler whose wit captivated him. Their bond was forged in defiance of kings and expectation, and for a brief time, Trygg believed he could build a life rather than merely survive.
Under the patronage of King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, Trygg rose swiftly. His discipline, ferocity, and battlefield brilliance won him command of the Jomsvikings themselves, binding the brotherhood to his leadership and his growing legend. For the first time, Trygg believed he might shape his own fate.
But kings do not give without taking.
When Bluetooth turned his ambitions toward Sweden, Trygg was ordered to lead an exhausted force against a prepared enemy. At Fýrisvellir, the Jomsvikings were broken for the first time. Trygg survived, but at terrible cost. Stripped of command, shamed before his men, and forced to ransom the survivors, he returned with fewer warriors and a fractured name.
In the aftermath, Bluetooth demanded more than gold or service. To bind Trygg fully to Denmark, the king extracted a dark promise: if anything should happen to Geira, Trygg would marry Princess Thyra, tying himself and the Jomsvikings permanently to the Danish crown.
Trygg swore the oath believing it a safeguard, not a threat.
Then Geira was killed.
To Trygg, the timing was unmistakable. Bluetooth needed him—and needed the Jomsvikings—more than ever. Denmark was fracturing under rebellion, led by Bluetooth’s own son, Sweyn Forkbeard. Trygg believed Geira’s death was the price of his refusal to bend fully, the king’s way of collecting on a vow sworn in desperation.
Grief hardened into fury, love turned to ash, and trust died with her.
Rather than submit, Trygg chose a darker path.
He joined Sweyn Forkbeard, swearing vengeance against Bluetooth. What followed was not chaos, but calculation. Trygg and Sweyn planned every step together, knowing Denmark would never accept a son who openly murdered his father. When Sweyn challenged Bluetooth to an honorable duel with the kingship of Denmark on the line, the son defeated the father—but spared his life.
The killing blow came after.
As Bluetooth turned away, Tokë Palnersson, acting at Trygg’s coercion, loosed an arrow. The wound did not kill the king that day. It festered, and it was that wound which ended Harald Bluetooth’s life.
Sweyn took the crown of Denmark.
Trygg carried the shame.
To legitimize Sweyn’s rule and quiet the fury of Denmark, the final act was staged. Trygg and his closest ally, Sigvald Strut-Harald, took Sweyn prisoner and delivered him to Borislav of Wendland, Geira’s father, to be judged for rebellion against his own blood.
The sentence was exile.
Sweyn Forkbeard would leave Denmark for ten years. This would settle the nobles there calling for revenge.
As part of the reckoning, Sigvald married Astrid, Borislav’s youngest daughter, binding the Jomsvikings permanently to Jomsborg and Wendland. The brotherhood would no longer drift between kings.
Trygg chose exile as well.
With Geira gone and Wendland poisoned by memory, he followed Sweyn into banishment. He sought solace not in peace, but in blood and gold. War would be his refuge. Plunder his absolution.
Plunder ends with Denmark under the new rule of their exiled king, the Jomsvikings bound by marriage and oath, and Olaf Tryggvason walking willingly into darkness with his heart broken, his honor stained, and his path forever entwined with a king who owes him everything.
