Vinland Saga Book 1
- ISBN
- 9781612624204
- Publisher
- Kodansha
- English release
Vinland Saga Book One opens in the eleventh century at a siege in Frankish territory, where Askeladd's warrior band picks the side that will pay better. This is the regular English hardcover, and it is not one Japanese volume: Kodansha announced it as two volumes in one, and Book One holds Japanese Vols. 1–2. Deluxe 1 starts at the same place and holds Japanese Vols. 1–3, so the two first books overlap without matching, and Book One followed by Deluxe 2 skips Japanese Vol. 3. The analysis below covers only the opening of the first chapter as shown in Penguin Random House's Look Inside preview, through printed page 18. The contents page in that preview lists sixteen chapters; the rest were not read.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
After a color opening that announces raiders from the north, the first scene belongs to people the story then looks down on from a hill. A walled town in Frankish territory beats a battering ram back from its gate, a voice inside the walls reckons that snow will end the siege, and women gather spent arrows, one of them out of a fallen man. Only then does the view move to Askeladd's band, counting the attackers and scenting treasure. They side with the besiegers because there is more in it for them, and the message Askeladd dictates asks for half the spoils. That order works against reading the band as the adventure's heroes: the town's hope is spoken before the men who mean to profit from its fall say a word. Thorfinn's entrance does not rescue the reading. He will not carry the message without a reward and throws back the offer of gold, and Askeladd, calling the gold a joke, sets a condition. On these pages Thorfinn is haggling inside the raid, not objecting to it, and the condition is a commander's head. What Thorfinn wants is not said here. The preview ends as he walks downhill without answering.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Links on this page are affiliate links, which cost you nothing extra. They never influence what appears on this site or what the commentary says about it.
Lines from this volume
“But we don't do this for a pittance. We smash the chests open and seize every last coin within.”
“But if that's what you want, boy... ...I'll need you to bring me the head of a commander, at least.”
Askeladd names the price only after a pantomime. Thorfinn has refused three gold coins sworn upon Tyr, and Askeladd throws up his hands at the boy's scary face and calls it just a bit of humor. The next panel drops his face into shadow. There is a case that this is a captain being straight with a recruit: the band fights for spoils, and a boy who wants something other than coin has to pay in the band's own work. The wording undercuts that. "At least" makes the head a minimum rather than a price, so the terms stay open for as long as Askeladd likes, and "boy" puts the bargain back where it started, between a captain and a youth he can laugh at. The clowning belongs to the terms as well: by playing frightened first, he shows how little the boy's anger costs him. Thorfinn answers with an ellipsis and runs off.
The chapter opens on a siege between Frankish forces, and Askeladd's band watches from a hill, belonging to neither side. One of his men asks whether they will side with the attackers; Askeladd says yes, because there's more in it for them that way. This line completes the thought, and it is the whole politics of the opening in two sentences. No cause is on offer. The one building singled out is a church, sized up in an unattributed balloon as the local stronghold with treasure inside. Then he calls Thorfinn, and the next pages show how the plan will be sold: a message promising the attackers victory in exchange for half the spoils. The reader meets Askeladd as an accountant of violence, and three pages later he quotes Thorfinn a price in the same currency.