Seperation.

If there was one word Jarl Haraldr could use to summarize his people, it would be exactly that. Seperation. He could basically certify there was no chance the missing princess would go north to escape the Overlord, because of that very fact. 

Sure, his people worshipped the same gods, spoke more or less the same language with a peculiar accent, different names, and a few loanwords gained from their mother tongue, but there was always something different about his people. They were foreign invaders, who rather than assimilate with the Lundish people of their lands so many centuries ago, they drove them out and settled. Were it not for an enterprising Overlord and an incompetent Vasan king, the Jarldom might still be independent. Phenotypically, they are nearly identical to when their forefathers jumped off their primitive longboats onto the rocky ground of Lundland from their home across the sea. They are just as tall, just as fair-haired, and just as pale as when the leather boot first touched the sand. Second, that exploring, maritime adventurous spirit never died. Over the seas of Lundland, they had no peer; just as well, they had the only large island to make a fleet a necessity.

Thus it came as some surprise to Haraldr when news came to the Jarl through a chain of fisherman, guard, captain of the guard, and then fisherman again that the Bogans were planning an invasion for the north of Wealas, composed of but a few ships. Haraldr was disappointed the fisherman had not determined the specific type of ship, but that mattered not to him. His fleet, that unrivalled wooden wall, was more than a match for any would-be raider that dare attempt to replicate the feats of the Suehans, his people, in raiding Lundland. He could turn a blind eye on raids on his fellow lords, but on his own people? Hah! Whoever the Bogan commander (He judged “Warlord” a better term, since “Commander” implied some mastery of command) was, he was either looking to make a name for himself or incompetent. He could imagine the swarthy louse, standing atop a table in some Bogan tavern overlooking the sea. “You, you all think them SO TOUGH. Well, guess what! I’m ganna go OVADER” He’d drunkenly gesticulate in the (very) general direction of Jorvik “And I’mmm………I’m gonna…gonna……………GIT ALL THE GOLD, and buyya alla round!” He’d puff his chest out and pound it with his fist “They neva gonna catch me! Gonna make some PROFIT!”

It almost pained him, to crush the hypothetical Bogan’s inebriated ambitions so fantastically. No doubt he would be sober as the Jarl himself slammed an axe through his brain. 

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Still, the matter of the Princess still concerned him somewhat. A member of the royal family, a claimant no less, was an infinitely valuable commodity. No doubt she was aware of a greatly improved safety situation on Orkneyjar, if she could get there. All the armies of Baccus and the Ordained combined could not by force take a single stone off of Orkneyjar's hallowed beaches without a very capable fleet. Spies and assassins would find it equally difficult to make it onto the island, where every inhabitant is accounted for and a surplus of even one could be detected. Perhaps she was aware of the animosity felt between the never quite subdued Overlord and his northern subjects? No matter, there was no surreptitious way he could convey the message she would be safe in the Jarldom. The Overlord would surely take offense and while his office was at this point mostly vestigial, his armies were most certainly not. At any rate, the odds of the Princess even making it this far north whilst escaping detection were astronomically slim. 

Then he struck upon an idea, an idea he deemed worthy of further thought. Supposing that another lord recovered the princess who was friendly to her, this lord could then reach out to the Jarldom and smuggle her there. The specifics of such an arrangement of course would be determined at the time, but for the moment the Jarl was left to wonder how [i]exactly[/i] to convey his goodwill towards the princess without actively incensing the Overlord. One good idea followed another, and he instructed all the couriers who regularly traverse between his ambassadors and himself around the land to give them the following message to share with the lords by the sea; the kind of lords his plan would required. 

"The Jarl of Jorvik wishes to inform [lord name here] that should the Princess be captured in his lands, the Jarl will happily transport her under guard in his fleet to her proper destination, so that justice may be done."

In this manner he left the wording deliberately ambiguous. A lord wishing to further ascertain exactly where on the issue he stood (presumably because he in fact had the princess) could request clarification, in response he would get decidedly more pro-princess yet still vague statements. Admittedly he was aware trust was a rare commodity amongst the lords of Lundland, but perhaps a lord with his back up against the wall would turn to the Jarl.