Leave that to me. Take the letter, and bid Jostein sail forthwith.

It shall be as you command.

[Goes out to the right, and presently comes in again.

[To the Earl.] You have much to see to, it would seem.

But small thanks for it.

The King has risen.

[To the Bishop.] We are rejoiced to see you bear up so bravely and well through all these days of merriment.

There comes a flicker now and again, my lord King; but ’twill scarce last long. I have lain sick all the winter through.

Ay, ay,—you have lived a strong life, rich in deeds of fame.

[Shakes his head.] Ah, ’tis little enough I have done, and I have much still left to do. If I but knew whether I should have time for it all!

The living must take up the tasks of those who go before, honoured lord; we all have the welfare of the land at heart. [Turns to the Earl.] I marvel much at one thing: that neither of our thanes from Halogaland has come to the bridal.

True; I doubted not that Andres Skialdarband would be here.

[Smiling.] And Vegard Væradal too.

Ay, Vegard too.

[In jest.] And I trust you would now have received my old friend better than you did seven years ago on Oslo wharf, when you stabbed him in the cheek so that the blade cut its way out.

[With a forced laugh.] Ay, the time that Gunnulf, your mother’s brother, cut off the right hand of Sira Eiliv, my best friend and counsellor.

[Merrily.] And when Dagfinn the Peasant and the men-at-arms set a strong night-watch on the King’s ship, saying that the King was unsafe in the Earl’s ward?

[Seriously.] Those days are old and forgotten.

[Approaching.] Now may we sound the call to the weapon-sports on the green, if so please you, my lord.

Good. To-day will we give up to nought but merriment; to-morrow we must turn our thoughts again to the Ribbungs and the Earl of Orkney.

Ay, he denies to pay tribute, is it not so?

Were I once well rid of the Ribbungs, I would myself fare westward.

[Håkon goes towards the daïs, gives his hand to Margrete, and leads her out to the right; the others gradually follow.

[To Ivar Bodde.] Who is the man called Jostein Tamb?

There is a trader from Orkney who bears that name.

From Orkney? So, so! And now he sails home again?

So I think.

[Softly.] With a precious freight, Ivar Bodde.

Corn and raiment, most like.

And a letter from Earl Skule.

[Starting.] To whom?

I know not; it bore the King’s seal——

[Seizes him by the arm.] Lord Bishop,—is it as you say?

Hush! Do not mix me up in the matter.

[Retires.

Then must I straightway——Dagfinn the Peasant! Dagfinn! Dagfinn——!

[In a tone of commiseration, to Gregorius Jonsson.] Never a day but one or another must suffer in goods or freedom.

Who is it now?

A poor trader,—Jostein Tamb methinks they called him.

Jostein——?

Dagfinn the Peasant would forbid him to set sail.

Dagfinn, would forbid him, say you?

He went even now.

Pardon, my lord; I must make speed——

Ay, do even so, my dear lord;—Dagfinn the Peasant is so hasty.

[Walks up and down in deep thought; he seems suddenly to awaken; looks round him, and says:] How still it has become here of a sudden!

The King has gone.

And every one has followed him.

All, save us.

It is a great thing to be King.

[Tentatively.] Are you fain to try it, Earl?

[With a serious smile.] I have tried it; every night that brings me sleep makes me King of Norway.

Dreams forbode.

Ay, and tempt.

Not you, surely. In bygone days, that I could understand—but now, when you hold a third part of the kingdom, rule as the first man in the land, and are the Queen’s father——

Now most of all—now most of all.

Hide nothing! Confess; for verily I can see a great pain is gnawing you.

Now most of all, I say. This is the great curse that lies upon my whole life: to stand so near to the highest,—with an abyss between. One leap, and on the other side are the kingship, and the purple robe, the throne, the might, and all! I have it daily before my eyes—but can never reach it.

True, Earl, true.

When they made Guthorm Sigurdsson king, I was in the full strength of my youth.youth. It was as though a voice cried aloud within me: Away with the child,—I am the man, the strong man!—But Guthorm was the king’s son; there yawned an abyss between me and the throne.

And you dared not venture——

Then Erling Steinvæg was chosen by the Slittungs. The voice cried within me again: Skule is a greater chieftain than Erling Steinvæg! But I must needs have broken with the Birchlegs,—that was the abyss that time.

And Erling became king of the Slittungs, and after of the Ribbungs, and still you waited!

I waited for Guthorm to die.

And Guthorm died, and Inge Bårdsson, your brother, became king.

Then I waited for my brother’s death. He was sickly from the first; every morning, when we met at holy mass, I would cast stolen glances to see whether his sickness increased. Every twitch of pain that crossed his face was as a puff of wind in my sails, and bore me nearer to the throne. Every sigh he breathed in his agony sounded to me like an echoing trumpet-blast, like a herald from afar, proclaiming that the throne should soon be mine. Thus I tore up by the roots every thought of brotherly kindness; and Inge died, and Håkon came—and the Birchlegs made him king.

And you waited.

Methought help must come from above. I felt the kingly strength within me, and I was growing old; every day that passed was a day taken from my life-work. Each evening I thought: To-morrow will come the miracle that shall strike him down and set me in the empty seat.

Small was then Håkon’s power; he was no more than a child; it wanted but a single step from you—yet you took it not.

That step was hard to take; it would have parted me from my kindred and from all my friends.

Ay, there is the rub, Earl Skule,—that is the curse which has lain upon your life. You would fain know every way open at need,—you dare not break all your bridges and keep only one, defend it alone, and on it conquer or fall. You lay snares for your foe, you set traps for his feet, and hang sharp swords over his head; you strew poison in every dish, and you spread a hundred nets for him; but when he walks into your toils you dare not draw the string; if he stretch out his hand for the poison, you think it safer he should fall by the sword; if he is like to be caught in the morning, you hold it wiser to wait till eventide.

[Looking earnestly at him.] And what would you do, my lord Bishop?

Speak not of me; my work is to build up thrones in this land, not to sit on them and rule.

[After a short pause.] Answer me one thing, my honoured lord, and answer me truly. How comes it that Håkon can follow the straight path so unflinchingly? He is no wiser, no bolder than I.

Who does the greatest work in this world?

The greatest man.

But who is the greatest man?

The bravest.

So says the warrior. A priest would say: the man of greatest faith,—a philosopher: the most learned. But it is none of these, Earl Skule. The most fortunate man^[31] is the greatest man. It is the most fortunate man that does the greatest deeds—he whom the cravings of his time seize like a passion, begetting thoughts he himself cannot fathom, and pointing to paths which lead he knows not whither, but which he follows and must follow till he hears the people shout for joy, and, looking around him with wondering eyes, finds that he has done a mighty deed.

Ay, there is that unswerving confidence in Håkon.

It is that which the Romans called ingenium.—Truly I am not strong in Latin; but ’twas called ingenium.

[Thoughtfully at first, afterwards in increasing excitement.] Is Håkon made of other clay than mine? The fortunate man?—Ay, does not everything thrive with him? Does not everything shape itself for the best, when he is concerned? Even the peasants note it; they say the trees bear fruit twice, and the fowls hatch out two broods every summer, whilst Håkon is king. Vermeland, where he burned and harried, stands smiling with its houses built afresh, and its cornlands bending heavy-eared before the breeze. ’Tis as though blood and ashes fertilised the land where Håkon’s armies pass; ’tis as though the Lord clothed with double verdure what Håkon has trampled down; ’tis as though the holy powers made haste to blot out all evil in his track. And how easy has been his path to the throne! He needed that Inge should die early, and Inge died: his youth needed to be watched and warded, and his men kept watch and ward around him; he needed the ordeal, and his mother arose and bore the iron for him.

[With an involuntary outburst.] But we—we two——!

We?

You, I would say—what of you?

The right is Håkon’s, Bishop.

The right is his, for he is the fortunate one; ’tis even the summit of fortune, to have the right. But by what right has Håkon the right, and not you?

[After a short pause.] There are things I pray God to save me from thinking upon.

Saw you never an old picture in Christ’s Church at Nidaros? It shows the Deluge rising and rising over all the hills, so that there is but one single peak left above the waters. Up it clambers a whole household, father and mother and son and son’s wife and children;—and the son is hurling the father back into the flood to gain better footing; and he will cast his mother down and his wife and all his children, to win to the top himself;—for up there he sees a handsbreadth of ground, where he may keep life in him for an hour.—That, Earl, that is the saga of wisdom, and the saga of every wise man.

But the right!

The son had the right. He had strength, and the craving for life;—fulfil your cravings and use your strength: so much right has every man.

Ay, for that which is good.

Words, empty words! There is neither good nor evil, up nor down, high nor low. You must forget such words, else will you never take the last stride, never leap the abyss. [In a subdued voice and insistently.] You must not hate a party or a cause for that the party or the cause would have this and not that; but you must hate every man of a party for that he is against you, and you must hate all who gather round a cause, for that the cause clashes with your will. Whatever is helpful to you, is good—whatever lays stumbling-blocks in your path is evil.

[Gazing thoughtfully before him.] What has that throne not cost me, which yet I have not reached! And what has it cost Håkon, who now sits in it so securely! I was young, and I forswore my sweet secret love to ally myself with a powerful house. I prayed to the saints that I might be blessed with a son—I got only daughters.

Håkon will have sons, Earl—mark that!

[Crossing to the window on the right.] Ay—all things fall out to Håkon’s wish.

And you—will you suffer yourself to be outlawed from happiness all your life through? Are you blind? See you not that it is a stronger might than the Birchlegs that stands at Håkon’s back, and furthers all his life-work? He has help from above, from—from those that are against you—from those that have been your enemies, even from your birth! And will you bow before these your enemies? Rouse you, man; straighten your back! To what end got you your masterful soul? Bethink you that the first great deed in all the world was done by one who rose against a mighty realm!

Who?

The angel who rose against the light!

And was hurled into the bottomless pit——

[Wildly.] And founded there a kingdom, and made himself a king, a mighty king—mightier than any of the ten thousand—earls up yonder!

[Looks long at him.] Bishop Nicholas, are you something more or something less than a man?

[Smiling.] I am in the state of innocence: I know not good from evil.

[Half to himself.] Why did they send me into the world, if they meant not to order it better for me? Håkon has so firm and unswerving a faith in himself—all his men have so firm and unswerving a faith in him——

Let it not be seen that you have no such faith in yourself! Speak as though you had it, swear great oaths that you have it—and all will believe you.

Had I a son! Had I but a son, to take all the great heritage after me!

[Eagerly.] Earl—if you had a son?

I have none.

Håkon will have sons.

[Wringing his hands.] And is king-born!

[Rising.] Earl—if he were not so?

Has he not proved it? The ordeal——

And if he were not—in spite of the ordeal?

Do you say that God lied in the issue of the ordeal?

What was it Inga of Varteig called upon God to witness?

That the child she bore in the eastland, in Borgasyssel, was the son of Håkon Sverresson.

[Nods, looks round, and says softly.] And if King Håkon were not that child?

[Starts a step backwards.] Great God——! [Controls himself.] It is beyond belief.

Hearken to me, Earl Skule. I have lived seventy years and six; it begins to go sharply downhill with me now, and I dare not take this secret with me over yonder——

Speak, speak! Is he not the son of Håkon Sverresson?

Hear me. It was known to none that Inga was with child. Håkon Sverresson was lately dead, and doubtless she feared Inge Bårdsson, who was then king, and you, and—well, and the Baglers^[32] too mayhap. She was brought to bed secretly in the house of Trond the Priest, in Heggen parish, and after nine days she departed homewards; but the child remained a whole year with the priest, she not daring to look to it, and none knowing that it breathed saved Trond and his two sons.

Ay, ay—and then?

When the child was a year old, it could scarce be kept hidden longer. So Inga made the matter known to Erlend of Huseby—an old Birchleg of Sverre’s days, as you know.

Well?

He and other chiefs from the Uplands took the child, bore it over the mountains in midwinter, and brought it to the King, who was then at Nidaros.

And yet you can say that——?

Needless to say, ’twas a dangerous task for a humble priest to rear a king’s child. So soon as the child was born, he laid the matter before one of his superiors in the church, and prayed for his counsel. This his superior bade Trond send the true king’s son with secrecy to a place of safety, and give Inga another, if she or the Birchlegs should afterwards ask for her child.

[Indignantly.] And who was the hound that gave that counsel?

It was I.

You? Ay, you have ever hated the race of Sverre.

I deemed it not safe for the king’s son to fall into your hands.

But the priest——?

Promised to do as I bade.

[Seizing him by the arm.] And Håkon is the other child?

If the priest kept his promise.

If he kept it?

Trond the Priest departed the land the same winter that the child was brought to King Inge. He journeyed to Thomas Beckett’s grave, and afterwards abode in England till his death.

He departed the land, say you? Then must he have changed the children and dreaded the vengeance of the Birchlegs.

Or he did not change the children, and dreaded my vengeance.

Which surmise hold you for the truth?

Either may well be true.

But the priest’s sons of whom you spoke?

They went with the crusaders to the Holy Land.

And there have since been no tidings of them?

Ay, tidings there have been.

Where are they?

They were drowned in the Greek Sea on the journey forth.

And Inga——?

Knows nought, either of the priest’s confession or of my counsel.

Her child was but nine days old when she left it, you said?

Ay, and the child she next saw was over a year——

Then no living creature can here bring light! [Paces rapidly to and fro.] Almighty God, can this be true? Håkon—the King—he who holds sway over all this land, not born of royal blood!—And why should it not be like enough? Has not all fortune miraculously followed him?—Why not this also, to be taken as a child from a poor cottar’s hut and laid in a king’s cradle——?