CHAPTER XVII: SIGRID THE HAUGHTY.

Now, although the peasants of Thrandheim yielded to King Olaf in the matter of their faith and the forms of their religious ceremonies, yet they were none the less enraged against him on account of the destruction of their beautiful temple and the slaying of Iron Skeggi. This man had been a great chief among them, much honoured for his bodily strength, for his wealth, and for his spirit of independence. Some of his nearer kin had even looked upon the possibility of his being a successor to the great Earl Hakon, and accordingly they regarded Olaf Triggvison as an interloper, who had come to spoil all their hopes of worldly advancement. When their favourite was slain they therefore cast about to find some pretext for either picking a quarrel with King Olaf or of forcing him to make some atonement for the wrong that he was supposed to have done them. And then they thought of Ironbeard's daughter, Gudrun, and of what a good thing it would be for them if the king could be made to wed her. So on a certain day they took Gudrun to where King Olaf was and made their proposals to him.

King Olaf looked at the girl and thought her very fair of feature. Her hair was black as charred wood, and her cheeks were rosy red; but there was an evil glance in her dark eyes that mispleased him. Yet he saw that it was good that there should be a queen in Norway, and urged by his bishop, he allowed himself to be betrothed to Gudrun. It was arranged that they should be wedded at the next yuletide.

In the midwinter King Olaf gave a great bridal feast to his friends in his new banqueting hall at Nidaros. His bishops and priests were there, as also his chief captains and warmen, his scald and his saga men. His mother, Queen Astrid, was at his right hand, while at the other side of him sat Gudrun. The fare was of the best, both food and drink, and there was much merriment around the board, with singing of songs and playing of harps, making of riddles and jests and telling of stories; and of all the company the king was the merriest and the lightsomest. No story was for him too long, nor song too boisterous, nor ale too strong. As often as his drinking horn was emptied, it was filled again to the brim by his cup bearer, and always before he quaffed it he made over it the sign of the cross.

Brightly gleamed the firelight upon helmet and shield and spear, but brighter gleamed the gladness in the young king's eyes; for his realm was now assured to him, his mission was fulfilled, and his glory was complete. It seemed to him that there would now be a lasting peace in the land, with good fellowship among all his subjects, and no more bloodshed or quarrelling or discontent for ever after. He was to wed with Gudrun upon the morrow, and this, he believed, was to be the crown of his happiness.

Now, as the night wore late, and the festivities flagged, the guests rose from the board, and either departed to their several rooms or drew their cloaks about them and lay upon the side benches of the hall, and at length King Olaf was left alone at the table. Very soon he too fell asleep and lay back in his high backed chair, dreaming peaceful dreams. At his feet lay Einar Eindridson, a sturdy lad of sixteen years, whom Olaf had adopted as his favourite page and cup bearer, even as he himself had been adopted by King Valdemar. Between the folds of the silken curtains that overhung the open air spaces in the wall the light of the full moon came in, falling upon King Olaf's handsome face and long golden hair. The sapphires and diamonds studding the band of gold about his head shone out like glittering stars in the pale light. The cross of blood red rubies that hung from his neck chain rose and fell with the regular heaving of his broad chest on which it rested.

All was dark in the hall, save for that one shaft of moonlight. All was silent, save for the crackling of the dying embers on the hearth and the heavy breathing of the men who lay asleep upon the benches and about the rush strewn floor. But as King Olaf slept there came a movement at the far end of the hall, where the darkness was deepest.

Presently a woman's figure glided slowly and cautiously into the fuller light. Her black shadow moved across the floor and crept nearer and nearer to the sleeping king, until at last it halted, shielding his closed eyes. She stood before him. Suddenly her right hand went to her bosom, and she drew forth a long glittering dagger. She stood over him, holding her hand aloft, ready to strike the fatal blow.

"Your hour is at hand, proud king!" she murmured; and her voice sounded through the hail like the soughing of the wintry wind among the pines. "Your hour is at hand, Olaf Triggvison. Never shall my warm lips touch yours. Cold steel shall kiss you now."

She stepped back a pace, so that the moonlight, falling upon him, might show her where to strike. As she did so the hem of her long robe swept across the face of young Einar. The boy awoke and leapt to his feet. He saw a white arm upraised; he saw the gleaming dagger poised over his master's breast. Quick as an arrow's flight the blade flashed to its mark. But quicker still was Einar. In that instant he had caught the white arm in his two strong hands, staying the fatal blow, so that the dagger's point but struck against the ruby cross and did no harm.

The scuffling of feet, the clatter of the dagger upon the floor, and the woman's cry of alarmed surprise awoke the king. Starting from his seat he caught his assailant and held her in the light of the moon. He gazed into her pale and terror stricken face. It was the face of Gudrun.

Then Olaf besought Einar to tell him all that had happened, and Einar picked up the dagger and gave it to his master, telling him how Gudrun had attempted to slay him.

With the earliest peep of dawn Gudrun went forth upon her lonely way, and never again did she come under the same roof with King Olaf.

At this time there lived in Sweden a certain queen named Sigrid. She was the widow of King Erik the Victorious and the mother of King Olaf the Swede. She was very rich and possessed many great manors in Sweden and large landed estates among the islands of the Baltic. Many of the kings of Scandinavia sought to wed with her, wishing to share her wealth and add her dominions to their own. But Sigrid, who, by reason of her great pride and the value that she set upon her own charms, was named Sigrid the Haughty, would have none of them, although often enough she welcomed them as wooers and listened to their fine speeches and their flatteries.

One king there was who wooed her with such ardour that she resolved to rid herself of him at all costs. His name was Harald Groenske (the father of Saint Olaf), and, as he was of the kin of King Harald Fairhair, he considered himself in all respects her equal. Three several times did he journey into Sweden to pay court to her. On the third time he found that there was another wooer at her manor house, one King Vissavald of Gardarike. Both kings were well received, and lodged in a great hall with all their attendant company. The hall was a very old building, as was all its furniture, but there was no lack of good fare. So hospitable, indeed, was Queen Sigrid, that, ere the night was half spent, the two suitors and all their men were drunk, and the guards slept heavily.

In the middle of the night Queen Sigrid surrounded the hall with dry faggots and set a lighted torch to them. The hall was quickly burned to the ground, and all who were within it lost their lives.

"I will teach these little kings what risks they run in wooing me!" said the queen, as from her chamber window she watched the rising flames.

Now Queen Sigrid grew weary of waiting for the coming of a king whom she could consider in all ways worthy of her. Her eyes were lustreless, and her hair was besprinkled with gray, and yet the right man did not offer himself. But in good time she heard of King Olaf the Glorious, and of his great wealth and his prowess, and of how in his person he was so tall and handsome, that men could only compare him with Balder the Beautiful. And now she deemed that she had at last discovered one whose magnificence would match with her own. So she caused messengers to fare across the frontier into Norway to sing her praises, so that King Olaf might learn how fair she was, and how well suited to reign by his side. And it seemed that her messages had the effect that she wished.

On a certain summer day Queen Sigrid sat at her chamber window, overlooking a wide and beautiful river that lay between her own kingdom and Norway. From afar she saw a company of horsemen. They came nearer and nearer, and at last they halted at the gates. Their leader entered and the queen went down to meet him, guessing that he had come upon some errand of great importance.

When he had greeted her, he told her that he had come all the way from Thrandheim, in Norway, with a message from King Olaf Triggvison, who, hearing of her great charms, now offered her his hand in marriage. And as a token of his good faith the king had sent her a gift. The gift was a large ring of gold--the same that Olaf had taken from the door of the temple at Lade.

Full joyous was Queen Sigrid at this good news, and she took the heavy ring and slipped it upon her arm, bidding the messengers take her hospitality for three days and then return to their master, with the word that she favoured his proposal, and agreed to meet him at her manor of Konghelle in three weeks' time.

Now the queen admired that ring, deeming it a most noble gift. It was most beautifully wrought and interwoven with scrolls and circles so delicate that all wondered how the hand of man could achieve such perfection. Everyone praised it exceedingly, and among others to whom Sigrid showed the ring were her own goldsmiths, two brothers. These handled it with more care than others had done, and weighed it in their hands as if they would estimate its value. The queen saw that the smiths spoke in whispers one with the other; so she called them to her and asked if they thought that any man in Sweden could make such a ring.

At this the smiths smiled.

"Wherefore do you mock at the ring?" demanded Sigrid. "Tell me what you have found?"

The smiths shrugged their shoulders.

"If indeed the truth must be spoken," said the elder of the two, "then we have found this, O queen, that there is false metal in the ring."

"Prove what you say!" cried the queen. And she let them break the ring asunder--and lo! it was shown to be made of copper and not of gold.

Then into Sigrid's eyes there flashed an angry light.

"If King Olaf of Norway can be so false in his gifts, he will be faithless also in his love!" she cried. And she snatched the pieces of the ring and flung them furiously away from her.

Now when the three weeks of his appointment had gone by Olaf Triggvison journeyed east to the trysting place at Konghelle, near the boundary line between Norway and Sweden, and there Queen Sigrid met him. Amazed was Sigrid to see the splendour of the man who offered her marriage. Never before had her eyes rested upon one so tall and handsome and so gloriously attired. Arrived now at his full manhood Olaf looked nobler and more majestic than ever in his life before. His cloak of fine crimson silk clung to his giant frame and showed the muscular moulding of his limbs. His step was light and elastic, and, in spite of his great strength, his movements were gentle and easy as those of a woman. His hands were very large and powerful, yet the touch of them was soft and delicate; and his voice, which could be loud and full as a trumpet blast, could also be lowered to the musical sweetness of a purling brook. His forehead, where his helmet had shielded it from the heat of the sun and from the briny freshness of the sea air, was white and smooth as polished marble; but the lower part of his face was of a clear, rich golden brown. He wore no beard, but the hair was left unshaven on his upper lip and it streamed down on either side of his chin as fine as silk. When he smiled, his white and even teeth gleamed like a row of pearls between the coral redness of his lips. Queen Sigrid, as she beheld him for the first time, had no thought of the ring that he had given her, nor of its falseness.

King Olaf, on his part, was more than a little disappointed with the looks of the queen whose praises had been so often whispered in his ears. He had heard that she was young, yet he now saw that her hair was sprinkled with gray, that her eyes had lost the fire and fervour of youth, and that her brow was wrinkled with age. Younger and more comely was his own mother Astrid than this much exalted queen. But, having given his word that he meant to woo her and wed her, he had too much honour to draw back.

They sat together and talked over the matter of their wedding, and of how they would unite their domains and rule together over all the Swedes and Norsemen. And at last he took her hand and swore by the holy rood that he would be true to her.

Now Sigrid the Haughty was still a heathen, and she liked not to hear King Olaf swear by Christian tokens. So she turned upon him with a quick glance of suspicion and contempt in her eyes.

"Such vows do not please me, King Olaf," she said. "It is told that great Odin once swore on the ring. Will you swear by this ring to be true?" And she rose and took up the ring he had sent as a gift, which ere this time her two smiths had repaired.

"O speak not of Odin to me!" cried the king. "He is dead as the stones in the street. By no other symbol than the cross will I swear. Sorry am I to hear that you, Queen Sigrid, are still a believer in the old dead gods. Since this is so, however, there is little use in my being in this place, for I have made up my mind that the woman who weds me shall be a true Christian and not a worshipper of senseless idols hewn out of trees and rocks. Abandon these things, take christening, and believe in the one true God who made all things and knows all things, and then I will wed with you; but not else, O queen."

Queen Sigrid, astonished that any man dared to speak to her in this wise, looked back at King Olaf in anger.

"Never shall I depart from the troth that I have always held," she cried. "And although you had twice the wealth that you have and were yet more glorious than you are, yet never should I obey such a bidding. No, no, King Olaf. I keep true to my faith and to my vows; and can fare very well without you and your new religion. So go back to your bald headed priests and to your singing of mass. I will have none of them!"

Then the king rose in wrath and his face was darkened with gloom. For a moment he forgot his manliness, and in his anger he struck her across her cheek with his glove.

"Why, then, should I care to wed with thee?" he cried; "thou withered old heathen jade!"

With these taunting words on his lips he turned and strode from the chamber. But while the wooden stairway was still creaking under his tread, Queen Sigrid called after him in bitterest anger:

"Go, then, O proud and stubborn king. Go where you will. But remember this, that the insult you have offered me and the blow you have struck me shall be your death!"

So Olaf departed, ere yet he had broken bread, and he went north into Viken, while Queen Sigrid the Haughty went east into Sweden.

King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark had by this time regained full possession of his kingdom, and was contemplating an invasion of England which should be more complete and decisive than the attempt which he had made in company with the viking whom he had known as Ole the Esthonian. Sweyn had now, of course, discovered that this man Ole and King Olaf of Norway were one and the same person, and he began to be very jealous of the glory that was gathering about Olaf's name. A new cause for jealousy had now arisen.

Sweyn, it will be remembered, had married the Princess Gunnhild, daughter of Burislaf, King of the Wends. But in these days even now told of it befell that Queen Gunnhild was stricken with an illness and died. King Sweyn, ever ambitious of winning great dominion, had a mind to take unto himself a new wife in the person of Queen Sigrid of Sweden. He was on the point of setting out to woo her when he heard by chance that King Olaf Triggvison was already bent upon a similar journey. Envy and jealousy and bitter hatred welled up in Sweyn's breast against his rival, and he swore by Thor's hammer that sooner or later he would lower King Olaf to the dust.

But in good time King Sweyn heard of the quarrel that had befallen between Queen Sigrid and her young Norwegian suitor. So he at once fared north into Sweden to essay his own fortune with the haughty queen. He gained a ready favour with Sigrid by speaking all manner of false and malicious scandal against the man whom she had so lately rejected. Sigrid probably saw that by marrying the King of Denmark she might the more easily accomplish her vengeance upon Olaf Triggvison. She therefore accepted Forkbeard's proposals, and they were wedded in accordance with the rites and customs of their pagan faith.

Earl Erik, the son of the late Earl Hakon, was at this time the guest and friend of Sigrid's son, Olaf the Swede King; and these three--King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, King Olaf of Sweden, and Earl Erik of Lade--had each a private cause of enmity against Olaf Triggvison. It was they who, two years afterwards, united their forces in the great sea fight in which Olaf the Glorious lost his life.