Prologue

Of Olaf the Stout and his Kin

Over the land came a troop of men riding. They were the guards of Norway’s king, and he was on his way to see his mother.

Winter still dwelt in the Uplands, but as the band moved southward and down, into Hringariki shire, they felt the first winds of springtime. Here the mountains had sloped off into hills where spruce trees stood murky against snow. The sun glittered from a high clear sky. Louder than hoofs in mud, a river brawled seaward over stones. Now and again a raven flapped off, astoundingly black, as the riders neared.

They were big men, shaggy in furs wrapped over chain-mail byrnies, reddened by the cold. Sunbeams ran like fire along their helmets and spear blades, that rose and fell with the trotting of their shaggy little horses. Shields banged on cruppers, leather creaked, iron jingled, sometimes laughter sounded. Olaf Haraldsson led them. He was not the oldest, he had not yet seen a quarter century, but he was the king. Of middle height, he was broadly built and kettle-bellied; one could even call him fat, but heavy bone and hard flesh lay beneath. His face was wide, brown-bearded, ruddy, with a blunt nose, a large mouth and small ice-blue eyes. He bore a sword at his waist and an ax at his saddle.

“We are nearly through the forest,” he called over his shoulder. “I remember the landmarks. We will soon be there.”

“Will the beer?” asked the nearest man.

Olaf grinned. The road made a turn, the woods halted, and he rode out across plowland. Here the earth lay bare between snowbanks and the wind raised wavelets on every puddle. Smoke rose raggedly from a house on the left. The dwellers came out to gape at the warriors: burly yeomen, long-limbed women, children whose shocks of hair were nearly white, all in wadmal and winter sheepskins. Weapons sank when the troop offered no threat. Beyond them, Olaf saw their pigs and goats and cattle behind rail fences, and beyond that other steadings like this one and their lands rolling southward to the hidden Oslo-fjord. And this was his; he was the king. That fact was not yet too old to shout within him.

Soon he spied the lake he knew, and his mother’s home. She had what was a thorp in its own right: barns, sheds, workshops and dwellings on three sides of a flagged courtyard. On the fourth side was the hall, steep-roofed, dragon heads gaping from the beam ends. Messengers had gone before to say he was coming. As he clattered onto the stones, he saw the housefolk in their best clothes awaiting him. His horse snorted wearily as he drew rein.

Dismounting, he strode to the doorway where his mother stood. He pulled off his gloves and took her hands with sudden awkwardness. She smiled. “Welcome, Olaf,” she said.

“I should have come ere now,” he mumbled.

“Three years was long, yes. But they were three hard years. I well understood you had no time to spare. Now come in, you and your men.” Pride lifted her voice. “Come in, king!”

Aasta Gudhbrandsdottir was a tall woman, still straight and slender though her thick yellow hair was streaked with gray. She looked into his eyes as boldly as a man, and he knew it was not only because he was her son. She had confronted the foes of his kindred, when they ruled this realm, with the same gaze. He remembered how she had always stood for him against his stepfather, Sigurdh Sow, and that it was chiefly her doing that he was not Norway’s master.

Careful as a boy, he wiped his feet. In the entry room he gave a carle his coat, helmet and byrnie. His clothes beneath were good, a blue linen shirt and legginged breeches, a golden pin at his throat and a gold ring on one hairy arm. He and his guards followed Aasta into the main chamber.

Long and dim it ran, between pillars carved with beasts and heroes. Fire leaped in the trenches; smoke stung men’s eyes before curling past the high rafters and out the holes in the roof. Aasta had had fresh boughs laid on the floor, cushions put on the benches, her finest tapestries hung on the walls among the weapons and antlers. Trestle tables had been set up and loaded with food, casks of beer and mead stood close by, the household women waited to serve. Olaf was given the high seat which had been Sigurdh’s, at the middle of one side wall. His mother sat on his right.

First her chaplain must bless the food, for Olaf was a strict Christian and felt that his greatest work lay in uprooting heathendom throughout the land. Then they fell to, hacking off meat and bread with their knives, throwing bones to the dogs, draining horn after horn, till the hall clattered. Only after the meal, when the tables had been cleared away and the men were off to lounge about the garth, did Aasta speak much with Olaf.

He felt he must take the lead and said clumsily, “It’s a sorrow that Sigurdh is dead. He was a good man.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Wise and gentle, and we were not unhappy together, he and I. But he lacked the heart of a king.”

Shocked at her bluntness—her husband had died only a few months ago—Olaf said, “Why, he … it was he who got the chiefs to aid me against the Haakonssons, when I first came home.”

“Because I made him,” she answered. “I speak no ill of the dead. Sigurdh Sow was a mighty yeoman, and no coward. But he was not a king, for all he bore the name.”

“My father—” Olaf’s mouth closed, for he thought it best to let that matter lie. Harald Gudhrodharson had been king in Vestfold shire and Aasta’s first husband, but he had wanted to put her aside and marry Sigridh the Haughty of Sweden. And Sigridh had had him murdered, saying that this would teach those little under-kings not to come wooing her. Later she married Svein Twybeard, Lord of Denmark and conqueror of England. Olaf had never known his father Harald, who died before he was born.

“Can you run these acres by yourself?” he asked hastily. “I could send a trusty man down to help you.”

“I have enough,” said Aasta. After a moment: “You were good to come see me. You must tell me the full tale of how you smote the Upland kings this winter. Now there are none other left who even call themselves under-king, are there?”

“No,” he said.

“Keep it thus.”

“I will, if God allows.”

Aasta rose. “But would you not like to see the children?” she asked. “Stay here, I’ll fetch them in.”

They entered slowly, all but the youngest shy before their grown half-brother. The oldest was Guthorm, about ten; then came the girl Gunnhild, the boy Halfdan, the girl Ingiridh and last the three-year-old boy Harald.

Olaf leaned forward, smiling. “Be not afraid,” he said. “Here, come to me.”

Aasta led the boys forward. Guthorm and Halfdan already looked like their father Sigurdh, the big, slow-spoken man who had been clever with his hands and had himself worked in the fields he loved. One after the other, Olaf took them on his knee, as the custom was. To test them he scowled and glared. Guthorm shrank back and Halfdan broke into a wail. Olaf could see that Aasta was displeased, but he took Harald anyway. The lad was big for his age, with sharp eyes under a bleached mane. His face remained steady when the king frowned.

Olaf tugged his hair. At once a little hand gave his beard an angry yank. The king laughed and set Harald down. “You’ll be revengeful when you grow up, kinsman!” he said.

The next day Olaf and his mother were walking about the grounds. A warm wind had blown through the night and now the snow was melting with an old man’s haste to die and be done. Clouds banked dusky in the south, boding rain, but roofed with sunlight. A hare bolted underfoot and sparrows were noisy in the fields. On high floated an eagle, two wings and a beak in heaven.

Talking of old times and everything which had happened since, Olaf and Aasta wandered down to the lake. It was wrinkled with wind, almost black against the last snow, and smelled wet. A broadness thrust out into the water with ten farmsteads smoking on its back. “Look,” said Olaf, “yonder are the boys.”

Guthorm and Halfdan were building toy houses out of clay. Harald was by himself, sailing chips of wood. “Ever he goes alone,” said his mother. “His siblings weary him.”

Olaf strolled over to watch. Harald glanced up, meeting his gaze with blue eyes that seemed oddly cold for three years old. “What have you there?” asked the king.

“They are my warships,” said Harald.

Olaf nodded and answered gravely, “Surely the time will come, kinsman, when you lead many ships.”

He turned and whistled at Guthorm and Halfdan, who came and stood bashful before him. “Tell me, Guthorm,” said Olaf, “what would you like to have most of?”

“Grainfields,” mumbled the boy.

“And how big should those fields be?”

Guthorm flushed. “They should be so big that that whole ness sticking into the water there could every summer be sown with their grain.”

Olaf smiled. “Yes, that wouldn’t be so little grain.” To Halfdan: “And what do you want to have most of?”

“Cattle,” said Halfdan at once.

“And how many cattle would you like?”

“So many that—that—” The boy waved his hand eagerly. “That when they came down to drink, they would stand tight around the lake.”

“You’re like your father, you two,” said Olaf. “But Harald, what would you have most of?”

“Warriors,” said the youngest.

“And how many warriors do you want?”

“So many that at one meal they could eat all my brother Halfdan’s cattle.”

Olaf bellowed with laughter. When he had finished, he said to Aasta: “Here you are raising a king, mother!”

He walked further with her, and what else was said between them is not known.