IV

On the evening of All Saints' Day the moon shone bright and clear. The

King had gone the round of the castle, had looked into stables and barns

to see that all was well; he had even been to the house where the serfs

dwelt to ascertain if they were well looked after. When he went back to

the King's Hall, he saw a woman with a black kerchief over her head

stealing towards the gateway. He thought he knew her, and therefore

followed her. She went out of the gateway, over the Market Place, and

stole down the narrow lanes to the river.

Olaf Haraldsson went after her as quietly as he could. He saw her go on

to one of the landing-stages, stand still, and look down into the water.

She stretched out her arms towards heaven, and, with a deep sigh, she

went so near the edge that the King saw she meant to spring into the

river.

The King approached her with the noiseless steps which a life full of

danger had taught him. Twice the woman lifted her foot to make the

spring, but she hesitated. Before she could make a new attempt, King

Olaf had his arm round her waist and drew her back.

'Thou unhappy one!' he said. 'Thou wouldest do that which God hath

prohibited.'

When the woman heard his voice she held her hands before her face as if

to hide it. But King Olaf knew who she was. The rustle of her dress, the

shape of her head, the golden rings on her arms had already told him

that it was the Queen. The first moment Astrid had struggled to free

herself, but she soon grew quiet, and tried to make the King believe

that she had not intended to kill herself.

'King Olaf, why dost thou secretly come behind a poor woman who hath

gone down to the river to see how she is mirrored in the water? What

must I think of thee?'

Astrid's voice sounded composed and playful. The King stood silent.

'Thou hast frightened me so that I nearly fell into the river,' Astrid

said. 'Didst thou think, perhaps, that I would drown myself?'

The King answered:

'I know not what to believe; God will enlighten me.'

Astrid laughed and kissed him.

'What woman would take her life who is as happy as I am? Doth one take

one's life in Paradise?'

'I do not understand it,' said King Olaf, in his gentle manner. 'God

will enlighten me. He will tell me if it be through any fault of mine

that thou wouldest commit so great a sin.'

Astrid went up to him and stroked his cheek. The reverence she felt for

King Olaf had hitherto deterred her from showing him the full tenderness

of her love. Now she threw her arms passionately around him and kissed

him countless times. Then she began to speak to him in gentle, bird-like

tones.

'Wouldest thou know how truly my heart clings to thee?' she said.

She made the King sit down on an overturned boat. She knelt down at his

feet.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'I will no longer be Queen. She who loves as

greatly as I love thee cannot be a Queen. I wish thou wouldest go far

into the forest, and let me be thy bondwoman. Then I should have leave

to serve thee every day. Then I would prepare thy food, make thy bed,

and watch over thy house whilst thou slept. None other should have leave

to serve thee, except I. When thou returnest from the chase in the

evening, I would go to meet thee, and kneel before thee on the road and

say: "King Olaf, my life is thine." And thou wouldest laugh, and lower

thy spear against my breast, and say: "Yes, thy life is mine. Thou hast

neither father nor mother; thou art mine, and thy life is mine."'

As Astrid said this, she drew, as if in play, King Olaf's sword out of

its sheath. She laid the hilt in the King's hand, but the point she

directed towards her own heart.

'Say these words to me, King Olaf,' she said, 'as if we were alone in

the forest, and I were thy bondwoman. Say: "Thy life is mine."'

'Thy life is God's,' said the King.

Astrid laughed lightly.

'My life is thine,' she repeated, in the tenderest voice, and the same

moment King Olaf felt that she pressed the point of the sword against

her breast.

But the King held the sword with a firm hand, even when in play. He drew

it to him before Astrid had time to do herself any harm. And he sprang

up. For the first time in his life he trembled from fear. The Queen

would die at his hand, and she had not been far from attaining her wish.

At the same moment he had an inspiration, and he understood what was the

cause of her despair.

'She has committed a sin,' he thought. 'She has a sin upon her

conscience.'

He bent down over Astrid.

'Tell me in what manner thou hast sinned,' he said.

Astrid had thrown herself down on the rough planks of the bridge, crying

in utter despair.

'No one free from guilt would weep like this,' thought the King. 'But

how can the honourable daughter of the King have brought such a heavy

burden upon her?' he asked himself. 'How can the noble Ingegerd have a

crime upon her conscience?'

'Ingegerd, tell me how thou hast sinned,' he asked again.

But Astrid was sobbing so violently that she could not answer, but

instead she drew off her golden arm and finger rings, and handed them to

the King with averted face. The King thought how unlike this was to the

gentle King's daughter of whom Hjalte had spoken.

'Is this Hjalte's Ingegerd that lies sobbing at my feet?' he thought.

He bent down and seized Astrid by the shoulder.

'Who are thou? who art thou?' he said, shaking her arm. 'I see that thou

canst not be Ingegerd. Who art thou?'

Astrid was still sobbing so violently that she could not speak. But in

order to give the King the answer he asked for, she let down her long

hair, twisted a lock of it round her arms, and held them towards the

King, and sat thus bowed and with drooping head. The King thought:

'She wishes me to understand that she belongs to those who wear chains.

She confesses that she is a bondwoman.'

A thought again struck the King; he now understood everything.

'Has not the Svea-King a daughter who is the child of a bondwoman?' he

asked suddenly.

He received no answer to this question either, but he heard Astrid

shudder as if from cold. King Olaf asked still one more question.

'Thou whom I have made my wife,' he said, 'hast thou so low a mind that

thou wouldest allow thyself to be used as a means of spoiling a man's

honour? Is thy mind so mean that thou rejoicest when his enemies laugh

at his discomfiture?'

Astrid could hear from the King's voice how bitterly he suffered under

the insult that had been offered him. She forgot her own sufferings, and

wept no more.

'Take my life,' she said.

A great temptation came upon King Olaf.

'Slay this wicked bondwoman,' the old Adam said within him. 'Show the

Svea-King what it costs to make a fool of the King of Norway.'

At that moment Olaf Haraldsson felt no love for Astrid. He hated her for

having been the means of his humiliation. He knew everybody would think

it right when he returned evil for evil, and if he did not avenge this

insult, he would be held in derision by the Bards, and his enemies would

no longer fear him. He had but one wish: to slay Astrid, to take her

life. His anger was so violent that it craved for blood. If a fool had

dared to put his fool's cap upon his head, would he not have torn it

off, torn it to pieces, thrown it on the ground, trampled upon it? If he

now laid Astrid a bloody corpse upon her ship, and sent her back to her

father, people would say of King Olaf that he was a worthy descendant of

Harald Haarfager.

But King Olaf still held his sword in his hand, and under his fingers he

felt the hilt, upon which he had once had inscribed: 'Blessed are the

peacemakers,' 'Blessed are the meek,' 'Blessed are the merciful.' And

every time he, in this hour of anguish, grasped his sword firmly in

order to slay Astrid, he felt these words under his hand. He thought he

could feel every letter. He remembered the day when he had first heard

these words.

'This I will write in letters of gold on the hilt of my sword,' he had

said, 'so that the words may burn in my hand every time I would swing my

sword in fury, or for an unjust cause.'

He felt that the hilt of the sword now burnt in his hand. King Olaf said

aloud to himself:

'Formerly thou wert the slave of many lusts; now thou hast but one

master, and that is God.'

With these words he put back the sword into its sheath, and began to

walk to and fro on the bridge. Astrid remained lying in the same

position. King Olaf saw that she crouched in fear of death every time he

went past her.

'I will not slay thee,' he said; but his voice sounded hard from hatred.

King Olaf continued for awhile to walk backwards and forwards on the

bridge; then he went up to Astrid, and asked her in the same hard voice

what her real name was, and that she was able to answer him. He looked

at this woman whom he had so highly treasured, and who now lay at his

feet like a wounded deer--he looked down upon her as a dead man's soul

looks with pity at the poor body which was once its dwelling.

'Oh, thou my soul,' said King Olaf, 'it was there thou dwelt in love,

and now thou art as homeless as a beggar.' He drew nearer to Astrid,

and spoke as if she were no longer living or could hear what he said.

'It was told me that there was a King's daughter whose heart was so pure

and holy that she endued with peace all who came near her. They told me

of her gentleness, that he who saw her felt as safe as a helpless child

does with its mother, and when the beautiful woman who now lies here

came to me, I thought that she was Ingegerd, and she became exceeding

dear to me. She was so beautiful and glad, and she made my own heavy

thoughts light. And did she sometimes act otherwise than I expected the

proud Ingegerd to do, she was too dear to me to doubt her; she stole

into my heart with her joyousness and beauty.'

He was silent for a time, and thought how dear Astrid had been to him

and how happiness had with her come to his house.

'I could forgive her,' he said aloud. 'I could again make her my Queen,

I could in love take her in my arms; but I _dare_ not, for my soul would

still be homeless. Ah, thou fair woman,' he said, 'why dost lying dwell

within thee? With thee there is no security, no rest.'

The King went on bemoaning himself, but now Astrid stood up.

'King Olaf, do not speak thus to me,' she said; 'I will rather die.

Understand, I am in earnest.'

Then she tried to say a few words to excuse herself. She told him that

she had gone to Kungahälla not with the intention of deceiving him, but

in order to be a Princess for a few weeks, to be waited upon like a

Queen, to sail on the sea. But she had intended to confess who she was

as soon as she came to Kungahälla. There she expected to find Hjalte and

the other great men who knew Ingegerd. She had never thought of

deceiving him when she came, but an evil spirit had sent all those away

who knew Ingegerd, and then the temptation had come to her.

'When I saw thee, King Olaf,' she said, 'I forgot everything to become

thine, and I thought I would gladly suffer death at thine hand had I but

for one day been thy wife.'

King Olaf answered her:

'I see that what was deadly earnest to me was but a pastime to thee.

Never hast thou thought upon what it was to come and say to a man: "I am

she whom thou most fervently desirest; I am that high-born maiden whom

it is the greatest honour to win." And then thou art not that woman;

thou art but a lying bondwoman.'

'I have loved thee from the first moment I heard thy name,' Astrid said

softly.

The King clenched his hand in anger against her.

'Know, Astrid, that I have longed for Ingegerd as no man has ever longed

for woman. I would have clung to her as the soul of the dead clings to

the angel bearing him upwards. I thought she was so pure that she could

have helped me to lead a sinless life.'

And he broke out into wild longings, and said that he longed for the

power of the holy ones of God, but that he was too weak and sinful to

attain to perfection.

'But the King's daughter could have helped me,' he said; 'she the

saintly and gentle one would have helped me. Oh, my God,' he said,

'whichever way I turn I see sinners, wherever I go I meet those who

would entice me to sin. Why didst Thou not send me the King's daughter,

who had not a single evil thought in her heart? Her gentle eye would

have found the right path for my foot. Whenever I strayed from it her

gentle hand would have led me back.'

A feeling of utter helplessness and the weariness of despair fell upon

Olaf Haraldsson.

'It was this upon which I had set my hopes,' he said--'to have a good

woman at my side, not to wander alone amongst wickedness and sin

forever. Now I feel that I must succumb; I am unable to fight any

longer. Have I not asked God,' he exclaimed, 'what place I shall have

before His face? To what hast Thou chosen me, Thou Lord of souls? Is it

appointed unto me to become the equal of apostles and martyrs? But now,

Astrid, I need ask no longer; God hath not been willing to give me that

woman who should have assisted me in my wandering. Now I know that I

shall never win the crown of the Saints.'

The King was silent in inconsolable despair; then Astrid drew nearer to

him.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'what thou now sayest both Hjalte and Ingegerd

have told me long ago, but I would not believe that thou wert more than

a good and brave knight and noble King. It is only now that I have

lived under thy roof that my soul has begun to fear thee. I have felt

that it was worse than death to appear before thee with a lie upon my

lips. Never have I been so terrified,' Astrid continued, 'as when I

understood that thou wast a Saint. When I saw thee burn the chips in

thine hand, when I saw sickness flee at thy bidding, and the sword fall

out of thine enemy's hand when he met thee, I was terrified unto death

when I saw that thou wast a Saint, and I resolved to die before thou

knewest that I had deceived thee.'

King Olaf did not answer. Astrid looked up at him; she saw that his eyes

were turned towards heaven. She did not know if he had heard her.

'Ah,' she said, 'this moment have I feared every day and every hour

since I came hither. I would have died rather than live through it.'

Olaf Haraldsson was still silent.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'I would gladly give my life for thee; I would

gladly throw myself into the gray river so that thou shouldst not live

with a lying woman at thy side. The more I saw of thy holiness the

better I understood that I must go from thee. A Saint of God cannot have

a lying bondwoman at his side.'

The King was still silent, but now Astrid raised her eyes to his face;

then she cried out, terror-stricken:

'King Olaf, thy face shines.'

Whilst Astrid spoke, God had shown King Olaf a vision. He saw all the

stars of heaven leave their appointed places, and fly like swarming

bees about the universe. But suddenly they all gathered above his head

and formed a radiant crown.

'Astrid,' said he, with trembling voice, 'God hath spoken to me. It is

true what thou sayest. I shall become a Saint of God.'

His voice trembled from emotion, and his face shone in the night. But

when Astrid saw the light that surrounded his head, she arose. For her

the last hope had faded.

'Now I will go,' she said. 'Now thou knowest whom thou art. Thou canst

never more bear me at thy side. But think gently of me. Without joy or

happiness have I lived all my life. In rags have I gone; blows have I

endured. Forgive me when I am gone. My love has done thee no harm.'

When Astrid in silent despair crossed over the bridge, Olaf Haraldsson

awoke from his ecstasy. He hastened after her.

'Why wilt thou go?' he said. 'Why wilt thou go?'

'_Must_ I not go from thee when thou art a Saint?' she whispered

scarcely audibly.

'Thou shalt not go. Now thou canst remain,' said King Olaf. 'Before, I

was a lowly man and must fear all sin; a poor earthly King was I, too

poor to bestow on thee my grace; but now all the glory of Heaven has

been given to me. Art thou weak? I am the Lord's knight. Dost thou fall?

I can lift thee up. God hath chosen me, Astrid. Thou canst not harm me,

but I can help thee. Ah! what am I saying? In this hour God hath so

wholly and fully shed the riches of His love in my heart that I cannot

even see thou hast done wrong.'

Gently and tenderly he lifted up the trembling form, and whilst lovingly

supporting her, who was still sobbing and who could hardly stand

upright, he and Astrid went back to the King's Castle.

_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD