LADY INGER. Hearken, Sir Councillor! What you know you shall
know thoroughly. And you too, my old and faithful friend----!
Listen then. To-night you bade me call to mind that fatal day
when Knut Alfson was slain at Oslo. You bade me remember the
promise I made as I stood by his corpse amid the bravest men in
Norway. I was scarce full-grown then; but I felt God's strength
in me, and methought, as many have thought since, that the Lord
himself had set his mark on me and chosen me to fight in the
forefront for my country's cause.
Was it vanity? Or was it a calling from on high? That I have
never clearly known. But woe to him that has a great mission laid
upon him.
For seven years I fear not to say that I kept my promise
faithfully. I stood by my countrymen in all their miseries. All
my playmates were now wives and mothers. I alone could give ear
to no wooer--not to one. That you know best, Olaf Skaktavl!
Then I saw Sten Sture for the first time. Fairer man had never
met my sight.
NILS LYKKE. Ah, now it grows clear to me! Sten Sture was then
in Norway on a secret errand. We Danes were not to know that he
wished your friends well.
LADY INGER. Disguised as a mean serving-man he lived a whole
winter under one roof with me.
That winter I thought less and less of the country's weal----
----. So fair a man had I never seen, and I had lived well-nigh
five-and-twenty years.
Next autumn Sten Sture came once more; and when he departed
again he took with him, in all secrecy, a little child. "Twas not
folk's evil tongues I feared; but our cause would have suffered
had it got about the Sten Sture stood so near to me.
The child was given to Peter Kanzler to rear. I waited for
better times, that were soon to come. They never came. Sten
Sture took a wife two years later in Sweden, and, dying, left
a widow----
OLAF SKAKTAVL. ----And with her a lawful heir to his name and
rights.
LADY INGER. Time after time I wrote to Peter Kanzler and
besought him to give me back my child. But he was ever deaf to
my prayers. "Cast in your lot with us once for all," he said,
"and I send your son back to Norway; not before." But 'twas even
that I dared not do. We of the disaffected party were then ill
regarded by many timorous folk. If these had got tidings of how
things stood--oh, I know it!--to cripple the mother they had
gladly meted to the child the fate that would have been King
Christiern's had he not saved himself by flight.[1]
But besides that, the Danes were active. They spared neither
threats nor promises to force me to join them.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. 'Twas but reason. The eyes of all men were fixed
on you as the vane that should show them how to shape their course.
LADY INGER. Then came Herlof Hyttefad's revolt. Do you remember
that time, Olaf Skaktavl? Was it not as though the whole land
was filled with the sunlight of a new spring. Mighty voices
summoned me to come forth;--yet I dared not. I stood doubting--
far from the strife--in my lonely castle. At times it seemed as
though the Lord God himself were calling me; but then would come
the killing dread again to paralyse my will. "Who will win?"
that was the question that was ever ringing in my ears.
'Twas but a short spring that had come to Norway. Herlof
Hyttefad, and many more with him, were broken on the wheel during
the months that followed. None could call me to account; yet
there lacked not covert threats from Denmark. What if they knew
the secret? At last methought they must know; I knew not how
else to understand their words.
'Twas even in that time of agony that Gyldenlove the High
Steward, came hither and sought me in marriage. Let any mother
that has feared for her child think herself in my place!--and
homeless in the hearts of my countrymen.
Then came the quiet years. There was now no whisper of revolt.
Our masters might grind us down even as heavily as they listed.
There were times when I loathed myself. What had I to do? Nought
but to endure terror and scorn and bring forth daughters into the
world. My daughters! God forgive me if I have had no mother's
heart towards them. My wifely duties were as serfdom to me; how
then could I love my daughters? Oh, how different with my son!
_He_ was the child of my very soul. He was the one thing that
brought to mind the time when I was a woman and nought but a
woman--and him they had taken from me! He was growing up among
strangers, who might sow in him the seed of destruction! Olaf
Skaktavl--had I wandered like you on the lonely hills, hunted
and forsaken, in winter and storm--if I had but held my child
in my arms,--trust me, I had not sorrowed and wept so sore as I
have sorrowed and wept for him from his birth even to this hour.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. There is my hand. I have judged you too hardly,
Lady Inger! Command me even as before; I will obey.--Ay, by all
the saints, I know what it is to sorrow for a child.
LADY INGER. Yours was slain by bloody men. But what is death
to the restless terror of all these long years?
NILS LYKKE. Mark, then--'tis in your power to end this terror.
You have but to reconcile the opposing parties, and neither will
think of seizing on your child as a pledge of your faith.
LADY INGER (to herself). This is the vengeance of Heaven.
(Looks at him.) In one word, what do you demand?
NILS LYKKE. I demand first that you shall call the people of
the northern districts to arms, in support of the disaffected in
Sweden.
LADY INGER. And next----?
NILS LYKKE. ----that you do your best to advance young Count
Sture's ancestral claim to the throne of Sweden.
LADY INGER. His? You demand that I----?
OLAF SKAKTAVL (softly). It is the wish of many Swedes, and
'twould serve our turn too.
NILS LYKKE. You hesitate, lady? You tremble for your son's
safety. What better can you wish than to see his half-brother
on the throne?