The Axe Read Free Page A

power upon that skin of his—it seemed strangely tight and smooth and white—only in summer a few small freckles appeared over the root of the nose, which was low and broad. This healthy paleness gave Olav’s face even in childhood something of a cold, impassive look. His features too were somewhat short and broad, but well formed. The eyes lay rather far apart, but they were large and frankly open; the eyebrows and lashes were so fair that they showed but as a golden shadow in the sunlight. His nose was broad and straight, but a little too short; his mouth was rather large, but the lips were so finely curved and firm that, had they not been so pale in the colourless face, they might have been called handsome. But his hair was of matchless beauty—so fair that it shone like silver rather than gold, thick and soft and lightly curled. He wore it trimmed so that it covered his broad, white forehead, but showed the hollow in his neck between the two powerful muscles.
    Olav was never tall for his age, but he seemed bigger than he was; of perfect build, sturdy and muscular, with very small hands and feet, which seemed the stronger because the wrists and ankles were so round and powerful. And indeed he was very strong and supple; he excelled in all kinds of sport and in the use of arms—but there was none who had ever taught him to practise these exercises in the right way. As things stood at Frettastein in his growing up, Olav was left to his own devices. Steinfinn, who had promised to be a father to him when he took charge of the boy, didnothing to give him such training as was meet for a young man of good birth, heir to some fortune and destined to be the husband of Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter.
    That Steinfinn Toresson was Olav’s foster-father had come about in this way:
    One summer, while Steinfinn was still in goodly case, it chanced that he had business at the Eidsiva Thing. He went thither with friends and kinsmen and took with him his wife and their daughter Ingunn, who was then six years old. The parents had such joy of the pretty child that they could not be without her.
    Here at the Thing Steinfinn met a man, Audun Ingolfsson of Hestviken. Audun and Steinfinn had been bedfellows in the King’s body-guard and good friends, though Audun was older than the other and the men were of very unlike humour; for at that time Steinfinn was merry and loved to talk of himself, but Audun was a silent man and never spoke of his own affairs.
    In the spring of the same year that King Haakon was away warring in Scotland, Audun was married. He took a Danish wife, Cecilia Björnsdatter, Queen Ingebjörg’s playmate, who had been with her at the convent of Rind. When the Bishop of Oslo took young King Magnus’s bride by force and carried her to Norway, because the Dane King slighted the compact and refused to send his kinswoman thither, Cecilia went with her. At first the young Queen would fain have kept the damsel always with her; but a year later the Lady Ingebjörg seemed already to have changed her mind and she was eager to have Cecilia married. Some said it was because King Magnus himself liked to talk with the Danish maid more than his wife cared for; others declared that it was young Alf Erlingsson of Tornberg who had won her heart, but his father, Baron Erling Alfsson, would not let his son take a foreign wife who owned neither land nor powerful kinsfolk in Norway. Young Alf was a man of fiery nature and wont to have his will in all things, and he loved Cecilia madly. The Queen therefore took counsel to marry off the maid, lest some misfortune might befall her.
    However these things might be, the maid herself was chaste and full of grace; and after Audun, who at first had seemed somewhat unwilling, had spoken two or three times with Cecilia, he himself was eager to take her. Their wedding was held at theKing’s court in Björgvin; old King Haakon gave the bride a marriage portion. Audun carried his wife to Hestviken. There she