“Yes, we have that saying too,” said Lavrans; he and Erling had come over to join them. “And yet I was duped, Haftor, this past winter, when I tried to light my torch with fresh horse droppings.” He perched on the edge of the table. Sir Erling at once brought his goblet and offered it to Lavrans with a word of greeting. Then the knight sat down on a bench nearby.
“It’s not likely, Haftor,” said Erlend, “that up north in Haalogaland you would know what Lady Ingebj?rg and her advisers know about the undertakings and enterprises of the Danes. I suspect you might have been short-sighted when you opposed the king’s demand for help. Sir Knut5—yes, we might as well mention his name since he’s the one that we’re all thinking about—he seems to me a man who wouldn’t be caught unawares. You sit too far away from the cookpots to be able to smell what’s simmering inside them. And better to prepare now than regret later, I say.”
“Yes,” said Sir Erling. “You might almost say that they’re cooking for us on the neighboring farm—we Norwegians will soon be nothing more than their wards. They send over the porridge they’ve made in Sweden and say: Eat this, if you want food! I think our lord, King Haakon, made a mistake when he moved the cookhouse to the outskirts of the farm and made Oslo the foremost royal seat in the land. Before then it was in the middle of the courtyard, if we stay with this image—Bj?rgvin6 or Nidaros—but now the archbishop and chapter7 rule here alone. What do you think, Erlend? You who are from Tr?ndelag and have all your property and all your power in this region?”
“Well, God’s blood, Erling—if that’s what you want: to carry home the cookpot and hang it over the proper hearth, then—”
“Yes,” said Haftor. “For far too long we up here in the north have had to settle for smelling the soup cooking while we spoon up cold cabbage.”
Lavrans joined in.
“As things stand, Erlend, I would not have presumed to be spokesman for the people of the district back home unless I had letters in my possession from my kinsman, Sir Erngisle. Then I knew that none of the lawful rulers plans to break the peace or the alliance between the countries, neither in the realm of the Danish king nor in that of our own king.”
“If you know who now rules in Denmark, Father-in-law, then you know more than most men,” said Erlend.
“One thing I do know. There is one man that nobody wants to see rule, not here nor in Sweden nor in Denmark. That was the purpose of the Swedes’ actions in Skara last summer, and that is the purpose of the meeting we will now hold in Oslo—to make clear to everyone who has not yet realized it, that on this matter all sober-minded men are agreed.”
By this time they had all drunk so much that they had grown boisterous, except for old Smid Gudleikss?n; he was slumped in his chair next to the hearth.
Erlend shouted, “Yes, you’re all so sober-minded that the Devil himself can’t trick you. It makes sense that you’d be afraid of Knut Porse. You don’t understand, all you good gentlemen, that he’s not the kind who can be satisfied with sitting quietly, watching the days drift past and the grass grow as God wills. I’d like to meet that knight again; I knew him when I was in Halland. And I’d have no objections to being in Knut Porse’s place.”
“That’s not something I would dare say if my wife could hear me,” said Haftor Graut.
But Erling Vidkunss?n had also drunk a good deal. He was still trying to maintain his chivalrous manner, but he finally gave up. “You!” he said, laughing uproariously. “You, kinsman? No, Erlend!” He slapped the other man on the shoulder and laughed and laughed.
“No, Erlend,” said Lavrans bluntly, “more is needed for that than a man who is capable of seducing women. If there was no more to Knut Porse than his ability to play the fox in the goose pen, then all of us Norwegian noblemen would be much too lazy to make the effort to leave our manors to chase him off—even if the goose was our own king’s mother. But no matter who Sir Knut may lure into committing foolish acts in his behalf, he never commits follies without having some reason for doing so. He has his purpose, and you can be certain that he won’t take his eyes off it.”
There was a pause in the conversation. Then Erlend spoke, and his eyes glittered.
“Then I would wish that Sir Knut were a Norwegian man!”
The others were silent. Sir Erling drank from his goblet and said, “God forbid. If we had such a man among us here in Norway, then I fear there would be a sudden end to peace in the land.”
“Peace in the land!” said Erlend scornfully.
“Yes, peace in the land,” replied Erling Vidkunss?n. “You must remember, Erlend, that we knights are not the only ones who live in this country. To you it might seem amusing if an adventurous and ambitious man like Knut Porse should rise up here. In the past, things were such in the world that if a man stirred up a group of rebels, it was always easy for him to win a following among the noblemen. Either they won and acquired titles and land, or their kinsmen won and they were granted a reprieve for both their lives and their estates. Yes, those who lost their lives have been entered in the records, but the majority survived, no matter whether things went one way or the other—that’s how it was for our fathers. But the farmers and the townspeople, Erlend—the workers who often had to make payments to two masters many times in a single year, but who still had to rejoice each time a band of rebels raced through their villages without burning their farms or slaughtering their cattle—the peasants, who had to endure such intolerable burdens and attacks—I think they must thank God and Saint Olav for old King Haakon and King Magnus and his sons, who fortified the laws and secured the peace.”
“Yes, I can believe you would think that way.” Erlend threw back his head. Lavrans sat and stared at the young man—Erlend was now fully alert. A flush had spread over his dark, fierce face, the sinews of his throat were arched taut in his slender, tan neck. Then Lavrans glanced at his daughter. Kristin had let her needlework sink to her lap, and she was intently following the men’s conversation.
“Are you so sure that the farmers and common men think this way and are rejoicing over the new sovereign?” said Erlend. “It’s true that they often had difficult times—back when kings and their rivals waged war throughout the land. I know they still remember the time when they had to flee to the mountains with their livestock and wives and children while their farms stood in flames down below in the valley. I’ve heard them talking about it. But I know they remember something else—that their own fathers were part of the hordes. We weren’t alone in the battle for power, Erling. The sons of farmers were part of it too—and sometimes they even won our ancestral estates. When law rules the land, a bastard son from Skidan who doesn’t know his own father’s name cannot win a baron’s widow and her estate, such as Reidar Darre did. His descendant was good enough to be betrothed to your daughter, Lavrans; and now he’s married to your wife’s niece, Erling! Now law and order rule—and I don’t understand how it happens, but I do know that farmers’ lands have fallen into our hands, and lawfully so. The more entrenched the law, the more quickly they lose their power and authority to take part in their own affairs or those of the realm. And that, Erling, is something that the farmers know too! Oh, no, don’t be too certain, any of you, that the peasants aren’t longing for the past when they might lose their farms by fire and force—but they could also win with weapons more than they can win with law.”