"Swear to it!" repeated Pallé, with glowing cheeks, and endeavouring to hide his confusion; "those who will not believe me, by my troth may let it alone; ungodly oaths I have forsworn."
"Then the devil take your chatter," muttered the prince, in displeasure, and turned from him.
CHAP. VI.
On his return to Sjöborg Castle, King Eric had shut himself up in his private chamber, engrossed in serious reflections on the imminent peril he had just escaped; it seemed to him as if St. Cecilia's eve was destined to bring with it misfortune and danger to him and to his race. This was the second time he had encountered traitors and robbers in the neighbourhood of Sjöborg. The conviction, however, that he possessed the love and devotion of his subjects, soon dissipated the young king's gloomy mood. He had summoned the Swedish Marsk, Thorkild Knudson, to a private audience, and now conversed calmly and frankly with this noble knight on the happy alliance between Denmark and Sweden, which at the present time was the chief subject of the king's thoughts, and in which his heart so ardently shared.
Thorkild Knudson was a handsome man, of a thoughtful and dignified aspect, rather more than forty years of age; his dark hair seemed to have grown untimely grey. His powerful influence as regent had gained him a high reputation, as well in his own country as in foreign courts. An honest aspiration after power and rank was manifest in his fiery glance, and the noble commanding expression of his countenance bespoke a dauntless confidence in his own powers, and a species of proud contempt for all the petty arts by which less highly gifted statesmen often seek to supply the want of sound political wisdom. As he sat opposite the young king, attired in his blue knight's dress, with the large chain of the order around his neck, and conversed with him, with freedom and sympathy, he might have been taken for a fatherly friend or relative of King Eric, had he not, by strict observance of the respect due to Eric's exalted station, but without a tinge of flattery, known how to receive the confidence reposed in him by royalty with an appearance of homage which detracted not from his own dignity as the ambassador of a foreign monarch.
Although Thorkild Knudson, as Swedish regent, was authorized on the part of King Birger and the state council to accede to the king's desire of having the celebration of his marriage fixed for the ensuing spring, yet it was only on the condition that the pope's dispensation should be obtained before that time. But because of the vehemence with which the king always rejected the idea of every obstacle, Thorkild Knudson had hitherto propounded this condition in as mild terms as possible. He now touched upon it again, and took the opportunity of bringing the case of the captive archbishop to Eric's remembrance.
The colour mounted to the young king's cheek; he became suddenly silent, and a secret struggle seemed passing within his breast. He looked around him once or twice, as if he missed some one; at last, however, his eye rested with evident pleasure and satisfaction on Thorkild's intelligent and noble countenance. "I esteem my future brother-in-law fortunate," he said, "in possessing a man like you for his friend and counsellor. You are now to him what my aged counsellor Jon and my well-beloved Drost Hessel have been to me from my childhood upwards. The misunderstanding with the papal court has long deprived me of my best and most experienced counsellors. My faithful Drost Aagé is not older and more experienced than myself. I feel confidence in you, Sir Thorkild. Were I your liege and sovereign, what would you counsel me in this weighty matter?"
"To see the prisoner, and hear his defence--dispassionately, noble King Eric," answered the Swedish statesman. "As far as I know, he hath not only done wrong, but suffered wrong; for a long and severe imprisonment is a suffering and punishment, which can only be called just, when it is inflicted according to a lawfully pronounced sentence."
"Was it then unjust in me to imprison a state criminal, who was an accomplice in the murder of my father--an accursed regicide?" said Eric, with vehemence, and rising from his seat. "Should I have given him time to escape, or stir up the people against me, because he was not condemned by the pope and the bishops? Can I acknowledge ecclesiastical law when it would acquit a rebel and regicide?"
"It was perhaps necessary for your grace to hinder his flight and treasonable designs," answered Thorkild Knudson, who had risen from his seat at the same time with the king, "were it not possible previously to obtain papal authority for the step; but, by your grace's leave, as your counsellor, I would have freely and openly pronounced all unnecessary severity to be as dangerous as unjust."