LADY INGER (writing). Are they screwing it down tight?
BIORN. As tight as need be.
LADY INGER. Ay, ay—who can tell how tight it needs to be? Do you see that 'tis well done. (Goes up to him with her hand full of papers, and says mysteriously:) Biorn, you are an old man; but one counsel I will give you. Be on your guard against all men—both those that are dead and those that are still to die.—Now go in—go in and see to it that they screw the lid down tightly.
BIORN (softly, shaking his head). I cannot make her out.
(Goes back again into the room on the left.)
LADY INGER (begins to seal a letter, but throws it down half- closed; walks up and down awhile, and then says vehemently:) Were I a coward I had never done it—never to all eternity! Were I a coward, I had shrieked to myself: Refrain, ere yet thy soul is utterly lost! (Her eye falls on Sten Sture's picture; she turns to avoid seeing it, and says softly:) He is laughing down at me as though he were alive! Pah! (Turns the picture to the wall without looking at it.) Wherefore did you laugh? Was it because I did evil to your son? But the other,—is not he your son too? And he is mine as well; mark that! (Glances stealthily along the row of pictures.) So wild as they are to-night, I have never seen them yet. Their eyes follow me wherever I may go. (Stamps on the floor.) I will not have it! (Begins to turn all the pictures to the wall.) Ay, if it were the Holy Virgin herself—— ——- Thinkest thou now is the time——? Why didst thou never hear my prayers, my burning prayers, that I might get back my child? Why? Because the monk of Wittenberg is right. There is no mediator between God and man! (She draws her breath heavily and continues in ever-increasing distraction.) It is well that I know what to think in such things. There was no one to see what was done in there. There is none to bear witness against me. (Suddenly stretches out her hands and whispers:) My son! My beloved child! Come to me! Here I am! Hush! I will tell you something: They hate me up there—beyond the stars— because I bore you into the world. It was meant that I should bear the Lord God's standard over all the land. But I went my own way. It is therefore I have had to suffer so much and so long.
BIORN (comes from the room on the left). My lady, I have to tell you—— Christ save me—what is this?
LADY INGER (has climbed up into the high-seat by the right-hand wall). Hush! Hush! I am the King's mother. They have chosen my son king. The struggle was hard ere it came to this—for 'twas with the Almighty One himself I had to strive.
NILS LYKKE (comes in breathless from the right). He is saved!
I have Jens Bielke's promise. Lady Inger,—know that——
LADY INGER. Peace, I say! look how the people swarm.
(A funeral hymn is heard from the room within.)
There comes the procession. What a throng! All bow themselves
before the King's mother. Ay, ay; has she not fought for her son—
even till her hands grew red withal?—Where are my daughters? I
see them not.