Östråt is no place of safety for an outlaw? That I have long known. But you forget that an outlaw is unsafe wheresoever he may wander.
Lady Inger.
Speak then; I will not hinder you.
Olaf Skaktavl.
’Tis nigh on thirty years now since first I saw you. It was at Akershus[[18]] in the house of Knut Alfson and his wife. You were little more than a child then; yet were you bold as the soaring falcon, and wild and headstrong too at times. Many were the wooers around you. I too held you dear—dear as no woman before or since. But you cared for nothing, thought of nothing, save your country’s evil case and its great need.
Lady Inger.
I counted but fifteen summers then—remember that! And was it not as though a frenzy had seized us all in those days?
Olaf Skaktavl.
Call it what you will; but one thing I know—even the old and sober men among us thought it written in the counsels of the Lord on high that you were she who should break our thraldom and win us all our rights again. And more: you yourself then thought as we did.
Lady Inger.