'Who did this deed, and where?' said Hacon.
'It was done at the Thing,' returned Helgi, 'and those who did it were thy kinsmen, Ingi and Hacon.'
'Ingi and Hacon,' repeated the boy and was silent for a moment. Then his face brightened and he added, 'Well, be not wroth with me, Helgi. None can tell if the deed will stand, for no spokesmen were there to plead my cause.'
'And who are your spokesmen?' inquired Helgi.
'God and Saint Olaf,' answered Hacon, 'and to them I leave it.'
'Good luck be with thee, king's son,' said Helgi, taking him up and kissing him.
So Hacon the child lived on in the house of the earl his kinsman, who loved him greatly, and spurned in anger the evil counsel of one Hidi, who offered secretly to do him to death.
'God forbid,' cried the earl, 'that I should in this manner buy the kingdom for my son,' and he bade Hidi begone from his presence and keep his treachery to himself. And the better to preserve the boy from harm he had him always in his company, even when he fell sick of the illness that was to end in his death. Hacon, who by now was ten years old, mourned him sorely; but in the spring Ingi the king came south to Bergen, and carried the boy northwards to Drontheim, where he sent him to school with his son Guttorm, two years younger than himself. The boys were good friends, and treated alike in all things. Guttorm, being most easily moved to wrath, and often finding himself in trouble, came to Hacon to make him a way-out, which Hacon did, many times with a jest or a laugh, for he was gentle and slow to anger, and all men loved him.
In this year Ingi the king fell sick also, and Skuli, his brother, urged upon him to place the crown on the head of his son Guttorm. Some men agreed with Skuli, and the Birchlegs feared for Hacon, and desired to bear him away with them and gather an army and fight and see who should be king; but Hacon would not listen to the old Birchlegs, and said it was 'unwise to set those at one another who ought to fight under the same shield, and that he would wait, and for the present let things be.' After all Ingi the king got well, and for two more winters he ruled as before. But when Hacon was thirteen and Guttorm eleven a sore weakness fell upon Ingi, and he knew that he would go out no more to battle. Grievous was it for a man who had spent his life in faring to and fro to be tied down to his bed; but he uttered no words of wailing, and lay listening to the merry jests of Hacon and his steward Nicholas till he laughed himself, and his illness felt lighter. Skuli, the king's brother, likewise watched by him, and his friends were gathered there also, and they pressed Ingi sore to give the kingdom into Skuli the earl's hands. And Ingi had no strength to say them nay, and he let them have their will, and soon he died, leaving the rule to Skuli. But the men of Norway did not all agree as to this matter. Some wished that Guttorm, Ingi's son, should be king, others declared that Hacon had the best right; while the rest said that the throne of Norway was no place for a boy, and they would have a man such as Skuli to reign over them. For Skuli, though filled with ambition and a man whose word and promises were swiftly broken, was tall and handsome, generous with his gold, and pleasant of speech. Therefore he had a large following and a powerful one; but to Hacon he was ever a bad friend, seeking his throne, and met his death hereafter in strife against him.
It happened that Guttorm the archbishop was away in the far north, and Skuli would fain have waited till his return, for many canons and learned clerks desired him for their lord, and the earl hoped that the archbishop might gain over others also. So he went to work secretly, seeking by sundry devices to put off the choice of a king, and so cunning he was that he seemed to have succeeded. But one day when he was asking counsel of a friend the blast of trumpets was heard.