The young man explained that the earl had escaped from out of Gauldale, where he had been in hiding, and that he had gone off attended only by a certain thrall named Kark. Men had given chase to him, and at the edge of a deep morass they had found the footprints of the earl's horse. Following the footprints they had come into the middle of the morass, and there they found the horse itself struggling in the mire, with Hakon's cloak lying near, seeming to show that the morass had been his death.
"Earl Hakon is wily enough to have put both horse and cloak in the morass with intent to deceive his pursuers," said one of the bystanders. "For my own part I would stake my hopes of Valhalla upon it that he might even now be found at the farmstead of Thora of Rimul; for Thora is his dearest friend of all the dale folk."
Thora of Rimul sat spinning at the doorway of her home in a sheltered dale among the hills. The birch trees were breaking out into fresh buds, the young lambs gambolled on the flowery knolls, and the air was musical with the songs of birds. Thora was considered the fairest woman in all Thrandheim. Her hair was as fair as the flax upon her spindle, and her eyes were as blue as the clear sky above her head. Her heart was lightsome, too; for she had won the love of the great Earl Hakon--Hakon, the conqueror of the vikings of Jomsburg, the proud ruler of all Norway. It was he who had given her the gold ring that was now upon her white finger, and he had promised her that he would make her his queen. She did not believe that what people said of him was true--that he was black of heart, and cruel and base. His hollow words had not sounded hollow to her ears nor had she seen anything of deceitfulness in his eyes.
He had praised her beauty and declared that he loved her, and so she loved him in return.
As she sat there spinning, there was a sudden commotion among the ewes and lambs. She looked up and beheld two men standing in the shadow of the trees. One of them presently left the other and came towards her. He was a low browed, evil looking man, with a bushy black beard and long tangled hair. She rose and went to meet him, knowing him for Kark, Earl Hakon's thrall. He bade her go in among the trees, where the earl was waiting. So she went on into the wood, wondering why Hakon had not come forth and greeted her in the open as was his custom.
Now, so soon as she saw him she knew that some great ill had happened, for his hands trembled and his legs shook under him. His eyes that she had thought so beautiful were bleared and bloodshot, and there were deep lines about his face which she had never before seen. It seemed to her that he had suddenly become a decrepit old man.
"Why do you tremble so?" she asked as she took his hand.
He looked about him in fear.
"Hide me!" he cried. "Hide me! I am in danger. Shame and death are overtaking me. The young King Olaf is in the land, and he is hunting me down!"
"And who is the young King Olaf that he has power to fill the heart of the great Earl Hakon with terror?" asked Thora. "You who have vanquished the vikings of Jomsburg can surely withstand the enmity of one weak man."