Against the coming of winter, when Styrbiorn was now fifteen winters old, Eric the King made great blood-offering in the temple at Upsala for the goodness of the year, as was his wont and the wont of his fathers before him from time immemorial. Thither were come together lords and great men of account from up and down the land, and there was great drinking toward. But Styrbiorn came not to meat that day, and came not to the King’s hall. So the King sent men to seek for Styrbiorn. In a while they returned, and a man of the King’s bodyguard said, “So it is, Lord, that we found him sitting on his father’s howe, King Olaf Biornson’s.”
The King’s brow darkened. He said to Earl Wolf, “Must this thing be, every autumn feast of sacrifice? Well, ’tis now the third time and the last; and yet it goeth nigh to anger me. Or will he not swallow my plighted word, that I will give him all, but not until he be sixteen year old?”
“I looked not for this again, King,” said the Earl. “And truly I’m sorry for it.”
The King made them go again to bid him to the drinking. But back they came empty-handed. “Did he answer you naught?” asked the King.
At that, they were silent, looking one at the other. Then answered one for them all and said, “Naught, Lord, save this: that he would waste no breath on the King’s thralls.”
“Like as his father was,” said the King, “so is this young whelp. Go thou, Earl, if that might fetch him.”
Earl Wolf stood up and went betwixt the benches and the fires and forth of the main door into the King’s garth, and forth of the garth past the houses of men and the Thing-stead and the temple till he was come to the open field. It was murk and wild weather, and evening drawing in. Like a high house in bigness, Olaf’s howe reared against the fading light. It was all overgrown with rank grass, and the tufts and tussocks of the grass ducked and paled and rose and ducked again, slapped this way and that by the blustering squalls that charged and paused and swept again about the howe, ceaselessly as the ceaseless rush of vapours in the iron-gray windy lift of the sky overhead.
Styrbiorn sat on the top of the howe, unmoved as it, face to the wind. The Earl came up to him, fain to steady himself with a hand at whiles, what with the sudden squalls and the slippery grass. When he was up, “This is ill doing,” he said, shouting in his ear.
Styrbiorn moved not at all. He was muffled in a close-woven mantle of woollen stuff dyed purple and worked with black threads at the border in rich designs. Close as he held it about him, it puffed and flapped like a ship’s sail in a storm when the rudder is broken. His head was bare, and the thick short curled yellow hair on it leapt to the wind’s piping like the grass on the howe. He wore a heavy collar of pure gold, soft and bent to lie about his throat where neck and shoulder join, and worked by the goldsmith’s art with rich enchasements, and a dragon’s head at either end. He sat with his chin in his hands, frowning upwind so that his eyes watered.
The Earl sat down and put an arm about him. “The King withholdeth not thine inheritance, Styrbiorn. He hath promised, and he will give it thee, as well thou knowest. But time is not yet. Thou art yet but fifteen winters old.”
Styrbiorn shook him rudely off. “Little men’s redes, foster-father, shall not serve my turn. ’Tis not in my blood.” He spoke, as was ever the way of him, with a little stuttering here and there, as if the great and eager spirit of him in its haste tripped and stumbled over the slowness of his speech.
“No jot less of that blood,” answered the Earl, shouting in his ear for the wind sake, “runneth in thine uncle’s veins. He loveth thee. Wilt thou bite the hand that feeds thee? Go in with me. Or why neededst thou put that shaming on free men, to put the name of thrall upon them?”
Styrbiorn leapt up a-laughing. “Did Aki’s nose swell at that?” he cried. “Of age, saidst thou! Come off, and back me.”
“Hold,” said the Earl. But the lad was away: three bounds down the steep to the rough pasture, and away toward the King’s hall. Earl Wolf was a handy man, but he scarce overtook him in the great hall door.
Lamps were kindled in the hall, and the ruddy firelight mingling with their colder beams pulsed and flickered, betwixt rush-strewn floor and the uncertain darkness of the roof-timbers, on bench and board and the many-coloured raiment of that great company and worshipful that there were set. Eric the King sat in his high seat on the upper bench. That other on the lower bench over against him was empty. He wore a Greek cloak of scarlet silken stuff and a blue kirtle done about with needlework. Gold rings that weighed twelve ounces each were on his arms above the elbows, and a crown of fine gold was on his head. King Eric was of all men the fairest to look on; and for all he was well nigh threescore winters old he was neither bent nor wrinkled, but fresh-looking and stark and stalwart as any man in his prime age, and his hair and beard most fair and thick, albeit something dashed with gray, and the voice of him deep and strong and pleasant to hear, and his eyes of a gray colour and speckled, and very bright.
Styrbiorn came and stood before the King betwixt the fire and the board. The King pointed to the high seat over against him, and said, “Take thy place, kinsman.”
Styrbiorn eyed him squarely, then
