Birger was not about to be cowed by the feigned move toward the empty scabbard, and his smile did not flinch even for an instant when he replied.
"You may well think that I am a rascal, Erik Jedvardsson," he began calmly, but now in a somewhat louder voice so that no one in the hall could avoid hearing his words. "This does not please me, but it still has nothing to do with the larger matter, for if you draw your sword on me, at the same moment you will draw misfortune upon yourself no matter how things may turn out."
"You scamp, do you think for a moment that you could stand against me with a sword?" shrieked Erik Jedvardsson, even more red in the face, turning so that everyone in the hall now feared the worst. A female thrall rushed up and carried off the three small boys sitting next to Birger.
Birger rose slowly, but his smile did not falter as he replied.
"Now I really must beg you as our guest to stop and think, Erik Jedvardsson," he said. "If you and I were to exchange sword blows, it would go badly for you. If you die here and now, you will never be king. If you kill me, the rest of your life will be one long journey with the whole Bjälbo clan chasing you from one ting to the next, and if that does no good they will kill you in the end. Stop and think! You have a kingdom within an arm's length, that I don't doubt. Don't squander it because you think that the spokesman for the Bjälbo clan is too young and too impudent! First win over the Swedes, then us. For the second time, this is my advice."
Birger calmly sat down and reached for a fresh tankard of ale from one of the female thralls, who was scared out of her wits. Yet he behaved as if nothing special had happened.
Erik Jedvardsson sat glumly for a long time before he answered. He had realized that young Birger from Bjälbo had spoken rightly, with words clear as water. He now had to admit that he had been rebuked and flustered by a quick-witted youth. What everyone had heard could not be unsaid.
"So be it," he said at last. "I had already thought of going to Mora Stones to win over the Swedes, so in that matter we seem to agree. But for these words of yours I will still have a goose to pluck with you when I return as your king."
"I don't doubt that at all, my future lord and king," said Birger with a broad and almost exaggerated smile. He paused playfully before he went on. "But since you do seem to accept my advice, I would suggest that you make me your jarl rather than pluck me like a goose!"
His bold manner of saying this straight to Erik Jedvardsson's angry face had a remarkable effect. At first Erik Jedvardsson stared at him with dark eyes, but Birger merely smiled back, until Erik Jedvardsson's face suddenly broke into a broad grin. And then he began to laugh. The next moment his retainers started laughing, and then Magnus's men laughed, then the women, and finally the thralls and the three small boys who were now allowed to return to their seats. By then the hall was booming with laughter and the storm had passed.
Erik Jedvardsson now knew that all further discussion about his path to the king's crown had better wait until another time. He clapped his hands and called for the Norwegian bard whom he'd brought along in the rear sleigh. He demanded stories from the time when people in the North had energy and the courage that one saw all too infrequently these days.
The bard rose from his miserable seat among the youngest retainers and began walking to the front of the hall to stand by the fire at the end, where he would tell stories and sing. In the meantime the house thralls quickly cleaned up the scraps and brought more ale, wiping up piss and vomit by the door. An expectant silence spread as the bard paused dramatically with his head bowed to let the excitement rise to the bursting point before he began.
He started in a faint but beautiful, melodious voice, telling of Sigurd Jorsalafar's eight great victories on the road to Jerusalem, how he had plundered in Galicia, how off the coast of Särkland, where the infidels lived, he first encountered ships full of Saracen heathens who came rowing toward him with a huge fleet of galleys, but how he then attacked without hesitation and soon vanquished the heathens, who clearly had never encountered a Nordic fleet before and had no understanding of such a battle that could end in only one way:
The poor heathens
attacked the king.
The mighty prince
killed them all.
The army cleared out eight ships in the terrible battle.
The much befriended prince
brought booty on board.
The raven flew off to fresh wounds.
Here the bard took a break and asked for more ale so he could resume his tales, and all the men pounded their fists on the long table as a sign that they wanted to hear more.
The two youngest boys, Arn and Knut, had listened with mouths agape and eyes wide during the story, but the somewhat older Eskil began to fret and yawn. Sigrid motioned to her house thralls to put the boys to bed. She had already made up beds for them in one of the cookhouses.
Eskil followed along obediently, yawning again; he believed that a warm bed would be preferable to an old man telling the ancient sagas in a language that was difficult to understand. Arn and Knut kicked, whined, and protested, begging to hear more and promising to sit still, but it did no good.
Soon all three boys were tucked in under thick pelts in a cookhouse with three of the biggest iron pots filled with glowing charcoal. Eskil quickly turned over and fell asleep, snuffling, while Arn and Knut lay wide awake, indignant that the eldest of them was the one who had ruined their fun. Whispering, they agreed to get dressed and slip out into the dark. Like little elves they passed two men who stood puking outside the door. They sneaked nimbly into the hall and sat down near the door in the dark where no one would see them; Arn found a big pelt, which he carefully pulled over them both, revealing only their blond bangs and wide eyes. They sat there quiet as mice, with all their attention focused on Sigurd Jorsalafar's heroic deeds.
Despite the fact that a dozen men stumbled past Arn and Knut, and some even tripped over them on their way out or in, nobody discovered the boys hiding like grouse chicks in the forest at night. They listened, rapt and wide-eyed, as the bard sang of Sigurd Jorsalafar's triumph at Sidon, repeating the verses that the men, whose applause was growing increasingly thunderous, demanded.