XXII
“BE FAITHFUL TO ME, KARK”
Far into the night, Olaf’s followers feasted in the hall of Thora’s mansion at Rimul. In the fields around the dwelling, the tents had been pitched for their sleeping accommodation. On the morrow, the king would take up his march through the different shires to receive the allegiance of the chiefs. Olaf longed to reach the province of Viken to see in his kingly state the devoted mother who had watched over his infant and boyhood years of danger. Though his step-father, Lodin, was a rich and powerful jarl, Olaf wished that Aastrid should receive all the homage due to the king’s mother. Then too he wanted to secure Lodin’s influence in spreading the Christian faith. Olaf was burning with a noble impatience to see all his beloved Norway brought to believe in Christ the White. He dreamed of the cross on many churches, the sails of hundreds of ships each fluttering out the holy sign, and the Virgin’s head on countless prows, that cut the waves of the North Sea.
While the men feasted with the king, Thora and her bower women waited in another room. When the
