The days grew shorter and colder and Olaf would stand on the battlements of his great Royal Estate at Sæheimr and await news of his enemy"s approach. And each day the news failed to arrive until, at last, he began to doubt the words of his father-to-be. On the eleventh morning since his return from the proclamation ceremony, as he sat in the Great Hall and listened to the bleating of an old man whose wife had run off with his sons to build a new farm of their own, a commotion without stirred him. He stood up and strode out, ignoring the old man, who fell to his knees and wept.
Outside the snow drifted down, the stillness of the air in sharp contrast to the grim faces of the group of riders who clattered into the yard, their skin almost blue with cold. The lead man jumped from his mount an
