Only after Christ’s Mass and Eilaf’s departure did I consider that as Swedes we were both serving foreign monarchs. He was returning to Cnut, a Dane, and I served Olaf, a Norseman. This led to the shocking thought that if war did come with Sweden, I would be fighting my own people again. Father had died following Svein. If he had not, in war I might have found myself facing my own parent in battle. I shuddered at the concept and only the thought that Eilaf was far away in England soothed me. It made me more determined to take up the cause of peace so yearned for by the Gautlanders.
The alarming news of one crisis after another and the resulting air of strife in the winter of 1017 drove me to abandon the loving comfort of Estrid’s embraces. Duty called me to seek out Olaf. The decisive mom
