Magnus Folkesson had made a promise to God that he would mourn Sigrid for five years before he would remarry. Within his family this decision had aroused astonishment, since it was not usual for a man who was still fit, and who had only one legitimate son as heir, to refrain for so long from begetting new sons to strengthen the clan.

   Magnus had consoled himself somewhat with a thrall, Suom, and had a love child with her. But Arnäs had become a gloomy fortress where not much happened or ever changed. After Sigrid's death Magnus had felt empty in his head and could no longer find new ideas for his trade and businesses. Everything ran in the same old ruts.

   He had built some things; he had finished the walls and about six miles of road up toward Tiveden. Building a road was a deed pleasing to God, and he had promised this construction when he visited Sigrid's grave the first time and prayed for her at Varnhem and purchased prayers of intercession for her.

   It couldn't hurt to combine what was pleasing to God with what would be good for future business. The day there was a road all the way through Tiveden wood he would be able to trade to the north with the Swedes. They were simple men who understood little, but they had good iron and offered a fine trade in pelts that could bring plenty of silver if there were passable roads.

   Contributing to the gloominess at Arnäs was the fact that his mother, Tora Guttormsdotter, had come from her farms in Norway to tend to everything that a wife would usually oversee, for as long as he remained unmarried. But she was hard on the thralls and wanted to run everything according to old Norwegian customs, and Magnus, like many men, had a hard time putting his own mother in her place. The fact that he ought to be a better lord of his own house was a strong reason to find a new wife soon. In Magnus's view it would be wise to join forces with the Pål clan in Husaby, since his own lands bordered theirs. In that case any of the Pål daughters would bring to the estate a suitable dowry of oak forests covering the slopes of the mountain Kinnekulle. Of course, the unmarried daughters were still scarcely more than children, but youth was something that soon passed.

   Eskil was both a joy and a secret sorrow to Magnus. Eskil was like himself, and also much like his mother Sigrid, whose intelligence he seemed to have inherited. Eskil wanted most of all to take part in trading expeditions, to meet foreign merchants and learn from their wares and prices how best to calculate the value of two casks of bacon in terms of wheat or hides and how to trade raw iron for silver. In this Eskil was indeed his father's son.

   Yet as an almost full-grown man he was still unable to throw a lance or handle a sword the way a man of a clan with a coat of arms should be able to do. But it was true that Magnus himself resembled his eldest son in this.

   Only once had Magnus as the lord of Arnäs been forced to set out for war. That was when Henriksen the Dane proclaimed himself king over the Swedes after he had ignominiously hacked off the head of Erik Jedvardsson up in Östra Aros. There were two versions of the event: some held that it occurred just after the high mass in the Trinity Church, and that Erik Jedvardsson died courageously facing great odds, and a spring emerged from the spot where his head struck the ground.

   According to Erik Jedvardsson's enemies, and to King Karl Sverkersson, Erik Jedvardsson died unnecessarily because he had been too full of ale to defend himself like a man.

   And yet it made little difference how King Erik had been murdered; there would have to be war in any case. The fact that the Swedes felt indignant that a Dane had come and murdered their king was easy to understand. At once they sent off a message all the way to Helsingland and the darkest forests of Svealand, and soon had gathered a great army heading for Östra Aros. But the question was how people would react in Western Götaland and in Eastern Götaland. Should they let the Swedes settle accounts with the Danish slayer of their king on their own, or should they take part in the war?

   For King Karl Sverkersson and his men in Linköping, this was not a difficult decision. He had to choose between going off to war against the Danish king-slayer with as many forces as he could muster, and thus winning the crown of the Swedes for himself, or allowing them to win on their own and then elect a new king, who could be anyone at all among the Swedish chieftains or lawspeakers. For King Karl Sverkersson the choice was simple.

  When the Folkungs gathered for the clan ting in Bjälbo in Eastern Götaland, they soon found that there wasn't much choice. Magnus's own brother Birger, who was now called Brosa, the Smiling One, had quickly convinced the clan ting. One war was unavoidable for all in Eastern Götaland, Birger Brosa had declared, and that was the war against the Danish murderer of the king. For the Eastern Goths the only right thing was to support King Karl in this matter. But after the victory he would probably become king of Svealand as well. Because victorious they would be; the army raised in Sweden was itself large enough to win the victory on its own. The days of the Dane, Magnus Henriksen, on earth were numbered. Now they had to look beyond his death.

   For the Folkungs it was crucial that they not be split apart and end up on different sides in a war. If King Karl now won the royal crown in Svealand, he would soon demand recognition in Western Götaland as well—then all the Folkungs would be set against one another, the east against the west.

   Better then to combine all the problems into a single war, so that both Western Goths and Eastern Goths would rally around King Karl in his war. If they did not do so, the same thing would happen later anyway, but at the cost of much spilled blood and in the worst case with brother set against brother.

   No one at the clan meeting could contradict Birger Brosa on this. And from then on Birger Brosa usually got what he wanted.

   Magnus took part in the war with his retainers in the way he found best. He and his men did not enter into the dispute until it was already won, which then mostly involved executing the last of the Danes and taking captive those who could pay ransom. He was able to return to Arnäs as a victor who had not lost a single man in the conflict but became 50 marks richer in silver, and for this he was popular with the women, though the men did not think highly of him.

   He had left Eskil at Arnäs when he went off to war, despite the boy's nagging and whining. Eskil was not yet a man; besides, as the eldest son and heir, he could not be replaced like some fallen retainer.

   Magnus had tried to forget his second son whom God had taken alive from him. But since he knew that Arn was the son that Sigrid had loved best, he could not forget as easily as he should for the peace of his soul. Nor could he forget Sigrid during the five years of mourning he had assigned himself. In secret he told himself that she was still the one person above all others whom he valued most highly, more than any man, even a man such as his brother Birger Brosa.