Meanwhile Ragnhild and her following had returned to Nidaros. Great was the joy and wonder. Folk thought her unknown rescuer could have been an elf, or even a high god. However that might be, surely one who had flown from the bottom of hopelessness back to freedom was born to luck. Also, of course, her father was rich and mighty.

Men had sought Ragnhild’s hand before the grief came upon her. She had not wanted any of them, and King Haakon had found mild ways to turn them down. She was, after all, quite young. Now she was fully grown and famous. Sons of chieftains and neighbor kings, and some of those leaders themselves, arrived to woo her.

“It tore my heart when I must yield you up to the thurs,” he said to her as they walked alone. “I know not if I would have, had you not told me you chose to go for the sake of our house. Nevermore shall you be betrothed against your will. But we are getting well-born guests, who bring many more with them. They stay on in hopes of you. Quarrels are rising among them. I fear uproar, killing, and all the aftermath, if you do not pick one soon.”

“Or none,” she said.

“If you take one, the rest will not go away angry. They’ll see it’s merely that you like him best. But if you tell the whole lot of them nay, then everybody will be wroth. They’ll think you feel that not a one is worth having.”

“I’ll wait a while yet.”

“You will take a man soon, won’t you? You’d not go barren to your grave”

She nodded. “Him who saved me.”

“But you never saw his face. You met only a fellow of his, likewise unknown to you. He has not come forth. How do you know he ever will?”

“I will know him if he does.” She looked beyond the fields and the fjord. “No, when he does.”

A few days later Hadding entered the harbor.

Folk cried out when they saw his ship draw nigh. Ragnhild was among those who sought higher ground from which to watch. It was a splendid sight. The weather had gone bright and warm. White clouds stood tall to north, over the land that rose green across the water, but the sun rode free and light spilled down to sheen and glitter on wavelets. Hadding had waited until the breeze blew such that from Nidaros his colored sail with the woven raven showed broadside on. The warlike figurehead was lowered, the white shield of peace hung at the masthead, but the shields along the sides flashed in their many hues above the red and black and gold of the hull. Himself at the helm, as he came near he winded a horn. Men struck and smartly furled the sail, others took up oars, and Firedrake walked on thirty legs to a berth.