From that time the three friends were inseparable as in the old days when they played about the fields of Fjenneslev.  Absalon was the keeper of the King’s conscience who was not afraid to tell him the truth when he needed to hear it.  And where they were Esbern was found, never wavering in his loyalty to either.  Within a year Absalon was made bishop of Roskilde, the chief See of Denmark.  Saxo innocently discovers to us King Valdemar’s little ruse to have his friend chosen.  He was yet a very young man, scarce turned thirty, and had not been considered at all for the vacancy.  There were three candidates, all of powerful families, and, according to ecclesiastical law, the brethren of the chapter were the electors.  The King went to their meeting and addressed them in person.  Nothing was farther from him, he said, than to wish to interfere with their proper rights.  Each must do as his conscience dictated, unhindered.  And with that he laid on the table four books with blank leaves and bade them write down their names in them, each for his own choice, to get the matter right on the record.  The brethren thanked him kindly and all voted “nicely together” for Absalon.  So three of the books were wasted.  But presently Saxo found good use for them.

For now had come the bishop’s chance of putting in practice the great abbot’s precepts.  “Pray and fight” was the motto he had written into the Knights Templars’ rule, and Absalon had made it his own.  Of what use was it to build up the church at home, when any day might see it raided by its enemies who were always watching their chance outside?  The Danish waters swarmed with pirates, the very pagans against whom Abbot Bernard had preached his crusade.  Of them all the Wends were the worst, as they were the most powerful of the Slav tribes that still resisted the efforts of their neighbors, the Christian Germans, to dislodge them from their old home on the Baltic.  They lived in the island of Ruegen, fairly in sight of the Danish shores.  Every favoring wind blew them across the sea in shoals to burn and ravage.  The Danes, once the terror of the seas, had given over roving when they accepted the White Christ in exchange for Thor and his hammer, and now, when they would be at peace, they were in turn beset by this relentless enemy, who burned their homes and their crops and dragged the peaceful husbandman away to make him a thrall or offer him up as a sacrifice to heathen idols.  More than a third of all Denmark lay waste under their ferocious assault.  Here was the blow to be struck if the country was to have peace and the church prosperity.