In the council-chamber, among the lords, sat Svend with his six brethren; he chief of all in the wielding of sword or axe, in the government of people, in drawing the love of men and women to him; perfect in face and body, in wisdom and strength was Svend:  next to him sat Robert, cunning in working of marble, or wood, or brass; all things could he make to look as if they lived, from the sweep of an angel’s wings down to the slipping of a little field-mouse from under the sheaves in the harvest-time.  Then there was Harald, who knew concerning all the stars of heaven and flowers of earth:  Richard, who drew men’s hearts from their bodies, with the words that swung to and fro in his glorious rhymes:  William, to whom the air of heaven seemed a servant when the harp-strings quivered underneath his fingers:  there were the two sailor-brothers, who the year before, young though they were, had come back from a long, perilous voyage, with news of an island they had found long and long away to the west, larger than any that this people knew of, but very fair and good, though uninhabited.

But now over all this noble brotherhood, with its various gifts hung one cloud of sorrow; their mother, the Peace-Queen Cissela was dead, she who had taught them truth and nobleness so well; she was never to see the beginning of the end that they would work; truly it seemed sad.

There sat the seven brothers in the council chamber, waiting for the king, speaking no word, only thinking drearily; and under the pavement of the great church Cissela lay, and by the side of her tomb stood two men, old men both, Valdemar the king, and Siur.

So the king, after that he had gazed awhile on the carven face of her he had loved well, said at last: 

‘And now, Sir Carver, must you carve me also to lie there.’  And he pointed to the vacant space by the side of the fair alabaster figure.

‘O king,’ said Siur, ’except for a very few strokes on steel, I have done work now, having carved the queen there; I cannot do this thing for you.’

What was it sent a sharp pang of bitterest suspicion through the very heart of the poor old man? he looked steadfastly at him for a moment or two, as if he would know all secrets; he could not, he had not strength of life enough to get to the bottom of things; doubt vanished soon from his heart and his face under Siur’s pitying gaze; he said, ’Then perhaps I shall be my own statue,’ and therewithal he sat down on the edge of the low marble tomb, and laid his right arm across her breast; he fixed his eyes on the eastern belt of windows, and sat quite motionless and silent; and he never knew that she loved him not.

But Siur, when he had gazed at him for awhile, stole away quietly, as we do when we fear to waken a sleeper; and the king never turned his head, but still sat there, never moving, scarce breathing, it seemed.

Siur stood in his own great hall (for his house was large), he stood before the dais, and saw a fair sight, the work of his own hands.