He
left as he had come, the day before the surrender. Travelling by
night, he made his way inland, finding everywhere fear and distrust.
The King had promised that if they would obey him "they should
never want for herring and salt," so they told Gustav, and when he
tried to put heart into them and rouse their patriotism, they took
up bows and arrows and bade him be gone. Indeed, there were not
wanting those who shot at him. Like a hunted deer he fled from
hamlet to hamlet. Such friends as he had left advised him to throw
himself upon the King's mercy; told him of the amnesty proclaimed.
But Gustav's thoughts dwelt grimly among the Northern mountaineers
whom as a boy he had bragged he would set against the tyrant.
Insensibly he shaped his course toward their country.
He was with his brother-in-law, Joachim Brahe, when the King's
message bidding him to the coronation came. Gustav begged him not to
go, but Brahe's wife and children were within Christian's reach, and
he did not dare stay away. When he left, the fugitive hid in his
ancestral home at Raefsnaes on lake Maelar. There one of Brahe's men
brought him news of the massacre in which his master and Gustav's
father had perished. His mother, grandmother, and sisters were
dragged away to perish in Danish dungeons.
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