But Esbern had more than one string to
his bow. He sent a man aloft with flint and steel to strike fire in
the top, and the pirates, believing that he was signalling to a
fleet he had in ambush, fled helter-skelter. Esbern got home safe.
The German emperors' fingers had always itched for the over-lordship
of the Danish isles, and they have not ceased to do so to this day.
When Frederick Barbarossa drove Alexander III from Rome and set up a
rival Pope in his place, Archbishop Eskild of Lund, who was the
Primate of the North, championed the exiled Pope's case, and
Valdemar, whose path the ambitious priest had crossed more than
once, let it be known that he inclined to the Emperor's cause, in
part probably from mere pique, perhaps also because he thought it
good politics. The archbishop in a rage summoned Absalon and bade
him join him in a rising against the King. Absalon's answer is
worthy the man and friend:
"My oath to you I will keep, and in this wise, that I will not
counsel you to your own undoing. Whatever your cause against the
King, war against him you cannot, and succeed. And this know, that
never will I join with you against my liege lord, to whom I have
sworn fealty and friendship with heart and soul all the days of my
life.
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