t, the deposed dean of Vesteras,
had joined their ranks. To him Gustavus wrote a note, assuring him that
the archbishopric would have been conferred upon him had he but done his
duty. Knut, apparently, did no great benefit to his brother's cause.
Only a few days after he arrived, his leader wrote archly to a person
who had loaned him funds, that he could stay no longer in the land, for
certain peasants were already on his track, intending to capture him and
take him to the king. If these suspicions were correct, it was probably
as well for him that he escaped. Some two weeks later these two
scoundrels were both in Norway, waiting for a more auspicious moment to
return.[112]

Whether their movements were in any way inspired by Norby, is not clear.
One thing, however, is very sure. Whomever Norby thought could be of
service, he did not hesitate to use. In the previous summer, even while
truckling with Fredrik, he had been in steady communication with
Christiern, who was Fredrik's bitter foe. And now, though every one
believed him to have broken with Fredrik, there was a story afloat that
Fredrik's hand was really behind the pirate's opposition to Gustavus. No
one could place the slightest confidence in what he said. In January he
started a rumor that he was ready to give up Gotland, provided the king
would grant him a like domain in Finland; but soon it turned out that
the whole project was a ruse. In February he had so far befogged the
intellect of Fredrik as to induce that monarch to request of Gustavus a
full pardon for all of Norby's doings. It need scarce be added, this
ridiculous proposal met with no success; and Fredrik, almost as soon as
it was sent, had cause to rue it, for Norby toward the close of winter
sent an army into Bleking,--a province ceded to Fredrik by the Congress
of Malmoe,--and there spread ruin far and wide.[113]

The relations of Fredrik to Sweden at this juncture are very strange.
Though nominally at peace, the two nations were utterly distrustful of
each other, and at frequent intervals tried in secret to cut each
other's throats. Their only bond of union was their common abhorrence of
the tyrant Christiern; and whenever Fredrik fancied that danger averted,
he spared no effort to humiliate his rival beyond the strait. One
instance of his treachery was noticed in the comfort given to Knut and
Sunnanvaeder when they fled to Norway. The treaty of Malmoe had stated
with sufficient clearness that a