[citation needed] A Finnish noblegirl with abilities of casting spells, Terhen of Arantila, gets mingled with royalty of Sweden, and follows in a retinue to the Court of Novgorod in Russia, where the sister of the Swedish King is to marry the Grand Duke of Novgorod (Kievan Rus).

Years go by, and the Grand Duke of Novgorod allows a Roman (Greek) dignitary Skleros, envoy of the Emperor of Byzant, to marry the young lady.

In Constantinople, Theodora (a rising Imperial lady-in-waiting) gives birth to two sons, Georgios to her first husband Skleros, and Juvalos ('Olaf'), with her Varangian lover Eirik Väkevä, a Swedish noble.

The widowed Theodora is sent to steward Anna Jaroslavna, daughter of the Grand Duke of Kievan Rus, throughout Europe to her future husband King Henry I of France.

In France Theodora marries a brutal Norman knight Roger of Meilhan, and settles in his small castle in Normandy.