In the Wilderness (2 page)

Within the room a little lamp was burning at the edge of the hearth.

Olav had given the two strangers beds in the closet, and seated on the edge of Ingunn’s bed he undressed—slowly, with a pause after each garment. He rose to pinch out the wick.

A whisper came from the northern bed: “Father!”

After a moment Olav answered in a hushed voice: “Are you awake, Eirik?”

“Yes. When shall we sail, Father?”

Olav was silent. But Eirik was so used to his father’s seeming not to hear, or answering like the echo when one shouted toward the Bull—after a pause and as though across a distance.

“Father—take me with you! I shall stand you in good stead”— Eirik spoke in a loud and eager whisper—“I shall serve you as well as a full-grown man. I can do the work of an able-bodied man, ay, and more!”

“You can indeed.” Eirik could hear that his father was smiling, but then there was neither anger nor refusal in his voice.

“May I go with you, Father—to England this summer?”

“None has yet said that I go myself,” said Olav soberly.

He blew out the little flame, pinched off the burned wick, and dropped it into the oil. Then he got into bed. Something fell down and touched his neck in the darkness. It was soft and cool, reminding him of young, living skin, among the coarse, rough wool and sheepskins of his bedclothes. It was Eirik’s chaplet. Olav groped for it and hung it in its place again. It had reminded him of her body—her shoulder so slight and soft and cold, when the coverlet had slipped off while she slept and he drew it up and spread it over her again.

Of course he would go—he was firmly resolved on that in his inmost heart, and he would suffer nothing to come in the way and hinder him. Only for appearance’ sake he still let it seem uncertain whether he would accept; it would not do to acknowledge that he had let himself be persuaded so easily by two perfect strangers—nay, that he had seized their offer with both hands.

But he would not stay here at Hestviken the whole summer, now that he espied a means of escape. No matter that this little old hoy that the Richardsons’ grandfather owned was a wretched craft—and that he himself was no more of a seaman than that they might easily have found many a better one.
Once
before he had been in England, some fifteen years ago with the Earl—so it was but little he knew of that country; a great lord’s subalterns cannot stir far abroad. But as the Richardsons had not questioned him of it— He knew nothing of these two, but he could see that they were untried men and not over-wise. And by degrees he had
been forced to admit that he himself would never be a good tradesman. It made him angry when he saw he had been cheated. But he had accustomed himself to say nothing and put a good face on it; ’twas bootless for him to wrangle with folk who were sharper than himself in such matters. He had not even thought of dissolving his partnership with Claus Wiephart—he might fall into the hands of others who would shear him yet closer.

These Richardsons looked as if they themselves might stand to be shorn. In that case there would be even less profit in throwing in his lot with them. Howbeit—

He missed her who was gone so sorely that he could not guess what it would be like to live here without her in all the years that were to come. He went about as one benumbed with wondering.

He could remember the thoughts he had sometimes had in her last years: that it would be a sin to wish her to lie on here and suffer torment to no purpose. But now that she was gone—ay, now he remembered that shred of saga that Brother Vegard had once repeated to them while they were children, of King Harald Luva, who sat brooding three years over the corpse of his Lapp wife. He was bewitched, the monk had said. Maybe—ah yes, but maybe ’twas not all madness either.

As far back as he could remember, he had been used to think of her as much as of himself, whatever he were doing or thinking. When two trees have sprung up together from their roots, their leaves will make
one
crown. And if one falls, the other, left standing alone, will seem overgrown. Olav felt thus, exposed and grown aslant, now that she was gone.

He knew full well they had been joyless years, most of them, but his memories of the happiness they had shared were far clearer and more enduring. It was as with the lime trees here on the hills about the inlet: they made no great show to the eye, but in summer when they blossomed, the whole of Hestviken seemed laden with the scent of them, so that one almost felt its sweetness clinging to the skin like honey-dew. In all the years he had been away from here, as boy and as man, fostered among strangers or an outlaw in other realms, this scent of lime blossoms had been the only thing to remind him that he owned lands that were his—all else about them he had forgotten.

And even in the saddest days of their life together she had been his—the same as that little Ingunn who had been so sweet and fair
when she was young, so slight and supple to take in his arms, with the scent of hay breathing from her golden-brown hair when he spread it over him in the darkness. He had often loved her with the same gentle goodness as one loves a favourite faithful, innocent animal—a handsome heifer or a dog. And at other times he had loved her so that his body trembled and quailed in anguish when he recalled it now and remembered that it was done, had been done for many a day before she died. And nevertheless she was the only woman of whom he cared to recall the possession. He could not think of the others without feeling a chilly aversion to the memories creep over him.

Now he had lost Ingunn, and when he thought of the last night before she died, he knew it was his own fault that he had lost her entirely. He was well aware of what had befallen him. When he was plunged in the most helpless distress and sorrow, about to lose his only trusty companion in life, God, his Saviour Himself, had met him with outstretched hands to help. And had he but had the courage to grasp those open, pierced hands, he and his wife would not now have been parted. Had he but had the courage to stand by the resolve he had taken at that meeting with his God—whatever might have been his lot in this world, whether pilgrimage or the headsman’s sword—in a mysterious way he would have been united with the dead woman, more intimately and closely than friend can be united with friend while both are alive on earth.

But once again his courage had failed him. He had stood looking on when God came and took Ingunn, carried her away alone.

And he was left behind as a man is left sitting on the beach when his ship has sailed away from him.

And to bide here at home in Hestviken after that—it was the same as waiting for the days and nights to pass by in an endless train, one like another.

No, he would not turn away the Richardsons’ offer, that was sure.

From out of the darkness came the boy’s wide-awake voice: “The Danes, Father—they lie out in the English Sea and seize our ships, I have heard.”

“The English Sea is wide, Eirik, and our vessel is small.—Best that you stay at home this year, for all that.”

“I meant it not so—” Olav could hear that the lad sat up in his
bed. “I meant—I had such a mind to prove my manhood,” he whispered in bashful supplication.

“Lie down and go to sleep now, Eirik,” said Olav.

“For I am no longer a little boy—”

“Then you should have wit enough to let folk sleep in peace. Be quiet now.”

His father’s voice sounded weary, only weary but not angry, thought Eirik. He curled himself up and lay still. But sleep was impossible.

He would be allowed to go, he believed that firmly—so firmly that when he had lain for a while thinking of the voyage, he felt quite sure of it. He was certain that they would fall in with Danish ships. They have a much higher freeboard than ours usually have, so at the first onset it might look bad enough. But then he calls out that all hands are to run to the lee side and hold their shields over their heads, and then, when all their enemies have leaped on board, they come forward and attack them. His father singles out the enemy captain—he looks like that friend of Father’s they met in Tunsberg once: a stout, broad man with red hair and a full red face, little blue eyes, and a big mouth crammed with long yellow horse’s teeth.—Then Eirik flings his shield at the stranger’s feet, so that he slips on the wet floor-boards and the blow does not reach his father—yes, it does, but his father takes no heed of the wound. The Dane stumbles and his hauberk slips aside so as to expose his throat for an instant; at the same moment Eirik plies his short sword as though it were a dagger. Now the Danes try to escape on board their own ship. The ships’ sides creak and give as they crash against one another in the seaway, and while the men hang sprawling, with axes and boathooks fixed in the high, overhanging side of the Danish vessel, the Norwegians lay on them with sword and spear. “Methinks ’tis no more than fair,” says his father, “that Eirik, my son, should take the captain’s arms—but if ye will have it otherwise, I offer to redeem your shares from this booty.” But all the men agree: “Nay, ’tis Eirik that laid low this champion single-handed, and we have saved the ship through his readiness.”

“Are you the young Norse squire, Eirik Olavsson from Hestviken?”—for the tale has spread all over London town. And one day when the governor of the castle rides abroad, he meets him. The White Tower is the name of London’s castle; it is built of
white marble. And one day when he has gone up to have a sight of it—this castle is even greater and more magnificent than Tunsberghus, and the rock on which it stands is much higher—the governor comes riding down the steep path with all his men, and some of them whisper to their lord, pointing to the lad from Norway—

Nay, stay behind in London when his father goes home, that he will not, after all. Not even in play can Eirik imagine his father leaving him and going back to Hestviken, and the life here taking its wonted course, but without him. In his heart Eirik harbours an everlasting dread; even if of late he has been able to lull it to sleep, he goes warily, fearing to awake it—what if one day he should find out that he is not the rightful heir to Hestviken? Even if he lies here weaving his own story from odds and ends that he has heard—the house-carls’ tales of the wars in Denmark, the wonderful sagas of old Aasmund Ruga—the boy does not forget his secret dread: if he should be renounced by his father and lose Hestviken. Then let him rather play at something else—at strangers who make a landing here in the creek; his father is not at home, he himself must be the one to urge on the house-folk to defend the place, he must rouse the countryside—

But in any case his father shall soon have proof of what stuff there is in this son of his. He shall have something to surprise him, his father. Then maybe he will give up walking as one asleep, taking no heed of Eirik when they are together.

But the next day Olav set Eirik to bring home firewood for the summer, and his father said he was to have it all brought in today. The snow still lay over the fields here on the south side of the creek, but tomorrow most of it might well be gone.

The going was good early in the morning. Anki loaded one sledge while Eirik drove home the other. But as the day wore on, it grew very warm, and even before the hour of nones Eirik was driving through sheer mud a great part of the way.

Eirik spread snow along the track, but it turned at once to slush. Olav went higher up and spread snow on the fields there; he called down to the boy to drive round under the trees. But this was many times farther, around all the fields—and Eirik made as though he had not heard.

When Olav looked down again, the load of wood had stuck fast
at the bottom of the slope leading to the yard. Eirik heaved off billets, making the rocks ring; then he went forward, jerked the bridle and shouted, but the horse stood still. “Will you come up, you lazy devil!”—and back went Eirik, dragging at the reins. Then he threw off more wood.

The sledge was stuck in a clay-pit at the bottom of the rock under the old barn, where the road from Kverndal turned up toward the yard. The sun had not yet reached this spot, so the rock was covered with ice, but water trickled over the surface. Eirik took hold of the back of the sledge and tried to wriggle it loose. But the horse did not move. The boy strained at it all he could, stretching to his full length over the ground; then he lost his foothold in the miry clay, dropped on his hands and knees, and some billets of wood slid off the load and hit him on the back—and there was his father standing on the balk of the field beside him. Fear at the sight of him gave Eirik such a shock that he was on the verge of tears; he plunged forward, tore at the reins, and belaboured the horse with them: the horse floundered, threw its head about, but did not move from the spot. “Will you come up, foul jade!” Quite beside himself, seeing that his father did nothing but stand and look on, Eirik struck at the horse with his clenched fist, on the cheeks, on the muzzle. Olav leaped down from the balk and came toward him, threateningly.

Then the horse put its forefeet on the frozen surface, slid, and looked as if it would come down on its knees. But at last it got a foothold, came up to the collar—the sledge with its lightened load came free—and dashed at a brisk pace up the slope.

On reaching the yard Eirik turned and shouted back to his father, with tears in his voice: “Ah, you might have lent us a hand—why should you stand there and do nothing but glare!”

A flush spread slowly over Olav’s forehead. He said nothing. Now that the boy shouted it at him, he did not know how it had been—but he
had
simply stood and glared, without ever a thought that he might give Eirik a hand. A queer, uncomfortable feeling came over Olav—it was not the first time either. Of late it had happened to him several times to wake up, as it were, and find himself standing idly by—simply staring without a thought of bestirring himself and doing the thing that lay to his hand.

Up by the woodpile he heard Eirik talking kindly and caressingly to the horse. Olav had seen this before—such was the lad’s
way with both man and beast: one moment he was beside himself with sudden passion, the next all gentleness, imploring forgiveness. With a grimace of repugnance Olav turned away and walked up again across the fields.