The Axe (18 page)

On the evening that Tore Bring of Vik was there, it fell to Olav’s lot that the lord Torfinn drank with him. After supper the Bishop had him summoned from his seat far down the table; he had to come forward and stand before the Bishop’s chair. Lord Torfinn raised the tankard to his lips and handed it to Olav: it felt icy cold in his hand, and the wine had a pale greenish look in the bright silver vessel. It was sharp and sour and pricked the boy’s palate, but he liked the taste for all that, ’twas fresh, a drink for men, and afterwards it warmed his whole body with a rare, festal glow. He shook his head when Bishop Torfinn smiled and asked: “Maybe you like mead better, Olav?” Then he asked what Olav had thought of the service that day—there had been a festival mass and procession in the morning; and then he bade Olav drink again: “You are happy now, I dare say? I think we may be well content with what Tore has spoken.”

The Bishop had not been able to get any satisfaction from the lady Magnhild—she would give no opinion as to what had happened at the Thing that time. She was inclined, indeed, to believe
that her brother had thought of a marriage between Olav Audunsson and one of his daughters—at one time, in any case—but never that the match was made and settled. But Tore Vik declared that he was sure of it—Steinfinn and Audun concluded a bargain about their children that evening. They had given each other their hands on it, and Tore himself was the one who had struck the bargain; he named three or four men who had witnessed the taking of hands and who were still living, so far as he knew. What agreement was made as to settlements he knew not, but he had heard the men discuss it on a later day; he even remembered that Audun Ingolfsson would not hear of an equal division of property, unless Steinfinn increased his daughter’s dowry a good deal; “My son will be much richer than that, Steinfinn,” Audun had said.

During Advent, Arnvid went home to his farm in Elfardal for a space, and Olav went with him. Olav had not been there since he was a little boy. Now he came as the master’s friend and equal, looked about him with discerning eyes, and put in his word as a man who himself had one thing and another on his hands. Here Arnvid’s mother ruled supreme, and she received Olav with both hands, since he had upset Kolbein’s plans for Ingunn; for she sincerely hated Kolbein and all the children her brother-in-law had had with his leman. Mistress Hillebjörg was a proud and handsome woman, old as she was; but there seemed to be a coolness between her and her son. Arnvid’s children were three pretty, fair-haired boys. “They take after their mother,” said Arnvid. Olav was well pleased with the thought that he would be a master himself when he came home to Hestviken.

Just before Yule the friends returned to the town; Arnvid wished to keep the feast there.

T
HE EVENING
before Christmas Eve Olav was sent for to the Bishop.

A candle was burning on the reading-desk in the deep window; the little stone-walled chamber looked cosy and comfortable in its faint light. There was no other furniture but a chest for books and a bench against the walls. The Bishop slept and ate there; he
used neither bed nor table. But there was a low stool on which his secretary could sit with his writing-board in his lap, when the Bishop dictated letters to him. At other times when Olav had been up, the lord Torfinn had bidden him sit on the stool, and Olav had liked to crouch at the Bishop’s knee; it made it easy to speak to him, as to a father.

But this evening Lord Torfinn came straight up to him and stood with his hands under his scapular. “The Toressons will be here on Twelfth Night, Olav; I have summoned them hither and they have promised to appear. Now we shall have an end of this matter—with God’s help.”

Olav bowed in silence and looked anxiously at the Bishop. Lord Torfinn pursed his lips and nodded once or twice.

“To tell the truth, my son, they show no great mind to be reconciled. They spoke to my men about my having accepted penance of you for your share in the slaughter and suffered you to go to mass. They would have had me free them also from the ban before Yule; but that is another matter of which we must speak at our meeting. But you can guess, they are wroth that I did not receive you as though you had been a robber and a ravisher—” he gave a short and angry laugh.

Olav looked at the Bishop and waited.

“You
have done wrong, never must you think aught else—but you are young and far from your kinsfolk and guardians—and these incendiaries seek to abate the rights of two fatherless children.—You will not be down-hearted, I trust,” he said, giving Olav a little slap on the shoulder, “if you are forced to bow somewhat low to Ingunn’s uncles? You know, boy, you have injured them. You shall not have to suffer wrong at their hands, if I am able to hinder it.”

“I shall do as you say, my lord and father,” said Olav, a little downcast.

The Bishop looked at him with a fleeting smile.

“You will not like it—having to bow your neck a trifle—no, no.—If you are going to church now, you may go by the balcony.”

Bishop Torfinn nodded and held out his hand to be kissed, in token that the audience was at an end.

The Brothers of the Cross were in the middle of singing vespers. Olav knelt down in a corner with his fur cloak well spread
under his knees and held his cap before his eyes, that he might the better collect his thoughts.

He was on the strain—but it was a good thing nevertheless that the decision was now at hand. He longed to escape from uncertainty. It had been like walking in the dark on a road where at any moment he might stumble and plunge both feet into the mire.
That
he had feared—of Kolbein and the rest he was not afraid. An end was to be made of all doubtful and—and half-concealed conduct; his case was to be brought to a conclusion. He would soon be seventeen years old—he liked to feel that he was the chief person in a suit. And he felt as though his bones had hardened within him in these weeks he had lived in the Bishop’s palace—after all the slothful years at Frettastein among lazy house-carls and cackling women, joining in children’s games. His pride in himself had grown with every day he spent here, where there were neither women nor frivolity, but only grown men who had taught him much and to whom he had taken a liking with all his youthful desire of meeting equals and superiors. It warmed his soul through and through to think that Asbjörn Priest had the greatest use for his help and that Bishop Torfinn bent over him with fatherly kindness.

When he had finished his prayers, he seated himself in a corner to hear the singing to the end. He thought of what Asbjörn All-fat had told him one day of the art of reckoning—how the nature of God was revealed in figures, through the law and order that reigned in them.
Arithmetica
, he thought it had such a fine sound; and all that the priest had expounded about the harmony of figures—how they swelled and cleft one another according to mystic and immovable laws; it was like being given an insight into one of the heavenly kingdoms; on golden chains of numbers the whole of creation was suspended, and angels and spirits ascended and descended along the links. And his heart was exalted in longing that his life also might rest in God’s hand like one of these golden links—a reckoning in which there was no fault. When that which now weighed upon him should be effaced like false notches upon a tally-stick.

The midnight mass—the mass of the angels—was more beautiful than anything Olav had imagined. The whole great body of the church lay in pitch-darkness, but in the choir around the high
altar so many candles, high and low, were burning that they seemed like a wall of living flame. There was a soft sheen of gold-embroidered silk and a brightness of white linen: tonight all the priests wore cantor’s vestments of cloth of gold and silk, and the other singers were clad in linen surplices and held candles in their hands as they stood and sang from the great books. Arnvid Finnsson was among them, and other men of repute from the country round who had been at the school in their youth. The whole church was heavy with the scent of incense from the evening procession, and the grey clouds of perfume still ascended from the altar. When the whole choir of men and boys joined in the great Gloria, it was as though angels took up the song and swelled the music from the gloom of the roof.

Bishop Torfinn’s face shone like alabaster as he sat on his throne with mitre and staff, in golden vestments. Now all the mass bells pealed out, and now all who had been standing or sitting knelt down, waiting in breathless silence for the transubstantiation, which tonight became one with God’s birth in the world of men. Olav waited in eager longing; his prayers became one with his yearning for righteousness and a good conscience.

He had had a glimpse of Ingunn over on the women’s side, but he did not go out after mass, when he saw her go. While they were singing the
Laudi
in the choir, he found a place to sit on the base of one of the pillars, and there, wrapped in his cloak, he shivered and nodded by turns till the priests left the choir.

On the ground outside the graveyard, there was still a glow of burned-out bonfires where the church folk had thrown down their torches in a heap as they came in. Olav went up to warm himself—he was chilled and numb from the many hours in church. The snow was melted far around, down to the bare earth, and the red and black embers still gave out a good strong heat. Many people were standing about. Olav caught sight of Ingunn—she was standing with her back to him; she was alone. He went up and greeted her.

She turned half round, and a reflection of the fire shown red upon the white linen wimple that showed under the hood of her cloak. She still seemed a little strange to him in this woman’s dress—he could not grasp the thought that she should go about looking old and dignified because he for his part was determined to win his rights and to be respected as a grown man.

They took hands and wished each other a blessing on the feast. Then they talked a little about the weather; the cold was not too bad and the sky was half clear, with a few stars, but not many, for there was some mist, since the lake was not yet frozen over here.

Tora came up to them, and Olav greeted her with a kiss. He could never bring himself to kiss Ingunn now when they met—she was both too near and too far for him to embrace her as a foster-brother.

Tora went again at once, over to some friends she saw. Ingunn had scarcely spoken and had looked away the whole time. Olav thought perhaps he would have to go—it could not look well, their standing here together. Then she put out her hand and timidly took hold of his cloak.

“Can you not go with me, so that we may talk?”

“I can surely. Do you take the south road?”

The dark street was alive with heavy, fur-clad figures, swaying black against the snow—folk were going to rest awhile in their houses before the mid-morning mass. The drifts were banked high against houses and fences and trees—walls and branches were but little restless spots of black in the snow. Christmas Night lay close and dark upon the little town, and folk moved about silently as scared shadows, hurrying in where a door was opened and a faint light fell upon the snowdrifts in yard and street. But smoke issued from the louvers and there was a smell of smoke everywhere—the women were putting on the pots for the Christmas meal. Outside Holy Cross Church a gleam of light fell on the snow from the wide-open doors, and some old inmates of the spital dragged themselves in; there was to be mass now.

They tramped along the narrow alley behind the church. Here they did not meet a soul; it was very dark under the trees and heavy going, as the snow had been little trodden.

“We had no thought, when we came here that day last summer, that it would be so difficult for us,” said Ingunn with a sigh.

“Nay, we could not know that.”

“Can you not come in with me?” she asked as they stood in the yard. “The others were going to Holy Cross—”

“I can surely.”

They entered a pitch-dark room, but Ingunn stirred the fire on the hearth and put fresh wood on it. She had taken off her cloak,
and as she knelt forward to blow the fire, the long white wimple lay over her shoulders and down to her hips.

“Tora and I sleep here,” she said, with her back to him. “I promised to do this for them—” she hung the pot on its hook. Olav guessed that this was the kitchen of the house; round about were things used in cookery. Ingunn busied herself to and fro in the glare of the fire, tall and slight and young in her dark dress and white coif. It was like a game, something unreal. Olav sat on the edge of the bed and looked on; he did not know what to say—and then he had grown so sleepy.

“Can you not help me?” asked Ingunn; she was cutting up meat and bacon on a platter by the hearthstone. There was a piece of back that she could not sever with the knife. Olav found a hatchet, chopped it, and broke it apart.

While they were busy with this, she whispered to him, as they knelt among the pots: “You are so glum, Olav! Are you unhappy?” As he only shook his head, she whispered yet lower: “It is so long since we were alone together. I thought you would be glad-?”

“You know that surely.—Have you heard that your uncles are coming on Twelfth Night?” he asked. Then it struck him that she might take that for an answer to her question, whether he were unhappy. “You need not be afraid,” he said firmly. “We shall have no fear of
them.”

Ingunn had risen to her feet and she was staring at him, as she opened her mouth in a little gasp. Then she made as though she would throw herself into his arms. Olav showed his hands—they were smeared with fat and brine.