The Axe (28 page)

“So at last you have come home too?” she asked smiling.

“Yes, I thought I must look in at home some time,” he said in the same tone.

She sat on the threshold with her hands in her lap, looking up at Olav, who stood talking to Ivar. With a strange suddenness all became calm within her. Happiness, that was the same as allowing rest to descend upon her—perfect rest.

Ivar had something to show to Olav—the men walked away. Ingunn watched him and recognized his walk: she had never seen a man who walked so well, carried himself with such easy grace. He was not very tall, she well remembered that now; she was herself perhaps a trifle taller than he—but he was so wonderfully well built, with just the right breadth of shoulder, narrow in the
waist, well knit, and firm of muscle, though he was so slender, erect, and delicately limbed.

He had grown thinner in the face, his complexion was dry and hard. And his hair had darkened a little—it was not so bright a yellow—more the colour of ashes. But the longer she looked at him, the better she knew him again. There was only this, that when they parted, there was still a touch of childish softness in his good looks. Now he was a grown man—but a remarkably handsome young man withal.

Lingering over her deep happiness Ingunn sat at the supper-table and saw with glad surprise that both Ivar and Magnhild were so friendly toward Olav. Olav had come back to Norway a week ago—to Oslo.

“Methinks you ought to have seen to your own home first,” said Ivar. “There could scarcely have been any danger in that—now that you are the Earl’s man.”

“Oh no, I might well have ventured
that
. But I had said to myself that I would not come home to Hestviken before I got back the control of my own estate. Time enough, I thought,” he smiled, “when I can make all things ready there in the south to bring Ingunn home with me.”

Ingunn guessed from their talk that Olav had not yet been given safe-conduct and leave to remain in Norway. But neither Ivar nor Olav himself seemed to count that any great matter. The Earl, Alf Erlingsson of Tornberg, was now the mightiest man in the land, and Olav had met him in Denmark and become his liegeman. The Earl had promised to obtain for him a bought peace and it was with leave from the Earl that he had journeyed up-country to find a man who could negotiate on his behalf concerning the atonement with Einar’s kinsmen. Then he had thought that boldness pays best—he had ridden straight to Ivar Toresson at Galtestad. And they were soon agreed.

“Ay, you know I remember you since you were as high as that,” said Ivar; “and I have always liked you. You know I was angry that time, when we heard you had helped yourself to your bride, as was natural enough—”

“Surely it was natural.” And Olav laughed with him.

Ingunn asked timidly: “Then you have not yet come home to
stay
, Olav?”

“In Norway I shall stay—maybe. But here in the north I cannot stay many days. By Bartholomew’s Day
I must be with the Earl at Valdinsholm.”

Ingunn did not know where in the world Valdinsholm might be, but it sounded far away.

It was easy to see that Olav had learned to conduct himself among folk. The glum and silent country lad had become a mannerly young courtier, who knew how to choose his words: Olav could be lively and hold his own when he opened his mouth, but he listened readily to his elders, and most of what he said was in answer to Ivar’s and Magnhild’s questions. He rarely addressed his words to Ingunn, and never tried to have speech with her alone.

He said the times were very troubled in Denmark—the great nobles were discontented with their King in every way, although they had much greater liberties and rights in that land than here at home—but perhaps that was what made them open their mouths wide for more. His own uncle, Barnim Eriksson, did as he pleased in everything, Olav thought, and he had never seen that the knight paid any attention to the laws, which must hold good in that country too.

“You have not been able to lay your hands on any of the inheritance of your mother’s kinsmen?” asked Ivar. “Surely you could claim that now?”

“Uncle says no,” said Olav with a little mocking smile. “And that may well be true.—It was the first thing he made plain to me when I came to Hövdinggaard, that my grandmother had divided Sir Erik’s estate with her children, before she married Björn Andersson. And my mother had lost all right of inheritance from her kinsfolk in Denmark when she left the country and married in Norway without asking their advice—that was the second thing. And the third was that the King has declared my mother’s own brother, Stig Björnsson, an outlaw, and he is dead and his sons dwell in a foreign land; and the King has laid hands on the manor of Hvidbjerg. Now Duke Valdemar has taken up the cause of Stig’s sons, and if he can get the estate back for them, Uncle Barnim thought that I ought to come forward: there might be a slice of the cake for me too.” He laughed. “Ay, ’twas after uncle and I were better acquainted, that—we have been good
friends always, and he has kept me in seemly fashion and has been right generous with me. Only he will not have it that I should claim anything as my right.”

Olav spoke with a smile. But Ingunn saw that a new look had come over his countenance; a touch of loneliness, which had been there always, but now appeared much more strongly, and something hard, which was new. She suspected that he had not fallen into unmixed joy and splendour when he sought shelter, a poor outlaw, among his mighty Danish kinsmen.

“But in all else I must say that Barnim Eriksson has treated me well.—For all that, I was a happy man the day I met with Earl Alf—when I took the oath to him on the hilt, I almost thought I had come home.”

“You like him?” asked Ivar.

“Like—!” Olav beamed. “Had you met the Earl you would not say such a word. We would follow him—if he bade us sail across the smoking lake of hell—every man he looks at when he laughs. Those yellow eyes of his shine like gems. Small he is, and low—I am a head taller, I wis—and broad as the door of a house, shaggy and brown and curly-haired; ay, the Tornberg race comes of a king’s daughter and a bear, they say. And Earl Alf has the strength of ten men and the wits of twelve. And there are not many men, I ween, who are not glad and thankful to obey him—nor many women either—” said Olav with a laugh.

“Is it true, think you, what they say of our Queen—that she would marry him?” asked Ivar inquisitively.

“How should I know that?” laughed Olav. “But if they say truly that she is so wise a woman—though there will be an end of the lady’s rule in the land if she comes under the bear’s paws—”

But Ivar thought it was in Queen Ingebjörg’s service that Earl Alf lay in the Danish waters, harrying the coasts there and taking up the German merchant ships that tried to slip northward through the sounds.

Olav said it was true enough—the Earl sought to win for Queen Ingebjörg her fathers’ inheritance in Denmark, while at the same time he chastised the German merchants for their late encroachments in Björgvin and Tunsberg. But no doubt he did it of his own will and not because the Queen had bidden him. Now there was certainly an agreement between the Earl and the Danish nobles—he was to support them in their feud with the Danish
King, and in return Count Jacob and the other lords were to rap the King so hard over the knuckles that he would take his hands off the Lady Ingebjörg’s estates in Denmark.

They had sat drinking after supper, and Ivar already talked of going to rest, when Olav stood up and drew the great gold ring with the green stone from his finger. He showed it to Ivar and Lady Magnhild. “I wonder if you know this again? With this ring my father let me betroth her. Think you not it were fitting Ingunn had it now and wore it herself?”

Ingunn’s uncle said yes to this, and Olav set the ring on her finger. Next he took from his saddle-bag a gilt chain with a cross hanging to it and silver plates for a belt and gave these also to Ingunn. Then he produced good gifts for Ivar and Magnhild, and three gold rings, which he asked Ivar to give to Tora, Hallvard, and Jon. Both the lady and Ivar were well pleased with this, praised the gifts, and were now very bland with Olav; Lady Magnhild had wine brought and all four drank together from the Yule horn.

When Lady Magnhild said that now Ingunn must go across to her grandmother and go to bed, Olav stood up—he said he was going over to Grim’s and Dalla’s house to talk with them awhile. Magnhild made no objection.

The sky was overcast, but between rifts in the clouds the sunset glow shone through, cold and brassy. The evenings were already beginning to be chilly and autumnal.

Olav and Ingunn strolled down between the outhouses. They came to the fence of a cornfield; the man rested his arms on the rail and stood looking out. The corn was thin, it shone white under the heavy grey sky; down below, the bay lay in a dead calm, reflecting the gathering darkness; under the opposite bank the image of the blue-black woods merged with the land.

“ ’Tis as I remember it,” said Olav softly. “As it used to be in autumn. In Denmark it blows almost always.”

He turned half round to the girl, laid an arm about her shoulder, and drew her toward him. With a long breath of happiness she leaned heavily against him. At long last she felt she had come home; now she was in his arm.

Olav took her face in both his hands, pushed up her hair, and
kissed her on the temples. “It used to curl here, where the hair begins,” he whispered.

“It is because I comb it down so hard,” she said softly. “I have combed away the curls. When they took the coif from me, I plaited it as flat as I could.”

“Ah, now I remember it—you went in a coif that winter at Hamar!”

“Are you angry with me for letting them force me—to put it off?”

Olav shook his head with a little laugh. “I had almost forgotten it—when I thought of you, ’twas always as you were before that.”

“Do you think I am like myself as I was then?” whispered Ingunn anxiously; “or have I fallen off?”

“No!” He squeezed her tightly in his arms. For a while they stood in close embrace. Then he let go. “Nay—we must go in. ’Twill soon be dark—” but he drew her plaits through his hands, twined them about his wrists, and shook her gently to and fro, standing at arm’s length.

“How fair you are, Ingunn!” he said warmly. Again he let go, with a queer, short laugh. Then he asked abruptly: “Then it is more than a year since you saw Arnvid last?”

Ingunn replied that it was so.

“I would fain have met him this time. He is the only friend I had in my youth—he and you. The folk one meets later, when one is getting on in years, are not the same.”

He was one-and-twenty and she twenty, but neither of them thought they were too young to talk thus. Far too much had happened to them both before they were quite out of their childhood.

When he had said this, Olav turned and began to walk back; Ingunn followed behind him up the narrow alley between the cattle-sheds. Grim and Dalla were sitting on the stone before the door of the byre. The two old people were delighted when Olav stopped to speak to them. Presently he took some money out of his belt and gave it to them—then there was no end to their joy.

Ingunn stood waiting by the wall of the byre, but no one spoke to her; and when she saw that Olav wished to stay here awhile with the old bailiff and his sister, she bade them good-night and went back to her grandmother’s house.

•   •   •

Olav stayed five days at Berg, and on the morning of the sixth he said he must ride to Hamar that evening, for he had been promised a boat to take him to Eidsvold, if he could be ready early next morning.

He was now very good friends with Ivar and Magnhild, and all about the place thought that Olav had become much more of a man in these years he had spent abroad. But Ingunn and he had not had much talk together.

The day he was to ride away she asked him to go with her up into the loft where Aasa’s and her own things were. She unlocked her chest, took out a folded linen garment, and handed it to him, turning her face away as she did so.

“This is your wedding-shirt, Olav. I wished to give it you
now.”

When at last she looked at him, he was standing with the shirt in his hands; he had turned red and his features were strangely discomposed. “Christ bless you, my Ingunn—Christ bless your hands for every stitch you have sewed here—”

“Olav-do not go!”

“You know I must go,” he said quietly.

“Oh no, Olav! I never thought, when once you came home, that you would straightway go from me again. Stay here, Olav—only three days—only
one
day more!”

“Nay.” Olav sighed. “Cannot you see, Ingunn—I am still an outlaw; ’twas rash of me to
come
, but I thought I must
see
you and talk with your kinsfolk. I own nothing in Norway today that I may rightly call mine. It is my lord the Earl who has promised me—And if it were not so—when
he
summons me to be with him on a certain day, I cannot stay away. I must make haste, as it is, to reach him at the right time—”

“Can you not take me with you?” she whispered almost in-audibly.

“You must surely see that I cannot. Whither should I carry you? To Valdinsholm, among the Earl’s men—!” He laughed.

“I have had such evil days here at Berg,” she whispered as before.

“I cannot see that. For they are kind, Lady Magnhild and Lady Aasa—While I was out there in the south—many a time I thought: what if Kolbein carried it so that
he
had you in his charge? And I feared for you, my dear. But here you have been as well off as you could be.”

“I cannot bear to be here any more. Can you not take me with you—find me a lodging otherwheres?”

“I can find you no lodging so long as I have not been given control of my own estate,” said Olav impatiently. “And how think you Ivar and Magnhild would like it if I took you away—Ivar, who is to be my spokesman with Kolbein? Be not so unreasoning, Ingunn. And Mistress Aasa cannot make shift without you.”

They were both silent a good while. Ingunn went to the little window. “I have always thought, as I stood here looking out, that this must be like Hestviken.”