The Axe (39 page)

With scrupulous care he rehearsed his sins against all the ten commandments, those he had broken and those he had kept, so far as he knew—he had had good time to think over his confession. At last he came to the hard part: “Then I confess that there is one to whom I bear the most bitter grudge, so that it seems to me most difficult to forgive this person. It is one whom I have loved with all my heart, and so soon as I heard what this friend had done to me, I felt I had been so deceived that thoughts of slaughter and wicked and cruel desires arose within me. God preserved me so that I curbed myself at that time. But so hard is it for me to bear with this person that I fear I can never forgive my friend—unless God give me special grace thereto. But I am afraid, father, that I must say no more of this matter.”

“Is it because you are afraid you might otherwise disclose another’s sin?” asked Brother Vegard.

“Yes, father,” Olav drew a deep breath. “And it is for that reason that it seems so difficult to forgive. If I could tell the whole matter here in this place, I think it would be easier.”

“Consider well, my Olav, whether it does not seem so to you because you think that, could you speak freely of the wrong your even Christian has done you, you own evil thoughts, your hatred and desire of blood, would then be justified according to what we sinful men call justice?”

“It is so, father.”

The monk asked: “Do you hate this your enemy in such wise that you could wish him evil fortune every day upon earth and eternal perdition in the other world?”

“No.”

“But you could wish that he might smart for what he has done to you, often and sorely?”

“Yes. For I can see naught else but that I myself must smart for it as long as I live. And I fear that, unless God work a miracle with me, I shall never more have peace in my soul, but wrath and ill will will arise in me time after time—for after this my affairs—my welfare and my repute—will grow worse, so long as I live upon earth.”

“My son, you know that if you pray with your whole heart,
God will give you strength to forgive him that trespassed against you, for it has never yet been known that God was deaf to such a prayer. But you must pray without reservation—not as that man of whom Saint Augustine tells us: he prayed that God would give him grace to lead a chaste life, but not at once; it is in such wise men are wont to pray for grace to forgive their enemies. And you must not be downcast, even if God lets you pray long and persistently before He grants you this gift.”

“Ay, father. But I fear I shall not always be able to curb myself while I wait for my prayers to be heard.”

As the monk did not reply at once, Olav said hastily: “For it is so, father, that this thing which—which my friend—has done to me—has disordered my whole life. I dare not say more of it, but there are such difficulties—Could I say more, you would see that—this person—has set so heavy a load upon my neck—”

“I can guess that it is heavy, my son. But you must be steadfast and pray. And when on Good Friday you come forward to kiss the cross, look on it closely and reflect in your heart whether your sins did not weigh something in the load which our Lord bore, when He shouldered the sins of us all. Think you then that the load which your friend has laid upon you is so heavy that you are not able to bear it—a Christian man and His man?”

Olav bent so low that he touched the monk’s knee with his forehead. “Nay. Nay, I think not that—” he whispered falteringly.

The night between Good Friday and Easter Eve Olav awoke drenched with sweat—he had been dreaming. As he lay in pitch-darkness trying to be rid of the horror this dream had left in his mind, their childhood came back to him in the very life: in his dream they had been boy and girl. But when he thought how all had promised then and how their future looked now, all that he believed himself to have secured through his constant prayers of the last few days seemed to fade away like smoke between his fingers. He drew the bedclothes over his head, and, lest he should burst into tears, he lay as a man lies on the rack, straining his whole will to a single end—the torturers shall not force one moan out of him.

That summer—that summer and that autumn, when she awaited his coming every night in her bower. Uneasy he had been; the guileless young heart in his breast had quivered with excitement
and disquietude from the moment he awoke and saw that he was naked. But of
her
he had always felt easy. That she could fall out of his hands and into another man’s—no, that he had never imagined. That last night, when he had come to her a homicide and an outlaw, when he had put the cold blade against her warm breast and bade her keep the knife for a token—it was not that he thought she might prove faithless. His thoughts were of himself, who was about to face an uncertain fate, young and untried and doubtful as he was.

When he crept close to her and hid his face in her wheat-coloured hair, it smelt like new-mown hay. And her flesh was so soft and limp, it always made him think of corn that had not fully ripened—was still milky. Never had he taken her in his arms without the thought: “I must not be hard-handed with her, she is so slight and weak; she needs my protection against every shock and scratch, for this flesh of hers cannot be such as heals quickly.” And he had spared her all talk of that which weighed upon him, for he thought it would be a shame to shift any of his burden onto her feeble shoulders. Uneasy conscience, anxiety for the future—what should she understand of such things, with her childlike nature? The very insatiability with which she demanded his caresses, set herself to provoke them if he became absent for a moment or chanced to speak of any but their own concerns—this he took to be a kind of childishness. She had little more understanding than a child or an animal, poor thing—nay, he had often thought her like a gentle, timid beast—a tame doe or a young heifer, so fond of endearments and so easily scared.

Now he remembered that he had divined this at the same moment as he divined what it meant that she was a woman whom he would possess and enjoy—it had been clear to him that she was a weak and tender creature and that he must shield and defend her.

And now it appeared to him that this dream might have been sent him as a gift, though it had at first called up such grim torment in his mind. He had believed himself capable of wishing she might suffer abundantly for her weakness. Far from it.—He would do all in his power to help her to be let off lightly.

“My little doe—you have let yourself be chased straight into the pit—and now you lie there, battered and besmirched, a poor little beast. But I shall come and take you up and bear you away to a place where you will not be trampled upon and crushed.”
—Now it was revealed to him that what had happened when he had taken her in his arms, plucked her flower, and breathed its sweetness and its scent, was only something that had chanced by the way. But what really mattered, when it came to the point, was that she had been placed in his arms in order that he might carry her through everything, take the burden from her and defend her. That was to be his happiness, the other was no more than passing joys.

Throughout the holy-days of Easter he was as one who had just risen from a grievous sickness—not that he had ever been sick in his life; but so he felt it. “My soul is now healed—Ingunn, you must know that I wish you naught but well.”

He wondered whether he ought to tell his dream to Brother Vegard. But in these wellnigh twenty years during which the monk had been his confessor, he had never spoken a word to him in confidence outside the confessional. Brother Vegard Ragnvaldsson was a good man and a man of intelligence, but dry and chilly by nature—and then he had a sly and witty way of talking of folk, in which Olav delighted, so long as he was not himself the victim. Nor had he ever before felt any impulse to cross the fence that separated him and his confessor; rather had it seemed an advantage that the man outside the church was almost another person than the priest who heard his self-reproaches and guided him in spiritual things.

Before now he had thought of confiding this matter of Ingunn to the monk outside the confessional. But this would be like justifying himself and accusing her; so he would not. Doubtless Brother Vegard would soon be sent for to Berg; the poor soul must soon prepare herself to face the peril of death.

Then came the Wednesday after
Dominica in albis
.
As Olav was passing through the church door after the day’s mass, someone touched his arm from behind.

“Hail, master. Is it you they call Olav Audunsson?”

Olav turned and saw a tall and slight, dark-complexioned young man behind him. “That should be my name—but what would you with me?”

“I would fain speak with you, a word or two.” Olav could hear by his speech that he was not from these parts.

Olav stepped aside to let the people come out of church and went a few paces along the covered way. Through the arches of the corridor he saw the morning sun just bursting over the blue-black ridges in the south-west, glancing on the dark open water between the island and Stangeland and lighting up the brown slopes, now bare of snow.

“What would you, then?—I cannot call to mind that I have seen you before.”

“Nay, we can scarcely have met before. But you will surely know me by name—Teit Hallsson I am called; I am from Varmaadal in Sida, in Iceland.”

Olav was struck speechless—Teit. The boy was shabbily dressed, but he had a handsome, dark, and slender face under his worn fur cap, clear tawny eyes, and an arched jaw with a mass of shining white teeth.

“So now maybe you guess why I have sought you out.”

“Nay, I cannot say that I guess that.”

“If you knew of a place where we could talk privily,” said Teit, “it might be better.”

Olav made no reply, but turned and went in front under the covered way round the north side of the church. Teit followed. Olav was aware as he walked along that no one could see them. The roof of the corridor came down so far that people outside could not distinguish who was moving in the shadow behind the narrow arches.

Where the corridor followed the curve of the apse, there was a way into a corner of the graveyard. Olav led the other by this path and leaped the fence into the kale-garden. This was his usual way to and from church; it was shorter for him.

When they reached the women’s house, Olav barred the door behind them. Teit seated himself on the bench unbidden, but Olav remained standing and waited for him to speak.

“Ay, you can guess ’tis of her, Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, I would speak with you,” said Teit with an uneasy little smile. “We were friends last summer, but now I have neither seen nor heard aught of her since early autumn. But now the talk is that she is with child and near her time—and so it must be mine. Now, I know
that she was yours before she was mine, and therefore I thought I would speak with you of what we should do—”

“You are not craven-hearted, methinks,” said Olav.

“No man can be possessed of
every
vice, and I am free of this one—” the boy smiled lightly.

Olav still held his peace, waiting. Instinctively he gave a rapid glance at his bed: his arms hung in their place.

“So long ago as the autumn,” Teit began again, “I let her know that if it could be so ordered, I was willing to marry her—”

“Marry
her!” He laughed, two short blasts through the nose, with mouth hard set.

“Ay, ay,” said Teit calmly. “Meseems ’twas no such unequal match either—Ingunn is no nurseling, and her name has been in folk’s mouths once before. None had heard from you for ten years, and it seemed little likely that you would ever come back. Ay,
she
talked as if she believed it, and so she sent me packing; and I was angry, as well I might be, at such fickleness and said I would go my way, if she would have it so, but then it would be bootless to send for me later. She has not done so either—not a word have I heard from her, that she is in distress—and I know not if I would have gone to her now—I parted from her in no friendly fashion—

“But when I heard that you had come back and had been at Berg—and that you would have no more of her and went your ways when you saw how things were—then I took pity on her after all. And now they say she lies shut up in one of the outhouses and is given nothing to live on but dirty water and ashes in her porridge, and they have beaten her and kicked her and dragged her by the hair, till it is a marvel she is still alive—”

Olav had listened to him with frowning brows. He was about to answer gruffly that these were lies; but he checked himself. It was impossible for
him
to discuss this matter with Teit. And then he reflected how it would add to all their difficulties if these rumours got abroad.—And to how many people had this young coxcomb boasted of his paternity?

Teit asked: “Is it not so that you are a good friend of this rich Arnvid of Miklebö in Elfardal, her kinsman?”

“Why so?” asked Olav sharply.

“They all say he is helpful and good—the friend of every man
who needs help. So I thought haply it were better if I betook me to him first, not to the Steinfinnssons or the old man at Galtestad. What think you of that? And if you would give me a token to your friend, or let one write a letter to him and set your seal on it-”

Olav sank straight down upon the bench. “Now methinks—! Is that your suit to me—I am to back your wooing?”

“Yes,” said Teit calmly. “Does it seem so strange to you?”

“It seems strange to me indeed.” He burst into a short, harsh laugh. “Never did I hear the like!”

“But ’tis seen every day,” said Teit, “that a man of your condition marries off his leman when he wants her no longer.”

“Have a care of your mouth, Teit,” said Olav threateningly. “Beware what words you use of her!”

As though absently, Teit took the little sword that hung at his belt and laid it across his knees, with one hand on the sheath and the other on the hilt. He looked at Olav with a little smile. “Nay, I had forgot—’tis here in this room you use to strike down your enemies?”

“Nay, ’twas in the other guest-house—and as for striking down, we came to blows—” he checked himself, annoyed at having been drawn into saying so much to the man.