The Son Avenger (11 page)

“Ay, that I have heard.”

Eirik checked himself, taken aback.

“You have heard it! Has father told you?”

“No, Ragna told me.”

Ragna, the dairy-woman. Ah yes, he had chanced to mention it to her too. It dawned on Eirik that he had already mentioned it to not a few. But Ragna had always shown him kindness, and so he had said to her that when he was a monk he would pray specially for her eldest child, the sick girl. Ragna’s three children had all been such good friends with Eirik last summer.

“Ah—” said Eirik. “Have you never thought the like, Cecilia-have you never been minded to become a nun and serve Mary maid?”

“No,” said Cecilia. It sounded like a lock shutting with a snap, and Eirik was silenced.

“Nay, nay,” he said meekly after a moment, “nor did this thought come to me of myself—’twas sent me by God’s mercy.”

“This came upon you rather suddenly?” asked Cecilia with hesitation.

“Yes,” replied Eirik gleefully. “Like a knock at the door by night and a voice calling on me to rise and go out. Like you, I
had never thought upon such things before. And so it may be with you too, sister.”

“I know not,” said Cecilia quietly. “I cannot think it. But ’twill be stilled here now,” she whispered, and all at once her voice sounded pitifully small and weak. “First I lost Bothild—and now you are going from us—”

Eirik lay still, struck by his sister’s words. He had almost forgotten their summer in all that had followed after; he seemed to have travelled a long way from the memory of Bothild in these last days. But now he called to mind how she had been wont to sleep by Cecilia’s side, where he was now lying. All his memories, suddenly released, filled him with melancholy beyond bounds. He could not utter a word.

“Are you weeping?” he asked at last, as Cecilia did not break the silence either.

“No,” replied his sister as curtly as before.

Ay, now Bothild slept under the sod, and his feet were set upon a path that led far away from all this. But Cecilia, she would be left here, lonely as a bird when all its fellows have flown, alone with her sad and silent father.

“Have you heard no more of Jörund this winter?” it occurred to him to ask.

“We have not.” He could hear by her voice that she was in a ferment.

“That is strange. He let me suppose he would be here some time this winter.”

Cecilia gave a start; she turned abruptly to the wall. Eirik noticed that the girl was trembling. He raised himself on his elbow, leaning over his sister.

“What ails you?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing ails me,” she whispered, half choking. “I do not ask how it is with Jörund Kolbeinsson. I have not set my mind on him.”

Eirik said doubtfully: “I cannot make this out. You speak as if you were angry with him.”

“Angry?” She flung herself round again, facing her brother. “Maybe I am. For I am not wont to hear such speech from a man as Jörund used to me. And I gave him such answer that he—that he—I am unused to put up with a slight.”

“Now you must tell me how this is,” Eirik begged her quietly.

“Nay, I know not—maybe it counts for little among folk nowadays, and ’tis only I, a home-bred maid, who deem that the word of a noble damsel is worth so high a price. But he came to me in the women’s house, the evening before he was to ride away. And then he said—ay, he let me know that he would come back together with his kinsmen and sue for me. Then he asked if this was against my will. To that I said no. He also asked leave to kiss me,” she whispered almost inaudibly. “Again I did not refuse him. God knows I would rather have been left unkissed. God knows I had not set my mind on him. But his speech was such that I could but think it was Father’s wish—and yours. And so I would not set myself against it. At that time I thought so well of Jörund that I believed he might be better than most others. Since I can clearly see that Father is little minded to let me have a say in my own marriage. But Jörund, I ween, counts a word and a kiss for little worth.”

With a sudden impulse Eirik bent over his sister and kissed her on her lips. Then he lay down quietly again.

“Maybe Jörund could not decide for himself,” he said, finding an excuse on the spur of the moment. “Maybe his kinsmen had already treated of another marriage for him, without his knowing it.”

“Then he should not have spoken,” replied Cecilia angrily—“if he knew not whether he were bought or sold.”

“That may be so. But—ay, he spoke to me of this matter as though it lay very near his heart—that he got you to wife, I mean. But you know, he had to go home and consult his brothers—”

“Then do they think we are not good enough for Jörund?”

Eirik did not know what to say. His sister had reason to be angry. And now he seemed to remember speaking of this to Jörund, and Jörund had promised him not to say anything of the matter to Cecilia before he came as a suitor. But he could guess that Jörund might easily forget that promise, Cecilia being so fair and sweet. So he took her hand, laid it on his breast, and stroked it, while he fell back upon the first excuse he had tried to offer for his friend:

“They must have designed another marriage for him, without his knowing it.”

Cecilia did not answer. Eirik lay patting her hand—but now he found he was getting very sleepy. She must be already asleep.
Once more Eirik bent over her, cautiously kissed his young sister, then stole out of the bed and down. He was already on the ladder when the chilly little voice asked in the darkness above:

“You will say no more prayers tonight, will you?”

“No,” replied Eirik feelingly; “now I will go to rest.”

“Then you will put out the light?”

Eirik did so. He lay in bed feeling angry with Jörund for having shown his sister and all of them so little respect. But at the same time he had in some sort conceived an aversion for the thought of giving Cecilia to Jörund. This one week of his conversion had altered his view of many things. He now thought of his whole life since he had run away from home with repugnance, nay, with sorrow. He repented his sins, that was well enough—but beyond that he wished, now that his life was to be consecrated to God, that it had been less defiled.

But Jörund, to whom no such call had come—of him no man could require that he should be better than other men. And Jörund was no
worse.
But Cecilia—she was so
good.

Olav had not meant very much by it when he hinted that he had no very great esteem for the order of the Minorites. He had grown somewhat tired of them, like many other folk in the neighbourhood, in Sira Hallbjörn’s time—because the priest constantly had them at his house. The Grey Friars had long been at strife with the cathedral chapter and the priests of Oslo, but it was not certain that the brethren had been chiefly to blame for the quarrel. And there had been some ugly talk of one of the Minorites and Eldrid Bersesdatter of the Ness—but there had always been ugly talk about Eldrid, ever since her father gave the reluctant maid to old Harald Jonsson, though no one could give clear proof of it; she was barren as the sole of an old shoe. She was moreover the daughter of a nephew of old Sira Benedikt and a second cousin of the daughters of Arne, but her kinsfolk never spoke of her; she had quite dropped out of good company. The young friar, Brother Gunnar, who had been too often with her at the Ness, had been sent out of the countrv, to a school of learning, it was said.

The only men of the order whom Olav knew something of were the Richardsons’ brother, Edvin the painter, and Brother Stevne, who used to come out to Hestviken once a year, in Lent-he had done so ever since he attended Ingunn in her hour of death.
Olav did not like Brother Stevne’s appearance: he was a little crook-backed man with a face like a bad fairy; one intuitively expected him to wag his long, flexible nose. But Olav had never heard or seen anything but good of the man.

And as Eirik seemed so fixed in his desire to enter this order, his father was quite willing to give him to the Minorites with a fitting endowment.

Olav gave much thought to the question of Eirik’s birth. But he had never heard of dispensation for bastard birth being denied to any man who was otherwise well suited to be a monk or priest. And he had already burdened his conscience with so much that he might well add this to the load—hold his peace about his secret. This burden had grown into his flesh and into his soul—he felt it was beyond his power to rid himself of it.

Eirik felt his father’s changed attitude toward him as part of his new happiness. Although Olav had not much more to say to his son than usual, Eirik was aware of the new warmth with which he was met whenever he was in the elder man’s company. Most of the sayings and preaching of pious men that Eirik had heard of late years had gone in at one ear and out at the other, but now one thing and another recurred to his memory. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then shall all other good things be added unto you”—something like this Christ had once said to His disciples, he had heard. Eirik remembered it now. All his life he thought there was one thing he had desired more than all else in the world: to force his father to acknowledge him with loving pride. Now, when he was about to renounce all the good things of this world in order to win heaven, he received as a parting gift that for which he had begged from his childhood’s days.

So it was only the thought of his sister that caused Eirik uneasiness. He said to himself that after all none but his father and sister could have thought of taking this matter of Jörund’s suit so seriously, calling it an affront and a broken promise. For nowadays folk were not so scrupulous about every word spoken at random—he himself had never been so. But now it seemed to him that his father was right—life would be much better if folk were more prone to keep their word.

One day when Olav and Eirik were down on the beach engaged in tarring a boat, and Cecilia had brought them their afternoon meal, her brother said, after she had gone:

“’Twill be lonely for her when I have left.”

“Maybe.” Olav followed the girl with a thoughtful look as she went up the hill.

Eirik said: “That is the only care on my mind, that I must go away before her future is assured.”

“I think you may leave me to deal with that.” Olav’s lips twitched with the little crooked smile that had been so habitual to him of old when answering his son. “For many years we have seen no sign that you troubled yourself about your sister’s welfare.”

“Nay, nay. But I had to see the world first, like other men. And I knew she was safe in your care.”

“Think you that is no longer good enough?”

Eirik paused, pressing the scraping-iron against the boat’s side and looking down.

“You know, Father, you begin to grow old, so—” Eirik stole an embarrassed glance at his father. Olav’s mien was now cold and unfriendly. Nevertheless he went on: “My sister is not so cheerful and easy in her mind as she should be—at her age.”

Olav could not forbear, though he was loath to put the question. “Has she complained—to you?” he asked suspiciously.

It was Aslak he had in his mind. But Eirik answered:

“I think she marvels that she has heard no more of Jörund.”

Olav went savagely at the work he was doing, but said nothing.

“Have you had no message from them?” asked Eirik at last.

“Does she
know
that Jörund—? If I remember aright, I bade you tell your friend that I enjoined him not to give the child any hint of the matter till it had advanced much farther. I call it unmanly and little consonant with honour if he has spoken to so young a maid ere his kinsmen and I have come to an agreement.”

Olav’s tone was so disdainful that something of Eirik’s old feeling of comradeship with Jörund was awakened.

“Spoken
he has not, for sure. But when two young people have a kindness for one another, ’tis not easily hidden, so that the one knows not the other’s mind—”

Olav worked on in silence.

Jörund!” he exclaimed all at once, so gruffly and scornfully
that Eirik dared not ask another question when his father relapsed into silence.

It was not one year since Aslak had used the same words—such things could not be hidden. Then he had kept an eye on his daughter, fearing she might regret Aslak too deeply. But he might safely have spared himself that. It was well she had not taken it so sadly but that she could now think of Jörund—so she would surely get over this fresh sorrow. And indeed she was little more than a child.—But, for all that, Olav felt it as a disappointment that his daughter could be so quick to forget.

Eirik wished to sail up to the convent before Easter—he could find no peace in his soul till he was admitted to the monastic life.

It had been Olav’s intention to accompany his son. But he fell sick. He had got an inward hurt in the fight at Frysja bridge; he had taken little heed of it at the time, but ever and anon it showed itself in a bloody flux and vomiting. This time he had to take to his bed. But Eirik could not wait. So he promised to send his father word in good time, when the day was appointed for him to take the habit.