The Son Avenger (19 page)

But on the day when all the brethren went to Brother Bjarnvard, the barber, to have their crowns shaved, and he was not to go with them—that gave him a pang. And the morning when he was once more dressed in hose and shoes, with the red and yellow jerkin, far too tight for him, and the belt and knife about his waist, he broke down altogether—he wept as he knelt in church, wept from shame and remorse, wished he had chosen to remain. But he knew in himself that now he would have regretted it, whichever choice he had made.

The brethren took an affectionate leave of him, promising him their prayers—for he would still belong to their fellowship as a brother
ab extra.
Then he walked down toward the quay, feeling naked and ashamed in his unwonted dress, and shrinking from the eyes of everyone in the armourers’ yard. And his heart was ready to break with grief as he set sail and steered out among the islands, alone in the little boat that Galfrid had lent him.

But when he had passed through the Haaöy sound and come far enough to see the familiar places along the shore—no, then he had no more regrets. And when he saw the white surf at the foot of the Bull as he rounded the promontory and stood inshore—no, he had no more regrets.

And as he walked up from the waterside, bare and empty-handed—the sea breeze sporting before him, making the corn of the “good acre” sway like flames, with the sun gleaming on its silky beards—Eirik felt inclined to leap the fence and stroke the barley that the wind was lashing.

His father’s coldness did him more good than harm. It cost him an effort to go about his daily life here at home in such different guise from his former self. But that he was not suffered without a struggle to live as he deemed to be right and worthy of a Christian man, that reassured him: he had chosen aright. He had not fled from the convent to return to his old thoughtless and idle life—there was yet a third way, and he had found it; it put fresh heart into him every day to feel that it was not always easy to follow it.

So the winter went by without Eirik’s showing the least sign of lukewarmness.

About a week before Easter, Olav and Eirik went together up to Galaby. Late in the afternoon, when the matters he had come about were settled and Olav sat at table drinking with the Sheriff and some others of the elder franklins, there was a noise in the courtyard; the door burst open and a boy called to the men within that Eirik Olavsson lay outside and had surely got his death-hurt.

Olav sprang up and ran out. Over by the stable a group of men stood surrounding one who lay on his side in the snow, which was red with his blood; his right hand still grasped his dagger. Eirik lay in a swoon. Olav and another man carried him in, laid him on a bed, and attended to his wounds. He had been stabbed with a knife in the back and again in front near the collar-bone; his face bore marks of blows. They were ugly wounds, but need not be fatal unless the mischief was in it. While his father was tending him, Eirik opened his eyes.

“Could you curb your manhood no longer?” asked Olav, but not unkindly—he was smiling a little.

Eirik’s eyelids dropped again.

Olav then heard how this had come about. It was two house-carls who had fallen out as they were saddling the horses—they seemed to have been old enemies—and it had come to blows; their arms had been left indoors since the sitting of the court, so they took to their knives. When Eirik had tried to come between them, they had both turned on him, and then he drew his dagger, but only to defend himself; neither of the house-carls had received more than a few scratches. Now they lay bound in a cellar.

Eirik came to his senses for a while early in the night; he whispered that if this proved his bane, he did not wish a charge to be
made against the poor men, but he forgave them as he hoped God would forgive him.

To this Olav made no answer. Neither he nor Reidulf meant to spare the men if Eirik’s wounds should take a bad turn. But all went well; Reidulf had sent for an old man who could stanch blood and was a good leech. A week later Olav was able to move his son to Hestviken, and there he himself and Ragna tended the wounded man so well that Eirik was on his feet again before Whit Sunday.

After this, peace was re-established between father and son. But while he lay sick Eirik had dropped out of the way of saying his hours and all his other practices; on getting up he did indeed resume them, but either kept them less strictly than before or concealed them better from his house-mates. And if Olav came upon him while he said his paternosters, or noticed that Eirik imposed on himself any kind of self-discipline, his son was sure to hear of it later in the day.

“’Tis a good thing, Eirik,” his father said with a quiet laugh, “that we have seen your hand still knows its way to your dagger. Else it would not be well for the rest of us to dwell under the same roof with so pious a man as you have grown.”

Eirik turned red. It hurt him that his father should talk in this way, but Olav said it so good-humouredly, and he had never been able to resist his father when he showed him the smallest speck of kindness.

E
RIK
lay awake in bed one morning at Gunnarsby. Jörund was putting on his clothes in another corner of the room. Cecilia came in from outside with something and exchanged a few words with her husband. Then he said:

“Will you not speak to your brother of that matter we talked of?”

“No. I have told you I will not.”

Jörund muttered something in anger. Then he followed his wife out.

Eirik got up and dressed himself. When he came out Cecilia
was sitting on the earthen bench outside the house with her son in her lap. The child crawled over his mother and wanted to be caressed; Cecilia pressed the boy to her, but looked as if she were thinking of other things. Eirik greeted his sister and stood looking down at her.

“What did Jörund wish you to say to me?”

“Since you heard that”—Cecilia glanced up with her clear, cool look—“you must also have heard my answer.”

“Was it about my leaving the convent?” asked Eirik. “Has that made it worse for you here at Gunnarsby?”

“Oh—’tis not that alone.” Her eyes still rested on her brother’s tall and handsome figure as he stood before her with the morning sun shining on the brown locks of his bent head. He was dressed in a dark-red gown that reached to the knees and fitted his broad shoulders well, a leather belt with silver buckle about his slim waist.
She
liked him better thus—it had revolted her to see her lively, handsome brother in the frock of a barefoot friar; never could she believe that was a life for Eirik. “There is much else—”

Eirik said: “Even with a sister’s portion in Hestviken, Jörund will get more with you than his brothers got with their wives. Brynhild has four brothers, and Lucia’s father had to make dear amends to the King for the foolish game he played when the Duke lay before Akershus.”

Cecilia nodded. “Jörund knows that—they all know it. But that makes it no easier for Jörund now—we live here, the youngest of this crowded household, and we must bow to the others in everything.”

“Is it Mistress Brynhild?” asked Eirik.

“Brynhild I like best. She says what she means. But true it is that she and Jörund have never been friends. And Aake and Lucia do not like me.”

Eirik looked down at the young mother. He had guessed this during his stay here—neither Jörund nor Cecilia had an easy lot.

“Tell me withal what Jörund wished you to say to me,” he asked her. “Tell me,” he repeated, as his sister blushed but would not answer.

Suddenly, with a movement of impatience, Cecilia set the babbling child down on the ground. The infant rolled over and made ready to scream—Eirik took him up on his arm.

“Ay, ’twill be no longer than to Clement’s mass
⁵
—and then I shall have another one like this.” Cecilia drew two or three deep breaths. “I cannot deny—I would give much if I could be spared giving birth to the child here in the hands of these brothers’ wives. Even if Hestviken is to be yours—could we not live there together? He and Aake, they could never
bear
each other. Jörund has wished this ever since we were married. He begged me—’twas one of the first nights we slept together—he begged me ask Father if we might take up our abode with him. But if he could wish that—if he would rather dwell with Father, who is so glum and hard to get on with, than with his brothers—then ’twould be all the easier one day when Father is gone and you are the master—you and he have been fast friends so long.”

“Is it your wish,” asked Eirik, as Cecilia had to stop and take breath, “that I speak with Father—ask him if you may come out to us by autumn?”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, and blushed again.

Eirik handed her the child, which was struggling to get back to its mother. Then he turned and went to find Jörund.

All that forenoon the two friends were together on the outskirts of the manor; they walked hither and thither, sat or lay on the ground, and Jörund talked without ceasing. He swore that he had not taken it amiss when he heard Eirik was not to be a monk after all;
he
at least had never forgotten that probation was probation—but Aake and Steinar and their wives had uttered words that provoked Cecilia to retort—and Eirik knew well enough how stubborn and unbending she was when she thought differently from others. She often did so here, and it generally happened that there was some truth in what she said. But it
was
unbearable for them to stay here—the dissension between him and his brothers had become ten times worse since he had married Cecilia. But if they came to Hestviken, he was sure he could live happily with her. Then he began to talk of the table silver in Cecilia’s dowry—Aake’s wife had found out from Magnus, the goldsmith of Oslo, that this was the old silver that Olav had brought out at the betrothal feast; Olav had had it refashioned, but that, they declared, was cheating his son-in-law of the heritage—and Cecilia had given them an answer.

Eirik’s head reeled with listening to Jörund’s complaints when at last they returned to the manor.

As Eirik rode homeward he was determined that his father must yield, though it might be difficult to obtain the old man’s consent. What happened was the only thing he had not looked for: Olav said yes without hesitating. So Jörund and Cecilia moved to Hestviken that autumn. They were given the women’s house to live in.

Soon after, Cecilia gave birth to her second son. He was called Torgils—by mistake: the boy came into the world half-suffocated, and the women fetched in Eirik to baptize him in emergency. In his hurry he gave the child the first family name he could think of. Olav was angry—the boy ought to have been called Audun after his father and his little dead son, and he had no wish to have Foulbeard’s name perpetuated in the family—though the man’s own offspring had used it and two of Arne Torgilsson’s daughters had named children after their grandfather.

One day Eirik said to his father: “Could you not be less curt of speech with Jörund? He thinks you like him not.”

“No, I cannot,” said Olav gruffly. Then he added, already a little more graciously: “Jörund can hardly expect me to treat him as if he were still our guest, now that he has taken up his abode here.”

Olav had reached a point where he was no longer able to keep up his ill will toward Eirik. The young man had compelled a certain respect from his father: he was now in his second year at home, and the change that had come over him since his stay in the convent still lasted. Olav noticed that Eirik always tried to do what was right and had achieved a mastery over himself that Olav would have sworn Eirik could never attain. His father felt something like shame when he recalled that at first he seemed to have expected and almost wished that Eirik would relapse into his old bad ways.

Without any design on their part, without their even being clearly aware of it, they drew more closely together, all these people who for so long had formed
one
household. Since Jörund Rypa’s coming they felt that they had grown into unity, and he was a stranger.

He idled among the houses, as though out of place—doing nothing. Nor had he a hand for any of the work that was to be
done at this manor. He went out in the morning, stood at the stable door and watched his man grooming the horses that were his; if the weather was not too bitter he sauntered down to the pier, stood there awhile looking out and spitting into the sea. He had been out with the boats a few times, but then he would go no more. Then he lay dozing on the bench in his own house—there was so little sleep to be had at night with the two children, he complained. When Olav and Eirik came in with the boatmen—this was in the fishing season—he turned into the old house and sat there; but the men were tired and hungry and had no thought of beguiling the time for Jörund Rypa. When the season for catching auks came on he revived somewhat and went out with the others—but then they had a week of tearing northerly gales, and that put an end to it.

The others saw little of Cecilia; she spent her time in the women’s house or with the maids in the cook-house and outhouses.