The Son Avenger (31 page)

But his talk with the priest had nevertheless forced him to remember that there was a world outside the Ness on Longwater. And one day in the course of the autumn he told his wife that he would have to ride home and see his father.

The morning he set out, Eldrid accompanied him a little way across the marshes.

“Do not look at me like that,” he said with an embarrassed smile as they parted. “I shall be home again by the evening of the third day at the latest, but it may well be I shall come sooner.”

It was past midday when he came out by the river-mouth and saw once more the bay and the fiord outside and the rust-coloured rocks by the shore. He had ridden through the fields. They had finished cutting the corn here, and the cattle were loose in the paddocks. He knew every beast, and he knew every foot of ground; there was not a bush or a heap of stones or a tussock in the meadow that he had not gone round with scythe and billhook. And yet he did not feel at home here any longer, in the way he was at home at the Ness, at the farm where he was always coming upon corners that were unknown to him, on the lake, to
the farther end of which he had never yet rowed, in the woods around, where he was always striking tracks that led he knew not whither—and yet wherever he went he had the feeling that here he had been born and brought up, that he had seen it all before, either when he was a child, or in his dreams.

As his horse’s hoofs struck the rocks of the yard, Ragna came to the door of the cook-house. She cried aloud and ran toward him. Then others of the house-folk came out and swarmed about him, and last came Cecilia with a little child on her arm. It gave Eirik a shock to realize that it was Audun and that he had not grown much since he last saw him. It was not yet a year since that day in the storehouse loft.

Then he saw his father come to the door of the house. Olav stood there a moment, looked at his son, then turned in again.

Eirik kissed his silent sister on the lips. “I will come in to you, when I have spoken with Father.”

He followed Olav into the living-room. His father sat in his seat. Eirik remained standing by the door with his hat in his hands.

“I have come home, Father—”

“Ay, I am growing used to that now.”

“Nay, Father, I know you have good reason to chide me for leaving home without warning and staying away so long—”

Olav interrupted him: “A vagabond you are, and never will there be aught of you but a vagabond and a bird of passage. I make no complaint—’tis your nature. A fool I was to believe time after time that each new whimsy would last. I believed you when you said you would be a monk, I believed you when you said you would live at Saltviken and restore the farm there, I believed you when you thought you had set your heart on Gunhild Bersesdatter—But one thing I did not believe of you—that you would take so paltry a revenge on Berse. As when you went off and debauched his daughter, who was so situated that you knew no man would defend her—”

“I am married to Eldrid, Father.”

As his father made no reply, Eirik said again: “I thought you had heard that—since our priest had to make inquiry about me here in my own parish—”

“I heard of it. But I thought you would act according to your wont, as like as not—as when you were to take your vows in the convent. But it falls worst on yourself. God knows how you will
carry it on the day when you begin to feel galled by a bond that cannot be broken.”

Eirik stood still, looking at his father. Again he seemed to be wondering—all that his father said was true enough, and yet he knew that the truth was otherwise.

“I do not blame her,” said Olav bitterly. “I would not have done what Berse did—given away a fair young child to an oldster who had buried two wives already—and an ugly sight he was with the big white bumps on his skull grinning out of his tousled hair, and never have I heard that he did a kindness to man or woman. Maybe other wives would have transgressed as much as Eldrid, had they not lacked the courage.

“And naturally she was ready to marry you, if she could bring it about. For all that, I will not have such a woman established in your mother’s seat here or taking precedence of your sister here at Hestviken—not while I am master. When I am dead or unfit to have control, then you may come back, and then it may be more honourable that you bring with you the wife you have chosen rather than thrust her into a corner—if you have not done so already before that time comes. But till then you two must keep away from my domains.”

“As you will, Father.”

“Nay, I do not mean it so,” said Olav curtly, “that I would drive you from home. You may stay here as long as you wish—I suppose you will fetch such things as are yours, visit kinsfolk and friends. I will not deny you that. Nor that you come hither to visit your sister—but you must come alone. But
dwell
here you shall not again in my time. I am tired of this; no sooner do we think you are settled somewhere than we have you back—and when we think you mean to stay at home, of a sudden you are gone.—But put off your cloak now,” said his father, as he would speak to any other guest, “and take your rest.”

Cecilia had ordered food and ale to be brought to her house for her brother. Jörund had gone to Gunnarsby to see his brothers, she said. They talked together, first of her children—all three were thriving—and then of the manor and the summer and of folk they knew, but not of his affairs.

Eirik asked whether Jörund and their father were on better terms now.

“They are not at enmity,” replied the wife. She turned red. “He has begun to do more on the farm—Jörund has not had his baleful headache so much this summer. Father talks of moving out to Saltviken,” she added, “letting Jörund have charge here.”

Eirik lifted Kolbein onto his knees. “You know,” he said quietly, “my wife has never had a child—and now she is not so young either. I had it in my mind to tell you this—so you may know, you and Jörund, if you are now to take over all the work here—’tis most likely that this little lad will one day have Hestviken after me.”

“Eirik—that you could undo yourself thus!” said Cecilia in a horrified whisper.

“It is not as you think,” replied Eirik; and what shocked his sister most was that she could not read the expression in his eyes, but it was not one of sorrow or remorse.

Eirik took his departure late in the afternoon of the third day. He had packed a saddle-bag with such of his things as he needed most; more he would have sent after him, for he was to ride home alone and he could lead no pack-horse with him—there was no fodder for more than one horse at the Ness. But Gisti, one of his old dogs, he would have with him; it had followed its master’s heels wherever he went these three days, jumping up at him whenever he snapped his fingers. He was glad, for he felt the want of a dog at the Ness.

Cecilia wished to ride with him part of the way; she could then see to her child at Rynjul at the same time.

His father said farewell to Eirik in the yard. They parted kindly, but Eirik knew that from now he was a stranger here.

Brother and sister rode inland together; Knut Ragnason, who was now Cecilia’s henchman, followed at a little distance. As they passed Rundmyr, Eirik asked Cecilia to take care of Olav Livsson, the sick lad: “He is fit to do a little woman’s work.” Cecilia promised.

They came to where the road branched off to Rynjul. Eirik did not wish to go and meet his kinsfolk there; so they took leave of each other. He had dismounted. His sister laid her hand on his head, forced it sharply into her lap.

“Eirik, Eirik,” she whispered despairingly, “’tis as though they would draw you back to elf-land!”

Eirik gently freed himself. “What fancies! I am content with the lot that has fallen to me.”

It was dark when he reached the end of the lake. The Ness stood out black against the pale surface of the water. He made out a figure walking toward him on the road. Eirik leaped from his horse.

“Here am I, Eldrid.”

She did not take his hand; he heard her breathing heavily, and then she burst into tears. She sat down at the edge of the road, bent double in the dark, and wept convulsively. Eirik stood still, leaning against his horse, and waited. At last he went over, took her by the hand and raised her.

“Now you must weep no more, Eldrid!”

Then they walked together across the marshes, home to the farm. The bay walked in front and Eirik’s dog followed at his heels.

“I have made ready no food,” she said when they had entered her house. “I had done so yestereve—you remember you said maybe you would be home so soon. But it made me so sick to see it standing there useless. Now I will go and fetch—”

Eirik watched his wife go with pensive eyes.

As he supped and afterwards unpacked his saddle-bag, they spoke some words of his journey. Eirik said that his father had not received him too badly. But it had been agreed that he was not to move home to Hestviken at present.

No sooner had Eldrid come to bed than she began to weep again. And she wept on and on—she wept under her husband’s caresses, she fell asleep with her face against his shoulder and sobbed in her sleep, and woke and wept again. Eirik lay still and let her weep her fill.

“Would I had died,” she lamented once, “ere you met me!”

“You must not say such a thing,” he begged her earnestly. “You must not wish you had died while you hated God and all men.”

“Yes! Rather that than that you should lie here, cast out from your heritage and kin.”

“You are she who was set apart for me from the first. From here I am come, and hither I was to return.”

Then he told her his dream of the bird-woman, Leman.

But next morning, when Eirik came in to his meal, Eldrid asked dryly: “Did you hear aught of that sister of mine, Gunhild—what has become of her?”

Eirik looked up.

“Nay,” he said, taken by surprise; “that I clean forgot to ask!”

O
LAV
moved out to Saltviken.

The work afloat had to be done from Hestviken; here was no other quay than the little boat-pier of piled stones, no boathouse or warehouse, but only the little sheds by the salt-pans. And it would be a great piece of work to make a harbour in the open and shallow bay. Saltviken could be made a good corn-growing farm. Eirik had been right there.

Olav sailed up to Hestviken, went on board his own boats, spoke with Cecilia on dark winter mornings on the quay, but did not go up to the manor. Yet he knew that his son-in-law let fly abuse of the old kelpie that haunted the beach.

He knew that his daughter’s husband could not cope with any of the things that had been placed in his charge. He had to depend on his old tried folk and on Cecilia. But it had come to this, that he thought himself obliged to pretend a trust in Jörund Rypa even though he had none.

What folk said of it all—it was clear that he himself was the last who would hear that. But it could not possibly be any secret that he had chosen ill in choosing a husband for his daughter. And as to Eirik’s conduct, Jörund had let him hear what all thought of it: he had meant to take revenge on Berse—and a dastard’s revenge—so he only got his deserts when he found out that the old adulteress was too sly and that he was the one who was caught.

Olav was wearied to death of everything. This turmoil in which he had been caught up, when he had had to swallow Berse’s insuits—and
he had controlled himself, for Eirik’s sake he had controlled himself more than he believed possible—and then Eirik behaved like a hothead, without a thought of honour or of aught but his own caprices—when at last this turmoil had calmed down, Olav felt that now he cared for nothing more. Now it was all one to him.

But he would not give up, for all that; he would have to continue the fight against disgrace and misfortune. He would stake all the respect he had won in the country round against his neighbours’ judgment of Cecilia’s husband, affect to think that Jörund was worth his salt and that his shield was untarnished. And at the same time, while living at the deserted manor, he tried secretly to keep an eye on everything, to direct and advise—whether Jörund liked it or not. It might well be that thus he might bring about better times for Cecilia and her children. Now that he could play the master “at Hestviken, Jörund had found friends; they were not the best men of the neighbourhood, and he himself was quarrelsome and unamiable—with luck he might come by a few inches of cold steel.

And Eirik, who had acted in such a way that there was no excuse for his conduct—he must be banned from home. And it was better so—would he might never have to look on this creature again while he lived. He should have foreseen it, that time when he came home and found Ingunn with calamity incarnate in her womb—that he would be haunted by this spectre throughout his life and never find peace: he had hated him, despised him, hardened his heart against him, wished him dead—and longed for him, believed in him when the other deceived him, wished him well as soon as he had allowed himself to be deceived—this stranger had been more his own than the children whose father he was. Time after time he had believed that the curse was turned to—well, to something else—the bastard to a son of whom he was fond—and then the changeling had always swung to the right-about—and he himself was left deluded, the victim of scorn—and of what was worse and smarted more keenly.

But now it was finished. And well it was.

Yet ever and anon he caught himself thinking of Eirik. He longed to tell Eirik what was in his mind, without restraint. He longed to see him.

Time seemed long to him out at Saltviken a whole winter. He
lived there alone with Knut Ragnason and the young wife the lad had lately married.

One day in spring Galfrid Richardson came unexpectedly to Saltviken to see him. In the evening he told Olav his business.

There was a man who sought the hand of Galfrid’s youngest daughter, Alis, and Galfrid himself was willing enough to have the man for a son-in-law, but he wished to speak to Olav first: “For it is that Björn, the son of Torhild of Torhildsrud—so ’tis you who are his father.”