The Son Avenger (9 page)

Then there was that about Cecilia. No word had come from Jörund’s kinsmen, and in his heart Olav was bitterly offended; ’twas not good manners that Jörund should first feel his way in a matter of this kind, and when he was told he might try his luck, should do no more. In secret Olav was angry both with Jörund and with Eirik, who was to blame in this.

That affair of Aslak was not worth further thought. He could see no sign that Cecilia thought any more of their guest.

But nevertheless Olav was disturbed in mind. He was by no means so sure that there had not been something between Eirik and Bothild of which he knew nothing—he could not tell
what
it had been. A feeling of uncertainty stole in upon him during the long nights of watching.

Cecilia—Folk said it was always thus: if a woman has bastards, the same fate will befall her daughters as far as the third generation. Ingebjörg Jonsdatter, Ingunn—’Twas monstrous to think of such a thing with Cecilia, cool and chaste as the day at dawn: unthinkable that any man could decoy that steadfast child from the right way. There was nothing about her to remind him of her grandmother’s ardent waywardness or her mother’s defenceless weakness. But God, my God! can one human ever answer for another in such things? He had only to think of himself—

In any case he would be glad when the day came that he had Cecilia married and safely disposed of—he knew that now.

In the evening, as he sat with the sick girl, Bothild asked a question about her father—a little thing she thought perhaps Olav would know.

It had never occurred to Olav to speak of his friend to that friend’s daughter. He was now surprised to find that Bothild had faithfully remembered her father all these years. Olav was glad that at last he had found a subject on which he could talk to the sick girl. Now one youthful memory after another came upas far back as the time he was in Denmark with his uncle. Indeed, there was a great deal he could tell Bothild about Asger Magnusson and the kinsfolk they had in common.

“How near akin are we then, Eirik and I—and Cecilia?” asked Bothild after a while.

Olav unravelled the relationship. It was very distant. But to Eirik, of course, Bothild was not related at all, he thought to himself.

Surely she could never have asked that in order to find out whether there were kinship within the prohibited degrees?—for she must now have reconciled herself to the thought of death.

Never again did he bring himself to speak as he had spoken that night when for the first time he had seen that the poor child was unwilling to die—of the kingdom of God and Christ’s love and of the paths he had once followed but had allowed to become grass-grown.

Then, ten nights before Yule, Bothild Agersdatter died in the arms of her foster-sister.

Sir Ragnvald Torvaldsson spent that winter at his manor near Konungahella. He was a little surprised when Eirik Olavsson returned, since, for all he knew, the lad this time had meant to leave his service for good. But he received the young man well—he was used by now to Eirik’s fitfulness and love of change; but the man was brave, loyal and active when on duty, and Sir Ragnvald liked his ways.

So Eirik was given his old place in Sir Ragnvald’s hall; and then he went about among his old comrades like a man who has been bewitched. There was neither song nor sport in Eirik that winter.

The more he struggled to tear himself out of his own thoughts, the worse it was—he was like a fish in the net: the more he tossed and floundered to be free, the faster he was caught.

If he tried to think of the first happy, innocent days at home with Jörund and Cecilia, their gaiety and summer work at the beloved manor, it only aggravated his pain: he himself had destroyed all this for ever. The sorrowing figure of Bothild came before him—the frightened child whom he had betrayed and profaned and hunted like a wolf, though he loved her—she was the first and only one he had loved.

He did not understand how he could have acted thus to her. It was not like him—But he had an obscure feeling that some ancient evil met him wherever he went at Hestviken last summer, welling up from the ground and the water and the old houses and from Liv’s cabin—as the black water oozes up in a man’s footsteps as he passes over marshy ground. And like the fumes of stagnant, putrid bog-water it had made him feverish and light-headed.

But now there was an end of
that—
to Hestviken he could never return. Now he was an outlaw, exiled from his home. For now his father must have heard all. And the thought of meeting his father after this, of being called to account by him—that terrified Eirik much more than the thought of doomsday.

In vain, in vain that Bothild held him dear. He knew now that she did so, and she had been waiting for him all these years while he was abroad in the world. It was her timid, faithful, waiting love that he had seen in those humble glances, in her helpless submission, when they were together. And now he had wasted it all.

At times he tried to take heart of grace. In the first place it was not
true
that he had profaned and betrayed his beloved. For he had never
done
her any ill—and surely thought is free in this world. He had behaved rudely and discourteously more than once—’twas bad enough, but no worse than that.

It availed nothing that he said such things to himself. That evening in the doorway of the women’s house, the horror of that night in the wood—these were not to be surmounted. He could not shake off the feeling that much more had happened than he knew to be the actual fact. And it was like sinking into an abyss of horror.

And then came the temptation to make an end of it. To set his sword-hilt against a stone and aim the point at his heart; then the cold steel might quench the burning anguish in his breast. It was
toward Yule that this thought haunted him; he had no peace, day or night—it must be such a relief to take one’s life.

But one morning in the new year he awoke in a mood so changed that it seemed a mist had been blown away. It had suddenly become incomprehensible to himself that he could have had such thoughts.

Bothild, his poor sweet wife—was she to wait in vain! Of course she was waiting now for him to come back to her. He had been cruel and bad toward her—but he had not outraged her, God be praised! And when they parted—they had parted as friends; he had promised to come back to her.

His father—he could not understand how he had been so mortally afraid of him. Was he not a grown man? If his father wished to fly into a rage, then let him! Besides, why should Bothild have said anything to his father? Nothing had taken place between him and her that would give her ground for complaining to her foster-father. What if he had taken her in his arms rather roughly once or twice, given her a kiss—no maid need be distressed at that!

Cecilia had said that their father would seek out a good marriage for Bothild—he loved Bothild as though she were his own child. And even if he should deem her not rich enough to be his daughter-in-law—Eirik would make his father change his mind!

It was glorious winter weather, the snow gleamed in the sunshine, and the sky was as blue as if spring were on the way. As he went about, Eirik hummed or sang aloud. And in the evening, when he accompanied his lord to his bedchamber, he asked to be relieved of his service. To Sir Ragnvald’s question what it was
this
time, Eirik replied that he had received word that he was to come home and be married.

Sir Ragnvald had drunk freely and was in good humour; he rallied the young man and drew him out, and Eirik told him a tale:

It was his foster-sister—daughter of that Asger Magnusson who had gotten Eirikstad by his marriage with Knuthild Holgeirsdatter—Sir Ragnvald knew this story and how he had slain Paal Galt and been made an outlaw. Well, Olav of Hestviken had taken to himself both the old she-bear and the little maid—Olav and Asger had been brothers-in-arms. Now she was grown up, fair and bonny,
a mirror for all women, but possessed of neither land nor rich kinsfolk; so Olav would not hear of the marriage. ’Twas for that Eirik had returned to Sir Ragnvald in the autumn—he would give his father time to change his mind, for he had declared they should not see him at Hestviken again until his father was willing to give him Bothild. And Olav knew from of old that Eirik was not one to give in.—And now his father was well on in years; he found it hard to cope single-handed with the whole charge of the manor; he needed his son at home. So he had sent a message: Eirik must come home; he should have Bothild to wife, and now his father wished it to take place as soon as might be—no doubt the betrothal would be held at once and the wedding as soon as the fast was at an end. Ay, truly, said Eirik, he had received the message yesterday at church; a man from Maastrand who had been with the Minorites, and he had spoken to him after mass. Some of the folk from his home parish were always engaged in the herring fishery at Maastrand. Therefore he would fain go at once; he could then accompany this man as far as Maastrand and get a passage home in one of the fishing-boats.

Sir Ragnvald wished him joy and gave him as a parting gift the horse Eirik was wont to ride, with saddle and harness, and a red cloak with a hooded cape of black silk.

No later than the next day but one Eirik rode northward; he was bound for Maastrand. It did not trouble him that the story he had told Sir Ragnvald was untrue; but it was a fact that fisher-folk from near his home were often to be found there in winter, so he was sure to meet with some who could take him up to Folden.
⁵

The fishing was in full swing, and besides, Eirik wished to take his horse on board with him, for now he had the idea of giving it to Bothild as a bridal gift. So more than a week went by before he could get a passage—with some men from Drafn who had been at Maastrand selling salt.

They had rough weather on the voyage along the coast, and when they came to Stavern the traders had to put in to shore and lie there. Folden was full of drift-ice to the northward, and long stretches were frozen over; there was no crossing the fiord either by boat or on horseback.

Eirik’s impatience had increased hourly during the whole voyage. Bothild, Bothild, ran constantly in his mind; he imagined her waiting for him at home in Hestviken. There was none to whom he could pour out his cares.—Or else they were sitting in the women’s house, she and Cecilia, spinning and sewing, and talking of him. He could see her face and her eyes as she stepped into the room—when it had been cried over the whole manor that Eirik had come home. And when he thought how he would hold her in his arms, the first moment they were alone together, every drop of blood in him thrilled and laughed in joyful longing; his evil mood was only recalled as a spell from which he had been set free. Now she too had been set free from sorrow and sickness, and they would live together in joy and amity all the days of their life. He doubted not that his father would yield, when first he had had time to growl and show his black looks. But when he saw that his son would
not
give in—!

So Eirik Olavsson saddled his horse and took the road northward along the western shore of Folden. At Tunsberg folk said the same: ’twas useless to attempt to cross the fiord to Hestviken. So he rode on. Right up into the hundred of Skogheim he had to go; the head of the Oslo Fiord was firmly frozen over. Eirik had no time to go round by the town; he turned his horse southward.

It was afternoon as he rode through the church town at home. There he met Ragnvald Jonsson with a loaded sledge; they stopped and greeted each other. Eirik asked whether Ragnvald had been out at Hestviken lately.

“Not since the funeral ale,” said Ragnvald.

As Eirik made no reply, Ragnvald thought he must break the silence:

“I have not spoken with your father or Cecilia since—I have not seen them elsewhere than at church. ’Twas a heavy sorrow for them—though not unlooked for; but she was young and good, God rest her soul! He could not have made a fairer funeral ale if it had been for his own child—and he spoke handsomely over the bier, did Olav, as she was borne out of the house.”

“I knew not that my sister was dead—”

Eirik was motionless, gazing before him. Ragnvald felt ill at ease, for he guessed that this was a great blow. Then he gathered up the reins and urged on his horse.

“Nay, if I am to reach home ere dark—Farewell, Eirik, we shall meet again if you mean to stay at home awhile.”

Eirik came to where he could see the little houses of Rundmyr snowed under beyond the white expanse. A shudder of disgust and sickly fear assailed his stricken soul.

The endless grey frost-fog from the fiord grew denser over the smoke-coloured clouds in the west, behind which the sun had gone down. There was so little depth of snow that stones and roots showed bare in the track under the alders; dark bristles left from the summer’s meadowsweet and yellow, withered grass bordered the path beside the frozen stream.

Light, bare, and open the woods were now. But somewhere upon this very path it had happened—and Eirik vividly recalled the rank and clammy darkness of the autumn night as a night of wickedness in which they two had been imprisoned.

It was growing dark as he rode into the yard at home. Olav himself was out of doors. He went to meet the stranger; on recognizing his son he gave him a surprised but friendly greeting: “Is it you—?”

His father’s close-knit figure, not very tall, looked broad and bulky in his sheepskin coat; he was bareheaded. In the dusk Eirik could just make out his hair and face, grey all over, the clear-cut features gashed and drawn in on one side. Eirik did not know whether his despair grew worse or better at the sight of the other. A kind of hope sprang up in him that he might find help in his father, but he checked it as one checks a hound on the leash: so many a time he had hoped in vain of Olav.

Then came old Tore, greeted him and took his horse. Olav bade his son go in.

O
LAV
and Eirik lived but moderately well together for the rest of the winter.