The Snake Pit (23 page)

Then all at once Ingunn was there. She was white in the face, but perfectly calm now as she took the child on her lap, held his legs tight between her knees, threw the end of her coif across his face, and caught it under one arm. With her other hand she took him by the wrist and held the little fist against the table. The serving-maids helped to hold the boy, smothering his hideous screams of pain with more cloths, while Olav took off the damaged finger at the inner joint, burnt out the wound, and bound it up—he did it so rapidly and so neatly as he had never guessed himself able to accomplish leechcraft.

While the women attended to the wailing child, got him to bed, and poured strengthening drinks into him, Olav sat on the bench. Only now did he feel the pain of his burn, and he was ashamed and furious with himself for being capable of such senseless conduct—maltreating himself to no purpose like a madman.

Torhild came up to him with white of egg in a cup and a box of fuzz-ball fungus. She was going to tend his arm; but Ingunn took the things from the serving-woman and pushed her aside:

“I shall tend my husband myself, Torhild—go you out, find a tuft of grass, and wipe the blood from the table.”

Olav stood up and shook himself, as though he would be rid of both women. “Let be—I can bind this little thing myself,” he said morosely. “And find me some other clothes than these rags.”

Eirik recovered rapidly; that day week he was already sitting up, eating with a good appetite of the dainties his mother brought him. It looked as though he would escape from the stoat’s bite with no worse harm than the loss of his right little finger.

At first Olav would not allow that the burn on his arm troubled him; he tried to work and use the arm as if nothing had happened. Then the wound began to gather and he had to bind up his arm. After that he had fever, headache, and violent vomiting, and at last he had to take to his bed and let a man practised in leechcraft tend his arm. This lasted till near Advent, and Olav was in the worst of humours. For the first time since they had lived together he was unfriendly to Ingunn; he constantly used a harsh tone toward her and he would not have a word said as to how he had met with his hurt—The housefolk guessed too that he had very little joy of his wife being with child again.

When Eirik was up and out of doors once more, he talked of
nothing but his misfortune. He was unspeakably proud of his maimed hand and showed it off outside the church to all who cared to see, the first Sunday the people of Hestviken were at mass. He boasted fearfully, both of what his father had done, which seemed to him a mighty exploit, and of his own hardiness—if Eirik was to be believed, he had not let a sound out of him under the ordeal.

“’Tis my belief that boy is a limb of the Fiend himself, the way he lies,” said Olav. “It will end ill with you, Eirik, if you do not give up this evil habit.”

A
BOUT
St. Blaise’s Mass
⁴
they had a guest at Hestviken whom they had never thought to see here: Arnvid Finnsson came to the manor one day. Olav was not at home, and the house-folk did not expect him till after the holy-day.

Olav had a happy look that evening when he came in with his friend—Arnvid had gone out to meet him on the hill. He received the ale-bowl that Ingunn brought, drank to the other, and bade him welcome. But then he saw that Ingunn had been weeping.

Arnvid told him he had brought her heavy tidings: Tora of Berg had died in the autumn. But when Olav heard that Arnvid had already been here for some days, he wondered a little—had she wept over her sister for all that time? They had not been so very closely attached. But, after all, she was her only sister—and maybe at this time her tears flowed more readily than usual.

Ingunn bade them good-night as soon as supper was over. She took Eirik with her and went out—she would lie in the women’s little house tonight—“You two would rather sleep together, I ween; you must have many things to speak of.”

Olav could not help wondering again: was there any special thing that she thought they wished to speak of so privily? For otherwise she might simply have lain in the closet.

After that their talk went but sluggishly as they sat at their drink. Arnvid spoke of Tora’s children—’twas a pity they were all under age. Olav asked after Arnvid’s own sons. Arnvid said he
had joy of them: Magnus had Miklebö now; he was married, and Steinar was betrothed. Finn had taken vows in the convent of the preaching friars; they said he had good parts, and next year they would surely send him to Paris, to the great school there.

“You never thought of marrying again?”

Arnvid shook his head. He fixed his strange dark eyes upon his friend, smiling feebly and bashfully like a young man who speaks of his sweetheart. “I too shall be found among the friars, once Steinar’s wedding is over.”

“You are not one to change your mind either,” said Olav with a little smile.

“Either—?” said Arnvid involuntarily.

“So you will be father and son in the same convent.”

“Yes.” Arnvid gave a little laugh. “If God wills, it may be so turned up and down with us that I shall obey my boy and call him father.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then Arnvid spoke again:

“It is on the convent’s business we are now come south, Brother Vegard and I. We would rebuild our church of stone after the fire, but Bishop Torstein has other use for his craftsmen this year; so we were to see whether we can hire stonemasons in Oslo. But Brother Vegard said that you must do him a kindness and come into the town—and bring Ingunn with you if you could—so that he might see you.”

“Ingunn is not fit for any journey—you may guess that.—But he must be as old as the hills now, Brother Vegard?”

“Oh, ay—three and a half score, I believe. He is sacristan now.—Ay, ’twas that I was to say, that you must not fail to come. There was something he must needs say to you”—Arnvid looked down and spoke with a slight effort—“about that axe of yours, the barbed axe. He has found out a deal about it—that it is the same that was once at Dyfrin in Raumarike, at the time your ancestors held the manor.”

“I know it,” replied Olav.

“Ay, Brother Vegard has heard a whole saga about that axe, he says. In former times it was the way with it, they say, that it sang for a slaying.”

Olav nodded. “That I have once heard myself,” he said quietly. “That day when I was in the guest house, ready to fare northward—you know, the last time I visited you at Miklebö—”

Arnvid was silent for a while. Then he said in a low voice: “You told me that you had lost your axe on that journey?”

“You think me not such a fool as to set out through the forest with that huge devil of an axe?” Olav laughed coldly. “’Twas a woodcutter’s axe; it served me well enough, that one. But true it is, I heard Kinfetch ring—she would fain have gone with me.”

Arnvid sat with his arms crossed before him, perfectly silent. Olav had got up and walked uneasily about the hall. Then he came to a sudden stop.

Aloud and as though defiantly he asked: “Was there none who wondered—was nothing rumoured, when that Teit Hallsson disappeared from Hamar so abruptly?”

“Oh—something was said about the matter, no doubt. But folk were satisfied that he must have been afraid of the Steinfinnssons.”

“And you? Did you never wonder what had become of him?”

Arnvid said quietly: “It is not easy for me to answer that, Olav.”

“I am not afraid to hear what you thought.”

“Why do you wish me to say it?” whispered Arnvid reluctantly.

Olav was silent a good while. When he spoke, it was as though he weighed every word; he did not look at his friend meanwhile:

“I trow Ingunn has told you how it has gone with us. I thought it must be because He would that I should offer atonement to the boy for the man I put out of the world. That vagabond”—Olav gave a little laugh—“he was mad enough to imagine he would marry Ingunn—keep her and the child, he said. I
had
to put him out of the way, you can see that—”

“I can see that you thought you had to,” replied Arnvid.

“Well, he struck first. It was not that I decoyed the fellow into an ambush. He came of himself, stuck to me like a burr—I was to help him, as a man buys a marriage for his leman when he would be rid of her.”

Arnvid said nothing.

Olav went on, hotly: “So said this—a man of his sort—said it of Ingunn!”

Arnvid nodded. Nothing was said between them for a while. Then Arnvid spoke with hesitation:

“They found the bones of a man among the ashes, when they came up in the spring, my tenant of Sandvoid; those sæters up there on Luraasen. That must have been he—”

“Oh, the devil! Was it
your
hut? That is well so far—now I can make amends to you for it.”

“Oh, no, Olav, stop!” Arnvid rose abruptly and his face contracted. “What is the sense of that? So many long years ago—”

“That is so, Arnvid. And every day I have thought of it, and never have I spoken of it to any living soul until this evening—Then he was given Christian burial?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have not that to grieve over—to think of. I need not have vexed myself with that for all these years—that maybe he still lay there. I have not that sin upon me, that I left a Christian corpse unburied.—And no one asked or made search, who it might be that lay there?”

“No.”

“That seems strange.”

“Oh, not so strange either. The folk up there are wont to do as I say, when for once I let them know my will.”

“But you should not have done that!” Olav wrung his hands hard. “It had been better for me if it had come to light then—if you had not helped me to carry out my purpose, hush the matter up. That
you
could lend your hand to such a thing—you, a Godfearing man!”

Arnvid burst out laughing all at once, laughed so that he had to sit down on the bench. Olav gave a start at the way the other took it; he said heatedly:

“That ugly habit of yours—bursting into a roar of laughter just as one is speaking of—other things—you will have to give that up. I should think, when you are a monk!”

“I suppose I must.” Arnvid dried his eyes with his sleeve.

Olav spoke in violent agitation:
“You
have never known what it is to live at enmity with Christ, to stand before Him as a liar and betrayer, every time you enter His house. I have—every day for—ay, ’twill soon be eight years now. Hereabouts they believe me to be a pious man—for I give to the church and to the convent in Oslo and to the poor, as much as I am able, I go to mass as often as I have the means to come thither, and two or three times a day when I am in the town. Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and all thy heart, we are told—methinks God must know I
do
so—I knew not that such love was within the power of man until I myself had abandoned His covenant and lost Him!”

“Why do you say this to
me?”
asked Arnvid in distress. “You ought rather to speak to your priest of such things!”

“I cannot do that. I have never made confession that I slew Teit.”

As he received no reply, he said hotly: “Answer me! Can you not give me a counsel?”

“It is a great thing you lay upon me. I can give you no other counsel than that which your priest would give you.—I can give you no other counsel than that you know yourself—And that is not the counsel you wish for,” he said a moment later, as the other stood silent.

“I cannot.” Olav’s face turned white, as though congealed. “I must think of Ingunn too—more than of myself. I cannot condemn her to be left alone, poor and joyless and broken in health, the widow of a secret murderer and caitiff.”

Arnvid answered doubtfully: “But I trow it is not certain—quite certain it cannot be, that the Bishop could not find a way out—since this happened years ago—and no innocent man has suffered for the misdeed—and the dead man had done you grievous harm, and you fought together. Mayhap the Bishop will find a means of reconciling you with Christ—give you absolution, without demanding that you accuse yourself of the slaying also before human justice.”

“That can scarce be very likely?”

“I know not,” said Arnvid quietly.

“I cannot venture it. Too much is at stake for those whom it is my duty to protect. Then all that I have done to save her honour might as well have been undone. Think you I did not know that had I proclaimed the slaying there and then, it would have been naught but a small matter?—the man was of no account, alive or dead, and had you then backed me and witnessed she was mine, the woman he had seduced—But Ingunn would not have been equal to it—she could face so little always—and then is every mother’s son in these parts to hear this of her now that she is worn out—?”

It was a little while before Arnvid could answer. “It is a question,” he said in a low voice, “whether she could face the other thing better. Should it go with her this time as all the other times—that she lose her child again—”

A quiver passed over Olav’s features.

“However that may be—she is not fit to go through it many times more.”

“You must not speak so,” whispered Olav. “Then there is Eirik,” he began again, after a pause. “This promise I have made to God Himself, that Eirik should be treated as my own son.”

“Think you,” asked Arnvid, “that it avails you to offer God this and that—promise Him all that He has never asked of you—when you withhold from Him the only thing you yourself know that He would beg of you?”

“The only thing?—but that is
everything,
Arnvid—honour. Life, maybe. God knows I fear not so much to lose it in other ways—but to lose it as a caitiff—”

“Nevertheless, you have nothing that you have not received of Him. And He Himself submitted to the caitiff’s death to atone for all our sins.”

Olav closed his eyes. “Nevertheless I cannot—” he said almost inaudibly.

Arnvid rejoined: “You spoke of Eirik. Know you not, Olav, you have not the right to act in this way—to make a promise to set aside an heir—since by so doing you play your kinsmen false.”