The Snake Pit (24 page)

Olav frowned in anger. “Those men of Tveit—never have I seen them, and they did not deal by me as kinsmen when I was young and had sore need of their coming forward.”

“They came forward after you had fled to Sweden.”

“And they might just as well have stayed where they were, for all the good I had of them. Nay, then I should rather let her son take Hestviken.”

“That will not make wrong right, Olav.—And neither you nor she can know whether it will tend to the boy’s happiness that you two make him a gift that he has no right to receive.”

“Oh, ay, I thought as much: she has been talking to you of what is in her head—that I hate her child and wish him ill. ’Tis not true,” he said hotly. “I have never had aught else in mind for Eirik but his own good—’tis she who corrupts him; she trains him to be afraid of me, to lie and sneak out of my way—”

On seeing the expression in Arnvid’s face he shook his head. “Nay, nay, I blame her not for that—Ingunn knows no better, poor woman. I have not changed my mind either, Arnvid. Do you remember, I promised you once that I would never fail your kinswoman? And I have never regretted it—in whatever shape my
last hour may come, I shall thank God that He held my hand when I was tempted to do harm to
her—
showed me, ere it was too late, that I must protect and support her as well as I was able. Even if I had come back and found her stricken with leprosy, I could have done no less than remember that she was my dearest friend—the only friend I had in all the years I was a child and brought up among strangers.”

Arnvid said calmly: “If you think, Olav, that it would make it easier for you to judge what you ought to do in order to make your peace with God, should you be unable to care for those belonging to you, I promise to be as a brother to Ingunn, to provide for her and the boy. I shall take them under my roof, if need be—”

“But you have given up Miklebö to Magnus. And you yourself will enter the convent—” Olav said it almost with a touch of scorn.

“Thereby I have not parted with my whole estate. And if I have endured the world so long, I doubt not I can endure it to my dying day, if it must be—while my near kinsfolk need me by them.”

“Nay, nay,” said Olav as before. “I will not have you think of the like for my sake or for the sake of any who are properly in my care.”

Arnvid sat gazing into the dying embers on the hearth, feeling the presence of his friend in the gloom. “I wonder if he does not see himself that it is no small burden he has thrown upon me tonight,” he thought.

Olav pulled a stool toward him with his foot and sat down by the hearth, facing his friend.

“Now I have told you much, but not that which I had it in my mind to say: I have told you that I yearn, day and night, to be reconciled with the Lord Christ—I have told you that never did our Lord seem to me so lovable beyond all measure as when I knew that He had marked me with the brand of Cain. But I marvel that I yearn so, for never have I seen Him so hard on other men as on me. I have wrought this one misdeed; and then I was so—incensed—that I do not now recall what were my thoughts at the time; but I did it because I judged that ’twould be even worse for Ingunn if I did it not—I would save a poor remnant of respect for her, even if it cost me a murder. And then it all came about as easily as if it had been laid out for me—
he
begged me to take him
on that journey; no man was aware that we set out together. But had God or my patron or Mary Virgin directed our way to some man’s house that evening and not to those deserted sæters under Luraas—you know it would have fallen out otherwise.”

“I scarce think you had prayed God and the saints to watch over your journey, ere you set out?”

“I am not so sure that I did not—nay,
prayed
I had not truly. But all that Easter I had done nothing but pray—and I was so loath to kill him, all the time. But it was as though all things favoured me, so that I was driven to do it—and tempted to conceal it afterwards. And God, who knows all, He knew how this must turn out, better than I—why could not He have checked me nevertheless, without my prayers—?”

“So say we all, Olav, when we have accomplished our purpose and then see that it would have been better if we had not. But beforehand I ween you think like the rest of us, that you are the best judge of your own good.”

“Ay, ay. But in all else beyond what this deed has brought in its train I have dealt uprightly with every man, to the best of my power. I have no goods in my possession that were come by unjustly, so far as I know; I have not spread ill report of man or woman, but have let all such talk fall to the ground when it reached my door, even though I knew it to be true and no lie. I have been faithful to my wife, and ’tis
not
as she thinks, that I bear the boy ill will—I have been as good to Eirik as most men are to their own sons. Tell me, Arnvid, you who understand these thinks better than I—you have been a pious man all the days of your life and have shown compassion to all—am I not right when I say that God is harder on me than on other men? I have seen more of the world than you”—Arnvid was sitting so that Olav could not see him smile at these words—“in the years when I was an outlaw, with my uncle, and afterwards, when I was the Earl’s liegeman. I have seen men who loaded themselves with all the seven deadly sins, who committed such cruel deeds as I would not set my hand to, even if I knew of a surety that God had already cast me off and doomed me to hell. They were not afraid of God, and I never marked that they thought of Him with love or longing to obtain His forgiveness—and yet they lived in joy and contentment, and they had a good death, many of them, as I myself have seen.

“Then why can we have no peace or joy, she and I? It is as though God pursued me, wherever I may go, vouchsafing me no peace or rest, but demanding of me such impossible things as I have never seen Him demand of other men.”

“How should I be able to give you answers to such questions, I, a layman?—Olav, can you not go with me to the town and speak with Brother Vegard of this?”

“Maybe I will do so,” said Olav in a low voice. “But you must tell me first—can you understand why it is to be made so much harder for me than for other men?”

“You do not know everything about the other men you speak of, either. But you must be able to see that, if you feel that God pursues you, it is because He would not lose you.”

“But He has so ordered it for me that I cannot turn about.”

“Surely it was not God who ordered it so for you?”

“Nay, but I have not brought it about myself either—I had to do what I did, it seems to me; Ingunn’s life and welfare were laid in my hands. But that which was the cause of all this, Arnvid—that the Steinfinnssons would steal from me the marriage that had been promised to my father—should I have been content with that—bowed before such injustice? I have never heard aught else but that God commands every Christian man to fight against wrong and law-breaking. I was a child in years, unlearned in the law—I knew no other way to defend my right than to take my bride myself, ere they could give her to another.”

Arnvid said reluctantly: “That was the answer you gave me when I—spoke to you of your dealings with my kinswoman. Do you remember yet, Olav, that—that you did not speak the truth that time?”

Olav raised his head with a jerk, taken by surprise. He paused a moment with his reply. “No.—And I believe,” he said calmly, “most men would have done the same in my place.”

“That is sure.”

“Do you think,” asked Olav scornfully, “that God’s hand has pressed so hard upon me—and upon her—because I lied that time—to you?”

“I cannot tell.”

Olav gave a fretful toss of his head. “I cannot believe that it was so grievous a sin. So many a man have I heard tell worse lies—needlessly—and never did I see that God raised a finger to chastise
him. So I cannot understand His justice, which deals so hardly with me!”

Arnvid whispered: “You must have petty thoughts of God if you expect His justice to be the same as man’s. Not two of us outlawed children of Eve did He create alike—should He then demand the same fruits of all His creatures, to whom He has given such diverse talents?—When first I knew you, in your youth, I judged you to be most truthful, upright, and generous; there was no cruelty or deceit in you, but God had given you a heritage of brave and faithful ancestors—”

Olav rose to his feet in violent agitation. “Methinks that if it were so—. If ’tis as you say—and truly I have often shrunk from doing what other men do every day, without a care, for smaller matters—Methinks that what you call God’s gifts might just as well be called a burden not to be borne, which He laid upon my back when He created me!”

Arnvid leaped up in his turn. He moved forward to the other and stood before him, almost threateningly. “So many a man may say that of the nature he was given; unless he have a faith firm as a rock in his Redeemer, he must think himself born the most unfortunate of men.” He put his foot on the edge of the hearth; with his hand resting on his knee he stood bending forward and looked down at the embers. “You often wondered that I longed to turn my back upon the world—I who had riches in abundance, and more power than I cared to use—and some respect withal. Pious you say I have been, and compassionate to all—God knows if you do not deem it must be because I
love
my even Christians!”

“I believed you helped every man who sought your aid because you were—meek of heart—and pitied everyone who was in any—difficulty—”

“Pitied—oh yes. Many a time I was tempted to reproach my Creator because He had made me so that I
could
do naught else—I had to pity all, though I could love none—”

“I believed,” said Olav very low, “that you—supported me and Ingunn with deed and counsel because you were our friend. Was it only for
God’s
sake you held your hand over us?”

Arnvid shook his head. “It was not. I was fond of you from our childhood, and Ingunn has been dear to me since she was a little maid. Nevertheless I was often so mortally weary of all this—it
came over me that I desired more than all else to be rid once for all of this suit of yours.”

“You might have let me know this,” said Olav stiffly. “Then I should have troubled you far less.”

Again Arnvid shook his head. “’Tis you and Ingunn who were ever my best friends. But I
am
not pious and I am not good. And often I was weary of it all—wished I could transform myself and become a hard man, if I could not be meek and let God judge mankind, not me. There was once a holy man in France, an anchorite; he had taken upon himself a work of charity for the love of God, that he would harbour folk who fared through the forest where he dwelt. One night there came a beggar who sought shelter with the anchorite—Julian was his name, I think. The stranger was full of leprosy, grievously tainted with the sickness, gross and foul of mouth—returned ill thanks for all the kindness the anchorite showed him. Then Julian undressed the beggar, washed and tended his sores and kissed them, put him to bed-but the beggar made as though he was cold and bade Julian lie close and warm him. Julian did so. But then his foulness and ugliness and evil speech slipped from the stranger as it were a disguise—and Julian saw that he had embraced Christ Himself.

“It has been my lot that, when I thought I could not bear all these folk who came to me, lied and threw the burden of their affairs on me, begged advice and acted as seemed good to themselves, but blamed me when things went wrong, greedy and envious of everyone they thought had been better helped—it was borne in upon me that they must be disguised, and that under the disguise it would one day be granted to me to see my Saviour and my Friend Himself. And indeed it was so in a way—since He said that everything ye do unto one of My little ones—But never would He throw off the disguise and appear to me in the person of any of them.”

Olav had seated himself on the stool again, hiding his face in his arms.

Arnvid said in a yet lower voice: “Do you remember, Olav, what Einar Kolbeinsson said that evening—the words that goaded me so that I drew my weapon upon him?”

Olav nodded.

“You were so young at that time—I knew not whether you had guessed their meaning.”

“I guessed it later.”

“And afterwards, those rumours of Ingunn and me—?”

“Hallvard said something of that—when I was north to fetch the boy.”

Arnvid drew a couple of deep breaths. “I am not so holy but that I took it greatly to heart, both one thing and the other. And I often thought God might have granted me my only prayer—given me leave to serve Him in such guise that I dared work deeds of compassion, as far as I was able, without folk whispering behind my back and defaming me or calling me a sanctimonious fool. Or believe the worst of me, because I took to myself neither wife nor leman after Tordis’s death.” He struck out with his fist and brought it down on the other hand with a crack. “Often I had a good mind to take my axe and make an end of the whole pack!”

Thereafter, during the two days Arnvid yet stayed at Hestviken, the friends were shy and taciturn with each other. It pained them both that they had said far too much that evening; now it seemed they could not talk freely of the simplest trifles.

Olav rode with Arnvid a part of the way up the fiord, but when they were halfway to the town he said he must turn back. He drew out something from the folds of his kirtle—a hard thing, wrapped in a linen cloth. Arnvid could feel that it must be the silver cup that Olav had shown him a day or two before. Olav said he was to give it to the convent at Hamar.

“But so great a gift you ought to place yourself in the hands of Brother Vegard,” thought Arnvid.

Olav replied that he must be home that evening—“but it may be that I come in to Oslo one day to greet him.”

Arnvid said: “You know full well, Olav, that it is vain to seek to buy your atonement with gifts, so long as you live as you do now.”

“I know it—’tis not for that. But I had a mind to give to their church—many a happy hour have I had in the old Olav’s Church.” So they bade each other farewell and rode their ways.