The Snake Pit (29 page)

Olav stayed at home during the spring sowing, even more silent than usual.

But one morning, when he had set his folk to work, he walked back to the houses alone.

The sunshine flooded the room through the open smoke-vent, the light fell upon the fireless hearth, upon the clay floor, and touched Ingunn’s bed. Both the children were with her: Eirik lay with his dark, curly head in his mother’s arm and his long legs hanging over the edge of the bed. Cecilia crawled about, climbing up the bedpost and dropping down with a thump and a little scream of joy upon the lifeless form under the clothes. The little maid had nothing on but a flame-coloured woollen shift; her skin was pink and white and her hair had grown so that it fell in bright, flaxen ringlets about her face and neck. Her bright eyes were so blue in the whites that they seemed blue all over, and this gave the charming little face a strangely wide-awake look, like that of an animal.

“Your mother cannot bear you to weigh so heavily upon her,
Eirik.” Olav took Cecilia and seated himself on the edge of the bed with the girl on his knee. Once he clasped his daughter impetuously, and the child struggled—she was not used to being with her father. Olav felt how good and firm the little body was between his hands, and the silken hair had a fresh, moist scent.

As she was not allowed to get at her mother, she wriggled in her father’s arms and tried to reach her brother. Eirik took her, held her under the arms, and tried to make her walk. Cecilia thrust out her round stomach, straddling with her arms and one foot, as she threw her head back and laughed up in her brother’s face. Then she humped herself along with wild little kicks—laughing and shrieking: “Goy, goy, goy”; she curled up all her toes under the sole of her foot, which was quite round—as yet it had scarcely trodden the ground.

Olav swept his hand over the bed—it was strewn with half-withered flowers, such as bloom between spring and summer: wild vetch, catchflies, buttercups, and great violets. Ingunn gathered them into a bunch:

“They have long come out, I see.”

Olav sat looking at the children. They were of rare beauty, the two of hers that had lived. Eirik was a big boy now, tall and slight, with his knife-belt on his slender hips. Olav could see he was handsome: his face had lost its childish roundness, it was narrow and sharp, with a slightly curved nose and a high, arched jaw; he was brown-skinned and black-haired, had golden-yellow eyes. Could his mother help thinking of whom he resembled?

“Take your sister with you, Eirik, carry her out to Liv. There is a matter your mother and I would speak of.”

Ingunn raised the bunch of flowers with both hands to her face and drank in with open nostrils the acrid scent of spring.

“Now, my Ingunn,” said Olav in a clear, calm voice, “you shall soon be released from lying here in torment. I have bespoken a passage for us in a vessel to Nidaros this summer, to St. Olav, so that you may recover the use of your limbs at the shrine of him, the martyr of righteousness.”

“Olav, Olav, do not think of such a thing. Never could I bear the voyage—I should not come to Nidaros alive.”

“Oh, but you will.” The man closed his eyes, smiling painfully—his face had gone pale as death. “For now, Ingunn, now I have
the courage to do it. When I come thither, to the sanctuary—I will confess my sin. Of my own free will I shall put myself in God’s hands, make amends for my offence toward Him and toward the law and justice of my countrymen.”

She looked at her husband in dismay; he went on with the same haggard smile:

“The thing which befell you that time at Miklebö—when you rose from your bed and walked—that must have been a miracle! —Think you not that God can perform another miracle?”

“Nay, nay!” she cried. “Olav, what are you saying—what is this sin you speak of?”

“That I slew Teit, what else? Set fire to the hut where the body lay—and never made confession of it. I have been to confession all these years, have been shriven for all else, great and small—received
corpus Domini
like other Christian men, gone to mass and prayed and pretended, pretended—but now there is an end of it, Ingunn—I will have no more of it. Now I will put my case in the hands of my Creator, and whatsoever He will that I shall suffer, I will thank Him and bless His Name.”

He saw the look of terror in her face and threw himself down by the bedside with his head in her lap.

“Ay, Ingunn. But now you shall suffer no more for my sins. If only you will
believe,
you know that you will be helped.”

She put her hand under his chin and tried to raise his head. The sun was now shining full upon the bed, upon the crown of his bowed head—she saw that Olav’s hair was quite grizzled. It did not show unless the sun shone straight upon it, as it was so fair in colour.

“Olav, look at me—in Jesus’ name, have no such thoughts as these. Have I not sins enough myself to atone for? Do you remember”—she forced him to raise his face— “ ‘you are not
human,’
you said to me that time—you know what I would have done with Eirik, if you had not prevented me. Should I cast reproach upon God for deeming I was not fit to bear children?—all that winter long I thought of nothing but of stifling the innocent life I felt quickening within me.”

Olav looked at her in surprise. He had, as it were, never thought she remembered this, much less recalled it as guilt.

“I may thank God’s mercy and naught else that I have not child murder on my conscience. And no sooner was I saved from that
sin than I went about to do a worse one—God stretched out His hand again, when I was already halfway through the gates of hell. I perceived it long ago—I was not allowed to send myself straight to hell; every day I have lived since has been a loan, a respite given me to bethink myself and understand—

“I do not complain as I lie here—Olav, have you
once
heard me complain? I know well that God has chastised me, not from un-kindness—He who has twice plucked me out of the fire into which I would have thrown myself—”

Olav stared at her—a light was kindled far in behind his pupils. Unspeakably dear as she had been to him in all these years, he had never expected much more thought in her than in an animal, a tender young hind or a bird, that can love its mate and offspring, and lament its dead young—easily scared out of its wits, helplessly at the mercy of wounds and pain.—Never had he imagined he could talk to his wife as to another Christian person of that which had been growing in his soul for years.

“Oh nay, Olav!” She took his hand, drew him down and clasped his head to her bosom. He heard her heart beating violently within the narrow, wasted chest. “Say not such things, my friend! Your sin—’tis white by the side of mine! You must know that they were long for me, these years, and ofttimes heavy—but now it seems to me they were good in spite of all, since I lived with you, and you were always good!”

He raised his face. “It is true, Ingunn, that we two have had some good here in Hestviken—in that we were always friends. In sickness and in health I have had you with me always, and you have been dearest to me of all human creatures, in that I grew up away from all my kinsmen and friends, and you were the one with whom I consorted most. But then God was so kind to me, in spite of all, that He gave you to me—and I see now that it would have been difficult for me to prosper here, had I dwelt here alone without a single person that I had known from my youth.—You see, then, ’tis for that I can no longer bear to be God’s enemy—of my own will I will no more live apart from Him. Let it cost what it may—

“I am no poor man either. There too God spared me—He gave success to many of the enterprises I undertook to better our fortunes. I own more now than when we came together. And you know that by our marriage bond half our estate is yours, whatever
may befall. You and your children will not be unprovided for.”

“Speak not so, Olav. It
cannot
be so grievous a sin that you slew Teit. I have never told you before, I have never made complaint of it to any soul—but he took me by force! I could not bring myself to say it—’twas a thing I could not bear to speak of—” she sobbed aloud—“nor was I myself innocent, I had borne myself so that he must have thought I was not above such things—but I had never thought it would end as it did—and then he forced me. ’Tis true, Olav, I swear—”

“I know it.” He put out his hand as though to stop her. “He said it himself. And I know that this slaying was a small matter in the beginning—had I declared it at once. But I took the wrong road at the start—and now the guilt has grown, and I see that it will go on and breed new guilt. And now I must turn about, Ingunn—else I shall become the worst of inhuman wretches. It has come to this, that I scarce dare utter three words, for I know that two of them will be untrue.”

She laid her arm across her face, wailing low.

“You know,” said Olav, trying to hush her, “’tis not certain either that the Archbishop will demand that I accuse myself before the King’s judges. Haply he will deem it enough that I confess my sin before God. I have heard that men have been given absolution for the gravest of sins without being forced to destroy all their kinsfolk’s honour and welfare—they were made to do such penance as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem—”

“Nay, nay!” she cried out again. “You would be sent away from us—to the world’s end—”

“But ’tis not impossible”—he laid his hand on her bosom to quiet her—“that I might come home to you again. And you know you would dwell here and possess Hestviken—”

“But then it would come out that Eirik is not your son!”

Olav said quietly: “I have thought of that too, Ingunn—and it held me back, so long as I had no child of my own by you. Whether you might be driven out of Hestviken with your son—by my remote heirs. But now there is Cecilia. You can adopt the boy to full inheritance in your share of the estate—and he has a rich sister beside him—”

“Olav, do you remember what you said yourself?—that you had made Eirik no more than amends for his father’s death—”

“I remember. But I see now, Ingunn, that I had no right to do it—give away my daughter’s inheritance as amends to the child of a stranger—”

“Cecilia—Olav, Cecilia will be a rich maid for all that; she is rich and born in honour, of noble race—she will be fair besides. She will not be among the unfortunate—if she must be content with sister’s share after you—”

Olav’s face was stiff and closed. “A child of such birth as Eirik’s has no
right
to amends for his father.”

“Nay—you have always hated—my bastard.” She burst into a wild fit of weeping. “I have heard you call him that.”

“Oh ay—’tis a bad name that may escape the lips of an angry man, even when he speaks to one who is true-born.” He made an effort to speak calmly, but could not help showing a touch of bitterness. “But I will not deny I have regretted it—’twere better I had called the boy by another name when he vexed me.”

“You hate him,” said the mother.

“That is not true. I have never been too hard with Eirik. God knows, he has had less of the rod than he needs—I
cannot
do it, when you look at me as though I stabbed you with a knife if I do but speak a little harshly to him—and you spoil him yourself—”

“I! who lie here and see naught of the boy from morning to night—” she had picked up the flowers and was pulling them to pieces. “Weeks pass, and he never comes to see his mother—has no time to speak to me—as today. You came at once and drove him out.”

Olav said nothing.

“But if Eirik is to suffer for my misdeeds—then it had been better he had not come living into the world—though I myself should have suffered death and perdition for it—”

“Be reasonable, Ingunn,” her husband begged her gently.

“Olav, listen to me—Olav, have pity! Too dearly will you have bought my life and my health, if on this account you should wander through the world, a poor and homeless pilgrim in the lands of the black men, among wicked infidels. Or if the worst should happen—that you should be forced to stand naked and dishonoured, in danger of your life maybe, be called caitiff and murderer—for the sake of that man—you, the best among franklins, upright and gentle and bold above all—”

“Ingunn, Ingunn—that is what I am no longer. A traitor I am to God and men—”

“You are
no
traitor—it
cannot
be a mortal sin that you made away with yon man.—And you know not how it feels to have to bend beneath shame and dishonour—I know it,
you
have never tried what it is to be disgraced. I cannot, nay, so help me Christ and Mary, I
cannot
have this brought upon me again—even if
I
were granted life and the use of my limbs—and I should feel that everyone who looked upon me knew of my shame: what manner of woman you had brought home to be mistress of Hestviken—and my Eirik a base-born boy without rights or family, whom a runaway, outlandish serving-man had begotten on me—tempting me among the wool-sacks in the loft, as though I had been a loose-minded, man-mad thrall woman—”

Olav stood and looked at her, white and stiff in the face.

“Nay, were I granted life to suffer in such wise—to stand up and walk with this to face—with your little Cecilia and my bastard holding my hands—and you away from us three, all of us equally defenceless—then I should surely regret the time I lay here waiting for my back to rot away—”

She stretched out her arms to him. Olav looked away—his face was immovably stiff—but he took her hand in his.

“Then it shall be as you wish.”

N
EXT
year, at the beginning of Lent, Torhild Björnsdatter moved home to Rundmyr. And at once it was over the whole countryside that she had to leave Hestviken so suddenly because she was to have a child by Olav Audunsson.

If such a misfortune had befallen another man, who had been as a widower for years with a sick wife living, no one would have spoken aloud of the matter, but all the best men and women of the neighbourhood would have given thoughtless youths and those who knew nothing of good manners to understand that the less there was said about it, the better. Olav knew that. But he also knew that
he
was the man—and that he was regarded almost as a sort of outcast. Not that he had ever wronged any of his
neighbours, so far as he knew. And at times folk had remembered this—when they thought it over, they knew of no particular stain on his name; no ugly or dishonourable action could be laid at his door. Olav Audunsson had simply acquired the reputation of being unpopular, a most uncongenial fellow.