The Snake Pit (5 page)

The sea lay glittering white in the sunshine beneath the burning hot cliff of the Bull when at noonday Olav led Ingunn ashore at the Hestvik hithe. It was the day after Lavransmass.
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The water gurgled under the boat’s side and smacked against the piles of the quay; the air was heavy with smells—salt water, sweating tar, rotten bait, and fish offal, but now and again there was a breath of flowery scent, sweet and warm and fleeting—Olav caught it and wondered, for it was so familiar. Memories were called forth by it, but he knew not what it was that had this scent.—All at once Vikings’ Bay and Hövdinggaard came vividly before him—that world which had wholly vanished from his memory since he fled from it to serve the Earl. At once he knew the smell—’twas lime trees. That fine moist breath as of honey and pollen and mead—there must be flowering lime trees somewhere in the neighbourhood.

The scent grew stronger as they walked up the slope. Olav could not understand it; he had never seen limes at Hestviken. But when he came up to the courtyard, he saw them growing on the steep cliff behind the cattle-sheds. They were firmly rooted in the crevices, clung flat against the face of the rock and let their branches sweep downward. The dark-green heart-shaped leaves lay one over another like the shingles on a church roof, covering the golden bunches of blossom—Olav could glimpse them underneath. They were fading and turning brown, and their scent was somewhat sickly and past, but there was a faint, soft buzz of bees and a swarm of flies about them.

“Nay, Olav, what is it that smells so sweet?” Ingunn asked in wonder.

“It is lime. You have never seen limes before, I ween—they grow not in the Upplands.”

“Ay, but they do. I mind me now—there is a lime tree in the garden of the preaching friars at Hamar. But I cannot see the trees.”

Olav pointed up at the cliff. “They are not like the trees that are planted on level ground, the limes that grow here.”

He recalled the mighty lime that stood in the castle court at Hövdinggaard—its waxen, honey-dewed flowers hung in the midst of the foliage as though under a tent of leaves. When the lime flowered at Hövdinggaard he had always had a longing—and it
was not Frettastein or Heidmark or any of the places where his destiny had been set moving, but the half-forgotten home of his childhood that came to his mind. It must have been the scent of the lime blossom that he recognized—though he did not seem to have known that there were limes at Hestviken.

Toward sundown he wandered up Kverndal, to look at the cornfields on that side. The smell of lime blossom was so heavy and strong—Olav moved his feet languidly; the sweet fragrance seemed to weigh upon him. He felt quite weak with happiness. And now he saw that limes grew all over the ridge on the north side as well.

The sun had left the valley; the dew was falling as he turned homeward. He passed through an enclosure of alders and thought he remembered that there had been a meadow here, where they cut grass; but now it was overgrown with alders. There was a rustling and crashing of leaves and bushes as the cows burst their way through the thicket. They were strange beasts, the Hestvik cattle—long-haired, deep-bellied, with misshapen legs and curiously twisted horns, big heads and mournful eyes. Most of them had but three teats, or some other malformation of the udder. Olav patted their cheeks and spoke kindly to them as he passed through his herd of melancholy beasts.

Ingunn came out on the path behind the barn, tall and slender as a wand in her blue habit, with the linen coif waving about her. Quietly, as though hesitating, she advanced along the path by the edge of the field. Meadowsweet and setwall, which had almost shed its blossoms, reached to her waist and almost met around her. She had gone out to meet him.

When he came up to her he took her hand and led her as they walked homeward. Their guests were to come next day, but this night they two and the old man in the closet were the only ones in the house.

T
HE
fine weather lasted over the late summer. In the middle of the day the bare rocks glowed with heat; the vapour rose from them, and the sea glittered and the spray dashed white beneath the crags, in the places where it was never at rest.

Olav was up early in the mornings, but he did not go out on the rocks now. He would stand leaning over the fence round the northernmost cornfield, where the path from the waterside came up. From there he could see down to the creek and up the valley, almost the whole of his home fields. But toward Folden and southward the view was shut in by a crag that jutted out and gave shelter to the last strip of arable land in Hestviken—of the fiord he had only a glimpse northward past the smooth skull of the Bull and its shaggy wooded neck. Over on the other side lay Hudrheim in the morning sun—a low ridge of waste, with sparse fir trees; the higher ground was tilled, with great farms; he had been over there one day, but from here nothing could be seen of any dwellings.

In the cornfield the rock cropped out in so many places that the pale carpet of stubble seemed riddled with it—here and there a ribbon of soil between two brown rocks. But they often had good corn here—it was manured with fish offal from the quayside—and it ripened early. In the crevices of the rock grew a flowering grass that Olav had never seen before; when he came hither in the early summer it blossomed with fair purple stars, but now the grass itself was blood-red and rust-red in all its fringed blades and bristled with seed-bolls that looked like herons’ heads with long beaks.

The work of the farm was what Olav understood best. He saw that there were tasks enough before him—the old meadows to be cleared of scrub, the herds to be brought up to their number, the houses to be repaired. He had hired Björn, Gudrid’s husband, to fish and hunt seals for him in the fiord during the coming half-year. Of such things he had no experience, but he intended to go out with Björn this winter, to gain a knowledge of the pursuits on which the ancient prosperity of Hestviken had most depended. Björn also advised him to take up again, next summer, the salt-pans on the creek south of the Horse Crag.

But behind his thoughts, which were busy with the work of the day and the work of the future, a deep, happy calm dwelt in Olav’s mind. His day flowed over him now like a stream of nothing but good hours. And since he knew that the dangerous memories lay sunk beneath this stream, and that it was only by virtue of a kind of strength that he was able to let them lie there in peace and not think about them, he felt at the same time proud that he was now happy and safe.

He knew, in a clear and cool fashion, that the old disasters might return and afflict them. But he took the good days while they were there.

So he stood, morning after morning, gazing and thinking of this and that, while this dreamlike feeling of happiness surged beneath his thoughts. His fair face looked hard and angry at times, and the black pupils of his eyes grew small as pin-points. When he might expect Ingunn to be up, he went back to the house. He greeted his wife with a nod and the shadow of a smile when they met, and watched the little blush of joy that appeared on her healthy face and the calm, meek happiness that beamed in her looks and bearing.

Ingunn was so fair now, never had she been fairer. She was a little fuller than of old, and her skin was shining white; her eyes seemed larger and a deeper blue under the white coif of the wedded woman.

She moved in a gentle, subdued way—her manner had become quiet and simple; she was meek with all, but almost humble toward her husband. But all could see that she was happy, and all who had met Olav’s wife liked her.

Olav still slept but little at night. Hour after hour he lay awake without stirring, unless he moved the arm on which she lay, when it was numb. She reposed so confidingly against him in her sleep, and he breathed in the sweet hay-scent of her hair. Her whole being exhaled health, warmth, and youth—and in the pitch-darkness it seemed to Olav that the smell of old folk dwelt in the corners, overcome and driven out. He lay thus and felt the time go by, not longing for sleep to come—it was so good to lie like this and simply be aware of her presence; now at last they were safely together. He passed his hand over her shoulder and arm—it was cool and soft as silk; the coverlet had slipped down. He drew it up, bending over her with caresses, and she replied from her drowsiness with little sleepy words of endearment, like a bird twittering on its nightly perch.

But his heart was wakeful and easily scared—it started like a bird that flies up. He noticed this himself, and was on his guard lest others should see it.

One morning he stood by the fence, looking at his cows, which had been let into the stubble-field; the big bull was there. It was
the only really handsome animal in his herd, massive and sturdy, black as coal, but with a pale buff stripe down its back. As he stood and watched the bull striding along, slow and heavy, he thought all at once that the pale stripe on the dark back wriggled like a snake, and for a moment it made his flesh creep. It was only for a brief instant, then he collected himself. But after that he was never quite so fond of the bull as he had been, and this feeling clung to him so long as the bull was in his possession.

While the summer weather lasted, Olav was in the habit of going down to the beach daily during the midday rest. He swam out till he could see the houses of the manor above the rocks—lay floating on his back and then swam again. Usually Björn bathed with him.

One day, when they had come out of the water and were letting the wind dry them, Olav chanced to look at Björn’s feet. They were large, but high in the instep, with strongly curved soles—the sure sign of gentle birth. He had heard it said that it could be seen at once by a man’s feet if a drop of blood from the old thralls’ stock were mingled with his. Björn’s face and limbs were tanned brown as the bark of a tree, but his body was white as milk and his hair was very fair, but much grizzled.

The question slipped out of Olav’s mouth: “Are you akin to us Hestvik men, Björn?”

“No,” said Björn curtly. “The devil! Know you not who are your own kindred, man?”

Olav was rather embarrassed and said: “I grew up far from my own people. There may be branches of which one has scarce heard.”

“You thought maybe I was one of these wild shoots that have grown up after that Foulbeard,” said Björn gruffly. “Nay, I am true-begotten, and so were my forefathers for seven generations. I have never heard that there were bastards in our stock!”

Olav bit his lip. He was angry—but then he had himself provoked the man. So he said nothing.

“But there is one fault in us,” Björn went on; “’tis as though the axe leaps up of itself in our hands when we are goaded—if you will call that a fault. And short is the joy that comes of a stroke—unless the hand that strikes have gold within its reach.”

Olav was silent.

Björn laughed and said: “I slew my neighbour, when we fell out over some thongs. What think you of that, Master Olav?”

“Methinks they must have been costly thongs. Were they so wonderful?”

“I had borrowed them of Gunnar to carry in my hay. What think you of that?”

“I think you to be such that I cannot believe it your custom to reward folk thus for a service,” said Olav; “so I think there must have been something rare and strange about those thongs nevertheless.”

“Gunnar must have thought I thought so,” replied Björn, “for he charged me with cutting off a piece of them.”

Olav nodded.

Björn asked, bending down to tie his shoe: “What would you have done in my place, Olav Audunsson?”

“’Tis not easy for me to say—” said Olav. He was struggling to get the pin of his brooch through his shirt.

“Nay, for none would think of charging a man of your condition with stealing a wretched piece of thong,” said Björn. “But you held not your hand either, Olav, when your honour was at stake.”

Olav was about to put on his kirtle, but he let his arm drop with it.

“What mean you—?”

“I mean—when word came hither, how you had served your brother-in-law for seeking to deny you the maid you were promised and giving you foul words withal—methought I could have a mind to do you a friendly office when you came home some day. But for that I had not taken service so near the haunts where once I owned a farm myself—though ’twas not a great one—”

Olav was putting on his belt. He unfastened the dagger that hung to it: a good weapon with a blade forged by a foreign armourer and a plate of silver with a hook to hold it to the belt. He handed it to Björn:

“Will you accept this as a token of friendship, Björn?”

“No. Have you never heard, Olav, that a knife is not a gift between friends?—it cuts friendship asunder. But you must do me this friendly office—you will cease giving to the wife who is here ever and anon.”

Olav blushed—he looked very young for the moment. To hide
his embarrassment he said lightly, as he leaped onto the rock and began to walk up:

“I wist not that they knew so much hereabout of what has been between the Kolbeinssons and me.”

Björn had given him a start with what he said about being quick of hand when honour was at stake. The slaying of Einar Kolbeinsson had been far from his mind, it weighed so little on his spirit, except as the cause of the difficulties from which he was now free. So it had not occurred to him that Björn was alluding to
that—