The Son Avenger (21 page)

At last, when Eirik had made an end of haymaking, Olav came over one day to see how it went with the salt-pans. He found fault with the appearance of the yard—a litter of building-materials and chips. The house itself was what one might expect where five men and a helpless cripple had their abode without a woman to look after them. He muttered disapproval of the ugly withered bush fences right up among the houses—and he wanted Eirik at home now, to help in the haymaking. He had little to say as Eirik went round with him, showing him what he had done and telling him what more he meant to do. But as they walked down to the boat, Olav halted a moment.

“You were right, Eirik. This farm here can be made much better than I thought. I see now that what you have done is well done.”

Eirik turned red with joy. He said with a little smile: “Do you know, Father, this is the first time so long as we have known each other that you have acknowledged me right?”

Olav answered thoughtfully: “I am not sure of that. Did I not approve you when you would enter the convent? When you ran from home, desiring to go out into the world and try your fortune—I call naught else to mind but that I owned you right in that too, abeit I liked not your leaving me in that manner. And had you spoken to me of Bothild—maybe I had not refused you there either.”

Eirik held his peace, in confusion. He saw that what his father said was true—but he knew that it was not the
whole
truth.

“Have you put the convent quite out of your thoughts?”

It was not easy to answer this. In a way he always looked back on that life with regret—and sometimes he had thought that when the farm at Saltviken was fully restored—If he could have taken his vows forthwith, he believed he would have done so. But he knew that he would have to go through the novitiate once more, and he could not support another whole year in which to make his choice.

“You are inconstant, my son,” said Olav in a low voice as they walked on; “and I wonder whether there may not come a day when you will no longer have a mind to stay at Saltviken.”

Eirik spat out the juniper berries he had been chewing. But then he checked himself and did not answer his father. Inconstant—Father Einar had said the same. It was strange—

“Since you have no more thought of the convent,” said Olav, “’twill soon be time for you to marry.”

As Eirik made no reply, Olav pursued: “You are eight and twenty winters old, Eirik; ’tis well time. And I am over the half-hundred—at my age no man can tell if he will be above ground next year. I would fain know what will become of Hestviken when I am gone.”

“Cecilia has two fine sons,” said Eirik.

“Two and a half, I fear,” said Olav curtly. “Ay, they are goodly babes, I hear the women say. But mouse-eared—like their father.”

Eirik said: “Have you thought of any—? With whom you would have me married, I mean.”

“Berse of Eiken has a daughter—”

“Gunhild? But there is enmity between you and Berse?”

“No worse but that we might be friends again.” Olav smiled faintly. “If he could win the heir of Hestviken for a son-in-law, why—”

They had no more talk as Eirik rowed homeward in the summer evening. Only when they were at the quayside his father said:

“Then old Tore will have to be at Saltviken this winter with the cattle you will have there.”

“Tore? But can you spare him here?”

“Better him than you.” Olav paused a moment. “I should be loath to live here alone with Jörund.” Eirik saw that it cost his father a good deal to say it.

Next day during the after-dinner rest Eirik went in to his sister. As she rose, Eirik saw that she was indeed as his father had said. It did not show much in her, except that she seemed to have difficulty in stooping—and at once it struck her brother that nothing seemed to change Cecilia: she only became unbending and stiff in the back.

She fetched flagon and cup and set them before him; then she sat down again to her sewing. The ale had stood; it was so flat that Eirik only drank so as not to offend his sister.

He scarce knew what to talk to her about. She sat perfectly straight, holding her sewing up close to her face; her fine pale mouth seemed hardened into a firm, straight line, and her cheeks had fallen in so that the powerful cheek-bones and the square chin appeared prominent. He saw that her bright eyes had lost their lustre; they were like little pale-grey pebbles on the beach.

Kolbein, her elder boy, came stumping in with something he had found—a strip of bark—laid it on his mother’s knee. She said thanks, seriously, but shook her head when he wanted to climb into her lap; she was busy sewing.

Then he picked up his piece of bark and carried it over to Eirik. Eirik lifted up the boy and played with him; he had always got on well with children. Kolbein was fat and lusty—Eirik passed his fingers through the child’s fair, moist hair. It was true, he had
mouse’s ears; but still, it shocked him that the boy’s own grandfather should say so. It had never occurred to him that Jörund’s ears were like that—he wore his hair so that they were hidden. It was a sign that thralls’ blood had found its way into a family, folk said.

Eirik had a mind to ask Cecilia about Gunhild Bersesdatter—they were of the same age—but did not bring himself to do so. He had seen Gunhild at church many times, but could not remember clearly how she looked—neither fair nor foul, he thought, and with red hair.

He wished his sister would take her children on her lap, laugh and play with them, boast of them as he had heard other young wives do. But Cecilia did no such thing. She cared for them well, but without a smile or a jest. She spoke to Jörund and of Jörund—the little he had heard her say—as a good wife should. But always with the same cool gravity. He would rather she had made complaint—for he knew that if she had anything to complain of, it was not Cecilia’s way to do so. He was uneasy on Jörund’s account and—not by such methods would she be able to keep Jörund kind and in good humour, and if Jörund was now at enmity with their father too—

His brother-in-law came in at that moment, greeted Eirik, and poured himself out a drink of ale.

“Where is Magnhild?—bid her fetch us fresh ale!”

“I know not where Magnhild is.” Cecilia put down her sewing, took the flagon, and went out.

“Has he sent for you to help with the hay?” Jörund stretched himself. “Ah, I have not stirred a hand—I’ll not do it till Olav offers amends for the insult he put upon me in the spring.”

In the evening Eirik asked his father: “Has Jörund restored to you the silver he borrowed in the spring?” Olav snorted scornfully, did not even answer.

On Sunday, as the Hestviken folk were leaving church after mass, Torgrim of Rynjul came up to them.

“Una says you might give your young folk leave today, Olav—’tis so long since she spoke with Eirik, she says.”

“With all my heart—” Olav swung himself into the saddle. He and the servants rode off.

As Eirik gave his hand to Una Arnesdatter he saw that Gunhild was standing close by with the Rynjul children. She was just unhooking her cloak, which she handed with her veil to Torgrim’s son. “’Tis so warm today,” she said to the boy. Her voice was bright and good—Eirik liked it.

He stole a glance at her while Una was greeting Jörund and Cecilia. She was not red-haired, as he had thought—her plaits were ash-coloured, but she had the fine red-and-white freckled complexion that often goes with red hair, and her skin shone like silk. She was tall, straight, and slender—and her reddish-brown habit fitted closely to the body, down to the silver belt about her hips; below that it fell in rich folds, which lay on the grass about her feet. The sleeves of her kirtle almost touched the ground and were split to the elbow, showing the ruffled sleeves of her pale-blue shift.

She looked no different from so many other healthy women of good birth who have been brought up free from care—her face was oval and full, her nose straight and rather thick at the tip, her eyes grey. But Eirik looked at this maid who was intended for him and began already to distinguish her from among all other women. Torgrim and Una must be privy to the matter, he guessed.

So when they were to ride away, Eirik lifted Gunhild Bersesdatter into the saddle. She thanked him frankly and kindly, looked down into his narrow, swarthy face, saw that the man’s great yellow eyes were of rare beauty, and then she smiled very faintly and thanked him once more as she took the reins.

He had no chance of talking to her while they were together at Rynjul, but the fact that she
was
there seemed to fill the whole day for him. In the course of the evening the young people of the house, Astrid and Torgils and Elin, wished to start a game.

At first Eirik would not join them, he was so much older than Una’s children and their friends; and he had usually held aloof from games and dancing since he came home. But he was fond of dancing—and his young kinswomen were bent upon having him sing for them. When he came into the chain, Astrid dropped Gunhild’s hand and reached out for his. So it came about that he was placed between the two young maids.

The sun was about to set, and in the warm yellow glow the shadows of the dancers fell far across the grass. The song rang
out finely in the peaceful summer evening, and Eirik felt the joyful intoxication of hearing his own good voice. All the time he felt Gunhild’s hand lying in his—it was warm and slightly moist, and it sent a current of sweetness and goodness through his whole body. He looked forward to each turn, when the chain swung the other way; then he was brushed by her waving sleeves and the folds of her kirtle.

Once, when the dancers stopped to take breath, he chanced to look where Cecilia was sitting with Una watching the young folks’ game. His sister had wrapped herself closely in her blue mantle; her face showed yellow as bone against the white folds of her linen coif. Games and dancing were over for her, and she was a little younger than Gunhild. Eirik dropped Astrid’s hand and went over to the two married women.

He stretched himself on the grass at their feet, turned his face up toward Una as he talked. Soon after, the young people followed him; the rest went back at once, but Gunhild sat down by Cecilia, and the two talked together in low tones. Eirik heard her fresh voice behind him as the younger ones danced and sang on the green and he himself chatted to Una.

The brother and sister broke up as darkness was falling. Torgrim said that Jörund had ridden away some time ago, saying he had business somewhere. When they entered the forest, Eirik dismounted and walked, leading his sister’s horse. He ought not to have stayed so long at Rynjul, he was thinking—it was not prudent for her to be out after dark.

At Rundmyr he took the little path that ran by the upper edge of the bog; he had a message for Arnketil and dared not leave Cecilia, but thought perhaps he might see someone outside. Just as they were below the slope on which the houses stood, the door opened—the light of the fire shone out—and some folks came out, men and women; he could hear by their voices that they were vagabonds.

But among the crowd he caught sight of a particoloured kirtle that he thought he recognized. He had sold Jörund the clothes the Minorites had given him at parting; they fitted his brother-in-law.

Eirik was perturbed—did Jörund go to Rundmyr now! Hot about the ears, he recalled all he had himself told Jörund in old days of his adventures there—making them more wonderful than
they were. But he had a vague feeling that if Jörund sought diversion there, worse things might be looked for. Though he had never accounted to himself for it, he knew the coldness of the other’s nature well enough to be sure that if Jörund wallowed in the mire, there was nothing in him that could be mirrored in the puddles and lend them lustre.

Cecilia had seen nothing, thank God—she sat facing the other way.

Arrived at home, Eirik put up the horses in the stable, where the stalls were now all empty in the summer night. Then he seated himself on a chest that stood by the door—he would be there when Jörund came, try to get the man in without waking Cecilia.

Gunhild, Gunhild—she glided in and out of his thoughts the whole time. His hands had scarcely approached a woman since he left the convent. For more than three years he had kept a guard on himself, in deeds, in words, in thoughts. When he had been tempted of the devil, the world, and his own flesh, he had fought.

Now he was set free to look at one, to think of one. He was free to recall what it had been like to take her and lift her into the saddle, to recall her hand, which he had held in his—a sweetness and a promise of more, more—

Beneath the memory of these last serious years, when he had trained his will and learned to use it against himself, floated the shadowy memories of his youth, the embraces of venal wenches and dreams of high-born maids—dreams that he dared not jeopardize by frequenting any such. And Bothild—to think of her directly he never dared, but the shame and the horror and the pain of what she had betokened in his life lay dissolved and precipitated within him and had coloured all the currents that had passed through his mind in these last years.

Now the bright image of Gunhild Bersesdatter began to take shape against this dark-purple background. He had already abandoned himself to loving her.

It was past midnight and yet Jörund had not come. Eirik sat and waited, grew anxious on his brother-in-law’s account, thought of Gunhild, and was happy.

Then he awoke and saw that he had slept a long time; it was light outside. He looked out—up by the fence was Jörund’s handsome
dun saddle-horse; and in the shed outside, his saddle and bridle hung in their places. So in any case he could not have been very drunk.

His father did not allude to the matter until about a week later.

“Have you thought over that of which we spoke lately? About a marriage for you?”

“It shall be as you desire, Father.”

A day or two later Eirik again found occasion to visit Rynjul. Gunhild was still there. Not many words did he exchange with her, but she sat with Una while he was talking to his kinswoman.

Berse of Eiken was a cousin of Arne of Hestbæk, the father-in-law of Baard and Torgrim. But he and Torgrim of Rynjul had been estranged for many years—Torgrim was hot-headed and loose of tongue; in general folk paid little heed to his outbursts, for he was generous and the last man to bear a grudge, but Berse would not put up with an uncivil word, for he was mighty jealous of what he called his dignity. Olav Audunsson had also fallen out with him at one time: the two had been chosen as umpires in a dispute, but were unable to agree; and Olav had expressed his opinion in terms that were sharper than Berse considered becoming to his dignity.