The Son Avenger (6 page)

The sky was blue-black over toward Oslo, and the thunder rolled far away—it looked as if perhaps the storm would pass farther north. From the quay Eirik took the path by the side of the “good acre”; he leaped the fence, felt the sheaves and tore off a handful of the white barley, rubbed it between his hands and stuffed the sweet grains into his mouth. Then he heard someone singing above, on the lookout rock—a soft, veiled female voice. It could not be Cecilia, she had no voice for singing.

Eirik went up to see. On the rock lay a strange young woman; she lay with her back to him, and her face turned toward the sea. Her heavy tresses, dark with wet, were spread over the rock to dry. As she lay resting at full length on her side, with one hip raised, there was something about her that stirred Eirik’s senses, so that he came to a standstill, as though he had taken the wrong track.

In indolent repose the woman lay humming to herself as she gazed into the sunlight over the fiord. Then it struck Eirik who she must be. He came toward her.

On hearing footsteps on the rock she turned and rose on her knees. Eirik saw that her figure was full in all its outlines, but without firmness, as though overripe for a young maid, and when she rose to her feet, her movements were heavy and lacked elasticity. She flushed deeply as she looked up at him with a hesitating,
evasive look of her great dark eyes, while her hands struggled to throw her heavy, dark hair back over her shoulders.

Eirik went up to her and gave her his hand.

“Have you come home now, Bothild? Welcome!”

She did not return the pressure of his hand, but withdrew hers quickly and shyly; she stood with bent head, looking down, and her voice was toneless and veiled.

Eirik himself felt confused and heavy at heart because he had been so suddenly disquieted at the sight of this girl—her doubtful attitude, her drooping head, and her hushed voice were enough to warn him that the days of their innocent and carefree life together were gone. Bothild’s startled air as she stood with her shoulders rounded, full-bosomed and broad of hip, the strong scent of her hair, wet with sea-water—it seemed as though both his conscience and hers were already darkened.

They said a few words about her journey and then spoke of the weather, which looked so threatening. Eirik told her he meant to get in what he could of the corn before the storm burst. Bothild whispered yes—if it did not come before, they would have it at night. Now and then there was a faint blink of lightning far to the north, followed by a distant rumble.

Eirik stole glances at her as they walked side by side toward the manor. She was tall, but did not hold herself erect; her hair was very thick and long, but seemed stiff now from the sea-water. But her face was fair, round, and white, with red roses in her cheeks; she had a broad forehead, smooth and white; black, curved eyebrows; and her dark-blue eyes looked up with a covert, sidelong glance under thick white lashes; her mouth was big, her chin small and round as an apple. Once she smiled at something he said, and then he saw that she had small short teeth with gaps between them, like a child’s milk teeth, and she showed her gums as she smiled—he felt he would like to take and kiss her, but roughly, without kindness.

He got in all the corn off the “good acre” that afternoon; the storm passed round to the north over the fiord, but did not reach Hestviken. It was already dark outside and distant lightnings flashed in the evening sky; between the claps of thunder the stillness of the fiord seemed uncannily hushed beneath the cliffs in the close evening air of late summer. The men went indoors. Bothild brought in supper, hanging her head, as in all she did. But it was
easy to see that Cecilia was delighted to have her foster-sister back again. This added to the touch of hostility that was part of Eirik’s uneasy feeling toward Bothild; she was not a seemly playmate for his sister, he thought—a woman who excited his desire in this way.

In the course of the night he was awakened by the crash of thunder; now the rain was pouring down: it drummed dully on the turf of the roof, ran off and splashed on the rocky floor of the yard, streamed over the foliage of the trees. From one corner of the smoke-vent it ran down into the room. The vivid flashes lighted up chinks in the wall at the end of the house; the logs were no longer weather-tight after the long drought. And clap after clap of thunder crashed and rattled right above the houses.

Eirik remembered Bothild the moment he woke—now she would be lying in the loft above the closet. Jörund slept like a stone on the inside of the bed, against the wall; Eirik lay outside. He was tempted to get up and go to the ladder—call up to hear if the girls were also awake; perhaps they would be frightened by the storm. But he lay where he was.

He tried to think of other things—of the fields farther up the valley, and the corn that stood there ready for the sickle; how would it fare in this weather? He could not remember that he had noticed Bothild Asgersdatter when he was last at home, the year of the Swedish troubles—it must be three years ago now. Cecilia was only a child at that time, his father was with Ivar Jonsson in Sweden, Bothild was helping her aunt in the housework; both the girls did so. He had not seen much of them, nor had he heeded them greatly.

He could not tell what had put it into his head that Bothild was not a pure maiden like Cecilia.

F
OR
Eirik there was an end of the peaceful home life and the pure, innocent summer days. They were now a company of four young people—for it never occurred to Cecilia to go anywhere without her sister. But to Eirik’s fevered senses it seemed that Bothild clung
to the younger girl. She was always a little in the rear, dropping behind with her indolent tongue and voluptuous gestures and her everlasting shy and stolen sidelong glances—it was at himself they were aimed, and he felt them as if she had touched him with her hand; but as soon as he looked at her, her eyes were turned away. It roused a kind of fury in the man—that she would never leave him in peace. He was ashamed of his own thoughts—here he was at home, with his father and his sister, but through Bothild’s fault he was harried and beset with desire.

He felt inclined to deal harshly and cruelly with her when he got her in his power—to send her away from him in tears and overcome. It was a senseless whim, this spiteful prompting which sprang from an unknown depth in his soul—the blind and witless caprice of a master who is angry with a slave because he is irritated by the slave’s frightened looks and humble efforts to conceal his sorrow.

For it was of a thrall she reminded him, a woman captive. Even the two thick plaits she wore hanging over her full, rather flaccid bosom made him think of chains; they reached nearly to her knees, and their weight seemed to force her head forward and give her a stoop in walking. And Bothild’s hair was not black and stiff as he had thought at first, when he saw it wet; it had a soft brown hue, with a tinge of red, and went well with her red and white complexion and her dark-blue eyes. But not even her fairness sufficed to soften Eirik’s mind toward her.

He scarcely spoke to her—it was only in his thoughts, all this of Bothild. To do anything to a woman who lived in his father’s house was not to be thought of. Besides, he was afraid of his father; now that the peace and purity within him had been bemired, his childhood’s dread of his father was also reawakened in full force.

Either Olav and Cecilia were ignorant that anything was passing in secret between Eirik and Bothild Asgersdatter, or they misinterpreted what they saw—thought that the two disliked each other, or were shy of each other. In any case neither the father nor the sister showed any sign that they thought about the matter.

Jörund had quickly guessed what was wrong with Eirik, but he contented himself with hinting at it once or twice in jest.

“I cannot make out,” he said one day, with the sneering smile
that Eirik disliked, “why you have such a mighty fancy to her. She sweats so.”

Another time he said—it was one evening after they were in bed: “’Tis a great pity you cannot have her for a leman, since Olav is her guardian—and she cannot be rich enough for you to think of marrying her!”

Eirik was silent, overwhelmed with agitation. Marry
her—
she was the last woman in the world he would take to wife! ’Twas not
thus
he had thought of Bothild.

Jörund made ready for his departure—he was to be home for the Nativity of Mary.
⁴
Baard of Skikkjustad had made inquiries about Jörund. He must be reckoned a good match, said Baard. There was wealth at Gunnarsby, and Gunhild Rypa’s sons might look to inherit more; Kolbein had been like a chief in those parts and a man held in honour. The sons who were now in possession of the manor were not so well liked, but what folk had to say of them was for the most part such envious talk as is always heard when rich men stand on their rights. The two elder brothers were married to daughters of high-born men of good repute—“so I will not seek to dissuade you from listening to them, if in other ways you hold Jörund to be worthy your alliance,” said Baard to Olav.

Olav then let fall a few words to Eirik: if Jörund was so minded, and his kinsmen would consider the matter, there would be no harm in discussing it.

When it came to the point, Eirik was a little dispirited. He did not know why, but now he thought all at once that there was no such hurry in getting Cecilia married. She was not much more than a child, his good little sister.

One morning Cecilia said to her father that now she and Bothild must move out and sleep in the women’s house awhile—they had to repair the winter clothing for the folk of the manor and they would be working till late at night.

Before Eirik went to bed that evening, he took out the clothes he was to wear next morning on the fiord—Olav and the house-carls were going out after mackerel at dawn. Then he saw that the woollen shirt he meant to put on was ragged at the elbows. Eirik took the shirt and went out to ask his sister to mend it—the
maids were still up, he had heard, as he went by their door just now.

It was pitch-dark in the anteroom. On the other side of the thin boarding he heard his sister clattering with chests and boxes; she called to Bothild to open, as Eirik knocked at the door of the room.

Then the door was opened, and the room was light behind her. The dark female figure in the doorway seemed to collapse with fright when she saw who stood outside. In her toneless whisper she said that Cecilia was busy turning out the clothes: “I will sew this for you.” She put out her hand for the shirt.

“Come hither,” Eirik bade her in a low voice, and seized her by the wrist. With a little gasp as of fear the girl obeyed: she bent her head under the lintel and let him draw her out into the anteroom. Instantly he took her in his arms and thrust her against the wall, pressed her close and searched with his lips for her face in the dark, came upon her plaits and found the soft, ice-cold rounding of her cheek. With his kisses he nailed her head, which struggled to be free, against the wall.

“Come with me,” he whispered; “come out with me—”

She gulped with terror, he heard her teeth chattering and her soft, cold hands struggled in vain; she tried to defend herself, but had no strength. Eirik took both her hands in one of his and pressed them, as though he would squeeze the blood out under the roots of her nails. So terrified was she that Eirik scarcely knew whether she understood a word of his wild and shameless whispering—

Then Olav called through the outer door. They had not heard him coming. He called for Cecilia. Eirik let go of Bothild—he himself was trembling—as Cecilia came to the inner door.

“Are you two
here?”
she asked in surprise, and then spoke past them: “What is it, Father?”

Olav asked for the little bucket he had brought up the week before to be cleaned.

“Inga has surely forgotten it—I will find another for you, Father.”

She went back for a lantern and came out again. “Have you been quarrelling?” she asked, half smiling, as the light fell on the faces of the two in the anteroom. Then she ran off.

Eirik heard the sound of his father’s iron-shod heels die away
on the rocks of the yard. He had caught a glimpse of Bothild’s face, deadly pale, as she slunk through the door of the room. Now he went and looked in.

She was crouching on her knees over a chest of clothes, her head sunk in her clasped hands. It made him furious to see her kneeling thus—as though in prayer.

“Stand up,” he said, and his voice was rude and harsh, “before Cecilia comes. Do you wish
her
to find out about this?” Then he went out.

As he went down to the waterside at dawn next morning, he saw her in front of him, carrying a great box. When he reached the boat, she had taken it on board and was just returning over the gangplank. Eirik put out a hand to help her. As he touched her for a moment, her body shrank up and he saw she was dead-white in the face, but under her eyes there were deep black rings. But she often had those, it struck him—no doubt that was why her eyes looked so big.

But scarcely had Eirik stepped aboard when Olav came and told him he had better stay ashore. It might be they would stay out two days, and he half expected Reidulf, the Sheriff, to come on the morrow about a case. Olav gave Eirik orders as to what he should say and do if the Sheriff came.

Eirik stood watching the boat till it was lost in the morning mist. He could just see across the creek—the leaves of the little trees in the crevices of the rock were yellow already—he had scarcely noticed it, but here was autumn well on the way. He listened for the sound of oars in the mist; the little craft could still be seen, like a shadow. Eirik shivered a little—it was chilly—he turned to go up to the houses.

As he passed the shed he heard someone within. Instantly he halted and listened, stiff and tense—could it be she?

He stole up to the door and peeped in. Bothild stood with her back to him, taking dried fish out of a bundle. In two bounds he was upon her, throwing his arms about her from behind. He felt her body give way, as though every bone in it were dissolved; she hung powerless over his arms, which were crossed below her bosom. Then he flung her from him, so that she fell on the floor. Eirik ran to the door and barred it.