The Axe

  6

  ONE evening Olav came riding down through the wood; he had been on an errand to the sæter for Grim. The evening sun was sinking behind the tops of the pines as he came where the path skirted the marshy side of the tarn a little to the north of the manor. The forest rose steeply around the little brown lake, so that darkness came early here. Then he saw Ingunn sitting in the heather close to the path.

  He pulled up his horse as he came up beside her. “Are you sitting here?” he asked in surprise. It was thought to be unsafe hereabouts after sundown.

  She was a sorry sight—she had been eating bilberries and was all blue about the mouth and fingers, and then she had wept till her face was swollen, and dried her tears with her berry-stained hands.

  “Is it worse with Steinfinn?” asked Olav earnestly. Ingunn bent forward and wept much louder than before. “He is not dead?” asked the lad in the same tone. Ingunn stammered amid her sobs that her father was better today.

  Olav held back Elk, who wanted to go on. He had left off being surprised at her constant fits of weeping, but they annoyed him somewhat. It had been better had she been as Tora, who had now got over her mourning for her mother and spared her tears—soon enough they might have other cause for weeping.

  “What is it, then?” he asked, a little impatiently; “what do you want with me?”

  Ingunn looked up with her befouled and tear-stained face. When Olav showed no sign of dismounting, she flung her hands before her eyes and wept again.

  “What ails you?” he asked as before, but she made no answer. Then he leaped to the ground and went up to her.

  “What is it?” he asked in fear, taking her hands from her face. For a long time he could get no answer. He asked again and again: “What is it—why do you weep thus?”

  “Should I not weep,” she sobbed, breaking down completely, “when you have not a word for me any more?”

  “Why should I not have a word for you?” he asked in wonder.

  “I have done no other sin than that you would have me do,” she complained. “I begged you to be gone, but you would not let me go. And since then you have not counted me worth a word.—Soon I shall have lost both father and mother, and you are hard as flint and iron, turn your back on me, and will not look at me—though we were brought up as brother and sister. For naught else but that I loved you so well that I forgot honour and honesty for the nonce—”

  “Now I never heard the like! I trow you have lost the little wit you had—”

  “Ay, when you cast me off as you have done! But you know not, Olav,” she shrieked, beside herself. “You cannot tell, Olav, whether I be not with child to you already!”

  “Hush, shriek not so loud,” he checked her. “You cannot tell that either as yet,” he said sharply. “I cannot guess what is in your mind—have I not spoken to you?—methinks I have done naught else these last weeks than talk and talk, and never did I have three words of answer from you, for you did but weep and weep.”

  “You spoke to me when you were forced to it,” she snapped between her sobs; “when Tora and the others were by. But me you shun, as though I were a leper—not once have you sought me out, that we might talk together alone. Must I not weep—when I think on this summer—every night you came to me in my bower—”

  Olav had grown very red in the face. “Meseems that would be unwise now,” he said shortly. He spat on the corner of his cloak and began to wipe her face—it availed but little. “I had most thought of what was best for you,” he whispered.

  She looked up at him, questioning, intensely sorrowful. Then he took her in his arms. “I wish you naught but well, Ingunn.”

  They both gave a start. Something had stirred in the scree on the far side of the tarn. Not a soul was to be seen, but the solitary young birch growing on the scree trembled as though a man had just pulled its stem. It was still daylight, but the little lake was shadowed by the forest; a mist was rising from the tarn and from the marsh at its eastern end.

  Olav went to his horse.

  “Let us come away from here,” he said in a low voice. “You must get up behind.”

  “Can you not come out to me in the bower, so that we may talk?” she implored him as he picked up the reins. “Come after supper!”

  “You may be sure I shall come, if you wish it,” he said after a pause.

  She held her arms around him as they rode down to the manor. Olav felt in a way strangely relieved. He guessed that he might fling aside his good resolutions of avoiding fresh temptation—when she took it thus. But it humiliated him none the less that she rejected the sacrifice he had wished to offer her.

  That thing she had said—how she had begged him be gone, but he would not let her go—it was not true, he suddenly recalled. But he banished the thought as disloyal. If she said so—He had not been so sober that he could swear he remembered aright.

  Next evening Olav went to the bower in which Steinfinn lay. Arnvid opened the trap and let him into the loft. Arnvid was alone with the sick man.

  It was dark inside, for Steinfinn had grown so cold that he could not bear them to open the door to the balcony. A few rays of sunlight found their way in through chinks between the logs, cleaving the dust-laden darkness and throwing golden patches of light on the furs that hung from the roof. There was a heavy, stifling smell in the room.

  Olav went over to the bed to greet his foster-father—he had not seen him for many days, he grudged coming up here now. But Steinfinn slept, moaning a little in his sleep. Olav could not see his face in the darkness by the wall.

  There was no change, either for the worse or for the better, said Arnvid. “Will you stay here awhile? Then I will lie down for a space.”

  He would do that willingly, said Olav, and Arnvid threw some clothes on the floor and lay down. Then Olav spoke: “ ’Tis not easy for me, Arnvid—’twere ill to trouble Steinfinn, sick as he is—yet methinks before he dies, Ingunn and I must hear what is his will concerning our marriage.”

  Arnvid held his peace.

  “Ay, I know the time fits ill,” said Olav hotly. “But with the weighty concerns that hang over all our heads, I think ’tis now time to settle all that can be settled. Nor do I know whether there be any other than Steinfinn who knows what he and my father agreed about our moneys.”

  As Arnvid made no answer, Olav said: “To me it is of great moment that I receive Ingunn from her own father’s hand.”

  “Ay, I can guess that,” said Arnvid.

  Soon after, Olav heard that he had fallen asleep.

  The little shafts of sunlight were gone. Olav alone was awake in the darkness and he felt his anxiety as a pain about his heart.

  He must retrieve what had gone amiss. He had now learned that his good resolutions were vain—there was no turning back from the erring road into which he and Ingunn had strayed. And he felt himself that this new knowledge had coarsened his soul. But to stand by Steinfinn’s bier as his secret son-in-law was beyond his power. Secret shame was a heavy burden to bear, he knew now.

  Before Steinfinn passed away, he must give him Ingunn. “I can guess that,” Arnvid had said. Olav felt hot all over: what was it that Arnvid guessed? When he came back at daybreak to his place in the hall, he did not know whether Arnvid was asleep or only feigning.

  He started up as the trap in the floor was raised. It was the women with lights and food for the sick man. Vaguely Olav recalled the shadowy visions of his light-headed sleep: he was walking with Ingunn by the swamp above; they followed the beck that ran out of the tarn—then he was with her in the loft-room. Memories of fervid caresses in the dark were blended with pictures of the scree in the rugged glen. He lay holding Ingunn in his arms, and at the same time he thought he was lifting her over great fallen trees. Last of all he had dreamed they were walking on the path in the dale, where it opened out to the cultivated land with the lake far below.

  This was surely a foreboding that he and Ingunn would soon leave the place together, he tried to bel
ieve.

  Steinfinn pleaded when the women woke him to tend his wound: it booted not, and he would be left in peace. Dalla feigned not to hear him; she raised his great body and changed the bedclothes as though he had been an infant. She asked Olav to hold the candle for her—Arnvid was sleeping soundly, dead-tired.

  Steinfinn’s face was scarcely to be recognized, with some weeks’ growth of reddish beard mounting to his cheek-bones. He turned his face to the wall, but Olav could see by the straining of his throat that he was struggling not to moan, as Dalla took off his bandages; they had grown fast to the wound.

  The secret disgust that Olav had always felt at the sight and smell of festering wounds came upon him with sickening strength. Proud flesh had formed; the wound no longer looked like a gash; it was full of matter and grey, fungous patches, with raw red holes oozing blood.

  Ingunn had appeared at his side—pale, with great eyes full of fear she stared at her father. Olav had to nudge her; she absently forgot to give Dalla the fresh bandage when she held out her hand for it. Again Olav felt his shame and sorrow like a stab at the heart—that they could have forgotten her sick and suffering father as they had done. Ah, but—the dark bower and they two alone, in close embrace—dimly he saw how hard it was to keep in mind charity and loyalty to one who was absent.

  “Stay here,” he said to her, as the other women were going. “This evening I will speak to your father,” he explained. He saw that this made her more frightened than glad, and he liked it not.

  Steinfinn lay in a doze, worn out by his pain. Olav asked Ingunn to fetch him a little food meanwhile.

  She had filched all the good things she could find, she showed him with a laugh when she came back. Presently, as Olav sat eating, with the bowl between his knees, she blew down his neck. She seemed bursting with wantonness and affection this evening. Once more it cut Olav to the heart—here they sat, scarce out of her sick father’s sight—and he knew not whether he liked or disliked her caresses most.

  Arnvid stirred—Ingunn started up from Olav’s knee and busied herself with his food. Suddenly Steinfinn asked from the bed: “Who is it you have with you, Arnvid and Ingunn?”

  “Olav is here, Father,” said the girl.

  Olav braced his heart within him; he went up to the bed and said: “There is a matter of which I would fain speak with you, Foster-father—it is for that I stayed behind when we had done tending you.”

  “Were you here then? I saw you not.” Steinfinn made a sign for the young man to come nearer. “You may sit awhile and talk to me, Olav foster. You have been drawn into our troubles; now we must talk of what you are to do when I die. You ought to go home to Hestviken, methinks, and seek support among your own kinsmen.”

  “Yes, Foster-father. It is of that I had thought to ask you. Myself I thought it were best so—and that I get Ingunn ere I go. Thus you kinsfolk will be spared the long journey, now that you have feuds upon you.”

  Steinfinn’s eyes flickered irresolutely.

  “It is so, Olav, that I mind me well what was spoken between Audun and me. But you must see yourself, boy—’tis not my doing that my fortunes have shaped themselves otherwise than we then foresaw. Now it will fall to Kolbein and Ivar to marry off my daughters—”

  Arnvid had joined them:

  “Do you remember, kinsman—I was with you that summer at the Thing, and I stood by in the hall when you and Audun betrothed the children?”

  “You were a little boy,” said Steinfinn hastily; “—no legal witness!”

  “No,” said Arnvid. “But listen to me, Steinfinn. It has happened before, in case of need, when called to arms or setting out on a long voyage, that a man has given his daughter to him to whom she had been promised before witnesses, without wedding, but only in such wise that he declared before trustworthy witnesses what had been agreed as to the dowry and the bridegroom’s gift, and that it was his will that the betrothal should hold as binding wedlock from that day.”

  Steinfinn turned his head and looked at the three young people. Arnvid went on, eagerly: “Brother Vegard came hither today—and here am I, your cousin, and the old house-folk of yours who know of the compact between Audun and you. You could declare the marriage, with the monk and me for chief witnesses. Then the young couple could dwell in the little house till such time as may be fitting for Olav to fare south with her. Brother Vegard could bless the bridal cup and the bed for them—draw up writings as to their estate—”

  Steinfinn reflected awhile. “No,” he said shortly, and seemed very weary at once. “A daughter of mine shall not go to bed with her betrothed unfeasted like cottars’ children. And there might arise contentions in after time whether she were a duly wedded wife. I marvel that you can think of such things,” he went on hotly, “young as these two children are withal. Olav may have coil enough when he meets these kinsmen whom he knows not—without my sending him from me with such a burden on his neck, an outlawed man’s daughter, and she smuggled away with no kinsmen of his or mine to stand by when he took her in marriage. Had but Olav been of age, we might have thought of it; but now I scarce believe it would be lawful marriage, should a child such as he is take a wife to himself—”

  “It must be right enough that my father let me plight troth with the maid,” said Olav. “And you have been my guardian since—”

  “Oh, you know not what you talk of. You begged leave to be in the raid with us, but if Mattias’s heirs think to bring that against you, ’twill not avail them much, since your kinsmen can make the defence that you were under age and in my service. Were you a married man, answerable at law and my son-in-law, ’twould be another matter. Nay, I owe it to Audun, my friend, to give you no warrant for such folly—now that perchance I am soon to meet him.”

  “Listen to me, Steinfinn—I am too old, for all that, to obey others after you are dead—these kinsmen of mine whom I have neither seen nor heard of. Rather will I be married and my own master, and take my hazard of the danger.”

  “You prate like a little child,” said Steinfinn impatiently. “It shall be as I have said. But let me rest now—I can no more tonight.”

  Before Arnvid and Olav went to bed, the former laid the matter before Brother Vegard. But the monk would by no means take upon himself to speak to Steinfinn and try to alter his decision. He held that Steinfinn had judged rightly and wisely—and he as a priest was not allowed to have a hand in a wedding unless the banns had been proclaimed in the parish church on three mass-days. Here it was even doubtful whether Olav himself could conclude the contract so that it would be lawful marriage, seeing he was under age. And besides, he never liked folk to hold weddings without the blessing of the Church. He would in no wise have anything to do with drawing up writings or the like, but he would depart from Frettastein if they concluded such a bargain on doubtful conditions.

  Steinfinn grew worse in the days that followed, and Olav could not bring himself to speak again of his marriage when he was up with his foster-father. Nor did he say more to Arnvid about the matter.

  But then Ivar Toresson, Steinfinn’s full brother, came to Frettastein, and Kolbein with both his sons; they had had word that Steinfinn was now near his end. The day after the coming of these men Olav asked Arnvid to go out with him, that they might speak in private.

  He had not dared to speak to Arnvid before—he was afraid of what the other would say. Several nights in the last week he had been with Ingunn in the loft-room. She too was downcast and disappointed that her father had raised such unlooked-for difficulties to giving them to one another. But she can never have thought this would do more than delay their wedding at Hestviken somewhat. She grieved greatly for her father’s misery and her mother’s death—and in all her sorrows she clung fast to Olav; it seemed she was quite destroyed with grief when she could not hide herself in his embrace. And after a while Olav gave up all thoughts of holding back; he let himself be drawn deeper and deeper into love’s rapture—she was so sweet withal. But his disquietude and q
ualms of conscience were a constant torment. When she fell asleep, clasped tightly to his breast, he suffered pain; it pained him too that she was so innocent in her love, she seemed utterly without fear or remorse. When he stole from her at early dawn, he was weary and dejected.

  He was afraid that it might end in her misfortune; but he could not bring himself to speak of this to the girl. Still less had he the heart to tell her that he feared far worse difficulties. It had never before come into his mind that aught could be said against the validity of their betrothal. But now a new light had suddenly fallen upon his position in Steinfinn’s household in all these years. He had never stood otherwise than Steinfinn’s own children; but, little care as the parents had bestowed on them in these last years, it was strange nevertheless that they had never said a word of his and Ingunn’s marriage, nor had Steinfinn taken any steps to find out how his son-in-law’s estate was administered. That Kolbein had never heeded him was perhaps no great matter—Kolbein was arrogant and unfriendly toward most men. The coxcombs his sons Olav had never got on with; but he had always thought that this came simply from their counting themselves grown men and him a child. But now it all struck him as very strange—if they had looked upon him all the time as one who was to be their brother-in-law. “In my service,” Steinfinn had said—he had never been paid wages here at Frettastein, so that meant nothing—’twas a means to clear him of the manslaughter that his foster-father had hit upon.

  Olav led the way through the fields northward to the woods. On reaching the bare rocks he stopped. From there they looked down upon the houses with the steep-sloping fields below them and the forest around.

  “We can sit here,” said Olav. “Here we shall be safe from eavesdroppers.” But he himself remained standing. Arnvid sat with his eyes on the young man.

  Olav stood there contracting his white eyebrows—his fair forelock was now grown so long that it almost reached them; this made his face look yet broader, shorter, and more glum. The firm, pale lips were tightly compressed—morose and quarrelsome he looked, and he was become much older in these last weeks. The frank and childlike innocence that had become him so well—since with it all the boy was fully grown and grave of mien—had vanished like the dew. There was another kind of seriousness now upon his wrathful, tormented face. And his paleness and fairness were not so fresh—he was dark under the eyes and had a tired look.