The Axe

  Then there was that case of the man at Tonstad who had been found slain in his coppice. His wife and children charged the other tenant of the farm with the murder; the man had to flee to save his life, and his wife and young children suffered affliction and cruelty without end at the hands of the murdered man’s relatives. Then it came about that the dead man’s own cousin confessed that he was the one who had killed his kinsman—they had quarrelled about an inheritance. But it was said that Biship Torfinn had forced the murderer to avow before the people what he had confessed to the Bishop—saying that no priest had power to absolve him of the sin before he had shown sincere repentance and rescued the innocent who might be suffering from his misdeed.

  Arnvid said that to the poor and sorrowing this Bishop would stoop with the gentlest kindness, praying them to turn to him as to a loving father. But he never bowed his neck the least jot when faced with self-willing or hard-hearted men, whether they were great folk or small, clergy or laity. Never would he excuse sin in any man—but if any sinner showed repentance and will to make amends, he received him with both hands, guided, consoled, and protected him.

  This was nobly done, Olav had thought—and much of what he had heard of the lord Torfinn he had liked very well—a fearless man this monk from Trondheim must be, and one who knew his own will. But then he had never thought that he himself would have a case to submit to the Bishop’s judgment. And what Arnvid said about the Bishop’s being no respecter of persons seemed to Olav to be stretching his goodness somewhat far—he could see naught else but that it did make some difference whether it were a lowly peasant who killed his neighbour for a small matter, or Steinfinn revenging himself upon Mattias. In any case, he would not like anyone to think he had turned to the Bishop and sought his protection against the Steinfinnssons because—ay, because he felt himself in a way their inferior. Then there was this other thing, that Bishop Torfinn was so strict on the point of chastity. With all other men he might hold to his assertion that this life he and Ingunn had led since the summer was wedlock in a way. But he did not feel it so himself.

  Next morning he sat waiting again in the little hall. It was so called because there was a larger hall or court-house beside it. There was no door between; none of the rooms in the stone building had more than one door, and that led into the courtyard. Olav had sat there awhile when a little young man came in, clad in a greyish-white monk’s frock which was a little different from that of the preaching friars. The monk closed the door behind him and advanced rapidly to Olav—and the young man got up in great haste and knelt upon one knee; he knew at once that this must be the lord Torfinn. When the Bishop held out his hand, Olav meekly kissed the great stone in his ring.

  “Welcome to Hamar, Olav Audunsson! ’Twas not well that I should be absent yesterday when you came—but I hope my house-folk have had good care of our guests?”

  He was not so young after all, Olav saw—his thin wreath of hair shone like silver, and his face was shrunken, wrinkled, and grey as his frock almost. But he was slim and wonderfully lithe in all his movements—scarce so tall as Olav. It was impossible to guess his age—his smile took away the look of age; a brightness came into his great yellow-grey eyes, but upon his pale and narrow lips the smile became the faintest shadow.

  Olav mumbled his thanks and stood in embarrassment—the zealous Bishop looked so utterly different from what he had expected. He remembered dimly that he had seen the former Bishop —a man who filled a room with his voice and his presence. Olav felt that this one could also fill the room, slight and silver-grey as he was—in another way. When Lord Torfinn sat down and bade him be seated beside him, he modestly withdrew to the bench at a little distance.

  “There is great likelihood that you must be content to bide here a part of the winter,” said Bishop Torfinn. “You are a man of the Vik, I hear, and all your kinsmen dwell far away, save only the Tveits folk out in Soleyar. It will take time ere we can receive their answer as to what their testimony may be in this matter. Know you if they have resigned their guardianship of you in lawful wise?”

  “My father did so, lord—was it not he who had the right to that?”

  “Yes, yes. But he must have spoken of it to his kinsmen and had their consent that Steinfinn should enjoy the payment for your wardship in place of them?”

  Olav was silent. This case of his did not seem so simple a matter—ay, he had guessed as much of late. No wardship payment from his estate had ever been made to Steinfinn—so far as he knew.

  “I know nothing of this—I know little of the law; none has ever taught me such things,” he said dejectedly.

  “Nay, I supposed that. But we must be clear about this question of guardianship, Olav—first on account of your share in the deed of arson—whether you accompanied Steinfinn as his son-in-law or as a man in his pay. Kolbein and those have got their freedom now, but you were not included in it. I shall speak with the Sheriff about this matter, so that you may be safe here in the town. But then there is that saying of Steinfinn before he died—that he desired the marriage between you and his daughter, as Arnvid tells me. Whether he were your guardian at that time, or these kinsmen of yours, who are so now.”

  “I thought,” said Olav, turning red, “that I was come to man’s estate. Since she was betrothed to me in lawful wise, and I have taken her to me as my wife.”

  The Bishop shook his head. “Can you suppose that you two children have acquired any right in law because you have gone to bed together, as seemed good to yourselves, without the presence of your kinsfolk and without banns in church? A duty you have taken upon yourselves, since you acted in the belief that it was binding wedlock—you are now bound under pain of mortal sin to live together till death shall part you, or to remain single if we cannot bring about a reconciliation between her sponsors and yours. But you have not come to man’s estate through a marriage of this sort, and your spokesmen can demand no dowry on your behalf until you have fallen at the feet of the Toressons and made amends to them—and ’twould be unlike them if they should be willing to grant you such dowry with Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter as a man of your condition might otherwise look to get with his wife. This game may cost you dear, Olav. To the Church you must do penance, for making your marriage in secret, as she has forbidden all her children to do, since matters of matrimony are to be conducted in the light, in prudent and seemly fashion. Were it not so, too many young folk might deal as you have dealt; you and this woman are bound by the promises you have made to God, but no man is bound to grant you rights or afford you support, since no men were present, to make promises to you and for you, when you bound yourself.”

  “My lord!” said Olav; “I had thought that you would defend our rights—since you yourself deem that we are bound to keep the faith we gave to each other—”

  “Had you submitted the case to the judgment of the Church as soon as you saw that the maid’s uncles were minded to oppose the validity of the betrothal—that would have been the right way. You could have claimed of my official, Sir Arinbjörn Skolp, that he should forbid Kolbein under threat of ban to betroth Ingunn to another man, before it had been made clear whether you had already a right to this marriage.”

  “How much, trow, would Kolbein have cared for that?”

  “Hm. So much you know, for all that. You have not learned law, but you have seen unlawfulness—” The Bishop moved his hands in his lap under the scapular. “You must bear in mind, Kolbein and Ivar have already so much on their hands that perchance they will not be so eager to have a matter of excommunication added.”

  “I thought ’twas held good enough,” Olav began again obstinately, “that her father had handselled the maid to my father for my wife.”

  “No.” The Bishop shook his head. “As I told you, guilt and duties you have gained, but no rights. Had you come to Sir Arinbjörn with the matter while the girl was yet a maid, you had gained more than the best you can win now. Either they would have been forced to give you both the woman a
nd her goods, or she and you could have parted and been free to make another marriage. As the matter now stands, my son, you must pray God to help you, that you may not repent by daylight and in your manhood that you bound yourself hand and foot blindly and in darkness, before you were yet wholly out of your childhood.”

  “That day will never come,” said Olav hotly, “when I repent me that I did not let Kolbein Borghildsson cheat me of what was mine by right—”

  The Bishop looked at him searchingly, as Olav went on: “Oh no, my lord—Kolbein was resolved to upset this bargain, and small scruple will he have of the means he uses—that I know!” He told the Bishop of the betrothal ring.

  “Are you sure,” asked Lord Torfinn, “that Steinfinn had not replaced the ring in your coffer before he died? He may have thought it safer, so that you should surely receive again all that was yours and that he had in charge for you.”

  “No, for it was on the morning of his death-day that I saw Ingunn’s betrothal ring; then it lay in the casket in which Steinfinn kept his own and his children’s most costly jewels.”

  “Was it Steinfinn himself who brought out the casket—did he show you this?”

  “No, ’twas Arnvid did it.”

  “Hm. Ay, then it looks as though Kolbein—” The Bishop paused for a moment, then turned to Olav. “As you two young people are placed, the best way will be—I do not say it is a perfect way, but the best—that your kinsmen and hers assent to a marriage according to the law of the land, and that you be allowed to enjoy one another and all that you possess and are to bring to one another. Otherwise life will be very difficult for you, and your feet will be beset with temptation to worse sins than this first sin, if you be parted. But you understand, I ween, that, even if we can bring witnesses to the validity of the betrothal, the Toressons may make such conditions for reconciliation that you will be poorer by your marriage than you were before?”

  “Ay, that is all one to me,” said Olav defiantly. “The word that was given to my father shall not be broken because he is dead. I will have Ingunn home with me, if I have to take her in her bare shift—”

  “And what of this young Ingunn,” said the Bishop quietly; “are you sure that she is of the same mind as you—that she would rather hold fast to the old bargain than be given to another man?”

  “Ingunn was minded as I—we should not set ourselves up against our fathers’ will because they were dead and strangers would minish their right to dispose of their own children.”

  Bishop Torfinn did his best not to smile. “So you two children stole into the bridal bed simply to be obedient to your fathers?”

  “My lord!” said Olav in a low voice, turning red again, “Ingunn and I are of even age, and we were brought up as brother and sister from the time we were small. From my seventh year I have lived far from all my kinsfolk. And when she lost both mother and father, she betook herself to me. Then we agreed that we would not let them part us.”

  The Bishop nodded slowly; Olav said passionately: “My lord—meseems ’twould be a great dishonour both to me and to my father were I to ride brideless from Frettastein, where all have held us to be betrothed for ten years. But I also had the thought that, when I come home to my native place, where no man knows me, I could have no better wife than the one with whom I have been friends from childhood.”

  “How old were you when you lost your parents, Olav?” asked the Bishop.

  “Seven years old I was when my father died. And I was motherless in my hour of birth.”

  “—And my mother is still living.” Lord Torfinn sat silent awhile. “I see, ’tis natural you should not wish to lose your playmate.” He rose and Olav sprang up at once. The Bishop said: “You know well, Olav, that motherless and friendless you are not—no Christian man is that. You, as we all, have the mightiest brother in Christ, our Lord, and His Mother is your mother—and with her, I trust, is she, your mother who bore you. I have always thought that the Lady Sancta Maria prays yet more to her Son for those children who must grow up motherless here below than for us others.—True it is that none should forget who are our nearest and mightiest kin. But it ought to be easier for you to bear this in mind. You will not so lightly be tempted to forget what power of kindred you have in the God of peace—since you have no brothers or kinsmen in the flesh who might draw you with them to deeds of violence and arrogance or egg you on to revenge and strife. You are young, Olav, and already others have drawn you into blood-guiltiness—you have thrust yourself into strife and litigation. God be with you, that you may become a man of peace, when you are answerable for yourself.”

  Olav knelt and kissed Bishop Torfinn’s hand in farewell. The Bishop looked down at his face and smiled faintly.

  “You have a headstrong look—ay, so it is. God and His gentle Mother preserve you, that you grow not hard-hearted.”

  He raised his hand and gave the young man his blessing. On reaching the door Lord Torfinn turned with a little laugh: “One thing I had forgot—to thank you for your help. My Asbjörn, All-fat they call him, spoke of how you had already lent him a hand since you came here. I thank you for it.”

  Not till the evening, when he was in bed and about to fall asleep, did the thought cross Olav’s mind like a chill breath: what he had said to Bishop Torfinn about himself and Ingunn—it was not altogether truthful. But he banished the thought at once—now of all times he had no desire to think upon last summer and autumn, the nights in the bower and all that.

  He felt at home in the Bishop’s palace, and every day the life seemed better to him, with only men around him, all older than himself and all with their regular tasks to perform, hour by hour.

  Olav followed on the heels of Asbjörn All-fat wherever the priest went. They were four men in the loft-room where Olav and Arnvid slept; there was a young priest who had been at the school with Arnvid, besides Asbjörn, who was a good deal older than the others—close on thirty. Arnvid went to church and sang the daily office with the clergy, and he had borrowed the book from which he had learned when he was a pupil in the school, and sat amusing himself with it in the leisure hour after breakfast. He sat on the edge of the bed reading aloud the first pieces that were written in it: De arte grammatica and Nominale. Olav lay listening to him: ’twas strange how many names these men of Rome had had for a single word; sea, for instance. At the end of the book were some leaves on which to practise the art of writing. Arnvid diverted himself by engrossing letters and sentences after the old copies. But it was chilly work in the cold loft—and his fingers had lost their cunning for such things. One day he wrote at the end of his copy:

  “Est mala scriptura quia penna non fuit dura.”

  But when he had put away the book and gone out, Asbjörn Priest took it and wrote in the margin:

  “Penna non valet dixit ille qui scribere nescit.”

  Olav smiled quietly when he was told what it meant.

  Asbjörn All-fat said his mass early in the morning, and Olav usually went with him to the church; often he did not go there again on week-days. At most times Asbjörn Priest was exempted from service in the choir and read his hours from a book, where-ever his duties might call him. He had much to do with the incomings and outgoings of the see, received rents and tithes in kind, and spoke with people. The priest taught Olav to inspect goods and judge their quality and how each kind should best be stored; he explained to him the laws of buying and selling and of tithes and showed him how to use the abacus. Mjösen was not yet frozen over off the town, and folk came rowing and sailing thither. Asbjörn Priest took Olav with him several times on short journeys. He also bought two brooches of Olav, so now the boy had ready money in his belt for the first time in his life.

  In this way it was not much that he saw of Ingunn. He kept his word to the Bishop and sought no meeting with her except at church, but she seldom came there before one of the later masses, and Olav was usually at the first. Arnvid often visited the house where Steinfinn’s daughters were lodged. From him Ola
v heard that the lady Magnhild had been far from gentle with her niece—in her words Ingunn had let herself be seduced; and Ingunn had replied to her aunt in great wrath. The lord Torfinn had been very friendly when he spoke with Ingunn and Tora—he had sent for them to see him one day. But Olav was not at home when the maids came to the Bishop’s palace—he had accompanied Asbjörn All-fat on an errand to Holy Isle that day.

  Nor could they have much speech together those times when they met in church and he afterwards walked with her the little way down to the house by Holy Cross Church. But he himself deemed it best so. At times, indeed, he would remember how it felt to hold her in his arms—so soft and slight, so warm and loving. But he thrust the thought from him—now was not the time for such things. They had all the years before them to live together as good and loving friends. He was so sure that Bishop Torfinn would help him to get his rights.

  And besides this he felt as it were a dislike to thinking of the life of the last months. Now that it was over, it seemed so unreal, wellnigh unnatural, in his memory. Those nights in the bower with Ingunn in black darkness—he lived and felt with all his senses wide awake, except his sight; ay, ’twas so dark he might as well have been blind. All day long he went about half-asleep and caring for nothing—feeling only the strain and uncertainty of all that threatened him from without, like a booming inside his dazed and empty head. Somewhere deep down within him he was always uneasy—even when at the moment he could not tell what was the newest thing that afflicted his conscience, he knew that there was something wrong and that soon he would feel its urge. Even when he was alone with Ingunn, he could not forget it quite—that something was out of gear. And then she irked him a little, because she never seemed to be tormented by either fear or doubt, and he grew tired of her, because she would always have him gay and wanton and ready to caress her.