The Son Avenger

  He could not face going out to Claus, sitting and listening to the merchant’s chat. Nor to the armourer’s either. He had only been in Oslo once since Galfrid’s daughter was married to Björn. They had one child—unless there were more since—but it was as though he scarcely dared to hear of this grandson of his; if he had been a leper he could not have been more afraid of thrusting himself into Björn’s life.

  A church bell began to ring close by with loud clangour—it was from St. Olav’s Convent; the tower rose from the end of the churchyard wall. At that moment two preaching friars came round the corner; with their heads well shrouded in their hoods they hurried homeward to shelter from the rough weather, their black capes fluttering away from the white frocks. Olav watched them go; the short one must be old Brother Hjalm, but he would hardly know him now, it was so many years since he had set foot in their convent.

  Olav followed the same way; he could at any rate go into St. Olav’s Church and so pass the time. Afterwards he would have to think of a place to spend the night, where he would not be forced to speak of what had happened at home in Hestviken.

  In the church door he was met by a great sandy dog that came rushing toward him, followed by the lay brother who had chased it out; they nearly ran into each other. “Nay, is it you, Olav Audunsson?” said the monk joyfully. “We have not seen you here since—But you are come to look for Father Finn, I can guess—ay, he will be glad to meet you—such a good friend of his father you were, I mind me. Ay, now he is preaching to the townsmen, the sermon that he gave us in Latin this morning—” the talkative lay brother nodded and slipped through the side door into the choir.

  It dawned on Olav that the tall, middle-aged monk who stood on the steps of the choir preaching—he must be the second son of Arnvid Finnsson. The last time he saw Finn he was a pupil in the school at Hamar. Now the close-cropped hair that bordered the monk’s shining scalp was silvery grey, the narrow, weatherbeaten face marked with wrinkles.

  He did not resemble his father—none of Arnvid’s sons had done so; they were handsome, as he had heard their mother was. Father Finn was erect and thin; he stood very still as he preached, clad in white, with the heavy black cape over his shoulders; he had a fine, clear, and gentle voice:

  “—but that part which lay buried in the earth is to remind us of God’s invisible power and hidden counsel. That part may be likened to the root of the cross; unseen by the eyes of men, it bears the trunk of the cross, its branches, and its precious fruit. Such tokens are given us that we may be able to hold it fast in our minds that our salvation has sprung from the root, which is God’s unseen counsel.

  “But what availeth it us, good brethren, to interpret in words the token of the cross if we do not show in our works that we have interpreted aright the words of our Lord: ‘He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me’? He taketh up his cross and followeth in His footsteps who feareth not to suffer pains and hardships for love of God and his even Christian and his own soul. We may bear the cross in two ways, with our body or with our soul—”

  It was a sermo crucis, such as was usually preached in the conventual churches during Lent. Olav looked about him—it was long since he had been in this church. The nave was long and narrow and somewhat gloomy now that no candles were lighted; the windows were darkened by the great ash trees of Halvard’s churchyard and the mass of the cathedral beyond. There were not many folk either—under the misrule of the last Prior the convent of St. Olav had lost much of its ancient reputation.

  Father Finn Arnvidsson’s sermon was intended in the first place for the brethren of the order, Olav could understand; he had so much to say about penance and discipline:

  “—in this way every man must beware of himself, for here lurketh the danger which is inward pride: causing us to look down on those of our brethren who are less able to bear fasting, watching, frost, and scourging. We cannot render like again to our Lord for the pain He suffered, scourging for scourging, wound for wound—in chastising our own body we must take good heed lest we deem ourselves to be vying with Him. But if others offer to scourge us, to wound or use us despitefully and deliver us into the hands of the tormentors, then must we bear such things with gladness, remembering that we are thereby vouchsafed an honour of which we are unworthy.”

  A scud of rain lashed the windows of the church; Olav heard that a wind had sprung up.—A thought had dawned within him—should he tell Finn Arnvidsson what it was that had brought him to Oslo? Although his case was such that he could make no valid confession to any other than the Bishop, unless he were at the point of death—he might say to Finn that he was here to confess an old blood-guiltiness, a secret slaying committed at the very time of their last parting, when Finn was yet a boy; he remembered now that he had bidden the lad farewell outside the school-house on the day of his setting out for Miklebö. That would be the same as breaking down the bridge behind him.

  “We bear our cross in the spirit when our heart is grieved for the sins and sorrows of other men, as Saint Paul maketh mention: ‘Who is weak, and I am not weak?’ saith he; ‘who is offended, and I burn not?’ Good brethren, it is not for us to wonder whether the Lord hath laid it upon us to bear the sins and so rows of others or to atone for the transgressions of our brethren though He hath made all atonement for us all. But when we are tempted to ask why then must we atone, we ought to remember that He bears heaven and earth as an orb in His hand, but He deigned to lay aside the royal robe of His omnipotence and array Himself in the poor kirtle of Adam. He fainted by the way as He bore the cross out of Jorsalborg, that a great boon might be bestowed upon Simon of Cyrene, in that he was held worthy to help his God and bear the cross with Him. Blessed above all other men who have lived upon earth was this countryman. But it is given to all of us to taste of Simon’s blessedness, when God calleth us unworthy sinners out of the multitude standing by the wayside to watch the passage of the cross, and biddeth us share its burden with Him—”

  No sooner was the sermon over than the old lay brother who had recognized Olav came back. Bustling and loquacious, he led the way to the parlour; now he would go and tell Father Finn.

  It was a little square room with a groined vault; a narrow pointed door stood open to the cloister. Olav went and stood in the doorway, watching the rain, which was now pouring down upon the bare green carpet of the cloister garth; the rain came in under the arcade, sending up splashes from the stone-paved floor. A strong south-westerly gale had set in, and well it was; this early spring had made him uneasy—it was not to be relied on so long as no rain came to carry away the snow in the woods.

  The heavy black clouds that came drifting over the sky made the evening dark for the time of year, and there was a pale and shifting glimmer in the air from all the wet leaden roofs. A soughing came from the great ash trees, whose tops, tufted with blossom, towered above the ridge of the church roof; the wind whistled and shrieked in the windlass of the well in the middle of the grass plot. Then the bells of Halvard’s Church began, with a hollow booming, the shrill little bell of the convent church joined in, and soon all the church bells in town were ringing.

  Behind the pillars on the other side of the garth came a white monk—Father Finn Arnvidsson walked briskly toward him with outstretched hand. “Hail to you, Olav Audunsson—’twas a kindly thought to come and seek me out!”

  They sat in the parlour—they had not seen each other since the one was a boy and the other a young man. That was more than thirty years ago.

  Olav asked after Finn’s brothers and after his kinsfolk, the Steinfinnssons and Haakon Gautsson’s children from Berg. Finn replied that he could give no tidings that were new: he had lately come to Norway from a journey in foreign lands which had lasted two years, and before that he had been subprior in Nidaros, but now he was to go home to his convent at Hamar.

  “But now it is almost the hour of complin. Shall you be in town for a time?”

  Olav said he did not know. “M
y son-in-law is lately dead—”

  “Where do you lodge—nay, surely you have a house of your own here in Oslo?”

  When he heard that Olav had not yet secured a lodging for the night, Father Finn thought that he might sleep there. The guest-house was full, but there were some guests’ cells in the upper story—he would go and ask the Prior:

  “I have many things to set in order in these days, ere I set out for home, but I would gladly have more speech with you—you were my father’s best friend. And it will be easier to find occasion for converse if you dwell under this roof.”

  Olav sat in the guest-chamber eating his evening porridge. There was no other in the room but a sick man who lay in one of the beds, groaning in his sleep; the other guests had gone over to the church to hear the singing. Olav pushed the bowl from him, leaned the back of his head against the wall, and stared into the light of the candle; from the church came the notes of the choir, and outside the rain splashed and the wind howled.

  Then came the sound of footsteps on the flags of the cloister—the monks returning from church. And a young lay brother with a lantern in his hand stood in the doorway and signed to him: now silence would reign here till after early mass next morning.

  The lay brother went before him up a creaking stair and along a passage, opened a door, and set the lantern on the floor of the cell.

  It was a tiny room with grey stone walls. There was a narrow sleeping-bench against one wall, and a desk with a kneeling-rail and a crucifix under a little bow-window, which was closed by a shutter with a parchment pane. The shutter shook and rattled in the wind. Olav opened it and looked out into the stormy spring night—over the shining wet roof that covered the cloister, down upon the green garth with the well and the windlass, which creaked with every gust. It was so long since he had been in a room as high up as this that he felt as though imprisoned in a tower.

  He took off his outer garments and lay down on the bench. Sleep he could not; he lay listening to every sound from the blustering and rainy night outside.

  The night before, he had lain at Saltviken—knowing nothing of Cecilia’s mad deed. ’Twas no longer ago than that. As he tried to gather up in his memory all that had happened since he met Eirik by the fence late in the evening, the hurry of events seemed like a headlong plunge. He had come to the end of the road and over the edge.

  His thoughts went to the words Finn had spoken of Simon of Cyrene—had he been thinking of his father? Arnvid had been a man who suffered himself to be called out of the crowd to succour anyone who was driven past to his doom. And it must have been for this reason that he had always held Arnvid to be more than other men. Arnvid was so stout-hearted that he was not afraid to bend his back if any man would lay his cross upon him. He had not been afraid to follow so closely in his Lord’s footsteps that he had his share of folk’s spitting and abuse.

  Had he himself been as fearless as Arnvid, then he would have proclaimed the slaying of Teit at the first house he came to. And he had condemned Ingunn to hide her child far away in the wilderness, deprived of rights, of name, of kindred—till he saw that the wrong she had done was breaking her down, and he tried to mend one injustice with another. He should have defended the boy’s right from the first—the right to be called Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter’s son, though a bastard, to be his mother’s heir and to look to his mother’s husband for support and protection. Had he been as Arnvid, he would only have asked what was right; would have been man enough to live with a seduced wife, to honour her to whom he had plighted his troth before God, and to love her to whom he had given his affection since he had the wit to prefer one person to another.

  Nay, he might have had the courage to hearken to his own conscience when it pleaded for Teit: “the fool knows not what he has done, he is naught but a witless whelp as you yourself were when you went to your bridal bed ere you were out of your nonage.

  “But, the sin once committed, he would in any case have had the courage to stand by it: while I cleared myself by lying of the injury I did my foster-father, when I was young and wild and thoughtless; but the man who was so thoughtless as to injure me, him I struck down. For I thought I could not live if another had stained my honour and I let it go unavenged. I thought it easier to live besmirched if I myself had stained my honour—so long as none knew of the stain. For such a cause as this I turned Judas against my Lord, armed me with the hardest sins, if but they might be hard enough to weigh upon my weakness like an armour.”

  Such fear had he had of the judgment of men—he who had believed himself indifferent to what folk might think of him. For he did not desire to wield a chieftain’s power over them, nor to be a rich man among them, if he should use craft and suppleness to gain riches, nor friendship with any man whom he could not like outright, nor such good fortune as makes a man fat and lazy—he had only desired to stand among them as the oak stands above the brushwood.

  And he saw that such was the lot intended for him. God had given him as a heritage from loyal, brave, and pious forefathers that which He has promised to the offspring of the righteous: a mind and a heart that hated cruelty, that feared not luckless days, that faced any foe undaunted—only those he loved could scare him into anything.

  “God, my God, who lovest us all, who loved me—whom I once loved; had I chosen Thee, I should have chosen my deepest love.”

  He saw that in a way he had had a right to judge of himself as he did—he had only forgotten that he held all that was good in him as a vassal holds his fief under the sovereignty of the King. And he had rebelled, had broken his faith and laid waste his land.

  He should have grown as the oak, patient and spreading, with light and shelter for all who sought its wide embrace. Such was his destiny, nor had he been able to grow otherwise—his inward hurt had only cankered the pith in him, so that he had become hollow and withered and barren. Not one had he been able to protect to any purpose: from Ingunn herself down to such as Anki and Liv and their children, he had tried to act as a providence for them, and it had been in vain. He had wasted his wealth in the struggle with his rightful Lord—but as a man who is born open-handed, generous even with stolen goods, he had taken in all who came to his door—though all he offered was a beggar’s feast and a mumper’s wedding.

  Simon of Cyrene—now he recalled that the image of this man had been shown to him once before, many years ago in England; then he had seen in a dream his own soul wounded to death, and he had been compelled to stand outside the band of poor men who went forward to receive the body of the Lord.

  How, he wondered, would he have felt on Easter morn, that countryman from Cyrene, if he had refused when they would have him bear the cross, if he had slipped away and hidden himself in the crowd of those who mocked?

  He too had had children—Alexander and Rufus were their names. He had once heard what became of these sons of Simon, saints and crowned martyrs.

  Olav still lay awake when he heard the distant singing from the church. As he listened to the strains of matins, drowned now and then by gusts of wind, he fell asleep.

  Morning was far advanced when he awoke. There was singing again—they were blessing the palms, he knew, and then would come the procession round the church. Olav still lay abed—once more he was assailed by bitter regret, that he had left home in the clothes he stood in. When at last he came down in his coarse old everyday clothes and heavy boots, the service was already far advanced; the words rang out from the choir:

  “Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Matthœum.”5

  From where he stood he could not see the priests who were singing. And today was the long lesson, so he could not follow it from memory, but only knew some fragments. Wrapped in his old brown cloak he stood far back by the door, and as the clear and powerful male voice intoned the gospel, rising and falling and rising again, he was carried along past words and names he recognized—Pascha—tradetur ut crucifigatur—Caiaphas—beacons that told him where they were now. Jesus and the disciples
were in Bethany, in domo Simonis leprosi, and sat at meat; now Mary of Magdala came in at the door, bearing a box of ointment, that she might pour out the most precious thing she could find before God. And the voice of Judas snarled at the woman with miserly scorn.

  Then another voice, fuller and richer, answered with the Master’s own words as He took Mary under His protection and praised her loving-kindness.

  Olav waited for the words he knew, the words that were branded upon his heart with red-hot irons—would they not come soon? They were not so far away. Ah, now they were coming—now He was sending the disciples into the city to make ready the supper. Now—

  His heart beat against his chest as though it would burst as the great, rich voice pealed from the choir:

  “Amen dico vobis, quia unus vestrum me traditurus est—”

  The voice of the Evangelist followed with a short strophe, and then the whole chorus of disciples broke in, harsh and agitated:

  “Numquid ego sum, Domine?”

  Olav felt the sweat break out over his whole body as the voice of Christ rang out. And then they came, the words that were burned into his heart:

  “Væ autem homini illi, per quem Filius hominis tradetur: Bonum erat ei si natus non fuisset homo ille.”

  The evangelist sang: “Respondens autem Judas qui tradidit eum, dixit”—and the loud voice of Judas followed:

  “Numquid ego sum, Rabbi?”

  The voice of Christ replied: “Tu dixisti.”

  Olav had bowed his head upon his breast and thrown the flap of his cloak over his shoulder, hiding half his face. The coarse homespun smelt of stable and boat and fish. Among the crowd in festival attire he alone was unprepared.