Then it struck him that he must contrive to slip out of this loft before anyone was awake. He must find out what time of night it was. But he lay on as though all power were taken from him.
At last he broke out of his torpor with a jerk, crept out of bed, and opened a crack of the door. The clouds above the roofs were tinged with pink—it would be an hour to sunrise.
As he dressed, it came back to him that the last time he had shared Ingunn’s bed was last Yule, and then he had been very angry that he had to give up his place in the hall to a guest and crawl in among Steinfinn’s daughters. He had pushed Ingunn roughly when he thought she was taking up too much room, and had jostled her crossly when in her sleep she dug her sharp elbows and knees into him. The memory of their former innocence wrung him as the memory of a lost paradise.
He dared not stay here longer, he must go now. But when he bent over her, caught the scent of her hair, faintly descried the outline of her face and limbs in the darkness, he felt—in spite of his remorse and shame—that this too was sweet. He bent quite down, almost touched her shoulder with his forehead—and again that strange divided feeling ensnared his heart: joy at the frail daintiness of his bride, and torment at the very thought that anyone could touch her roughly or ungently.
Never, he swore to himself, never again would he do her any ill. After making this resolve he gained more courage to face her awake. He touched her face with his hand and softly called her name.
She started up and sat for a moment, heavy with sleep. Then she threw her arms about him, so that he fell on his knees, with head and shoulders in the bed.
She wormed herself about him, drew him up in her slender arms; and as he knelt thus, burying his face in her strangely soft and yielding flesh, he had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting into tears. He was so relieved and humiliated that she was so good and kind and did not raise a lament or reproach him. Full of tenderness for her and of shame and sorrow and happiness, he knew not what he should do.
Then there came a howl from the yard below—the long-drawn, uncanny howl of a dog.
“That is Erp,” whispered Olav. “He yelped like that last night too. I wonder how he has got out again”—and he stole to the door.
“Olav—you are not going from me?” she cried in fear, as she saw he was dressed and ready to go out.
“I must watch my chance—to slip down unseen,” he whispered back. “That hell-hound will wake the whole place soon.”
“Olav, Olav, don’t go from me—” she was kneeling in bed. As he sprang back and bade her hush, she threw her arms about him and held him fast. Instinctively he turned his head aside as he loosened her hold on his neck; he drew up the coverlet and spread it over her.
“Cannot you see that I must go?” he whispered. “ ’Tis bad enough as it is.”
Then she burst into a fit of weeping—threw herself down on the bed and wept and wept. Olav spread the clothes over her up to her chin and stood there at his wit’s end in the dark, begging her in a whisper not to cry like that. At last he knelt down and put an arm under her neck—that stilled her weeping a little.
The dog out in the yard was howling as though possessed. Olav began to rock the girl backwards and forwards. “Do not weep, my Ingunn—do not weep so sorely—” but his face was hard and stiff with tension.
No dog could howl like that except for a corpse or some disaster. And as he knelt there in the chilly morning with the weeping girl in his arms, growing more and more pitilessly sober the while, one thought after another came into his mind.
He had given no great thought to the price that might be paid for their raid on Mattias Haraldsson’s house—nor had any of the others, so far as he could guess. And that was just as well; for Steinfinn had no choice.—But he misliked that cursed howling in the yard. Steinfinn’s wounds were not so slight; he knew that, for he had held his arm as Arnvid bound it up. And he recalled Steinfinn’s face—once in the boat, as they were coming back—and as they rode up the hillside: Kolbein had to dismount and support his brother, leading his horse. And then last evening, when he bade them good-night.
Now he saw all at once how fond he was of his foster-father. He had taken Steinfinn as part of his everyday life—liked him well enough, but looked down on the man a little too, without knowing it, all these years. Such as Steinfinn was, casual, a dawdler, easy and careless through and through, with the painful burden of sorrow and shame that had been thrust upon him and that seemed so ill suited to the shoulders of this thoughtless lord—his foster-son had felt in his heart a slight contempt for what was so unlike his own nature. And now, when Steinfinn had risen up and shown what manner of man he was in the hour of trial; now that Olav felt in his heart of hearts that he loved Steinfinn after all—now he had done this thing to him. And disgraced himself and brought ruin upon Ingunn.—His forehead grew icy cold again and his heart thumped with a dull throbbing—if indeed the worst misfortune was already past.
He pressed his forehead against her bosom—and could not that dog be quiet outside?—A kind of sob went through his soul—of homesickness for his childhood, which was now inexorably past. He felt his youth and his loneliness so terribly.—Then Olav straightened himself, stood erect, and shut his mouth firmly on his sighing: now he had dealt in such wise that he had taken a grown man’s responsibility upon himself. Useless to whine after the event. And there must surely be a way out.
At last someone came and scolded the dog, tried to get him in, he could hear. As far as he could guess, Erp ran up into the paddock. All was quiet outside.
Olav took the girl in a protecting embrace, kissed her forehead at the roots of the hair before he let her go. Then he grasped his sword and put the belt over his right shoulder. It seemed to put heart into him to feel the weapon on his hip. He went to the door and glanced over the balcony.
“There is no one in the yard—now I must slip away.”
Ingunn stopped him with a wail: “Oh no, oh no, don’t go—’twill make me so afraid to be left here alone.”
Olav saw at once that it was vain to try to reason with her.
“Get up, then,” he whispered, “and dress yourself. If they see us walking together outside, none will suspect.”
He went out, sat down on the stairway, and waited. With both hands on his sword-hilt, and his chin resting on them, he sat watching the rosy reflection in the western sky fade away as the light in the east grew stronger and whiter. The grass of the fields was grey with dew and rain.
He called to mind all the late evenings and early mornings of that summer with Ingunn—and the memories of their games and frolics hurt him now and filled him with bitter disappointment and wrath. A betrayer he had become—but it was as though he himself had also been betrayed. They had been playing on a flowery slope and had not had the wit to see that it ended in a precipice. They had tumbled over before they knew of it. Well, well, there they lay, ’twas no use whining over it now, he tried to console himself.
Once they were married, they would get back their honour as before, and then they would forget this secret humiliation, which was what the fall was. But now he had looked forward with such joy to his wedding—that day when all should make for his and Ingunn’s honour, which should confer full maturity upon them. Now there must be a secret bitterness at the bottom of the cup—a sense that they were not worthy the honour.
This thing that he had done was reckoned the mark of the meanest. ’Twas a hind they had gotten for son-in-law, a man who would prove no trustier than that, folk would say, when it came out. For a boat and a horse and a bride a man should pay the right price before he took and used them—unless he had great need.
For folk of their condition he had thought three months the shortest time they could fitly wait from the day when the settlement of their estate was proclaimed here at Frettastein before he held his wedding at Hestviken. But perhaps, now that Steinfinn had this case of arson and manslaughter on his hands, it would not look so unreasonable if he hastene
d on the marriage—so that instead of the guardianship of two minors he would have a well-to-do son-in-law whose help he had a right to claim, in fines and suchlike.
So when Ingunn came out to him and whispered, not daring to look at him: “If my father knew this of us, Olav, I ween he would kill us—” Olav laughed a little and took her hand in his.
“For that he would need be far duller than he is. He will have enough gear to unravel, Ingunn, without this—he may have more use for a living son-in-law than for a dead.—But you know well ’twould be the worst mischance,” he whispered dejectedly, “if he—or any—came to know of this.”
The sun was just rising, it was icy cold outside and wet everywhere. Olav and Ingunn huddled together on the stairway and sat there nodding sleepily while the pale yellow light in the east mounted higher and higher in the sky, and the birds twittered louder and louder—their singing was almost over for the year.
“There he is again!” Olav started up. The dog had come back into the yard and posted himself howling before the great house. They both ran down and Olav called to Erp and tried to entice him away. The dog had always obeyed him, but now he would not let himself be caught.
Arnvid Finnsson came out of the hall and tried, but the dog would not come to him either. Each time one of the men came near him, he slipped away, ran a short space, and began howling again.
“But have you two not been out of your clothes tonight?” Arnvid asked presently, looking from one to the other.
Ingunn turned red as fire and turned away hastily. Olav answered: “No—we sat talking up in the loft, and then we fell asleep as we sat, and slept on till this dog waked us.”
More people came out now, both men and women, wondering at the dog. Last of all came Kolbein.
All at once there was one who cried: “Look—!”
Up in the balcony of the great bower they saw a glimpse of Steinfinn Toresson’s head—his face was so changed that they scarce knew him. He called something—then vanished, as though he had fallen inward.
Kolbein dashed to the house, but the door was barred within. Arnvid sprang to his side and they helped Kolbein onto his shoulders; from there he swung himself onto the balcony. A moment later he bent over the rail—his face was utterly distorted: “He has bled—like a slaughtered ox—some of you must come up. Not his maids—” he said, and a shiver of frost seemed to go through him.
In a moment he had opened the door from inside. Arnvid and some of the house-carls went in, while Tora and the serving-maids ran to get water and wine, linen cloths and unguents.
Arnvid Finnsson appeared in the doorway—and all the dread and horror that had gathered in those waiting outside found relief in a groan when they saw him. Arnvid came forward like a sleep-walker—then his eye fell upon Olav Audunsson and he beckoned him aside: “Ingebjörg—” his lower jaw trembled so that his teeth chattered. “Ingebjörg is dead. God have mercy on us poor sinners!—You must take Ingunn—and Tora and the boys—into the hall. Kolbein says that I must tell them.”
He turned and walked on in front.
“What of Steinfinn?” asked Olav in hot haste. “In God’s name—it cannot be that he—has he killed her?”
“I know not—” Arnvid looked ready to drop. “She lay dead in the bed. Steinfinn’s wound has opened—the blood has poured from him in streams. I know no more—”
Olav turned quickly to face Ingunn, who was coming up—put out his hand as though to stop her, as he repeated Arnvid’s words: “God have mercy on us poor sinners! Ingunn, Ingunn—now you must try—you must try to trust yourself to me, my dear!”
He took hold of her arm and led her with him—she had begun to weep, softly and sorely, like a child that fears to let its terror have full sway.
As the day wore on, Olav sat in the hall with the girls. Arnvid told them what they had gathered from Steinfinn about his wife’s death, and Olav kept his arm openly on Ingunn’s shoulder the while—he scarce knew himself that he did so.
Steinfinn knew but little of what had happened. Before they lay down, Ingebjörg had tended his arm. He had slept uneasily and had been wandering in fever during the night, but he seemed to remember that his wife had been up now and again; she had given him to drink. He had been waked by the dog’s howling—and then she lay dead between the wall and him.
Ingebjörg had been troubled by fits of swooning in her last years. Maybe her joy at the restoration of their honour had been too much for her, Arnvid thought. Ingunn abandoned herself, weeping, in Olav’s embrace, and he stroked her on the back. There was this, that he himself, and doubtless the others too, in their first horror had thought of yet worse things. Though God alone could know why Steinfinn should have wished his wife dead. For all that, Arnvid’s words released them from a horror-struck suspense. Beneath it all a thought lay at the bottom of Olav’s mind, striving to come forth; he tried to banish it, ’twas shameful but—Steinfinn had said he firmly believed he should follow his wife. However things might go, there was a chance that neither Steinfinn nor Ingebjörg would ever know that he had betrayed them. Olav could do naught else than feel relieved now, strangely exhausted, but safer.
There had been a moment when he thought he must go under. Just after Ingebjörg was borne out, he had met some women coming from the loft-room. They stopped, after the fashion of serving-women, to show him the bloody garments they were carrying out, making loud lamentation the while. One of them had swept up the flowers from the floor into a fur rug—the meadowsweet was smeared all over with blood, and above them lay the strips Arnvid had cut from his and Olav’s shirts to bind Steinfinn’s arm—they were soaked and shining with blood. Against his will all that had happened since yesternight, when they assembled in the meadow below the burning homestead, was crowded within him into one vision. And he had not the strength to bear such a horror as this. The disaster to his foster-parents, and then his sin against them—It was as though he had violated his own sister. The boy’s whole world was shattered to pieces about him.
It seemed as though his mind could not contain it—and then it slipped away from him again. And when Steinfinn’s children clung to him, since no one else in the place had leisure to bestow on them, he found a kind of refuge for himself in watching over them as an elder brother.
Tora wept much and talked much. She had always been the most intelligent and thoughtful of the children. She said to Olav that it seemed hard her parents had not been allowed to enjoy their happiness together after all these years of undeserved sorrow and shame. Olav thought it would have been much worse if Ingebjörg had died before Steinfinn had taken his revenge. That their rehabilitation might be dearly bought in other ways was quite clear to Tora. She was also troubled about the welfare of her mother’s soul and the future of herself and her brothers and sister, if this were in Kolbein’s hands. She had no great belief in her uncle’s judgment.
Olav thought that toward Steinfinn, at any rate, Kolbein had acted the part of a trusty kinsman; Mattias’s slaying was not unprovoked, and the burning had been the work of chance. And it must be said that Ingebjörg had lived a pious and Christian life in her last years. She had been given a fair burial. No one told the children what some folk were saying: that had Bishop Torfinn been at home, ’twas doubtful if the lady had been committed to the earth in such great honour, until it had been made clear whether the dead woman had had any say in planning the deed or no.
Olav’s best consolation came from Arnvid Finnsson. They shared a bed, and when Arnvid was not watching by his sick kinsman, the two young men lay talking far into the night.
And it sustained Olav, as it comforted all the household, that Steinfinn bore his lot in so noble and manly a way. He had lost much blood; yet his wounds were not such as were like to prove the death of so strong and big a man. But Steinfinn said he knew he was to die, and he seemed to waste away and be drifting toward an early dissolution. And in a way Olav deemed this to be the fittest ending to all that had befallen at Frettastein. It wou
ld indeed have been still stranger if Steinfinn and Ingebjörg had taken up again the old carefree life of riot and revelry and idleness that they had once led—after all they had gone through.
And this new shame that had come upon them in their daughter they would never know. That reckoning he would escape.
So it was chiefly anxiety for Ingunn that tortured him. It was an everlasting uneasiness—her sorrow was perfectly still and mute. She sat there silent as a stone, while he and Tora were talking. Now and again her eyes filled with tears, her lips began to quiver feebly—her tears ran over, but never a sound was there in her; it was a picture of despair, so far away and so lonely that he had not the strength to look at it. Why could she not speak her sorrow and let herself be consoled together with them? Sometimes he felt that she was looking at him; but when he turned his head to her, he caught a glimpse of a look so pained and helpless—and instantly she looked away from him. His ears rang and rang with one of these new dancing-lays he had heard down by the church last winter—he tried not to think of it, but it came—“or is it thine honour thou mournest for so? …” Often he was near being angry with her for not letting him be rid of these dark night-thoughts that had taken such a hold of his throat in his first remorse and sorrow over his fall.
But he had a care of himself now, strove to be like a good brother to her. He had avoided being alone with her ever since the first morning. And he felt safer and had a better conscience since he had got Tora to persuade Ingunn to go back and sleep with her sister in the little house. He thought that in Tora’s keeping she would be safe from him too.
The Axe Page 9