And, to be sure, he was glad. But at the same time he was not a little dismayed. That Gunhild should make good so wild a threat—could any man have thought it!
He saw quite clearly that now they would both be placed in a difficult position. If it became known whither Gunhild had betaken herself and that they had been there together, the worst would certainly be said. He must take her away from her sister’s house as quickly as he could. But where could they seek refuge?
The law was even as he had said—it was a bishop’s duty to defend women against forced marriages—but very few bishops were ever called upon to fulfil this duty, even when their rule was a long one. He knew pretty well how welcome Gunhild Bersesdatter would be made in the Bishop’s castle or with the strict Lady Groa at Nonneseter if she were sent thither. Ask any of his father’s friends in the town or in his home parish to receive a woman whom he had carried off by force, that was impossible. Torgrim and Una would do it no doubt—but he could not drag them into such difficulties. And Rynjul was too near both to Eiken and to Hestviken. For his own father would scarcely be better pleased with this than hers.
The best plan he could think of was to take her to his kinsfolk in the Upplands. He had not parted in friendship from Steinfinn Haakonsson of Berg, but he knew enough of his cousin to be sure that if he sought his support in such a case as this, he would find a loyal kinsman in Steinfinn.
This plan involved difficulties enough and—the way was long; they might be pursued, and then in God’s name the encounter could scarcely pass off without an exchange of blows. But if they had a start, and travelled by unfrequented paths—There was more than that—he knew it well enough as he rode here in the spring night and breathed the acrid scent of growing leaves and grass and felt the warmth of his own sound youthful body. Already he had visions of the chances he would have of kissing his fair bride and clasping her in his arms as they rode together unattended for five or six days and nights, through forests and remote country districts. But it was well he was old enough to know that he must be on his guard. What would be said of them he knew; but she must know it too, and yet she had chosen to accept this hazard. But to be forced to weep over a secret sorrow of his causing—he would not bring that on Gunhild.
His heart failed him at the memory of thoughts he had once had—no, in Jesus’ name, Bothild was enough.
It was clear he would have been wiser to have sent her back a message that she must not think of keeping so ill-considered a promise. But that would surely have offended her. And what kind of man would he have to be who should be capable of such prudence?
If at least he knew where this Ness was to be found! Somewhere on the border between Saana and Garda parishes. He had ridden past it once with old Tore, when he was a lad—one saw the homestead on the farther side of a lake. Now he did not even know if he were on the right road—he was in the depth of the forest, where patches of snow gleamed here and there and the birches had not yet burst into leaf and the cold ground breathed the raw scent of early spring from the musty slime that covers the ground as soon as the snow recedes. It was already past midnight, and the song of birds, which had been silent awhile, began to be heard again, but the notes of the night-birds were not yet hushed, the night-raven croaked—and in some bogs that he had passed the capercailye was calling. Eirik was sleepy—and the bay was tired and a little lame.
He leaped from the saddle and led his horse down a steep descent, where the water streamed over the path, past some small farms—and soon he came out on a broader road. A little farther on, this road led past a little lake.
The black forest surrounded the whole piece of water except on the north side, where a solitary homestead stood on a point of land that jutted out into the lake. A mist was rising from the surface of the water and from the marshy meadows around the homestead, so that only its green roof showed above the haze. From the head of the lake a track branched from the road across the marsh. Eirik rode along it—the worst bog-holes were bridged with logs; the birches were dripping wet, with a strong and bitter scent of bursting leaves. He passed many places that had once been meadow, where young green fir trees had sprung up. The dawn was now so far advanced that the sky was white and the surface of the water like steel between the driving mists. In the field before the homestead the grass was already high and lush, grey with moisture in the thick air, and here too birch and alder were almost in leaf.
He could not wake folk in a strange place at this time of the morning, but he saw a little barn standing at the edge of the wood. He turned his horse loose outside, went in and lay down in the empty barn.
When he awoke, the sun was shining in through every crack of the logs. Outside the open door all was gleaming green and gold in the sunlight, and in the doorway stood a woman holding the bay by the forelock. Eirik sprang up, shook out his wrinkled cloak, went forward and greeted her:
“Can you tell me, mistress, if this house be the Ness, where Eldred Bersesdatter lives?”
As he spoke he was sure that this must be Eldrid: she was dressed like a working-woman and looked like—he knew not what, but not like a woman of the people.
She was not very tall—not so tall as Gunhild, and thin, broader across the shoulders than across the narrow, scanty, mannish hips, and she held herself straight as a wand. Her brown, weatherbeaten face looked as if the flesh had been scraped from under the skin—the forehead was smooth, as were the strongly arched cheek-bones and the fine, straight nose. But the longer Eirik looked at this ravaged and aging woman, the more clearly he saw that she must once have been beautiful—so beautiful that not one of all the fair women he had seen could compare with Eldrid.
“I am Eldrid of the Ness—have you an errand to me?”
“I have—one that will seem strange to you, I fear.” Then he told her who he was.
“Are you a son of Olav Audunsson of Hestviken?” Her voice too was beautiful, rich and ringing. “You are not like your father. I remember him—he came home to these parts the year before I disappeared from—”
She asked him to go up with her to the houses, and Eirik saw that the place looked well, now the sun was shining; trees and meadow were nearly as far advanced as at home. But it was strangely deserted and lonely—and shut off, with the dark forest behind it, which was beginning to invade the old meadow-land, and the narrow lake in front, where the reflection of the high wooded slope on the south side darkened half the surface even on a bright May morning like this.
The ness on which the houses stood was almost cut off from the shore, by a neck of land so low that the water came over the grass on both sides. In flood-time it came right across, Eldrid told him.
“Then you must use a boat?”
“Boat?” Eldrid laughed mockingly. “We have naught to take us abroad, we who live here.”
The houses lay irregularly on the little mound, according as there had been room to build them. They were small and might have been kept in better repair. A bent old woman with her coif drawn low over her surly eyes glanced at the two as they went past.
The walls of the dwelling-house were only three logs high; there was a penthouse of upright timbers which formed a sort of anteroom, and only a single room within. Instead of the central hearth there was a fireplace by the door, and the wall in that corner was covered with slabs of stone and daubed with clay; at each end of the other long wall was an untidy bed. Other furniture there was none, but on the bench that ran round the walls all kinds of cups and platters, garments and pots and a butter-churn were piled in confusion.
Eldrid cleared a seat for him at the end of the room. “You must be hungry.”
He was—now he remembered that since he rode from home the day before at noon he had tasted nothing but a drink of milk at the cottage by Eiken. So he relished what Eldrid set before him on the bench: curds, oaten bread, and old cheese. Then he had to come out with his message:
“I come from your sister, Eldrid—from Gunhild of Eiken—”
“My s
ister!” Eldrid gave him a strange look. Then she took a spindle from the jumple on the bench, thrust it into her belt, and began to spin. “That sister of mine whom you name I have neither seen nor heard from until now. And I wonder who can have spoken to her of me. Not her parents, I trow. What would she, then—Gunhild, my sister?”
“She begs you to save her. They will give her to an old man, a widower, whom she has never seen. And now she thinks—perhaps you will take pity on her. There is none other in the world from whom she may look for kindness.”
Eldrid looked at him with a shadow of a smile on her brown and broken lips. “Hm. And you—maybe you are he whom she would have?”
“It was agreed that I should be betrothed to Gunhild last winter. But then her father broke with us.”
“And maybe it was too late?” said Eldrid as before.
Eirik guessed her meaning; he was annoyed with himself for turning red, but replied in an even tone: “Ay—so long as we thought we had only to wait a year or so, and the old people would have made up their differences—we should have been content. But if Berse will once more give his young hind to an old buck, he will find it is too late, he shall not so dispose of Gunhild. She will not submit, and I will not suffer that man to get her.”
“But what help do you look to me for?” asked Eldrid. “Shall I go to Berse and invoke a curse on him?”
Eirik had sat and watched her. Although she looked as if she had been dried over many fires, there was still something fine about her; her hair was not wholly hidden by the stiff coif: it was dark, streaked with grey, and a lock of it fell with a strange charm over the broad, smooth forehead, across which ran two sharp furrows. Hollow as her cheeks were, he had never seen anything more beautiful than the rounding of her jawbone and the curve of her chin. The eyes were deeply sunk in their great sockets, and there were many wrinkles about them, but they were large, dark, and grey. Her mouth, however, was brown and scaly, with a deep red crack through the underlip. And the hands that span were red and cracked and knotted with gout.
Yet he could not believe that everything he had heard about her was true. And even if she had erred—gravely—they must first have wronged her cruelly. And however that might be, it was a pitiable sight to see this fair and high-born woman, banished and aging, dwelling in so miserable a cabin.
Then he began and told her the whole story of his courtship from beginning to end.
“So it was she who sent you hither?”
“Yes.”
“And you expect her to keep her word and come hither?”
“Yes. But if you will tell us of a place where we can find lodging till she be rested, we will gladly betake ourselves thither, if you would rather have it so.”
“If I am afraid to have to do with this affair, you mean?” Eldrid laughed. “Rather will Gunhild be afraid, when she comes from Eiken and sees how her sister lives.”
“She will think as I do,” said Eirik quietly. “It should not be so. And it must be mended.”
“Do you seek to tempt me with a reward?” asked Eldrid mockingly.
“I know not if you will call it a reward if I do what I can to see my sister-in-law righted. I have heard that your brother tried, but he fell—”
Eldrid let her hands sink into her lap. But then she said: “You seem to have no fear of defiling yourself, Eirik, if you touch pitch. But if you purpose ever to be reconciled with Berse, you must throw over both that brother-in-law of yours who deals in stolen goods and the sister-in-law who is a whore. Ay, Berse was the first of all men who called me by that name, and he told no lie of his best friend’s wife. Better that no man hear of it, if it should come about that you lie with your young bride at the Ness any night.”
“I thought to ask one other boon of you,” said Erik. “I will ask you to show Gunhild such kindness as to ride north in our company. None will think it of you that you sold your young sister to dishonour.”
Slowly Eldrid’s face flushed red. But then she laughed. “I should have to ride my grey bull then—I have no horse!”
“The bay will carry both Gunhild and me,” said Eirik imperturbably, “till we get one for you on the way.”
Eldrid only laughed again.
“Must you do your spring husbandry here without a horse?” asked Eirik after a while. “Or do you borrow one of your neighbours?”
“I have mattock and spade,” replied Eldrid shortly. “And basket and pannier.”
Now he was told that she lived here alone with the old hag he had seen, a palsied old man who was her kinsman—she had taken him in because he was Berse’s enemy—and a half-grown lad who herded for her and helped with whatever there might be.
“But then we must seize the opportunity while I am here with my horse,” said Eirik. And when she would not hear of it, he laughed and said she must take it as if she had a brother come to the house. Then he jumped up and ran out.
When she came out awhile after, she found him down in the cornfield, where only a little work had been done in one corner. He had dragged out an old plough and was engaged in putting it in order so that he could harness the bay to it. His long cloak and his blue holy-day kirtle lay on the ground, and Eirik stood in nothing but a red homespun shirt, short breeches, long hose, and riding-boots.
“Are you going to plough in those boots?” asked Eldrid.
“No, if you could lend me something else to wear on my feet, it would be better.”
“How old are you, Eirik Olavsson?” asked Eldrid.
“Oh—I am not young—nine and twenty.”
“One would not think you were nineteen.”
“When I was nineteen,” replied Eirik with a laugh, “I was far wiser—as folks reckon.”
Late in the afternoon Eirik said he would ride northward—to see if anyone were in sight.
“How did you think she would come hither?” asked Eldrid.
Eirik said he did not know—perhaps she had someone at the manor who was faithful to her.
“I believe you think she will come!” Then she said: “It will be late ere you come back?”
No, said Eirik, the bay was tired—“but I can go into the barn and lie there, as I lay last night.”
“No,” said Eldrid curtly; “’tis not often we have guests here, but since you are come, I will not suffer that you be treated otherwise than is fitting. I shall make ready the outer bed for you and leave the door unbolted.”
It was nevertheless later than he had thought when he returned. A white mist was rising from the water and the bog as he rode across from the end of the lake; all was still at the homestead. Eirik stole in quietly. The room was dark and warm; he guessed that Eldrid was in bed.
He had not said his hours since prime, so he knelt at the foot of the bed and prayed—seven paternosters for each of the lesser hours, fifteen for vespers, and seven for complin. The last he said for her who gave him hospitality: he had seen something of her loneliness, and he swore that if it were in his power he would better her condition.
He had taken off his outer garments and was climbing into bed when Eldrid’s voice came from the far corner:
“I have left milk and food for you on the hearth—you played truant from your supper.”
“Thanks, I am not hungry. ’Twas ill of me to wake you.”
“Is it your practice every evening—to pray so long?” she asked again.
“Yes. But I have told you, I had as lief sleep in the barn. Then I shall not disturb you with my practices.”
She gave a little laugh. “Nay, you may freely keep your practices for me.”
The days went by. When Eirik thought of Hestviken and Saltviken and of his people there, it all seemed strangely far away and long ago. He wondered at times what they could think had become of him. And he wondered a little how Gunhild would contrive to come hither. Now it would soon be a week—
But he felt it was as it should be, that he was living here at this strange and lonely homestead in the depth of the dark forest. Ev
ery morning when he came out, the ness lay like an island in a sea of white mist, and above it rose the hills, dark with firs. Then came the sun and drove away the mist, and all day long it shone on these awakening fields, the corn that she had sown before he came was already green, and the leaves grew denser in the thickets, and the grass in the meadow was long and glossy. He determined to do all the work for her that he could find—and there was enough to put one’s hand to here. Her poverty astonished him—she had scarcely any meal in the house, and of her cows three gave no milk and the other two but little, though they were in better condition than most cows in springtime—she had pasture for many more cattle than she owned. Most of her sheep had been taken by wild beasts the year before, and her corn had frozen; houses and implements were as might be expected in a place where there was no man and no horse to bring in materials of any sort. To make up for the shortage of food she had nets in the lake and snares in the woods, and Eirik undertook to look after both for her.
It dawned on Eirik that this place had a strangely familiar air-as though he had once lived here, long ago. It was the first home he could remember that now came back to him—it was long since he had thought of it, but now it stood forth; that too had been a place far out of the way and deep in the forest, but he did not recall any water. And Eldrid became merged in a strange way with a dream he had had when a child—of a woman in a blue mantle, half human and half bird; he had been afraid of her, but she was beautiful too, and he had called her Leman, for he was so small he knew not the meaning of that word, but he thought it was something that flew. Ay, he had confused this dream vision with his mother—he knew not how it was, but now it came over him that the Ness was like that first place he remembered in the world, and Eldrid reminded him of Leman in his dream.
But every evening he rode out along the road by which he had come, to meet Gunhild, and back he came across the marshes, when evening had deepened to grey spring night and the white mist from lake and meadows was rising about Eldrid’s farm.
The Son Avenger Page 22