In the Wilderness (16 page)

Since that night after the pilgrimage all the thoughts he had struggled with seemed to have turned to stones. He remembered them and knew them in a way—as the lad in the fairy tale recognized his friends in the pillar-stones outside the giant’s castle. But they left him dull and cold. He knew that in this new calm that had come upon him he was a poorer man than before, when he had lived in fear and pain: beneath every stab of remorse and every longing for peace there had been something that was much greater and stronger than his fear: he loved Him from whom he fled, and even to the end he had secretly hoped that the hour would come when he could fly no more. Sooner or later, he must have thought, he would be reconciled with God—without its being left to him to choose. But he had been forced to choose and choose again. And so long had he chosen himself that he had lost even his love of God. But therewithal the fire and strength seemed to have gone out of his love for all else he had held dear in this world.

God, Jesus Christ, Mary—once he had only had to think upon these words for his heart to glow with fervour within him. Now it mattered nothing to him whether he said his prayers in church or at home, morning and evening, if others were by and it was the time, or whether he omitted to pray when alone. But this new indifference was as much poorer than his old torment as a heap of ashes is poorer than a blazing fire.

But Ingunn—were her memory never so faded and burned out, he would not cast it out to make room for new possessions. And
as his life was now, he would neither own nor bring into it this happiness he was offered.

Olav Half-priest had once told him of Hvitserk’s howe, the largest of the mounds here by the brow of the wood. It was before the Christian faith had come to the land; the race of Inggjald then possessed Hestviken, that stock of which his grandfather’s grandmother had come, and the name of the chief was Aale Hvitserk. He had been a famous viking, but now he was in extreme old age. Then his enemies burned his homestead of Hestviken—this was the first of the three burnings that had laid the manor in ashes. Aale’s sons cleared the site and had timber brought to build the houses anew, but Aale let his house-carls cast up a barrow, and on the day they set about dragging off the charred beams of Aale’s hall, the old man went into the mound and bade his thralls close up the earthen house with stones.

Olav Audunsson remembered that he had shaken his head when his old namesake told him this tale—but at the same time he had thought him a doughty fellow, that same old heathen.

Now he lay in the darkness smiling a little at this thought. He had taken good heed not to speak of it to any priest, but he offered a Yule cup to the spirit of the mound and carried out a bowl of ale on the eve of other great festivals. Even Arnvid did so at his own home—’twas no great sin, said he, if one did but go quietly about it, without asking anything of the dead in return. Now maybe he ought to be more mindful of his offerings—like enough he would meet with his heathen ancestor in the end.

I
T
had chanced, while Olav was in England, that Eirik had received full assurance that he was true-born.

He had had to go up to Rynjul one day with a packload—cups and vessels that Olav had borrowed for his wife’s funeral feast. Now they had a very snappish little bitch tied up in the yard there, and that day she had slipped out of her thong, dashed up, and bitten Eirik in the leg as he came in between the houses. Eirik kicked the bitch so that she rolled over on the grass howling. Torgrim rushed out of a door in a great rage:

“—afraid of a little dog like that—and kicking at a bitch—none but a child of bawdry such as you would do the like!”

Eirik had come into the hall, and Una was counting over her vessels; then the lad burst out:

“Una—those words that Torgrim said—are they
true?”

“Are what true?” she repeated from among her wooden cups.

“Child of bawdry—that is the same as whoreson, is it not, Una?” whispered Eirik dolefully.

“Yes—why?” She looked up and saw the lad standing there, pale as bast, his narrow young face stricken with despair. “Holy Mary—what ails you, Eirik?”

“Am
I that? Answer me truly, Una mine!”

Una Arnesdatter stood speechless.

“Ay, I guessed it long ago,” whispered Eirik.

“What
did you guess? Are you not ashamed—to say such a thing of your father—and your mother, who lies under the sod? Help us, what have you taken into your head now again!”

“You must have heard him say it, Torgrim—Father himself called me bastard once.”

“You may be sure,” said Una more gently, “neither of the two would have called you such bad names if you had been so indeed. Surely you have wit enough to see that ’twas only the word of an angry man.”

“Then
was
Mother married to Father?” asked Eirik.

“You have no need to ask that. Olav kept the poor woman in good and honourable state so long as she lived. You can have seen naught else.”

“He took the keys from her and gave them to his leman,” muttered Eirik. “That was a year and more ere Mother lost her health.”

“Say no more of that, boy.” Una turned red with indignation. “You do not understand it. I will speak no ill of your mother, poor soul that she was—’twas not
her
fault that her kinsmen dealt falsely by Olav, still less that she was as she was, sickly and feebleminded. None could expect a man to be well pleased with such a marriage as fell to the lot of our kinsman. Scarce had the Steinfinnssons got the rich heir into their power when they bound the little boy in bonds of betrothal to one of their own children; and then they cheated him of all he should have received with his
bride; never has Olav had help or honour of that alliance, but he was forced to take the ailing woman, for they had trapped him into her bed ere he was fully grown.”

Una talked thus for a good while and said what she thought of Olav’s married life. She was faithful to her own kin and fond of Olav as though he had been her brother; but though she had always been helpful and kind to his wife, she had had but a moderate liking for Ingunn, and in her heart she had called her a worm.

Together with Eirik’s first sense of boundless relief on knowing that none could drive him away from Hestviken, there came a smouldering indignation against his father. He might have spared himself these years of anxious insecurity—but it was his father’s fault: so barefaced had he been in his evil life with that cursed jade Torhild that it was only natural Eirik should fear the worst. Wrong, wrong, wrong had his mother suffered under her own roof.

Eirik spent that summer at Hestviken. Every corner of the old walls, every crack in the smooth-worn, reddish-grey rocks had a face that met his loving glances with a look of gentle kindness. The strip of seaweed under his own rocks looked different from seaweed elsewhere. No other wharves or boats smelt so good as theirs. When he took up the oars in his own boat or put out his nets, his whole body was filled with delight—
he
owned them! He caressed every animal he met that was theirs. Eirik took an ear of barley and laid it on his wrist over the pulse so that it crawled up under the sleeve—this old child’s game had become a sort of magic ceremony: it was
his
corn. He need no longer be afraid as he lived and moved among all these things—they would never vanish away out of his hands.

Eirik’s memory of his mother had quickly faded. In her last years, when she never left her bed, she had already passed out of the boy’s world; after her death he had soon ceased to think of her. Now that he was so indignant with his father, he felt an added resentment on his mother’s behalf; his affection for her awakened, he often longed for her. He had been so fond of her as long as she was well and he could be with her—and his father had treated her so harshly and cruelly.

But it only needed a friendly word from Olav, and Eirik forgot all his bitterness. Afterwards he remembered it and was angry at his own weakness. But no sooner did the man show him the least indulgence, no sooner did Eirik see but a shadow of the pale, frozen smile on his father’s lips as he spoke to him, than the son became insensible to all but his abject adoration of his father.

A short time after Olav’s return from England, Eirik heard the rumours that he was to marry Disa Erlandsdatter. Up at Rundmyr they gossiped freely about everything.

Eirik’s temper rebelled again. He would not have a stepmother. He would not hear of joint heirs in Hestviken. No strangers should come, bringing new customs or anything new. All should be his and Cecilia’s, the manor and the wharf and the woods on the Bull and along the back of the Horse Crag, Kverndal and Saltviken. He knew every path there, he had his own places, outlooks, and hidden grassy hollows among the grey rocks toward the sea; his habit was to go there, simply to sit there alone rejoicing vaguely and obscurely in the possession of these hiding-places. The hunting in the forest, the sealing, the fishery, all this would one day be in his control. But the last and inmost thought, which always made him mad with passion—for he knew he had no power to hinder its coming to pass—was that one day another might come between him and his father. He even spun long fabulous dreams of the deed that would one day make him his father’s favourite.

The seal-hunting wellnigh failed that year. And Olav lost a good new six-oared boat out in the skerries; the painter was cut one night, whether it was the work of an enemy or someone had stolen the boat. So Olav came home from sea in a gloomy temper, even for him.

Some days after, he had business that took him inland, and Eirik was to accompany him as far as the church; it was a Wednesday in the ember days, and Sira Hallbjörn insisted that all who could should attend church in the ember days.

The frost fog was thick that morning and left a film of ice on rocks and woodwork. Olav stood outside the stable door, while Eirik led out the horses and was about to saddle them. Olav was standing there, sleepy and dazed and fasting, when suddenly he turned to his son and said hotly:

“Will you not rub the bit before you put it in the horse’s mouth—in this searing cold?”

“ ’Tis not cold,” replied Eirik sullenly. “ ’Tis only the raw weather that feels cold.”

“Hold your tongue! Will you teach me to judge of the weather? If you had that scorching cold iron in your own jaws—”

Eirik snatched an iron rod that was stuck in the stable wall and bit on it. His father pulled it from him and flung it on the rock.

“You see—you are bleeding!”

“ ’Twas not that it scorched me—you tore my mouth.”

“Be silent,” said Olav curtly, “and have done now.”

About midday some of the church folk sat in the priest’s house taking a bite of the food they had brought, before setting out for home. The wound at the corner of Eirik’s mouth began to bleed again, and he told some of the other lads how he had got it; but he said it was his father who had taken the bit and forced it into his jaws.

Then he noticed that the silence which followed was heavy with scorn.

At last a boy said: “Shame on you, Eirik—do you let your father make a jade of you?”

Eirik look around, hesitating. He had meant to boast of what had befallen him. When he noticed the scorn on the others’ faces, something seemed to shrivel up within him. So he would make up for it.

“No. But indeed it were useless for me to stand up against him,” he said, warming with excitement. “I can tell you, I pulled off the halter and struck at him. But he has the strength of a troll, my father. One time, while he was with the Earl, they made wagers, how big a load he could lift. Father put his shoulders under the bench and raised himself till he stood upright. Eight men sat on that bench.”

He was met with icy silence.

“Then says the Earl: ‘If you can lift the table-top Olav Audunsson, it shall be yours, with all the silver that stands upon it.’ My father took the table and lifted it at arm’s length.”

“ ’Tis almost like the story you told us last year, Sira Hallbjörn,” said a young girl, with a giggle; “of that Christian knight who was a captive with the Saracen earl—what was his name?” There was a hearty laugh from some of the grown people.

Sira Hallbjörn was sitting apart on his bed. That day he was neither surly nor frolicsome; he seemed rather dull. He looked coldly at the maid.

“You remember, Sira Hallbjörn—at my brother’s wedding?”

“I know no such story. Your memory is at fault.”

But a little later, when folk were breaking up, the priest came abruptly behind Eirik Olavsson and took him firmly by the arm:

“What is your meaning with such talk—do you tell lies of your father?”

“Nay, I lied not, Sira,” Eirik answered coolly.

“You lied.” Sira Hallbjörn gave him a blow under the ear. “And now you lie to your parish priest. The Devil is in you, I believe. Be off with you now!”

At dusk Olav Audunsson rode up to the priest’s door. He would not go in, he said, it was too late. Sitting in the saddle he handed Sira Hallbjörn the casket of letters and turned to ride away at once. Sira Hallbjörn came out and walked at his side as Olav rode at a foot’s pace between the fences.

“Master Olav,” said the priest hotly, “you should not suffer your son to assort with those folk you have thought fit to set up at Rundmyr. ’Twill do the boy no good, what he learns there.”

Olav knew not what to reply to this. As he said nothing, the priest continued, repeating what Eirik had said of his father: “—he makes himself a mockery in the eyes of the whole parish, your son, by lying in this fashion—and lying so foolishly.” Meanwhile they had come to the crossroads, and the priest laid his hand on Olav’s bridle and held it as he looked up into the other’s face. There was still a glimmer of daylight within the mist that was gathering again—Olav saw with surprise that the priest seemed greatly agitated.

“I cannot guess why Eirik should say that.” Olav told him what had taken place between him and his son that morning.

“Ay, so goes it when the young have bad masters.”

Olav frowned and puckered his lips in a sort of smile, but made no answer. Eirik hardly needed a master to teach him lying—that talent he was surely born with.