In the Wilderness (21 page)

“I—?”

Olav went out, angry. His horse stood outside in the rain, hanging its head; the water poured off its mane, running in streams among the darkened strands. It fell in a sheet from the cloak he had laid over the saddle and the horse’s quarters when he put it on.

On the way he looked in at Rundmyr and questioned Anki and
Liv closely, making no concealment. They denied all knowledge of the matter, and Olav saw that they spoke the truth for once.

In the evening he asked Aasta—swallowed his pride and questioned the young serving-maid: “You can surely tell me, Aasta, whither Eirik has made off—since you two were such good friends?”

The girl turned red and tears came into her eyes. She timidly shook her head.

“But he came and said farewell to you, did he not, before he took himself off?”

Aasta broke into sobs. “There was no tie of friendship between me and Eirik, Master Olav.” Eirik had only jested a little with her once or twice; Eirik was good-natured, wanton, but kind. On seeing her master’s little crooked smile she wept outright and swore most solemnly that she never forgot the teachings of her honest parents, her honour and good name were without stain or blemish.

“Ay, if you let the young lads handle you as I saw that morning, you will soon find yourself without either the one or the other,” said Olav sternly. “Now go and cry outside.”

Then there was nothing left but to peer into his own despair. All day long Olav cudgelled his brains to find some credible explanation—what
could
Eirik have done? He had gone away in his great hooded cloak, his sword and spear he had taken with him. A little gold pin in the band of his shirt and a great brooch in the bosom of his jerkin, these and his finger-ring with a red agate he always wore; had he made for the town he might have provided himself with a lodging by selling one of these trinkets. He might have gone to Claus Wiephart or to the armourer’s—or to one of the monasteries. Or, if he had been able to get carried across the fiord, to Tunsberg—likely enough the lad might have taken it into his head to seek his fortune where so many lords were passing to and fro. Between whiles Olav tried to fan into flame his first indignation at Eirik’s flight.

But at night he lay awake—and then his thoughts would only dwell on what might have
happened
to Eirik. He might have lost his way in the fog that night, have fallen over the cliff somewhere. For the son of Hestviken manor was well enough known to many—it was incredible that he could disappear as if he had sunk into the ground or—Carried off, spirited away, spellbound by the
powers of evil—now Olav called to mind all the stories Eirik had told as a child, about his intercourse with the folk of that world. There might have been some truth in it after all, even if he made up a deal of it. Or if he had been out on the fiord the second day after he ran from home—many boats’ crews had not been heard of since that day. Nor were the roads inland so safe but that it might be dangerous for a young lad, well dressed and armed, with jewels on him, to travel alone. Northward, in the forests about Gerdarud, there were reports of robbers.—Or, or—For all that, Olav knew not a little of Eirik’s fickle nature; he turned to melancholy as suddenly as to sport and dalliance. But he could not surely have taken his correction so much to heart as to throw himself into the fiord—

“Ingunn, Ingunn, Ingunn mine—help me, where is the boy?

“Jesus, Mary—where
is
Eirik?”

Olav rose on his knees in the bed with his head in his clasped hands. He leaned his forehead against the foot of the bed. “Not for myself do I pray for mercy. Holy Mary, I taught the boy these prayers myself when he was a child—be mindful of that now!”

But that was an age ago—he did not know whether Eirik remembered anything of them now. It was an age since he had thought of teaching the children anything of that sort. Cecilia never a word—that he had left to Mærta. It had come to this, that he
could
not and
dared
not. But, God, God!
they
must not suffer for it. He prayed God to take Eirik under His protection, he prayed God’s Mother for his son, he prayed Saint Olav and Saint Eirik, as he had never been wont to pray.

Sometimes it made him a little calmer. For himself he cared not now, but for the young lad, Ingunn’s son—

He never thought of Cecilia thus—that she was Ingunn’s daughter as much as his.

He could not prevent the servants from talking of Eirik’s flight. He himself said hardly anything, but he listened stiffly and intently—whether the others might have heard some news.

The southerly weather held. A draught of wind whistled through the church on Christmas Eve, levelling the flames of the candles in the lustrous choir whenever the storm came down with full force—the vault above was darkened, and then the heavy
doors shook and the window-shutters rattled—as if the spirits of the tempest flung themselves with all their might against every barrier in their fury to thwart the sacred ceremony that was proceeding in the choir. There was a howling and piping about the corners of the building, a vast droning in the ash trees on the ancient burial mounds beyond the churchyard fence. Through the roaring dissonance of the storm the singing of the mass sounded strangely still and strong—like the smooth streak of a current in the midst of a rough sea.

The moment the silver bells chimed and the congregation knelt, while
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
resounded from the choir, it fell still. The candle-flames recovered themselves and gleamed erect; the painted images on the whitened walls of the chancel seemed to spring forth, shining in their blue and yellow and rust-red colours. Sira Hallbjörn’s tall form, clad in pure white linen with the golden chasuble, appeared like that of an angel, descended straight from the heavenly visions of Saint John—a bearer of good tidings and a herald of God’s judgment.

Then came a fresh gust of wind, crashing and roaring against the walls; the choir was plunged in gloom as the priest bent over the paten, whispering. The tolling of the bell in the ridge-turret over the people’s heads was drowned in the raging of the storm.

When the congregation rose to its feet after the
Agnus Dei
, Olav Audunnsson remained sunk on his knees. Baard Paalsson from Skikkjustad, who stood by his side, bent down, trying to look into his face in the darkness.

“Are you sick, Olav?”

Olav shook his head and stood up.

After mass Olav and Baard struggled side by side across the green to the tithe barn. The great lantern under the roof swayed hither and thither. Everywhere in the shadows they descried the forms of folk who lay in the straw to take a short rest before the Mass of the Shepherds.

Olav unhooked his cloak and shook the rain from it.

“Are you sick?” asked Baard again. “You are pale as a ghost.”

“No,” said Olav. He went in and lay down in the straw, where some men moved closer to make room for the two.

“Nay, but I thought it,” said Baard, “since you were not with Eirik. I saw how pale you turned tonight, and I thought maybe
you had been unwell. Gunnar and Arne spoke of it; they thought it strange that you let your son travel thus alone, with only a token—”

“What mean you?” Olav managed to say.

Baard made no answer—he could not follow.

“Gunnar and Arne—is it Arne of Haugsvik you speak of?” As Baard said nothing, Olav resumed, as unconcernedly as he could: “ ’Twas not with my consent that Eirik left home—nor
against
my will either. He deemed he was old enough to shift for himself now—so I thought, let him try it. Then he took the road for Oslo,” Olav ventured at a hazard. “He came through safe and well?” he asked when he received no answer.

Yes, he came through safe and well, replied Baard sleepily—it was the day of the storm. And he had been in good heart, said Arne, when the lad parted from them. But out at Haugsvik, when he came and asked for a place in their boat, he had told them there was an agreement between Olav and one of the great lords in the town that Eirik should enter his service in order to learn the trade of war and courtly ways. Nay, who his new lord was to be, Eirik had refused to say—that was his way, always such an air of secrecy.

Olav lay with his hands clasped under his cloak. “God, my God, I thank Thee—Mary, most clement, most kind, what shall I do to show my gratitude?” Memories of burned out thoughts stirred like ashes driven off by a puff of wind. Nay, that was all over—but he would give something to her poor, a cow to Inga, who had the leper son.

But as he rode homeward after the morning mass, in pouring rain—the wind had dropped now—his anger revived. Such conduct he had never heard of indeed—and there had been the usual bragging and romancing out at Haugsvik, he could guess.—A token, it occurred to Olav; what could that token be?—surely he had never taken something, his seal or seal-ring, for instance—run away from home as a thief?

He sat leaning over the table, silent and gloomy, scarcely noticing his house-carls, who fell on the steaming dish of meat. Now and then he recollected himself sufficiently to raise the ale-bowl, drink to them, and let it go round.

Afterwards he went in and turned over his store of treasures. But nothing was missing.

His wrath came and went in waves, died down and gave place to uneasiness. Eirik had made his way to Oslo—more than that he did not know as yet—and there was no saying what he might fall into there. There was no help for it, he would have to go and find out about his son, ill as it suited him to leave home at this time.

At last, on Twelfth Day, Olav met with a farmer up the parish who had spoken with Eirik in the town. He had been in to Nonneseter at Yule—the convent owned a share in the farm he occupied—and there he had come upon Eirik in the guests’ refectory. He sat waiting while his master, Sir Ragnvald Torvaldsson, had speech with the Abbess.

The day after, Olav sailed in to Oslo. Inside the Sigvalda Rocks the fiord was frozen over. A great number of boats had been left at the edge of the ice, and there was not a horse to borrow at any of the farms about. So Olav let old Tore stay with their boat while he walked alone across the ice to the town.

He found Tomas Tabor and sent him out to the old royal castle at the river-mouth—Sir Ragnvald had custody of the place. But Eirik did not come to his father’s inn the first day; the evening of the second day was wearing on and still Olav sat there waiting.

The travellers, as many as were at home, lay under the skins in their sleeping-places—it was cold. The hostess sat dozing by the hearth, huge in her sheepskin wraps; she was only waiting till it was time to rake over the fire and bar the door. Olav sat on his bed, with his hands hanging over his knees; his legs were like ice from the cold of the floor, and he was dull with waiting.

The woman got up to tend the two lanterns that hung at each end of the long hall of the inn. “Will you not go to bed, master?”

Then there was a knock at the door. It was Eirik.

Olav went a few steps to meet him and gave him his hand in greeting. They happened to come together just under the lantern. In a way the father must have noticed before now that Eirik had grown taller than himself and that shadows of dark down had begun to appear about his mouth, but never before had he been wholly aware of the change—Eirik was grown up. He was well dressed—wearing a plain steel cap, and under it a dark blue woollen
hood that framed the narrow, swarthy face, making it seem yet narrower. His long cloak was brown and of good stuff; under it he was clad in a tight leather jerkin and he wore a sword at his belt, in token that he was now one of his lord’s men-at-arms. Long iron spurs jingled as he walked.

“You will not get me back with you to Hestviken, Father,” he said as soon as Olav let go his hand.

“I had not thought to do so either,” replied Olav. “If you have taken service with a lord, you must know that I would not have you run from it before your time.” To the hostess, who came up and asked whether she should bring drink for him and his guest, he replied yes, the best German beer.

“Nay,” said Olav as they seated themselves on his bed; “I would have liked it better if you had spoken to me before you made off—but it is useless to talk of that now.”

Eirik blushed slightly and asked with embarrassment: “You have business that brings you here, then?”

“My business is to give you what you need—you shall be provided as befits
my
son when you go out into the world.” Olav pulled out of the bed a bag of clothes, a good battle-axe, and the blade of a thrusting-spear. Then he handed his son a purse: “Here are four marks of silver in good, old money. It is my will that you get yourself a horse as soon as you can—that you may be held of more account. It ill befits a man-at-arms to ride his master’s horses like a serving-man of villein birth. More than that you shall not have of me, Eirik, so long as you stay abroad. You have chosen to be master of your own conduct—so be it then, and let it be such that you win honour thereby.”

Eirik rose and thanked his father with a kiss of the hand. It gave him a warm thrill that his father spoke to him as a grown man; it was not often his father had addressed so long a speech to him. And yet there was a shade of disappointment—that this meeting did not turn out as he had pictured it to himself ever since Tomas Tabor brought him Olav’s message: he had expected his father to be greatly angered, to threaten and command him to return; and then he would have made answer—But it seemed his father had taken his flight very calmly and had no thought at all of bringing him home again.

“Thanks, I am not hungry—” but, for all that, Eirik helped himself from his father’s box of victuals and took a good draught as
often as Olav offered him the tankard. At heart he very soon felt quite proud—it was an uncommon and almost a solemn occasion to be sitting here eating and drinking with his father at an inn and asking for the news from home—two grown-up men together.

“But how did you find out that I was here in Oslo, with Sir Ragnvald?”

Olav smiled his little pinched smile. “Oh—I find out most of what I
will
know, Eirik. When you have come to my age, perhaps you will have got so much wisdom as not to let men see all that you know.”