The Axe (33 page)

“What say you to that?”

“I have never thought any such thing,” she whispered, wringing her hands. “That you could—ask for me—”

“I have thought of it before, I have—last summer, sometimes. I liked you from the first time I saw you—and as you made no secret of your liking for me—But ’tis not certain”—he looked down at her with a crafty laugh—“that I should have bestirred myself so speedily had you not barred your door to me even the second night. Nay, I saw myself afterwards that ’twould have been too perilous had we carried on with that game at Berg. And to lose you I am loath.—So now you may cease to mourn for your
sin
, if ’tis that has troubled you!” He smiled and stroked her cheek—Ingunn cowered away, like a dog that expects to be whipped. “I had scarce thought you would take
that
so sadly—But haply you can take comfort now, my poor one?”

“Teit—’tis impossible we two can come together—”

“Neither Gunnar nor Master Torgard seemed to think so.”

“What is it you have told them?” she whispered almost in-audibly.

“I have told them all there has been between us—save the thing you wot of,” he laughed. “But I have told them that we two have gotten such a heart-felt kindness for each other. And now at last you had let me know for certain that you would fain we should be wed.—But you must know I have said naught that may let them guess I have had more of you than your
word.”
He gave a wanton laugh, took her by the chin, and tried to make her look up. “My Ingunn?”

“I have never meant that.”

“How so?” Teit’s face darkened. “Do you mean perchance I am too poor a match for you? Gunnar and Master Torgard did not think that, I ween. You must know I have no thought of staying in Gunnar’s service after I am married—we are agreed that I shall leave him even now, after Yule. ’Tis not my purpose to stay longer in this part of the country either—unless you wish it and your kinsfolk will give us land to live on, but haply they will not do that. Nay, but Master Torgard will give me letters to the Archbishop himself, Ingunn, and to certain friends of his in the chapter there—and he will write in them that I am a most skilful clerk and painter of images on vellum. I can support you much better by my handicraft, when I come to such a place as Nidaros, than any of you country folk think. There I might find many roads to wealth, Ingunn—when I get woods that I can trade in.—And then we can sail home to Iceland. You spoke of that many a time in the summer, and said you were so fain to come to Iceland. I think I can promise you that I shall be able to take you thither, and that right handsomely.”

He looked down at her white, terror-stricken face and it made him angry. “You ought to think of it, Ingunn—you are not so young either: you have entered on the second score of years. And your suitors have not worn down the grass of your kinsmen’s courts lately, I have heard—” he looked away, a little ashamed of his own words.

“Teit—I
cannot!”
She twisted her hands violently in her lap. “There is another—another to whom I have given my troth—long years ago—”

“I marvel whether he would deem you have kept it well, if he knew all,” said Teit dryly. “ ’Tis not I would be content with such a troth if ’twere
my
betrothed that gambolled with a strange man and jested with him so freely—as you have shown me that you liked the game we two have played last summer. Nay, the troll trounce me if I would—not even if you had kept back that which you parted with the first day we chanced to be alone in the house!”

Ingunn put her hand to her face as though he had struck her. “Teit—’twas against my will!”

“Nay—I know that!” He gave a sneering laugh.

“I did not believe—I could not think you would do such a thing.”

“Nay, how could you?”

“You were so young—you are younger than I am; I thought it was but wanton frolic, for you were so young a boy—”

“Ay, that was it.”

“I resisted—and tried to defend myself—”

Teit gave a little laugh. “Ay, ’tis the way with most of you—but I am not so young but that I have learned this—that nothing makes you women so angry and so scornful of a young and innocent lad as when he lets himself be checked by such—resistance!”

Ingunn stared at him, stiff with horror.

“Ay, had you been a pure young maid—never have I shamed a young maid, I am not like that. But you cannot ask me to believe you did not know full well how the dance would end that you led me the whole summer long?”

Ingunn continued to stare—slowly a blush crept over her grey face.

“I may tell you,” said Teit coolly, “so much have I heard of you that I know of that man who served in your father’s home—with whom you had a bastard when you were but fourteen—”

“He was no serving-man. And never have I had a child.” Then she bowed low; with her arms clasping her knees and her head hidden in them she began to weep very softly.

Teit smiled doubtfully as he stood looking down at the weeping girl.

“I know not if ’tis he you wait for—to come back and marry you? Or if you have had others since—However that may be, he seems not to kill himself with haste, this friend of yours—I greatly fear, Ingunn, ’tis of no use you stay for him. For if you did that, there might easily come too many between you.”

She sat as before, weeping silently and in bitter pain. Teit said, more gently: “Better take me, Ingunn, whom you have in your hand. I shall be—I shall be a
good
husband to you, if only you will put off this—flightiness of yours—and be steady and sane from this day. I—I am fond of you,” he stammered awkwardly, stroking her bowed head lightly. “In spite of all—”

Ingunn shook his hand from her head.

“Weep not so, Ingunn. I have no thought of deceiving you!”

She raised her head and gazed fixedly before her. It would be idle, she guessed, to try to tell him the truth of what he had
heard. Such must indeed be the talk hereabouts, where none knew Olav, and few had known her as other than a worthless woman, the shame of her race, whom her kinsfolk had thrust aside in disgrace.

She had not strength to speak of it either.—But this new thing that had befallen her with Teit—she thought she must tell him how it had been brought about. So she broke silence: “I know well that this is a punishment for my sin—I knew I sinned grievously when I would not forgive Kolbein, my father’s brother—I rejoiced when he was dead, and I thought of him with hatred and lust of vengeance; I refused to go with the others to his funeral feast. He it was who was the chief cause that I was parted from one to whom I was promised in childhood and would have taken before all. Not one prayer would I say for Kolbein’s soul, though I guessed he might need all the prayers that—When they said the
De profundis
at even, I went out of the room. And I refused to go north with the others to his burial.

“God have mercy on me. I knew well that it is sinful to hate an enemy after he has been called to judgment. Then you came—and I was fain to think of other things—I was happy. And when you would bear me company up in the weaving-loft—I had no other thought but that you were a boy—and as it was with me then, I had most mind to play and romp with you, for I would think no more of the dead man; and when we took to throwing the wool from the sacks at each other—But I never thought, nay, I never thought, that if you were uncourtly and said lewd words—I thought ’twas only that you were so young and wanton—”

Teit stood looking down at her with the same doubtful little smile.

“Well—let that be so. I got you first against your will. But afterwards—at night?”

Ingunn dropped her head, hopelessly. Of
that
she could say nothing—she was scarce able to unravel it to herself.

She had lain awake hour after hour, crushed by dismay and shame. And nevertheless it was as though she could not bring herself to see that it was true—that now she was lost and branded with shame. For already it seemed but as the memory of a dream or an intoxication, her own wild merriment of the afternoon in the wool-loft. And that Teit had caught her—but all the time his image appeared to her as she had brought herself to see it after
Midsummer Night, when next day she had been angry with herself for her foolish fear of him: for he was but a boy, a likable, clever, lively boy, who had brought her nothing but pleasure; a little wanton of speech, but then he was so young—And yet she knew, as she lay there, that now she had brought disaster upon herself even to death and perdition, and now she was an adulteress.

At last she had fallen asleep. And she was awakened by Teit taking her in his arms. She had not thought to bar the door—they never did so when they slept in the loft in summer. She no longer remembered clearly why she had not tried to be rid of him. Perhaps she had thought it would make her shame yet deeper if she now said she would have no more to do with him who had already possessed her—that she was loath to see him again and hated him. And when he himself came and she heard his bright young voice, she may have thought that after all she did not hate him so terribly—he was so simple-hearted and had no inkling of
what
he had brought upon her. For he knew nothing of her being bound to another, married in the sight of God.

Only next morning, when she looked at her misfortune in the clear light of day, was it borne in upon her that she must escape from this at once—must not let herself be dragged yet deeper. She felt that she herself had no power to do anything, of her own strength she could not break with him. But she had cried for help in her bitter woe—“Whatever may become of me, I shall not complain, if only I be saved from further sin—”

Teit stood looking at her. And as she still kept silence, he held out his hand to her. “Better not to quarrel, Ingunn. Let us try to agree and be friends.”

“Yes. But I will not marry you. Teit—you must tell these friends of yours they are not to bring forward your suit—”

“That I will not do. And if your kinsmen say yes?”

“Still I must say no.”

Teit paused for a moment. She saw his rage seething in the young man. “And what if I do as you wish—cease my wooing and come here no more? And if your kinsfolk should see for themselves, in a little while, that you have strayed again into your old bad ways?”

“Still I would not marry you.”

“You must not be too sure of finding me and catching me again,
if you should need me this winter. I
have
offered once to do rightly by you, and you met me with scorn and cruel words.”

“I shall not need you.”

“Are you so sure of that?”

“Yes. Before I would send for you—I would cast myself into the fiord.”

“Ay, ay. That will be your doing and not mine—your sin and not mine. Since you seem to think we have no more to say—?”

Ingunn nodded in silence. Teit paused a moment—then turned on his heel, leaped across the burn, and ran after his pony.

She was standing in the same place as he came riding up the path. He pulled up beside her.

“Ingunn—” he pleaded.

She looked him straight in the face—and, beside himself with rage and agitation, he leaned forward and struck her with all his force below the ear, making her reel. “A wicked wretch you are, a cursed, fickle bitch!” His voice was broken by sobs. “And may you have such reward as you deserve for the false game you played with me!”

He struck his heels into the pony’s sides, and the little jade broke into a trot—for a few paces. But where the hill began, it fell into its usual amble.

Ingunn stood watching the rider—she held her hand to her flaming cheek—but she was no longer angry with Teit for this. With a strange and painful clearness she saw that Teit could but think her what he had called her. And it added to her sorrow—even now she could remember that she had liked him. And she pitied him, for he was so young.

She would have to go home now, she thought. But she felt she must break down at the thought of the house above—nowhere could she turn without being reminded of this boy.

And yet she could not resist the rising thought at the back of her mind—in a few months it would all be easier for her. When she was no longer forced to think of—and a sudden pang of fear came over her like a hot wave. Though there was little likelihood of that—But would to God Teit had said nothing of it—she had dreaded it enough already. Sick as she now was, with grief and anxiety, she nevertheless knew that, when so much time had gone by that she might be quite sure she was safe from
that
, then she
would not suffer so terribly. Then she would not feel, as now, that her
whole
life had been ruined by this disaster and this sin.

Old Mistress Aasa failed greatly during the autumn, and Ingunn tended her lovingly and untiringly. Lady Magnhild marvelled at the girl: for all these years she had seen her niece dragging herself about like a sleepwalker, doing only what she could not avoid, and that little as slowly as might be. Now it seemed that Ingunn had waked up; her aunt saw that she could work when she chose—she was by no means so incapable when she took herself in hand. Now and again the thought occurred to Lady Magnhild: perhaps the poor thing was afraid of what might become of her when the old lady was gone; her unwonted diligence was a prayer to them not to look on her too ungraciously when the grandmother no longer needed her care. Perhaps they had not been friendly enough to the poor, frail child.

Ingunn snatched at everything she could find to occupy her. When her hands were not full with the sick old woman, she applied herself to any work she could find—anything that might help her to keep her thoughts from the one thing to which they constantly flew back in spite of herself; she waited in breathless tension for her fear to be proved groundless.

All the thoughts with which she had played for years—of life with Olav at Hestviken, of Olav coming to take her away, of their children—it was like the touch of the angel’s flaming sword merely to approach the memory of these dreams. She could scarce keep herself from wailing aloud.

She threw herself upon all such tasks as demanded thought—and told upon the body. She
would
not give in, if she felt sick this autumn—for she was not near so ailing as she had been the first days at Miklebö.