The Axe (43 page)

Tora had sent for the priest the evening before, when the case looked ill; and as she thought there was little life in the boy, she asked him to baptize him before he left. They asked the mother what name he was to have, but she only groaned and hid under the bedclothes. Neither Magnhild nor Tora cared to recall any of the men of their kindred in this child, and so they asked the priest to give him a name. He replied that today the Church commemorated Saint Eirik, king and martyr, and therefore he would call Ingunn’s child after him.

Tora Steinfinnsdatter was both angry and sorrowful as she sat with this ill-omened little one, her own nephew, on her lap, and the mother would take no notice of him.

On the third day after the birth Ingunn was very ill. Tora guessed she was suffering from the milk, which was now bursting her breasts. She was unable to move, or to bear any one’s touching her, and she could not swallow a scrap of food, but complained of intolerable thirst. Tora said it would be much worse if she drank—the milk would then rise to her head: “Not a drop dare I give you, unless you will let me give you Eirik—” But still Ingunn would not take her child.

In the evening, when Tora was preparing the boy for the night, she chanced to upset the basin of water, and she had no more warm water in the room. For a moment she was uncertain what to do. Then she wrapped a cloth about the naked child and bore him to the bed. Ingunn lay in a feverish doze, and before she could prevent her, Tora had laid Eirik on his mother’s arm and gone out.

She made no haste in the cook-house—but all at once she was struck with fear and ran back. In the doorway she heard Ingunn’s loud and piercing sobs. Tora rushed forward and pulled back the coverlet. “In God’s name—you have not done anything to him!”

Ingunn did not answer. Eirik lay there, with his knees drawn up to his stomach, and his hands to his nose; small and thin and brownish red; the warmth of his mother seemed to do him good. His wide, dark eyes looked as though he were thinking.

Tora drew a breath of relief. She took the basin that Dalla brought her, lifted the boy, and finished washing him. Then she wrapped him in swaddling-clothes and carried him back to the bed.

“Shall I lay him beside you?” she asked, as indifferently as she could.

With a long-drawn plaint Ingunn raised her arms, and Tora laid the child in them. Her hands trembled a little, but she made an effort to talk in a calm and level voice as she propped her sister up, laid Eirik to her breast, and strove to get him to suck.

After this Ingunn obediently took the boy when Tora brought him and laid him to her breast. But she remained as sorrowful as before and seemed to have lost heart entirely.

She was still in bed when Arnvid came riding one evening to Berg. Lady Magnhild had sent word to Miklebö as soon as Ingunn was delivered.

Arnvid came into the room, greeting Lady Magnhild and Tora as calmly and courteously as though nothing unusual were afoot. But when he came up to the bed and met Ingunn’s look of mortal dread, his own face became stiff and strange. A burning flush spread over her face and throat as she fumbled shyly with her thin fingers at her breast—drew her shift together and turned the child’s face, which was instantly convulsed in a scream, toward the man.

“Ay, is he not what women call pretty?” said Arnvid with a smile touching the child’s cheek with one finger. “ ’Twas a shame you made such haste to have him christened. You should have been my godson, kinsman.”

He seated himself on the step beside her bed and slipped his hand under the bedcover so that he touched the child’s head and the mother’s arm. It was uncanny, the way she trembled—and then came what he was waiting for, Lady Magnhild asked after Olav.

“I was to give you all greetings from him. He parted from me at Hamar, would hasten home now; he thought he could be back here about the Selje-men’s Mass;
by that time Ingunn should be strong enough to go south with him.” He pressed her arm tightly to make her keep calm.

He replied to Magnhild’s and Tora’s questions, told what he knew of Olav’s plans. All three made as though all was well—though each one knew that they all thought the same: how would life shape itself for these two? Here lay the bride with another man’s child at her breast, and the bridegroom knew it, as he rode south to make his house ready to receive its mistress.

But at last Arnvid said he would fain speak a few words with Ingunn alone. The two ladies stood up; Tora took the child from its mother to carry it to the cradle.

“And this one?” she asked. “It is Olav’s wish that he shall go southward with his mother?”

“Ay, so far as I understood, that was his wish.”

Then he was left alone with her. Ingunn lay with closed eyes. Arnvid stroked her under the roots of the hair, wiped away the
perspiration. “Olav bade me stay here till he himself can come and fetch you.”

“Why so?” she asked in fear.

“Oh, you know—” he hesitated. “Folk are a little more wary of what they say when there is a danger their talk may reach a man—”

Beads of perspiration came out on Ingunn’s forehead. She whispered almost inaudibly: “Arnvid—is there no way out—for Olav—so that he may be free—?”

“Nay.—Nor has he given any sign,” Arnvid added, “that he wished it.”

“If we besought—the Archbishop—on our knees—promised to do penance—?”

“His Bishop could give him leave to live apart from you—if Olav would ask it of him. That he will fetch you home and live with you—this he does of his own free will. But no man can sunder the bond there is between you, so that Olav could freely take another wife—not even the Pope in Romaborg, as I believe.”

“Not even if I went into a nunnery?” she asked, trembling.

“So far as I know, you must have Olav’s consent to that. And he would not be free to marry again. But to be a pious nun I trow you are the least fitted of women, my poor Ingunn.

“Then you must remember what Olav himself said to me. It was he who once staked all upon the judgment of Holy Church in the question whether you two were husband and wife or not. He himself called for Bishop Torfinn’s decree, whether your living together were binding wedlock according to God’s law and not fornication—and Lord Torfinn said yes to that. Strict as this Bishop was wont to be toward ravishers and all who violated the honour of women, he claimed on Olav’s behalf that this man should be suffered to do penance and make atonement with Einar’s kinsmen.—Do you understand—Olav
cannot
depart from his own word, nor will he either, he says.

“Nay, here I talk on, forgetting that you are still weak. Be easy now, Ingunn—remember what manner of man Olav is. Stubborn and headstrong; when he wills a thing he must have it. But you must have heard the saying, trusty as a troll—”

But it could not be seen in Ingunn that she had plucked up heart. The other women were mightily consoled when they knew
for certain that Olav Audunsson would make no ado, but would take to himself the wife he had once claimed in so boastful and headstrong a fashion—and bear with her ill conduct in the meantime. Ingunn’s kinsmen, Ivar, her brothers, and Haakon, when they heard of the whole matter, said that Olav had injured them all so deeply, by first taking the bride to himself, then summoning her guardians before the Bishop’s court, and finally by killing Einar when he called him to account—that it was no more than justice if he held his peace, cloaked Ingunn’s shame, and did what he could to put a good end to a bad business. Moreover, Hestviken was far away. And even if folk in the south got to know that his wife had had a child by another man before Olav Audunsson married her, he would not be worse wed than many another good and worthy man. No man in his native district need know more than that, unless they themselves were foolish enough to let it come out that she had already been bound to Olav before she had the child, in such a way that some priests in any case would say the boy was begotten in adultery.

This was pointed out to Ingunn by Ivar and Magnhild. She listened to them, palefaced, and dark about the eyes; Arnvid saw that she was greatly disturbed by what they said.

“What say you to this, Arnvid?” she asked one day when Ivar and Haakon had been sitting with her, discussing their view of the case. She now left her bed in the daytime.

“I say,” replied Arnvid quietly, “God knows ’tis an ill thing it should be so—but you must see yourself, there is some truth in it—”

“You say that—you who call yourself Olav’s friend!” she burst out angrily.

“That I am—and I thought I had shown it more than once,” replied Arnvid. “And I will not deny that I have my part of the blame for the bad turn all this has taken. I counselled Olav unwisely, perhaps—I was too young and lacking in wisdom—and I should not have stayed in the guest-house that evening, when Einar picked a quarrel with us. But I shall do my friend no good, nor will you either, if we hide our heads under our wings and refuse to see that the Steinfinnssons too have
some
right on their side!”

But Ingunn burst into tears. “Not even you wish Olav better than this! None of you count his honour of any worth, none but I–”

“Nay,” said Arnvid—“and now he must lie in the bed you have made for him.”

Ingunn’s weeping stopped suddenly—she raised her head and looked at the man.

“Ah well, Ingunn—I should not have said it. But I have been stretched upon the rack of this case of yours so long now—” he said wearily.

“But what you said was true.”

The child lay in the bed screaming; Ingunn went and took it up. Arnvid noticed again what he had seen before—though she handled the little one tenderly and seemed to be fond of him, she always seemed to touch her child rather reluctantly, and she was very clumsy when she had to tend the boy herself. Eirik indeed always screamed and was restless and fretful in his mother’s arms; she could only quiet him with the breast for a very little while. Tora said this was because Ingunn was depressed and uneasy, so that she had little milk for him; Eirik was always hungry.

This time too he had soon finished sucking, and then he lay grimacing as he pulled at the empty breast. Ingunn gave a little sigh; then she fastened her clothes, stood up, and began to walk up and down the room, carrying the child. Arnvid sat looking at them.

“Will you accept it, Ingunn,” he asked, “if I offer to foster the child? I will bring up your son in my house and be to him as I have been to my own sons.”

Ingunn did not reply at once; then she said: “You would be a faithful kinsman to the boy, I know that. You had the right to expect that I should thank you for the friendship you have shown me all these years, better than I do.—But should I die, you must—you must take care of Eirik—then ’twill be easier for me in my last hour.”

“You must not speak of such things
now,”
said Arnvid, trying to smile. “You who are just up and out of danger.”

When Eirik was six weeks old, the woman came with whom Lady Magnhild had bargained early in the spring—that she should receive and foster a child that would be born in secret at Berg. Now the rumours about Ingunn had got abroad nevertheless. So many different things were said as to who might be the father-but most people thought it was that Icelander who had been so
often at Berg last summer—now he was gone, doubtless run away for fear of the woman’s rich kinsmen. Now the foster-mother, Hallveig was her name, came one evening to Berg to ask what had become of the child—she had heard no more of the matter.

Before Lady Magnhild had thought of what she should say, Ingunn came forward and said she was the mother of the child, and Hallveig should take it with her when she went home the next day. Hallveig looked at Eirik and said he was a fine child; while waiting for her food, she took him up and laid him to her breast.

The mother stood over them and looked on while Eirik took a full draught—it must have been the first time in his young life that he had drunk his fill. Then Ingunn took the child and carried it away to her bed; but the woman was shown into another house, where she was to sleep. It was intended that she should ride home betimes next morning, before folk were about upon the farms.

The sisters were left alone in Aasa’s house, and Tora lighted the holy candle, which they still burned every night. Ingunn sat on the edge of the bed with her back turned to the child; Eirik lay against the wall, cooing cheerfully.

“Ingunn—do not this thing,” said Tora seriously. “Do not send your child away like this. It is a
sin
to do such a deed, unless you are forced to it.”

Ingunn said nothing.

“He is smiling—” said Tora with emotion, beaming at the boy. “Look at your son, Ingunn—he can smile now—he is so sweet, so sweet—”

“Ay, I have seen,” said Ingunn. “Many times he has smiled of late.”

“I cannot understand that you
will—
that you
can
do this.”

“Cannot you see that I will not bring this child of mine under Olav’s roof—ask him to foster this brat that a vagabond clerk has left behind—”

“Shame on you for speaking thus of your own child!” exclaimed Tora, revolted.

“I am ashamed.”

“Ingunn—be sure you will regret it as long as you live if you do this thing, sell your child into the hands of strangers—”

“I have now brought myself into such a plight that I can never cease to regret.”

Tora answered hotly: “You speak truly, and on that score there is none on earth can help you. With Olav you have played right falsely, there is none of us but thinks that—and your shame falls heavier on him than on the rest of us. But if you will be false to your child too—the guiltless young being that you have housed forty long weeks under your own heart—I tell you, sister, I cannot believe that even Mary, Mother of God, will pray for mercy on the mother who betrays her own son—”

“Beware, sister,” said Tora once more. “You have wronged us all, and Olav worst. There is only left this boy, him you have not yet failed!”

No more was said between the sisters. They went to bed. Ingunn took the boy with her. She lay with her lips pressed against the silky, moist skin of the child’s forehead and heard her sister’s words ring and ring again within her. Even as Eirik’s little head lay now against her throat, lay Jesus Christ against His mother’s bosom in the image in church. What did He think of the mothers who flung a little boy from them? “And He called a little child unto Him and set him in the midst of them—” On the wall of the church in Hamar there was a painting where He hung nailed to the cross between two thieves, but beside Him stood His mother: fainting with sorrow and weariness she watched by her Son in His last agony, as she watched over His first sleep in the world of men. Nay, she saw it now—she dared not pray to Mary’s Son for forgiveness of her sins unless she stopped here. She dared not pray Christ’s mother to intercede for her with her Son if she held fast to her purpose and betrayed her boy.