The Son Avenger (33 page)

Soon after she grew hot as coals all over, had some bad fits of coughing, and then began to be light-headed, wailing and muttering and throwing herself hither and thither. For some days she lay grievously sick. The first evening she began to be better, on seeing her husband come in with the milk, she asked after Ragnhild. Eirik laughed and said the old hag’s wrath had fallen on them both—none knew why—so she still sat in her corner, and he had seen to her duties.

“Nay, Eirik, this is too bad—milking and cleaning byres is no work for a man.”

“Who milks in the monasteries, think you?” asked Eirik with a laugh.

Next day came Gaute Virvir, Eirik’s old friend from home. He had had business in the neighbourhood and so bethought him that he would visit the Ness. He found Eirik occupied in feeding the cows. Eirik gave his guest such welcome as he could, his wife being sick. Gaute had just had judgment given against him in the matter of an estate, so he was in a gloomy mood and the news he gave of his neighbours at home was told with a sad mien, like a tale of disaster. Olav still dwelt at Saltviken, and Cecilia’s last child had died just after baptism, and Gunhild Bersesdatter was now Sir Magnus’s wife and dwelt in the Lady Ingebjörg’s bower—the knight was one of the Duchess’s liegemen.

Eirik thought that, all in all, the tidings he had from home were not bad. It was hard on Cecilia that she had lost a child. But it seemed they managed just as well without him; his father and Cecilia together had the whole charge of the manor, he could guess, and Jörund was allowed to play the master—so doubtless he had become more tractable.

Three summers he had lived here, and soon the third winter would have gone by—Eirik was thinking of this one evening as he stood at the outer door looking out into the blue-grey dusk. The whole ness, which faced the sun, was brown and bare of snow; the eaves dripped a little; this evening was so mild that no icicles hung from them. In the forest the snow still lay deep, but the surface of the lake was black with melting ice, and along the
shore the evening sky was mirrored in clear water—which had grown broader since the day before.

Then he became aware of something black moving over the ice down by the end of the lake—it looked like two figures, and they had dismounted and were leading their horses. Eirik ran toward them—he must stop them, bring them in to land at the only place where the ice could be called anything like safe. As he ran down, calling to them to stay where they were, he wondered a little who they might be—there was no other house but the Ness on the whole lake, so they must be bound thither.

As he hurried across the flat among the glassy pools of water, he saw that one of them must be a woman. But not till he had come close to them did he recognize Cecilia.

“In God’s name, let me help you ashore. Take the horses, Svein, and I will lead Cecilia.”

He thought he could see in the dim light that there was something wrong with her, wondered whether it was only fear when she saw how unsafe the ice was, or whether it was something else as well.

When they reached land, Eirik said: “You can find the way now, Svein. My wife will be asleep already, but you must go in and wake her, tell her who is coming.” He took Cecilia’s horse. “You must mount, Cecilia—the snow is knee-deep here across the marshes.”

Then she threw her arms about her brother’s neck and clung to him, and he could feel how she was trembling.

“I am come to beg you go back with me,” she said in despair. “It has come to such a pass that I can bear no more.” She gave a violent shudder. “I cannot bear to look upon Jörund again.”

Eirik pressed her to him. “’Tis best you come indoors first,” he said; “take off your wet garments. For it must be a long tale you have to tell, I am afraid.”

“The end of it is,” said Cecilia, as she released her brother, “that yesterday he struck Olav, Anki’s son, so that the lad died this morning. Then I bade Svein saddle my horse—”

Eirik stood aghast:

“The cripple! Can such things
be!—
What have you done with your children?” he asked abruptly.

“Tore has them. But he has never done aught to the children—
I charged them at home,” she went on, as he led her horse along the shore, “to send no word of this to Father. I dare not—till you are there. You are the only one who can help us—perchance.”

Eldrid met them at the door of the house. Eirik could see afar off that she had swathed her head in her long, snow-white church-coif. She gave Cecilia her hand and bade her welcome.

Indoors Eldrid had stirred up the fire on the hearth; she led Cecilia to the warmest seat on the bench, took her wet cloak, and thrust a pillow behind her guest’s back.

“You must be tired, Eirik’s sister—you have ridden all the way from Hestviken in this heavy going, your man says.”

Eirik saw that his sister looked about her with wondering eyes—the room was tidy and snug, even if it were small and low, and the beds were well provided with bedclothes and skin coverlets—and then she looked up at her brother’s wife. Eldrid had not aged in these three years, and in her kirtle of dark colours, with the white linen headdress falling low over her back, she looked like a fine elderly woman.

“I think, Cecilia, you had better go to bed at once, wet and cold as you are—and I will bring your supper.” She took the young wife to their own bed, knelt down, and drew off her footgear. “Your feet are like ice—you must take the coverlet from the other bed, Eirik, and warm it; then I can wrap it about your sister.”

Cecilia sat clutching the edge of the bed with both hands; the tears now ran down her cheeks as she wept almost without a sound; and when Eldrid had wound the warm skin coverlet about her legs and laid her down, she turned to the wall and buried her face in the pillows. She lay thus till her sister-in-law came with the food.

“Now you must come out with me, you—Svein was your name, was it not? I shall go to Holgeir’s house and sleep with Ragnhild tonight, Eirik—I think your sister would fain speak with you alone, you have not seen each other for so long.”

With that Eldrid bade them good-night and went out.

Cecilia ate and drank.

“Shame on Gaute—he has put it about all over the countryside that you go in rags, half-naked, and live like the meanest cottar, and your wife is so infirm she must ever take to her bed—”

“Then Gaute is a worse tattler than I am myself,” said Eirik.

“Had I known the truth of your condition,” replied Cecilia, “I am not sure I should have come hither to complain of my trouble. I thought you could not be worse off than you were.”

“Then it was well that Gaute spread his tale.”

But when he had taken away the empty cups and seated himself on the bed by his sister, while the embers fell together in the fireplace, he felt a dread of what he was about to hear.

Between whiles Jörund had been tractable and kind, said Cecilia. But he scented covert injuries and distrust of himself in all that their father and the old serving-folk said and did, and it was often hard for her to intervene. Then there were Anki and Liv—he had conceived a hatred for them since that unfortunate affair, and he would have them out of Rundmyr. Olav said he would not hear of it—then Jörund was beside himself, made the most incredible accusations against their father, said it was known to the whole countryside why he kept such a den of thieves close beside his manor, but now they should go or he would set fire to the whole nest. This happened last autumn, while she still lay in after her little daughter who died—her father had come over to see her. Shortly after, it came out that Gudrun from Rundmyr, who had been helping at Hestviken during the summer, had not returned to her parents as she had left them, and Jörund had offered money to Svein Ragnason and several other men to take the blame on themselves. “I have never told Jörund of it,” said Cecilia, “but I went up thither one day lately—Anki takes it much to heart, for Gudrun is not ill-looking; her at any rate he had thought to marry off, and she is but fourteen, so the poor child could scarce help herself.”

But Jörund had gone quite wild when he got to know it. And for Olav, the cripple, he had always had a loathing. And yestermorn Olav had been in the fields with the children—he was cutting willow pipes for them—when Kolbein came running home; the boy cried and said his father had come upon them, so angry, had snatched Olav’s crutches from him and struck him with them.

Cecilia had dashed out. There lay Olav, with the blood running from his nose and mouth. “I said to Jörund what first came into my head.” But Jörund was like a raging bull and not like a reasonable being. Then Svein and Halstern came up, and he let her go. They carried Olav Livsson in to Ragna, and Cecilia had sat by him all night, but in the morning he died.

At last Cecilia fell asleep, and Eirik went and lay down in the farther bed.

He had no doubt that Jörund was distracted at times—he ought to be watched, perhaps put in bonds. And Cecilia could not live with him any longer. Either she must move out to Saltviken with her children, or he himself must go thither and take his brother-in-law with him, while his father returned home to Hestviken and stayed there with Cecilia—that he must decide when he had seen how things were on the spot.

Next morning at daybreak Eldrid stole in to change into her working-dress. Eirik said he would have to ride over to Hestviken that day—“and I fear it may be some while ere I come home to you.”

“Ay, so I thought.”

Cecilia insisted on riding back with Eirik, though both he and Eldrid begged her to stay at the Ness till her brother sent for her.

Not much was said between them on the journey; the roads were in a bad state, and Eirik could see too that Cecilia already repented of having said so much as she had.

When they came to Rundmyr, Eirik asked his sister and Svein to wait in the old houses that stood by the roadside; he would go on to Anki and Liv. He knew not what he should say to the poor folk. As he hurried on foot along the familiar path over the bog, he recalled how here he had played with fire, blinded by childish anger against his father, filled with a vain desire to make himself acquainted with all that was evil—and he himself had come off free, in a way, while those who had less sense and less guilt lay writhing, burned beyond help.

Two sheep were in the tussocky field, seeking what pasture there might be; they ran off as he came up. The door of the cottage was barred, and there was no answer to his knocking. And the little byre was open and deserted. Eirik’s anger was kindled—had Jörund driven them out after all?

As they rode into the yard at the manor, the house-folk appeared from every door. They collected about Eirik as he sat on his horse, looked up at him, grave and anxious. But no one said anything, until Tore came forward and held the bay while Eirik dismounted.

“You have not come too soon either, Eirik!”

To that he could answer nothing. Then he asked: “Where is Jörund?”

At first there was none who answered; then someone murmured that he must be indoors; but at last a half-grown lad whispered fearfully—Jörund had gone down to the waterside awhile ago, he had seen—

As the men were about to follow him, Eirik forbade them, and to Svein, who handed him an axe, he said: “I have my sword, as you see—but I look not to have use for it.”

He did not take the road, but went down the hill below the front of the dwelling-house. Between the spur on which the manor was built and the waterside there were only a few small scraps of arable land; the rest was rocky knolls and scrub, briers and juniper. Eirik crept along stealthily so that the madman should not see him coming. But as he went down he could not help seeing how much farther advanced the spring was out here by the sea; everywhere fresh green appeared among the withered grass in the crevices of rock, there were great red shoots on the brier bushes, and the goats that picked their way on the hillside had already recovered from the winter. And outside, the fiord gleamed in the afternoon sunshine.

He saw no one on the quay. But as soon as his steps were heard on the planks, a man dashed out from behind a shed, flew past him, bent almost double, and leaped straight into a boat that lay alongside. Eirik did not stop to think, but ran after him and jumped into the boat in his turn, just as Jörund had cast off. They both stood up in the boat. Jörund seized an oar and struck at his brother-in-law, and in an instant the boat capsized.

As soon as they were in the water the other flung his arms about Eirik; he guessed that Jörund was trying to hold him under—he had swallowed a mass of water, and his cloak and sword and heavy boots hindered him; he was dizzy and choking already. But in spite of that he was more used to falling into the sea than Jörund; he contrived to free himself from the other’s hold and get his head above water. They were not far from the shore; he reached the slippery seaweed, clambered up, and sat down on the rock.

Eirik spat out the sea-water, took off his dripping cloak, and shook himself, so that the water splashed inside his boots.

“Can you get ashore by yourself?” he called out as he saw Jörund’s head above water. “Or shall I come and help you?”

Then Jörund scrambled in; Eirik gave him a hand and pulled him onto the rock. There they stood, with the water pouring from them.

“I believe your madness is half feigning,” said Eirik. “Do you think thus to escape from your misdeeds more lightly?”

Jörund sent him the ugly look, like a scared rat, that Eirik had seen before, and it made him wince inwardly.

“Anyhow, you failed again to take my life,” said Jörund scornfully. As Eirik made no answer, his brother-in-law went on: “I knew very well you have hated me and planned revenge and sought my life all these years. Ever since that night at Baagahus, when you had drunk your wits away and struck at Brynjulf Tistill—and I saved you from the dungeon!”

It came back hazily to Eirik—an old memory of some half-forgotten brawl in the castle. They had both been mixed up in it, he and Jörund, but he it was who had to pay the penalty, and Jörund had got off free.

“Let us go up now,” he said impatiently; “we are standing here like a pair of wet dogs.”