In the Wilderness

by Sigrid Undset

  Olav saw that Ketil knew him. He checked himself, became more reserved in his manner, and looked confused.

  Torhild’s husband was tall, rather loosely built, with big labourer’s hands, which hung dangling to his knees, but his face was childish and rather foolish, with the long, low chin covered with fair stubble. Yellow, shaggy hair hung over his forehead. For all that, he was far from ugly.

  Torhild got up and laid the child in the bed, saw to the pot. She signed to Ketil that he was to take his place in the master’s seat. He did so.

  The boy had remained standing by his mother. He was not tall for his age, but was close-knit, shapely, and strongly built. Olav saw that Björn took after the Hestvik race—curly hair, pale as bog-cotton, large eyes, clear as water, set rather far apart under fair, straight brows. His skin was white as milk, with a few little dark freckles over the root of the nose. He stood coolly surveying the stranger.

  Torhild spoke to her husband, asking how he had fared in his errand at the neighbouring manor. Then they talked awhile of the weather and the crops; she tried to draw both the men into the conversation, but to little purpose. Then a young woman came in—one of the neighbors who came to help Torhild in the dairy; Torhild had not yet been churched after her childbed. Torhild asked whether Olav had a mind to go out with Ketil and look round the farm.

  Björn went with them. He took his stepfather by the hand, and while the men went round the little farm, indoors and out, the boy grew talkative—he agreed with everything his stepfather said or added something to it. Hitherto they had borrowed a horse, said Ketil, but if their luck held a few years more—

  “You must know, Ketil,” said Olav, “that if Torhild thinks I ought to do something more for her—”

  “I know she does not,” Ketil interrupted. And Olav, meeting his eyes, saw that the young man did not always look such a fool. “We have shifted well enough for ourselves all these years.”

  They had eaten their porridge, and Olav said he must think of going down to his boat. Then he called Björn and bade him come over to him.

  The boy came and stood before Olav, looking at him with the cool, watchful expression in his handsome, sullen young face.

  “Do you know who I am, Björn?” asked Olav.

  “Ay, I guess that you are that Olav of Hestviken who is my father.”

  Olav had drawn a gold ring from his finger. “Then you will accept this ring, Björn—a gift from your father?”

  The boy looked at his mother and then at his stepfather. As they both nodded, he replied: “I will, Olav—I thank you for the gift!”

  He tried the ring on, looked at it a moment; then he went over to his mother and asked her to keep it.

  Olav took his leave soon after. He asked Torhild to go outside with him. It was dusk, and the wind had increased. The violent gusts bent the bare rowan trees so that their branches scored the chilly green of the clear sky, but thick masses of cloud were advancing from the south.

  Torhild said: “Will you sail home against this wind?—we can house you tonight.”

  Olav said he must go in spite of it. He threw the flap of his cloak over his shoulder. “Since you are now married and have a child in wedlock—might it not be as well that Björn came over to live with me?”

  He could not hear the answer for the wind, and repeated his own words.

  “You must not ask me that, Olav.”

  “Why not? I shall not marry again—and I shall bring the boy up as befits my son.”

  “No. You too have true-born children. I will not have Björn go where he will be reckoned an inferior. Better to be the first at Torhildrud than the last at Hestviken.”

  “Eirik has not been home now for four years. We seldom hear news of him, and ’tis uncertain when he will come back.”

  “I know it. But there is Cecilia—and that foster-daughter of yours, and your kinswoman, Lady Mærta. Then you know that the name my brothers bear in those parts is not such as to bring the boy more honour.”

  “You are well instructed about my affairs,” said Olav sharply.

  “Such things are noised abroad, Olav, of a man in your station.”

  Then Olav bade her farewell and left her.

  He tried to shake it from him as he walked down through the darkness and the storm. It was unreasonable to be so angry. Torhild had a perfect right to marry. But that was the only thing he never thought could happen.

  It was true that she might need a master on her farm, and true what she said, that if she let Ketil go, the next foreman she took might make the same demand. But that she should choose this foundling of all others—He recalled Ketil’s face, childishly young and fair, a tall, powerful lad—hand in hand with the boy, merry and playful both. The last time he took leave of her—it must be seven years ago now—it had been Torhild’s wish that he should take her back.—No, he would not harbour such thoughts; it was servile to think basely of any, without certain knowledge.

  Björn. It must be bitter as death for a man to lose such a son, if he had had one.

  The roar of the surf filled the whole air—through the gathering darkness the breakers rolled, alive and white. The packed stones of the little pier were battered and ground together with a dull booming by the waves that broke over them. Olav stood for a moment looking out—the wind had shifted due south. For all he had to do at home, he might just as well have stayed at Torhildrud till the morrow.

  He had never thought of taking up with her again—but still his anger seethed within him whenever he recalled what he had seen up there. He was so wrought up that it surprised himself.

  He had known all the time that she should never more be his—but he had nevertheless had some sense of ownership, in knowing that she was there—

  The seas broke right over him as he went out on the little pier, where his boat lay rocking on the lee side.

  7

  THE FROST came early that year. Week after week the weather held, calm and cold, with brazen dawns over dark ridges; the fields were grey with rime, lakes and bogs frozen hard. On clear days the fiord was dark blue and ruffled; then the light breeze died away, and the surface seemed to expand as it turned grey under the frosty mist that came and settled, raw and biting, on the country about Folden. One day the sky was sullen; there was a scent of snow in the air. In the course of the day a few hard little flakes began to fall; the snow grew thicker, rustling down with a faint, dry sound—toward evening it fell in great flakes.

  It snowed for a couple of days, one evening the south wind got up, and then there was driving snow.

  They had gone to rest early at Hestviken that night—it was two days before Lucy Mass.1 Olav was waked by a thundering at the outer door; he heard one of the house-carls get up and go out. It often happened in such weather that people of the neighbourhood, coming ashore late, asked lodging for the night at Hestviken, so he lay down again; was sleepily aware of folk coming into the room; someone stirred the embers, rekindled a flame. Then he was wholly roused by hearing his name called. Before his bed stood Torhild Björnsdatter with a lighted splinter of pine; the snow lay white on her hood and the shoulders of her mantle.

  Olav raised himself on his elbow:

  “In God’s name—are you here! Is it Björn?” he asked hastily.

  “ ’Tis not to do with Björn. But Duke Eirik crossed Lake Vann today—with five hundred horsemen, they say. He will be bound for Oslo, to greet his father-in-law and return him thanks.” 2

  “Where have you heard this news?”

  Torhild thrust her torch into a crack of the wall and sat on the side of his bed as she talked. Her brothers had had a share in a fishing-boat this autumn, and now she had been with them out to Tesal, to her mother’s kinsfolk there. Thither some yeoman had come that morning, who had fled before the Swedes—they were ravaging the country, plundering both goods and cattle.

  “God have mercy on the country people,” said Olav. “They cannot secure their cattle in the woods either, in wintertime.”


  “Hestviken lies out of the way,” replied Torhild; “yet I have thought, Olav, it were safer for your little maids and for the women on our side of the fiord. They say there are German mercenaries with the Duke. So I bade Egil to put in here to Hestviken, I would offer to take them home with me.”

  “You are faithful to me and mine, Torhild,” said Olav gently. “And thoughtful.”

  “I was well off while I was with you—and Cecilia is sister to my son. But what will you do yourself, Olav?”

  “Carry the news northward to Galaby.”

  Torhild went into the hearth-room to the house-folk. When Olav came out to the others, he was dressed in a short homespun coat, which showed the leather hauberk underneath, long woolen breeches swathed about the calves; on his head he wore an English helmet with cheek-pieces and gorget. He carried his shield and the axe Kinfetch in his hands. Torhild looked at him.

  “Think you Reidulf would try to raise the yeomen to resistance?”

  “That would be no bad plan,” said Olav. “There is both the Hole and Aurebæk Dale—narrow defiles between screes, where the horsemen cannot move to either side. The Duke must have thought he could trust to the black frost’s holding till the change of moon at least, but these snowdrifts will delay his march.”

  Mærta Birgersdatter said she would stay at the manor. If the Swedes came, it was not impossible that she might find kinsfolk and friends from the border country among them: “and then it might be of use that I speak with them—that they deal gently with your property. I owe you so much, Olav, that I would fain do you a service in return, if I can.”

  “Think not of that,” said Olav deprecatingly. It troubled him vaguely that these poor women came and wished to show their gratitude for the little he had done for their welfare—as though it reminded him of old and half-forgotten things: of One who had stretched out His hands to help him, but he had turned away, ungratefully.

  He bade Bodvar arm himself to go with him northward, and went out to the storehouse together with old Tore. They put up some sacks of food, for Olav thought that Torhild could not possibly bear the cost of feeding so many mouths for an indefinite time. While busy with this he chanced to knock down his skis, which stood in the store. He had used them little since he came south—folk hereabout had given up ski-running a generation ago. Now it occurred to Olav that they might be useful: the road from the shore up to Galaby must be well covered with fresh snow.

  Together with his men he carried the sacks aboard the Björnssons’ vessel; she was not so very small, there were seven men in her. While they were engaged, in the darkness and the driving snow, in stowing sacks and boxes, the light of the lantern fell on a big bundle that lay near the mast, well covered over, among barrels and other goods. Wrapped in rugs and skins, Torhild’s children lay asleep; Olav had a glimpse of the boy’s fair head.

  The herring-boat put off from the pier, and Olav stood awhile listening for her after the night had swallowed her up. The gloom and the flying snow surrounded him like a tent on every side. He could feel the hill behind him and the homestead under the steep black wall of the Horse Crag in the black night, and before him the pitch-black water swirled below the edge of the pier, the teeming snowflakes sank into it and were gone. He stood there with Bodvar and a strange lad who had been on board the fishing-boat; on seeing the master was armed, he had begged leave to join him.—All at once an unruly joy surged up in Olav—as though he were released from fetters; it was dark behind and dark before, and here he stood all alone with two armed men, utter strangers, and he knew naught of what the morrow might bring.

  Bodvar leaped down into the boat and began to bale her out.

  It was toward midnight when the three men from Hestviken reached Galaby. Through the driving snow they caught the smell of smoke beating down from the louver, and on reaching the door Olav heard that folk were still up in the hall—drunken men who were bawling and singing. He had to hammer on the door for some time before at last it was opened. He who opened it was a tall, thin man—he gave a low cry of surprise as Olav and his companions entered. Olav recognized Sira Hallbjörn.

  “Are you come with a message of war, Olav—or why are you helm-clad, you and your men?”

  “You seem to be a soothsayer, priest.”

  Olav looked across the room—two torches stood burning on the long table, and the eight or nine men who sat around it or lay sprawling over the board were drunken, all of them. Olav knew most of them—they were landholders from his or the next parish. Reidulf Jonsson, the Warden’s deputy, had slipped down between the high seat and the table as far as his stomach would let him; his big head with its brown beard had sunk upon his chest. It was the youngest of his brothers who sat on the floor singing, with his legs stretched out into the straw and his head in the lap of another young lad who sat astride the outer bench, twanging on a little harp. The priest alone was almost sober. Sira Hallbjörn suffered from the same defect as Olav Audunsson: God’s gifts did not bite on him; he was just as thin, no matter what he ate, and just as sad, drink as he might.

  He stood tense and erect, listening to Olav’s tidings. Olav had not remarked before that the priest’s red hair had become strongly streaked with grey of late, and his narrow, bony, and freckled face was aged and wrinkled now. But he was still clean-shaven, like Olav himself—such had been the usage in their young days.

  It was not many of the franklins that they could rouse to sufficient clarity to make it worth while taking counsel with them. They had come to Galaby for the settlement of a suit. “Baard, your kinswoman’s husband, went home early,” said the priest; “and ill it was that he did so. He was the man we had most need of as leader—Reidulf is little worth.”

  Olav said they must first send a messenger in all haste to the town, to the captain of Akershus—“but sooth to say, I have more mind to stay with you here—if you hold with me that it will be a great shame on us if we let the Duke march through Aurebæk Dale without trying whether perchance we may give him some trouble.”

  “Fifty men should be able to hold the pass a day long against an army,” said the priest. “And the townsmen will gain time—if we gain no more.”

  Young Ragnvald was sober enough by now to take things in pretty clearly. He offered to ride in at once. The priest got out writing-materials; meanwhile Olav and some of the others went to the servants’ room to wake the men there.

  The snow had abated a little as the body of franklins made their way toward the church town, but every trace of the road was drifted over. The priest and some of the others rode; so they soon went ahead of the rest, who had to tramp on foot in the snowdrifts. Olav glided quietly and lightly on skis by the side of the horsemen; now and again he had to stop and wait for them. He was standing at the edge of a little clearing, when Sira Hallbjörn appeared out of the darkness. The priest reined in his steaming horse, leaned over to Olav:

  “I have been thinking: we are two men here who can run on skis—what if we struck southward tonight and scouted?”

  Olav said he had thought the same.

  At the parsonage they came into a pitch-dark, ice-cold house—Sira Hallbjörn had been from home since break of day, and his house-folk were in bed. At long last he managed to strike fire and light candles. To Olav it seemed many days since he took boat at Hestviken; the night had been hard and long, the sail up the fiord, then on skis and into one strange homestead after another—it had all taken time. From within the closet Sira Hallbjörn called: would he not rest awhile before they set out?—but Olav said they could not afford to waste time. He packed in his scrip some frozen bread and meat and a ball of butter that the priest’s servant brought him—remembered that he had left home without food or money, thinking he should be back before they took the field. But the very fact that he was now headed straight for warfare gave him an easy feeling.

  Sira Hallbjörn stepped out. He wore a smooth, old-fashioned iron helmet with a big, hinged visor and a pitch-black canvas hauberk over
the priest’s blue frock, which he had kilted up; his sword hung in a leather baldric over his shoulder. In his hand he held a longbow such as the English and the men of Telemark use; the arrows rattled in their quiver on his back.

  Olav could not resist saying, with a little smile: “You are arrayed to sing a man’s requiem now, father!”

  A tremor seemed to pass over the other’s sharp, long-nosed face:

  “Tempus occidendi, et tempus sanandi—you told me once, they taught you something of the scripture when you were at Hamar in your youth. Did he teach you that saying, the stubborn Lord Torfinn?”

  “No. But so much do I know, that I think I can tell the meaning. A time to kill and a time to heal?”

  The priest nodded; he bent his bow and strung it. “ ‘Tempus belli et tempus pacts.’ Solomon wrote that in the book that is called Ecclesiastes—’tis one of the bravest books in scripture. But take off your armour, Olav—’twill be heavy to run in.”

  Olav removed his surcoat and took off his hauberk. It was of elk’s hide with thin iron plates about the waist to protect his vitals. As he folded it and tied the thongs he asked: “Are there more such sayings in the book you named—of war?”

  “ ‘Laudavi magis mortuos quam viventes. Et feliciorem utroque judicavi, qui necdum natus est, nec vidit malo quœ sub sole fiunt’—such are his words.”

  Olav shook his head: “That was too learned for me!”

  “ ‘I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been born, nor seeth the evil work that is done under the sun.’ ”

  “Is such the wisdom of Solomon?” Olav slung the bundle of armour on his back, and the two men went out. Now it was snowing again so that the night flickered about them. “He must have said that because he sat too safely there in his castle of Zion and his days were too full of ease,” said Olav, laughing quietly. Sira Hallbjörn laughed too as he ran and was swallowed up by the darkness; he had to go and find his skis.