The Axe

by Sigrid Undset

  “Ay, you know I remember you since you were as high as that,” said Ivar; “and I have always liked you. You know I was angry that time, when we heard you had helped yourself to your bride, as was natural enough—”

  “Surely it was natural.” And Olav laughed with him.

  Ingunn asked timidly: “Then you have not yet come home to stay, Olav?”

  “In Norway I shall stay—maybe. But here in the north I cannot stay many days. By Bartholomew’s Day I must be with the Earl at Valdinsholm.”

  Ingunn did not know where in the world Valdinsholm might be, but it sounded far away.

  It was easy to see that Olav had learned to conduct himself among folk. The glum and silent country lad had become a mannerly young courtier, who knew how to choose his words: Olav could be lively and hold his own when he opened his mouth, but he listened readily to his elders, and most of what he said was in answer to Ivar’s and Magnhild’s questions. He rarely addressed his words to Ingunn, and never tried to have speech with her alone.

  He said the times were very troubled in Denmark—the great nobles were discontented with their King in every way, although they had much greater liberties and rights in that land than here at home—but perhaps that was what made them open their mouths wide for more. His own uncle, Barnim Eriksson, did as he pleased in everything, Olav thought, and he had never seen that the knight paid any attention to the laws, which must hold good in that country too.

  “You have not been able to lay your hands on any of the inheritance of your mother’s kinsmen?” asked Ivar. “Surely you could claim that now?”

  “Uncle says no,” said Olav with a little mocking smile. “And that may well be true.—It was the first thing he made plain to me when I came to Hövdinggaard, that my grandmother had divided Sir Erik’s estate with her children, before she married Björn Andersson. And my mother had lost all right of inheritance from her kinsfolk in Denmark when she left the country and married in Norway without asking their advice—that was the second thing. And the third was that the King has declared my mother’s own brother, Stig Björnsson, an outlaw, and he is dead and his sons dwell in a foreign land; and the King has laid hands on the manor of Hvidbjerg. Now Duke Valdemar has taken up the cause of Stig’s sons, and if he can get the estate back for them, Uncle Barnim thought that I ought to come forward: there might be a slice of the cake for me too.” He laughed. “Ay, ’twas after uncle and I were better acquainted, that—we have been good friends always, and he has kept me in seemly fashion and has been right generous with me. Only he will not have it that I should claim anything as my right.”

  Olav spoke with a smile. But Ingunn saw that a new look had come over his countenance; a touch of loneliness, which had been there always, but now appeared much more strongly, and something hard, which was new. She suspected that he had not fallen into unmixed joy and splendour when he sought shelter, a poor outlaw, among his mighty Danish kinsmen.

  “But in all else I must say that Barnim Eriksson has treated me well.—For all that, I was a happy man the day I met with Earl Alf—when I took the oath to him on the hilt, I almost thought I had come home.”

  “You like him?” asked Ivar.

  “Like—!” Olav beamed. “Had you met the Earl you would not say such a word. We would follow him—if he bade us sail across the smoking lake of hell—every man he looks at when he laughs. Those yellow eyes of his shine like gems. Small he is, and low—I am a head taller, I wis—and broad as the door of a house, shaggy and brown and curly-haired; ay, the Tornberg race comes of a king’s daughter and a bear, they say. And Earl Alf has the strength of ten men and the wits of twelve. And there are not many men, I ween, who are not glad and thankful to obey him—nor many women either—” said Olav with a laugh.

  “Is it true, think you, what they say of our Queen—that she would marry him?” asked Ivar inquisitively.

  “How should I know that?” laughed Olav. “But if they say truly that she is so wise a woman—though there will be an end of the lady’s rule in the land if she comes under the bear’s paws—”

  But Ivar thought it was in Queen Ingebjörg’s service that Earl Alf lay in the Danish waters, harrying the coasts there and taking up the German merchant ships that tried to slip northward through the sounds.

  Olav said it was true enough—the Earl sought to win for Queen Ingebjörg her fathers’ inheritance in Denmark, while at the same time he chastised the German merchants for their late encroachments in Björgvin and Tunsberg. But no doubt he did it of his own will and not because the Queen had bidden him. Now there was certainly an agreement between the Earl and the Danish nobles—he was to support them in their feud with the Danish King, and in return Count Jacob and the other lords were to rap the King so hard over the knuckles that he would take his hands off the Lady Ingebjörg’s estates in Denmark.

  They had sat drinking after supper, and Ivar already talked of going to rest, when Olav stood up and drew the great gold ring with the green stone from his finger. He showed it to Ivar and Lady Magnhild. “I wonder if you know this again? With this ring my father let me betroth her. Think you not it were fitting Ingunn had it now and wore it herself?”

  Ingunn’s uncle said yes to this, and Olav set the ring on her finger. Next he took from his saddle-bag a gilt chain with a cross hanging to it and silver plates for a belt and gave these also to Ingunn. Then he produced good gifts for Ivar and Magnhild, and three gold rings, which he asked Ivar to give to Tora, Hallvard, and Jon. Both the lady and Ivar were well pleased with this, praised the gifts, and were now very bland with Olav; Lady Magnhild had wine brought and all four drank together from the Yule horn.

  When Lady Magnhild said that now Ingunn must go across to her grandmother and go to bed, Olav stood up—he said he was going over to Grim’s and Dalla’s house to talk with them awhile. Magnhild made no objection.

  The sky was overcast, but between rifts in the clouds the sunset glow shone through, cold and brassy. The evenings were already beginning to be chilly and autumnal.

  Olav and Ingunn strolled down between the outhouses. They came to the fence of a cornfield; the man rested his arms on the rail and stood looking out. The corn was thin, it shone white under the heavy grey sky; down below, the bay lay in a dead calm, reflecting the gathering darkness; under the opposite bank the image of the blue-black woods merged with the land.

  “ ’Tis as I remember it,” said Olav softly. “As it used to be in autumn. In Denmark it blows almost always.”

  He turned half round to the girl, laid an arm about her shoulder, and drew her toward him. With a long breath of happiness she leaned heavily against him. At long last she felt she had come home; now she was in his arm.

  Olav took her face in both his hands, pushed up her hair, and kissed her on the temples. “It used to curl here, where the hair begins,” he whispered.

  “It is because I comb it down so hard,” she said softly. “I have combed away the curls. When they took the coif from me, I plaited it as flat as I could.”

  “Ah, now I remember it—you went in a coif that winter at Hamar!”

  “Are you angry with me for letting them force me—to put it off?”

  Olav shook his head with a little laugh. “I had almost forgotten it—when I thought of you, ’twas always as you were before that.”

  “Do you think I am like myself as I was then?” whispered Ingunn anxiously; “or have I fallen off?”

  “No!” He squeezed her tightly in his arms. For a while they stood in close embrace. Then he let go. “Nay—we must go in. ’Twill soon be dark—” but he drew her plaits through his hands, twined them about his wrists, and shook her gently to and fro, standing at arm’s length.

  “How fair you are, Ingunn!” he said warmly. Again he let go, with a queer, short laugh. Then he asked abruptly: “Then it is more than a year since you saw Arnvid last?”

  Ingunn replied that it was so.

  “I would fain have met him this time. He is the only frie
nd I had in my youth—he and you. The folk one meets later, when one is getting on in years, are not the same.”

  He was one-and-twenty and she twenty, but neither of them thought they were too young to talk thus. Far too much had happened to them both before they were quite out of their childhood.

  When he had said this, Olav turned and began to walk back; Ingunn followed behind him up the narrow alley between the cattle-sheds. Grim and Dalla were sitting on the stone before the door of the byre. The two old people were delighted when Olav stopped to speak to them. Presently he took some money out of his belt and gave it to them—then there was no end to their joy.

  Ingunn stood waiting by the wall of the byre, but no one spoke to her; and when she saw that Olav wished to stay here awhile with the old bailiff and his sister, she bade them good-night and went back to her grandmother’s house.

  • • •

  Olav stayed five days at Berg, and on the morning of the sixth he said he must ride to Hamar that evening, for he had been promised a boat to take him to Eidsvold, if he could be ready early next morning.

  He was now very good friends with Ivar and Magnhild, and all about the place thought that Olav had become much more of a man in these years he had spent abroad. But Ingunn and he had not had much talk together.

  The day he was to ride away she asked him to go with her up into the loft where Aasa’s and her own things were. She unlocked her chest, took out a folded linen garment, and handed it to him, turning her face away as she did so.

  “This is your wedding-shirt, Olav. I wished to give it you now.”

  When at last she looked at him, he was standing with the shirt in his hands; he had turned red and his features were strangely discomposed. “Christ bless you, my Ingunn—Christ bless your hands for every stitch you have sewed here—”

  “Olav-do not go!”

  “You know I must go,” he said quietly.

  “Oh no, Olav! I never thought, when once you came home, that you would straightway go from me again. Stay here, Olav—only three days—only one day more!”

  “Nay.” Olav sighed. “Cannot you see, Ingunn—I am still an outlaw; ’twas rash of me to come, but I thought I must see you and talk with your kinsfolk. I own nothing in Norway today that I may rightly call mine. It is my lord the Earl who has promised me—And if it were not so—when he summons me to be with him on a certain day, I cannot stay away. I must make haste, as it is, to reach him at the right time—”

  “Can you not take me with you?” she whispered almost in-audibly.

  “You must surely see that I cannot. Whither should I carry you? To Valdinsholm, among the Earl’s men—!” He laughed.

  “I have had such evil days here at Berg,” she whispered as before.

  “I cannot see that. For they are kind, Lady Magnhild and Lady Aasa—While I was out there in the south—many a time I thought: what if Kolbein carried it so that he had you in his charge? And I feared for you, my dear. But here you have been as well off as you could be.”

  “I cannot bear to be here any more. Can you not take me with you—find me a lodging otherwheres?”

  “I can find you no lodging so long as I have not been given control of my own estate,” said Olav impatiently. “And how think you Ivar and Magnhild would like it if I took you away—Ivar, who is to be my spokesman with Kolbein? Be not so unreasoning, Ingunn. And Mistress Aasa cannot make shift without you.”

  They were both silent a good while. Ingunn went to the little window. “I have always thought, as I stood here looking out, that this must be like Hestviken.”

  Olav came up to her and laid a hand caressingly on her neck. “Oh no,” he said absently; “the fiord is much broader at Hestviken, you must know. It is the salt sea there. And the manor stands higher, as far as I remember.”

  He went back, picked up the shirt, and folded it. “This must have been a great task, Ingunn—with all the stitches you have put into it.”

  “Oh—I have had four years to work at it,” she said in a hard voice.

  “Come, we will go out,” said Olav hotly. “We will go out and talk!”

  They walked together over the fields till they came to a meadow that sloped to the water. Junipers and other bushes grew on the dry, rocky ground, and here and there were patches of short, sun-scorched grass.

  “Come, sit down here!”—He lay on his stomach facing her and gazed fixedly as though far away in his own thoughts.

  In a way she thought they were brought nearer to each other merely by his losing himself in thought and remaining silent as soon as he had got her alone; she was so used to this from their childhood. She sat looking affectionately at the little scattered freckles over the root of his nose—they too were intimate, it seemed to her.

  Great clouds drifted across the sky, throwing shadows that turned the forests dark blue—the patches of green meadow and white cornfield showed up so strongly between. And the fiord was grey with smooth dark currents farther out, which reflected scraps of the autumnal land. Now and again the sun came out, and its sharp, golden light baked them—but the next moment a cloud came by and the warmth was gone—and the ground was bleak.

  At long last the girl asked: “What are you thinking of so, Olav?”

  He sighed, as though awaking; then he took her hand and laid his face against the palm. “If you could be less unreasonable—” he answered, taking up again their talk in the loft. He paused a moment. “I ran off from Hövdinggaard without saying a word of thanks—”

  Ingunn gave a little terrified cry.

  “Ay,” Olav went on. “ ’Tis ill done—’twas not seemly, for uncle had been a good man to me in many ways—”

  “Did you quarrel?”

  “Not that either. It came about that he did a thing I liked not. He had one of his house-carls punished—I cannot say it was more than the man deserved. But uncle was often cruel, when he was beside himself with rage—and you know I have never liked to see man or beast tortured needlessly—”

  “And so you quarrelled?”

  “Not that either. This fellow had turned traitor—They had been sitting drinking in the hall, uncle and some kinsmen and friends—ay, they were my kinsmen too—they had come to us to keep Easter—it was the evening of Easter Day. They spoke of the King, and there was none there who wished him well—and so they let out something of their plans against King Eirik. They weave many strange plots there now, you see—and we were all drunken and careless of our mouths. This Aake had been waiting at table, and he ran off to the King’s captain at Holbekgaard and sold him the tidings he had heard; and this came to uncle’s ears. So uncle had the man led out into the pleasance and bound to the biggest oak, and then he stretched up the traitor’s right hand, the hand that had sworn fealty to Barnim, and nailed it to the trunk with a knife.

  “Ay, ’tis not that ’twas undeserved, I say naught of that. But as the night wore on. I thought that Aake might have stood there long enough. So I went out and freed him and lent him a horse—I bade him send it back to a house in Kallundborg, where I was known, when he had found a chance to escape from Sealand.—But I thought that uncle would be mighty wroth with me for playing him this trick, and that ’twould boot me little to speak with him. I had heard that the Earl lay to the northward off the point—so I gathered together what I could of my goods and rode northward the same night. And so it came about that I was in England with the Earl this year.

  “Ay, ’twas no fitting thanks I gave uncle—and I pray to God every day that he may not have more trouble through my setting Aake free. You know, I made him swear, but an oath and a belch are all one to such a fellow—Had uncle had him hanged, I should have said ’twas well done. But as he stood there by the oak, with his hand nailed fast—’Twas just after Easter, you know; we had been to church every day, and I had crept to the cross and kissed it on Good Friday.—So it came over me that the man standing there was like one crucified—”

  Ingunn nodded quietly. “ ’Twas surely a good deed
.”

  “God knows. Would I could believe it. And you know that if I go back to Denmark in the Earl’s company, I can send uncle a message—maybe find occasion to visit him and beg his forgiveness. For I showed him gross ingratitude.”

  He gazed longingly over the dark-blue forests. “You say you are not in good case here, Ingunn. It has not been like keeping Yule every day with me either. I make no complaint of my rich kinsmen—but they are rich and proud men, and I came to them poor and a stranger, an outlawed man—a boy they counted me and no true-born scion of their race, since ’twas not they who had given mother in marriage. I will not say they might have received me better than they did—things being as they were.

  “You must not be deaf to reason,” he bade her again. He pushed himself forward and let his head fall heavily in her lap. “Gladly would I stay here now, or take you with me—were there any means to do it. Would you rather I had not come, since I could not come to stay?”

  Ingunn shook her head, drew her hands through his hair, and ruffled it caressingly.

  “But ’tis strange,” she said in a low voice, “that your uncle would not do more for you—when he has no children living, other than that nun?”

  “Had I been willing to stay in Denmark. But I always said I would not. And he must have seen that I yearned to be home again.”

  After a while Ingunn asked: “These friends of yours—in that town you spoke of—what kind of folk are they?”

  “Oh, nothing,” replied Olav a little crossly. “A tavern. I was often in that town for uncle—selling bullocks and such errands—”