The Son Avenger

by Sigrid Undset

  “I should have remembered they are your thralls”—Jörund flared up; “and of course you would keep the nest for your own with all that are in it of thieves and whores—”

  “Be quiet now,” said Eirik calmly. “’Tis true you ought to have remembered that these folk are faithful to us, and if you are such a gull as to believe all the tales I once told you for entertainment’s sake—how could I tell you were so credulous; ’tis not like you. But it so happened that I was riding past and saw you come out with someone—They have said nothing; I advise you to remember that! Was it the thieves themselves, or was it their fences?” he brought himself to ask.

  “It was a woman,” said Jörund curtly.

  Did you think that bride had inherited the silver she carried along the road?—but he kept the question to himself.

  “I have thought of a way, Jörund. We will bury these things in the ground by Rundmyr. And then we must find them again when they have lain there awhile, and bring them to Guttorm at Draumtorp.”

  “I have bought them,” said Jörund angrily.

  “I will give you Agnar in exchange”—he instantly regretted that he had not thought of something else; Jörund was not always good to his horses. “I wager he is worth more than you gave that woman,” he said rather scornfully. “Cannot you see, man, ’tis your own honour and welfare that you have to save by this?” he went on earnestly. “What use have you of silver that you must keep hidden?”

  He wrapped the treasure in the cloth again, put it under his cloak, carried it down, and hid it in his bed.

  In the course of the afternoon, when he had seen Jörund go out, he slipped into the women’s house to hear how it was with Cecilia.

  She sat sewing at some of the things he had brought down for her in the morning. Eirik was afraid to ask the question, but at last he said nevertheless:

  “Has Jörund spoken to you of what we talked of this morning?”

  “Yes. I must thank you, Eirik, for giving him your help. He says he cannot guess how he could be so thoughtless as to let them trick him into taking these things. But in sooth it was because he wished to restore to Father what he owed him.”

  “That must be a lie,” thought her brother. He leaned over her and stroked her wimpled head once or twice as she bent over her sewing.

  In the evening, as he and his father were going to bed, Eirik said:

  “Now I have a boon to ask of you, Father, and ’tis the same I asked before—be reconciled with Jörund!”

  “I have already given you my answer.”

  “Yes. But now I say to you—this is worse for Cecilia than you think. For the love of God who died for us all—grant what I ask of you this time!”

  Olav looked at his son, but made no answer.

  “Ay, there is yet more I would ask of you. When Cecilia is over her churching—let her rule here as mistress of the whole manor!”

  “What say you! When you yourself are to bring a wife into the house at John’s mass! ’Twill leave but a short space for Cecilia to wear the keys.”

  “Oh, I know not.—I had thought that Gunhild and I might be at Saltviken most of the time.”

  “No, Eirik! Saltviken is far too small for the daughter of Eiken.”

  “I am not sure of that. One day Hestviken will be ours in any case—and then we shall be thought no less of for having kept to its desert and dependent manor for some years.”

  “I told you,” said Olav slowly, “last time we spoke of these things—I believe Jörund is a dangerous man to give in to, when he is in the wrong.”

  “Father!” Eirik rose, stood facing Olav, and spoke with vehement insistence. “I beg this of you, with all my power! Think of our mother! Have you ever felt pity for her, in the years when she lay here broken and powerless—and you must have—did you ever rue it that you made her lot more grievous—Father, Christ knows I do not speak thus to accuse you, I know your own lot was hard enough—I know you would not have taken her, but they forced the marriage upon you, ere you were grown up. But even if you did not love her, you must have pitied her; do not then so order it that Cecilia’s lot must be as hard as Mother’s!”

  Olav had listened to his son—with an expression that bewildered Eirik.

  “What has put this into your head? That I did not love your mother?” The strange smile that spread over the man’s whole face reminded his son, as it died away, of rings that spread over a sheet of water. “I did so. And for her sake I will do as you ask.”

  When Eirik had gone to bed—he lay on the silver and thought he would rather have had a nest of vipers in his bed-straw—his father came to the door of the closet.

  “Will you stay at home now?”

  “I thought I would sail across tomorrow with Tore—give him directions there. Then I could come back on the second or third day.”

  “That were well.”

  In the midst of all the misery on which he lay brooding it suddenly occurred to Eirik: things had so shaped themselves that he now counted for not a little at Hestviken. And he was not sorry at the thought. And by John’s mass, his father had said. He lay sleepless that night, in a fever of dread and disgust over the affairs of others, in a fever of joy over his own.

  About midnight he stole out and made his way up toward Rundmyr. He found the hiding-place he had in mind, buried the Draumtorp silver there. On coming home he waked Tore, and when Olav came out in the grey dawn, they had loaded the boats and were ready to sail.

  At Saltviken they were met by Olav Livsson. With his two crutches and his thin, dangling limbs the cripple made one think of a huge creeping spider. But his face was handsome, narrow and refined, with great brown eyes. Eirik remembered with disgust Jörund’s asking whether he were father to the lad. When Eirik laughingly replied that he must have been but twelve or thirteen at the time, Jörund smiled slyly— “Well?” Eirik could not make out how he had ever liked Jörund Rypa. But he had been fond of him, for all that.

  He had a busy day. Out here he had to lend a hand with everything. The dead leaves were still stacked outside, but now they were dry; the good, bitter-sweet scent of them carried a long way. In the spring, when they had dung enough and could take up more cornfields, the ugly bush fences should be replaced by rails. He went to look at his cherry trees too—there was no fruit on them, nor could that be expected, but only four of the ten trees were dead, and two of the rosebushes were alive. He plucked a sprig of mint, crushed it between his fingers, and smelled it. Some fine, blue-green leaves had also come up—they must be the herb that Brother Hubert called aquilegia; no doubt there had been some of its seed in the mould about the roots. There would be great bright-blue flowers on it—had Gunhild ever seen the like before? She would be surprised when she saw that he even had a garden to his manor.

  Before he fell asleep that night, the thought came to him that from here it was not nearly so far up to Eiken as from Hestviken. And next morning he saddled the bay and rode inland.

  He had never before seen Eiken except at a distance—no highroad passed near it. Now he turned his horse into a side-track that led in the direction of the manor.

  It stood secluded on a hill that came down in a tongue between two converging watercourses, close under a dark wooded height.

  Eirik rode up and past it. There was no one about among the houses; the manor lay as though deserted below its wood, with many houses, and beyond them stood great oaks with browned leaves against the sky.

  Above the manor the road led upward into the forest. The weather was fine and it amused Eirik to ride thus into the unknown; he had a mind to see whither this track might lead—whether perhaps he might come out on a height, from whence he could have a view of this part of the country—it was unfamiliar to him.

  He came upon some great slabs of rock where the forest was thin, the firs broken at the top by wind or weight of snow. Heather and moss grew thick over the ground, and among the rocks were patches of bog with dying, hoary trees and gnarled and yellow birches arou
nd tarns that mirrored the blue sky.

  Up here, in the shadows, all was white with rime, and a few little snowflakes in the bog showed that a shower had passed over the forest. But now the sky was clear and blue, scored by white fine-weather clouds, and the sun shone on the autumnal woods. Eirik let his horse get its breath, sitting at his ease and thinking of nothing—when there came a call from beyond the bog, a loud, clear woman’s voice. She was calling a goat, cried something, a name it must have been, in a sad and plaintive tone; then came the call again.

  Eirik listened intently. Then he crossed himself—if this was other than human, it would have no power over him against his will. But indeed it might be someone from Eiken.

  The calling came nearer. Now he could hear: “Blaalin, Blaalin,” she was calling. Now he caught sight of a woman clad in green; she came out upon the stony ground on this side of the tarn, stopped by some yellow stunted birches.

  Now she had seen that a strange horseman had appeared on the mountain—she stopped, hesitating. Then he turned his horse and, taking up her luring tone, he called her name in a voice that rang: “Gunhild, Gunhild—” and rode toward her.

  “Have I frightened you?” he cried when he was near enough for her to know him.

  She came forward to meet him, still hesitating a little. “Are you here? On this side?”

  “Ay, I had business—” He checked himself. Of all his good resolutions, the most difficult to keep was that he must always speak the truth instead of saying the first thing that occurred to him. “I had a mind to look around here for once. I have never been east of the Kambshorn road.”

  Her kirtle was green edged with red, but simple in cut as a serving-woman’s working-shift: the sleeves did not reach the wrist, and it was so short that her ankles showed; she wore coarse shoes that were black with wet and besmeared with bog mire. Dry twigs and leaves were caught in her dress and in her plaits, which were half-undone. Eirik thought she looked younger and as it were nearer in this simple dress.

  “But—is it not rash of you, Gunhild, to roam the woods thus alone?” He knew there were many bears on the hills hereabout—and mountain-folk too, ’twas said.

  Gunhild looked up into his face; he saw that she had been afraid. “My goat did not come home last night—one that I have had from a kid.”

  “Then shall I join you in the search?” The goat had been taken by a wild beast, he thought, but it might be they would find a trace—

  “Thanks, will you? Then perhaps it were best you turned your horse into the paddock by our summer byre—’tis just here.”

  “But you will come too? I like not your being alone here in the forest.”

  He carried the bridle on his arm, and she walked at his side. They still kept a few young cattle and goats up here, she said, and when her father and stepmother set out from home two days ago, she had come up hither to see how it went. Yesterday morning Blaalin had given but little milk; she had thought nothing of it, but since then the herdsman said she had walked so strangely, almost as if she were drunken—and then she did not come home with the rest at evening. And Gunhild had scarcely been able to sleep for uneasiness—Blaalin, poor creature, lying out in the open. Eirik swallowed her every word—she spoke to him as if they had been friends a great while.

  The path ended in a meadow, where some old black houses were falling to pieces. Since he had repaired the old houses at Saltviken, Eirik could never see a ruinous building without thinking of what he would have done with it—so also here. Building was now become his favourite occupation.

  “But we ought rather to go over to the other side, Gunhild—the wind was from the south-west last night.”

  Gunhild did not know that—the goat always goes against the wind.

  So they set off in the other direction. They kept within sight and sound of each other and answered each other’s calls the whole time.

  The fine, loud notes resounded in the clear autumn weather. Eirik ran over crunching dry moss, down the face of screes, where the bracken was shrivelled and the wild raspberry still bore blood-red fruit, but its leaves lay fallen among the stones, showing their silvery undersides. He leaped into swamps, so that the mud splashed and his spear-shaft sank deep when he wanted to support himself on it; he came upon frozen ground where the thin ice broke under his feet at every step, into thick spruce forest, where he lost sight of her. Then he called:

  “Are you, are you, are you there, Gunhild, Gunhild, Gunhild, my Gunhild—”

  And she called back to him: “Are you, are you, are you there, Eirik, Eirik, Eirik—”

  He could tell by her voice that she had forgotten her sorrow in the sport, and he leaped with joy and let his pure and flexible voice ring out under the blue sky. Once they came to a place where the echo answered so plainly that they stayed shouting and singing at the rock and forgot all else.

  They were walking on a slope where great trees lay overthrown by the wind, with shreds of mossy soil clinging to their roots, and among them the cranberry shone red. They walked in sight of each other—when she gathered up her kirtle in both hands and ran slantingly toward him, leaping and climbing over stocks and stones. At the same moment he too heard the feeble, piteous cry—he too ran in the direction of the sound. They met by the little pit—within it the rime lay thick upon moss and withered leaves—and there they found the little black-saddled goat. She lay with her legs stretched out and her neck turned back; there was not much life in the poor creature. But Gunhild flung herself down and got the goat halfway up in her arms, fondling it and talking to it the while.

  Eirik lifted Blaalin out of the pit and carried it, and Gunhild took his light spear and walked at his side. It would have been better to kill the poor beast, which was nearly dead already—and the goat was a heavy burden after a while. But he was too glad of the chance of walking thus with her to say anything of this; every moment Gunhild had to caress Blaalin in his arms.

  At last they found their way back to the summer byre. Eirik fetched a truss of hay for her to strew under Blaalin, and she had found an old ragged coverlet to spread over the goat.

  Then she said: “But you must come in, Eirik, and rest. I have naught else to offer you than goat’s milk and a slice of cheese.”

  “Did you sleep here last night?” he asked in a low voice—they entered a little dark hut where the daylight crept in between the logs. The hearth was a hole in the floor, and the couch a pallet of cleft logs with hay and a few blankets spread on top. So she was not proud—gentle she was and full of care for all that was in her charge, faithful and diligent. Eirik looked at her, full of tenderness and wonder, as he sat on the edge of her poor couch and drank the smoky goat’s-milk.

  He made up the fire for her, and she put the kettle on. While she waited for the milk to be ready for curdling, they sat side by side on the pallet, chatting together like old friends. Till Gunhild said all at once—and turned red as she spoke:

  “I wonder, Eirik—the dairywoman may come back soon—she might think it strange that I have a guest in the hut.”

  Eirik rose rather reluctantly. “But go with me across the paddock, Gunhild, if you can leave the kettle.”

  He took his horse and led it through the gate into the forest. Then they must needs part.

  “You have soot on your hand—” he held it between both his. They stood looking at each other, smiling slightly. She made no resistance when he drew her close to him, and so he threw his arm about the girl and kissed her on the mouth.

  She let him do it; then he kissed her all over her face, pressing her tightly against him—till he felt her struggle.

  “Eirik—now you must let me go.”

  “Oh, no—?”

  “Yes—let go!”

  He let her go. “Are you angry now, Gunhild?”

  “Oh, I know not.” So he drew her toward him again. She flung her arms about his neck an instant. “But now you must go—nay, nay, what are you doing?”

  He had thrust a hand down unde
r the neck of her kirtle and pressed it for a moment against her smooth breast. Half laughing and half embarrassed she pushed him from her, and fished up the hard, cold thing he had slipped under her dress.

  “Nay, Eirik—you must take this back—so great a gift I may not take from you yet.” She held out the gold brooch he had taken out of his shirt.

  “Oh, yes.” He swung himself into the saddle; when she came up, gave him his spear with one hand, and tried to force the brooch on him with the other, he bent down and once more brushed her smooth, cool forehead with his lips. “You are to have it—you must keep it till you can wear it!”

  Then he let his horse go. Time after time he turned and nodded to her. When he saw her for the last time, as the path turned down into the thicket, Gunhild raised her hand and waved to him.

  Eirik smiled to himself, laughed quietly now and then, as he rode back toward the fiord. At intervals he hummed the notes of the call, but very low, and he dared not sing her name aloud. This was the happiest day he had known.

  8 August 24.

  15

  ON the last Sunday but one before Advent, Cecilia Olavsdatter held her churching, and when they came home to Hestviken her father gave her the keys of his stores in the sight of the whole household, asking her to be pleased to take upon herself the duties of mistress of Hestviken.

  Olav and Jörund now spoke to each other—not very much but at any rate Olav was not unfriendly toward his son-in-law. And he had visited Cecilia several times to see this last child of hers; the folk of the place thought he must be glad there was once more an Audun at Hestviken. And indeed it was a fine big child. Cecilia was pale and thin, but seemed in good health—she took charge of the house as a capable wife, and the old serving-folk, who had known her from a child, were eager to comply with the behests of their young mistress and loved her little sons.

  Eirik’s joy was such that not one of these quiet people in this quiet household could fail to be cheered by it—though he himself was calm enough at this time. Since that day in the forest he had spoken only once with Gunhild—at church—and then he did no more than ask after Blaalin—Blaalin was dead.