The Son Avenger

by Sigrid Undset

  Words that he knew flowed on in the chant. Now they were going to the Mount of Olives—but Olav seemed to be watching from afar: as Judas stood somewhere in the city spying after them. Now he was thrust out, now all his companions knew what had only been known to God and himself when he came in and sat at supper with the others.

  The visions floated farther and farther into the darkness. Among the trees God Himself falls upon His face: Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem— But the disciples are asleep and take no heed. From a gate in the city wall come the watchmen with torches and flashing spears, while Judas goes before and shows the way. Saint Peter leaps up out of his sleep; in the boldness of youth he snatches his sword from the sheath to fling himself between his Master and His enemies—lays about him like a fool, strikes off a servant’s ear—and when he sees that they are overpowered and hears the calm answer of the Lord, to him incomprehensible, he throws down his sword and runs away; they all run, all the disciples who but a while ago promised so stoutly. Christ is left standing alone, holds out His hands unresisting, lets them bind Him—passing comprehension. But who has seen that part of the cross which was in the ground, who knows the root of the cross—?

  Round about Olav men and women stole a chance of sitting or kneeling awhile—there was no end to it, this hateful arraignment by men of their Maker, the voice of the people in shrill chorus: “Crucifigatur!” And again: “Crucifigatur!” The long road out of the city up to the hill of Calvary, the horror of the crucifixion—and the reviling, which did not cease even there.

  After the last loud cry from the cross, when He gave up the ghost, the singing stopped abruptly and the congregation sank on its knees, as though struck down by this dead silence.

  Strangely quiet it sounded when the Evangelist’s voice began again, assuming now the customary Sunday tone, and sang the narrative of the grave and of the Pharisees’ timid consultation with Pilate.

  The mass followed upon the gospel as though out of a gate-manifesting again the vast and awful mysteries of man’s deceit and God’s mercy. It was Holy Week advancing upon mankind, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday; Saint Mark and Saint Luke and Saint John would each in turn bear witness. And Easter Day on the far side of this week of evil seemed infinitely distant.

  When Olav came to the guest-house, he found it so crowded with folk that he hesitated to go in. Two lay brothers hurried forward with steaming dishes, followed by two more with cans of ale: it was past midday and the good folk of the inn were pale and pinched about the nose and hungry as wolves.

  One of the lay brothers was the same young man who had conducted him to the guest’s cell the evening before. As soon as he saw Olav he took him in hand, made room, and pushed him into the place of honour—the franklin was a friend of the Prior of Hamar. He tried to force food and drink on Olav, but Olav could get nothing down.

  As soon as decency allowed, he rose from the table, went up to his cell, and lay on his bed. He fell asleep at once and slept till the young lay brother woke him: “Now Father Finn has time—”

  When Olav came down into the parlour, where Finn Arnvidsson sat waiting, there were several others in the room: two young monks, so much alike that Olav guessed them to be twins, sat there with a woman, their mother, and some young maids. The whole band of kinsfolk had the same fiery-red hair and freckled complexion, upturned noses, and pale-blue eyes; their talk was of news from home—Olav heard it with half an ear while he listened to what Father Finn told him of his father’s last years.

  Olav sat with eyes cast down; his hands clutched and clutched at his dagger, he pulled it half out of its sheath and thrust it back again. Then he cut short the other in the middle of his calm and quiet narration:

  “Ay, Finn—your father knew something of that which I am now to tell you. He counselled me, before he died, to do that for which I am now come.” Without thinking, Olav rose to his feet and stood erect, and as he raised his voice the company on the opposite bench ceased their talk and listened to him:

  “I once slew a man in my youth and I have never confessed it. Arnvid, your father, knew of it, but at that time, I would not do what he begged of me—confess my blood-guiltiness and purge my sin by penance. But this that lately happened in my home—my son-in-law has been killed in his sleep and we know not who did it—this drove me hither to seek the Bishop. I knew not that you were in Oslo.”

  Finn Arnvidsson had also risen. They stood looking each other in the face. Then Father Finn slipped away to the other company, who stood staring, and whispered a few words to the two young monks. A moment later all the red-haired folk were out of the room, and Olav stood alone with Arnvid’s son.

  The monk laid his hands on his shoulders.

  “God be praised,” he said warmly.

  “Did your father speak to you of this?” asked Olav, looking up into the other’s face. Finn was a much taller man.

  “No. But now I understand much better one thing and another with which he charged me—that I should say a Miserere daily for all men who are burdened with an unshriven sin, for instance—and other things besides. God be praised that you have now resolved to do this.—But you should not have spoken of it in the hearing of those strange women.”

  “I am not sure that I had said it to you if we two had been alone. But now I have broken down all bridges behind me.” Olav smiled faintly.

  The monk stared at him a moment. Then he nodded in silence.

  “Now that the lord Helge is at the point of death,” said Olav, “and none can tell me who acts in his stead—whether official or penitentiary or what he may be called—”

  “I myself will find that out tomorrow, Olav.”

  “But now I will go. I would rather be alone now—”

  “Yes indeed. I understand.”

  They took each other firmly by the hand. Olav went up, lay down on his bed, and fell asleep at once. He slept till the young lay brother came up with his supper. Olav ate and lay down again. God, my God, how good it is to have thrown down all bridges behind one!

  When he came down into the cloisters next morning, on his way to church, Finn Arnvidsson came toward him.

  “Olav—know you not that so long as you have not confessed this sin in lawful manner, you must not enter the church? I remind you of this, for, you know, you will only have more to answer for if you set at naught the interdict—”

  Olav stopped, overwhelmed. Assuredly he knew it—he was banned just as wholly as if excommunication had been pronounced on him in church. But so long had he defied the ban, stealing in where he had no right to be and committing sacrilege, that at last he had forgotten.—He answered nothing, turned back and walked down the cloister.

  Father Finn followed him, took him by the arm. “You must remember, Olav—ay, you know Latin, I think?”

  “A little I know—”

  “You must remember these words of Saint Ambrose: ‘Novit omnia Deus, sed exspectat vocem tuam, non ut puniat sed ut ignoscat. God knows all things, but He waits to hear your voice, not to chastise, but to forgive.’ ”

  Olav nodded.

  On coming to his cell he threw himself on his knees at the little desk with the crucifix.

  Assuredly he had known it—but he had forgotten. This was the first thing he would have to bear—that he must stay outside the church door. He saw that it was there he had sought nourishment during all these years—as the outlawed Danish lords had lived by making descents on their own land.

  He took the crucifix from the desk and kissed the image of the King.

  “Lord—I am not worthy that Thou shouldst take pity on my repentance and show me grace!”

  He had made his confession mentally so many times, the whole chain of his life’s sins—from the time when his pride was young and childishly thin-skinned; he had faced the men on whom his boy’s heart was set with white lies and petty deceit that they might think him a man. In the beginning it had meant no more than that he was afraid they might smile if they found that he was only
a young, hot-headed, obstinate and weak-spirited lad, while he wished to be taken for one who was resourceful, prudent, and strong. But he had carried this playing with truth to such length that he became a secret slayer, perjured and sacrilegious; link by link he had wrought his fetters, stone by stone he had built his own dungeon. Till it had come to this: that every time his thoughtless daring sprang up, the fetters held it back, and every time his heart would fly out to meet all who called it forth, it beat its wings against the stone walls and fell back.

  Repent—now he saw that life would not be granted him long enough to see fully all of which he had to repent. If he had chosen loyalty to his Chieftain and been able to bear such burdens as he need never have repented taking on his shoulders—He could not repent having opened his door to everyone who craved shelter by his hearth, and never could he sufficiently repent that he had so acted toward himself that it was to a man full of leprosy that he let them in.

  Nothing could be undone. Cecilia sat out at Hestviken with the body of the husband she had slain; the three fair-haired, mouse-eared boys stood about her, the fourth child lay under her heart, and she, their mother, had killed their father.

  How could he have been deaf to his own heart, which told him: trust not a man who was false to his friend as a boy? So long had he strayed in shadows that he could not believe his own eyes—Jörund was not a fit husband for his only child. And afterwards he had done nothing—although he felt now that he must have known something might happen. This husband whom his daughter defended in word and deed, true as the sword is true to its master—he would be sure to try her patience once too often, and then Cecilia would turn against him. He remembered what she was like as a child: a dogged little spitfire, with her sharp bright eyes under a shock of flaxen hair. How could he believe Cecilia would change her nature, even if she were tamed and tutored by life? One can tame both bear and hawk; it does not make domestic animals of them.

  Now it was too late, and he could only pray God to help him. Pride and presumption it would be if he now prayed God to use him as His instrument. For him it only remained to sever himself from the company of men—a lonely pilgrimage of penance. And to be thankful it was granted him to do it.

  To take Cecilia with him was not in his power. Rather follow Jörund than go with him, she had said. So be it; perhaps she would think otherwise when she heard what he had done.

  This was the first bitter cup he had to drain—to see that his conversion came too late in the evening for him to hope that God would send him back into the fray as His man. His work in the world was ended, and he could not undo it. He had rejected the glorious task of Simon of Cyrene; now he could only humble himself sorrowfully before the cross.

  Olav took the crucifix in his hand again, stood looking at it. Somewhere, beyond the long week of pain and conflict, bided the Easter morn, and beyond death and purgatory it would be given even to him to see the glorious victory of the Cross. But here on earth it would never be his to see the radiance of a standard under which he might fight with the powers that were given him at his birth.

  Olav looked up from the desk and turned half round as the door opened. It was Finn Arnvidsson who entered. His speech was dry and strangely cool—Olav guessed he was trying to conceal his emotion.

  The monk said he came straight from St. Halvard’s Church, where he had spoken with Master Sigurd Eindridson, who was delegate during Bishop Helge’s illness to confess homicides. And he would hear Olav’s confession in the sacristy after mass.

  “So you have a day in which to prepare yourself. I too shall watch tonight, and pray that you may make a good confession. But remember that you are an old man, Olav—lie down and take your rest when you can watch no longer. It is of no use to constrain your body more than it can bear.”

  Olav compressed his lips. But it was true—he was old; even on his bodily strength he could rely no longer. Arnvid’s son knelt by his side and remained on his knees a long while with his face in his hands. Then he rose silently and went out.

  The hours went by. Now and again Olav caught sounds from outside—footsteps in the paved cloister as they fetched water from the well. The rain continued to splash on the roof and pour off it, gusts of wind beat upon the house, with a roar in the tree-tops, a creaking and crashing everywhere—then the blast died down for a while. The bells told him how the day was passing; the distant singing from the church showed how the life of the convent followed its wonted way.

  A day and a night—the time of waiting seemed unbearably long. He held the crucifix in his hand and looked at it from time to time—but it seemed to him that his prayers fell from his lips as withered leaves flutter down from the trees in autumn. Was it so hard to wait?—but He had been kept waiting thirty years. From the beginning of time until the last day, God waited for mankind.

  At dusk the young lay brother came, bringing him food—Olav saw that the man guessed something of what was afoot. He drank up the water and ate a little bread. Then he knelt down again and waited.

  Night fell outside, the house grew silent, only the rain continued to pour down, the wind rose and fell. Once he went to the window and looked out. In an upper window of the opposite wing a faint light glowed through a little pane. There was one man who watched with him tonight.

  As morning advanced on the next day it looked as if the southerly weather would soon have spent itself for this time. There were short fine intervals and once the sun peeped out strongly enough to be reflected from the wet roofs.

  Olav sprang up as Finn Arnvidsson appeared at the door. He took his hat, threw his cloak about him, and followed the monk down the narrow stairway that led to the cloister.

  From the parlour someone came flying toward them in great haste—a tall man in a dark-red cloak with the hood drawn over his head. He was as wet as he could be. It was Eirik.

  “Father! Cecilia is innocent—” He greeted as though absently the preaching friar who stood by his father’s side. “Ay, Father, there is so much I have to tell you—but this comes first—she is innocent!”

  Olav stared at his son—slowly he turned crimson in the face.

  “God be praised—thanks be to God—” His voice became unsteady. “Are you sure?—You are not to tell me this now if later I am to hear—for I cannot bear it a second time—”

  “They have found the man who killed him, Father. It was Anki. The poor wretches were so frightened that they ran away with their children and all they possessed, hid themselves in the woods by Kaldbæk. But late in the evening of Sunday, Anki came down to Rynjul and asked Una to go with him to Gudrun. Poor child, she was already dead when Una came. Then she sent a message home, and Torgrim came over himself with the men who were to carry the bodies to the village. Then they found both the dagger and Jörund’s brooch in the bog-hole under Gudrun. Arnketil denied nothing—seemed rather to be glad it had come out, says Torgrim—they were to know that his children were not left unavenged.”

  Olav swayed so strangely as he stood; a stifled rattling sound came from his lips, and they had turned blue—the whole face was blue. Then he fell, like a tree that is blown down.

  Eirik threw himself down beside the strange monk, who was already loosening the clothes at the neck, raising the shoulders in his arms. His father’s face was dark, the whites of the eyes showed yellow and bloodshot under the lids, the breathing was stertorous. Eirik could not read the look in the monk’s face—despair or horror that he fought to repress—but it added to the son’s fear.

  “Is he dying—?”

  “No,” said the other hastily. “Help me to take hold, so we can carry him in.”

  5 On Palm Sunday the 26th and 27th chapters of St. Matthew’s gospel are sung (on Tuesday in Holy Week the story of the Passion according to St. Mark, on Wednesday according to St. Luke, and on Good Friday according to St. John).

  PART TWO

  The Son Avenger

  1

  MIDSUMMER was gone before Eirik was able to visit his home at
the Ness.

  Across the bogs the sunshine blazed on the shining leaves of the osiers, and the new blades of grass were agleam in the little tussocky meadows. The lake reflected the woods on the other side and the warm blue sky and the clouds, which were already turning to gold—it was the end of the day.

  As he approached the gate of the paddock a scent of new-mown hay was wafted toward him. Eirik dismounted, but paused for a moment before opening the gate: the days of the evening sun were yellow as gold, and the cluster of little houses on the ness threw long shadows over the meadow, where Eldrid and old Ragnhild were spreading hay.

  His wife had seen him; she put down her rake and came to meet him. She walked lightly and erect, barelegged in her working-clothes. Erik thought once more that he knew nothing finer than Eldrid’s forehead above the great eye-sockets and the rounding of the cheek, though the face was brown as wood, the skin drawn tight over the bones, and she had deep furrows right across her brow, many wrinkles about the great eyes, and cracks in her rough lips.

  Never had he felt so intensely that here was the home he would have chosen; he liked best to dwell in the forests. This was the last time he would come home to this place. But it was not that he thought with any regret of the destiny that was now bearing him away from here. At one time he had loved Hestviken so that it sent a tremor through mind and sense if he did but come near anything that belonged to his home. Now he loved Hestviken because the manor needed him, the old folk looked to him and expected him to take control as master; he was the brother who was to care for Cecilia and her children, and he was the son, bound to stay by the old man who lived on, stricken and swathed in his dumbness and mysterious calamity as in a cloak of darkness.

  Man and wife gave each other their hands in greeting, but their manner was the same as if Eirik had ridden from home the day before. Eldrid asked how his sister fared now, and Eirik answered: well. And Olav? There was no change, said Eirik.