The Axe (11 page)

Ingunn still sat between Arnvid and Olav, and Olav had laid his hand in her lap. “Silk,” he said, stroking her knee; “silk is fine,” he went on saying again and again.

“You are bemused and know not what you say,” said Arnvid with vexation. “You’re half-asleep already—go to bed!”

But Olav shook his head and laughed softly to himself: “I’ll go when I please.”

Meanwhile some of the men had taken their swords and stood up for dancing. Haftor Kolbeinsson came up to Arnvid and would have him sing for them. But Arnvid declined—he was too tired, he said. Nor would Olav and Ingunn take part in the dance; they said they did not know that lay—the
Kraaka-maal
.

Einar headed the chain of dancers with his drawn sword in his right hand. Tora held his left and had placed her other hand on the next man’s shoulder. Thus they stood in a row, a man with drawn sword and then a woman, all down the hall. It was a fine sight with all the blades held high. Einar began the singing:

“Swiftly went the sword-play—”

The chain moved three paces to the right. Then the men stepped to the left, while the women had to take one place to the rear, so that the men stood on a line before them; and then they crossed swords in pairs and marked time with their feet, as the women ran under their weapons and re-formed the chain. Einar sang on:

There was none among the dancers who was quite sure of the steps, it was seen. When the women were to leap forward under the swords, they made a poor shift to keep time with the men’s tramping. The place was too narrow and constrained, between the long hearth and the row of posts that held up the roof and divided the sleeping-places from the hall.

The three on the dais at the end had risen to have a better view. And when the game threatened to break up even in the second verse, people shouted again for Arnvid and bade him come in. They knew that he could sing the whole dance, and he had the finest of voices.

So when he took his sword, drew it, and placed himself at the head of the row of dancers, the game at once took better shape. Olav and Ingunn stepped in just below him. Arnvid led as surely and gracefully as anyone could look for who saw his high-shouldered, stooping figure. He took up the song in his full, clear voice, while the women swayed in and out under the play of the swords.

Then all was confusion, for there was no woman between Olav and Einar. The dancers had to stop and Einar declared that Olav must stand out; they quarreled over this, until one of the older house-carls said that he had as lief go out. Then Arnvid set the game going again:

But all the time the ranks were in confusion. And as they came farther on in the lay, there was none but Arnvid who knew the words—some had a scrap of one verse, some of another. Olav and Einar were bickering the whole time; and there were all too few who sang the tune. Arnvid was tired, and he had got some scratches that began to smart, he said, as soon as he stirred himself.

So the chain broke up. Some went and threw themselves on their sleeping-benches—some stood chatting and would have more to drink—or they still wished to dance, but to one of these new ballads the steps of which were much easier.

Olav stood in the shadow under the roof-posts; he and Ingunn still held each other’s hands. Olav thrust his sword into the scabbard: “Come, we will go up to your loft and talk together,” he whispered.

Hand in hand they ran through the rain over the dark and empty yard, dashed up the stair, and stopped inside the door, panting with excitement, as though they had done something unlawful. Then they flung their arms about each other.

Ingunn bent the boy’s head against her bosom and sniffed at his hair. “There is a smell of burning on you,” she murmured. “Oh no, oh no,” she begged in fear; he was pressing her against the doorpost.

“No—no—I am going now,” he whispered: “I am going now,” he kept repeating.

“Yes—” but she clung to him closely, dazed and quivering, afraid he would do as he said and go. She knew they had lost their senses, both of them—but all thoughts of past and present seemed swept away on the stream of the last wild, ungoverned hours—and they two had been flung ashore in this dark loft. Why should they leave each other?—they had but each other.

She felt her gilt circlet pushed up on her crown—Olav was rumpling her loosened hair. The garland fell off, jingling on the floor, and the lad took fistfuls of her hair and pressed them to his face, buried his chin in her shoulder.

Then they heard Reidunn—the serving-maid who slept with Ingunn—calling to someone from the yard below.

They started apart, trembling with guilty conscience. And quick as lightning Olav shot out his arm, pulled the door to, and bolted it.

Reidunn came up into the balcony, knocked, and called to Ingunn. The two children stood in pitch-darkness, shaken by the beating of their hearts.

The maid knocked awhile—thundered on the door. Then she must have thought Ingunn had fallen asleep and soundly. They heard the stairs creak under her heavy tread. Out in the yard she called to another maid—they guessed she had gone off to sleep in another house. And Olav and Ingunn flew to each other’s arms, as though they had escaped a great danger.

O
LAV
awoke in pitch-darkness—and in the same instant he remembered. He seemed to sink into the depths as he lay. He felt a chill on his brows—his heart shrank suddenly, as a small defenceless creature makes itself smaller when a hand is groping for it.

Against the wall lay Ingunn, breathing calmly, as a happy, innocent child breathes in its sleep. Wave after wave of terror and shame and sorrow broke over Olav—he lay still, as though the very marrow were blown out of his bones. He had but one burning desire—to fly from Frettastein; he was utterly unequal to facing her accusation, when at last she rose from the happy forgetfulness of sleep. But he knew obscurely within himself that the only way to make this terrible thing yet worse would be to steal away from it now.

Then it struck him that he must contrive to slip out of this loft before anyone was awake. He must find out what time of night it was. But he lay on as though all power were taken from him.

At last he broke out of his torpor with a jerk, crept out of bed, and opened a crack of the door. The clouds above the roofs were tinged with pink—it would be an hour to sunrise.

As he dressed, it came back to him that the last time he had
shared Ingunn’s bed was last Yule, and then he had been very angry that he had to give up his place in the hall to a guest and crawl in among Steinfinn’s daughters. He had pushed Ingunn roughly when he thought she was taking up too much room, and had jostled her crossly when in her sleep she dug her sharp elbows and knees into him. The memory of their former innocence wrung him as the memory of a lost paradise.

He
dared
not stay here longer, he
must
go now. But when he bent over her, caught the scent of her hair, faintly descried the outline of her face and limbs in the darkness, he felt—in spite of his remorse and shame—that this too was sweet. He bent quite down, almost touched her shoulder with his forehead—and again that strange divided feeling ensnared his heart: joy at the frail daintiness of his bride, and torment at the very thought that anyone could touch her roughly or ungently.

Never, he swore to himself, never again would he do her any ill. After making this resolve he gained more courage to face her awake. He touched her face with his hand and softly called her name.

She started up and sat for a moment, heavy with sleep. Then she threw her arms about him, so that he fell on his knees, with head and shoulders in the bed.

She wormed herself about him, drew him up in her slender arms; and as he knelt thus, burying his face in her strangely soft and yielding flesh, he had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting into tears. He was so relieved and humiliated that she was so good and kind and did not raise a lament or reproach him. Full of tenderness for her and of shame and sorrow and happiness, he knew not what he should do.

Then there came a howl from the yard below—the long-drawn, uncanny howl of a dog.

“That is Erp,” whispered Olav. “He yelped like that last night too. I wonder how he has got out again”—and he stole to the door.

“Olav—you are not going from me?” she cried in fear, as she saw he was dressed and ready to go out.

“I must watch my chance—to slip down unseen,” he whispered back. “That hell-hound will wake the whole place soon.”

“Olav, Olav, don’t go from me—” she was kneeling in bed. As he sprang back and bade her hush, she threw her arms about him
and held him fast. Instinctively he turned his head aside as he loosened her hold on his neck; he drew up the coverlet and spread it over her.

“Cannot you see that I must go?” he whispered. “ ’Tis bad enough as it is.”

Then she burst into a fit of weeping—threw herself down on the bed and wept and wept. Olav spread the clothes over her up to her chin and stood there at his wit’s end in the dark, begging her in a whisper not to cry like that. At last he knelt down and put an arm under her neck—that stilled her weeping a little.

The dog out in the yard was howling as though possessed. Olav began to rock the girl backwards and forwards. “Do not weep, my Ingunn—do not weep so sorely—” but his face was hard and stiff with tension.

No dog could howl like that except for a corpse or some disaster. And as he knelt there in the chilly morning with the weeping girl in his arms, growing more and more pitilessly sober the while, one thought after another came into his mind.

He had given no great thought to the price that might be paid for their raid on Mattias Haraldsson’s house—nor had any of the others, so far as he could guess. And that was just as well; for Steinfinn had no choice.—But he misliked that cursed howling in the yard. Steinfinn’s wounds were not so slight; he knew that, for he had held his arm as Arnvid bound it up. And he recalled Steinfinn’s face—once in the boat, as they were coming back—and as they rode up the hillside: Kolbein had to dismount and support his brother, leading his horse. And then last evening, when he bade them good-night.

Now he saw all at once how fond he was of his foster-father. He had taken Steinfinn as part of his everyday life—liked him well enough, but looked down on the man a little too, without knowing it, all these years. Such as Steinfinn was, casual, a dawdler, easy and careless through and through, with the painful burden of sorrow and shame that had been thrust upon him and that seemed so ill suited to the shoulders of this thoughtless lord—his foster-son had felt in his heart a slight contempt for what was so unlike his own nature. And now, when Steinfinn had risen up and shown what manner of man he was in the hour of trial; now that Olav felt in his heart of hearts that he loved Steinfinn after all—now he had done this thing to him. And disgraced himself
and brought ruin upon Ingunn.—His forehead grew icy cold again and his heart thumped with a dull throbbing—if indeed the worst misfortune was already past.

He pressed his forehead against her bosom—and could not that dog be quiet outside?—A kind of sob went through his soul—of homesickness for his childhood, which was now inexorably past. He felt his youth and his loneliness so terribly.—Then Olav straightened himself, stood erect, and shut his mouth firmly on his sighing: now he had dealt in such wise that he had taken a grown man’s responsibility upon himself. Useless to whine after the event. And there must surely be a way out.

At last someone came and scolded the dog, tried to get him in, he could hear. As far as he could guess, Erp ran up into the paddock. All was quiet outside.

Olav took the girl in a protecting embrace, kissed her forehead at the roots of the hair before he let her go. Then he grasped his sword and put the belt over his right shoulder. It seemed to put heart into him to feel the weapon on his hip. He went to the door and glanced over the balcony.

“There is no one in the yard—now I must slip away.”

Ingunn stopped him with a wail: “Oh no, oh no, don’t go—’twill make me so afraid to be left here alone.”

Olav saw at once that it was vain to try to reason with her.

“Get up, then,” he whispered, “and dress yourself. If they see us walking together outside, none will suspect.”

He went out, sat down on the stairway, and waited. With both hands on his sword-hilt, and his chin resting on them, he sat watching the rosy reflection in the western sky fade away as the light in the east grew stronger and whiter. The grass of the fields was grey with dew and rain.

He called to mind all the late evenings and early mornings of that summer with Ingunn—and the memories of their games and frolics hurt him now and filled him with bitter disappointment and wrath. A betrayer he had become—but it was as though he himself had also been betrayed. They had been playing on a flowery slope and had not had the wit to see that it ended in a precipice. They had tumbled over before they knew of it. Well, well, there they lay, ’twas no use whining over it now, he tried to console himself.