The Axe (21 page)

Einar found his voice again, now that he had his brother and cousin at his back. He said something—Olav did not hear the words. Arnvid’s face seemed to knit together—then he drove his fist at Einar and caught him below the chin, so that the man fell backward at full length and crashed against the bench.

The lay brother had rushed in among the men; he helped Einar Kolbeinsson to his feet and wiped the blood from him, as he shouted to the others: “ ’Tis a banning matter, you know that, to break the peace in our house—is this fitting conduct for nobles?”

Arnvid recovered himself and said to Haftor: “Brother Sigvald is right. Now we will go, Olav and I—that is safest.”

“Shall
we
go?” asked Olav sharply. “ ’Twas not we who started the quarrel here—”

“Let them end it who have kept their wits,” said Arnvid curtly. “I shall give Einar his answer in a fitter place. To you, Haftor, I say that I can answer fully for my conduct in this matter—I
have
answered both the Bishop and Kolbein, and
you
are not concerned in it.”

“You said you saw nothing of it,” said Einar with a grimace; “and that may well be true, if ’tis as folk say—that you were a married man yourself for a full year before you guessed what your mother had given you a wife for—”

Olav saw Arnvid’s face quiver—as when a man has a sudden knock on an open wound; he ran back and snatched his spear, which he had left standing by the door. Seized with insensate wrath on the other’s behalf, Olav sprang between them—saw Einar swing an axe in the air and himself raised Kinfetch in both hands. He struck Einar’s axe aside so that it rang and flew out of his hands, grazed Hallvard, who stood behind him, and fell to the floor. Olav raised Kinfetch once more and struck at Einar Kolbeinsson. Einar ducked to avoid the blow—it caught him on the back below the shoulder-blade, and the axe sank in deeply. Einar dropped and lay doubled up.

Now Kolbein’s men had come to life—all three staggered out from the bench and thrust at the air with their weapons, but they were very drunken and seemed to have no great heart for a fight, though they yelled bravely. Hallvard sat on the bench holding his wounded leg, rocking to and fro and groaning.

Haftor had drawn his sword and made for the two; it was a rather short weapon and the others had axe and spear, so at first they only tried to keep Haftor from coming to close quarters. But soon they found this as much as they could do—the man was now quite sober and plied his sword with great skill; with a sullen determination to avenge his brother he took his aim, supple, swift, and sure in every muscle, with senses wide awake.

Olav defended himself, unaccustomed though he was to the use of arms in earnest—but there was a strange voluptuous excitement in this game, and in a vague way he felt acutely impatient every time Arnvid’s spear was thrust forward to protect him.

Though aware in a way that the door had been opened to the night, he was yet overwhelmed with surprise when the Prior and several of the monks rushed in. The whole scene had not lasted many minutes, but Olav had a feeling of being roused from a long dream when the fight came to an end without his clearly knowing how.

It was fairly dark in the parlour now, as the fire on the hearth had burned low. Olav looked about him at the band of black and white monks—he passed his hand across his face once, let it drop, and stood leaning on his axe. He was now filled with astonishment that this thing had actually occurred.

Someone lighted a candle at the fire and carried it to the bench, where Brother Vegard and another of the friars were busy with
Einar. There was still life in him, and a sound came from him like the retching of a drunken man—Olav heard them say that the bleeding must be mostly
within
. Brother Vegard gave him such a queer look once—

He heard that the Prior was speaking to him, asking if it were he who first broke the peace.

“Yes, I struck first and cut down Einar Kolbeinsson. But the peace was but frail in here the whole evening—long before I broke it. At the last Einar used such shameful speech to us that we took to our weapons—”

“ ’Tis true,” said the lay brother. He was an old countryman who had entered the convent only lately. “Einar spoke such words that in old days any man would have judged he died an outlaw’s death by Olav’s hand.”

Haftor was standing by his brother; he turned and said with a cold smile: “Ay, so they will judge the murder in this house—and in the Bishop’s. Since these two are the Bishop’s men, body and soul. But mayhap the nobles of this land will soon be tired of such dishonour—that every priest who thinks he has authority uses it to shelter the worst brawlers and law-breakers—”

“That is untrue, Haftor,” said the Prior; “we servants of God will not protect any evil-doer farther than he has protection in the law. But we are bound to do our best that law-breaking be punished according to law, and not avenged by fresh unlawfulness, which begets fresh vengeance without end.”

Haftor said scornfully: “I call them dirty laws, these new laws. The old were better suited to men of honour—but ’tis true the new are better for such fellows as Olav there, who outrage the daughters of our best houses and strike down their kinsmen when they call them to account for their misdeeds.”

The Prior shrugged his shoulders. “But now the law is such that the Sheriff must take Olav and hold him prisoner until the matter be brought to judgment. And here we have these men whom I sent for,” he said, turning to some men-at-arms who, Olav knew, lived in the houses next the church. “Bjarne and Kaare, you must bind this young lad and carry him to Sir Audun. He has struck a man a blow that may give him his death.”

Olav handed Kinfetch to one of the monks.

“You need not bind me,” he said sharply to the strange men; “nay, lay no hands on me—I will go with you unforced.”

“Ay, now you must go out in any case,” said the Prior. “You can see that we cannot let
you
stay here—they are coming with Corpus Domini for Einar.”

Outside, it had begun to snow again and there was much wind. The town had gone to rest more than an hour ago. The little band tramped heavily in the dark through drifts and loose snow between the churchyard wall and the low, black, timber houses of the canons; everything looked dreary and lifeless, and the wind howled mournfully about the walls and whistled shrilly in the great ash trees.

One of the watch went in front, and then came an old monk who was a stranger to Olav, but he knew him to be the subprior. Then walked Olav, with a man on each side of him and one behind, so close that he almost trod on his heels. Olav’s mind was full of the thought that now he was a
prisoner—
but he was sleepy and strangely blunted and inert.

The Sheriff’s house lay east of the cathedral. For a long time they had to stand in the drifts hammering on the locked door, while the snow worked through their clothes and turned the whole band white. But at last the door was opened and a sleepy man with a lantern in his hand came forward and asked what was the matter. Then they were admitted.

Olav had never been inside this gate. He could distinguish nothing in the darkness but driven snow between black walls. The Sheriff was away—had ridden out of town about midday in company with the Bishop, Olav heard in a half-dazed way—he was almost asleep as he stood. Reeling with tiredness, he let himself be led into a little house that stood in the yard.

It was bitterly cold inside and pitch-dark, with no fire on the hearth. In a few minutes some men came with a candle and bedclothes, which they threw down upon the bedstead within. They bade him good-night, and Olav replied half-asleep. Then they went out and barred the door, and Olav was alone—suddenly wide awake. He stood staring at the little flame of the candle.

The first thing he felt was a kind of chill. Then his rage boiled up, with a defiant, voluptuous joy—so he had paid out that unbearable Einar Kolbeinsson—and God strike him if he rued it. He cared not, whatever his hastiness might cost him! Kolbein and
those—how cordially he hated them! Now for the first time he saw how he had fallen off in these last months: his dread, his gnawing pains of conscience, all the humiliations he had been exposed to, while he was trying to find a way out of the slough in which he was sunk—it was Kolbein who had barred the way for him wherever he tried to get a firm foothold again. Had not that Kolbein crew stood in his path, he might long ago have been out of all this evil, free and safe, able to forget the painful feeling that he had been a false deceiver. But Kolbein had kept him under his thumb.—And now it was avenged—and he
thanked
God for it with all his heart. It mattered not that Bishop Torfinn and all these new friends of his said it was sinful to have such thoughts. A man’s flesh and blood were not to be denied.

Olav’s mind rose in revolt against all these new doctrines and thoughts he had come under in this place—ay, they were fine in a way, he saw that even now, but—no, no, they were unnatural, impossible dreams.
All
men could never be such saints as to consent to submit all their concerns, great and small, to the judgment of their even Christians, always being satisfied with the law and with
receiving
their rights—never
taking
them for themselves. He remembered that Haftor had said something of the same sort this evening—that these new laws were only good for the common people. And he felt at once that he was one with such as Kolbein and his sons, if only in this—he would rather take his case against them into his own hands, set wrong against wrong, if need were. His place was among such as Kolbein and Steinfinn and Ingebjörg—and Ingunn, who had thrown herself into his arms without a thought of the law, in the warmth of her self-willed love—not among these priests and monks, whose life was passed in clear and cool regularity, who every day did the same things at the same times: prayed, worked, ate, sang, lay down to sleep, and got up again to begin their prayers. And they inquired into the laws, copied them out and discussed their wording, and disagreed among themselves and came into conflict with laymen about the laws—all because they loved this law and dreamed that by its means all folk might be tamed, till no man more would bear arms against his neighbour or take his rights by force, but all would be quiet and willing to listen to our Lord’s new and gentle tidings of brotherhood among all God’s children.—He felt a kind of distant, melancholy affection for all this even now, a respect for the
men who thought thus—but
he
was not able always to bow beneath the law, and the very thought that they would slip these bonds about
himself
filled him with violent loathing.

It added to his rebellious feeling that he was dimly sure they now must look upon
him
as an outlaw. Bishop Torfinn could not possibly have any more love for him after the way he had repaid his fatherly kindness. And all the preaching friars had looked on him with such eyes—they must be full of resentment at his defiling their parlour with a man’s blood. The old subprior had said something about repentance and penance before he went out just now. But Olav was not in any mood for repentance.

It must cost what it might. He ought never to have listened to Arnvid, never come hither, never let himself be parted from Ingunn.

Ingunn, he thought, and his longing for her came up in him as an incurable torment—she was the only one on earth whom he really knew and was allied to. Ingunn, such as she was and not otherwise, weak and obstinate, short of wit, alluring and tender and warm—she was the only one in the knowledge of whom he was quite secure; the only one of all his possessions that he could take and feel and see and own as something apart from unreal dreams and words and uncertain memories. But
she
was actually as his own body and his own soul, and now he cried out with her, silently, as he bent double, gnashed his teeth, and clenched his hands till the nails ran into the flesh. At the thought of how far he was from her now, and what chance he now had of getting her, all his desire blazed up, so that he moaned aloud and bit his own clenched fists. He would go to her, he would have her now at once, he was ready to tear her to pieces and eat her up in terror lest anyone should drag them apart.—“Ingunn, Ingunn,” he groaned.

He
must
find her. For he must tell her what had happened—find out how she would take it, that he had killed her cousin. Ay, for Einar would die, of that he was sure, there was blood between them now, but, Holy Mary! what could that do, when they two were already one flesh? She was not fond of these sons of Kolbein, but kin is kin, and so she would weep and mourn, his poor darling—and yet he could not wish it were undone. And then he must find out whether it were with her as Einar had said—ah, then she would suffer cruelly indeed.—Olav was shaken by a short,
dry sob. Kolbein, who had demanded that she be handed over to him for punishment—but if she fell into his hands, and if she proved with child by his son’s slayer—then they would surely torture her to death.

He must speak with Arnvid about this—Arnvid would surely seek him out in the morning. Arnvid must get her away to some place where Kolbein could not reach her.

The candle was but a thin wick wound about an iron spike. Olav was not afraid of the dark at most times, but now he dreaded the light’s going out and leaving him in the dark with his thoughts. With a cautious hand he trimmed the wick.

In a moment he threw off his cloak, his boots, and the fine kirtle and leaped into the bed. He buried himself in the icy-cold bedclothes and dug his face into the pillow, moaning for Ingunn. He remembered Christmas Night and felt a sort of resentment against providence: was this his reward for having done what was right that evening!

He drew the skins right over his head—so he would be spared seeing when the light burned out. But soon he threw them off again, rested his face in his hand, and lay staring at the little flame.

Ay, Arnvid was the only one he could ask to protect Ingunn, when he could not do so himself.—And all at once he had such a strange dislike of the thought of Arnvid.