The Axe (36 page)

•   •   •

Olav and Ingunn were together in the courtyard at noon next day when Ivar and Arnvid were setting out. It was the same fine weather as the day before, thawing and dripping everywhere. The snow settled with a crisp little sound in the shrinking drifts, and the yard was full of tiny streams that washed smooth channels of rock in the winter’s carpet of horse-dung and chippings of wood. Ivar was fuming because Arnvid wished to ride over the ice—it was certainly unsafe in many places off the Ringsaker shore; Ivar had once driven into a gap of open water many years before, and ever since he had been a great coward on the ice. But Arnvid laughed him to scorn—what, in broad daylight? Nay, kinsman! They would reach Haftor’s before it was quite dark. Toiling uphill and down across country in this going—Arnvid swore he would have none of it—“If you can get your men to follow you, ride where you will, for me, but Eyvind and I will go our own way—”

But the three grooms were already far down the fields. The winter road from several farms higher up led through Berg and down to the bay; from there folk made their way south to the town, or north and west across the high ground on the other side and down to the ice of Mjösen.

Olav and Ingunn walked down with them—Arnvid and Ivar rode at a foot’s pace. The snow was thawed away on the upper side of the track here on the sunny slope, and the water ran down. Arnvid warned Olav that he was being well splashed—Olav walked bareheaded, without a cloak, in a sky-blue kirtle reaching to the knees, light leather hose, and low shoes with long, pointed toes. His fine footgear was soaked and dark. “Ingunn is better clad to walk abroad—”

“I know not how she can bear it in this heat—”

She wore the same short, sleeveless sheepskin coat as the day before and tramped along in her fur boots—had done no more to deck herself than tying some red silk ribbons in her hair.

The air breathed warmly about them on the slope and there was a shimmer afar off wherever they looked.

“ ’Twas over there we sat that time—do you remember?” whispered Olav to Ingunn. Today there were great bare patches of grass—even yesterday the whole had been silvery white, with only here and there a rock or a juniper bush showing. “We may look
for a late sowing this year, since so much is thawed before Lady Day.”

They stopped in the dingle and watched the riders. Arnvid turned once in the saddle and waved—Olav threw up his hand in answer. He broke off a branch of bramble and offered it to Ingunn, but when she shook her head, he plucked some of the berries himself, sucked them, and spat out the skins into the snow. “Ay, ’tis time to go back again.”

“Nay. Stay a little. There is a matter I must tell you of.”

“What is it?—You look so cheerless, Ingunn.”

“Indeed, I am not cheerful,” she managed to say.

Olav looked at her, at first in surprise—then his face too became serious and he looked half away again. “Is it that you think I stayed from you too long?” he asked in a low voice.

Too long. She would have said it, but could not.

“I thought of that,” he said, gently as before. “I thought of you when I followed the Earl—I must tell you, I knew it was to share his outlawry. But he was my lord, Ingunn, the first lord to whom I had sworn fealty. ’Twas not easy for me to know what I ought to do. But I lost desire of food, Ingunn, when I thought of sitting down at Hestviken, eating bread and drinking ale, while he, who had helped me to get back all I possessed, was doomed to wander an outlaw in another land and had lost all he had at home.—But, you know, I did not believe it would be so many years—Think you that I failed you, when I followed the Earl?”

Ingunn shook her head: “In such matters you know well I cannot judge, Olav.”

“I thought—” Olav drew a deep breath; “since I was such good friends with Ivar—and the fines for Kolbein were half cleared off—in good English coin—and you were affianced with my ring and gifts—I thought your lot would be a better one where you were.
Has
not your lot been a good one among your kindred, Ingunn?”

“Oh yes. ’Tis not of
that
I can complain—”

“Complain-?”

She heard the first faint catch of fear in his voice, summoned all her courage, and looked at him. He stood with the bramble in his hand, looking at her as though he did not understand, but dreaded what might be coming.

“Have you anything to complain of, then, Ingunn?”

“It was so ordered—that I—I had not strength to—I am no longer fit for you, Olav.”

“No longer—fit for me—” his voice was utterly devoid of expression.

Again she had to rouse herself with all her force before she dared look at him. Then they stood staring each other in the eyes. She saw that Olav’s face seemed to fade, congeal, and turn grey—he moved his lips once or twice, but it was long before he got the words out: “What do you mean by that—?”

Again they stood staring each other in the eyes. Till Ingunn could bear it no longer. She raised one arm and held it before her face. “Do not look at me like that,” she begged, trembling. “I am with child.”

After an eternity she felt she could hold out no longer; she let her arm drop and looked at Olav. His face seemed unknown to her—the lower jaw had dropped like that of a corpse, and he stared at her, still as a rock, and this went on and on.

“Olav!” she burst out at last, with a low moan—“speak to me!”

“What do you wish me to say?” he said tonelessly. “If another had told me this—of you—I had killed him!”

Ingunn gave a faint, shrill whine, like a dog that is kicked.

Olav shouted at her: “Hold your peace! You deserve no better—you vile bitch—than to die!” He thrust his shoulders forward as he spoke—again she whimpered like a beaten dog, stepped hastily away from him, and supported herself against the trunk of an aspen. The dazzling light from the snow-crust all around struck her with a sudden blow, unbearable; it made her close her eyes tightly, and she felt the pain shrivelling her body, as meat shrivels when it is thrown upon the fire.

Then she opened her eyes again, looked at Olav—no, she dared not look at him; she looked down at the brier with the red haws which he had thrown down on the snow. And she fell to wailing softly: “It were far better—it were far better—you did it—”

Olav’s face contracted violently, became inhuman. His hands grasped the hilt and sheath of his dagger—then he tore it from him, belt and all, and flung it far away. It buried itself somewhere in the thawing drifts.

“Oh, would I were dead, would I were dead!” she moaned again and again.

She felt his wild, red, animal’s eyes upon her—and, terrified as
she was, her greatest wish was that he would murder her. She put her hands to her throat for an instant—whimpered softly—

The man stood staring at her—at the tense white arch of her throat, as she stood leaning against the tree. Once he had done it—the sword had been struck out of his hand, he was unarmed, and he had taken the other man by the waist and throat and broken him backward—had felt that never before had he put forth his strength to the uttermost.—And as she stood now he could see it—the shameless change that had come over her face, over her form—the mark of the other man.

With a loud groan, like the cry of an animal, he turned his head from the sight and fled up the path.

He heard her calling after him, calling his name. He knew not whether he had cried it aloud or only within himself—“No, no, I dare not come near you—”

She lay in a heap on the little spot of bare earth by the roots of the aspen, rocking herself and wailing. A good while must have gone by. Then Olav was there again. Now he stood bending over her, breathing down on her: “Who is father—to the child you bear?”

She looked up, shook her head. “Oh—’tis no—He was clerk to the Sheriff of Reyne. Teit was his name, an Icelander—”

“ ’Twere a sin to say you were hard to please,” said Olav with a sort of laugh. He took her roughly by the arm, gripped it till she wailed aloud. “And Magnhild—what says she to this? She laughed so merrily with the others yestereven—” he ground his teeth—“at me, I wis, silly gull that I was to be so glad and easy, never dreaming of such increase in my fortune. Oh—God’s curse upon you all!”

“Magnhild knows nothing. I have kept it hid from every soul, until I told it to you but now.”

“That was gracious of you indeed! I was to be the first to know! Now, I had always thought I could get my children myself, but-”

“Olav!” she cried piteously. “Had you not come so soon”—her voice broke—“none would ever have known of it—”

Again they looked each other in the eyes for an instant. Ingunn’s head dropped forward.

“Jesus Christ! You are not human, I trow!” whispered Olav in horror.

He straightened himself and stretched once or twice, and each time she had a glimpse of a red scar on his chest near the throat. He said, more to himself than her: “If they had brought me tidings that you were a leper—I believe I should still have longed for the day I could take you home.—‘Wilt thou keep this woman in sickness as in health?’ asks the priest at the church door.—But this—nay, this—! God forgive me, I cannot do it!”

He took her roughly by the shoulder. “Do you hear, Ingunn?—I cannot do it! Magnhild must—you must tell Magnhild I cannot. And since she has had no better care of you—this has befallen while you were in her charge, so she must herself—I cannot bear to see you again, before you are rid of it—

“Do you hear?” he repeated. “You must tell Magnhild yourself!”

Ingunn nodded.

Then he went up the road.

The ground was soaking wet where she sat, and she felt the cold stiffening and crippling her; it was an alleviation. She put her arm about the trunk of the aspen and leaned her cheek against it. Now it was time to search within herself for the consolation that was to come after she had told him. But she could not find it—only a bitter remorse, but not the contrition that brought hope. Her only wish was to be allowed to die at once—she had no strength to think of arising and going on to face all she must go through.

She called to mind all the words of comfort she had meant to say to Olav—that he should think no more of her; when he went out into the world, he must enjoy his happiness without thinking of her; she was not worth it. She saw now that it was true, and it was no consolation—that was the worst of all, that she was not worth his thoughts.

She did not know how long she had lain there when she heard the sound of sledges on the road. She struggled painfully to her feet—she was stiff with cold and her body ached all over when she moved—her feet were asleep and she could hardly stand or walk. But she made her way into the bushes and pretended she was eating haws as the two loaded sledges drove past. The workmen greeted her quietly and she answered them. They were folk from the farms above.

The sun had sunk a long way toward the west—the light on the
snow was now orange, and the rising vapour began to be visible as a low-lying mist. She tramped hither and thither on the road for a while, not knowing where to go. Then she caught sight of some horsemen out on the ice—it looked as if they were coming this way—she took fright and turned toward the house.

She was about to steal into her own bower when Lady Magnhild came up to her from the other house. To Ingunn’s scared senses her aunt appeared terrible, with her fleshy, florid face surrounded by its wimple, and her stomach thrust forward under the silver belt, with all the clatter of heavy keys, dagger, and scissors dangling at her side—like the time the mad bull came charging straight toward her. She put out her hand to the doorpost for support. But at that moment it seemed her powers of being frightened had been stretched too far.

“Holy Mary, where have you come from—have you been out loitering all day?—rolling in the road, one would think—you are smothered in wet and horse-dung up to your neck! What has come to you—and Olav, what is it with him?”

Ingunn did not answer.

“Do
you
know what took him to Hamar so suddenly? He came here and got out his horse, Hallbjörn could make nothing of him—he must go to Hamar, he said; but he left his bag behind, and he rode as though the devil sat behind him—’twas an ugly sight, the way he used his spurs, said Hallbjörn—”

Ingunn said nothing.

“What is this?” asked Lady Magnhild, flashing with wrath. “Do
you
know what is afoot with Olav?”

“He is gone,” said Ingunn. “He would stay here no longer, when he had heard—when I had told him how it is with me—”

“—is
with you?” Lady Magnhild stared at the girl—in her drenched clothes, her tousled hair out of its plaits and full of bark and refuse, her face a dirty grey and thin as a scraped bone—she was ugly, nothing else—and the way she held herself in the filthy-wet sheepskin—

“Is with you!” she shrieked; she caught Ingunn by the upper arm and pushed her through the door, making her stumble over the threshold. Then she flung the girl across the room, so that she fell and lay in a heap by the draught-stone. Her aunt barred the door behind them.

“Nay—! Nay—! Nay—! ’Tis not I can guess what you have been doing!”

She took hold of Ingunn and pulled her up. “Take off your clothes—you are as wet as a drowned corpse. Ay, ’tis what I have always thought of you—half-witted you are; ’tis not possible you have your right senses!”

Ingunn lay in bed, half-numbed, and listened to her aunt’s talk as she hung her wet things on the clothes-horse over the hearth. It was the first time in all these months she had lain down wholly undressed, and it was such a relief to be free of all these cruel bonds she had put upon herself—to get rest. It scarcely occurred to her that Lady Magnhild might justly have been far, far harsher with her—she had neither cursed nor struck her, nor dragged her by the hair—she did not even say much of what was in her mind.

Lady Magnhild took it in this way, that she demanded a full confession of how it had come about—then it was for her to see if some means could be found of keeping it hid.

She asked who was the father, but when Ingunn told her, Lady Magnhild sat for a long while perfectly speechless. This was so utterly beyond all she had ever believed possible that she could only think it must be so—the poor thing was something wanting. Ingunn had to give an account of all there had been between her and Teit—she gave short and broken answers to Lady Magnhild’s rigorous questions. It was six months since she had seen him—no, he knew nothing of how it was with her—she expected the child in six weeks-It was wiser to let the bird fly, thought Lady Magnhild. And there must surely be some means of keeping the girl hidden here in Aasa’s house for the rest of her time; it could be said that she was sick—there were not many who asked after Ingunn; it was a lucky chance that she had lived so much in the shade all these years. Her aunt strictly forbade her to move beyond the door during the hours when the folk of the house were out of bed. Dalla would have to live with her for the present, and when her time came, they would send for Tora.