Now he was set free to look at one, to think of one. He was free to recall what it had been like to take her and lift her into the saddle, to recall her hand, which he had held in his—a sweetness and a promise of more, more—
Beneath the memory of these last serious years, when he had trained his will and learned to use it against himself, floated the shadowy memories of his youth, the embraces of venal wenches and dreams of high-born maids—dreams that he dared not jeopardize by frequenting any such. And Bothild—to think of her directly he never dared, but the shame and the horror and the pain of what she had betokened in his life lay dissolved and precipitated within him and had coloured all the currents that had passed through his mind in these last years.
Now the bright image of Gunhild Bersesdatter began to take shape against this dark-purple background. He had already abandoned himself to loving her.
It was past midnight and yet Jörund had not come. Eirik sat and waited, grew anxious on his brother-in-law’s account, thought of Gunhild, and was happy.
Then he awoke and saw that he had slept a long time; it was light outside. He looked out—up by the fence was Jörund’s handsome dun saddle-horse; and in the shed outside, his saddle and bridle hung in their places. So in any case he could not have been very drunk.
His father did not allude to the matter until about a week later.
“Have you thought over that of which we spoke lately? About a marriage for you?”
“It shall be as you desire, Father.”
A day or two later Eirik again found occasion to visit Rynjul. Gunhild was still there. Not many words did he exchange with her, but she sat with Una while he was talking to his kinswoman.
Berse of Eiken was a cousin of Arne of Hestbæk, the father-in-law of Baard and Torgrim. But he and Torgrim of Rynjul had been estranged for many years—Torgrim was hot-headed and loose of tongue; in general folk paid little heed to his outbursts, for he was generous and the last man to bear a grudge, but Berse would not put up with an uncivil word, for he was mighty jealous of what he called his dignity. Olav Audunsson had also fallen out with him at one time: the two had been chosen as umpires in a dispute, but were unable to agree; and Olav had expressed his opinion in terms that were sharper than Berse considered becoming to his dignity.
Eirik had never before given a thought to this ill feeling among the three old men. But now, when the women had left the room, he asked Torgrim: “Are you kinsmen now reconciled—since the daughter from Eiken is here as a guest?”
Torgrim laughed and drank to Eirik. “Ay, I have shown the old man I dared be his enemy seven years. But, God’s death, I’ll now show him I am bolder yet—I dare be friends with him other seven years, if need be. But so long he cannot look to live—he is seventy winters old, all of that. And Gunhild takes after her mother—which is well for her.” He nodded to Eirik.
So Eirik saw that Torgrim was the one who was to take the first steps toward the contract.
Some days after Bartholomew’s mass8 Una came out to Hestviken to visit Cecilia; with her she had her two young daughters and Gunhild Bersesdatter.
All the young people were sitting in the ladies’ house with the women, when Una said to Cecilia that her first business was to offer to foster Torgils this winter: “since you are to have another child ere he is a year old, ’twill be too much for you, and now I have a foster-mother for him; Ingrid bore her child yestereven, and it was dead, poor young wife. She would gladly take your Torgils and give him the breast.”
“Nay, nay—I will not send my son from me.”
Then Jörund said: “Rather should you thank Mistress Una. You need your night’s rest now, Cecilia, and maybe Torgils would be less sickly if he had a change of mothers.”
Una said Jörund was right. Then she began to speak of Ingrid’s misfortune. She had been Una’s maid for many years and almost like a foster-daughter at Rynjul; from there she was married a year ago to a good and brave man who served with Gunhild’s uncle, Guttorm of Draumtorp in Skeidis parish. Guttorm and his wife had been to a wedding in Raumarike, and they had with them a sack of valuables that had been lent for the wedding feast. In the forest by Gerdarud they had been surrounded by robbers—the master and his three house-carls had defended themselves well, but Jon, Ingrid’s husband, died of his wounds a little later. The widow was almost out of her mind from grief, and one night she ran away from Draumtorp; alone with a little lad whom she had got to go with her, she came on foot to Rynjul.
They sat talking for a while of the robberies and ambushes that were reported in many parts of the country round Oslo. But then Una sent the young people out; she would speak a little with Cecilia privately.
Again Eirik felt that twinge of pity that his sister must be left, faded and cheerless, with the elder woman, while all the rest went out into the open air, where the sunlight flickered on the rocks, and the fiord gleamed brightly under the fair-weather breeze.
Astrid and Elin, they were as fair as their mother had been in her youth, sixteen and fourteen years, no more. Elin had carried Torgils out, defending herself laughingly against her sister, who also wanted to carry him—he was a fine, fair-haired little child, but pale and weak of limb. “You will have four foster-mothers when you come to Rynjul,” laughed little Elin, pressing the babe closely to her.
“You have never been out here before?” Eirik asked Gunhild as they stood side by side watching the two young girls struggling for the child.
“No. I think I would fain go down and look at the sea.”
“Perhaps you would like me to row you?” Eirik ventured to ask.
“That I would indeed.”
They had lost sight of Jörund, so Eirik was alone in the boat with the three girls. Gunhild sat forward in the bow, raised against the blue sky, and her bright, slender figure was a little indistinct with the light behind her, but her movements were graceful when she turned and looked about her. On the thwart facing him sat the two young sisters: Astrid, who talked and laughed, and Elin, with the little child who had fallen asleep on her bosom; now and again she wrapped her cloak more closely about him and then drew it aside and peeped at the boy. Eirik would have liked to row far enough to give them a sight of Saltviken, but there was not time for that.
“Hestviken looks best from the water,” said Gunhild as they walked up from the pier.
“But to live by the fiord—maybe you would not care for that?”
“Oh, yes, I think I should like it very well,” said Gunhild, and again Eirik thought her voice frank and kind.
“Then you would not say no to a suitor—merely because he would bring you out to these parts?” He thought to himself it was awkwardly put.
“Oh, no—” Gunhild gave a little smile. “Not if there were no worse things to be said of him.”
“What, then? That he—that you would have to live in the house with his married brother or sister, for instance?”
Gunhild shook her head.
“A maid who has had a stepmother since she was twelve,” she said seriously, “has had time to learn to adapt herself. So I trow that would not scare me, if I liked the man in other ways.”
“I would I knew,” whispered Eirik—“if you think you could come to like me?”
Gunhild answered in a clear voice, smiling as she spoke: “I have never heard aught else of you, Eirik, but that you were a kindly man.”
“So it would not grieve you if my father could be agreed with Berse?”
At this she laughed. “No! How should I take it into my head to grieve if Father were agreed with an enemy?”
Then Eirik laughed too.
That evening he ventured to lean his breast slightly against her knee when he lifted her into the saddle.
“I wonder when I shall see you again?”
“I cannot tell. I am to go home tomorrow.”
Cecilia and Eirik accompanied their guests a little way across the fields. Little Torgils was asleep, well wrapped up, in Una’s spacious lap. Bef
ore they parted his mother held up her arms. “Let me have him a moment, Una!” She kissed the boy, cautiously so as not to wake him. “I know well that you will have as good a care of him as I myself—”
Slowly the brother and sister walked back to the manor.
“But ’tis surely best that Una have charge of him this winter,” he said soothingly.
“Ay, ’tis so; I know it. But—”
Eirik was wishing he could have taken her in his arms—or could have done something that would make her happy. It cut him to the soul that she should not be happy, now that he was. After the agitations of his talk with Gunhild he was quite unusually happy.
When he came into the room, his father sat there eating—he had not yet taken off either hat or cloak. Eirik paused for a moment.
“Father—cannot you be reconciled with Jörund? ’Twill be unbearable for Cecilia if you two go about here and never say a word to each other.”
“Has she begged you to ask this of me?”
“Cecilia? Can you think of such a thing! But you must see—”
“Hm. She does not speak to me either, more than she can help. She takes Jörund’s part, I believe. And maybe ’tis better so—We must wait awhile, Eirik, see how it goes. I have no great mind to be the first to hold out my hand. ’Tis not that I cannot forgive an enemy—but Jörund. If I do it once—yield to him when he is in the wrong—then I fear ’twill not be long ere he venture the same again.”
So it was of no use. Nor was what his father said untrue. He would have to wait.
Not long after, Eirik saw Berse at a Thing in Haugsvik.
He was a giant in stature and bulky of body, with a mass of silvery hair and beard, his features large and handsome, but he was marked and blind of one eye from smallpox. He sat by himself on the raised seat; in his rich kirtle he seemed to have the bosom of an old woman, and his belly rolled out upon his knees. Olav and Torgrim sat on the side bench, and for the first time it struck Eirik that after all there was a great difference between seventy years and fifty. His father looked small beside Berse, but in spite of his white hair and scarred face he seemed young and elastic, straight and well-knit. But Torgrim with his lean and loose-hung frame and shock of brown and grey-streaked hair around his lively, angular face appeared to Eirik almost like a man of his own age. Then Olav called Eirik forward.
Eirik stood before Berse, answered with respectful courtesy to the words the old man addressed to him with the utmost gravity and dignity. Then Berse made a sign that he might go.
And well it was, thought Eirik. Out in the courtyard he came upon Ragnvald Jonsson.
“What makes you grin like that?” asked Ragnvald in surprise.
Eirik gave his friend a slap between the shoulders that made him gasp; then he could contain himself no longer; he burst out laughing so that he had to hold on to Ragnvald.
As they rowed homeward Olav asked: “What think you of Berse of Eiken, my son?”
Eirik bit his lip and struggled to look serious.
Olav said: “You know, ’tis a good old stock, many gallant men—great wealth there is, too. And the maid takes after her mother; Helga was a brave woman. In every bargain there is something one would wish to alter. And here there is Berse—”
On seeing his father smile, he dared to laugh too.
“But he is as old as the hills, is Berse, and ’tis a far cry from Eiken to Hestviken.”
“Ay, Gunhild said the same.”
“Have you spoken with Gunhild?” asked his father rather sharply.
“But little. We said a few words when she came out to us with Una. She let me know that she thought it pleasant by the fiord, and that Eiken lay far up the country.”
“Ah, well. But beware of acting unwisely, Eirik—better have no more speech with her till all be in order. Berse will come—of that we may be sure—but we must let him come at his own pace, give him time to get his breath. ’Tis more seemly thus, you understand.”
They looked at each other and laughed.
About Michaelmas it was cold for some days; the ground was covered with rime and all the pools were frozen over, now and again a snow-squall swept across. Then there was mild weather again; the hills were blue-black, splashed with yellow foliage, the blue fiord sparkled in the sunlight. The meadows along the shore were green with after-grass among white stubble-fields; there was light in all the groves, where yellow leaves shivered down and the alders alone still showed a faded green in their tops.
Eirik had come sailing in from Saltviken one morning. The weather was so fine that he stayed a moment outside the house door. The brindled cattle grazing in the green meadow were still fat from summer pasture, many fine beasts among them. They could well take five or six out to Saltviken.
He caught sight of Cecilia on the steps of the storehouse that had been assigned to Jörund for his use. She carried in her arms a heavy load of fur cloaks and other garments. Eirik called to her, ran up, and took it all from her.
“I thought I ought to mend our winter clothing ere I am brought to bed—the cold may soon set in in earnest.” She turned toward the door of the loft.
“If there is more to come, take it out—I will come up and carry it for you.”
Eirik came back, ran up the stairway whistling, and entered the loft. The sun shone in at the open door on his sister as she knelt by a chest. In one leap Eirik was beside her.
“Cecilia! Are you sick?”
“Nay—” She uttered a loud shriek of pain; she had flung down the lid of the chest so suddenly that it caught her fingers.
Eirik raised the lid slightly—saw a glimpse of what lay within. Then he put his arm about his sister’s waist and supported her to a seat. He took her crushed hand and fingered it charily, to see if it were damaged. She panted and panted, wearily and painfully.
“Is there more you would have me carry down for you?” He flung the chest wide open.
Cecilia sent him one anxious glance. He saw she was trying to rise, but had not the strength.
“Jörund chooses a strange place to keep his silver.”
He found his own hands shaking as he took one piece after another out of the homespun cloth: a great silver tankard in which lay a lump of silver that had been melted down, two smaller cups.
“I have not seen these things before?”
“Nor I either,” whispered Cecilia. Then she collected herself. “This must be something he has brought lately.” Eirik nodded in spite of himself.
Cecilia went on in desperate eagerness: “He has always thought his brothers had dealt unfairly by him—twice when they divided an inheritance. That is why Jörund thinks he can never get silver enough. They set more store by such treasures at Gunnarsby than—So Jörund will always buy all he can.”
Eirik nodded again. Jörund had been like a hawk after silver—though often enough he lost it again in play. But never had he thought it could lead to such a thing as—as what he was afraid of; though to be sure he knew nothing as yet.
He took up the clothes that Cecilia had dropped beside the chest and gave his sister his hand. She was trembling all over.
“Erik—in God’s name—what will you do?”
“Speak to Jörund. Have no fear, Cecilia,” he begged her.
Her brother helped her down the stairway, took her into the house, and laid her on her bed.
“Shall I find Magnhild for you?”
Cecilia shook her head.
“Is it not imprudent that you be left alone now?”
“No, I can well be alone.”
Out in the yard Kolbein ran straight into his legs. Eirik picked up his nephew; with the child in his arms he went back to the women’s house and put his head in at the door.
“Kolli wants to go to his mother, he says—may he come in?”
“I would rather be alone.”
He played with the boy, sang to him, and sought to allay the dread in his own heart. Till he saw Jörund’s boat outside; then he carried Kolbein in to the w
omen in the cook-house. Eirik was waiting by the fence of the “good acre” as Jörund came up from the sea.
“You have come home?”
“Yes, I came this morning. I shall have to stay here awhile. There is a thing I must speak with you about.” They walked together across the yard. “We can go up into your loft.”
Jörund backed away from him. Eirik looked the other in the face till he succeeded in holding the shifting eyes a moment.
“Remember, Jörund, I have been your friend since our young days—many a time ere this have I rescued you from a tight corner. And now we are in the same boat; your welfare is ours. And if you have behaved foolishly, your misfortune will be my sister’s and ours.—Nay, you can go first,” he said when they came to the stairway.
Jörund took his hand from the hilt of his dagger and obeyed.
On entering the loft Eirik went straight to the chest and opened it.
“What have you been doing in my chest?”
“Nothing. Cecilia came to look for some clothes and I helped her to carry them down.”
“Cecilia—!”
“Ay. But she was not the cause of this—I believe God Himself so ordered it that we might be rescued from this danger. And if you mean to make Cecilia suffer for this, you may go straightway and be shriven.”
“Do you threaten me?”
“I do.”
“Do you think I am afraid of you? A holy hound like you—turn the other cheek if a man smite you under the ear—”
“True, I have curbed myself at times these last years when I was provoked. But you know very well, in old days I was never slow to take up a quarrel—unlike you. You never had cause to fear me—but I know well you are none of the bravest.”
“Where have you left your piety today?” Jörund tried to sneer.
“Have no care for that. We have to speak of what is to be done with this silver.”
“The silver I have bought—”
“Ay, so I thought. You have bought it of the folk you met at Rundmyr on the evening of Suscipimus Deus Sunday?”