The Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset Read Free Book Online Page B

above the houses.
    Eirik remembered Bothild the moment he woke—now she would be lying in the loft above the closet. Jörund slept like a stone on the inside of the bed, against the wall; Eirik lay outside. He was tempted to get up and go to the ladder—call up to hear if the girls were also awake; perhaps they would be frightened by the storm. But he lay where he was.
    He tried to think of other things—of the fields farther up the valley, and the corn that stood there ready for the sickle; how would it fare in this weather? He could not remember that he had noticed Bothild Asgersdatter when he was last at home, the year of the Swedish troubles—it must be three years ago now. Cecilia was only a child at that time, his father was with Ivar Jonsson in Sweden, Bothild was helping her aunt in the housework; both the girls did so. He had not seen much of them, nor had he heeded them greatly.
    He could not tell what had put it into his head that Bothild was not a pure maiden like Cecilia.
    3 August 10.

4
    F OR Eirik there was an end of the peaceful home life and the pure, innocent summer days. They were now a company of four young people—for it never occurred to Cecilia to go anywhere without her sister. But to Eirik’s fevered senses it seemed that Bothild clungto the younger girl. She was always a little in the rear, dropping behind with her indolent tongue and voluptuous gestures and her everlasting shy and stolen sidelong glances—it was at himself they were aimed, and he felt them as if she had touched him with her hand; but as soon as he looked at her, her eyes were turned away. It roused a kind of fury in the man—that she would never leave him in peace. He was ashamed of his own thoughts—here he was at home, with his father and his sister, but through Bothild’s fault he was harried and beset with desire.
    He felt inclined to deal harshly and cruelly with her when he got her in his power—to send her away from him in tears and overcome. It was a senseless whim, this spiteful prompting which sprang from an unknown depth in his soul—the blind and witless caprice of a master who is angry with a slave because he is irritated by the slave’s frightened looks and humble efforts to conceal his sorrow.
    For it was of a thrall she reminded him, a woman captive. Even the two thick plaits she wore hanging over her full, rather flaccid bosom made him think of chains; they reached nearly to her knees, and their weight seemed to force her head forward and give her a stoop in walking. And Bothild’s hair was not black and stiff as he had thought at first, when he saw it wet; it had a soft brown hue, with a tinge of red, and went well with her red and white complexion and her dark-blue eyes. But not even her fairness sufficed to soften Eirik’s mind toward her.
    He scarcely spoke to her—it was only in his thoughts, all this of Bothild. To do anything to a woman who lived in his father’s house was not to be thought of. Besides, he was afraid of his father; now that the peace and purity within him had been bemired, his childhood’s dread of his father was also reawakened in full force.
    Either Olav and Cecilia were ignorant that anything was passing in secret between Eirik and Bothild Asgersdatter, or they misinterpreted what they saw—thought that the two disliked each other, or were shy of each other. In any case neither the father nor the sister showed any sign that they thought about the matter.
    Jörund had quickly guessed what was wrong with Eirik, but he contented himself with hinting at it once or twice in jest.
    “I cannot make out,” he said one day, with the sneering smilethat Eirik disliked, “why you have such a mighty fancy to her. She sweats so.”
    Another time he said—it was one evening after they were in bed: “’Tis a great pity you cannot have her for a leman, since Olav is her guardian—and she cannot be rich enough for you to think of marrying her!”
    Eirik was silent, overwhelmed with