Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [105]
“Splendid,” Olaf cried, and was about to get up and put his arm round his shoulders; but it was his wife, now, who gently laid her hand on his arm, as if to remind him.
“He should wait a few days,” she said quietly. “We discussed this.”
“Oh.” His father looked a little disappointed, but then smiled at her. “You are right, of course.” And then to Harold: “you have only just heard of this, my son. It’s all very new to you. Consider the whole thing for a few days. There’s no hurry. You should do that in fairness to yourself.”
“And to the girl, too,” his wife gently reminded him.
“Of course, yes. Her, too.” And now his father did rise and put his arm round him, and Harold felt the great warmth of his loving presence. “Well done, my son,” he murmured. “I’m so proud of you.”
And had it not been for the merest chance, Harold supposed, he would have been married by that very winter.
It had been two days later. He had just left his father out in the field and was coming in a little earlier than expected. He had seen his sisters disappearing into the big wooden barn some time ago. Apart from a slave making a basket by the woodshed, there was no one about as he came to the entrance of the high, thatched house. And he was about to stoop under the doorway into the shadowy space inside, when he heard his mother’s voice.
“But Helga, are you sure you will be happy?”
“Ja, ja. I like this farm.”
“I’m glad you do, Helga. But perhaps liking the farm is not enough. Do you like my son?”
“Ja, ja. I like him.”
“He is my only son, Helga. I want him to be happy.”
“Ja, ja. I make him happy.”
“But what makes you think so, Helga? Marriage is about many things. It’s about companionship. About love …”
Was there a hint of impatience, a hardness in the girl’s voice that he had not heard before, as she answered?
“It was your husband who came to my uncle, ja? When he hears my uncle has a niece he wants to get out of the house, to make more room for the four daughters he have of his own? He pays my uncle to bring me here. Because he wants to marry his son, who is a cripple? This is true, ja?”
“That may be, but …”
“And I have come, and I do all that you want, and then your husband three days ago say to me, ‘Will you marry him?’ and I say, ‘Ja, ja?’ Because he wants grandchildren from this only son and he is afraid nobody want to marry his cripple son.”
There was a pause. He waited for his mother to deny all this, but she did not.
“Do you find my son …”
“His legs?” It was as though he could hear her shrug. “I thought I would marry a boy with both legs straight. But he is strong.”
“When two people marry,” his mother’s voice was anxious now, almost pleading, “there must be truth between them.”
“Ja? You and your husband say nothing. My uncle say nothing. But I hear my uncle tell my aunt that your husband is afraid someone coming to kill your son before he gives you grandchildren, and that is why your husband wants to buy me quickly from my uncle. Is that true? We speak of truth, ja?”
“My son can defend himself.”
Harold turned away from the doorway. He had heard enough.
The next day he had gone into Dyflin. Because of his work about the farm, he was a tolerably good carpenter. He had been able to get a job in the boatyard. And by late afternoon he had found temporary lodgings in the house of a craftsman. On his return to the farmstead that evening he had told his astonished parents, “I’m leaving.”
“But what about this girl? Your marriage?” his father had demanded.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want her.”
“In the name of all the gods, why?” Olaf roared.
There are so many things that children cannot say to their parents. Could he really tell his father that he knew the truth, that the trust between them was broken, that he was humiliated? If he was ever to marry, and he doubted now that he would, he’d find the girl for himself—that was for sure. “I don’t want to marry her. That’s all,” he said. “It’s my choice. You said so.”
“You don’t know what’s for your own good,” his father snapped. His frustration was so visible that