• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1853 0

Asgeirsson were carrying on together. It was also the case that he had named the two small boys, although they had lived but the shortest length of time, and were unbaptized, and the larger of these boys he had named Erlend, as was proper, and the smaller he had named Kollgrim, and he spoke of them a few times by name. When he was about the steading, he stayed apart from Helga, and had little to say to her, although also he was as kind to her as he could be. And Helga wondered what had parted them, after all her care. One day it happened that she awakened in the bedcloset, and felt that he was awake beside her, although it was very early morning, as yet before dawn. She lay quietly, as if still asleep, breathing deep, slow breaths, and allowed her hip to relax into his side. Now he let out a low, almost soundless groan, that seemed to Helga to be full of some sort of pain, and she could not keep herself from turning to him, but at once he stiffened in her arms, and sat up, and got out of the bedcloset in his shirt, and pulled on his leggings and went out of the steading, and so Helga thought that Margret must have spoken to him after all, outside, or in some moment when she, Helga, had been asleep, and she was bitterly disappointed, and angry with her father’s sister, for she saw clearly that whatever the consequences were to be, she could not stay apart from her husband as long as she had breath in her body.

It was not the case that Margret had spoken with Jon Andres, but that he was so much taken up with the matter of Kollgrim Gunnarsson that he was afraid that if he began speaking to Helga in their usual fashion, he would speak of it to her, whether he wished to or not, and he and Gunnar had agreed that these affairs were to be secret, even, or especially, from the women about the steading. Gunnar could not have said where his fever for secrecy had come from, but it seemed the twin to his animus against Bjorn Bollason, and the guarantee that his resolution would not fail him, however long the Icelanders squatted at Solar Fell. For Jon Andres was also resolved, and his resolution was to abstain from all action until the Icelanders should leave, taking their swords and axes and other iron weapons with them. That was an easy resolution to maintain, but his promise to Gunnar never to speak of the business to Helga tried him every day, and every moment of every day. What he especially could not withstand was the slow turn of her head in his direction, and the slow lift of her eyelids, so that her gaze fell upon him with pleasure and sadness. Then his tongue seemed to come alive in his mouth, and to beat against his teeth, and it seemed to him that the stream of words was already half out of him. But Gunnar had impressed this secrecy upon him so utterly that he could not speak. He could only have dreams, as he did every so often, that he had told without meaning to, and in these dreams, chagrin burned him from feet to hairline. And so he fled from Helga and yearned for her at the same time. But it is well known that in such matters as honor and retaliation, women either weaken a man’s perseverance with their cautious counsels, or they goad him forward too quickly with taunts, and so it is better for a man to keep his plans dark.

When he went about to other steadings, it was as it had been the year before. He talked about this and that with perfect candor. He allowed himself to be fed the best viands. He spoke of Helga and, after Yule, the sad case of the twin sons. He was one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the district, and he dressed with careful richness, and always had two handsome servingmen with him, and when there was little snow on the ground, he rode his finest stud horse, and when there was much snow on the ground, he skied on carved skis. The first thing he did was let folk give him things and make him promises and speak to him of their business. The next thing he did was to make a few remarks concerning their business, always helpful, always canny about the ways of steadings or sheep or cows or men.