The Son Avenger Read Online Free PDF Page A

you are the first.”
    “Thanks! It was good wine too.”
    “But strong? We were all drunken on it one evening last autumn, Bothild and I and the maids.” She looked up at her brother with a bashful little laugh, as though unused to tell strangers of her own affairs. “There was one whose name was Yngvild, she is not here any more; ’twas she who thought of it—we danced in here. There were to be games on the green by the shore to the northward, and they would have had us with them when they came down to take boat, Gaute Sigurdsson and Jon Tasall and a few more; but Father said no, though there were two from Rynjul among them—’twas of no use. Yngvild was angry; she said Father kept us stricter than Lady Groa keeps the children who are sent to her convent to be taught. So she persuaded us to lay aside our sewing, and we danced in here, and then we drank of the wine that was meant for our guests.”
    “What said Father to that?” Eirik smiled. He felt nothing beyond his bright new-born love for this sweet young sister. Every word she spoke and every gesture she made filled his soul with joy.
    “Father? He said nothing, as you may well guess. But two days after, he came and ordered us to move into the hall and sleep in the upper chamber there; ’twas too unsafe for young maids to sleep alone in a bower that lay so near the shore. Until then we had lived here night and day. And next time Yngvild offered to oppose him, he answered that ’twas best she went home to her own father, for belike she would obey him.”
    “Is he so strict with you, Father?”
    Cecilia had put on her kirtle; it was red, handsomely embroidered. She fastened her belt about her and hung on its scissors and knife, purse and bunch of keys. The little barefooted dairymaid was now a fine young franklin’s daughter.
    “Strict he is, in that he holds so firmly to customs and manners as they were observed in old time—we may not open our mouths or move our eyes when strangers are present. But he bears us goodwill withal.” She took out of her chest and spread on the bed a sleeveless, low-necked kirtle of brown velvet, embroidered with rings and crosses of yellow silk. The long-sleeved shift that belonged to it was of red silk and had gilt hooks to fasten it over the bosom. “Such dresses he gave both to Bothild and me—’twas after he had refused us leave to go into Oslo to see the damsels’ wedding with the Swedish dukes. Meseems ’tis high time we came to town one day—to the fair or to Halvard’s Vigil. But father will not have it.”
    “Have you never been up to Oslo?”
    Cecilia shook her head and wrapped her finery in its covering of homespun cloth. “God knows when we shall have a chance to wear these trappings.”
    “That will come when we are to drink your betrothal ale.”
    Cecilia’s face changed in an instant; she turned to her chest and put away her finery. “I know naught of that.”
    The beauty and charm of his sister went to Eirik’s head like a slight intoxication. He did not know how it was he had never thought of
her
in all these years; had he done so, he would surely have kept himself from one thing and another, from drinking and gaming, brawling, wenching, and debauchery. He regretted now that he had had so little thought of curbing himself—he had never thought of it—had yielded to every temptation and obeyed the fancy of the moment. Thus he had been carried away by what soon became habit, and he got the reputation of being a man of immoral ways, one who haunted taverns and worse places. Nor was this reputation undeserved. But the result was that he enjoyed no more respect than other hired servants, a man-at-arms in his lord’s retinue.
    Now that it was too late, he saw that he ought to have followed his father’s advice; then he could have asserted himself so thatnone would ever forget he was the son of Olav of Hestviken. If he had kept himself more from dice and ale-houses, bought himself clothes and arms