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030 - Book 3 Chapter 8 Part 2 · Bridal Wreath

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Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter eight, Part two of the Bridal Wreath
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Speaker 1: by Sigared Unset. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Chapter eight, Part two. Without in the courtyard, the noise
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Speaker 1: died down little by little, Wearied with the long day's
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Speaker 1: ride and dizzy with much strong drink, the guests made
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Speaker 1: a decent show of merrymaking a little while yet, But
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Speaker 1: more and ever more of them stole away and sought
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Speaker 1: out the places where they were to sleep. But enfreed
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Speaker 1: showed all the guests of honor to their places and
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Speaker 1: bade them good night. Her husband, who should have helped
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Speaker 1: her in this, was nowhere to be seen. The dark
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Speaker 1: courtyard was empty save for a few small groups of
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Speaker 1: young folks, servants most of them. When at last she
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Speaker 1: stole out to find her husband and bring him with
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Speaker 1: her to his bed, she had seen as the night
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Speaker 1: wore on that he had grown very drunken. She stumbled
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Speaker 1: over him at last, as she crept along in her
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Speaker 1: search outside the cattle yard, he was lying in the
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Speaker 1: grass behind the bath house, on his face, groping in
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Speaker 1: the darkness. She touched him with her hand. Ay it
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Speaker 1: was he She thought he was asleep, and took him
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Speaker 1: by the shoulder. She must get him up off the
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Speaker 1: icy cold ground. But he was not asleep, at least
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Speaker 1: not wholly. What would you, he asked in a thick voice.
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Speaker 1: You cannot lie here, said his wife. She held him
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Speaker 1: up as he stood swaying. With one hand, she brushed
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Speaker 1: the soil off his velvet robe. Tis time we two
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Speaker 1: went to rest. Husband. She took him by the arm
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Speaker 1: and drew him reeling up towards the farmyard buildings. You
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Speaker 1: looked not up, Rondfrit, when you sat in the bridle
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Speaker 1: bed beneath the crown, he said, in the same voice.
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Speaker 1: Our daughter, she was not so shamefast. Her eyes were
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Speaker 1: not shamefast when she looked upon her bridegroom. She has
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Speaker 1: waited for him seven half years, said the mother in
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Speaker 1: a low voice. No marvel if she found courage to
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Speaker 1: look up. Nay, devil damn me if they have waited,
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Speaker 1: screamed the man, as his wife strove fearfully to hush him.
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Speaker 1: They were in the narrow passage between the back of
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Speaker 1: the privy and a fence. Lavreins smote with his clenched
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Speaker 1: fist on the beam across the cesspit. I set thee
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Speaker 1: here for a scorn and for a mockery, Thou beam,
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Speaker 1: I set thee here that filth might eat thee up.
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Speaker 1: I set thee here in punishment for striking down that
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Speaker 1: tender little maid of mine. Hi, I should have set
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Speaker 1: thee high above my hall room door, and honored thee,
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Speaker 1: and thanked thee with fairest carven ornament, because thou didst
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Speaker 1: save her from shame and from sorrow, because twas thy
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Speaker 1: work that my old fill died a sinless child. He
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Speaker 1: turned about, reeled toward the fence, and fell forward upon it,
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Speaker 1: and with his head between his arms, fell into an
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Speaker 1: unquenchable passion of weeping, broken by long, deep groans. His
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Speaker 1: wife took him by the shoulder Laverance Lovernce, but she
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Speaker 1: could not stay his weeping husband.
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Speaker 2: Oh, never, never, never should I have given her to
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Speaker 2: that man, God help me. I must have known it
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Speaker 2: all the time he had broken down her youth and
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Speaker 2: her fairest honor. I believed it not, Nay could I
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Speaker 2: believe the like of Kristen.
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Speaker 1: But still I knew it. And yet, and yet is
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Speaker 1: she too good for this weakling boy that hath made
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Speaker 1: waste of himself? And her had he lured her astray
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Speaker 1: ten times over. I should never have given her to him,
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Speaker 1: that he may spill yet more of her life and
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Speaker 1: her happiness. But what other way was there? Said the
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Speaker 1: mother despairingly. You know now as well as I she
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Speaker 1: was his already. I small need was there for me
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Speaker 1: to make such a mighty to do in giving here
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Speaker 1: Loon what he had taken for himself already, said Laverns,
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Speaker 1: tis a gallant husband. She has won my Christen. He
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Speaker 1: tore at the fence, then fell again a weeping. He
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Speaker 1: had seemed to tour enfreed, as though sobered a little,
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Speaker 1: But now the fit overcame him again. She deemed she
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Speaker 1: could not bring him drunken, and beside himself with despair
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Speaker 1: as he was to the bed in the hearth room
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Speaker 1: where they should have slept, for the room was full
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Speaker 1: of guests. She looked about her. Close by stood a
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Speaker 1: little barn where they kept the best hay to feed
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Speaker 1: to the horses at the spring plowing. She went and
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Speaker 1: peered in. No one was there. She took her husband's hand,
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Speaker 1: led him inside the barn, and shut the door behind them.
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Speaker 1: She piled up hay over herself and him, and laid
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Speaker 1: their cloaks above it to keep them warm. Lavrens fell
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Speaker 1: a weeping now and again and said somewhat. But his
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Speaker 1: speech was so broken she could find no meaning in it.
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Speaker 1: In a little while, she lifted up his head on
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Speaker 1: to her lap. Dear, my husband, Since now so great
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Speaker 1: a love is between them, maybe twill all go better
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Speaker 1: than we think. Lavern spoke by fits and starts, his
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Speaker 1: mind seemed growing clearer. See you not, he has her
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Speaker 1: wholly in his power, He that has never been man
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Speaker 1: enough to rule himself. Twill go hard with her before
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Speaker 1: she finds courage to set herself against aught her husband wills.
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Speaker 1: And should she one day be forced to it, twill
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Speaker 1: be bitter grief to her, My own gentle child. Now
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Speaker 1: am I come so far? I scarce can understand why
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Speaker 1: God hath laid so many and such heavy sorrows upon me?
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Speaker 1: For I have striven faithfully to do his will? Why
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Speaker 1: hath he taken our children from us ronfried one by one,
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Speaker 1: first our sons, then little ulf Hild. And now I
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Speaker 1: have given her that I loved, dearest, honorless to an
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Speaker 1: untrusty and a witless man. Now is there none left
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Speaker 1: to us? But the little one, and unwise must I
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Speaker 1: deem it to take joy in her before I see
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Speaker 1: how it will go with her with Romborg. Ronfreed shook
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Speaker 1: like a leaf. Then the man laid his arm about
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Speaker 1: her shoulders. Lie down, he said, and let us sleep.
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Speaker 1: He lay for a while with his head against his
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Speaker 1: wife's arm, sighing now and then. But at last he
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Speaker 1: fell asleep. It was still pitch dark in the barn.
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Speaker 1: When Ronfreed stirred. She wondered to find that she had slept.
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Speaker 1: She felt about with her hands. Lawrence was sitting up
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Speaker 1: with knees up drawn and his arms around them. Are
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Speaker 1: you awake already? She asked in wonder Are you cold? No,
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Speaker 1: said he in a hoarse voice. But I cannot go
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Speaker 1: to sleep again. Is it, Kristen you are thinking on,
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Speaker 1: asked the mother. Like enough, twill go better than we
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Speaker 1: think Lavern's She said again, I tis of that I
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Speaker 1: was thinking, said the man. I I maid or woman.
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Speaker 1: At least she is come to the bride bed with
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Speaker 1: the man she loves, And twas not so with either
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Speaker 1: you or me, my poor Hunfreed. His wife gave a deep,
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Speaker 1: dull moan and threw herself down on her side amongst
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Speaker 1: the hay lavern's put out a hand and laid it
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Speaker 1: on her shoulder. But twas that I could not, said he,
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Speaker 1: with passion and pain. No, I could not be as
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Speaker 1: you would have had me when we were young. I
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Speaker 1: am not such a one. In a while, Arnfried said
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Speaker 1: softly through her weeping. Yet twas well with us in
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Speaker 1: our life together sovereigns, Was it not all these years?
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Speaker 1: So thought I myself, answered he gloomily. Thoughts crowded and
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Speaker 1: tossed to and fro within him that single unveiled glance
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Speaker 1: in which the hearts of bridegroom and bride had leaped together,
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Speaker 1: the two young faces flushing up redly. To him, it
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Speaker 1: seemed a very shamelessness. It had been agony, a scorching
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Speaker 1: pain to him that this was his daughter. But the
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Speaker 1: sight of those eyes would not leave him, and wildly
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Speaker 1: and blindly he strove against the tearing away of the
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Speaker 1: veil from something in his own heart, something that he
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Speaker 1: had never owned. Was there that he had guarded against
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Speaker 1: his wife when she sought for it? Twas that he
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Speaker 1: could not, he said again, stubbornly to himself, in the
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Speaker 1: devil's name, he had been married off as a boy.
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Speaker 1: He had not chosen for himself. She was older than he,
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Speaker 1: He had not desired her, He had had no will
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Speaker 1: to learn this of her to love. He grew hot
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Speaker 1: with shame even now when he thought of it, that
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Speaker 1: she would have had him love her, when he had
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Speaker 1: no will to have such love from her. That she
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Speaker 1: had proffered him, all this that he had never prayed for.
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Speaker 1: He had been a good husband to her, so he
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Speaker 1: had ever thought he had shown her all the honor
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Speaker 1: he could, given her full power in her own affairs,
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Speaker 1: and asked her counsel in all things. He had been
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Speaker 1: true to her, and they had had six children together.
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Speaker 1: All he had asked had been that he might live
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Speaker 1: with her without her forever, grasping at this thing in
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Speaker 1: his heart, that he would not lay bare to none
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Speaker 1: had he ever borne love ingen Karl Steinson's wife. At Brue,
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Speaker 1: Lawrence flushed red in the pitch darkness. He had been
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Speaker 1: their guest ever as often as he journeyed down the dale,
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Speaker 1: he could not call to mind that he had spoken
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Speaker 1: with the housewife once alone. But when he saw her,
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Speaker 1: if he but thought of her, a sense came over
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Speaker 1: him as of the first breath of the plowlands in
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Speaker 1: the spring, when the snows are but now melted and gone.
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Speaker 1: He knew it now. It might have befallen him too.
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Speaker 1: He too could have loved. But he had been wedded
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Speaker 1: so young, and he had grown shy of love. And
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Speaker 1: so had it come about that he throve best in
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Speaker 1: the wild woods or out on the waste uplands, where
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Speaker 1: all things that live must have wide spaces around them,
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Speaker 1: room to flee through. Fearfully they look on any stranger
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Speaker 1: that would steal upon them. One time in the year,
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Speaker 1: there was when all the beasts in the woods and
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Speaker 1: on the mountains forgot their shyness when they rushed to
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Speaker 1: their mates. But his had been given him unsought, and
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Speaker 1: she had proffered him all he had not wooed her for.
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Speaker 1: But the young ones in the nest, they had been
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Speaker 1: the little warm green spot in the wilderness, the inmost
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Speaker 1: sweetest joy of his life, those little girl heads under
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Speaker 1: his hand. Marriage, they had wedded him almost unasked. Friends
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Speaker 1: he had many, and he had none. War. It had
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Speaker 1: brought him gladness, but there had been no more war.
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Speaker 1: His armor hung there in the loft room, little used
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Speaker 1: he had turned farmer, but he had had his daughter's
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Speaker 1: all his living and striving had grown dear to him,
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Speaker 1: because by it he cherished them and made them safe,
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Speaker 1: those soft, tender little beings he had held in his hands.
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Speaker 1: He remembered Christen's little two year old body on his shoulder,
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Speaker 1: her flax and silky hair against his cheek, her small
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Speaker 1: hands holding to his belt while she butted her round
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Speaker 1: hard child's forehead against his shoulder blades, when he rode
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Speaker 1: out with her behind him on his horse. And now
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Speaker 1: had she that same glow in her eyes, and she
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Speaker 1: had won what was hers. She sat there in the shadow,
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Speaker 1: against the silken pillows of the bed, in the candlelight,
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Speaker 1: she was all golden, golden crown and golden shift, and
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Speaker 1: golden hair spread over the naked golden arms. Her eyes
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Speaker 1: were shy no longer. Her father winced with shame, And
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Speaker 1: yet it was as though his heart was bleeding within
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Speaker 1: him for what he himself had never won, and for
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Speaker 1: his wife there by his side, whom he had never
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Speaker 1: given what should have been hers. Weak with pity, he
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Speaker 1: felt in the darkness for Ronfried's hand, I methought it
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Speaker 1: was well with us in our life together, he said,
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Speaker 1: methought twas but that you sorrowed for our children, aye,
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Speaker 1: and that you were born heavy of mood. Never did
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Speaker 1: it come to my mind it might be that I
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Speaker 1: was no good husband to you. Humphrey trembled fitfully. You
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Speaker 1: were ever a good husband, Laverren's hm. Lavrens sat with
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Speaker 1: his chin resting on his knees. Yet had it mayhap
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Speaker 1: been better with you if you had been wedded even
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Speaker 1: as our daughter was to day? Romfreed started up with
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Speaker 1: a low piercing cry. You know, how did you know it?
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Speaker 1: How long have you known? I know not what tis
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Speaker 1: you speak of? Said Lavns after a while, in a strange,
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Speaker 1: deadened voice. This do I speak of? That I was
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Speaker 1: no maid when I came to be your wife, said Ronfret,
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Speaker 1: and her voice rang clear in her despair. In a
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Speaker 1: little while Laverrens answered, as before that have I never
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Speaker 1: known till now? Rontfrete laid her down among the hay,
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Speaker 1: shaken with weeping. When the fit was over, she lifted
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Speaker 1: her head a little. A faint gray light was beginning
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Speaker 1: to creep in through the window hole in the wall.
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Speaker 1: She could dimly see her husband sitting with his arms
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Speaker 1: thrown round his knees, motionless as stone. Lawrence speak to me,
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Speaker 1: she wailed. What would you I should say? He asked,
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Speaker 1: without stirring. Oh, I know not curse me, strike me.
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Speaker 1: Twould be something late, now, answered the man. There seemed
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Speaker 1: to be the shade of a scornful smile in his voice.
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Speaker 1: Ronfrete wept again. II I heeded not then that I
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Speaker 1: was betraying you, so betrayed and so dishonored. Methought had
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Speaker 1: I been myself, there was none had spared me. The
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Speaker 1: he came and brought you, you know yourself. I saw
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Speaker 1: you but three times before we were wed. Methought you
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Speaker 1: were but a boy, white and red, so young and childish.
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Speaker 1: I was, so, said Laverance, And a faint ring of
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Speaker 1: life came to his voice. And therefore a man might
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Speaker 1: deem that you, who were a woman, you might have
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Speaker 1: been more afraid to to deceive one who was so
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Speaker 1: young that he knew. Not, so did I think, after,
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Speaker 1: said Ronfret, weeping. When I had come to know you,
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Speaker 1: soon came the time when I would have given my
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Speaker 1: soul twenty times over to be guiltless of sin against you.
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Speaker 1: Laverns sat silent and motionless, then said his wife. You
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Speaker 1: ask not anything, what use to ask? It was he
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Speaker 1: that we met his burial train at Fagin's Breca. As
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Speaker 1: we bore Ulfield in to Nero's aye, said Ronfrit. We
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Speaker 1: had to leave the way, go aside into a meadow.
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Speaker 1: I saw them bear him on his beer, with priests
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Speaker 1: and monks and armed. Yeomen, I heard he had made
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Speaker 1: a good end, had made his peace with God. I
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Speaker 1: prayed as we stood there, with ulf Hild's litter between us,
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Speaker 1: I prayed that my sin and my sorrow might be
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Speaker 1: laid at his feet on the last day. I like
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Speaker 1: enough you did, said Laverns. And there was the same
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Speaker 1: shade of scorn in his quiet voice. You know not all,
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Speaker 1: said Ronfret, cold with despair. Mind you that he came
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Speaker 1: out to us at Scog the first winter we were wedded,
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Speaker 1: I answered the man. When Bjorgolf was born, Oh, I
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Speaker 1: thought he was dearer spared me. He was drunk when
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Speaker 1: he did it. After what he said, he had never
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Speaker 1: cared for me. He would not have me, bade me
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Speaker 1: forget it. My father knew it not. He did not
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Speaker 1: betray you never think that, But Tron we were the
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Speaker 1: dearest of friends to each other. Then I made my
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Speaker 1: moan to him. He tried to force the man to
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Speaker 1: wed me, but he was but a boy. He was beaten. Afterwards,
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Speaker 1: he counseled me to hold my peace and to take you.
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Speaker 1: She sat awhile in silence. Then he came out to scold.
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Speaker 1: A year was gone by. I thought not on it
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Speaker 1: so much anymore. But he came out thither. He said
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Speaker 1: that he repented. He would have had me now had
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Speaker 1: I been unwedded. He loved me, he said, so God
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Speaker 1: knows if he said true. When he was gone, I
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Speaker 1: dared not go out on the fjord, dared not for
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Speaker 1: my sin, not with the child. And I had begun.
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Speaker 1: I had begun to love you. So she cried out
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Speaker 1: a single cry of the wildest pain. The man turned
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Speaker 1: his head quickly towards her. When Bjorgolf was dying, Oh,
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Speaker 1: no one, no one had to me than my life.
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Speaker 1: When he lay in the death throes, I thought, if
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Speaker 1: he died, I must die too. But I prayed not
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Speaker 1: God to spare my boy's life. Labren sat a long
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Speaker 1: time silent. Then he asked, in a dead heavy voice,
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Speaker 1: was it because I was not his father. I knew
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Speaker 1: not if you were hurt, said rona growing stiff and
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Speaker 1: stark where she sat.
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Speaker 2: Long.
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Speaker 1: They sat there in a deathly stillness. Then the man asked,
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Speaker 1: vehemently of a sudden in yeazless name, Ronfrit, Why tell
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Speaker 1: you me all this? Now?
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Speaker 2: Oh? I know not.
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Speaker 1: She wrung her hands till the joints cracked. That you
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Speaker 1: may avenge you on me, drive me from your house?
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Speaker 1: Think you that would help me? His voice shook with scorn.
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Speaker 1: Then there are our daughters, he said quietly, Christen, and
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Speaker 1: the little one. Ronfrit sat still. Awhile, I mind me.
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Speaker 1: How you judged of Erelin Nicholason? She said, softly, how
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Speaker 1: judge you of me? Then a long shudder of cold
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Speaker 1: passed over the man's body, yet a little of the
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Speaker 1: stiffness seemed to leave him. You have we have lived
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Speaker 1: together now for seven and twenty years. Almost tis not
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Speaker 1: the same as with a stranger. I see this too,
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Speaker 1: worse than misery has it been for you? Ronfret sank together,
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Speaker 1: sobbing at the words. She plucked up heart to put
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Speaker 1: her hand on one of his. He moved not at all.
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Speaker 1: She sat as still as a dead man. Her weeping
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Speaker 1: grew louder and louder, but her husband still sat motionless,
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Speaker 1: looking at the faint gray light creeping in around the door. Last,
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Speaker 1: she lay as if all her tears were spent. Then
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Speaker 1: he stroked her arm lightly downward, and she fell to
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Speaker 1: weeping again. Mind you, she said, through her tears, that
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Speaker 1: man who came to us one time, when we dwelt
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Speaker 1: at scold, He that knew all the ancient lays, mind you,
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Speaker 1: the lay of a dead man that was come back
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Speaker 1: from the world of torment, and told his son the
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Speaker 1: story of all that he had seen. There was heard
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Speaker 1: a groaning from Hell's deepest ground, the querns of untrue
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Speaker 1: women grinding mold for their husband's meat. Bloody were the
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Speaker 1: stones they dragged at. Bloody hung the hearts from out
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Speaker 1: their breasts. Laverance was silent all these years. If I
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Speaker 1: thought upon those words, said Enfried, every day, twas as
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Speaker 1: though my heart was bleeding every day, methought, I ground
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Speaker 1: you mold for meat. Laverans knew not himself why he
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Speaker 1: answered as he did. It seemed to him his breast
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Speaker 1: was empty and hollow, like the breast of a man
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Speaker 1: that has had the blood eagle carven through his back.
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Speaker 1: But he laid his hand heavily and wearily on his
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Speaker 1: wife's head, and spoke, mayhap, mold must needs be ground,
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Speaker 1: mayernfrit before the meat can grow. When she tried to
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Speaker 1: take his hand and kiss it, he snatched it away.
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Speaker 1: But then he looked down at his wife, took one
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Speaker 1: of her hands and laid it on his knee, and
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Speaker 1: bowed his cold, stiffened face down upon it. And so
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Speaker 1: they sat on, motionless, speaking no word more. End of
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Speaker 1: Chapter eight, Part two. End of The Bridal Wreath by
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Speaker 1: Secret Unset, translated by Charles Archer and Jay Scott, read
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Speaker 1: by Carrol Pelster