The Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset

open door the room swam in a soft golden light.
    Olav’s heart was oppressed. Yet he said to himself that it was a great godsend if Eirik so utterly unexpectedly and of his own accord had now found a call for the monastic life. A godsend for the lad himself, a godsend for Cecilia. And he would be freed from the rankling thought of the bastard heir whom he had falsely brought into his kindred.
    Great as was the injustice he had committed in giving out another man’s child for his own, had he
not
done so, but let the boy stay where his mother had hidden him away in the wilds—then indeed Eirik’s lot would never have been other than that of a poor man’s child. That too would have been an injustice—on
her
part. Now he would be a servant of God—and he might bring the convent a rich dower; if he wished to bestow on it the whole of his mother’s inheritance, Olav would not oppose it. Then
that
sin would be undone. And this child of her misfortune would be made a life dedicated to the glory of God and many men’s profit; for in times such as these, when so many seemed indifferent, uncharitable, and froward in their attitude to God, it was good and salutary to see a young man of Eirik’s condition give up all for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. And now he might be an aid to his mother, maybe. Perhaps to him too—
    Nevertheless his father’s heart was heavy.
    He could not rid himself of the thought of what Eirik had said of a marriage with Bothild. An unwise match it would have been—Olav was not sure whether he would have consented to it. But he could not help thinking of the grief of the two young people—of all the nights he had watched beside his foster-daughter. Had the child had this sorrow upon her as she lay there? It almost made him wish they had spoken to him. And yet the sickness must have had a good hold on her—’twould only have been the misery of Ingunn over again. And Eirik had been vouchsafed a better lot. It was better as it was.But, but, but—Often as he had thought it would be better if Eirik never returned to Hestviken—intensely as the lad’s ways had often irritated him, rousing him a thousand times to wrath, contempt, perplexity in his dealings with this strange bird he had taken into his nest—there had been so much else blended with these feelings while he had under his protection the offspring of that disaster which had wrecked his own and Ingunn’s lives. He had taken charge of Eirik since the lad was a child, had cared for him as he grew up into a man. And now that he was to relinquish his charge, it was as though the young man had been his own son.
    The voice within was hushed, but the candle was still burning—and now and again he heard a sound of snoring. Olav got up and looked into the room. Eirik was still on his knees, sunk forward on a chest with his head buried in his arms. The lighted candle stood just by his elbow. It might easily have been overturned into the straw.
    His father took hold of Eirik and aroused him as gently as he could. Barely half-awake, his dreamy eyes heavy with sleep, Eirik undressed without a sound, lay down on his bed, and fell asleep at once. Like a child he had been, as in a deep torpor he obediently did as his father told him.
    Olav blew out the light, pinched the wick between wet fingers, and stole quietly back to the closet. Lying awake in the dark, he resumed the contest with his unreasoning heart.

7
    O NE evening in the following week, as Eirik was at his prayers—and now it seemed to him an immemorial custom that when the rest of the household had gone to rest he abandoned himself every night to hours of praying—he was aroused by a sharp whisper:
    “Eirik—?”
    He turned. Halfway down the ladder that led to the room above the closet and anteroom the white form of his sister appeared.
    Eirik broke off abruptly with
“In nomine—”
and crossed himself,as though throwing a cloak about him. Then he sprang up and went to her.
    “Do I