Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (22 page)

NILS LYKKE. No, my noble lady; — I must needs bring you to terms within this hour.

LADY INGER. But what if you should fail?

NILS LYKKE. I shall
not
fail.

LADY INGER. You lack not confidence, it seems.

NILS LYKKE. What shall we wager that you make not common cause with myself and Peter Kanzler?

LADY INGER. Ostrat Castle against your knee-buckles.

NILS LYKKE (points to himself and cries:) Olaf Skaktavl — here stands the master of Ostrat!

LADY INGER. Sir Councillor —— !

NILS LYKKE (to LADY INGER). I accept not the wager; for in a moment you will gladly give Ostrat Castle, and more to boot, to be freed from the snare wherein not I but you are tangled.

LADY INGER. Your jest, Sir, grows a vastly merry one.

NILS LYKKE. ‘Twill be merrier yet — at least for me. You boast that you have overreached me. You threaten to heap on me all men’s scorn and mockery. Ah, beware that you stir not up my vengefulness; For with two words I can bring you to your knees at my feet.

LADY INGER. Ha-ha ——
 
—— !
    (Stops suddenly, as if struck by a foreboding.)
And the two words, Nils Lykke? — the two words —— ?

NILS LYKKE. —— The secret of Sten Sture’s son and yours.

LADY INGER (with a shriek). Oh, Jesus Christ —— !

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Inger Gyldenlove’s son! What say you?

LADY INGER (half kneeling to NILS LYKKE). Mercy! oh be merciful
 
—— !

NILS LYKKE (raises her up). Collect yourself, and let us talk
calmly.

LADY INGER (in a low voice, as though bewildered). Did you hear it, Olaf Skaktavl? or was it but a dream? Heard you what he said?

NILS LYKKE. It was no dream, Lady Inger!

LADY INGER. And you know it! You, — you! — Where is he then?
Where have you got him? What would you do with him? (Screams.)
Do not kill him, Nils Lykke! Give him back to me! Do not kill
my child!

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Ah, I begin to understand ——

LADY INGER. And this fear —— this torturing dread! Through all these years it has been ever with me ——
 
—— and then all fails at last, and I must bear this agony! — Oh Lord my God, is it right of thee? Was it for this thou gavest him to me? (Controls herself and says with forced composure:) Nils Lykke — tell me
one
thing. Where have you got him? Where is he?

NILS LYKKE. With his foster-father.

LADY INGER. Still with his foster-father. Oh, that merciless man —— ! For ever to deny my prayers. — But it
must
not go on thus! Help me, Olaf Skaktavl!

OLAF SKAKTAVL. I?

NILS LYKKE. There will be no need, if only you ——

LADY INGER. Hearken, Sir Councillor! What you know you shall know thoroughly. And you too, my old and faithful friend —— ! Listen then. To-night you bade me call to mind that fatal day when Knut Alfson was slain at Oslo. You bade me remember the promise I made as I stood by his corpse amid the bravest men in Norway. I was scarce full-grown then; but I felt God’s strength in me, and methought, as many have thought since, that the Lord himself had set his mark on me and chosen me to fight in the forefront for my country’s cause. Was it vanity? Or was it a calling from on high? That I have never clearly known. But woe to him that has a great mission laid upon him. For seven years I fear not to say that I kept my promise faithfully. I stood by my countrymen in all their miseries. All my playmates were now wives and mothers. I alone could give ear to no wooer — not to one. That you know best, Olaf Skaktavl! Then I saw Sten Sture for the first time. Fairer man had never met my sight.

NILS LYKKE. Ah, now it grows clear to me! Sten Sture was then in Norway on a secret errand. We Danes were not to know that he wished your friends well.

LADY INGER. Disguised as a mean serving-man he lived a whole winter under one roof with me. That winter I thought less and less of the country’s weal ——
 
—— . So fair a man had I never seen, and I had lived well-nigh five-and-twenty years. Next autumn Sten Sture came once more; and when he departed again he took with him, in all secrecy, a little child. “Twas not folk’s evil tongues I feared; but our cause would have suffered had it got about the Sten Sture stood so near to me. The child was given to Peter Kanzler to rear. I waited for better times, that were soon to come. They never came. Sten Sture took a wife two years later in Sweden, and, dying, left a widow ——

OLAF SKAKTAVL. —— And with her a lawful heir to his name and rights.

LADY INGER. Time after time I wrote to Peter Kanzler and besought him to give me back my child. But he was ever deaf to my prayers. “Cast in your lot with us once for all,” he said, “and I send your son back to Norway; not before.” But ‘twas even that I dared not do. We of the disaffected party were then ill regarded by many timorous folk. If these had got tidings of how things stood — oh, I know it! — to cripple the mother they had gladly meted to the child the fate that would have been King Christiern’s had he not saved himself by flight. But besides that, the Danes were active. They spared neither threats nor promises to force me to join them.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. ‘Twas but reason. The eyes of all men were fixed on you as the vane that should show them how to shape their course.

LADY INGER. Then came Herlof Hyttefad’s revolt. Do you remember that time, Olaf Skaktavl? Was it not as though the whole land was filled with the sunlight of a new spring. Mighty voices summoned me to come forth; — yet I dared not. I stood doubting — far from the strife — in my lonely castle. At times it seemed as though the Lord God himself were calling me; but then would come the killing dread again to paralyse my will. “Who will win?” that was the question that was ever ringing in my ears. ‘Twas but a short spring that had come to Norway. Herlof Hyttefad, and many more with him, were broken on the wheel during the months that followed. None could call me to account; yet there lacked not covert threats from Denmark. What if they knew the secret? At last methought they must know; I knew not how else to understand their words. ‘Twas even in that time of agony that Gyldenlove the High Steward, came hither and sought me in marriage. Let any mother that has feared for her child think herself in my place! — and homeless in the hearts of my countrymen. Then came the quiet years. There was now no whisper of revolt. Our masters might grind us down even as heavily as they listed. There were times when I loathed myself. What had I to do? Nought but to endure terror and scorn and bring forth daughters into the world. My daughters! God forgive me if I have had no mother’s heart towards them. My wifely duties were as serfdom to me; how then could I love my daughters? Oh, how different with my son!
He
was the child of my very soul. He was the one thing that brought to mind the time when I was a woman and nought but a woman — and him they had taken from me! He was growing up among strangers, who might sow in him the seed of destruction! Olaf Skaktavl — had I wandered like you on the lonely hills, hunted and forsaken, in winter and storm — if I had but held my child in my arms, — trust me, I had not sorrowed and wept so sore as I have sorrowed and wept for him from his birth even to this hour.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. There is my hand. I have judged you too hardly, Lady Inger! Command me even as before; I will obey. — Ay, by all the saints, I know what it is to sorrow for a child.

LADY INGER. Yours was slain by bloody men. But what is death to the restless terror of all these long years?

NILS LYKKE. Mark, then—’tis in your power to end this terror. You have but to reconcile the opposing parties, and neither will think of seizing on your child as a pledge of your faith.

LADY INGER (to herself). This is the vengeance of Heaven.
(Looks at him.) In one word, what do you demand?

NILS LYKKE. I demand first that you shall call the people of the northern districts to arms, in support of the disaffected in Sweden.

LADY INGER. And next —— ?

NILS LYKKE. —— that you do your best to advance young Count
Sture’s ancestral claim to the throne of Sweden.

LADY INGER. His? You demand that I —— ?

OLAF SKAKTAVL (softly). It is the wish of many Swedes, and ‘twould serve our turn too.

NILS LYKKE. You hesitate, lady? You tremble for your son’s safety. What better can you wish than to see his half-brother on the throne?

LADY INGER (in thought). True — true ——

NILS LYKKE (looks at her sharply). Unless there be other plans afoot ——

LADY INGER. What mean you?

NILS LYKKE. Inger Gyldenlove might have a mind to be a — a
kings mother.

LADY INGER. No, no! Give me back my child, and let who will
have the crowns.
  But know you so surely that Count Sture is willing —— ?

NILS LYKKE. Of that he will himself assure you.

LADY INGER. Himself?

NILS LYKKE. Even now.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. How now?

LADY INGER. What say you?

NILS LYKKE. In one word, Count Sture is in Ostrat.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Here?

NILS LYKKE (to LADY INGER). You have doubtless been told that another rode through the gate along with me? The Count was my attendant.

LADY INGER (softly). I am in his power. I have no longer any
choice.
    (Looks at him and says:)
‘Tis well, Sir Councillor — I will assure you of my support.

NILS LYKKE. In writing?

LADY INGER. As you will.

 (Goes to the table on the left, sits down, and takes writing
      materials from the drawer.)

NILS LYKKE (aside, standing by the table on the right). At last,
then, I win!

LADY INGER (after a moment’s thought, turns suddenly in her chair to OLAF SKAKTAVL and whispers). Olaf Skaktavl — I am certain of it now — Nils Lykke is a traitor!

OLAF SKAKTAVL (softly). What? You think —— ?

LADY INGER. He has treachery in his heart

(Lays the paper before her and dips the pen in the ink.)

OLAF SKAKTAVL. And yet you would give him a written promise
that may be your ruin?

LADY INGER. Hush; leave me to act. Nay, wait and listen
first ——

(Talks with him in a whisper.)

NILS LYKKE (softly, watching them). Ah, take counsel together as much as ye list! All danger is over now. With her written consent in my pocket, I can denounce her when I please. A secret message to Jens Bielke this very night. — I tell him but the truth — that the young Count Sture is not at Ostrat. And then to-morrow, when the road is open — to Trondhiem with my young friend, and thence by ship to Copenhagen with him as my prisoner. Once we have him safe in the castle-tower, we can dictate to Lady Inger what terms we will. And I —— ? Methinks after this the King will scarce place the French mission in other hands than mine.

LADY INGER (still whispering to OLAF SKAKTAVL). Well, you understand me?

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Ay, fully. Let us risk it.

(Goes out by the back, to the right. NILS STENSSON comes in by the first door on the right, unseen by LADY INGER, who has begun to write.)

NILS STENSSON (in a low voice). Sir Knight, — Sir Knight!

NILS LYKKE (moves towards him). Rash boy! What would you here?
Said I not you were to wait within until I called you?

NILS STENSSON. How could I? Now you have told me that Inger Gyldenlove is my mother, I thirst more than ever to see her face to face —— Oh, it is she! How proud and lofty she seems! Even thus did I ever picture her. Fear not, dear Sir, I shall do nought rashly. Since I have learnt this secret, I feel, as it were, older and wiser. I will no longer be wild and heedless; I will be even as other well-born youths. — Tell me, — knows she that I am here? Surely you have prepared her?

NILS LYKKE. Ay, sure enough; but ——

NILS STENSSON. Well?

NILS LYKKE. —— She will not own you for her son.

NILS STENSSON. Will not own me? But she
is
my mother. — Oh, if there be no other way — (takes out a ring which he wears on a cord round his neck) — show her this ring. I have worn it since my earliest childhood; she must surely know its history.