They carried Torgunn to bed, and Father Willibald went to examine her. Rapp at once took Orm and Ylva aside and told them what had happened and what he believed to be the truth of the matter. Orm and Ylva agreed that this was a most unfortunate occurrence, and that it would be a sad thing for all of them if there should be discord between Rapp and Torgunn as a result of this.
“It is a good thing that you think before you act,” said Orm, “otherwise you might have killed him, which would have been a bad matter if he should turn out to be innocent. For to kill a priest would bring God’s punishment down upon us all.”
“I have a better opinion than you of Torgunn, Rapp,” said Ylva. “It is an easy thing to twist a knee when one is clambering among logs and stones. And you have admitted yourself that you saw nothing take place.”
“What I saw was bad enough,” said Rapp, “and they were in the darkest part of the forest.”
“It is wisest not to judge too hastily in such matters,” said Orm. “You remember the judgment delivered by our lord Almansur’s magistrate in Córdoba, the time when Toke Gray-Gullsson had managed by cunning to gain entry to the woman’s room in the house of the Egyptian sugar-baker, the one that lived in the Street of Penitents, and a wind blew aside the curtain that hung across the window so that four of the sugar-baker’s friends, who happened to be walking across the court, saw Toke and the sugar-baker’s wife together on her bed.”
“I remember the occasion well,” said Rapp. “But the husband was a heathen.”
“What happened to the woman?” asked Ylva.
“The sugar-baker presented himself before the magistrate with his garments rent and with his four witnesses behind him, and begged that Toke and the woman should be stoned as adulterers. My lord Almansur had himself commanded that the case should be judged strictly according to the law, though Toke was a member of his bodyguard. The magistrate listened carefully to the evidence of the four witnesses concerning what they had seen take place, and three of them swore upon oath that they had distinctly witnessed certain things occurring; but the fourth was old and had weak eyes and so had not been able to see as clearly as the others. Now, the law of Mohammed, which stands written by Allah’s own finger in their holy book, states that no person may be convicted of adultery unless four pious witnesses can be found who have clearly and unmistakably seen the offense committed. So the magistrate found Toke and the woman not guilty and sentenced the sugar-baker to the bastinado for bringing false accusation.”
“That sounds a good land for a woman to live in,” said Ylva, “for much can take place before one is seen in the act by four witnesses. But I think the sugar-baker was unlucky.”
“He did not think so for long,” said Orm, “for as a result of this incident his name became known to the whole bodyguard, and we would often visit his shop to chaff him and drink his sweet Syrian mead, so that his trade increased greatly, and he praised Allah for the magistrate’s wisdom. But Toke said that, though the affair had ended well enough, he would take it as a warning, and he never again ventured to go in to the woman.”
Father Willibald now came to them and told them that Torgunn had been telling the truth when she had asserted that she had twisted her knee. “Before long,” he said to Rapp, “it will be so swollen that even you will have no doubts upon the matter.”
They all supposed that Rapp would feel relief at this news, but he sat for some time buried in his thoughts. At length he said: “If that is so, the magister must have lain there a good while, holding her knee with both his hands, or perhaps with one only. It is difficult for me to believe that he stopped at that, for he has himself told us that he is weak-willed where women are concerned, and that he has learned from Roman books secret methods of pleasing them. It is my belief that he did more than read over her knee; for if he had confined himself to that, the swelling would not have arisen, if there is any virtue in his godliness.”
This was the longest speech that any of them had ever heard Rapp deliver, and none of them could persuade him that he was of a wrong opinion in the matter.
Then Ylva said: “At first you were suspicious because you could not see any swelling; now you are suspicious because you have been told that there is one. But this does not surprise me, for you men are always the same once you have an idea fixed in your head. I shall go myself to Torgunn and have the matter out with her; for she and I are close friends, and she will tell me the truth of what really happened. And if anything has taken place which she does not wish to speak of, I will know from her replies what it is that she is trying to hide. For a woman knows at once whether another woman is telling the truth or not; which is, God be praised, more than any man is capable of.”
With this she left them; and what she and Torgunn said to each other no man knows, for none heard their talk.
“You can put your mind at rest now, Rapp,” said Orm, “for in a short while you will know the truth about this matter. There is no more cunning woman in the wide world than Ylva; of that I can promise you. I marked that the very first time I met her.”
Rapp grunted, and they began to discuss two heifers that had escaped and had not been discovered, and where it would be best to search for them on the following day.
Ylva was absent for a long while. When at last she returned, she shook her fist under Rapp’s nose.
“I have discovered the truth of this matter,” she said, “and it was as I had supposed. You can set your mind at rest, Rapp, for nothing blameworthy took place between these two in the forest. The only one who has behaved badly is you. Torgunn does not know whether to laugh at you for your suspicions, or whether to weep at the memory of the hard words you used to her; and she tells me that she almost regrets not having seduced the priest when she had the chance. ‘We could have had much pleasure before Rapp came,’ she told me, ‘and since I shall in any case have to endure his suspicions and be looked upon as a woman of shame, I might as well have got what enjoyment I could out of the affair.’ Those were the words she used; and if you are as wise a man as I hold you to be, Rapp, you will never mention another word about this business; if you do, I cannot answer for her behavior. But if you handle her tenderly, I think she will be willing to let the matter drop; and it would be a good thing if you could get her with child, for then you would not have to worry yourself any more about this poor unfortunate magister.”
Rapp scratched his scalp and muttered something to the effect that any state she might be in was not the result of any lack of endeavor on his part. But they could see that he was much relieved by what Ylva had told him, and he thanked her for having put the matter to rights.
“And it is a good thing that I myself possess some small stock of wisdom,” he said, “even though I am not as wise as you, Ylva. For if I had been an impatient man, I would have killed the magister and would now be wearing a long nose, and you and Orm would no longer be my friends. But now I will go to Torgunn, to comfort her and make things well again.”
When Orm and Ylva had gone to bed, they talked for a time about this business before falling asleep.
“All this has passed off better than I could have expected,” said Orm, “thanks to your good offices. For if I had been called upon to decide in this matter, I should have adjudged that they had busied themselves with more things in the forest than with this knee of hers.”
Ylva lay for a while in silence. Then she said: “Orm, you would have judged correctly, but you must never let anyone know this. I promised her that I would not repeat what she told me, and that I would talk Rapp into believing that nothing had taken place; and we must leave things as they now are, and nobody must know anything, not even Father Willibald; for if the truth were to come out, it would cause great distress to both Rapp and Torgunn, as well as to this unfortunate woman-crazy magister. But to you I will tell the truth, which is that there was more done between these two than praying over her bad knee. She says that she liked him from the first, because of his beautiful singing voice and the unlucky fate to which he is condemned; besides which, she says that she could never say nay to a holy man. She says she trembled throughout her whole body like a trapped bat when he touched her knee as she lay there on the ground, and that he did not appear embarrassed but straightway guessed what was in her mind. Before long they were both in a state of desire; she says that she could not help this. Later, when they had become calm again, he began to groan and weep and took up his prayers where he had left them off; but he had only had time to say a few sentences before Rapp appeared. That, doubtless, is why the swelling has become worse, for he should, properly, have repeated the prayer thrice for it to be effective. But she will thank God for the rest of her life, she says, for not allowing Rapp to arrive a few minutes earlier than he did. Now if you let Rapp or anyone else know the truth of this, you will make me exceedingly unhappy, and others also.”