In the Wilderness by Sigrid Undset

high, pale watchtowers in the dusk. He continued to follow the ill-marked path across the fields to the northward—down toward the Thames the land seemed to be all swamp.
    How far and for how long he had walked he did not know, but he thought he must be somewhere to the north of the town. Pools of water shone here and there in the darkness, and from some place came the baying and howling of great deep-voiced hounds.Olav knew that the townsmen’s hunt had its kennels somewhere out in the country. But it had an ugly sound in the dark.
    To the left of the path he made out a piece of rising ground on which tall trees grew—there was a faint glimmer of dead leaves underneath them. Olav’s senses grasped, without his being aware of it, that the ground here would be as good and dry as he could expect to find. He went up the slope—the brambles caught and tore his clothes. Then he came on something like a suitable hollow and lay down, wrapping his cloak about him as well as he could.
    Now he felt that he was bathed in sweat, soaked and bemired almost to the waste, both kirtle and hose. Olav drew his sword and lay on his side, holding it under him. He fell asleep at once.
    He woke in pitch-darkness, choking with horror, and thought he had cried out. Struggling with the tangle of his dream, he knew not where he was—he lay on the bare ground, and around him was a blackness that stirred and flickered, and he was wet and icy cold, and his heart was ready to break with despair and remorse and guilty feeling. He was lying in withered leaves.
    Then memories dawned on him—of his adventure and of his dream, interwoven. At the same time as he recalled how he had come to be lying out in the woods, he remembered his dream too, and slowly the horror ebbed away—even now it seemed gruesome to recall it, but it was only a dream. And he had not done it, no, not even in his dream could he remember that
he
had done anything to the young child. That three-edged dagger of his he had not even brought with him on the voyage; it lay at home in his chest.
    He had thought he stood by a bed—in the dark, and in a forest, as it seemed—a bed that was full of withered, wet, and earthy leaves, and half buried in the leaves lay a naked human body. The leaves covered it to the waist and covered the upper part of the face. He was not sure whether it was a boy or a girl, but he thought it was a little girl—the smooth, childish breast was so white and looked so soft—and under the left pap there was a triangular wound, as if someone had thrust in one of those daggers with a three-cornered blade up to the hilt. A little blood had oozed from the lowest lip of the wound—but it was one of those ugly, silent wounds which hardly bleed at all—the blood runs inward, suffocating the heart.
    And the mortal horror of it had been that he had thought this was his work, and he was not able to bear it.—He tried to take the dead child up in his arms; he must bring her back to life. Yet he could not remember having dreamed that he thrust the dagger into the child. And it was but a dream.
    A wind was blowing, with a sighing in the tree-tops and a rustling of leaves. He lay shivering and tried to distinguish things about him in the dark. A little animal was stirring among the dry leaves. His dream still troubled him; and he could not guess what it might mean—he had never wronged any
woman
that he knew of, save Torhild; but this was a little girl. He remembered plainly the face of the dead child among the leaves: the chin was short and broad, the lips full, the hair dark and reaching no farther than the shoulders. He could not recall having known any child like her.
    It could not be Cecilia, his fair-haired child. A warm feeling of relief went through him: there could be no danger threatening her.
    But his thoughts would not leave the dream. It was either a sorcery of the evil powers or a warning that he was unable to interpret—as yet. And he thought of that