Spread out before them were vast acres, white with rime. The estate stood on what looked like a wide ledge midway up the mountain slope. Closest to them was a small, light-colored stone church, and directly to the south stood all the buildings; they were both numerous and large. Smoke was swirling up from the smoke vents. The bells began to chime from the church and people came streaming out toward them from the courtyard,¹ shouting and waving. The young men in the bridal procession clanged their weapons against each other—and with much banging and clattering and joyous commotion the group raced toward the manor of the newly married man.

Kristin felt abandoned and afraid when Erlend let go of her hand and went over to the men’s side while she joined the group of unfamiliar women, dressed in their holiday finery. The service was very beautiful. But Kristin was freezing, and it seemed as if her prayers were blown back to her when she tried to ease her heart and lift it upwards. She thought it was probably not a good omen that it was Saint Simon’s Day—since he was the patron saint of the man whom she had treated so badly.

From the church they walked in procession down toward the manor; first the priests and then Kristin and Erlend, hand in hand, followed by the guests, two by two. Kristin was so distracted that she didn’t notice much of the estate. The courtyard was long and narrow; the buildings stood in two rows along the south and north sides. They were massive and set close together, but they seemed old and in disrepair.

The procession stopped at the door to the main house, and the priests blessed it with holy water. Then Erlend led Kristin inside, through a dark entryway. On her right a door was thrown open to brilliant light. She ducked through the doorway and stood next to Erlend in his hall.

It was the largest room she had ever seen on any man’s estate. There was a hearthplace in the middle of the floor, and it was so long that fires were burning at both ends. And the room was so wide that the crossbeams were supported by carved pillars. It seemed to Kristin more like the interior of a church or a king’s great hall than the hall of a manor. At the east end of the house, where the high seat² stood in the middle of the bench along the wall, enclosed beds had been built into the walls between the pillars.

And so many candles were now burning in the room—on the tables, which groaned with precious vessels and platters, and in brackets attached to the walls. As was the custom in the old days, weapons and shields hung between the draped tapestries. The wall behind the high seat was covered with velvet, and that was where a man now hung Erlend’s gold-chased sword and his white shield with the leaping red lion.

Serving men and women had taken the guests’ outer garments from them. Erlend took his wife by the hand and led her forward to the hearthplace; the guests formed a semicircle behind them. A heavyset woman with a gentle face stepped forward and shook out Kristin’s wimple, which had wrinkled a bit under her cloak. As the woman stepped back to her place, she bowed to the young couple and smiled. Erlend bowed and smiled in return and then looked down at his wife. At that moment his face was so handsome. And once again Kristin’s heart seemed to sink—she felt such pity for him. She knew what he was now thinking; he saw her standing there in his hall with the long, snow-white wimple of a married woman spread out over her scarlet wedding gown. That morning she had been forced to wind a long woven belt tightly around her stomach and waist under her clothing before she could get the gown to fit properly. And she had rubbed her cheeks with a red salve that Fru Aashild had given her. While she was doing this, she had thought with indignation and sadness that Erlend didn’t seem to look at her much, now that he had won her—since he hadn’t yet noticed her condition. Now she bitterly regretted that she hadn’t told him before.

As the couple stood there, hand in hand, the priests walked around the room, blessing the house and the hearth, the bed and the table.

Then a servant woman brought the keys of the house over to Erlend. He hung the heavy key ring on Kristin’s belt—and as he did this he looked as if he wanted to kiss her at the same time. A man brought a large drinking horn, ringed in gold, and Erlend put it to his lips and drank to her.

“Health and happiness on your estate, my wife!”

And the guests shouted and laughed as she drank with her husband and then threw the rest of the wine into the hearth fire.

Then the musicians began to play as Erlend Nikulaussøn led his lawful wife to the high seat and the banquet guests sat down at the table.

On the third day the guests began to leave, and by the fifth day, just before mid-afternoon prayers, the last ones had departed. Then Kristin was alone with her husband at Husaby.

The first thing she did was to ask the servants to remove all the bedclothes from the bed, to wash them and the surrounding walls with lye, and to carry out the straw and burn it. Then she had the bed filled with fresh straw and on top she spread the bedclothes that she had brought with her to the estate. It was late at night before the work was done. But Kristin said that this should be done with all the beds on the farm, and all the furs were to be steamed in the bathhouse. The maids would have to start first thing in the morning and do as much as they could before the sabbath. Erlend shook his head and laughed—what a wife she was! But he was quite ashamed.

Kristin had not slept much on the first night, even though the priests had blessed her bed. On top were spread silk-covered pillows, a linen sheet, and the finest blankets and furs, but underneath lay filthy, rotting straw; there were lice in the bedclothes and in the magnificent black bear pelt that lay on top.

Many things she had noticed during those days. Behind the costly tapestries which covered the walls, the soot and the dirt had not been washed from the timbers. There was an abundance of food for the feast, but much of it was spoiled or ill-prepared. And they had lit the fires with raw, wet wood that offered hardly any heat and filled the room with smoke.

Poor management she had seen everywhere when, on the second day, she walked around with Erlend to look at the estate. There would be empty stalls and storerooms after the celebration was over; the flour bins were almost swept clean. And she couldn’t understand how Erlend planned to feed all the horses and so much livestock with what was left of the straw and hay; there was not even enough fodder for the sheep.

But there was a loft half-filled with flax, and nothing had been done with it—it seemed to be a large part of several years’ harvest. And a storeroom full of ancient, unwashed, and stinking wool, some in sacks and some lying loose all around. When Kristin put her hand into the wool, tiny brown worm eggs spilled out of it—moths and maggots had gotten into the wool.

The cattle were feeble, gaunt, scabrous, and chafed; never had she seen so many old animals in one place. Only the horses were beautiful and well cared for. But none of them was a match for Guldsvein or Ringdrott, the stallion that her father now owned. Sløngvanbauge, the horse that he had given her from home, was the most splendid horse in Husaby’s stables. She couldn’t resist putting her arm around his neck and pressing her face against his coat when she went over to him. And the gentry of Trøndelag³ looked at the horse and praised his strong, stout legs, his deep chest and high neck, his small head and broad flanks. The old man from Gimsar swore by both God and the Fiend that it was a great sin that they had gelded the horse—what a battle horse he might have been. Then Kristin had to boast a little about his sire, Ringdrott. He was much bigger and stronger; there wasn’t another stallion that could compete with him; her father had even tested him against the most celebrated horses all the way north to this parish. Lavrans had given these horses the unusual names—Ringdrott and Sløngvanbauge—because they were golden in color and had markings that were like reddish-gold rings. The mother of Ringdrott had strayed from the other mares one summer up near the Boar Range, and they thought that a bear had taken her, but then she came back to the farm late in the fall. And the foal she bore the following year had surely not been bred by a stallion belonging to anyone aboveground. So they burned sulfur and bread over the foal, and Lavrans gave the mare to the church, to be even safer. But the foal had grown so magnificent that he now said he would rather lose half his estate than Ringdrott.

Erlend laughed and said, “You don’t talk much, Kristin, but when you talk about your father, you’re quite eloquent!”

Kristin abruptly fell silent. She remembered her father’s face when she was about to ride off with Erlend and he lifted her onto her horse. Lavrans had put on a happy expression because there were so many people around them, but Kristin saw his eyes. He stroked her arm and took her hand to say farewell. At that time her main thought had been that she was glad to be leaving. Now she thought that for as long as she lived, she would feel a sting in her soul whenever she remembered her father’s eyes on that day.

When she saw into what a sorry state everything had fallen and how much she would have to tend to, then the thought shot through her mind, hard and clear: if she had committed a sin to come to this place, so be it—but it was also a sin to make use of God’s gifts as was done here. Shame was deserved by those who had been in charge before, along with all of those who had allowed Erlend’s manor to decline so badly. There had not been a proper foreman at Husaby for the past two years; Erlend himself had been away from home much of the time, and besides, he had little knowledge of how to run the estate. So it was only to be expected that his envoys farther out in the countryside cheated him, as Kristin suspected they did, or that the servants at Husaby worked only as much as they pleased and whenever and in whatever manner it suited each of them. It would not be easy now for her to restore order to things.

One day she talked about this with Ulf Haldorssøn, Erlend’s personal servant. They should be done with the threshing, at least of the grain on their own land—and there wasn’t much of it—before it was time for the slaughtering.

Ulf said, “You know, Kristin, that I’m not a farmer. We were to be Erlend’s weapons bearers, Haftor and I—and I am no longer practiced in farming ways.”

“I know that,” said the mistress. “But as things stand, Ulf, it won’t be easy for me to manage this winter, newly arrived as I am in this northern region and unfamiliar with our people. It would be kind of you to help me and advise me.”

“I can see, Kristin, that you won’t have an easy time this winter,” said the man. He looked at her with a little smile—that odd smile he always wore whenever he spoke to her or to Erlend. It was impudent and mocking, and yet there was in his bearing both kindness and a certain esteem for her. And she didn’t feel that she had the right to be offended when Ulf assumed a more familiar attitude toward her than might otherwise be fitting. She and Erlend had allowed this man to be a witness to their improper and sinful behavior; now she saw that he also knew in what condition she found herself. That was something she would have to bear. She saw that Erlend too tolerated whatever Ulf said or did, and the man did not show much respect for his master. But they had been friends in their childhood; Ulf was from Møre, the son of a smallholder who lived near Baard Petersøn’s estate. He used the familiar form of address when he spoke to Erlend, as he now did with her—but that was more the custom among people up north than back home in her village.

Ulf Haldorssøn was quite a striking man, tall and dark, with handsome eyes, but his speech was ugly and coarse. Kristin had heard terrible things about him from the maids on the farm. When he went into town he would drink ferociously, reveling and carousing in the houses that stood along the alleyways; but when he was home at Husaby, he was the most steadfast of men, the most capable, the hardest worker, and the wisest. Kristin had taken a liking to him.

“It would not be easy for any woman to come to this estate, after all that has gone on here,” he said. “And yet, I believe, Mistress Kristin, that you will fare better here than most women might. You’re not the kind to sit down and whimper and complain; instead, you think of protecting the inheritance here for your descendants, when no one else gives any thought to that. And you know full well that you can count on me; I’ll help you as much as I can. You must remember that I’m unaccustomed to farming ways. But if you will seek my counsel and allow me to advise you, then we should be able to make it through this winter, after a fashion.”

Kristin thanked Ulf and went inside the house.

But in the daytime Kristin acted as if nothing was wrong. And each morning she would dress carefully, to hide from the house servants a little while longer that she was not walking alone.

It was the custom at Husaby that after the evening meal the servants would retire to the buildings where they slept. Then she and Erlend would sit alone in the hall. In general the customs here on the manor were more as they had been in the old days, back when people had thralls to do the housework. There was no permanent table in the hall, but each morning and evening a large plank was placed on trestles and then set with dishes, and after the meal it was hung back up on the wall. For the other meals everyone took their food over to the benches and sat there to eat. Kristin knew that this had been the custom in the past. But nowadays, when it was hard to find men to serve at the table and everyone had to be content with maids to do the work indoors, it was no longer practical—the women didn’t want to waste their strength by lifting the heavy tables. Kristin remembered her mother telling her that at Sundbu they had a permanent table when she was eight winters old, and the women thought this a great advantage in every way. Then they no longer had to go out to the women’s house with their sewing but could sit in the main room and cut and clip, and it looked so fine to have candlesticks and a few lovely vessels always standing there. Kristin thought that in the summer she would ask Erlend to put a table along the north wall.

That’s where it stood at home, and her father had his high seat at the head of the table. But at Jørundgaard the beds stood along the wall to the entryway. At home her mother sat at the end of the outer bench so that she could go back and forth and keep an eye on the food being served. Only when there were guests did Ragnfrid sit at her husband’s side. But here the high seat was in the middle beneath the east gable, and Erlend always wanted Kristin to sit with him. At home her father always offered God’s servants a place in the high seat if they were guests at Jørundgaard, and he and Ragnfrid would serve them while they ate and drank. But Erlend refused to do so unless they were of high rank. He had little love for priests or monks—they were costly friends, he said. Kristin thought about what her father and Sira Eirik always said when people complained about the avarice of clerics: every man forgets the sinful pleasure he has enjoyed when he has to pay for it.

She asked Erlend about life at Husaby in the old days. But he knew very little. Such and such he had heard, if he remembered rightly—but he couldn’t recall exactly. King Skule had owned the manor and built it up, presumably intending to make Husaby his home when he donated Rein manor to the convent. Erlend was exceedingly proud that he was descended from the duke, as he always called the king, and from Bishop Nikulaus. The bishop was the father of his grandfather, Munan Biskopssøn. But Kristin thought that he knew less about these men than she did from her own father’s stories. At home things were different. Neither her father nor her mother boasted of the power or prestige of their deceased ancestors. But they often spoke of them, holding out the good they knew about them as an example and telling of their faults and the evil that had resulted as a warning. And they knew amusing little tales—about Ivar Gjesling the Elder and his enmity with King Sverre, about Dean Ivar’s sharp and witty replies, about Haavard Gjesling’s tremendous girth, and about Ivar Gjesling the Younger’s wondrous luck in hunting. Lavrans told of his grandfather’s brother who abducted the Folkung maiden from Vreta cloister; about his grandfather, the Swedish knight Ketil; and about his grandmother, Ramborg Sunesdatter, who always longed for her home in Västergötaland and who one day drove her sleigh through the ice of Lake Vänern when she was visiting her brother at Solberga. He told of his father’s skill with weapons and of his inexpressible sorrow at the death of his young first wife, Kristin Sigurdsdatter, who died in childbed, giving birth to Lavrans. And he read from a book about his ancestor, the Holy Fru Elin of Skøvde, who was blessed to become God’s martyr. Lavrans had often said that he and Kristin should make a pilgrimage to the grave of the holy widow. But nothing had ever come of it.

In her fear and need, Kristin tried to pray to this holy woman to whom she was bound by blood. She prayed to Saint Elin for her child and kissed the cross that her father had given her; inside was a scrap of the holy saint’s shroud. But Kristin was afraid of Saint Elin, now that she had shamed her lineage so terribly. When she prayed to Saint Olav and Saint Thomas for their intercession, she often felt that her laments reached living ears and sympathetic hearts. Her father loved these two martyrs of righteousness above all the other saints, even more than Saint Lavrans himself, whose name he bore, and whose feast day in late summer he always honored with a great banquet and rich alms. Kristin’s father had seen Saint Thomas in his dreams one night when he lay wounded outside of Baagahus. No one could describe how loving and venerable he was in appearance, and Lavrans himself had not been able to utter anything but “Lord, Lord!” But the radiant bishop had tenderly touched the man’s wound and promised him life and vigor so that he would once again see his wife and daughter, as he had prayed for. And yet at that time not a soul had believed that Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn would live through the night.

Well, Erlend had said. One heard so many things. Nothing like that had ever happened to him, and it wasn’t likely to, either. He had never been a pious man like Lavrans.

Then Kristin asked about the people who had attended their homecoming feast. Erlend had little to say about them either. It occurred to Kristin that her husband did not resemble the people here in the countryside. Many of them were handsome; blond and ruddy-hued, with round, hard heads; strong and stocky in build. Many of the old men were immensely fat. Erlend looked like a strange bird among his guests. He was a head taller than most of the men, thin and lean, with slender limbs and fine joints. And he had black, silken hair and a tan complexion, but pale blue eyes beneath coal black brows and shadowy black lashes. His forehead was high and narrow, his temples hollowed; his nose was a little too big and his mouth a little too small and weak for a man. And yet he was handsome; Kristin had never seen a man who was half as handsome as Erlend. Even his soft, quiet voice was unlike the husky voices of the others.

Erlend laughed and said that his lineage was not from around here, except for his paternal great-grandmother, Ragnrid Skulesdatter. People said that he was much like his mother’s father, Gaute Erlendssøn of Skogheim. Kristin asked him what he knew of this man. But he knew almost nothing.

Suddenly he looked down into her face with horror and confusion—and flushed bright red himself. Kristin bowed her head.

Erlend withdrew his arm. He said nothing, and so Kristin walked quietly away and climbed into bed. Her heart thudded hollowly and hard against her ribs. Now and then she cast a glance at her husband. He had turned his back to her, slowly taking off one garment after the other. Then he came over and lay down.

Kristin waited for him to speak. She waited so long that her heart seemed to stop beating and just stood still, quivering in her breast.

But Erlend didn’t say a word. And he didn’t take her into his arms.

At last he hesitantly placed his hand on her breast and pressed his chin against her shoulder so that the stubble of his beard prickled her skin. When he still said nothing, Kristin turned over to face the wall.

She felt as if she were sinking and sinking. He had not one word to offer her—now that he knew she had been carrying his child these long, difficult days. Kristin clenched her teeth in the dark. She would not beg him. If he remained silent, then she would be silent too, even if it lasted until the day she gave birth. Resentment surged up inside her. But she lay absolutely still next to the wall. Erlend too lay still in the dark. Hour after hour they lay there this way, and each one knew that the other was not asleep. Finally Kristin heard by his regular breathing that Erlend had dozed off. Then she allowed her tears to fall as they would, from sorrow and hurt and shame. This, she felt, she would never be able to forgive him.

For three days Erlend and Kristin went about in this manner—he seemed like a wet dog, thought the young wife. She was burning and stony with anger, becoming wild with bitterness whenever she felt him give her a searching look but then swiftly shift his glance if she turned her eyes toward his.

On the morning of the fourth day Kristin was sitting in the main house when Erlend appeared in the doorway, dressed for riding. He said that he was going west to Medalby and asked whether she wanted to accompany him to visit the manor; it was part of her wedding-morning gift. Kristin assented, and Erlend himself helped her to put on the fur-lined boots and the black cloak with sleeves and silver clasps.

Out in the courtyard stood four saddled horses, but Erlend told Haftor and Egil to stay home and help with the threshing. Then he helped his wife into the saddle. Kristin realized that Erlend was now planning to speak about the matter which lay unspoken between them. Yet he said nothing as they slowly rode off, southward, toward the forest.

It was now nearly the end of the slaughtering month, but still no snow had fallen in the parish. The day was fresh and beautiful; the sun had just come up, and it glittered and sparkled on the white frost everywhere, on the fields and on the trees. They rode across Husaby’s land. Kristin saw that there were few cultivated acres or stubble fields, but mostly fallow land and old meadows, tufted with grass, moss-covered, and overgrown with alder saplings. She mentioned this.

Her husband replied merrily, “Don’t you know, Kristin—you who know so well how to tend and manage farms—that it does no good to grow grain this close to a trading port? You gain more by trading butter and wool for grain and flour from the foreign merchants.”

“Then you should have traded the goods that are lying in your lofts and have rotted long ago,” said Kristin. “I also know that the law says that every man who leases land must sow grain on three parts but let the fourth part lie fallow. And surely the estate of the master should not be worse tended than the farms of his leaseholders—that’s what my father always said.”

Erlend laughed a bit and said, “I have never asked about the law in that regard. As long as I receive what is my due, my tenants can run their farms as they see fit, and I will run Husaby in the manner that seems to me best and most suitable.”

“Do you think yourself wiser then,” said Kristin, “than our deceased ancestors and Saint Olav and King Magnus, who established these laws?”

Erlend laughed again and said, “I hadn’t given any thought to that. What a devilish good grasp you have of our country’s laws and regulations, Kristin.”

“I have some understanding of these matters,” said Kristin, “because Father often asked Sigurd of Loptsgaard to recite laws for us when he came to visit and we sat at home in the evening. Father thought it was beneficial for the servants and the young people to have some knowledge of such things, and so Sigurd would recount one passage or another.”

“Sigurd . . .” said Erlend. “Oh, yes, now I remember. I saw him at our wedding. He was the toothless old man with the long drooping nose who slobbered and wept and patted you on the breast. He was still dead drunk in the morning when everyone came up to us and watched as I put the linen wimple of a married woman on your head.”

“He has known me for as long as I can remember,” said Kristin crossly. “He used to take me on his lap and play with me when I was a little maiden.”

Erlend laughed again. “That was an odd kind of amusement—that you had to sit and listen to the old man chanting the law, passage by passage. Lavrans is unlike any other man in every way. Usually it is said that if the tenant knew the full law of the land and the stallion knew his strength, then the Devil would be a knight. . . .”

Kristin gave a shout and struck her horse on the flank. Erlend threw his wife an angry and astonished look as she rode away from him.

Suddenly he spurred his horse. Jesus, the ford in the river—it was impossible to cross there now, the earth had slid away recently. Sløngvanbauge took longer strides when he noticed another horse chasing him. Erlend was deathly afraid—how she was racing down the steep slopes. He bounded past her through the copse-wood and doubled back on the road where it flattened out for a short stretch to make her stop. When he came up alongside her, he saw that Kristin herself had grown a little scared.

Erlend leaned over toward his wife and struck her a ringing blow beneath the ear; Sløngvanbauge leaped sideways, startled, and reared up.

“Well, you deserved that,” said Erlend, his voice shaking, after the horses had calmed down and they once again rode side by side. “The way you rushed off like that, senseless with fury . . . You frightened me.”

Kristin held her hand to her head so that he couldn’t see her face. Erlend wished that he hadn’t hit her. But he repeated, “Yes, you scared me, Kristin—to dash off like that! And to do so now . . . ,” he said softly.

Kristin didn’t reply, nor did she look at him. But Erlend felt that she was less angry than before, when he had mocked her home. He was greatly surprised by this, but he saw that it was so.

Stein had come to the farm on the last turnover day⁴ and since then he had been begging the master to come up and see the condition that the buildings were in when he took over, or to send an envoy in his stead. The farmers testified that not one building had been without leaks, and those that were now in a state of collapse had been that way when Stein arrived. Kristin saw that it was a good farm, but it had been poorly maintained. She saw that this Stein was a capable man, and Erlend was also very amenable and promised him some reductions in his land rent until he was able to repair the buildings.

Then they went into the main house where the table was set with good food and strong ale. The leaseholder’s wife asked Kristin’s forgiveness for not coming out to greet her. But her husband would not allow her to step out under open sky until she had been to church after giving birth.⁵ Kristin greeted the woman kindly, and then she had to go over to the cradle to see the child. It was the couple’s first, and it was a son, twelve nights old, big and strong.

Then Erlend and Kristin were led to the high seat, and everyone sat down and ate and drank for a good long time. Kristin was the one who talked most during the meal; Erlend didn’t say much, nor did the farmers, and yet Kristin noticed that they seemed to like her.

Then the child woke up, at first whimpering but then shrieking so terribly that the mother had to put him to her breast to calm his cries. Kristin glanced over at the two of them several times, and when the boy had had enough, she took him from the woman and held him in her arms.

“Look, husband,” she said, “don’t you think he’s a handsome and fine young fellow?”

“That he is,” said Erlend, not looking in her direction.

Kristin sat and held the child for a while before she gave him back to his mother.

“I will send a gift over here to your son, Arndis,” she said. “For he’s the first child I’ve held in my arms since I came up here to the north.”

Flushed and defiant, with a little smile Kristin cast a glance at her husband and then at the farmers sitting along the bench. A few of them showed a slight twitch at the corner of the mouth, but then they stared straight ahead, their faces stiff and solemn. After a moment a very old man stood up; he had been drinking heavily. Now he lifted the ladle out of the ale bowl, placed it on the table, and raised the large vessel.

“So let us drink to that, mistress; that the next child you hold in your arms will be the new master of Husaby!”

Kristin stood up and accepted the heavy bowl. First she offered it to her husband. Erlend barely touched it with his lips, but Kristin took a long, deep drink.

“Thank you for that greeting, Jon of Skog,” she said with a cheery nod, her eyes twinkling. Then she sent the bowl around.

Kristin could see that Erlend was red-faced and quite angry. She herself merely felt such a foolish urge to laugh and be merry. A short time later Erlend wanted to leave, and so they set off on their way home.

Kristin didn’t reply at first. She stared into the distance over her horse’s head, and she was now so white in the face that Erlend grew frightened.

“I will never forget for as long as I live,” she said at last, without looking at him, “that those were the first words you greeted him with, this son of yours that I carry under my belt.”

“Kristin!” said Erlend, his voice pleading. “My Kristin,” he implored when she said nothing and refused to look at him. “Kristin!”

“Sir?” she replied coldly and courteously, without turning her head.

Erlend cursed so that sparks flew; he spurred his horse and raced ahead along the road. But a few minutes later he came riding back toward her.

“This time I was almost so furious,” he said, “that I was going to ride away from you.”

Kristin said calmly, “Then you might have had to wait a good long time before I followed you to Husaby.”

“The things you say!” said her husband, resigned.

Kristin nodded indifferently.

After a while Erlend said that now it would be better for them to walk. He tied their horses to a tree.

“Gunnulf and I had a fortress up here on the ridge,” he said. “I’d like to see whether there’s anything left of our castle.”

He took Kristin’s hand. She didn’t resist, but walked with her eyes downcast, looking at where she set her feet. It wasn’t long before they were up on the heights. Beyond the bare, frost-covered forest, in the crook of the little river, Husaby lay on the mountain slope directly across from them, looming big and grand with the stone church and all its massive buildings, surrounded by the broad acres, and the dark forested ridge behind.

“Mother used to come up here with us,” said Erlend softly. “Often. But she would always sit and stare off to the south, toward the Dovre Range. I suppose she was always yearning, night and day, to be far away from Husaby. Or she would turn toward the north and gaze out at the gap in the slopes—there where you can see blue in the distance; those are the mountains on the other side of the fjord. Not once did she look at the farm.”

Erlend’s voice was tender and beseeching. But Kristin neither spoke nor looked at him. Then he went over and kicked at the frozen heath.

“No, there’s probably nothing left here of Gunnulf’s and my fortress. And it was a long time ago, after all, that we played up here, Gunnulf and I.”

He received no answer. Right below where they stood was a small frozen pond. Erlend picked up a stone and threw it. The hollow was frozen solid so that only a tiny white star appeared on the black mirror. Erlend picked up another stone and threw it harder—then another and another. Now he was throwing them in utter fury, and in the end he would have splintered the ice with a vengeance. But then he caught sight of his wife’s face—she stood there, her eyes dark with contempt, smiling scornfully at his childishness.

Erlend spun around, but all at once Kristin grew deathly pale and her eyes fell shut. She stood there with her hands stretched out and groping, swaying as if she were about to faint—then she grabbed hold of a tree trunk.

“Kristin—what is it?” Erlend asked in fear.

She didn’t answer but stood as if she were listening to something. Her gaze was remote and strange.

Now she felt it again. Deep within her womb it felt as if a fish was flicking its tail. And again the whole world seemed to reel around her, and she felt dizzy and weak, but not as much as the first time.

“What’s the matter?” asked Erlend.

She had waited so long for this—she hardly dared to acknowledge the great fear in her soul. She could not speak of it—not now, when they had been fighting all day long. Then he said it.

“Was it the child moving inside you?” he asked gently, touching her shoulder.

Then she cast off all her anger toward him, pressed herself against the father of her child, and hid her face on his chest.

Erlend carefully tested the buckles and straps of the saddle before he lifted his wife up onto her horse. Then he went over and untied his own. He reached under his belt for the gloves he had put there, but he found only one. He looked around on the ground.

Then Kristin couldn’t resist and said, “It will do you no good to look for your glove here, Erlend.”

“You might have said something to me if you saw me lose it—no matter how angry you were with me,” he replied. They were the gloves that Kristin had sewn for him and given to him as one of his betrothal presents.

“It fell out of your belt when you hit me,” said Kristin very quietly, her eyes downcast.

Erlend stood next to his horse with his hand on the saddlebow. He looked embarrassed and unhappy. But then he burst out laughing.

“Never would I have believed, Kristin—during all the time I was courting you, rushing around and begging my kinsmen to speak on my behalf and making myself so meek and pitiful in order to win you—that you could be such a witch!”

Then Kristin laughed too.

“No, then you probably would have given up long ago—and it certainly would have been in your own best interest.”

Erlend took a few steps toward her and placed his hand on her knee.

“Jesus help me, Kristin—have you ever heard it said of me that I did anything that was in my own best interest?”

He pressed his face down in her lap and then looked up with sparkling eyes into his wife’s face. Flushed and happy, Kristin bowed her head, trying to hide her smile and her eyes from Erlend.

He grabbed hold of her horse’s harness and let his own horse follow behind; and in this manner he escorted her until they reached the bottom of the ridge. Every time they looked at each other he would laugh and she would turn her face away to hide that she was laughing too.

“So,” he said merrily as they came out onto the road again, “now we’ll ride home to Husaby, my Kristin, and be as happy as two thieves!”

“Do you care more for her son than for mine?” Kristin then asked.

“Your son . . . ,” Erlend gave a laugh. “Of him I know nothing more than that he will arrive half a year or so before he should. Orm I have loved for twelve years.”

Some time later Kristin asked, “Do you ever long for these children of yours?”

“Yes,” said her husband. “In the past I often went over to see them in Østerdal, where they are living.”

“You could go there now, during Advent,” said Kristin quietly.

“You wouldn’t be averse to it?” asked Erlend happily.

Kristin said that she would find it reasonable. Then he asked whether she would be against it if he brought the children back home for Christmas. “You will have to see them sometime, after all.” And again she had replied that this too seemed reasonable to her.

The serving women on the estate were no better than could be expected. Those farmers who kept close watch over their daughters did not send them to serve on an estate where the master had lived openly with a concubine and had placed such a woman in charge. The maids were lazy and not in the habit of obeying their mistress. But some of them soon came to like the fact that Kristin was putting the house in good order and personally lent a hand with their work. They grew talkative and joyful when she listened to them and answered them gently and cheerfully. And each day Kristin showed her house servants a kind and calm demeanor. She reprimanded no one, but if a maid refused her orders, then the mistress would act as if the girl did not understand what was asked of her and would quietly show her how the work was to be done. This was how Kristin had seen her father behave toward new servants who grumbled, and no man had tried twice to disobey Lavrans of Jørundgaard.

In this manner they would have to make it through the winter. Later she would see about getting rid of those women she disliked or could not bring around.

There was one type of work that Kristin didn’t dare take up unless she was free from the eyes of these strangers. But in the morning, when she was alone in the hall, she would sew the clothing for her child—swaddling clothes of soft homespun, ribbons of red and green fabric from town, and white linen for the christening garments. As she sat there with her sewing, her thoughts would tumble between fear and then faith in the holy friends of humankind, to whom she had prayed for intercession. It was true that the child lived and moved inside her so that she had no peace, night or day. But she had heard about children who were born with a pelt where they should have had a face, with their heads turned around backwards, or their toes where their heels should have been. And she pictured Svein, who was purple over half his face because his mother had inadvertently looked at a fire.²

Then Kristin would cast aside her sewing and go over to kneel before the image of the Virgin Mary and say seven Ave Marias. Brother Edvin had said that the Mother of God felt an equal joy every time she heard the angel’s greeting, even if it came from the lips of the most wretched sinner. And it was the words Dominus tecum that most cheered Mary’s heart; that was why Kristin always said them three times.

This always helped her for a while. She knew of many people, both men and women, who paid scant honor to God or to His Mother and who kept the commandments poorly—but she hadn’t seen that they gave birth to misshapen children because of it. Often God was so merciful that He did not visit the sins of the parents upon their poor children, although every once in a while He had to show people a sign that He could not perpetually tolerate their evil. But surely it would not be her child . . .

Then she called in her heart upon Saint Olav.³ He was the one she had heard so much about that it was as though she had known him while he lived in Norway and had seen him here on this earth. He was not tall, quite stout, but straight-backed and fair, with the gold crown and shining halo on his golden curls, and a curly red beard on his firm, weatherbeaten, and intrepid face. But his deep-set and blazing eyes looked straight through everyone; those who had strayed did not dare look into them. Kristin didn’t dare either. She lowered her gaze before his eyes, but she was not afraid. It was more as if she were a child and had to lower her eyes before her father’s glance when she had done something wrong. Saint Olav looked at her, sternly but not harshly—she had promised to better her life, after all. She longed so fervently to go to Nidaros⁴ and kneel down before his shrine: Erlend had promised her this, when they came north—that they would go there very soon. But the journey had been postponed. And now Kristin realized that he was reluctant to travel with her; he was ashamed and afraid of gossip.

Kristin pretended not to hear and kept on talking about wool dyeing.

Then the girl continued, “But perhaps you have brought such garments from home?”

Kristin smiled faintly and then turned back to the others. When she glanced at the maid a little while later, she was sitting there bright red in the face and peering anxiously at her mistress. Kristin smiled again and spoke to Ulf across the table. Then the young girl began to weep. Kristin laughed a bit, and the maid cried harder and harder until she was sniffing and snuffling.

“Stop that now, Frida,” Kristin finally said calmly. “You hired on here as a grown-up serving maid; you shouldn’t behave as if you were a little child.”

The maid whimpered. She hadn’t meant to be impertinent, and Kristin mustn’t be angry.

“No,” said Kristin, smiling again. “Eat your food now and stop crying. The rest of us have no more sense, either, than what God has granted us.”

Frida jumped up and ran out, sobbing loudly.

Later, when Ulf Haldorssøn stood talking to Kristin about the work that had to be done the next day, he laughed and said, “Erlend should have married you ten years ago, Kristin. Then his affairs would have been in a better state today, in every respect.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, smiling as before. “Back then I was nine winters old. Do you think Erlend would have been capable of waiting for a child bride for years on end?”

Ulf laughed and went out.

But at night Kristin would lie in bed and weep with loneliness and humiliation.

Then Erlend came home during the week before Christmas, and Orm, his son, rode at his father’s side. Kristin felt a stab in her heart when Erlend led the boy forward and told him to greet his stepmother.

He was the most handsome child. This was how she had thought he would look, the son that she carried. Sometimes, when she dared to be happy, to believe that her child would be born healthy and well-formed, and to think ahead about the boy who would grow up at her knee, then it was like this she pictured him—just like his father.

Orm was perhaps a little small for his age, and slight, but handsomely built, with fine limbs and a lovely face, his complexion and hair dark, but with big blue eyes and a soft red mouth. He greeted his stepmother courteously, but his expression was hard and cold. Kristin had not had the chance to talk with the boy further. But she sensed his eyes on her, wherever she walked or stood, and she felt as if her body and gait grew even more heavy and clumsy when she knew the boy was staring at her.

She didn’t notice Erlend talking much with his son, but she realized that it was the boy who held back. Kristin told her husband that Orm was handsome and looked intelligent. Erlend had not brought his daughter along; he thought Margret was too young to make the long journey in the winter. She was even more lovely than her brother, he said proudly when Kristin asked about the little maiden—and much more clever; she had her foster parents wrapped around her little finger. She had wavy golden hair and brown eyes.

Then she must look much like her mother, thought Kristin. And she couldn’t help the feeling of envy that burned inside her. She wondered whether Erlend loved his daughter the way her father had loved her. His voice had sounded so tender and warm when he spoke of Margret.

“In Christ’s name,” she whispered, crossing herself three times as she stepped out into the night.

At the upper end of the courtyard stood the priest’s house. It was empty now. Ever since Erlend had been released from the ban of excommunication, there had not been a private cleric at Husaby; now and then one of the assistant priests from Orkedal would come over to say mass, but the new priest who had been assigned to the church was abroad with Master Gunnulf; they were apparently friends from school. They had been expected home this past summer, but now Erlend thought they wouldn’t return until after spring. Gunnulf had had a lung ailment in his youth, so he would be unlikely to travel during the winter.

Kristin let herself into the cold, deserted house and found the key to the church. Then she paused for a moment. It was very slippery, pitch dark, windy, and rainy. It was reckless of her to go out at night, and especially on Christmas Eve, when all the evil spirits were in the air. But she refused to give up—she had to go to the church.

“In the name of God, the Almighty, I here proceed,” she whispered aloud. Lighting her way with the lantern, Kristin set her feet down where stones and tufts of grass stuck up from the icy ground. In the darkness the path to the church seemed exceedingly long. But at last she stood on the stone threshold in front of the door.

Inside it was piercingly cold, much colder than out in the rain. Kristin walked forward toward the chancel and knelt down before the crucifix, which she glimpsed in the darkness above her.

After she had said her prayers and stood up, she stopped for a moment. She seemed to expect something to happen to her. But nothing did. She was freezing and scared in the desolate, dark church.

She crept up toward the altar and shone her light on the paintings. They were old, ugly, and stern. The altar was bare stone. She knew that the cloths, books, and vessels lay locked up in a chest.

In the nave a bench stood against the wall. Kristin went over and sat down, placing the lantern on the floor. Her cloak was wet, and her feet were wet and cold. She tried to pull one leg up underneath her, but the position was uncomfortable. So she wrapped the cloak tightly around her and struggled to focus her thoughts on the fact that now it was once again the holy midnight hour when Christ was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem.

Kristin remembered Sira Eirik’s deep, pure voice. And Audun, the old deacon, who never attained a higher position. And their church back home where she had stood at her mother’s side and listened to the Christmas mass. Every single year she had heard it. She tried to recall more of the holy words, but she could only think about their church and all the familiar faces. In front, on the men’s side, stood her father, staring with remote eyes into the dazzling glow of candles from the choir.

It was so incomprehensible that their church was no more. It had burned to the ground. She burst into tears at the thought. And here she was, sitting alone in the dark on this night when all Christian people were gathered in happiness and joy in God’s house. But perhaps that was as it should be, that tonight she was shut out from the celebration of the birth of God’s son to a pure and innocent maiden.

Her parents were no doubt at Sundbu this Christmas. But there would be no mass in the chapel tonight; she knew that on Christmas Eve those who lived at Sundbu always attended the service at the main church in Ladalm.

This was the first time, for as far back as Kristin could remember, that she was not at the Christmas mass. She must have been quite young the first time her parents took her along. She could recall that she was bundled up in a fur-lined sack, and her father had carried her in his arms. It was a terribly cold night, and they were riding through a forest—the pine torches shone on fir trees heavy with snow. Her father’s face was dark red, and the fur border on his hood was chalk-white with frost. Now and then he would bend forward and nip the end of her nose and ask her whether she could feel it. Then, laughing, he would shout over his shoulder to her mother that Kristin’s nose hadn’t frozen off yet. That must have been while they were still living at Skog; she couldn’t have been more than three winters old. Her parents were quite young back then. Now she remembered her mother’s voice on that night—clear and happy and full of laughter—when she called out to her husband and asked about the child. Yes, her mother’s voice had been young and fresh.

Bethlehem. In Norwegian it means the place of bread. For that was where the bread which will nourish us for eternal life was given to the people.

It was at the mass on Christmas Day that Sira Eirik stepped forward to the pulpit and explained the gospels in the language of his own country.

In between the masses everyone would sit in the banquet hall north of the church. They had brought ale with them and passed it around. The men slipped out to the stables to see to the horses. But on vigil nights, in the summertime before a holy day, the congregation would gather on the church green, and then the young people would dance among the servants.

And the blessed Virgin Mary wrapped her son in swaddling clothes. She placed him in the straw of the manger from which the oxen and asses ate. . . .

Kristin pressed her hands against her sides.

Little son, my own sweet child, my own son. God will have mercy on us for the sake of His own blessed Mother. Blessed Mary, you who are the clear star of the sea,⁶ the crimson dawn of eternal life who gave birth to the sun of the whole world—help us! Little child, what is it tonight? You’re so restless. Can you feel beneath my heart that I am so bitterly cold?

It was on the Children’s Day last year, the fourth day of Christmas, when Sira Eirik preached about the innocent children whom the cruel soldiers had slaughtered in their mothers’ arms. But God had chosen these young boys to enter into the hall of heaven before all other blood witnesses. And it would be a sign that such belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. And Jesus picked up a little boy and put him among them. Unless you create yourselves in their image, you cannot enter into the hall of heaven, dear brothers and sisters. So let this be a solace to every man and woman who mourns a young child’s death. . . .

Then Kristin had seen her father’s eyes meet her mother’s across the church, and she withdrew her gaze, because she knew that this was not meant for her.

That was last year. The first Christmas after Ulvhild’s death. Oh, but not my child! Jesus, Maria. Let me keep my son!

Her father had not wanted to ride in the races on Saint Stefan’s Day last year, but the men begged him until he finally agreed. The course extended from the church hill at home, down to the confluence of the two rivers near Loptsgaard; that’s where they joined up with the men from Ottadal. She remembered her father racing past on his golden stallion. He stood up in his stirrups and bent low over the horse’s neck, shouting and urging the animal on, with the whole group thundering behind.

But last year he had come home early, and he was completely sober. Normally on that day the men would return home late, tremendously drunk, because they had to ride into every farm courtyard and drink from the bowls brought out to them, to honor Christ and Saint Stefan, who first saw the star in the east as he drove King Herod’s foals to the River Jordan for water. Even the horses were given ale on that day, for they were supposed to be wild and reckless. On Saint Stefan’s Day the farmers were allowed to race their horses until vespers—it was impossible to make the men think or talk of anything but horses.

Kristin could remember one Christmas when they held the great drinking feast at Jørundgaard. And her father had promised a priest who was among the guests that he would be given a young red stallion, son of Guldsvein, if he could manage to swing himself up onto the animal as it ran around unsaddled in the courtyard.

That was a long time ago—before the misfortune with Ulvhild occurred. Her mother was standing in the doorway with the little sister in her arms, and Kristin was holding onto her dress, a bit scared.

The priest ran after the horse and grabbed the halter, leaping so that his ankle-length surcoat swirled around him, and then he let go of the wild, rearing beast.

“Foal, foal—whoa, foal. Whoa, son!” he cried out. He hopped and he danced like a billy goat. Her father and an old farmer stood with their arms around each other’s necks, the features of their faces completely dissolved in laughter and drunkenness.

Either the priest must have won Rauden or else Lavrans gave the foal to him all the same, for Kristin remembered that he rode away from Jørundgaard on the horse. By that time they were all sober enough; Lavrans respectfully held the stirrup for him, and the priest blessed them with three fingers in farewell. He was apparently a cleric of high standing.

Oh yes. It was often quite merry at home during the Christmas season. And then there were the Christmas masqueraders. Kristin’s father would sling her up onto his back, his tunic icy and his hair wet. To clear their heads before they went to vespers, the men threw ice water over each other down by the well. They laughed when the women voiced their disapproval of this. Kristin’s father would take her small, cold hands and press them against his forehead, which was still red and burning hot. This was out in the courtyard, in the evening. A new white crescent moon hung over the mountain ridge in the watery-green air. Once when he stepped into the main house with her, Kristin hit her head on the doorframe so she had a big bump on her forehead. Later she sat on his lap at the table. He lay the blade of his dagger against her bruise, fed her tidbits of food, and let her drink mead from his goblet. Then she wasn’t afraid of the masqueraders who stormed into the room.

“Oh Father, oh Father. My dear, kind father!”

Sobbing loudly, Kristin now hid her face in her hands. Oh, if only her father knew how she felt on this Christmas Eve!

When she walked back across the courtyard, she saw that sparks were rising up from the cookhouse roof. The maids had set about preparing food for the churchgoers.

It was gloomy in the hall. The candles on the table had burned out, and the fire in the hearth was barely smoldering. Kristin put more wood on and blew at the embers. Then she noticed that Orm was sitting in her chair. He stood up as soon as his stepmother saw him.

“My dear—” said Kristin. “Didn’t you go with your father and the others to mass?”

Orm swallowed hard a couple of times. “I guess he forgot to wake me. Father told me to lie down for a while in the bed on the south wall. He said he would wake me. . . .”

“That’s too bad, Orm,” said Kristin.

The boy didn’t reply. After a moment he said, “I thought you went with them after all. I woke up and was alone here in the hall.”

“I went over to the church for a little while,” said Kristin.

“Do you dare to go out on Christmas Eve?” asked the boy. “Don’t you know that the spirits of the dead could come and seize you?”⁷

“I don’t think it’s only the evil spirits that are out tonight,” she said. “Christmas Eve must be for all spirits. I once knew a monk who is now dead and standing before God, I think, because he was pure goodness. He told me . . . Have you ever heard about the animals in the stable and how they talked to each other on Christmas Eve? They could speak Latin back then. And the rooster crowed: ‘Christus natus est!’ No, now I can’t remember the whole thing. The other animals asked ‘Where?’ and the goat bleated, ‘Betlem, Betlem,’ and the sheep said, ‘Eamus, eamus.’ ”

Orm smiled scornfully.

“Do you think I’m such a child that you can comfort me with tales? You should offer to take me on your lap and put me to your breast.”

“I told the story mostly to comfort myself, Orm,” said Kristin quietly. “I would have liked to go to mass too.”

Now she couldn’t stand to look at the littered table any longer. She went over, swept all the scraps into a trencher and set it on the floor for the dog. Then she found the whisk made of sedge under the bench and scrubbed off the tabletop.

“Would you come with me over to the western storehouse, Orm? To get bread and salted meat. Then we’ll set the table for the holy day,” said Kristin.

“Why don’t you let your maidservants do that?” asked the boy.

“This is the way I was taught by my father and mother,” replied the young mistress. “That at Christmastime no one should ever ask anyone else for anything, but we all should strive to do our utmost. Whoever serves the others most during the holidays is the most blessed.”

“But you’re asking me,” said Orm.

“That’s a different matter—you’re the son here on the estate.”

Orm carried the lantern and they walked across the courtyard together. Inside the storehouse Kristin filled two trenchers with Christmas food. She also took a bundle of large tallow candles.

While they were working, the boy said, “That must be a peasant custom, what you mentioned a moment ago. For I’ve heard he’s nothing more than a homespun farmer, Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn.”

“Who did you hear that from?” asked Kristin.

“From Mother,” said Orm. “I heard her say it all the time to Father when we were living here at Husaby before. She said he could see that not even a gray-clad farmer would give his daughter’s hand in marriage to him.”

“It must have been pleasant here at Husaby back then,” said Kristin curtly.

The boy didn’t reply. His lips quivered.

Kristin and Orm carried the filled trenchers back to the hall, and she set the table. But she had to go back over to the storehouse for food once again.

Orm took the trencher and said, a little awkwardly, “I’ll go over there for you, Kristin. It’s so slippery in the courtyard.”

She stood outside the door and waited until he returned.

Then they sat down near the hearth, Kristin in the armchair and the boy on a three-legged stool nearby. After a moment Orm Er lendssøn said softly, “Tell me another story while we sit here, my stepmother.”

“A story?” asked Kristin, her voice equally quiet.

“Yes, a tale or some such—that would be suitable on Christmas Eve,” said the boy shyly.

Kristin leaned back in her chair and wrapped her thin hands around the animal heads on the armrests.

“That monk I mentioned—he had also been to England. And he said there is a region where wild rosebushes grow that bloom with white blossoms on Christmas night. Saint Joseph of Arimathea⁸ put ashore in that area when he was fleeing from the heathens, and there he stuck his staff into the ground and it took root and flowered. He was the first to bring the Christian faith to Bretland. The name of the region is Glastonbury—now I remember. Brother Edvin had seen the bushes himself. King Arthur, whom you’ve no doubt heard stories of, was buried there in Glastonbury with his queen. He was one of the seven most noble defenders of Christendom.

“They say in England that Christ’s Cross was made of alderwood. But we burned ash during Christmas at home, for it was the ash tree that Saint Joseph, the stepfather of Christ, used when he needed to light a fire for the Virgin Mary and the newborn Son of God. That’s something else that Father heard from Brother Edvin.”

“But very few ash trees grow up north here,” said Orm. “They used them all up for spear poles in the olden days, you know. I don’t think there are any ash trees here on Husaby’s land other than the one standing east of the manor gate, and Father can’t chop that one down, because the spirit of the first owner lives underneath. ⁹ But you know, Kristin, they have the Holy Cross in Romaborg; so they must be able to find out whether it was made of alderwood.”

“Well,” said Kristin, “I don’t know whether it’s true. For you know it’s said that the cross was made from a shoot of the tree of life, which Seth was allowed to take from the Garden of Eden and bring home to Adam before he died.”

“Yes,” said Orm. “But then tell me . . .”

Some time later Kristin said to the boy, “Now you should lie down for a while, kinsman, and sleep. It will be a long time yet before the churchgoers return.”

Orm stood up.

“We have not yet toasted each other as kinsmen, Kristin Lavransdatter.” He went over and took a drinking horn from the table, drank to his stepmother, and handed her the vessel.

She felt as if ice water were running down her back. She couldn’t help remembering that time when Orm’s mother wanted to drink with her. And the child inside her womb began to thrash violently. What’s going on with him tonight? wondered the mother. It seemed as if her unborn son felt everything that she felt, was cold when she was cold, and shrank in fear when she was frightened. But then I mustn’t be so weak, thought Kristin. She took the horn and drank with her stepson.

When she handed it back to Orm, she gently stroked his dark hair. No, I’m certainly not going to be a harsh stepmother to you, she thought. You handsome, handsome son of Erlend.

She had fallen asleep in her chair when Erlend came home and tossed his frozen mittens onto the table.

“Are you back already?” said Kristin, astonished. “I thought you would stay for the daytime mass.”

“Oh, two masses will last me for a long time,” said Erlend as Kristin picked up his icy cape. “Yes, the sky is clear now, so the frost has set in.”

“It was a shame that you forgot to wake Orm,” said his wife.

“Was he sad about it?” asked Erlend. “I didn’t actually forget,” he went on in a low voice. “But he was sleeping so soundly, and I thought . . . You can well believe that people stared enough because I came to church without you. I didn’t want to step forward with the boy at my side on top of that.”

Kristin said nothing, but she felt distressed. She didn’t think Erlend had handled this very well.

Oh, what would her father say when he heard the news about her? When it spread throughout the villages back home, and he had to realize that wherever he went, to church or to the ting¹ or to a meeting, every man would be laughing behind his back because he had allowed himself to be fooled? At Jørundgaard they had adorned a wanton woman with the Sundbu crown on her flowing hair.

“People are no doubt saying of me that I can’t keep my children in check.” She remembered her father’s face whenever he said that; he meant to be stern and somber, but his eyes were merry. She had misbehaved in some small way—spoken to him uninvited while guests were present or some such. “And you, Kristin, you don’t have much fear of your father, do you?” Then he would laugh, and she laughed along with him. “Yes, but that’s not right, Kristin.” And neither of them knew what was not right—that she didn’t have the proper terror of her father, or that it was impossible for him to remain serious when he had to scold her.

It was as if the unbearable fear that something would be wrong with her child diminished and faded away the more trouble and torment Kristin had from her body. She tried to think ahead—to a month from now; by then her son would have already been born. But it didn’t seem real to her. She simply yearned more and more for home.

Once Erlend asked Kristin if she wanted him to send for her mother. But she told him no—she didn’t think her mother could stand to travel so far in the winter. Now she regretted this. And she regretted that she had said no to Tordis of Laugarbru, who had been so willing to accompany her north and lend a hand during the first winter she was to be mistress. But she felt ashamed before Tordis. Tordis had been Ragnfrid’s maid at home at Sundbu and had accompanied her to Skog and then back to the valley. When Tordis married, Lavrans had made her husband a foreman at Jørundgaard because Ragnfrid couldn’t bear to be without her beloved maid. Kristin had not wanted to bring along any of the maids from home.

Now it seemed to her terrible that she would have no familiar face above her when her time came to kneel on the floor.² She was frightened—she knew so little about what went on at childbirth. Her mother had never spoken to her of it and had never wanted young maidens to be present when she helped a woman give birth. It would only frighten the young, she said. It could certainly be dreadful; Kristin remembered when her mother had Ulvhild. But Ragnfrid said it was because she had inadvertently crawled under a fence—she had given birth to her other children with ease. But Kristin remembered that she herself had been thoughtless and had walked under a rope on board ship.

But that didn’t always cause harm—she had heard her mother and other women speak of such things. Ragnfrid had a reputation back home in the village for being the best midwife, and she never refused to go and help, no matter if it was a beggar or the poorest man’s seduced daughter, or if the weather was such that three men had to accompany her on skis and take turns carrying her on their backs.

But it was completely unthinkable that an experienced woman like her mother hadn’t realized what was wrong with her this past summer, when she was feeling so wretched. It suddenly occurred to Kristin: but then . . . then it was certain that her mother would come, even though they hadn’t sent for her! Ragnfrid would never stand for a stranger helping her daughter through the struggle. Her mother was coming—she was probably on her way north right now. Oh, then she could ask for her mother’s forgiveness for all the pain she had caused her. Her own mother would support her, she would kneel at her own mother’s knees when she gave birth to her child. Mother is coming, Mother is coming. Kristin sobbed with relief, covering her face with her hands. Yes, Mother; forgive me, Mother.

Erlend had ordered timber to be brought for the improvement of the buildings, so the road was good, but walking was still difficult for her. She was short of breath, her heart pounded, and she had a pain in both sides—it felt as if the taut skin would burst apart after she had walked a short while. And most of the road passed through dense forest. She was afraid, but there had been no word of wolves in the area that winter. And God would protect her, since she was on her way to meet her mother, to fall down before her and beg forgiveness—and she could not stop walking.

She reached a small lake where there were several farms. At the spot where the road led out onto the ice, she sat down on a log. She sat there for a while, walked a little farther when she began to freeze, and waited for many hours. But at last she had to turn back and head for home.

The next day she wandered along the same road. But when she crossed the courtyard of one of the small farms near the lake, the farmer’s wife came running after her.

“In God’s name, mistress, you mustn’t do that!”

When the other woman spoke, Kristin grew so frightened herself that she didn’t dare move. Trembling, her eyes wide with fear, she stared at the farmer’s wife.

“Through the woods—just think if a wolf caught your scent. Other terrible things could happen to you, too. How can you do something so foolish?”

The farmer’s wife put her arm around the young mistress and supported her; she looked into Kristin’s gaunt face with the yellowish, brown-flecked skin.

“You must come into our house and rest for a while. Then someone from here will escort you home,” said the farmer’s wife as she led Kristin indoors.

It was a cramped and impoverished house, and there was great disarray inside; many little children were playing on the floor. Their mother sent them out to the cookhouse, took her guest’s cloak, seated her on a bench, and pulled off her snowy shoes. Then she wrapped a fur around Kristin’s feet.

No matter how much Kristin begged the woman not to trouble herself, the farmer’s wife continued to dish up food and ale from the Christmas cask. All the while the woman thought: So that’s how things are at Husaby! She was a poor man’s wife; they had little help on the farm, and usually none at all; but Øistein had never allowed her to walk alone outside the courtyard fence when she was with child—yes, even if she was just going out to the cowshed after dark, someone would have to keep watch for her. But the richest mistress in the parish could go out and risk the most hideous death, and not a Christian soul was looking out for her—even though the servants were falling over each other at Husaby and did no work. It must be true then what people said, that Erlend Nikulaussøn was already tired of his marriage and cared nothing for his wife.

But she chatted with Kristin the whole time and urged her to eat and drink. And Kristin was thoroughly ashamed, but she had a craving for food such as she had not felt before—not since the spring. This kind woman’s food tasted so good. And the woman laughed and said that the gentry’s women probably were created no different from other people. If a woman couldn’t stand to look at food at home, someone else’s food could often make her almost greedy, even if it was poor and coarse fare.

Her name was Audfinna Andunsdatter, and she was from Updal, she said. When she noticed that it put her guest at ease, she began to talk about her home and her village. And before Kristin knew it, her own tongue was loosened, and she was talking about her own home and her parents and her village. Audfinna could see that the young woman’s heart was almost bursting with homesickness, so she stealthily prodded Kristin to keep talking. Hot and giddy from the ale, Kristin talked until she was laughing and crying at the same time. All that she had futilely tried to sob out of her heart during the lonely evening hours at Husaby, now was gradually released as she spoke to this kind farmer’s wife.

It was quite dark above the smoke vent, but Audfinna wanted ristin to wait for Øistein or her sons to return from the woods so they could accompany her. Kristin fell silent and grew drowsy, but she sat there smiling, her eyes shining—she hadn’t felt this way since she had to come to Husaby.

Then a man tore open the door, shouting: Had they seen any sign of the mistress? Then he noticed her and went back outside. A moment later Erlend’s tall figure ducked through the doorway. He set down the axe he was carrying and leaned back against the wall. He had to put his hands behind him to support himself, and he could not speak.

“You have feared for your wife?” asked Audfinna, going over to him.

“Yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it.” Erlend pushed back his hair. “No man has ever been as frightened as I was tonight. When I heard that she had gone through the woods . . .”

Audfinna told him how Kristin had happened to come there. Erlend took the woman’s hand.

“I will never forget this—either you or your husband,” he said.

Then he went over to where his wife was sitting, stood next to her, and placed his hand on the back of her neck. He didn’t say a word to her, but he stood there like that for as long as they remained in the house.

Now they all came inside, the servants from Husaby and men from the nearest farms. Everyone looked as if they could use something fortifying to drink, so Audfinna served ale all around before they left.

The men set off on skis across the fields, but Erlend had given his to a servant; he walked along, holding Kristin under his cape, and headed down the slope. It was quite dark now, but a starry night.

Then they heard it from the forest behind them—a long, drawn-out howl that grew and grew in the night. It was the howl of the wolf—and there were several of them. Shivering, Erlend stopped and let Kristin go. She sensed that he crossed himself while he gripped the axe in his other hand. “If you were now . . . oh, no!” He pulled her to him so hard that she whimpered.

The skiers out in the field turned around and made their way back toward the two as fast as they could. They slung the skis over their shoulders and closed around her in a tight group with spears and axes. The wolves followed them all the way to Husaby—so close that once or twice they caught a glimpse of the beasts in the dark.

When the men entered the hall at home, many of them were gray or white in the face. “That was the most horrifying . . .” said one man, and he at once threw up into the hearth. The frightened maids put their mistress to bed. She could eat nothing. But now that the terrible, sickening fear was over, in an odd way she thought it was good to see that everyone had been so scared on her behalf.

When they were alone in the hall, Erlend came over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Why did you do that?” he whispered. And when she didn’t reply, he said even more softly, “Do you so regret that you came to my manor?”

It took a moment before she realized what he meant.

“Jesus, Maria! How can you think something like that!”

“What did you mean that time when you said—when we were at Medalby, and I was going to ride away from you—that I would have had to wait a good long time before you followed me to Husaby?” he asked in the same tone of voice.

“Oh, I spoke in anger,” said Kristin quietly, embarrassed. And now she told him why she had gone out these past few days. Erlend sat quite still and listened to her.

“I wonder when the day will come when you’ll think of Husaby here with me as your home,” he said, bending toward her in the dark.

“Oh, that time is probably no more than a week away,” whispered Kristin, laughing uncertainly. When he lay his face next to hers, she threw her arms around his neck and returned his ardent kisses.

“That’s the first time you’ve ventured to embrace me since I struck you,” said Erlend in a low voice. “You hold a grudge for a long time, my Kristin.”

It occurred to her that this was the first time, since the night when he realized that she was with child, that she dared to caress him without his asking.

But after that day, Erlend was so kind to her that Kristin regretted every hour that she had spent feeling angry toward him.

The priest stood over her, smiling, as she paged through the books. One of them was a courtly tale about Tristan and Isolde,¹ and the other was about holy men—she looked up Saint Martin’s story.² The third book was in Latin and was particularly beautiful, printed with great, colorful initial letters.

“Our ancestor, Bishop Nikulaus, owned this book,” said Gunnulf.

Kristin read half-aloud:

“Can you understand it?” asked Gunnulf, and Kristin nodded and said that she understood a little. The words were familiar enough that it seemed strange to her that they should appear before her right now. Her face contorted and tears rose up. Then Gunnulf set the stringed instrument on his lap and said he was tempted to try to tune it.

As they sat there they heard horses out in the courtyard, and a moment later Erlend rushed into the hall, beaming with joy. He had heard who had arrived. The brothers stood with their hands on each other’s shoulders; Erlend asking questions and not waiting for the replies. Gunnulf had been in Nidaros for two days, so it was a wonder they hadn’t met there.

“It’s odd,” said Erlend. “I thought the whole clergy of Christ Church would have turned out in procession to meet you when you returned home—so wise and exceedingly learned as you now must be.”

“How do you know they didn’t do just that?” said his brother with a laugh. “I’ve heard that you never venture too close to Christ Church when you’re in town.”

“No, my boy—I don’t get too close to my Lord the Archbishop if I can avoid it. He once singed my hide,” laughed Erlend insolently. “How do you like your brother-in-law, my sweet? I see you’ve already made friends with Kristin, brother. She thinks very little of our other kinsmen. . . .”

Not until they were about to sit down to eat that evening did Erlend realize he was still wearing his cape and fur cap and his sword at his belt.

That was the merriest evening Kristin had spent at Husaby. Erlend cajoled his brother into sitting in the high seat with her, while he himself sliced off food for him and replenished his goblet. The first time he drank a toast to Gunnulf, he got down on one knee and tried to kiss his brother’s hand.

“Health and happiness, sir! We must learn to show the archbishop the proper respect, Kristin—yes, of course, you’ll be the archbishop someday, Gunnulf!”

It was late when the house servants left the hall, but the two brothers and Kristin remained behind, sitting over their drink. Erlend was seated atop the table with his face turned toward his brother.

“Yes, I thought about that during my wedding,” he said, pointing to his mother’s chest, “and that Kristin should have it. And yet I forget things so quickly, while you forget nothing, my brother. But I think Mother’s ring has come to grace a fair hand, don’t you?” He placed Kristin’s hand on his knee and twisted her betrothal ring around.

Gunnulf nodded. He placed the psaltery on Erlend’s lap. “Sing now, brother. You used to sing so beautifully and play so well.”

“That was many years ago,” said Erlend more somberly. Then he ran his fingers over the strings.

“Kristin doesn’t have to sing; you must be short of breath now, my dear,” Erlend said, caressing her cheek. “But you can. . . .” He handed the stringed instrument to his brother.

It could be heard in the priest’s playing and in his voice that he had learned well in school.

“Where did you learn that ballad?” asked Erlend.

“Oh. Some fellows were singing it outside the hostel where I was staying in Canterbury,” said Gunnulf. “And I was tempted to turn it into Norwegian. But it doesn’t work so well. . . .” He sat there strumming a few notes on the strings.

“Well, brother, it’s long past midnight. Kristin must need to go to bed. Are you tired, my wife?”

Kristin looked up at the men timidly; she was very pale.

“I don’t know . . . But I don’t think I should sleep in the bed in here.”

“Are you ill?” they both asked, bending toward her.

“I don’t know,” she replied in the same voice. She pressed her hands to her flanks. “It feels so strange in the small of my back.”

Erlend leaped up and headed for the door. Gunnulf followed. “It’s shameful that you haven’t yet brought the women here who will help her,” he said. “Is it long before her time?”

Erlend turned bright red.

“Kristin said she didn’t need anyone but her maids. They’ve borne children themselves, some of them.” He tried to laugh.

“Have you lost your senses?” Gunnulf stared at him. “Even the poorest wench has servant women and neighbors with her when she takes to childbed. Should your wife crawl into a corner to hide and give birth like a cat? No, brother, so much a man you must be that you bring to Kristin the foremost women of the parish.”

Erlend bowed his head, blushing with shame.

“You speak the truth, brother. I will ride down to Raasvold myself, and I’ll send men to the other farms. You must stay with Kristin.”

“Are you going away?” asked his wife, frightened, when she saw Erlend put on his outer garments.

He went over to Kristin and put his arms around her.

“I’m going to bring back the noblest women for you, my Kristin. Gunnulf will stay with you while the maids get ready for you in the little house,” he said, kissing her.

“Couldn’t you send word to Audfinna Audunsdatter?” she pleaded. “But not until morning—I don’t want her to be wakened from her sleep for my sake—she has so much work to do, I know.”

Gunnulf asked his brother who Audfinna was.

“It doesn’t seem to me proper,” said the priest. “The wife of one of your leaseholders—”

“Kristin must have whatever she wants,” said Erlend. And as Gunnulf accompanied him out and Erlend waited for his horse, he told the priest how Kristin had come to meet the farmer’s wife. Gunnulf bit his lip and looked pensive.

Then she sat alone with the priest. She tried to talk calmly and cheerfully with him as she had before.

“You’re not afraid then?” he asked with a little smile.

“Yes, of course, I’m afraid!” She looked up into his eyes—her own were dark and frightened. “Can you tell me, brother-in-law, whether they were born here at Husaby—Erlend’s other children?”

“No,” replied the priest quickly. “The boy was born at Hune hals, and the maiden over at Strind, on an estate that he once owned there.” A moment later he asked, “Is that it? Has the thought of that other woman here with Erlend tormented you?”

“Yes,” said Kristin.

“It would be difficult for you to judge Erlend’s behavior in this dealing with Eline,” said the priest somberly. “It wasn’t easy for Erlend to know what to do. It was never easy for Erlend to know what was right. Ever since we were children, our mother thought whatever Erlend did was right, and our father thought it was wrong. But he has probably told you so much about our mother that you know all about this.”

“I can only recall that he has mentioned her two or three times,” said Kristin. “But I understood that he did love her. . . .”

Gunnulf said softly, “I doubt there has ever been such a love between a mother and her son. Mother was much younger than my father. But then that whole trouble with Aunt Aashild happened. Our uncle Baard died, and it was said . . . well, you know about this, don’t you? Father thought the worst and said to Mother . . . Erlend once flung his knife at Father; he was only a young boy. He rushed at Father more than once in Mother’s defense when he was growing up.

“When Mother fell ill, he parted with Eline Ormsdatter. Mother grew sick with sores and scabs on her skin, and Father said it was leprosy.⁴ He sent her away—tried to threaten her into taking a corrody ⁵ with the sisters at the hospice. Then Erlend went to get Mother and took her to Oslo—they stayed with Aashild too; she’s a good healer. And the king’s French doctor also said that she was not leprous. King Haakon received Erlend kindly then, and bade him seek out the grave of the holy King Erik Valdemarssøn—the king’s grandfather. Many people found cures for their skin afflictions there.

“Erlend journeyed to Denmark with Mother, but she died on board his ship, south of Stad. When Erlend brought her home—well, you must remember that Father was very old, and Erlend had been a disobedient son all his days. When Erlend came to Nidaros with Mother’s body, Father was staying at our town estate, and he refused to allow Erlend inside until he determined whether the boy had been infected, as he said. Erlend got on his horse and rode off, not resting until he arrived at the manor where Eline was staying with his son. After that he stood by her, in spite of everything, in spite of the fact that he had grown weary of her; and that’s how he happened to bring her here to Husaby and put her in charge when he became owner of the estate. She had such a hold on him, and she said that if he deserted her after this, then he deserved to be struck by leprosy himself.

“But it must be time for your women to tend to you, Kristin.” He looked down into the young, gray face that was rigid with fear and anguish.

But when he stood up to move toward the door, she cried loudly after him, “No, no, don’t leave me!”

“It will soon be over,” the priest consoled her, “since you are already so ill.”

“That’s not it!” She gripped his arm hard. “Gunnulf!”

He thought he had never seen such terror in anyone’s face.

“Kristin—you should remember that this is no worse for you than for other women.”

“But it is, it is.” She pressed her face against the priest’s arm. “For now I know that Eline and her children should be sitting here. He had promised her fidelity and marriage before I became his paramour.”

“You know about that?” said Gunnulf calmly. “Erlend himself didn’t know any better back then. But you must understand that he could not keep that promise; the archbishop would never have given his consent for those two to marry. You mustn’t think that your marriage isn’t valid. You are Erlend’s rightful wife.”

“Oh, I gave up all right to walk this earth long before then. And yet it’s worse than I imagined. Oh, if only I might die and this child would never be born. I don’t think I dare look at what I’ve been carrying.”

“May God forgive you, Kristin—you don’t know what you’re saying! Would you wish for your child to die stillborn and unbaptized?”

“Yes, for that which I’ve carried under my heart may already belong to the Devil! It cannot be saved. Oh, if only I had drunk the potion that Eline offered me—that might have been atonement for all the sins we’ve committed, Erlend and I. Then this child would never have been conceived. Oh, I’ve thought this whole time, Gunnulf, that when I saw what I had fostered inside me, then I would come to realize that it would have been better for me to drink the leprosy potion that she offered me—rather than drive to her death the woman to whom Erlend had first bound himself.”

“Kristin,” said the priest, “you’ve lost your senses. You weren’t the one who drove that poor woman to her death. Erlend couldn’t keep the promise that he’d given her when he was young and knew little of law and justice. He could never have lived with her without sin. And she herself allowed another man to seduce her, and Erlend wanted to marry her to him when he heard of it. The two of you were not to blame for her taking her own life.”

“Do you want to know how it happened that she took her life?” Kristin was now so full of despair that she spoke quite calmly. “We were together at Haugen, Erlend and I, when she arrived. She had brought along a drinking horn, and she wanted me to drink with her. I now see that she probably intended it for Erlend, but when she found me there with him, she wanted me to . . . I realized it was treachery—I saw that she didn’t drink any herself when she put the horn to her lips. But I wanted to drink and I didn’t care whether I lived or died when I found out that she had been with him here at Husaby the whole time. Then Erlend came in—he threatened her with his knife: ‘You must drink first.’ She begged and begged, and he was about to let her go. Then the Devil took hold of me; I grabbed the horn—‘One of us, your two mistresses,’ I said—I egged Erlend on—‘You can’t keep both of us,’ I said. And so it was that she killed herself with Erlend’s knife. But Bjørn and Aashild found a way to conceal what had happened.”

“So Aunt Aashild took part in this concealment,” said Gunnulf harshly. “I see . . . she played you into Erlend’s hands.”

“No,” said Kristin vehemently. “Fru Aashild pleaded with us. She begged Erlend and she begged me so that I don’t understand how I dared defy her—to step forward in as honorable a manner as was still possible, to fall at my father’s feet and implore him to forgive us for what we had done. But I didn’t dare. I argued that I was afraid that Father would kill Erlend—but oh, I knew full well that Father would never harm a man who put himself and his case into his hands. I argued that I was afraid he would suffer such sorrow that he would never be able to hold his head high again. But I have since shown that I was not so afraid to cause my father sorrow. You can’t know, Gunnulf, what a good man my father is—no one can realize it who doesn’t know him, how kind he has been to me all my days. Father has always been so fond of me. I don’t want him to find out that I behaved shamelessly while he thought I was living with the sisters in Oslo and learning everything that was right and just. I even wore the clothing of a lay sister as I met with Erlend in cowsheds and lofts in town.”

She looked up at Gunnulf. His face was pale and hard as stone.

“Do you see now why I’m frightened? She who took him in when he arrived, infected with leprosy . . .”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” the priest asked gently.

“Of course, of course, of course.” A shadow of that wild, sweet smile of the past flickered across the woman’s ravaged face.

“But Erlend wasn’t infected,” said Gunnulf. “No one except Father ever thought that Mother died of leprosy.”

“But I must be like a leper in God’s eyes,” said Kristin. She rested her face on the priest’s arm which she was gripping. “Such as I am, infected with sins.”

“My sister,” said the priest softly, placing his other hand on her wimple. “I doubt that you are so sinful, young child, that you have forgotten that just as God can cleanse a person’s flesh of leprosy, He can also cleanse your soul of sin.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sobbed, hiding her face on his arm. “I don’t know—and I don’t feel any remorse, Gunnulf. I’m afraid, and yet . . . I was afraid when I stood at the church door with Erlend and the priest married us. I was afraid when I went inside for the wedding mass with him, with the golden crown on my flowing hair, for I didn’t dare speak of shame to my father, with all my sins unatoned for; I didn’t even dare confess fully to my parish priest. But as I went about here this winter and saw myself growing more hideous for each day that passed—then I was even more frightened, for Erlend did not act toward me as he had before. I thought about those days when he would come to me in my chamber at Skog in the evenings. . . .”

“Kristin,” the priest tried to lift her face, “you mustn’t think about this now! Think about God, who sees your sorrow and your remorse. Turn to the gentle Virgin Mary, who takes pity on every sorrowful—”

“Don’t you see? I drove another human being to take her own life!”

“Kristin,” the priest said sternly. “Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”

He stroked her wimple over and over.

“Don’t you remember, my sister, when the Devil tried to tempt Saint Martin? Then the Fiend asked Saint Martin whether he dared believe it when he promised God’s mercy to all the sinners whose confessions he heard. And the bishop answered, ‘Even to you I promise God’s forgiveness at the very instant you ask for it—if only you will give up your pride and believe that His love is greater than your hatred.’ ”

Gunnulf continued to stroke the head of the weeping woman. All the while he thought: Was this the way that Erlend had behaved toward his young bride? His lips grew pale and grim at the thought.

Audfinna Audunsdatter was the first of the women to arrive. She found Kristin in the little house; Gunnulf was sitting with her, and a couple of maids were bustling about the room.

Audfinna greeted the priest with deference, but Kristin stood up and went toward her with her hand outstretched.

“I must give you thanks for coming, Audfinna. I know it’s not easy for your family to be without you at home.”

Gunnulf had given the woman a searching look. Now he too stood up and said, “It was good of you to come so quickly. My sister-in-law needs someone she can trust to be with her. She’s a stranger here, young and inexperienced.”

“Jesus, she’s as white as her linen wimple,” whispered Audfinna. “Do you think, sir, that I might give her a sleeping potion? She needs to rest a while before it gets much worse.”

She set to work, quietly and efficiently, inspecting the bed that the servant women had prepared on the floor, and telling them to bring more cushions and straw. She put small stone vessels of herbs on the fire to heat. Then she proceeded to loosen all the ribbons and ties on Kristin’s clothing, and finally she pulled out all the pins from the ill woman’s hair.

“I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said when the cascading, silky, golden-brown mane tumbled down around the pale face. She had to laugh. “It certainly hasn’t lost much of either fullness or sheen, even though you went bareheaded a little longer than was proper.”

She settled Kristin comfortably among the cushions on the floor and covered her with a blanket.

“Drink this now, and you won’t feel the pains as much—and see if you can sleep a little now and then.”

Gunnulf was ready to leave. He went over and bent down toward Kristin.

“You will pray for me, Gunnulf?” she implored him.

“I will pray for you until I see you with your child in your arms—and after that too,” he said as he tucked her hand back under the covers.

Kristin lay there, dozing. She felt almost content. The pain in her loins came and went, came and went—but it was unlike anything she had ever felt before, so that each time it was over, she wondered whether she had just imagined it. After the anguish and dread of the early morning hours, she felt as if she were already beyond the worst fear and torment. Audfinna walked about quietly, hanging up the infant clothes, blankets, and furs to warm at the hearth—and stirring her pots a little so the room smelled of spices. Finally Kristin slept between each wave of pain; she thought she was back home in the brewhouse at Jørundgaard and was supposed to help her mother dye a large woven fabric—probably because of the steam from the ash bark and nettles.

But Kristin lay there biting her lips to shreds and crushing the corners of the blanket in her sweaty hands. It was suffocatingly hot, but they told her that was as it should be. After each wave of pain, the sweat poured off her.

At times she would lie there thinking about food for all these women. She fervently wanted them to see that she kept good order in her house. She had asked Torbjørg, the cook, to put whey in the water for boiling the fresh fish. If only Gunnulf wouldn’t regard this as breaking the fast. Sira Eirik had said that it wasn’t, for whey was not milk, and the fish broth would be thrown out. They mustn’t be allowed to taste the dried fish that Erlend had brought home in the fall, spoiled and full of mites that it was.

Blessed Virgin Mary—will it be long before you help me? Oh, how it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. . . .

She was trying to hold out a little longer, before she gave in and screamed.

Audfinna sat next to the hearth and tended the pots of water. Kristin wished that she dared ask her to come over and hold her hand. There was nothing she wouldn’t give to hold on to a familiar and kind hand right now. But she was ashamed to ask for it.

Erlend stood outside in the courtyard, talking to his smith. He tried to keep his thoughts on what the man was saying. Then Fru Gunna came rushing over to him.

“There’s no progress with your wife, Erlend—we’ve tried everything we know. You must come. It might help if she sits on your lap. Go in and change into a short tunic. But be quick; she’s suffering greatly, your poor young wife!”

Erlend had turned blood-red. He remembered he had heard that if a woman was having trouble delivering a child she had conceived in secrecy, then it might help if she were placed on her husband’s knee.

Kristin was lying on the floor under several blankets; two women were sitting with her. The moment that Erlend came in, he saw her body convulse and she buried her head in the lap of one of the women, rocking it from side to side. But she didn’t utter a single whimper.

When the pain had passed, she looked up with wild, frightened eyes, her cracked, brown lips gasping. All trace of youth and beauty had vanished from the swollen, flushed red face. Even her hair was matted together with bits of straw and wool from the fur of a filthy hide. She looked at Erlend as if she didn’t immediately recognize him. But when she realized why the women had sent for him, she shook her head vigorously.

“It’s not the custom where I come from . . . for men to be present when a woman is giving birth.”

“It’s sometimes done here in the north,” said Erlend quietly. “If it can lessen the pain a little for you, my Kristin, then you must—”

“Oh!” When he knelt beside her she threw her arms around his waist and pressed herself to him. Hunched over and shaking, she fought her way through the pain without a murmur.

“May I have a few words with my husband alone?” she said when it was over, her breathing rapid and harsh. The women withdrew.

“Was it when she was suffering the agony of childbirth that you promised her what she told me—that you would marry her when she was widowed . . . that night when Orm was born?” whispered Kristin.

Erlend gasped for air, as if he had been struck deep in the heart. Then he vehemently shook his head.

“I was at the castle that night; my men and I had guard duty. It was when I came back to our hostel in the morning and they put the boy in my arms. . . . Have you been lying here thinking about this, Kristin?”

“Yes.” Again she clung to him as the waves of pain washed over her. Erlend wiped away the sweat that poured down her face.

“Now you know,” he said, when she lay quiet once more. “Don’t you want me to stay with you, as Fru Gunna says?”

But Kristin shook her head. And finally the women had to let Erlend go.

But then it seemed as if her power to endure was broken. She screamed in wild terror of the pain that she could feel approaching, and begged pitifully for help. And yet when the women talked of bringing her husband back, she screamed “No!” She would rather be tortured to death.

In the west, above the ridges on the other side of the valley, the sky was a yellowish-red. The twilight of the spring evening was about to descend, clear and bright and mild. A few stars appeared, white in the light sky. A little wisp of fog drifted over the bare woods down by the lake, and there were brown patches where the fields lay open to the sun. The smell of earth and thawing snow filled the air.

The little house was at the westernmost edge of the courtyard, facing the hollow of the valley. Erlend went over and stood for a moment behind the wall. The timbers were still warm from the sun as he leaned against them. Oh, how she screamed. . . . He had once heard a heifer shrieking in the grip of a bear —that was up at their mountain pasture, and he was only a half-grown boy. He and Arnbjørn, the shepherd boy, were running south through the forest. He remembered the shaggy creature that stood up and became a bear with a red, fiery maw. The bear broke Arnbjørn’s spear in half with its paw. Then the servant threw Erlend’s spear, as he stood there paralyzed with terror. The heifer lay there still alive, but its udder and thigh had been gnawed away.

My Kristin, oh, my Kristin. Lord, for the sake of Your blessed Mother, have mercy. He rushed back to the church.

Erlend had hidden himself in a corner near the bed; he couldn’t bear to have anyone see his face.

Master Gunnulf had lit a small oil lamp and set it on the arm of the high seat. He sat on the bench with a book in his hands, his lips moving gently, soundless and unceasing.

At one point Ulf Haldorssøn stood up, walked forward to the hearth, and picked up a piece of soft bread; he rummaged around among the pieces of firewood and selected one. Then he went over to the corner near the doorway where old man Aan was sitting. The two of them fiddled with the bread, hidden behind Ulf’s cape. Aan whittled and cut the piece of wood. The men cast a glance in their direction now and then. In a little while Ulf and Aan got up and left the hall.

Gunnulf watched them go, but said nothing. He took up his prayers once more.

Ulf Haldorssøn and Aan quietly came back in and returned to the places where they had sat before. The men looked at them, but no one said a word.

Suddenly Erlend jumped up. He strode across the floor toward his servants. He was hollow-eyed, and his face was as gray as clay.

“Doesn’t anyone know what to do?” he asked. “You, Aan,” he whispered.

“It didn’t help,” replied Ulf, his voice equally quiet.

“It could be that she’s not meant to keep this child,” said Aan, wiping his nose. “Then neither sacrifices nor runes can help. It’s a shame for you, Erlend, that you should lose this good wife so soon.”

“Oh, don’t talk as if she were already dead,” implored Erlend, broken and in despair. He went back to his corner and threw himself down on the enclosed bed with his head near the footboard.

Later a man went outside and then came back in.

“The moon is up,” he said. “It will soon be morning.”

The men stood up and slowly moved over to her.

“One of you must come and hold her,” she said, weeping. “We have no more strength. You must go to her, Gunnulf. There’s no telling how this will end.”

Gunnulf stood up and tucked his prayer book inside his belt pouch.

“You must come too, Erlend,” said the woman.

A raw and broken howl met him in the doorway. Erlend stopped and shivered. He caught a glimpse of Kristin’s contorted, unrecognizable face among the sobbing women. She was on her knees, and they were supporting her.

Over by the door several servant women were kneeling at the benches; they were praying loudly and steadily. He threw himself down next to them and hid his head in his arms. She screamed and screamed, and each time he felt himself freeze with incredulous horror. It couldn’t possibly be like this.

He ventured a glance in her direction. Now Gunnulf was sitting on a stool in front of her and holding her under the arms. Fru Gunna was kneeling at her side, with her arms around Kristin’s waist, but Kristin was fighting her, frightened to death, and trying to push the other woman away.

“Oh no, oh no, let me go—I can’t do it—God, God, help me . . .”

“God will help you soon, Kristin,” said the priest each time. A woman held a basin of water, and after each wave of pain he would take a wet cloth and wipe the sick woman’s face—along the roots of her hair and in between her lips, from which saliva was dripping.

Then she would rest her head in Gunnulf’s arms and doze off for a moment, but the torment would instantly tear her out of her sleep again. And the priest continued to say, “Now, Kristin, you will have help soon.”

No one had any idea what time of night it was anymore. The dawn was already a gray glare in the smoke vent.

Then, after a long, mad howl of terror, everything fell silent. Erlend heard the women rushing around; he didn’t want to look up. Then he heard someone weeping loudly and he cringed again, not wanting to know.

Then Kristin shrieked once more—a piercing, wild cry of lament that didn’t sound like the insane, inhuman animal cries of before. Erlend leaped up.

Gunnulf was bending down and holding on to Kristin, who was still on her knees. She was staring with deathly horror at something that Fru Gunna was holding in a sheepskin. The raw and dark red shape looked like nothing more than the entrails from a slaughtered beast.

The priest pulled her close.

“Dear Kristin—you have given birth to as fine and handsome a son as any mother should thank God for—and he’s breathing!” said Gunnulf fiercely to the weeping women. “He’s breathing—God would not be so harsh as not to hear us.”

And as the priest spoke, it happened. Through the exhausted, confused mind of the mother tumbled, hazily recalled, the sight of a bud she had seen in the cloister garden—something from which red, crinkled wisps of silk emerged and spread out to become a flower.

The shapeless lump moved—it whimpered. It stretched out and became a very tiny, wine-red infant in human form. It had arms and legs and hands and feet with fully formed fingers and toes. It flailed and hissed a bit.

“So tiny, so tiny, so tiny he is,” she cried in a thin, broken voice and then burst into laughing sobs. The women around her began to laugh and wipe their tears, and Gunnulf gave Kristin into their arms.

“Roll him in a trencher so he can scream better,” said the priest as he followed the women carrying the newborn son over to the hearth.

When Kristin awoke from a long faint, she was lying in bed. Someone had removed the dreadful, sweat-soaked garments, and a feeling of warmth and healing was blessedly streaming through her body. They had placed small pouches of warm nettle porridge on her and wrapped her in hot blankets and furs.

Someone hushed her when she tried to speak. It was quite still in the room. But through the silence came a voice that she couldn’t quite recognize.

“Nikulaus, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . .”

There was the sound of water trickling.

Kristin propped herself up on her elbow to take a look. Over by the hearth stood a priest in white garb, and Ulf Haldorssøn was lifting a kicking, red, naked child out of the large brass basin; he handed him to the godmother, and then took the lit taper.

She had given birth to a child, and he was screaming so loudly that the priest’s words were almost drowned out. But she was so tired. She felt numb and wanted to sleep.

Then she heard Erlend’s voice; he spoke quickly and with alarm.

“His head—he has such a strange head.”

“He’s swollen up,” said the woman calmly. “And it’s no wonder—he had to fight hard for his life, this boy.”

Kristin shouted something. She felt as if she were suddenly awake, to the very depths of her heart. This was her son, and he had fought for his life, just as she had.

Gunnulf turned around at once and laughed; he seized the tiny white bundle from Fru Gunna’s lap and carried it over to the bed. He placed the boy in his mother’s arms. Weak with tenderness and joy she rubbed her face against the little bit of red, silky-soft face visible among the linen wrappings.

She glanced up at Erlend. Once before she had seen his face look this haggard and gray—she couldn’t remember when, her head felt so dizzy and strange, but she knew that it was good she had no memory of it. And it was good to see him standing there with his brother; the priest had his hand on Erlend’s shoulder. An immeasurable sense of peace and well-being came over her as she looked at the tall man wearing alb and stole; the round, lean face beneath the black fringe of hair was strong, but his smile was pleasant and kind.

Erlend drove his dagger deep into the wall timber behind the mother and child.

“That’s not necessary now,” said the priest with a laugh. “The boy has been baptized, after all.”

Kristin suddenly remembered something that Brother Edvin once said. A newly baptized child was just as holy as the holy angels in heaven. The sins of the parents were washed from the child, and he had not yet committed any sins of his own. Fearful and cautious, she kissed the little face.

Fru Gunna came over to them. She was worn out and exhausted and angry at the father, who had not had the sense to offer a single word of thanks to all the women who had helped. And the priest had taken the child from her and carried him over to his mother. She should have done that, both because she had delivered the woman and because she was the godmother of the boy.

“You haven’t yet greeted your son, Erlend, or held him in your arms,” she said crossly.

Erlend lifted the swaddled infant from the mother’s arms—for a moment he lay his face close.

“I don’t think I’m going to be properly fond of you, Naakkve, until I forget what terrible suffering you caused your mother,” he said, and then gave the boy back to Kristin.

“By all means give him the blame for that,” said the old woman, annoyed. Master Gunnulf laughed, and then Fru Gunna laughed with him. She wanted to take the child and put him in his cradle, but Kristin begged to keep him with her for a while. A moment later she fell asleep with her son beside her—vaguely noticing that Erlend touched her, cautiously, as if he were afraid to hurt her, and then she was sound asleep again.

Now he was alert and lively, not silent and rather sluggish the way his father-in-law had most often seen him. As he sat on the floor in front of Lavrans, he started telling stories about the years when he served Earl Jacob in Halland.¹ He had been head of the castle guard, and he had patrolled the coast with three small ships. Erlend’s eyes shone like a child’s—he wasn’t boasting, he merely let the words spill out. Lavrans lay there looking down at him.

He had prayed to God to grant him patience with this man, his daughter’s husband. Now he was almost angry with himself because he was more fond of Erlend than he wanted to be. He thought about that night when their church burned down and he had taken a liking to his son-in-law. It was not that Erlend lacked manhood in his lanky body. Lavrans felt a stab of pain in his heart. It was a pity about Erlend; he could have been fit for better things than seducing women. But nothing much had come of that except boyish pranks. If only times had been such that a chieftain could have taken this man in hand and put him to use . . . but as the world was now, when every man had to depend on his own judgment about so many things . . . and a man in Erlend’s circumstances was supposed to make decisions for himself and for the welfare of many other people. And this was Kristin’s husband.

Erlend looked up at his father-in-law. He grew somber too. Then he said, “I want to ask one thing, Lavrans. Before we reach my home, I’d like you to tell me what is in your heart.”

Lavrans was silent.

“You must know,” said Erlend in the same tone of voice, “that I would gladly fall at your feet in whatever manner you wish and make amends in whatever way you deem a fitting punishment for me.”

Lavrans looked down into the younger man’s face; then he smiled oddly.

“That might be difficult, Erlend—for me to decide and for you to do. But now you must make a proper gift to the church at Sundbu and to the priests, whom you have also deceived,” he said adamantly. “I will speak no more of this! And you cannot blame it on your youth. It would have been much more honorable, Erlend, if you had fallen at my feet before you held your wedding.”

“Yes,” said Erlend. “But at the time I didn’t know how things stood, or that it would come to light that I had offended you.”

Lavrans sat up.

“Didn’t you know, when you were wed, that Kristin . . .”

“No,” said Erlend, looking crestfallen. “We were married for almost two months before I realized it.”

Lavrans gave him a look of surprise but said nothing.

Then Erlend spoke again, his voice low and unsteady, “I’m glad that you came with me, Father-in-law. Kristin has been so melancholy all winter—she has hardly said a word to me. Many times it seemed to me that she was unhappy, both with Husaby and with me.”

Lavrans replied somewhat coldly and harshly, “That’s no doubt the way things are with most young wives. Now that she’s well again, you two will probably be just as good friends as you were before.” And he smiled a little mockingly.

But Erlend sat and stared into the glowing embers. He suddenly understood with certainty—but he had realized it from the moment he first saw the tiny red infant face pressed against Kristin’s white shoulder. It would never be the same between them, the way it had been before.

She had been out of bed for some time, but then she learned that Erlend had set off for Gudbrandsdal alone, and when he failed to return home for days on end, she grew so anxious that she developed a fever. And she had to go back to bed.

It was apparent that she was still weak—she wept at everything. The new manor priest,² Sira Eiliv Serkssøn, had arrived while Erlend was away. He had taken it upon himself to visit the mistress now and then to read to her, but she wept over such unreasonable things that soon he didn’t know what he dared let her hear.

“What kind of a mark is that on his chest?” asked Lavrans.

Right over his heart the child had several little blood-red flecks; it looked as if a bloody hand had touched the boy there. Kristin had been distressed by it too, the first time she saw this mark. But she had tried to console herself, and she said now, “It’s probably just a fire mark—I put my hand to my breast when I saw the church was burning.”

Her father gave a start. Well. He hadn’t known how long—or how much—she had kept to herself. And he couldn’t understand that she had had the strength—his own child, and from him . . .

She asked this same thing over and over. Once Lavrans said, as if in thought, “Haavard, your brother—our second son—was a very handsome child.”

After a moment Kristin asked in a timid voice, “Was he the one who lived the longest of my brothers?”

“Yes. He was two winters old. Now you mustn’t cry again, my Kristin,” he said gently.

Sira Eiliv was a short, slight man with a little round belly, which gave him a somewhat comical appearance. He was exceedingly nondescript; people who had spoken to him many times had trouble recognizing the priest, so ordinary was his face. His hair and complexion were the same color—like reddish-yellow sand—and his round, watery blue eyes were quite dull. In manner he was subdued and diffident, but Master Gunnulf said that Sira Eiliv was so learned that he could have attained high standing if only he had not been so unassuming. But he was far less marked by his learning than by pure living, humility, and a deep love for Christ and his Church.

He was of low birth, and although he was not much older than Gunnulf Nikulaussøn, he seemed almost like an old man. Gunnulf had known him ever since they went to school together in Nidaros, and he always spoke of Eiliv Serkssøn with great affection. Erlend didn’t think it was much of a priest they had been given at Husaby, but Kristin immediately felt great trust and affection for him.

Kristin continued to live in the little house with her child, even after she had made her first visit back to church. That was a bleak day for Kristin. Sira Eiliv escorted her through the church door, but he didn’t dare give her the body of Christ. She had confessed to him, but for the sin that she had committed when she became implicated in another person’s ill-fated death, she would have to seek absolution from the archbishop. That morning when Gunnulf had sat with Kristin, her spirit in anguish, he had impressed upon her heart that as soon as she was out of any physical danger, she must rush to seek redemption for her soul. As soon as she had regained her health, she must keep her promise to Saint Olav. Now that he, through his intercession, had brought her son, healthy and alive, into the light and to the baptismal font, she must walk barefoot to his grave and place there her golden crown, the honored adornment of maidens, which she had guarded so poorly and unjustly worn. And Gunnulf had advised her to prepare for the journey with solitude, prayers, reading, meditation, and even fasting, although with moderation for the sake of the nursing child.

That evening as she sat in sorrow after going to church, Gunnulf had come to her and given her a Pater noster rosary. He told her that in countries abroad, cloister folk and priests were not the only ones who used these kinds of beads to help them with their devotions. This rosary was extremely beautiful; the beads were made of a type of yellow wood from India that smelled so sweet and wondrous they might almost serve as a reminder of what a good prayer ought to be—a sacrifice of the heart and a yearning for help in order to live a righteous life before God. In between there were beads of amber and gold, and the cross was painted with a lovely enamel.

Then he would joke, half-angrily, with his brother and father-in-law as they sat in the hall in the evening—just men. Husaby had practically become a collegial church. Here sat Gunnulf and Sira Eiliv; his father-in-law could be considered a half-priest, and now they wanted to turn him into one too. There would be three priests on the estate. But the others laughed at him.

During the spring Erlend Nikulaussøn supervised much of the farming on his manor. That year all the fences were mended and the gates were put up in good time; the plowing and spring farm work were done early and properly, and Erlend purchased excellent livestock. At the new year he had been forced to slaughter a great many animals, but this was not a bad loss, as old and wretched as they were. He set the servants to burning tar and stripping off birch bark, and the farm’s buildings were put in order and the roofs repaired. Such things had not been done at Husaby since old Sir Nikulaus had had his full strength. And he also sought advice and support from his wife’s father—people knew that. Amidst all this work Erlend would visit friends and kinsmen in the villages along with Lavrans and his brother, the priest. But now he traveled in a suitable manner, with a couple of fit and proper servants. In the past, Erlend had been in the habit of riding around with an entire entourage of undisciplined and rowdy men. The gossip, which had for so long seethed with indignation at Erlend Nikulaussøn’s shameless living and the disarray and decline at Husaby, now died down to a good-natured teasing. People smiled and said that Erlend’s young wife had achieved a great deal in six months.

Shortly before Saint Botolv’s Day, Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn left for Nidaros, accompanied by Master Gunnulf. Lavrans was to be the priest’s guest for several days while he visited Saint Olav’s shrine and the other churches in town before starting his journey south to return home. He parted from his daughter and her husband with love and kindness.

“You might as well hear it from my lips, then—the news will doubtless reach here soon enough.” He sat in silence for a moment. “Gjavvald died three days before Winter Night.¹ He fell off his horse and broke his back. Do you remember before you reach Dyfrin how the road heads east of the river and there’s a steep drop-off? No, you probably don’t. We were on our way to their betrothal celebration; Arne and his sons had come by ship to Oslo.” Then Simon fell silent.

“She must have been happy, Sigrid—because she was going to marry Gjavvald,” said Kristin, shy and timid.

“Yes,” said Simon. “And she had a son by him—on the Feast Day of the Apostles this spring.”

“Oh, Simon!”

Sigrid Andresdatter, with the brown curls framing her small round face. Whenever she laughed, deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. The dimples and the small, childish white teeth—Simon had them too. Kristin remembered that when she grew less kindly inclined toward her betrothed, these things seemed to her unmanly, especially after she had met Erlend. They were much alike, Sigrid and Simon; but in her case it seemed charming that she was so plump and quick to laughter. She was fourteen winters old back then. Kristin had never heard such merry laughter as Sigrid’s. Simon was always teasing his youngest sister and joking with her; Kristin could see that of all his siblings, he was most fond of her.

“You know that Father loved Sigrid best,” said Simon. “That’s why he wanted to see whether she and Gjavvald would like each other before he made this agreement with Arne. And they did—in my mind a little more than was proper. They always had to sit close whenever they met, and they would steal looks at each other and laugh. That was last summer at Dyfrin. But they were so young. No one could have imagined this. And our sister Astrid—you know she was betrothed when you and I . . . Well, she voiced no objections; Torgrim is very wealthy and kind, and in a certain way . . . but he finds fault with everyone and everything, and he thinks he suffers from all the ailments and troubles that anyone can name. So all of us were happy when Sigrid seemed so pleased with the man chosen for her.

“And then we brought Gjavvald’s body to the manor. Halfrid, my wife, arranged things so that Sigrid would come home with us to Mandvik. And then it came out that Sigrid wasn’t left alone when Gjavvald died.”

They were silent for a while. Then Kristin said softly, “This has not been a joyful journey for you, Simon.”

“No, it hasn’t.” Then he gave a laugh. “But I’ve gotten used to traveling on unfortunate business, Kristin. And I was the closest one, after all—Father lacked the courage, and they’re living with me at Mandvik, Sigrid and her son. But now he’ll have a place in his father’s lineage, and I could see from all of them there that he won’t be unwelcome, the poor little boy, when he goes to live with them.”

“But what of your sister?” asked Kristin, breathlessly. “Where is she to live?”

Simon looked down at the ground.

“Father will take her home to Dyfrin now,” he said in a low voice.

“Simon! Oh, how can you have the heart to agree to this?”

“You must realize,” he replied without looking up, “that it’s a great advantage for the boy, that he’ll be part of his father’s family from the beginning. Halfrid and I, we would have liked to keep both of them with us. No sister could be more loyal and loving toward another than Halfrid is toward Sigrid. None of our kinsmen has been unkind toward her—you mustn’t think that. Not even Father, although this has made him a broken man. But can’t you see? It wouldn’t be right if any of us objected to the innocent boy gaining inheritance and lineage from his father.”

Kristin’s child let go of her breast. She quickly drew her garments closed over her bosom and, trembling, hugged the infant close. He hiccupped happily a couple of times and then spit up a little over himself and his mother’s hands.

Simon glanced at the two of them and said with an odd smile, “You had better luck, Kristin, than my sister did.”

“Yes, no doubt it may seem unfair to you,” said Kristin softly,

“that I’m called wife and my son was lawfully born. I might have deserved to be left with the fatherless child of a paramour.”

“That would seem to me the worst thing I could have heard,” said Simon. “I wish you only the best, Kristin,” he said even more quietly.

A moment later he asked her for directions. He mentioned that he had come north by ship from Tunsberg. “Now I must continue on and see about catching up with my servant.”

“Is it Finn who’s traveling with you?” asked Kristin.

“No. Finn is married now; he’s no longer in my service. Do you still remember him?” asked Simon, and his voice sounded pleased.

“Is Sigrid’s son a handsome child?” asked Kristin, looking at Naakkve.

“I hear that he is. I think one infant looks much like another,” replied Simon.

“Then you must not have children of your own,” said Kristin, giving a little smile.

“No,” he said curtly. Then he bid her farewell and rode off.

Her own father would not have been able to do it. Should Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn ride off to beg for a place and rank for his daughter’s bastard child among the father’s kinsmen? He would never have been able to do that. And never, never would he have had the heart to take her child away from her—to pull a tiny infant out of his mother’s arms, tear him away from her breast while he still had mother’s milk on his innocent lips. My Naakkve, no he wouldn’t do that—even if it were ten times more just to do so, my father would not have done it.

But she couldn’t get the image out of her mind: a group of horsemen vanishing north of the gorge, where the valley grows narrow and the mountains crowd together, black with trees. Cold wind comes in gusts from the river, which thunders over the rocks, icy green and frothing, with deep black pools in between. Whoever throws himself into it would be crushed in the rapids at once. Jesus, Maria.

Then she envisioned the fields back home at Jørundgaard on a light summer night. She saw herself running down the path to the green clearing in the alder grove near the river, where they used to wash clothes. The water rushed past with a loud, monotonous roar along the flat riverbed filled with boulders. Lord Jesus, there is nothing else I can do.

Oh, but Father would not have had the heart to do it. No matter how right it was. If I begged and begged him, begged on my knees: Father, you mustn’t take my child from me.

All around lay the summer-green land, bearing venerable manors on its hills. In the distance the fjord opened out, shining and wide, with drifting shadows from the large summer clouds that billowed up over the glittering blue mountains on the other side. The cloister island looked like a green wreath with flowers of stone-white buildings, softly lapped by the sea. So many ships’ masts out among the islands, so many beautiful houses.

Overcome and sobbing, the young woman sank down before the cross at the side of the road, where thousands of pilgrims had lain and thanked God because helping hands were extended to them on their journey through the perilous and beautiful world.

Human beings could not have done this work on their own. God’s spirit had been at work in holy Øistein and the men who built the church after him. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Now she understood those words. A reflection of the splendor of God’s kingdom bore witness through the stones that His will was all that was beautiful. Kristin trembled. Yes, God must surely turn away with scorn from all that was vile—from sin and shame and impurity.

Along the galleries of the heavenly palace stood holy men and women, and they were so beautiful that she dared not look at them. The imperishable vines of eternity wound their way upward, calm and lovely, bursting into flower on spires and towers with stone monstrances. Above the center door hung Christ on the cross; Mary and John the Evangelist stood at his side. And they were white, as if molded from snow, and gold glittered on the white.

Three times Kristin walked around the church, praying. The huge, massive walls with their bewildering wealth of pillars and arches and windows, the glimpse of the roof’s enormous slanting surface, the tower, the gold of the spire rising high into the heavens—Kristin sank to the ground beneath her sin.

She was shaking as she kissed the hewn stone of the portal. In a flash she saw the dark carved timber around the church door back home, where as a child she had pressed her lips after her father and mother.

She sprinkled holy water over her son and herself, remembering that her father had done the same when she was small. With the child clasped tightly in her arms, she stepped forward into the church.

She walked as if through a forest. The pillars were furrowed like ancient trees, and into the woods the light seeped, colorful and as clear as song, through the stained-glass windows. High overhead animals and people frolicked in the stone foliage, and angels played their instruments. At an even higher, more dizzying height, the vaults of the ceiling arched upward, lifting the church toward God. In a hall off to the side a service was being held at an altar. Kristin fell to her knees next to a pillar. The song cut through her like a blinding light. Now she saw how deep in the dust she lay.

Pater noster. Credo in unum Deum. Ave Maria, gratia plena. She had learned her prayers by repeating them after her father and mother before she could understand a single word, from as far back as she could remember. Lord Jesus Christ. Was there ever a sinner like her?

High beneath the triumphal arch, raised above the people, hung Christ on the cross. The pure virgin, who was his mother, stood looking up in deathly anguish at her innocent son who was suffering the death of a criminal.

And here knelt Kristin with the fruit of her sin in her arms. She hugged the child tight—he was as fresh as an apple, pink and white like a rose. He was awake now, and he lay there looking up at her with his clear, sweet eyes.

Conceived in sin. Carried under her hard, evil heart. Pulled out of her sin-tainted body, so pure, so healthy, so inexpressibly lovely and fresh and innocent. This undeserved beneficence broke her heart in two; crushed with remorse, she lay there with tears welling up out of her soul like blood from a mortal wound.

Naakkve, Naakkve, my child. God visits the sins of the parents upon the children. Didn’t I know that? Yes, I did. But I had no mercy for the innocent life that might be awakened in my womb—to be cursed and tormented because of my sin.

Did I regret my sin while I was carrying you inside me, my beloved, beloved son? Oh no, there was no remorse. My heart was hard with anger and evil thoughts at the moment I first felt you move, so small and unprotected. Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.² That is what she sang, the gentle queen of women, when she was chosen to bear the one who would die for our sins. I didn’t think about the one who was the redeemer of my sin and my child’s sin. Oh, no, there was no remorse. Instead I made myself pitiful and wretched and begged that the commandments of righteousness be broken, for I could not bear it if God should keep His promise and punish me in accordance with the Word that I have known all my days.

Oh yes, now she knew. She had thought that God was like her own father, that Holy Olav was like her father. All along she had expected, deep in her heart, that whenever the punishment became more than she could bear, then she would encounter not righteousness but mercy.

She wept so hard that she didn’t have the strength to rise when the others stood up during the service; she stayed there, collapsed in a heap, holding her child. Near her several other people knelt who did not rise either: two well-dressed farmers’ wives with a young boy between them.

She looked up toward the raised chancel. Beyond the gilded, grated door, high up behind the altar, Saint Olav’s shrine glistened in the darkness. An ice-cold shiver ran down her back. There lay his holy body, waiting for Resurrection Day. Then the lid would spring open, and he would rise up. With his axe in hand, he would stride through this church. And from the stone floor, from the earth outside, from every cemetery in all of Norway the dead yellow skeletons would rise up; they would be clothed in flesh and would rally around their king. Those who had striven to follow in his bloodied tracks, and those who had merely turned to him for help with the burdens of sin and sorrow and illness to which they had bound themselves and their children, here in this life. They would crowd around their king and ask him to remind God of their need.

“Lord, hear my prayer for these people, whom I love so much that I would rather suffer exile and want and hatred and death than have a single man or maiden grow up in Norway not knowing that you died to save all sinners. Lord, you who bade us go out and make everyone your disciple—with my blood I, Olav Haraldssøn, wrote your gospel in the Norwegian language for these free men, my poor subjects.”

Kristin closed her eyes, feeling sick and dizzy. She saw the king’s face before her—his blazing eyes pierced the depths of her soul—now she trembled before Saint Olav’s gaze.

“North of your village, Kristin, where I rested when my own countrymen drove me from my ancestral kingdom, because they could not keep God’s Commandments—wasn’t a church built at that spot? Didn’t knowledgeable men come there to teach you of God’s Word?

“Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill. God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. I died so that you might learn these teachings. Haven’t they been given to you, Kristin Lavransdatter?”

Oh yes, yes, my Lord and King!

Olav’s church back home—she saw in her mind the pleasant, brown-timbered room. The ceiling was not so high that it could frighten her. It was unassuming, built in God’s honor from dark, tarred wood, in the same way that people constructed their mountain huts and storehouses and cattle sheds. But the timbers had been cut into supple staves, and they were raised and joined to form the walls of God’s house. And Sira Eirik taught each year on the church consecration day that in this manner we ought to use the tools of faith to cut and carve from our sinful, natural being a faithful link in the Church of Christ.

“Have you forgotten this, Kristin? Where are the deeds that should bear witness for you on the last day, showing that you were a link in God’s church? The good deeds which will bear witness that you belong to God?”

Jesus, her good deeds! She had repeated the prayers that were placed on her lips. She had given out the alms that her father had placed in her hands; she had helped her mother when Ragnfrid clothed the poor, fed the hungry, and tended to the sores of the ill.

But the evil deeds were her own.

She had clung to everyone who offered her protection and support. Brother Edvin’s loving admonitions, his sorrow over her sin, his tender intercessionary prayers which she had received—and then she had flung herself into passionate sinful desire as soon as she was beyond the light of his gentle old eyes. She lay down in cowsheds and outbuildings and scarcely felt any shame that she was deceiving the good and honorable Abbess Groa; she had accepted the kind concern of the pious sisters and hadn’t even had the wit to blush when they praised her gentle and seemly behavior before her father.

Oh, the worst was thinking about her father. Her father, who had not said a single unkind word when he came to visit this spring.

Simon had concealed the fact that he had caught his betrothed with a man at an inn for wandering soldiers. And she had let him take the blame for her breach of promise, had let him bear the blame before her father.

Oh, but her father, that was the worst. No, her mother, that was even worse. If Naakkve should grow up to show his mother as little love as she had shown her own mother—oh, she couldn’t bear it. Her mother, who had given birth to her and nursed her at her breast, kept watch over her when she was sick, washed and combed her hair and rejoiced at its beauty. And the first time that Kristin felt she needed her mother’s help and comfort, she had waited for her mother to come, in spite of all her own disdain. “You should know that your mother would have come north to be with you if she had known that it might give you comfort,” her father had said. Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother!

She had seen the water from the well back home. It looked so clean and pure when it was in the wooden cups. But her father owned a glass goblet, and when he filled it with water and the sun shone through, the water was muddy and full of impurities.

Yes, my Lord and King, now I see the way I am!

Goodness and love she had accepted from everyone, as if they were her right. There was no end to the goodness and love she had encountered all her days. But the first time someone confronted her, she had risen up like a snake and struck. Her will had been as hard and sharp as a knife when she drove Eline Ormsdatter to her death.

Just as she would have risen up against God Himself if He had placed His righteous hand on the back of her neck. Oh, how could her father and mother bear it? They had lost three young children; they had watched Ulvhild sicken until she died, after they had striven those long sorrowful years to give the child back her health. But they had borne all these trials with patience, never doubting that God knew what was best for their children. Then she had caused them all this sorrow and shame.

But if there had been anything wrong with her child—if they had taken her child the way they were now taking Sigrid Andresdatter’s child from her . . . Oh, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

She had wandered to the very edge of Hell’s abyss. If she should lose her son, after she had thrown herself into the seething rapids, turned away with scorn from any hope of joining the good and dear people who loved her—giving herself into the Devil’s power . . .

It was no wonder that Naakkve bore the mark of a bloody hand on his chest.

Oh, Holy Olav, you who heard me when I prayed for you to help my child. I prayed that you would turn the punishment upon me and spare the innocent one. Yes, Lord, I know how I kept my part of the agreement.

Like a wild, heathen animal she had reared up at the first chastisement. Erlend. Not for a moment did she ever believe that he no longer loved her. If she had believed that, then she would not have had the strength to live. Oh no. But she had secretly thought that when she was beautiful again, and healthy and lively—then she would act in such a way that he would have to beg her. It wasn’t that he had been unloving during the winter. But she, who had heard ever since she was a girl that the Devil always keeps close to a woman with child and tempts her because she is weak—she had turned a willing ear to the Devil’s lies. She had pretended to believe that Erlend didn’t care for her because she was ugly and ill, when she noticed that he was distressed because he had made both her and himself the subject of gossip. She had flung his timid and tender words back at him, and when she drove him to say harsh and thoughtless things, she would bring them up later to rebuke him. Jesus, what an evil woman she was—she had been a bad wife.

“Now do you understand, Kristin, that you need help?”

Yes, my Lord and King, now I understand. I am in great need of your support so that I won’t turn away from God again. Stay with me, you who are the chieftain of His people, as I step forward with my prayers; pray for mercy for me. Holy Olav, pray for me!

When they were out of sight, Kristin threw herself down and kissed the floor where they had walked past her.

“Oh, are you Kristin Lavransdatter, the wife of Erlend of Husaby?” He gave her a rather surprised look; her face was quite swollen from weeping. “Yes, your brother-in-law, Gunnulf, spoke of you, yes he did.”

He led her into the sacristy and took the crown; he unwrapped the linen cloth and looked at it. Then he smiled.

“Well, you must realize that there will have to be witnesses and the like. You can’t give away such a costly treasure as if it were a piece of buttered lefse. But I can keep it for you in the meantime; no doubt you would prefer not to carry it around with you in town.

“Oh, ask Herr Arne if he wouldn’t mind coming here,” he said to a sexton. “I think that by rights your husband should be present too. But perhaps Gunnulf has a letter from him.

“You wish to speak to the archbishop himself, is that right? Otherwise there is Hauk Tomassøn, who is the penitentiarius. I don’t know whether Gunnulf has spoken to Archbishop Eiliv. But you must come here for matins tomorrow, and then you can ask for me after lauds. My name is Paal Aslakssøn. That,” and he pointed to the child, “you must leave at the hostel. I seem to remember your brother-in-law saying that you’re staying with the sisters at Bakke, is that right?”

Another priest came in, and the two men talked to each other briefly. The first priest then opened a small cupboard in the wall and took out a balance scale and weighed the crown, while the other made a note of it in a ledger. Then they placed the crown in the cupboard and closed the door.

Herr Paal was about to escort Kristin out, but then he asked her whether she would like him to lift her son up to Saint Olav’s shrine.

He picked up the boy with the confident, almost indifferent ease of a priest who was used to holding children for baptism. Kristin followed him into the church, and he asked her whether she too would like to kiss the shrine.

I don’t dare, thought Kristin, but she accompanied the priest up the stairs to the dais on which the shrine stood. A great, chalk-white light seemed to pass before her eyes as she pressed her lips to the golden chest.

The priest looked at her for a moment, to see whether she might collapse in a faint. But she got to her feet. Then he touched the child’s forehead to the sacred shrine.

Herr Paal escorted Kristin to the church door and asked whether she was certain she could find her way to the ferry landing. Then he bade her good night. He spoke the whole time in an even and dry voice, like any other courteous young man in the king’s service.

It had started to rain lightly, and a wonderful fragrance wafted blessedly from the gardens and along the street, which, on either side of the worn ruts from the wheel tracks, was as fresh and green as a country courtyard. Kristin sheltered the child from the rain as best she could—he was heavy now, so heavy that her arms were quite numb from carrying him. And he fussed and cried incessantly; he was probably hungry again.

The mother was dead tired from the long journey and from all the weeping and the intense emotions in the church. She was cold, and the rain was coming down harder; the drops splashed on the trees, making the leaves flutter and shake. She made her way down the lanes and came out onto a broad street; from there she could see the rushing river, wide and gray, its surface punctured like a sieve by the falling drops.

There was no ferryboat. Kristin talked to two men who were huddled in a space beneath a warehouse standing on posts at the water’s edge. They told her to go out to the sandbanks—there the nuns had a house, and that’s where the ferryman was.

Kristin went back up the wide street, wet and tired and with aching feet. She came to a small gray stone church; behind it stood several buildings enclosed by a fence. Naakkve was screaming furiously, so she couldn’t go inside the church. But she heard the song from the recessed paneless windows, and she recognized the antiphon: Lætare, Regina Coeli—rejoice, thou Queen of Heaven, for he whom you were chosen to bear, has risen, as he promised. Hallelujah!

This was what the Minorites⁴ sang after the completorium. Brother Edvin had taught her this hymn to the Lord’s Mother as Kristin kept vigil over him during those nights when he lay deathly ill in their home at Jørundgaard. She crept out to the churchyard and, standing against the wall with her child in her arms, she repeated his words softly to herself.

“Nothing you do could ever change your father’s heart toward you. This is why you must not cause him any more sorrow.”

As your pierced hands were stretched out on the cross, O precious Lord of Heaven. No matter how far a soul might stray from the path of righteousness, the pierced hands were stretched out, yearning. Only one thing was needed: that the sinful soul should turn toward the open embrace, freely, like a child who goes to his father and not like a thrall who is chased home to his stern master. Now Kristin realized how hideous sin was. Again she felt the pain in her breast, as if her heart were breaking with remorse and shame at the undeserved mercy.

Next to the church wall there was a little shelter from the rain. She sat down on a gravestone and set about quelling the child’s hunger. Now and then she would bend down and kiss his little down-covered head.

She must have fallen asleep. Someone was touching her shoulder. A monk and an old lay brother holding a spade in his hand stood before her. The barefoot brother asked if she was looking for shelter for the night.

The thought raced through her mind that she would much rather stay here tonight with the Minorites, Brother Edvin’s brothers. And it was so far to Bakke, and she was nearly collapsing with weariness. Then the monk offered to have the lay servant accompany her to the women’s hostel—“and give her a little calamus poultice for her feet; I see that they are sore.”

It was stuffy and dark at the women’s hostel, which stood outside the fence in the lane. The lay brother brought Kristin water to wash with and a little food, and she sat down near the hearth, trying to soothe her child. Naakkve could no doubt tell from her milk that his mother was worn out and had fasted all day. He fretted and whimpered in between attempts to suckle from her empty breasts. Kristin gulped down the milk that the lay brother brought her. She tried to squirt it from her mouth into the child’s, but the boy protested loudly at this new means of being fed, and the old man laughed and shook his head. She would have to drink it herself, and then it would benefit the boy.

Finally the man left. Kristin crept into one of the beds high up beneath the center roof beam. From there she could reach a hatch. There was a foul smell in the hostel—one of the women was in bed with a stomach ailment. Kristin opened the hatch. The summer night was bright and mild, the rain-washed air streamed down on her. She sat in the short bed with her head leaning back against the timbers of the wall; there were few pillows for the beds. The boy was asleep in her lap. She had meant to close the hatch after a moment, but she fell asleep.

In the middle of the night she woke up. The moon, a pale summery honey-gold, was shining down on her and the child and illuminating the opposite wall. At that moment Kristin became aware of a person standing in the midst of the stream of moonlight, hovering between the gable and the floor.

He was wearing an ash-gray monk’s cowl; he was tall and stooped. Then he turned his ancient, furrowed face toward her. It was Brother Edvin. His smile was so inexpressibly tender, and a little sly and merry, just as it was when he lived on this earth.

Kristin was not the least bit surprised. Humbly, joyfully, and filled with anticipation, she looked at him and waited for what he would say or do.

The monk laughed and held up a heavy old leather glove toward her; then he hung it on the moonbeam. He smiled even more, nodded to her, and then vanished.