Kristin Lavransdatter (156 page)

“My Jofrid is as well as she can be, you say? She looks pale, but I suppose you must know best. Sleep well in here, and may God’s peace be with you.”

 

One month after the birth of the boy, Gaute held a splendid christening feast, and his kinsmen came from far away to attend the celebration. Kristin assumed that Gaute had asked them to come in order to counsel him on his position; it was now spring, and he could soon expect to hear news from Jofrid’s kin.

Kristin had the joy of seeing Ivar and Skule come home together. And her cousins came to Jørundgaard too: Sigurd Kyrning, who was married to her uncle’s daughter from Skog, Ivar Gjesling of Ringheim, and Haavard Trondssøn. She hadn’t seen the Trondssøns since Erlend had brought misfortune down upon the men of Sundbu. Now they were older; they had always been carefree and reckless, but intrepid and magnanimous, and they hadn’t changed much at all. They greeted the sons of Erlend and Sir Sigurd, who was their cousin and successor at Sundbu, with a free and open manner befitting kinsmen. The ale and mead flowed in rivers in honor of little Erlend. Gaute and Jofrid welcomed their guests as unrestrainedly as if they had been wed and the king himself had married them. Everyone was joyous, and no one seemed to consider that the honor of these two young people was still at stake. But Kristin learned that Jofrid had not forgotten.

“The more bold and swaggering they are when they meet my father, the more easily he will comply,” she said. “And Olav Piper could never hide the fact that he would be pleased to sit on the same bench as men from the ancient lineages.”

The only one who did not seem to feel quite comfortable in this gathering of kin was Sir Jammælt Halvardssøn. King Magnus had made him a knight at Christmas; Ramborg Lavransdatter was now the wife of a knight.

This time Sir Jammælt had brought his eldest son, Andres Si monssøn, along with him. Kristin had asked him to do so the last time Jammælt came north, for she had heard a rumor that there was supposedly something strange about the boy. Then she grew terribly frightened; she wondered whether some harm might have been done to his soul or body because of what she had done in his behalf when he was a child. But his stepfather said no, the boy was healthy and strong, as good as gold, and perhaps cleverer than most people. But it was true that he had second sight. Sometimes he seemed to drift away, and when he came back, he would often do peculiar things. Such as the year before. One day he took his silver spoon, the one Kristin had given to him at his birth, and a torn shirt that had belonged to his father, and he left the manor and went down to a bridge that stretches across the river along the main road near Ælin. There he sat for many hours, waiting. Eventually three poor people came walking across the bridge: an old beggar and a young woman holding an infant. Andres went over and gave the things to them, and then asked if he might carry the child for the woman. Back home everyone was desperate with anguish when Andres didn’t appear for meals or by nightfall. They went out looking for him, and at last Jammælt heard that Andres had been seen far north in the next parish, in the company of a couple known as Krepp and Kraaka; he was carrying their infant. When Jammælt finally found the boy on the following day, Andres explained that he had heard a voice during mass on the previous Sunday while he was looking at the images painted on the front of the altar. It showed the Mother of God and Saint Joseph leaving the land of Egypt and carrying a child, and he wished that he had lived back then, for he would have asked to accompany them and carry the child for the Virgin Mary. Then he heard a voice, the gen tlest and sweetest voice in the world, and it promised to show him a sign if he would go out to Bjerkheim Bridge on a certain day.

Otherwise Andres was reluctant to speak of his visions, because their parish priest had said they were partly imagined and partly due to a confused and muddled state of mind, and he frightened his mother out of her wits with his strange ways. But he talked to an old servant woman, an exceedingly pious woman, and to a friar who used to wander through the countryside during Lent and Advent. The boy would doubtless choose the spiritual life, so Simon Simonssøn was sure to be the one who would settle at Formo when the time came. He was a healthy and lively child who looked a great deal like his father, and he was Ramborg’s favorite.

Ramborg and Jammælt had not yet had a child of their own. Kristin had heard from those who had seen Ramborg at Raumarike that she had grown quite fat and lazy. She kept company with the wealthiest and mightiest people in the south, but she never wanted to make the trip to her home valley, and Kristin hadn’t seen her only sister since they parted on that day at Formo. But Kristin was convinced that Ramborg’s resentment toward her remained unchanged. She got on well with Jammælt, and he tended to the well-being of his stepchildren with loving care. If he should die with no children of his own, he had arranged for the eldest son of the man who would inherit most of his property to marry Ulvhild Simonsdatter; in that way at least the daughter of Simon Darre would have some benefit from his inheritance. Arngjerd had married Grunde of Eiken the year after her father’s death; Gyrd Darre and Jammælt had provided her with a rich dowry, as they knew Simon would have wanted. And Jammælt said she was well. Grunde appeared to let his wife guide him in all manner of things, and they already had three handsome children.

Kristin was strangely moved when she saw Simon and Ramborg’s oldest son again. He was the living image of Lavrans Bjørg ulfsøn, even more than Gaute. And over the past few years Kristin had given up her belief that Gaute might be anything like her father in temperament.

Andres Darre was now twelve years old, tall and slender, fair and lovely and rather quiet, although he seemed robust and cheerful enough, with good physical abilities and a hearty appetite, except that he refused to eat meat. There was something that set him apart from other boys, but Kristin couldn’t say what it was, although she watched him closely. Andres became good friends with his aunt, but he never mentioned his visions, and he didn’t have any of his spells while in Sil.

 

The four sons of Erlend seemed to enjoy being together on their mother’s estate, but Kristin didn’t manage to talk much with her sons. When they were discussing things among themselves, she felt as if their lives and well-being had now slipped beyond her view. The two who came from far away had left their childhood home behind, and the two who lived on the manor were on the verge of taking its management out of her hands. The gathering took place in the midst of the springtime shortages, and she saw that Gaute must have been making preparations for it by rationing the fodder more strictly than usual that winter; he had also borrowed fodder from Sir Sigurd. But he had done all these things without consulting her. And all the advice regarding Gaute’s case was also presented without including her, even though she sat in the same room with the men.

For this reason she was not surprised when Ivar came to her one day and said that Lavrans would be leaving with him when he went back to Rognheim.

Ivar Erlendssøn also told his mother on another day that he thought she should move to Rognheim with him after Gaute was married. “Signe is a more amenable daughter-in-law to live with, I think. And it can’t possibly be easy for you to give up your charge of the household when you are used to running everything.” But otherwise he seemed to be fond of Jofrid—he and all the other men. Only Sir Jammælt seemed to regard her with some coolness.

Kristin sat with her little grandson on her lap, thinking that it wouldn’t be easy no matter where she was. It was difficult getting old. It seemed such a short time ago that she herself was the young woman, when it was her fate that prompted the clamor of the men’s counsel and strife. Now she had been pushed into the background. Not long ago her own sons had been just like this little boy. She recalled her dream about the newborn child. During this time the thought of her own mother often came to her; she couldn’t remember her mother except as an aging and melancholy woman. But she too had once been young, when she lay and warmed herself with the heat of her own body; her mother’s body and soul had also been marked in her youth by carrying and giving birth to her children. And doubtless she hadn’t given it any more thought than Kristin had when she sat with the sweet young life at her breast—that as long as they both should live, each day would take the child farther and farther away from her arms.

“After you had a child yourself, Kristin, I thought you would understand,” her mother had once said. Now she realized that her mother’s heart had been deeply etched with memories of her daughter, memories of her thoughts about the child from before she was born and from all the years the child could not remember, memories of fears and hopes and dreams that children would never know had been dreamed on their behalf, before it was their own turn to fear and hope and dream in secret.

Finally the gathering of kinsmen split up, and some went to stay with Jammælt at Formo while others accompanied Sigurd over to Vaagaa. Then one day two of Gaute’s leaseholders from the south of the valley came racing into the courtyard. The sheriff was on his way north to seek out Gaute at home, and the maiden’s father and kinsmen were with him. Young Lavrans ran straight to the stable. The next evening it looked as if an army had gathered at Jørund gaard; all of Gaute’s kinsmen were there along with their armed men, and his friends from the countryside had come as well.

Then Helge of Hovland arrived in a great procession to demand his rights from the man who had abducted his daughter. Kristin caught a glimpse of Helge Duk as he rode into the courtyard alongside Sir Paal Sørkvessøn, the sheriff himself. Jofrid’s father was an older, tall, and stoop-backed man who looked quite ill; it was evident that he limped when he got off his horse. Her sister’s husband, Olav Piper, was short, wide, and thickset; both his face and hair were red.

Gaute stepped forward to meet them, his posture erect and dignified, and behind him he had an entire phalanx of kinsmen and friends. They stood in a semicircle in front of the stairs to the high loft; in the middle were the two older gentlemen holding the rank of knight: Sir Sigurd and Sir Jammælt. Kristin and Jofrid watched the meeting from the entryway to the weaving room, but they couldn’t hear what was said.

The men went up to the loft, and the two women retreated inside the weaving room. Neither of them felt like talking. Kristin sat down near the hearth; Jofrid paced the floor, holding her child in her arms. They continued in this way for a while; then Jofrid wrapped a blanket around the boy and left the room with him. An hour later Jammælt Halvardssøn came in to find his wife’s sister sitting alone, and he told her what had happened.

Gaute had offered Helge Duk sixteen marks in gold for Jofrid’s honor and for taking her by force. This was the same amount that Helge’s brother had been given in restitution for the life of his son. Gaute would then wed Jofrid with her father’s consent and provide all the proper betrothal and wedding gifts, but in return Helge would have to accept Gaute and Jofrid with full reconciliation so that she would be given the same dowry as her sisters and share with them in the inheritance. Sir Sigurd, on behalf of Gaute’s kinsmen, offered a guarantee that he would keep to this agreement. Helge Duk seemed willing to accept this offer at once, but his sons-in-law—Olav Piper and Nerid Kaaressøn, who was betrothed to Aasa—voiced objections. They said Gaute must be the most arrogant of men if he dared to think he could set his own terms for his marriage to a maiden he had shamed while she was at her brother-in-law’s manor and had then been taken by force. Or to demand that she be allowed to share the inheritance with her sisters.

It was easy to see, said Jammælt, that Gaute was not pleased he would have to haggle over the price for marrying a highborn maiden whom he had seduced and who had now given birth to his son. But it was also easy to see that he had learned his lessons and prayers by heart, so he didn’t have to read them out of a book.

In the midst of the discussion, as friends on both sides attempted to mediate, Jofrid came into the room with the child in her arms. Then her father broke down and could no longer hold back his tears. And so the matter was decided as she wished.

It was clear that Gaute could never have paid such a fine, but Jofrid’s dowry was set at the same amount, so things came out even. The result of the meeting was that Gaute won Jofrid but received little more than what she had brought in her sacks when she arrived at Jørundgaard. But he gave her documents for almost all that he owned as betrothal and wedding gifts, and his brothers gave their assent. One day he would acquire great riches from her—provided their marriage was not childless, said Ivar Gjesling with a laugh, and the other men laughed too. But Kristin blushed crimson because Jammælt sat there listening to all the coarse jests that were uttered.

The next day Gaute Erlendssøn was betrothed to Jofrid Helgesdatter, and afterward she went to church for the first time after the birth, honored as if she had been a married woman. Sira Dag said she was entitled to this. Then she went to Sundbu with the child and remained under Sir Sigurd’s protection until the wedding.

It took place a month later, just after Saint Jon’s Day, and it was both beautiful and grand. The following morning Kristin Lavransdatter, with great ceremony, gave her keys to her son, and Gaute then fastened the ring to his wife’s belt.

Afterward Sir Sigurd Eldjarn held a great banquet at Sundbu, and there he and his cousins, the former Sundbu men, solemnly swore and sealed a vow of friendship. Sir Sigurd generously presented costly gifts from his estate, both to the Gjeslings and to all his guests, according to how close they were as kin or friends—drinking horns, eating vessels, jewelry, weapons, furs, and horses. People then judged that Gaute Erlendssøn had brought this matter of abducting his bride to the most honorable of ends.