Kristin Lavransdatter (71 page)

While the others feared for Kristin’s life, processions of beggars on their way to Nidaros just before Saint Olav’s Day began to pass through the region. They were mostly the same wandering men and women who had made the journey the year before; the pilgrims in Nidaros were always generous to the poor, since intercessions of this kind were considered particularly powerful. And they had learned to travel by way of Skaun during the years since Kristin had settled at Husaby. They knew that there on the estate they would be given shelter, alms, and an abundance of food before they continued on. This time the servants wanted to send them away because the mistress was ill. But when Erlend, who had been up north the last two summers, heard that his wife was accustomed to receiving the beggars so kindly, he ordered that they should be given food and lodging, just as they had before. And in the morning he himself tended to the wanderers, helping the servants to pour the ale and bring in food for them; he gave them alms as he quietly asked for their prayers of intercession for his wife. Many of the beggars wept when they heard that the gentle young woman lay close to death.

All of this Sira Eiliv had told Kristin when she began to regain her health. Not until Christmastime was she strong enough to take up her keys again.

Erlend had sent word to her parents as soon as she fell ill, but at the time they were in the south, attending a wedding at Skog. Later they came to Husaby; she was better by then, but so tired that she had little energy to talk to them. What she wanted most was simply to have Erlend at her bedside.

Weak and pale and always cold, she would cling to his healthy body. The old fire in her blood had gone. It had disappeared so completely that she could no longer remember how it felt to love in that way, but with it had also vanished the worry and bitterness from the past few years. She felt that things were better now, even though the sorrow over Orm’s death lay heavily on both of them, and even though Erlend didn’t realize how frightened she was for little Gaute. But things were so good between them. She saw that he had feared terribly that he might lose her.

And so it was difficult and painful for her to speak to him, to touch on matters that might destroy the peace and joy they now shared.

 

She was standing outside in the bright summer night, in front of the entrance to the main house, when the servants returned from the dance. Margret was clinging to her father’s arm. She was dressed and adorned in a fashion that would have been more suited to a wedding feast than to a dance out on the green, where all manner of folk came together. But her stepmother had stopped interfering in the maiden’s upbringing. Erlend could do as he pleased in raising his own daughter.

Erlend and Margret were both thirsty, so Kristin brought ale for them. The girl sat and talked with them for a while; she and her stepmother were good friends now that Kristin no longer attempted to instruct her. Erlend laughed at everything his daughter said about the dance. But finally Margret and her maid went up to the loft to sleep.

Erlend continued roaming around the hall; he stretched, yawned, but claimed he wasn’t tired. He ran his fingers through his long black hair.

“There wasn’t time for it after we were in the bathhouse. Because of the dance. I think you’ll have to cut my hair, Kristin; I can’t walk around like this during the holy days.”

Kristin protested that it was too dark, but Erlend laughed and pointed to the vent hole in the ceiling; it was already daylight again. Then she relit the candle, told him to sit down, and draped a cloth around his shoulders. As she worked, he squirmed from the tickling, and laughed when the scissors came too close to his neck.

Kristin carefully gathered up the hair clippings and burned them in the hearth; she shook out the cloth over the fire as well. Then she combed Erlend’s hair straight down from his scalp and snipped here and there, wherever the ends weren’t quite even.

Erlend grabbed her hands tightly as she stood behind him, placed them at his throat, and smiled as he tilted his head back to look up at her.

But then he let her go, saying, “You’re tired.” And he stood up with a little sigh.

 

Erlend sailed to Bjørgvin right after Midsummer. He was disconsolate because his wife was again unable to travel with him. She smiled wearily; all the same, she wouldn’t have been able to leave Gaute.

And so Kristin was once again alone at Husaby in the summer. But she was glad that this year she wouldn’t give birth until Saint Matthew’s Day; it would be difficult both for her and for the women who would attend her if it occurred during the harvest season.

She wondered whether it would always be this way. Times were different now than when she was growing up. She had heard her father speak of the Danish war, and she remembered when he was away from home during the campaign against Duke Eirik. That was how he got the terrible scars on his body. But back home in the valleys, war had still seemed so far away, and no doubt most people thought it would never return. It was mostly peaceful, and her father was home, managing his estates, and thinking about and caring for all of them.

Nowadays there was always unrest—everyone talked about wars and campaigns and the ruling of the kingdom. In Kristin’s mind it all merged with her image of the sea and the coast, which she had seen only once since she had moved north. From the coast they sailed and to the coast they came—men whose heads were full of ideas and plans and counterplots and deliberations; clergymen and laymen. To these men belonged Erlend, by virtue of his high birth and his wealth. But she felt that he stood partially outside their circles.

She pondered and thought about this. What was it that caused her husband to have such a position? How did his peers truly regard him?

When he was simply the man she loved, she had never asked about such things. She could see that he was short-tempered and impetuous and rash, that he had a particular penchant for acting unwisely. But back then she had found excuses for everything, never troubling to think about what his temperament might bring upon them both. When they had won her father’s consent to marry, everything would be different—that was how she had consoled herself. Gradually it dawned on her that it was from the moment a child was born to them that she began to think about things. What kind of man was Erlend, whom people called irresponsible and imprudent, a man whom no one could trust?

But she had trusted him. She remembered Brynhild’s loft, she remembered how the bond between him and that other woman had finally been severed. She remembered his conduct after she had become his lawful bride. But he had stood by her in spite of all the humiliations and rejections; and she had seen that he did not want to lose her for all the gold on earth.

She thought about Haftor of Godøy. He was always following her around, speaking words of nonsense and affection whenever they met, but she had never cared for his attentions. That must be his way of jesting. She didn’t think it was more than that; she had been fond of the handsome and boisterous man, and she was still fond of him. But to think that anyone would act that way in mere jest—no, she didn’t understand it.

She had met Haftor Graut again at the royal banquets in Nidaros, and he sought out her company there too, just as he usually did. One evening he convinced her to go into a loft room, and she lay down with him on a bed that stood there. Back home in Gudbrandsdal she would never have thought of doing such a thing—there it was not a banquet custom for men and women to slip away, two by two. But here everyone did it; no one seemed to find it improper—it was apparently common practice among knights in other countries. When they first entered the room, Fru Elin, the wife of Sir Erling, was lying on the other bed with a Swedish knight; Kristin could hear that they were talking about the king’s earache. The Swede looked pleased when Fru Elin wanted to get up and go back to the hall.

When Kristin realized that Haftor was quite serious about the intentions behind his request as they lay there and talked, she was so astonished that she failed to be either frightened or suitably indignant. They were both married, after all, and they both had children with their spouses. She had never truly believed that such things actually went on. In spite of all she herself had done and experienced—no, she hadn’t believed that such things happened. Haftor had always been merry and affectionate and full of laughter. She couldn’t say that what he wanted was to try to seduce her; he hadn’t been serious enough for that. And yet he wanted her to commit the worst of sins.

He got off the bed the minute she told him to go. He had turned submissive, but he seemed more surprised than ashamed. And he asked in utter disbelief: Did she truly think that married people were never unfaithful? But she must know that few men could admit to never having a paramour. Women were perhaps a little better than the men, and yet . . .

“Did you believe everything the priests preach about sin and the like even back when you were a young maiden?” he asked. “Then I don’t understand, Kristin Lavransdatter, how Erlend ever managed to have his way with you.”

Then he had looked into her eyes—and her eyes must have spoken, although she wouldn’t have discussed this matter with Haftor for any amount of gold. But his voice rang with amazement as he said, “I thought that was only something they wrote about—in ballads.”

Kristin had not mentioned this episode to anyone, not even Erlend. He was fond of Haftor. And of course it was dreadful that some people could behave as recklessly as Haftor Graut, but she couldn’t see that it was any concern of hers. And he hadn’t attempted to be overly familiar toward her since then. Now whenever they met, he would simply sit and stare at her with obvious astonishment in his sea-blue eyes.

 

No, if Erlend behaved rashly, it was not in that fashion, at any rate. And was he truly so imprudent? she wondered. She saw that people were startled by things he said, and afterwards they would put their heads together to talk. There was often much that was truthful and just in the opinions that Erlend Nikulaussøn expressed. The problem was that he never saw what the other men never allowed to slip from view: the cautious hindsight with which they kept an eye on each other. Intrigue, Erlend called it, and then he would laugh insolently, which seemed to provoke people at first but eventually won them over. They would laugh too, slap him on the shoulder, and say that he could be sharp-witted enough, but short-sighted.

Then he would undo his own words with raucous and impudent banter. And people tolerated a great deal of this sort of behavior from Erlend. His wife was dimly aware of why everyone put up with his reckless talk, and it made her feel humiliated. For Erlend would yield as soon as he encountered any man who held firm to his own opinion; even if he understood no more than that this opinion was foolish, Erlend would nevertheless relinquish his own view on the matter. But he covered his retreat with disrespectful gossip about the man. And people were satisfied that Erlend had this cowardice of spirit—reckless as he was with his own welfare, adventurous, and boldly enamored of any danger that could be faced with armed force. All the same, they had no need to worry about Erlend Nikulaussøn.

The year before, toward the end of winter, the regent had come to Nidaros, and he had brought the young king along with him. Kristin attended the grand feast at the king’s palace. With quiet dignity, wearing a silk wimple and with all her best jewelry adorning her red bridal gown, she had sat there among the most high born women at the banquet. With alert eyes she studied her husband’s conduct among the men, watching and listening and pondering—just as she watched and listened and pondered wherever she went with Erlend, and wherever she noticed that people were talking about him.

And she had learned several things. Sir Erling Vidkunssøn was willing to risk every effort to assert the right of the Norwegian Crown north to the Gandvik Sea, to defend and protect Haalogaland. But the Council and the knights opposed him and were reluctant to support any endeavor that might help. The archbishop himself and the clergy of the archdiocese were not unwilling to offer financial support—this she knew from Gunnulf—but otherwise the men of the Church all over the country were opposed to the war, even though it was against the enemies of God: heretics and heathens. And the noblemen were working against the regent, at least here in Trøndelag. They had grown accustomed to disregarding the words of the law books and the rights of the Crown, and they were not pleased that Sir Erling so sternly invoked the spirit of his blessed kinsman King Haakon in these matters. But it was not for these reasons that Erlend refused to allow himself to be used, as Kristin now understood that the regent had intended to use her husband. For Erlend it was simply because the other man’s somber and dignified demeanor bored him, so he took revenge by lightly ridiculing his powerful kinsman.

Kristin now thought she understood Sir Erling’s attitude toward Erlend. On the one hand, he had felt a certain affection for Erlend ever since their youth; no doubt he thought that if he could win the support of the noble and fearless master of Husaby, who also had some experience in the art of war from the days when he served Earl Jacob—at any rate more than most of the other men who had stayed at home—then it would be of benefit to both Erling Vidkunssøn’s plans and to Erlend’s welfare. But that’s not how things had turned out.

For two summers Erlend had stayed out at sea until late autumn, patrolling the waters off the long northern coast and chasing off pirate vessels with the four small ships that bore his banner. One day he had arrived in search of fresh provisions at a new Norwegian settlement far north in Tana just as the Karelians
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were in the process of plundering it. With the handful of men he had brought ashore, he captured eighteen of the pirates and hanged them from the roof beam in the half-burned barn. He cut down a troop of Russians attempting to flee into the mountains; he vanquished and burned several enemy ships somewhere out among the distant skerries. Rumors of his speed and boldness spread through the north; his men from Outer Trøndelag and Møre loved their chieftain for his toughness and his willingness to share in all the toil and travails of his crew. He had won friends among the peasants and the young sons on the estates of the chieftains up north in Haalogaland, where people had almost grown accustomed to having to defend their own coasts alone.