Kristin Lavransdatter

  “I know it looks strange,” she told him, “but I think it would look even stranger if we should visit my sister now, when the master of this estate is not home and people know that there’s animosity between him and you.”

  Then Simon said no more, and soon after he and his men took their leave.

  The week preceding Ascension Day arrived with a terrible storm, and on Tuesday word spread from farm to farm in the north of the region that the floods had now carried off the bridge up in Rost Gorge, which people crossed when they went up to the Høvring pastures. They began to fear for the big bridge south of the church. It was solidly built of the roughest timbers, with a high arch in the middle, and was supported underneath with thick posts that were sunk into the riverbed. But now the waters were flooding over the bridgeheads where they joined the banks, and beneath the vault of the bridge all kinds of debris that had been brought by the currents from the north were piling up. The Laag had now overflowed the low embankments on both shores, and in one place the water had accumulated across Jørundgaard’s fields like in a cove, almost reaching the buildings. There was a hollow in the pastures and in the middle was the roof of the smithy, and the tops of the trees looked like little islands. The barn on the islet had already been swept away.

  Very few people attended church from the farms on the east side of the river. They were afraid the bridge would be washed away and they wouldn’t be able to get back home. But up on the other shore, on the slope beneath Laugarbru’s barn, where there was some shelter from the storm, a dark cluster of people could be glimpsed through the gusts of snow. It was rumored that Sira Eirik had said he would carry the cross over the bridge and set it on the east bank of the river, even if no one dared follow him.

  A squall of snow rushed toward the procession of people coming out of the church. The flakes formed slanting streaks in the air. Only a glimmer of the valley was visible: here and there a scrap of the darkening lake where the fields usually lay, the rush of clouds sweeping over the scree-covered slopes and the lobes of forest, and glimpses of the mountain peaks against the billowing clouds high overhead. The air was sated with the clamor of the river, rising and falling, with the roar from the forests, and with the howl of the wind. Occasionally a muffled crash could be heard, echoing the storm’s fury from the mountains and the thunder of an avalanche of new snow.

  The candles were blown out as soon as they were carried beyond the church gallery. That day fully grown young men had donned the white shirts of choirboys. The wind whipped at their garments. They walked along in a large group, carrying the banner with their hands, gripping the fabric so the wind wouldn’t shred it to pieces as the procession leaned forward, struggling across the slope in the wind. But now and then, above the raging of the storm, the sound of Sira Eirik’s resonant voice could be heard as he fought his way forward and sang:

  Venite: revertamur ad Dominum; quia ipse cepit & sanabit nos: percutiet, & curabit nos, & vivemus in conspectu ejus. Sciemus sequemurque, ut cognoscamus Dominum. Alleluia.1

  Kristin stopped, along with all the other women, when the procession reached the place where the water had overflowed the road, but the white-clad young boys, the deacons, and the priests were already up on the bridge, and almost all the men followed; the water came up to their knees.

  The bridge shuddered and shook, and then the women noticed that an entire house was rushing from the north toward the bridge. It churned around and around in the current as it was carried along, partially shattered, with its timbers jutting out, but still managing to stay in one piece. The woman from Ulvsvold clung to Kristin Lavransdatter and moaned loudly; her husband’s two nearly grown-up brothers were among the choirboys. Kristin screamed without words to the Virgin Mary, fixing her gaze on the group in the middle of the bridge where she could discern the white-clad figure of Naakkve among the men holding the banner. The women thought they could still hear Sira Eirik’s voice, almost drowned out by the din.

  He paused at the crest of the bridge and lifted the cross high up as the house struck. The bridge shuddered and swayed; to the people on both shores, it looked as if it had dipped slightly to the south. Then the procession moved on, disappearing behind the curved arch of the bridge and then reappearing on the opposite shore. The wreckage of the house had become tangled up in the heaps of other flotsam caught in the underpinnings of the bridge.

  All of a sudden, like a miracle, silvery light began seeping from the windblown masses of clouds; a dull gleam like molten lead spread over the whole expanse of the swollen river. The haze lifted, the clouds scattered, the sun broke through, and as the procession came back over the bridge, the rays glittered on the cross. On the wet white alb of the priest, the crossed stripes of his stole shimmered a wondrous purple. The valley lay gilded and sparkling with moisture, as if at the bottom of a dark blue grotto, for the storm clouds had gathered around the mountain ridges and, brought low by the rays of the sun, had turned the heights black. The haze fled between the peaks, and the great crest above Formo reached up from the darkness, dazzling white with new snow.

  She had seen Naakkve walk past. The drenched garments clung to the boys as they sang at the top of their lungs to the sunshine:

  Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes. Kyrie, eleison, Christe, eleison, Christe, audi nos—.2

  The priests with the cross had gone past; the group of farmers followed in their heavy, soaked clothing, but looking around them at the weather with amazed and shining faces as they took up the prayer’s refrain: Kyrie eleison!

  Suddenly she saw . . . She couldn’t believe her own eyes, and now it was her turn to grab hold of the woman next to her for support. There was Erlend walking along in the procession; he was wearing a dripping wet coat made of reindeer hide with the hood pulled over his head. But it was him. His lips were slightly parted, and he was crying, Kyrie eleison, along with the others. He looked right at her as he walked past. She couldn’t properly decipher the expression on his face, but it looked as if he wore a shadow of a smile.

  Together with the other women, she joined the procession as it moved up the church hill, calling out with the others as the young boys sang the litany. She was unaware of anything except the wild pounding of her own heart.

  During the mass she caught a glimpse of him only once. She didn’t dare stand in her customary place but hid in the darkness of the north nave.

  As soon as the service was over, she rushed outdoors. She fled from her maids who had been in church. Outside, the countryside was steaming in the sunshine. Kristin raced home without noticing the sodden state of the road.

  She spread a cloth over the table and set a full horn of mead before the master’s high seat before she took time to exchange her wet clothes for her Sabbath finery: the dark blue, embroidered gown, silver belt, buckled shoes, and the wimple with the blue border. Then she knelt in the alcove. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t find the words she sought; over and over again she said the Ave Maria: Blessed Lady, dear Lord, son of the Virgin, you know what I want to say.

  This went on for a long time. From her maids she heard that the men had gone back to the bridge; with broadaxes and hooks they were trying to remove the tangle of debris that had gotten caught. It was a matter of saving the bridge. The priests had also gone back after they had taken off their vestments.

  It was well past midday when the men returned: Kristin’s sons, Ulf Haldorssøn, and the three servants—an old man and two youths who had been given refuge on the manor.

  Naakkve had already sat down at his place, to the right of the high seat. Suddenly he stood up, stepped forward, and rushed for the door.

  Kristin softly called out his name.

  A moment later he came back and sat down. The color came and went in his young face; he kept his eyes lowered, and now and then he had to bite his lip. His mother saw that he was struggling hard to master his feelings, but he managed to do so.

  Finally the meal came to an end. Her sons, who were seated on the inner ben
ch, rose to their feet and came around the end of the table past the vacant high seat, adjusting their belts as they usually did after they had put their knives back in their sheaths. Then they left the room.

  When they had all gone, Kristin followed. In the sunshine, water was now streaming off all the eaves. There wasn’t a soul in the courtyard except for Ulf; he was standing on the doorstep to his own house.

  His face took on an oddly helpless expression when the mistress approached him. He didn’t speak, and so she asked quietly, “Did you talk to him?”

  “Only a few words. I saw that he and Naakkve talked.”

  After a moment he went on, “He was a little worried . . . about all of you . . . when the flooding got this bad. So he decided to head home to see how things were. Naakkve told him how you were handling everything.

  “I don’t know how he happened to hear about it . . . that you gave away the pelts he sent with Gaute in the fall. He was cross about that. Also when he heard that you had rushed home right after the mass; he thought you would have stayed to talk to him.”

  Kristin didn’t say a word; she turned on her heel and went back inside.

  That summer there were constant quarrels and strife between Ulf Haldorssøn and his wife. The son of Ulf’s half brother, Haldor Jonssøn, had come to visit his kinsman in the spring, along with his wife; he had been married the year before. It was understood that Haldor would now lease the estate Ulf owned in Skaun and move there on turnover day.3 But Jardtrud was angry because she thought Ulf had given his nephew conditions that were too good, and she saw that it was the men’s intention to ensure for Haldor, perhaps through some kind of agreement, inheritance of the estate after his uncle’s death.

  Haldor had been Kristin’s personal servant at Husaby, and she was very fond of the young man. She also liked his wife, who was a quiet and proper young woman. Shortly after Midsummer the couple had a son, and Kristin lent the wife her weaving house, where the mistresses of the estate used to reside whenever they gave birth. But Jardtrud took offense that Kristin herself should attend the woman as the foremost of the midwives, even though Jardtrud was young and quite inexperienced, unable to offer help with a birth or with caring for a newborn infant.

  Kristin was the boy’s godmother, and Ulf gave the christening banquet, but Jardtrud thought he lavished too much on it and put too many costly gifts in the cradle and in the mother’s bed. To placate his wife somewhat, Ulf gave her several precious items from among his own possessions: a gilded cross on a chain, a fur-lined cape with a large silver clasp, a gold ring, and a silver brooch. But she saw that he refused to present her with a single parcel of land that he owned, aside from what he had given her when they married. Everything else would go to his half siblings if he himself had no offspring. Now Jardtrud lamented that her child had been stillborn, and it seemed unlikely that she would have any more; she was ridiculed throughout the countryside because she talked about this to everyone.

  Ulf had to ask Kristin to allow Haldor and Audhild to live in the hearth house after the young wife had gone to church for the first time after giving birth. Kristin gladly consented. She avoided Haldor because she was reminded of so many things that were painful to think about whenever she spoke with her former servant. But she talked a great deal with his wife, for Audhild wanted to help Kristin as much as she could. Toward the end of the summer the child fell gravely ill, and then Kristin stepped in to tend the boy for his young and inexperienced mother.

  When the couple journeyed north in the fall, she missed them both, but she missed the child even more. She realized it was foolish, but in recent years she couldn’t help feeling some measure of pain because she suddenly seemed to be barren—and yet she wasn’t an old woman, not even forty.

  It had helped to keep her thoughts off painful matters when she had the childish young wife and her infant to care for and advise. And even though she found it sad to see that Ulf Haldorssøn had not found greater happiness in his marriage, the state of affairs in the foreman’s house had also served to divert her thoughts from other things.

  After the way Erlend had behaved on Ascension Day, she hardly dared to speculate anymore about how the whole situation might end. The fact that he had appeared in the village and the church in full view of everyone and then had raced northward again without speaking a single word of greeting to his wife seemed to her so heartless that she felt as if she had at last grown completely indifferent toward him.

  She had not exchanged a word with Simon Andressøn since the day of the spring floods when he came to help her. She would greet him and often speak a few words to her sister at church. But she had no idea what they thought about her affairs or the fact that Erlend had gone away to Dovre.

  On the Sunday before Saint Bartholomew’s Day, Sir Gyrd of Dyfrin came to church with the people from Formo. Simon looked immensely happy as he went inside for mass at his brother’s side. And Ramborg came over to Kristin after the service, eagerly whispering that she was with child again and expected to give birth around the Feast of the Virgin Mary in the spring.

  “Kristin, sister, can’t you come home and celebrate with us to day?”

  Kristin shook her head sadly, patted the young woman’s pale cheek, and prayed that God might bring the parents joy. But she said that she couldn’t go to Formo.

  After the falling-out with his brother-in-law, Simon tried to make himself believe that it was for the best. His position was such that he didn’t need to ask how people might judge his actions in everything; he had helped Erlend and Kristin when it mattered, and the assistance he could offer them here in the parish was not so important that he should allow it to make his own life more complicated.

  But when he heard that Erlend had left Jørundgaard, it was impossible for Simon to sustain the stubborn, melancholy calm he had striven to display. It was useless to tell himself that no one fully understood what lay behind Erlend’s absence; people chattered so much but knew so little. Even so, he couldn’t get himself mixed up in this matter. But he was still uneasy. At times he wondered whether he ought to seek out Erlend at Haugen and take back the words he had said when they parted; then he could see about finding some way to return order to the affairs of his brother-in-law and his wife’s sister. But Simon never got any farther than thinking about this.

  He didn’t think anyone could tell from looking at him that his heart was uneasy. He lived as he always had, running his farm and managing his properties; he was merry and drank boldly in the company of friends; he went up to the mountains to hunt when he had time and spoiled his children when he was home. And never was an unkind word spoken between him and his wife. For the servants of the manor it must have looked as if the friendship between Ramborg and him was now better than it had ever been, since his wife was more even-tempered and calm, never exhibiting those fits of capriciousness and childish anger over petty matters. But secretly Simon felt awkward and uncertain in his wife’s company; he could no longer make himself treat her as if she were still half a child, teasing and pampering her. He didn’t know how he should treat her anymore.

  Neither did he know how to take it when she told him one evening that she was again with child.

  “I suppose you’re not particularly happy about it, are you?” he finally said, stroking her hand.

  “But surely you are happy, aren’t you?” Ramborg pressed close to him, half crying and half laughing. He laughed, a little embarrassed, as he pulled her into his arms.

  “I’ll be sensible this time, Simon; I won’t behave the way I did before. But you must stay with me, do you hear me? Even if all your brothers-in-law and all your brothers were to be led off to the gallows, one after the other, with their hands bound, you mustn’t leave me!”

  Simon laughed sadly. “Where would I go, my Ramborg? Geirmund, that poor creature, isn’t likely to get mixed up in any weighty matters, and he’s the only one left among my friends and kinsmen that I haven’t quarreled with yet.”

  “Oh
. . .” Ramborg laughed too as her tears fell. “That enmity will last only until they need a helping hand and you think you can offer it. I know you too well by now, my husband.”

  Two weeks later Gyrd Andressøn unexpectedly arrived at the manor. The Dyfrin knight had brought only a single man as an escort.

  The meeting between the brothers took place with few words spoken. Sir Gyrd explained that he hadn’t seen his sister and brother-in-law at Kruke in all these years, and so he had decided to come north to visit them. Since he was in the valley, Sigrid felt he should also visit Formo. “And I thought, brother, that surely you couldn’t be so angry with me that you wouldn’t offer me and my servant food and lodging until tomorrow.”

  “You know I will,” said Simon as he stood looking down, his face dark red. “It was . . . noble of you, Gyrd, to come to see me.”

  The brothers walked through the fields after they had eaten. The grain was starting to turn pale on the slopes facing the sun, down by the river. The weather was so beautiful. The Laag now glittered gently enough, visible as little white flashes amid the alder trees. Big, glossy clouds drifted across the summer sky; sunshine filled the entire basin of the valley, and the mountain on the other side looked light blue and green in the shimmer of heat and the fleeting shadows of the clouds.

  A pounding sound came from the pasture behind them as the horses trampled across the dry hillside; the herd came rushing through the alder thickets. Simon leaned over the fence. “Foal, foal . . . Bronstein’s getting old, isn’t he?” he said as Gyrd’s horse poked his head over the rail and nudged his shoulder.

  “Eighteen winters.” Gyrd stroked the horse. “I thought, kinsman, that this matter . . . It wouldn’t be right if it should end the friendship between you and me,” he said without looking at his brother.