Sira Solmund replied, “It has been said on every estate and in every hovel throughout the countryside that the child was conceived in adultery and with blood guilt, by the mistress and her overseer. And it seems to us hardly credible that she did not know of this rumor herself.”
The bishop was about to speak, but Kristin said, in a loud and firm voice, “So help me Almighty God, the Virgin Mary, Saint Olav, and the archbishop Saint Thomas, I did not know this lie was being said about us.”
“Then it’s hard to understand why you felt such a need to conceal the fact that you were with child,” said the priest. “You hid from everyone and barely came out of your house all winter.”
“It’s been a long time since I had any friends among the farmers of this parish; I’ve had so little to do with anyone here over the past few years. And yet I didn’t know until now that everyone seems to be my foe. But I came to church on every Sabbath,” she said.
“Yes, and you wrapped yourself up in cloaks and dressed so that no one might see you were growing big under your belt.”
“As any woman would do; surely any woman would want to look decent in the company of other people,” replied Kristin curtly.
The priest continued, “If the child was your husband’s, as you say, then surely you wouldn’t have tended to the infant so poorly that you caused him to die of neglect.”
One of the young priests from Hamar quickly stepped forward and caught hold of Kristin. A moment later she stood as she had before, pale and straight-backed. She thanked the priest with a nod of her head.
Sira Solmund vehemently declared, “That’s what the servingwomen at Jørundgaard said. My sister, who has been to the manor, witnessed it herself. The mistress went about with her breasts bursting with milk, so that her clothing was soaked through. But any woman who saw the boy’s body can testify that he died of starvation.”
Bishop Halvard put up his hand. “That’s enough, Sira Solmund. We will keep to the matter at hand, which is whether Jardtrud Herbrandsdatter had any other basis for her claims when she brought her case against her husband than that she had heard rumors, which the mistress here says are lies. And whether Kristin can dispute these rumors. Surely no one would claim that she laid hands on the child . . .”
But Kristin stood there, her face pale, and did not speak.
The bishop said to the parish priest, “But you, Sira Solmund, it was your duty to speak to this woman and let her know what was being said. Haven’t you done so?”
The priest blushed. “I have said heartfelt prayers for this woman, that she might willingly give up her stubborn ways and seek remorse and repentance. Her father was not my friend,” said the priest heatedly. “And yet I know that Lavrans of Jørundgaard was a righteous man and a firm believer. No doubt he might have deserved better, but this daughter of his has brought shame after shame upon him. She was barely a grown maiden before her loose ways caused two boys here in the parish to die. Then she broke her promise and betrothal to a fine and splendid knight’s son, whom her father had chosen to be her husband, and forced her own will, using dishonorable means, to win this man, who you, my Lord, know full well was condemned as a traitor and betrayer of the Crown. But I thought that at last her heart would have to soften when she saw how she was hated and scorned—she and all her family—and with the worst of reputations, living there at Jørundgaard, where her father and Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter had enjoyed the respect and love of everyone.
“But it was too much when she brought her son here today to be confirmed, and that man was supposed to present the boy to you when the whole parish knows that she lives with him in both adultery and blood guilt.”
The bishop gestured for the other man to be silent.
“How closely related is Ulf Haldorssøn to your husband?” he asked Kristin.
“Ulf’s rightful father was Sir Baard Petersøn of Hestnes. He had the same mother as his half brother Gaute Erlendssøn of Skogheim, who was Erlend Nikulaussøn’s maternal grandfather.”
Lord Halvard turned impatiently to Sira Solmund, “There is no blood guilt; her mother-in-law and Ulf are cousins. It would be a breach of kinship ties and a grave sin if it were true, but you need not make it any worse than that.”
“Ulf Haldorssøn is godfather to this woman’s eldest son,” said Sira Solmund.
The bishop looked at her, and Kristin answered, “Yes, my Lord.”
Lord Halvard sat in silence for a while.
“May God help you, Kristin Lavransdatter,” he said sorrowfully. “I knew your father in the past; I was his guest at Jørundgaard in my youth. I remember that you were a lovely, innocent child. If Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn had been alive, this would never have happened. Think of your father, Kristin. For his sake, you must put aside this shame and cleanse yourself, if you can.”
In a flash the memory came back to her; she recognized the bishop. A winter’s day at sunset . . . a red, rearing colt in the courtyard and a priest with a fringe of black hair around his flaming red face. Hanging on to the halter, splattered with froth, he was trying to tame the wild animal and climb on to its back without a saddle. Groups of drunken, laughing Christmas guests were crowding around, her father among them, red-faced from liquor and the cold, shouting loudly and merrily.
She turned toward Kolbein Jonssøn.
“Kolbein! You who have known me ever since I wore a child’s cap, you who knew me and my sisters back home with my father and mother . . . I know that you were so fond of my father that you . . . Kolbein, do you believe such a thing of me?”
The farmer Kolbein looked at her, his face stern and sorrowful. “Fond of your father, you say . . . Yes, we who were his men, poor servants and commoners who loved Lavrans of Jørundgaard and thought he was the kind of man that God wanted a chieftain to be . . .
“Don’t ask us, Kristin Lavransdatter, we who saw how your father loved you and how you rewarded his love, what we think you might be capable of doing!”
Kristin bowed her head to her breast. The bishop couldn’t get another word out of her; she would no longer answer his questions.
Then Lord Halvard stood up. Next to the high altar was a small door which led to the enclosed section of the gallery behind the apse of the choir. Part of it was used as the sacristy, and part of it was furnished with several little hatches through which the lepers could receive the Host when they stood out there and listened to the mass, separated from the rest of the congregation. But no one in the parish had suffered from leprosy for many years.
“Perhaps it would be best if you waited out there, Kristin, until everyone has come inside for the service. I want to talk to you later, but in the meantime you may go home to your family.”
Kristin curtsied before the bishop. “I would rather go home now, venerable Lord, with your permission.”
“As you please, Mistress Lavransdatter. May God protect you, Kristin. If you are guilty, then they will plead your defense: God Himself and His martyrs who are the lords of the church here: Saint Olav and Saint Thomas, who died for the sake of righteousness.”
Kristin curtsied once more before the bishop. Then she went through the priest’s door out into the cemetery.
A small boy wearing a new red tunic stood there all alone, his bearing stiff and erect. Munan tilted his pale child’s face up toward his mother for a moment, his eyes big and frightened.
Her sons . . . She hadn’t thought about them before. In a flash she saw her flock of boys: the way they had stood at the periphery of her life during the past years, crowding together like a herd of horses in a thunderstorm, alert and wary, far away from her as she struggled through the final death throes of her love. What had they understood, what had they thought, what had they endured as she wrestled with her passion? What would become of them now?
She held Munan’s small, scrubbed fist in her hand. The child stared straight ahead; his lips quivered slightly, but he held his head high.
Hand in hand Kristin Lavransdatter and her son walked
across the churchyard and out onto the hillside. She thought about her sons, and she felt as if she would break down and collapse on the ground. The throngs of people moved toward the church door, as the bells rang from the nearby bell tower.
She had once heard a saga about a murdered man who couldn’t fall to the ground because he had so many spears in his body. She couldn’t fall as she walked along because of all the eyes piercing through her.
Mother and child entered the high loft room. Her sons were huddled around Bjørgulf, who was sitting at the table. Naakkve straightened up and stood over his brothers, with one hand on the shoulder of the half-blind boy. Kristin looked at the narrow, dark, blue-eyed visage of her firstborn son, with the soft, downy black beard around his mouth.
“You know about it?” she asked calmly, walking over to the group.
“Yes.” Naakkve spoke for all of them. “Gunhild was at church.”
Kristin paused for a moment. The other boys turned back to their eldest brother, until their mother asked, “Did any of you know that such things were being said in the countryside—about Ulf and me?”
Then Ivar Erlendssøn abruptly turned to face her. “Don’t you think you would have heard the clamor of our actions if we had? I know I couldn’t have sat still and let my mother be branded an adulteress—not even if I knew it was true that she was!”
Kristin gazed at them sorrowfully. “I wonder, my sons, what you must have thought about everything that has happened here over the last few years.”
The boys stood in silence. Then Bjørgulf lifted his face and looked up at his mother with his failing eyes. “Jesus Christus, Mother, what were we supposed to think? This past year and all the other years before that! Do you think it was easy for us to figure out what to think?”
Naakkve said, “Oh yes, Mother. I know I should have talked to you, but you behaved in such a way that made it impossible for us. And when you let our youngest brother be baptized as if you wanted to call our father a dead man—” He broke off, gesturing vehemently.
Bjørgulf continued. “You and Father thought of nothing else but your quarrel. Not about the fact that we had grown up to be men in the meantime. You never paid any heed to anyone who happened to come between your weapons and was dealt bloody wounds.”
He had leaped to his feet. Naakkve placed a hand on his shoulder. Kristin saw it was true: The two were grown men. She felt as if she were standing naked before them; she had shamelessly revealed herself to her children.
This was what they had seen most as they grew up: that their parents were getting old, that their youthful ardor was pitifully ill suited to them, and that they had not been able to age with honor and dignity.
Then the voice of a child cut through the silence. Munan shrieked in wild despair, “Mother! Are they coming to take you prisoner, Mother? Are they coming to take Mother away from us now?”
He threw his arms around her and buried his face against her waist. Kristin pulled him close, sank down onto a bench, and gathered the little boy into her arms. She tried to console him. “Little son, little son, you mustn’t cry.”
“No one can take Mother away from us.” Gaute came over and touched his little brother. “Don’t cry. They can’t do anything to her. You must get hold of yourself, Munan. Rest assured that we will protect our mother, my boy!”
Kristin sat holding the child tightly in her arms; she felt as if he had saved her with his tears.
Then Lavrans spoke, sitting up in bed with the flush of fever on his cheeks. “Well, what are you going to do, brothers?”
“When the mass is over,” said Naakkve, “we’ll go over to the parsonage and offer to pay a guarantee for our foster father. That’s the first thing we’ll do. Do you agree, my lads?”
Bjørgulf, Gaute, Ivar, and Skule assented.
Kristin said, “Ulf raised a weapon against a man in the cemetery. And I must do something to clear both his name and mine from these rumors. These are such serious matters, boys, that I think you young men must seek someone else’s counsel to decide what should be done.”
“Who should we ask for advice?” said Naakkve, a little scornfully.
“Sir Sigurd of Sundbu is my cousin,” replied his mother hesitantly.
“Since that has never occurred to him before,” said the young man in the same tone of voice, “I don’t think it fitting for the sons of Erlend to go begging to him now, when we’re in need. What do you say, brothers? Even if we’re not legally of age, we can still wield our weapons with skill, all five of us.”
“Boys,” said Kristin, “using weapons will get you nowhere in this matter.”
“You must let us decide that, Mother,” replied Naakkve curtly. “But now, Mother, I think you should let us eat. And sit down in your usual place—for the servants’ sake,” he said, as if he could command her.
She could hardly eat a thing. She sat and pondered . . . She didn’t dare ask whether they would now send word to their father. And she wondered how this case would be handled. She knew little of the law in such matters; no doubt she would have to refute the rumors by swearing an oath along with either five or eleven others.1 If so, it would probably take place at the church of Ullinsyn in Vaagaa. She had kinsmen there on nearly every large estate, from her mother’s lineage. If her oath failed, and she had to stand before their eyes without being able to clear herself of this shameful charge . . . It would bring shame upon her father. He had been an outsider here in the valley. But he had known how to assert himself; everyone had respected him. Whenever Lavrans Bjørg ulfsøn took up a matter at a ting or a meeting, he had always won full support. Still, she knew it was on him that her shame would fall. She suddenly realized how alone her father had stood; in spite of everything, he was alone and a stranger among the people here every time she heaped upon him one more burden of sorrow and shame and disgrace.
She didn’t think she could ever feel this way anymore; again and again she had thought her heart would burst into bloody pieces, and now, once again, it felt as if it would break.
Gaute went out to the gallery and looked north. “People are leaving the church,” he said. “Shall we wait until they’ve gone some distance away?”
“No,” replied Naakkve. “Let them see that the sons of Erlend are coming. We should get ready now, lads. We had better wear our steel helmets.”
Only Naakkve owned proper armor. He left the coat of mail behind, but he put on his helmet and picked up his shield, his sword, and a long lance. Bjørgulf and Gaute put on the old iron hats that boys wore when they practiced sword fighting, while Ivar and Skule had to be content with the small steel caps that peasant soldiers still wore. Their mother looked at them. She had such a shattered feeling in her breast.
“It seems to me ill advised, my sons, for you to arm yourselves in this fashion to go over to the parsonage,” she said uneasily. “You shouldn’t forget about the peace of the Sabbath and the presence of the bishop.”
Naakkve replied, “Honor has grown scarce here at Jørund gaard, Mother. We have to pay dearly for whatever we can get.”
“Not you, Bjørgulf,” pleaded their mother fearfully, for the weak-sighted boy had picked up a big battleaxe. “Remember that you can’t see well, son!”
“Oh, I can see as far as I need to,” said Bjørgulf, weighing the axe in his hand.
Gaute went over to young Lavrans’s bed and took down their grandfather’s great sword, which the boy always insisted on keeping on the wall above his bed. He drew the blade from its scabbard and looked at it.
“You must lend me your sword, kinsman. I think our grandfather would be pleased if we took it along on this venture.”
Kristin wrung her hands as she sat there. She felt as if she would scream—with terror and the utmost dread, but also with a power that was stronger than either her torment or her fear. The way she had screamed when she gave birth to these men. Wound after countless wound she had endured in this life, but now she knew that they all had healed; the scars were as
tender as raw flesh, but she knew that she would not bleed to death. Never had she felt more alive than she did now.
Blossoms and leaves had been stripped away from her, but she had not been cut down, nor had she fallen. For the first time since she had given birth to the children of Erlend Nikulaussøn, she completely forgot about the father and saw only her sons.
But the sons did not look at their mother, who sat there, pale, with strained and frightened eyes. Munan was still on her lap; he hadn’t let go of her even for a moment. The five boys left the loft.
Kristin stood up and stepped out onto the gallery. They emerged from behind the buildings and walked swiftly along the path toward Romundgaard between the pale, swaying acres of barley. Their steel caps and iron hats gleamed dully, but the sun glittered on Naakkve’s lance and on the spearpoints of the twins. She stood staring after the five young men. She was mother to them all.
Back inside she collapsed before the chest over which the picture of Mary hung. Sobs tore her apart. Munan began to cry too, and weeping, he crept close to his mother. Lavrans leaped out of bed and threw himself to his knees on the other side of her. She put her arms around both her youngest sons.
Ever since the infant had died, she had wondered why she should pray. Hard, cold, and heavy as stone, she had felt as if she were falling into the gaping maw of Hell. Now the prayers burst from her lips of their own volition; without any conscious will, her soul streamed toward Mary, maiden and mother, the Queen of Heaven and earth, with cries of anguish and gratitude and praise. Mary, Mary, I have so much—I still have endless treasures that can be plundered from me. Merciful Mother, take them into your protection!
There were many people in the courtyard of Romundgaard. When the sons of Erlend arrived, several farmers asked them what they wanted.
“We want nothing from you . . . yet,” said Naakkve, smiling slyly. “We have business with the bishop today, Magnus. Later my brothers and I may decide that we want to have a few words with the rest of you too. But today you have no need to fear us.”