Kristin Lavransdatter Read online

  “So you don’t think anything of it, Simon?” asked Ragnfrid anxiously.

  “No,” replied Simon. “And I don’t think anyone else will either; they know you and her and they know this Bentein. But there’s not much to talk about in this remote village; it’s perfectly reasonable for people to help themselves to this juicy tidbit. Now we’ll have to teach them that Kristin’s reputation is too rich a diet for the peasants around here. But it’s too bad that she was so frightened by his coarseness that she didn’t come to you at once, or go to Sira Eirik himself. I think that whorehouse priest would have gladly testified that he had meant no more than some innocent teasing if you had spoken to him, Lavrans.”

  Both parents agreed that Simon was right. But Kristin gave a shriek and stamped her foot.

  “But he knocked me to the ground. I hardly know what he did to me. I was out of my senses; I no longer remember a thing. For all I know, it might be as Inga says. I haven’t been well or happy for a single day since. . . .”

  Ragnfrid gave a cry and pressed her hands together; Lavrans leaped to his feet. Even Simon’s face changed expression; he gave Kristin a sharp look, went over to her, and put his hand under her chin. Then he laughed.

  “God bless you, Kristin. You would have remembered it if he had done you any harm. It’s no wonder she’s been feeling melancholy and unwell since that unlucky evening when she was given such a fright—she who has never met with anything but kindness and goodwill before,” he said to the others. “Anyone can see from her eyes, which bear no ill intent and would rather believe in good than evil, that she is a maiden and not a woman.”

  Kristin looked up into the small, steady eyes of her betrothed. She raised her arms halfway up; she wanted to place them around his neck.

  Then Simon went on. “You mustn’t think, Kristin, that you won’t forget all about this. I don’t intend for us to settle at Formo right away and never allow you to leave this valley. ‘No one has the same color of hair or temperament in the rain as in the sun,’ said old King Sverre when they accused his ‘Birch-Leg’ followers2 of growing arrogant with success.”

  Lavrans and Ragnfrid smiled. It amused them to hear the young man speak as if he were a wise old bishop.

  Simon continued. “It would not be proper for me to admonish you, the man who is to be my father-in-law, but perhaps I might say this much: we were dealt with more strictly, my siblings and I. We were not allowed to move so freely among the servants as I see it is Kristin’s custom. My mother used to say that if you play with the cottager’s children, in the long run you’ll end up with lice in your hair; and there is some truth to that.”

  Lavrans and Ragnfrid said nothing to this. But Kristin turned away, and the desire she had felt for a moment to put her arms around Simon Darre’s neck had vanished completely.

  Around midday Lavrans and Simon put on their skis and went off to tend to several traps up on the ridge. Outdoors it was now beautiful weather, sunny and not nearly as bitter cold. Both men were relieved to slip away from all the sorrow and tears at home, so they skied a great distance, all the way up to the bare rock.

  They lay in the sun under a steep cliff and drank and ate. Then Lavrans talked a little about Arne; he had been very fond of the boy. Simon joined in, praising the dead man, and said that he didn’t find it strange that Kristin should grieve for her foster brother. Then Lavrans mentioned that perhaps they should not pressure her so much, but give her a little more time to regain her composure before they celebrated the betrothal ale. She had said that she would like to go to a cloister for a while.

  Simon sat up suddenly and gave a long whistle.

  “You don’t care for the idea?” asked Lavrans.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” replied the other man hastily. “This seems to be the best counsel, dear father-in-law. Send her to the sisters in Oslo for a year; then she’ll learn how people talk about each other out in the world. I happen to know a little about several of the maidens who are there,” he said and laughed. “They wouldn’t lie down and die of grief over two mad boys tearing each other apart for their sake. Not that I would want such a maiden for my wife, but I don’t think it would do Kristin any harm to meet some new people.”

  Lavrans put the rest of the food in the knapsack and said, without looking at the young man, “You are fond of Kristin, I think.”

  Simon laughed a little but did not look at Lavrans.

  “You must know that I have great affection for her—and for you, as well,” Simon said brusquely, and then he stood up and put on his skis. “I have never met any maiden I would rather marry.”

  Right before Easter, while it was still possible to drive a sleigh down the valley and across Lake Mjøsa, Kristin made her second journey to the south. Simon came to escort her to the cloister. So this time she traveled with her father and her betrothed, sitting in the sleigh, wrapped in furs. And accompanying them were servants and sleighs full of her chests of clothing and gifts of food and furs for the abbess and the sisters of Nonneseter.

  PART II

  THE WREATH

  CHAPTER 1

  EARLY ONE SUNDAY morning at the end of April, Aasmund Bjørg ulfsøn’s church boat glided past the point on the island of Hovedø as the bells rang in the cloister church, and bells from the town chimed their reply out across the bay, sounding louder, then fainter as the wind carried the notes.

  The sky was clear and pale blue, with light fluted clouds drifting across it, and the sun was glinting restlessly on the rippling water. It seemed quite springlike along the shore; the fields were almost bare of snow, and there were bluish shadows and a yellowish sheen on the leafy thickets. But snow was visible in the spruce forest atop the ridges framing the settlements of Aker, and to the west, on the distant blue mountains beyond the fjord, many streaks of white still gleamed.

  Kristin was standing in the bow of the boat with her father and Gyrid, Aasmund’s wife. She turned her gaze toward the town, with all of its light-colored churches and stone buildings rising up above the multitudes of grayish-brown wooden houses and the bare crowns of the trees. The wind ruffled the edges of her cloak and tousled her hair beneath her hood.

  They had let the livestock out to pasture at Skog the day before, and Kristin had suddenly felt such a homesickness for Jørundgaard. It would be a long time before they could let out the cattle back home. She felt a tender and sympathetic longing for the winter-gaunt cattle in the dark stalls; they would have to wait and endure for many days yet. She missed everyone so—her mother, Ulvhild, who had slept in her arms every night for all these years, little Ramborg. She longed for all the people back home and for the horses and dogs; for Kortelin, whom Ulvhild would take care of while she was gone; and for her father’s hawks, sitting on their perches with hoods over their heads. Next to them hung the gloves made of horsehide, which had to be worn when handling them, and the ivory sticks used to scratch them.

  All the terrible events of the winter now seemed so far away, and she only remembered her home as it had been before. They had also told her that no one in the village thought ill of her. Nor did Sira Eirik; he was angry and aggrieved by what Bentein had done. Bentein had escaped from Hamar, and it was said that he had run off to Sweden. So things had not been as unpleasant between her family and the people of the neighboring farm as Kristin had feared.

  On their way south they had stayed at Simon’s home, and she had met his mother and siblings; Sir Andres was still in Sweden. She had not felt at ease there, and her dislike of the family at Dyfrin was all the greater because she knew of no reasonable explanation for it. During the entire journey she had told herself that they had no reason to be haughty or to consider themselves better than her ancestors—no one had ever heard of Reidar Darre, the Birch-Leg, until King Sverre found the widow of the baron at Dyfrin for him to wed.

  But they turned out not to be haughty at all, and Simon even spoke of his ancestor one evening. “I have now found out for certain that he was supposed to have been a co
mb maker—so you will truly be joining a royal lineage, Kristin,” he said.

  “Guard your tongue, my boy,” said his mother, but they all laughed.

  Kristin felt so oddly distressed when she thought of her father. He laughed a great deal whenever Simon gave him the least reason to do so. The thought occurred to her that perhaps her father would have liked to laugh more often in his life. But she didn’t like it that he was so fond of Simon.

  During Easter they were all at Skog. Kristin noticed that her Uncle Aasmund was a stern master toward his tenants and servants. She met a few people who asked after her mother and who spoke affectionately of Lavrans; they had enjoyed better days when he was living there. Aasmund’s mother, who was Lavrans’s stepmother, lived on the farm in her own house. She was not particularly old, but she was sickly and feeble. Lavrans seldom spoke of her at home. Once when Kristin asked her father whether he had had a quarrelsome stepmother, he had replied, “She has never done much for me, good or bad.”

  Kristin reached for her father’s hand, and he squeezed hers in return.

  “I know you’ll be happy with the worthy sisters, my daughter. There you’ll have other things to think about than yearning for us back home.”

  They sailed so close to the town that the smell of tar and salt fish drifted out to them from the docks. Gyrid pointed out the churches and farms and roads that stretched upward from the water’s edge. Kristin recognized nothing from the last time she had been there except for the ponderous towers of Halvard’s Cathedral. They sailed west, around the entire town, and then put in at the nuns’ dock.

  Kristin walked between her father and her uncle past a cluster of warehouses and then reached the road, which led uphill past the fields. Gyrid followed after them, escorted by Simon. The servants stayed behind to help several men from the cloister load the trunks onto a cart.

  The convent Nonneseter and all of Leiran lay inside the town’s boundaries, but there were only a few houses clustered here and there along the road. The larks were chirping overhead in the pale blue sky, and tiny yellow Michaelmas daisies teemed on the sallow dirt hills, but along the fences the roots of the grass were green.

  As they went through the gate and entered the colonnade, all the nuns came walking toward them in a procession from church, with music and song streaming after them from the open doorway.

  Kristin stared uneasily at the many black-clad women with white wimples framing their faces. She sank into a curtsey, and the men bowed with their hats pressed to their chests. Following the nuns came a group of young maidens—some of them were children—wearing dresses of undyed homespun, with black-and-white belts made of twisted cord around their waists. Their hair was pulled back from their faces and braided tightly with the same kind of black-and-white cord. Kristin unconsciously put on a haughty expression for the young maidens because she felt shy, and she was afraid that they would think she looked unrefined and foolish.

  The convent was so magnificent that she was completely overwhelmed. All the buildings surrounding the inner courtyard were made of gray stone. On the north side the long wall of the church loomed above the other buildings; it had a two-tiered roof and a tower at the west end. The surface of the courtyard was paved with flagstones, and the entire area was enclosed by a covered arcade supported by stately pillars. In the center of the square stood a stone statue of Mater Misericordiae, spreading her cloak over a group of kneeling people.

  A lay sister came forward and asked them to follow her to the parlatory, the abbess’s reception room. Abbess Groa Guttormsdatter was a tall, stout old woman. She would have been good-looking if she hadn’t had so many stubbly hairs around her mouth. Her voice was deep and made her sound like a man. But she had a pleasant manner, and she reminded Lavrans that she had known his parents, and then asked after his wife and their other children. At last she turned kindly to Kristin.

  “I have heard good things of you, and you seem to be clever and well brought up, so I do not think you will give us any reason for displeasure. I have heard that you are promised to that noble and good man, Simon Andressøn, whom I see before me. We think it wise of your father and your betrothed to send you here to the Virgin Mary’s house for a time, so that you can learn to obey and to serve before you are charged with giving orders and commands. I want to impress on you now that you should learn to find joy in prayer and the divine services so that in all your actions you will be in the habit of remembering your Creator, the Lord’s gentle Mother, and all the saints who have given us the best examples of strength, rectitude, fidelity, and all the virtues that you ought to demonstrate if you are to manage property and servants and raise children. You will also learn in this house that one must pay close attention to time, because here each hour has a specific purpose and chore. Many young maidens and wives are much too fond of lying in bed late in the morning, and of lingering at the table in the evening, carrying on useless conversation. But you do not look as if you were that kind. Yet you can learn a great deal from this year that will benefit you both here and in that other home.”

  Kristin curtseyed and kissed her hand. Then Fru Groa told Kristin to follow an execeptionally fat old nun, whom she called Sister Potentia, over to the nuns’ refectory. She invited the men and Fru Gyrid to dine with her in a different room.

  The refectory was a beautiful hall. It had a stone floor and arched windows with glass panes. A doorway led into another room, and Kristin could see that this room too must have glass windowpanes, because the sun was shining inside.

  The sisters had already sat down and were waiting for the food. The older nuns were sitting on a stone bench covered with cushions along the wall under the windows. The younger sisters and the bareheaded maidens wearing light homespun dresses sat on a wooden bench in front of the table. Tables had also been set in the adjoining room, which was intended for the most distinguished of the corrodians1 and the lay servants; there were several old men among them. These people did not wear cloister garb, but they did wear dark and dignified attire.

  Sister Potentia showed Kristin to a place on the outer bench while she herself went over to a seat near the abbess’s place of honor at the head of the table, which would remain empty today.

  Everyone rose, both in the main hall and in the adjoining room, as the sisters said the blessing. Then a young, pretty nun came forward and stepped up to a lectern which had been placed in the doorway between the rooms. And while two of the lay sisters in the main hall and two of the youngest nuns in the other room brought in the food and drink, the nun read in a loud and lovely voice—without pausing or hesitating at a single word—the story of Saint Theodora and Saint Didymus.

  From the very first moment, Kristin thought most about showing good table manners, for she noticed that all the sisters and young maidens had such elegant comportment and ate so properly, as if they were at the most magnificent banquet. There was an abundance of the best food and drink, but everyone took only modest portions, using only the tips of their fingers to help themselves from the platters. No one spilled any soup on the tablecloth or on their clothes, and everyone cut up the meat into such tiny pieces that they hardly sullied their lips; they ate so carefully that not a sound could be heard.

  Kristin was sweating with fear that she wouldn’t be able to act as refined as the others. She also felt uncomfortable in her brightly colored attire among all the women dressed in black and white. She imagined that they were all staring at her. Then, as she was about to eat a piece of fatty mutton breast and was holding it with two fingers pressed against the bone while in her right hand she held the knife, trying to cut easily and neatly, the whole thing slipped away from her. The bread and the meat leaped onto the tablecloth as the knife fell with a clatter to the floor.

  The sound was deafening in that quiet room. Kristin blushed red as blood and was about to bend down to pick up the knife, but a lay sister wearing sandals came over, soundlessly, and gathered up the things. But Kristin could eat nothing more. She also
noticed that she had cut her finger, and she was afraid of bleeding on the tablecloth, so she sat there with her hand wrapped up in a fold of her dress, thinking that now she was making spots on the lovely light-blue gown that she had been given for her journey to Oslo. And she didn’t dare raise her eyes from her lap.

  After a while she started to listen more closely to what the nun was reading. When the chieftain could not sway the maiden Theodora’s steadfast will—she would neither make sacrifices to false gods nor let herself be married—he ordered her to be taken to a brothel. Furthermore, he exhorted her along the way to think of her freeborn ancestors and her honorable parents, upon whom an everlasting shame would now fall, and he promised that she would be allowed to live in peace and remain a maiden if she would agree to serve a pagan goddess, whom they called Diana.

  Theodora replied, unafraid, “Chastity is like a lamp, but love for God is the flame. If I were to serve the devil-woman whom you call Diana, then my chastity would be worth no more than a rusty lamp without fire or oil. You call me freeborn, but we are all born thralls, since our first parents sold us to the Devil. Christ has redeemed me, and I am obliged to serve him, so I cannot marry his enemies. He will protect his dove, but if he would cause you to break my body, which is the temple of his Holy Spirit, then it shall not be reckoned to my shame, as long as I do not consent to betray his property in enemy hands.”

  Kristin’s heart began to pound, because this reminded her in a certain way of her encounter with Bentein. It struck her that perhaps this was her sin, that she had not for a moment thought of God or prayed for His help. Then Sister Cecilia read about Saint Didymus. He was a Christian knight, but he had kept his Christianity secret from all except a few friends. He went to the house where the maiden was confined. He gave money to the woman who owned the house, and then he was allowed to go to Theodora. She fled to a corner like a frightened rabbit, but Didymus greeted her as a sister and the bride of his Lord and said that he had come to save her. Then he talked to her for a while, saying: “Shouldn’t a brother risk his own life for his sister’s honor?” And finally she did as he asked; she exchanged clothes with him and allowed herself to be strapped into his coat of mail. He pulled the helmet down over her eyes and drew the cape closed under her chin, and then he told her to go out with her face hidden, like a youth who was ashamed to be in such a place.