Kristin Lavransdatter Read online

  One day she went with her father to Skjenne. There she saw again the strange treasure which they kept on the estate. It was a spur of the purest gold, shaped in a bulky and old-fashioned style, with peculiar ornamentation. She, like every other child in the area, knew where it had come from.

  It was soon after Saint Olav had brought Christianity to the valley that Audhild the Fair of Skjenne was lured into the mountain. The villagers carried the church bell up onto the slopes and rang it for the maiden. On the third evening she came walking across the meadow, adorned with so much gold that she glittered like a star. Then the rope broke, the bell tumbled down the scree, and Audhild had to return to the mountain.

  But many years later, twelve warriors came to the priest—this was the first priest here at Sil. They wore golden helmets and silver coats of mail, and they rode dark-brown stallions. They were the sons of Audhild and the mountain king, and they asked that their mother might be given a Christian funeral and be buried in consecrated ground. She had tried to maintain her faith and observe the holy days of the Church inside the mountain, and this was her earnest prayer. But the priest refused. And people said that because of this, he himself had no peace in the grave. On autumn nights he could be heard walking through the grove north of the church, weeping with remorse at his own cruelty. That same night Audhild’s sons had gone to Skjenne to bring greetings from their mother to her old parents who still lived there. The next morning the golden spur was found in the courtyard. And the sons doubtless continued to regard the Skjenne men as their kin, for they always had exceptional good fortune in the mountains.

  Lavrans said to his daughter as they rode home in the summer night, “The sons of Audhild repeated Christian prayers that their mother had taught them. They couldn’t mention the name of God or Jesus, but they said the Lord’s Prayer and credo like this: ‘I believe in the Almighty, I believe in the only begotten Son, I believe in the mightiest Spirit.’ And then they said: ‘Hail to the Lady, you who are the most blessed of women—and blessed is the fruit of your womb, the solace of all the earth.’ ”

  Kristin timidly glanced up at her father’s gaunt, weatherbeaten face. In the bright summer night it seemed more ravaged with sorrows and worries than she had ever seen it.

  “You’ve never told me that before,” she said softly.

  “Haven’t I? Well, I may have thought it would give you more melancholy thoughts than your years could bear. Sira Eirik says that it is written according to Saint Paul the Apostle that humankind is not alone in sighing with agony.”

  One day Kristin was sitting and sewing at the top of the stairs leading up to the high loft when Simon came riding into the courtyard and stopped just below where she sat, although he didn’t see her. Her parents both came out of the house. No, Simon wouldn’t dismount; Ramborg had merely asked him to find out, when he was passing this way, whether they had sent the sheep that had been her pet lamb up to the mountain pastures. She wanted to bring it to Formo.

  Kristin saw her father scratching his head. Ramborg’s sheep. Yes, well . . . He gave an exasperated laugh. It was a shame, but he had hoped she would have forgotten about it. He had given each of his two eldest grandsons a little axe, and the first thing they had used them for was to kill Ramborg’s sheep.

  Simon laughed. “Yes, those Husaby boys, they’re rascals all right.”

  Kristin ran down the loft stairs and unfastened the silver scissors from her belt.

  “You can give these to Ramborg, as compensation for my sons killing her sheep. I know she’s wanted to have these scissors ever since she was a child. No one must say that my sons . . .” She had spoken in anger, but now she fell silent. She had noticed her parents’ faces—they were giving her a look of dismay and astonishment.

  Simon didn’t take the scissors; he felt embarrassed. Then he caught sight of Bjørgulf and rode over to him, leaning down to lift the boy up into the saddle in front of him.

  “I hear you’ve been making raids around the countryside—now you’re my prisoner, and tomorrow your parents can come over to see me and we’ll negotiate the ransom.”

  And with that he gave a laugh and a wave and rode off with the boy wriggling and laughing in his arms. Simon had become great friends with Erlend’s sons. Kristin remembered that he had always had a way with children; her younger sisters had loved him dearly. Oddly enough it made her cross that he should be so fond of children and take pleasure in playing with them when her own husband had little interest in listening to children’s prattle.

  The next day, when they were at Formo, Kristin realized that Simon had not won any favors with his wife by bringing this guest home with him.

  “No one should expect Ramborg to care much for children yet,” said Ragnfrid. “She’s hardly more than a child herself. Things will be different when she’s older.”

  “No doubt you’re right.” Simon and his mother-in-law exchanged a look and a little smile.

  Ah, thought Kristin. Well, it had already been two months since the wedding.

  Distressed and agitated as Kristin now was, she took her feelings out on Erlend. He had accepted this stay at his wife’s ancestral estate with the satisfaction and pleasure of a righteous man. He was good friends with Ragnfrid and made it known that he had a deep fondness for his wife’s father. And Lavrans, in turn, seemed to have affection for his son-in-law. But Kristin had now become so sensitive and wary that she saw in her father’s kindness toward Erlend much of the same tolerant tenderness that Lavrans had always shown toward every living creature he felt was less able to take care of itself. His love for his other son-in-law was different; he treated Simon as a friend and equal. And even though Erlend was much closer in age to his father-in-law than Simon was, it was Lavrans and Simon who addressed each other in the informal manner. Ever since Erlend had become betrothed to Kristin, Lavrans had addressed Erlend informally, while Erlend had continued to use the more formal mode. It was up to Lavrans to change this, but he had never offered to do so.

  Simon and Erlend got along well whenever they were together, but they didn’t seek out each other’s company. Kristin still felt a secret shyness toward Simon Darre—because of what he knew about her, and even more because she knew that he was the one whose conduct had been honorable, while Erlend had acted with shame. It made her furious when she realized that Erlend could forget even this. And so she wasn’t always amenable toward her husband. If Erlend was in a mood to bear her irritability with good humor and gentleness, it would annoy her that he wasn’t taking her words seriously. On some other day he might have little patience, and then his temper would flare, but she would respond with bitterness and coldness.

  One evening they were sitting in the hearth room at Jørundgaard. Lavrans always felt most comfortable in this building, especially in weather that was rainy and oppressive, as it was on that day. In the main building, up in the hall, the ceiling was flat and the smoke from the fireplace could be bothersome. But in the hearth room the smoke would rise up to the central beam in the pitched roof, even when they had to close the smoke vent because of the weather.

  Kristin sat near the hearth, sewing. She was feeling out of sorts and bored. Right across from her was Margret, dozing over her needlework and yawning now and then. The children were noisily running about the room. Ragnfrid was at Formo, and most of the servants were elsewhere. Lavrans sat in the high seat, with Erlend at his elbow, at the end of the outer bench. They had a chessboard between them and they were moving the pieces in silence, after much reflection. Once, when Ivar and Skule were tugging on a puppy, trying to tear it in half, Lavrans stood up and took the poor howling animal away from them. He didn’t say a word, but simply sat down to his game again with the dog on his lap.

  Kristin went over to them and stood with one hand on her husband’s shoulder, watching the game. Erlend was a much less skilled chess player than his father-in-law, so he was most often the loser when they took out the board in the evening, but he bore this with gentle equan
imity. This evening he was playing especially badly. Kristin stood there castigating him, and not in a particularly kind or sweet way.

  Finally Lavrans said rather harshly, “Erlend can’t keep his thoughts on the game when you’re standing here bothering him. What do you want, anyway, Kristin? You’ve never understood board games!”

  “No, you don’t seem to think I understand much at all.”

  “There’s one thing I see that you don’t understand,” said her father sharply, “and that’s the proper way for a wife to speak to her husband. It would be better if you went and reined in your sons—they’re behaving worse than a pack of Christmas trolls.”

  Kristin went over and set her children in a row on a bench and then sat down next to them.

  “Be quiet now, my sons,” she said. “Your grandfather doesn’t want you to play in here.”

  Lavrans glanced at his daughter but didn’t speak. A little later the foster mothers came in, and Kristin left with her maids and Margret to put the children to bed.

  Erlend said after a moment, when he and Lavrans were alone, “I would have wished, Father-in-law, that you hadn’t reprimanded Kristin in that way. If it gives her some comfort to carp at me when she’s in a bad temper, then . . . It does no good to talk to her, and she won’t stand for anyone saying a word against her children.”

  “And what about you?” said Lavrans. “Do you intend to allow your sons to grow up so ill-behaved? Where were the maids who are supposed to watch and tend to the children?”

  “In the servants’ house with your men, I would think,” said Erlend, laughing and stretching. “But I don’t dare say a word to Kristin about her serving maids. Then she flies into a fury and tells me that she and I have never been examples for anyone.”

  The following day Kristin was picking strawberries in the meadow south of the farm when her father called to her from the smithy door and asked her to come over to him.

  Kristin went, though rather reluctantly. It was probably Naakkve again—that morning he had left a gate open, and the cows had wandered into a barley field.

  Lavrans pulled a glowing iron from the forge and set it on the anvil. His daughter sat down to wait, and for a long time there was no sound other than the pounding of the hammer against the glowing piece of iron and the ringing reply of the anvil. Finally Kristin asked her father what he wanted to say to her.

  The iron was now cold. Lavrans put down his tongs and hammer and came over to Kristin. With soot on his face and hair, his clothing and hands blackened, and garbed as he was in the big leather apron, Lavrans looked much sterner than usual.

  “I called you over here, my daughter, because I want to tell you this. Here on my estate you will show your husband the respect that is proper for a wife. I refuse to hear my daughter speaking the way you did to Erlend last night.”

  “This is something new, Father, for you to think Erlend is a man worthy of people’s respect.”

  “He’s your husband,” said Lavrans. “I didn’t force you to arrange this marriage. You should remember that.”

  “You’re such warm friends,” replied Kristin. “If you had known him back then the way you know him now, then you might well have done so.”

  Lavrans looked down at her, his face somber and sad.

  “Now you’re speaking rashly, Kristin, and saying things that are untrue. I didn’t try to force you when you wanted to cast off the man to whom you were lawfully betrothed, even though you know I was very fond of Simon.”

  “No, but Simon didn’t want me either.”

  “Oh, he was much too high-minded to demand his rights when you were unwilling. But I don’t know whether he would have been so against it in his heart if I had done as Andres Darre wanted. He said we should pay no attention to the whims of you two young people. And I wonder whether the knight might have been right—now that I see you can’t live in a seemly fashion with the husband you insisted on winning.”

  Kristin gave a loud and ugly laugh.

  “Simon! You would never have been able to threaten Simon into marrying the woman he had found with another man in such a house.”

  Lavrans gasped for air. “House?” he repeated involuntarily.

  “Yes, what you men call a house of sin. The woman who owned it was Munan’s paramour. She warned me herself not to go there. I told her I was going to meet a kinsman—I didn’t know he was her kinsman.” She gave another laugh, wild and harsh.

  “Silence!” said her father.

  He stood there for a moment. A tremor flickered across his countenance—a smile that made his face blanch. She thought suddenly of the foliage on the mountain slope which turns white when gusts of wind twist each leaf around—patches of pale and glittering light.

  “A man can learn a great deal without asking.”

  Kristin broke down as she sat there on the bench, supporting herself on one elbow, with her other hand covering her eyes. For the first time in her life she was afraid of her father—deathly afraid.

  He turned away from her, picked up the hammer, and put it back in its place next to the others. Then he gathered up the files and small tools and went about putting them back on the crossbeam between the walls. He stood with his back to his daughter; his hands were shaking violently.

  “Have you never thought about the fact, Kristin, that Erlend kept silent about this?” Now he was standing in front of her, looking down into her pale, frightened face. “I told him no, quite firmly, when he came to me in Tunsberg with his rich kinsmen and asked for your hand. I didn’t know then that I was the one who should have thanked him for wanting to redeem my daughter’s honor. Many a man would have told me so.

  “Then he came again and courted you with full honor. Not all men would have been so persistent in winning a wife who was . . . who was . . . what you were back then.”

  “I don’t think any man would have dared say such a thing to you.”

  “Erlend has never been afraid of cold steel.” A great weariness suddenly came over Lavrans’s face, and his voice lost all vigor and resonance. But then he spoke again, quietly and deliberately.

  “As bad as this is, Kristin—it seems to me even worse that you speak of it now that he’s your husband and the father of your sons.

  “If things were as you say, then you knew the worst about him before you insisted on entering into marriage with him. And yet he was willing to pay as dearly for you, as if you had been an honest maiden. He has granted you much freedom to manage and rule; you must do penance for your sin by ruling sensibly and make up for Erlend’s lack of caution—that much you owe to God and your children.

  “I myself have said, and others have said the same, that Erlend doesn’t seem to be capable of much else than seducing women. You are also to blame for this being said, according to your own testimony. But since then he has shown he is capable of other things—your husband has won a good name for himself through courage and swiftness in battle. It’s no small benefit for your sons that their father has acquired a reputation for his boldness and skill with weapons. That he is . . . incautious . . . you must realize this better than anyone. It would be best for you to redeem your shame by honoring and helping the husband whom you yourself have chosen.”

  Kristin was bending forward, with her head in her hands. Now she looked up, her face pale and despairing. “It was cruel of me to tell you this. Oh . . . Simon begged me . . . It was the only thing he asked of me—that I should spare you from knowing the worst.”

  “Simon asked you to spare me?” Kristin heard the pain in her father’s voice. And she realized it was also cruel of her to tell him that a stranger saw fit to remind her to spare her own father.

  Then Lavrans sat down beside her, took her hand in both of his, and placed it on his knee.

  “Yes, it was cruel, my Kristin,” he said gently and sadly. “You are good to everyone, my dear child, but I have also realized that you can be cruel to those you love too dearly. For the sake of Jesus, Kristin, spare me the need to
be so worried for you—that your impetuous spirit might bring more sorrow upon you and yours. You struggle like a colt that has been tied up in the stable for the first time, whenever your heartstrings are bound.”

  Sobbing, she sank against her father, and he held her tight in his arms. They sat there for a long time in that manner, but Lavrans said no more. Finally he lifted her face.

  “You’re covered in soot,” he said with a little smile. “There’s a cloth over in the corner, but it will probably just make you blacker. You must go home and wash; everyone can see that you’ve been sitting on the blacksmith’s lap.”

  Gently he pushed her out the door, closed it behind her, and stood there for a moment. Then he staggered a few steps over to the bench, sank down onto it, and leaned his head back against the timbers of the wall with his contorted face tilted upward. With all his might he pressed a fist against his heart.

  It never lasted long. The shortness of breath, the black dizziness, the pain that radiated out into his limbs from his heart, which shuddered and struggled, giving a few fierce thuds and then quivering quietly again. His blood hammered in the veins of his neck.

  It would pass in a few minutes. It always did after he sat still for a while. But it was happening more and more often.

  Erlend had called his crews to a meeting at Veøy on the eve of Saint Jacob’s Day, but then he stayed on at Jørundgaard a while longer to accompany Simon on a hunt for a vicious bear that had killed some of the livestock in the mountain pastures. When Erlend returned from the hunting expedition, there was a message for him. Some of his men had gotten into trouble with the townspeople, and he had to hurry north to win their release. Lavrans had business up there too, and so he decided to ride along with his son-in-law.

  It was already nearing the end of Saint Olav’s Day by the time they reached the island. Erling Vidkunssøn’s ship was anchored offshore, and they met the regent at vespers in Saint Peter’s Church. He went back to the monastery with them, where Lavrans had taken lodgings. There he dined with them, sending his men down to the ship for some particularly good French wine, which he had brought along from Nidaros.