Kristin Lavransdatter Read online

  Kristin knew that her father loved her no less than before. But she had never noticed until now that he loved her mother. And she could see the difference between the love of a husband for the wife he had lived with all his life, during good days and bad—and his love for the child who had shared only his joys and had received his greatest tenderness. And she wept and prayed to God and Saint Olav for help—for she remembered that tearful, tender farewell with her father on the mountain in the autumn, but surely it couldn’t be true that she now wished it had been the last.

  On Summer Day3 Kristin gave birth to her sixth son. Five days later she was already out of bed, and she went over to the main house to sit with her father. Lavrans was not pleased by this; it had never been the custom on his estate for a woman who had recently given birth to go outdoors under open sky until the first time she went to church. She must at least agree not to cross the courtyard unless the sun was up. Ragnfrid listened as Lavrans talked about this.

  “I was just thinking, husband,” she said, “that your women have never been very obedient; we’ve usually done whatever we wanted to do.”

  “And you’ve never realized that before?” asked her husband, laughing. “Well, your brother Trond isn’t to blame, at any rate. Don’t you remember that he used to call me spineless because I always let all of you have your way?”

  When the next mass was celebrated, Ramborg went to church for the first time after giving birth, and afterwards she paid her first visit to Jørundgaard. Helga Rolvsdatter came with her; she was also a married woman now. And Haavard Trondssøn of Sundbu had come to see Lavrans, too. These three young people were all the same age, and for three years they had lived together like siblings at Jørundgaard. The other two had looked up to Haavard, and he had been the leader in all their games because he was a boy. But now the two young wives with the white wimples made him feel quite clearly that they were experienced women with husbands and children and households to manage, while he was merely an immature and foolish child. Lavrans found this greatly amusing.

  “Just wait until you have a wife of your own, Haavard, my foster son. Then you will truly be told how little you know,” he said, and all the men in the room laughed and agreed.

  Sira Eirik came daily to visit the dying man. The old parish priest’s eyesight was now failing, but he could still manage to read just as easily the story of Creation in Norwegian and the gospels and psalms in Latin, because he knew those books so well. But several years earlier, down in Saastad, Lavrans had acquired a thick volume, and it was passages from this book that he wanted to hear. Sira Eirik couldn’t read it because of his bad eyes, so Lavrans asked Kristin to try to read from the book. And after she grew accustomed to it, she managed to read beautifully and well. It was a great joy for her that now there was something she could do for her father.

  The book contained what seemed to be dialogues between Fear and Courage, between Faith and Doubt, Body and Soul. There were also stories of saints and many accounts of men who, while still alive, were swept away in spirit and who witnessed the torments of the abyss, the trials of fiery purgatory, and the salvation of Heaven. Lavrans now spoke often of the purgatory fire, which he expected to enter soon, but he showed no sign of fear. He hoped for great solace from the prayers of intercession offered by his friends and the priests; and he consoled himself that Saint Olav and Saint Thomas would give him strength for the last trial, as he felt they had given him strength here in life. He had always heard that the person who firmly believed would never for a moment lose sight of the salvation toward which the soul was moving, through the fiery blaze. Kristin thought her father seemed to be looking forward to it, as if it were a test of manhood. She vaguely remembered from her childhood the time when the king’s retainers from the valley set off on a campaign against Duke Eirik.4 Now she thought that her father seemed eager for his death, in the same way he had been eager for battle and adventure back then.

  One day she said that she thought her father had endured so many trials in this life that surely he would be spared from the worst of them in the next. Lavrans replied that it didn’t seem that way to him; he had been a rich man, he was descended from a splendid lineage, and he had won friends and prosperity in the world. “My greatest sorrows were that I never saw my mother’s face, and that I lost my children—but soon they will no longer be sorrows. And the same is true of other things that have grieved me in my life—they are no longer sorrows.”

  Ragnfrid was often in the room while Kristin read. Strangers were also present, and now Erlend wanted to sit and listen too. Everyone found joy in what she read, but Kristin grew dejected and distressed. She thought about her own heart, which fully understood what was right and wrong, and yet it had always yearned for what was not righteous. And she was afraid for her little child; she could hardly sleep at night for fear that he would die unbaptized. Two women had to keep constant vigil over her, and yet she was still afraid to fall asleep. Her other children had all been baptized before they were three days old, but they had decided to wait this time, because the boy was big and strong, and they wanted to name him after Lavrans. But in the valley people strictly abided by the custom that children not be named for anyone who was still alive.

  One day when Kristin was sitting with her father and holding the child on her lap, Lavrans asked her to unwrap the swaddling clothes. He had still not seen more than the infant’s face. She did as he asked and then placed the child in her father’s arms. Lavrans stroked the small, rounded chest and took one of the tiny, plump hands in his own.

  “It seems strange, kinsman, that one day you will wear my coat of mail. Right now you wouldn’t fill up more space than a worm in a hollow nutshell; and this hand will have to grow big before it can grip the hilt of my sword. Looking at a lad like this, it almost seems God’s will that we not bear arms. But you won’t have to grow very old, my boy, before you long to take them up. There are so few men born of women who have such a love for God that they would forswear the right to carry weapons. I did not have it.”

  He lay quietly, looking at the infant.

  “You carry your children under a loving heart, my Kristin. The boy is fat and big, but you’re pale and thin as a reed; your mother said it was always that way after you gave birth. Ramborg’s daughter is small and thin, but Ramborg is blossoming like a rose,” he said, laughing.

  “And yet it seems strange to me that she doesn’t want to nurse the child herself,” said Kristin.

  “Simon is also against it. He says he wouldn’t reward her for the gift by wearing her out in that way. You must remember that Ramborg was not even sixteen, and she had barely grown out of her own childhood shoes when her daughter was born. And she has never known a moment of ill health before. It’s not so strange that she would have little patience. You were a grown woman when you were married, my Kristin.”

  Suddenly Kristin was overcome by violent sobs; she hardly knew what she was crying about. But it was true: She had loved her children from the first moment she held them in her womb; she had loved them even as they had tormented her with anguish, weighing her down and spoiling her looks. She had loved their small faces from the first moment she saw them, and loved them every single hour as they grew and changed, becoming young men. But no one had loved them as she had or rejoiced along with her. It was not in Erlend’s nature. He was fond of them, of course, but he had always thought that Naakkve came too early, and that each son afterwards was one too many. She recalled what she had thought about the fruit of sin during the first winter she lived at Husaby; she realized she had tasted its bitterness, although not as much as she had feared. Things had gone wrong between her and Erlend back then and apparently could never be rectified.

  Kristin hadn’t been close to her mother. Her sisters were mere children when she was already a grown maiden, and she had never had companions to play with. She was brought up among men; she was able to be gentle and soft because there had always been men around to hold up protective and
shielding hands between her and everything else in the world. Now it seemed reasonable to her that she gave birth only to sons—boys to nurse with her blood and at her breast, to love and protect and care for until they were old enough to join the ranks of men. She remembered that she had heard of a queen who was called the Mother of Boys. She must have had a wall of watchful men around her when she was a child.

  “What is it now, Kristin?” asked her father quietly after a while.

  She couldn’t tell him any of this; when she stopped crying enough to talk, she said, “Shouldn’t I grieve, Father, when you are lying here . . . ?”

  Finally, when Lavrans pressed her, she told him of her fears for the unbaptized child. Then he at once ordered the boy to be taken to church the next time mass was celebrated; he said he didn’t think it would cause his death any sooner than God willed it.

  “And besides, I’ve been lying here long enough,” he said with a laugh. “Wretched deeds accompany our arrival and our departure, Kristin. In sickness we are born and in sickness we die, except for those who die in battle. That seemed to me the best kind of death when I was young: to be killed on the battlefield. But a sinful man has need of a sickbed, and yet I don’t think my soul will be any better healed if I lie here longer.”

  And so the boy was baptized on the following Sunday and was given his grandfather’s name. Kristin and Erlend were bitterly criticized for this in the outlying villages. Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn told everyone who came to visit that it was done on his orders; he refused to have a heathen in his house when death came to the door.

  Lavrans now began to worry that his death would come in the middle of the spring farm work, which would be a great hardship for many people who wanted to honor him by escorting his funeral procession. But two weeks after the child was baptized, Erlend came to Kristin in the old weaving room where she had been sleeping since giving birth. It was late in the morning, past breakfast time, but she was still in bed because the boy had been restless. Erlend was deeply distressed, but he said in a calm and loving voice that now she must get up and go to her father. Lavrans had suffered terrible convulsions and heart spasms at daybreak, and since then he lay drained of all strength. Sira Eirik was with him now, and had just heard his confession.

  It was the fifth day after the Feast of Saint Halvard. It was raining lightly but steadily. When Kristin went out into the courtyard, she noticed in the gentle southern wind the earthy smell of newly plowed and manured fields. The countryside was brown in the spring rain, the sky was pale blue between the high mountains, and the mist was drifting by, halfway up the slopes. The ringing of little bells came from the groves of trees along the swollen gray river; herds of goats had been let out, and they were nibbling at the bud-covered branches. This was the kind of weather that had always filled her father’s heart with joy. The cold of winter was over for both people and livestock, the animals were finally released from their dark, narrow stalls and scanty fodder.

  Kristin saw at once from her father’s face that death was now very near. The skin around his nostrils was snowy white, but bluish under his eyes and at his lips; his hair had separated into sweaty strings lying on his broad, damp forehead. But he had his full wits about him and spoke clearly, although slowly and in a weak voice.

  The servants approached the bed, one by one, and Lavrans gave his hand to each of them, thanking them for their service, telling them to live well and asking for forgiveness if he had ever offended them in any way; and he asked them to remember him with a prayer for his soul. Then he said goodbye to his kinsmen. He told his daughters to bend down so he could kiss them, and he asked God and all the saints to bless them. They wept bitterly, both of them; and young Ramborg threw herself into her sister’s arms. Holding on to each other, Lavrans’s two daughters went back to their place at the foot of their father’s bed, and the younger one continued to weep on Kristin’s breast.

  Erlend’s face quivered and the tears ran down his face when he lifted Lavrans’s hand to kiss it, as he quietly asked his father-in-law to forgive him for the sorrows he had caused him over the years. Lavrans said he forgave him with all his heart, and he prayed that God might be with him all his days. There was a strange, pale light in Erlend’s handsome face when he silently moved away to stand at his wife’s side, hand in hand with her.

  Simon Darre did not weep, but he knelt down as he took his father-in-law’s hand to kiss it, and he held on to it tightly as he stayed on his knees a moment longer. “Your hand feels warm and good, son-in-law,” said Lavrans with a faint smile. Ramborg turned to her husband when he went to her, and Simon put his arm around her thin, girlish shoulders.

  Last of all, Lavrans said goodbye to his wife. They whispered a few words to each other that no one else could hear, and exchanged a kiss in everyone’s presence, as was now proper when death was in the room. Then Ragnfrid knelt in front of her husband’s bed, with her face turned toward him; she was pale, silent, and calm.

  Sira Eirik stayed with them after he had anointed the dying man with oil and given him the viaticum. He sat near the headboard and prayed; Ragnfrid was now sitting on the bed. Several hours passed. Lavrans lay with his eyes half-closed. Now and then he would move his head restlessly on the pillow and pick at the covers with his hands, breathing heavily and groaning from time to time. They thought he had lost his voice, but there was no death struggle.

  Dusk came early, and the priest lit a candle. Everyone sat quietly, watching the dying man and listening to the dripping and trickling of the rain outside the house. Then the sick man grew agitated, his body trembled, his face turned blue, and he seemed to be fighting for breath. Sira Eirik put his arm under Lavrans’s shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position as he supported his head against his chest and held up the cross before his face.

  Lavrans opened his eyes, fixed his gaze on the crucifix in the priest’s hand, and said softly, but so clearly that almost everyone in the room could hear him:

  “Exsurrexi, et adhuc sum tecum.”5

  Several more tremors passed over his body, and his hands fumbled with the coverlet. Sira Eirik continued to hold him against his chest for a moment. Then he gently laid his friend’s body down on the bed, kissing his forehead and smoothing back his hair, before he pressed his eyelids and nostrils closed; then he stood up and began to say a prayer.

  Kristin was allowed to join the vigil and keep watch over the body that night. They had laid Lavrans out on his bier in the high loft, since that was the biggest room and they expected many people to come to the death chamber.

  Her father seemed to her inexpressibly beautiful as he lay in the glow of the candles, with his pale, golden face uncovered. They had folded down the cloth that hid his face so that it wouldn’t become soiled by the many people who came to view the body. Sira Eirik and the parish priest from Kvam were singing over him; the latter had arrived that evening to say his last farewell to Lavrans, but he had come too late.

  By the following day guests already began riding into the courtyard, and then, for the sake of propriety, Kristin had to take to her bed since she had not yet been to church. Now it was her turn to have her bed adorned with silk coverlets and the finest pillows in the house. The cradle from Formo was borrowed, and there lay the young Lavrans; all day long people came in to see her and the child.

  She heard that her father’s body continued to look beautiful—it had merely yellowed a bit. And no one had ever seen so many candles brought to a dead man’s bier.

  On the fifth day the funeral feast began, and it was exceptionally grand in every way. There were more than a hundred strange horses at the manor and at Laugarbru; even Formo housed some of the guests. On the seventh day the heirs divided up the estate, amicably and with friendship; Lavrans himself had made all the arrangements before his death, and everyone carefully abided by his wishes.

  The next day the body, which now lay in Olav’s Church, was to begin the journey to Hamar.

  The evening before—or rather,
late that night—Ragnfrid came into the hearth room where her daughter lay in bed with her child. Ragnfrid was very tired, but her face was calm and clear. She asked her serving women to leave.

  “All the houses are full, but I’m sure you can find a corner to sleep in. I have a mind to sit with my daughter myself on this last night that I’ll spend on my estate.”

  She took the child from Kristin’s arms and carried him over to the hearth to get him ready for the night.

  “It must be strange for you, Mother, to leave this manor where you’ve lived with my father all these years,” said Kristin. “I don’t see how you can stand to do it.”

  “I could stand it much less to stay here,” replied Ragnfrid, rocking little Lavrans in her arms, “and not see your father going about among the buildings.

  “I’ve never told you how we happened to move to this valley and ended up living here,” she continued after a moment. “When word came that Ivar, my father, was expected to breathe his last, I was unable to travel; Lavrans had to go north alone. I remember the weather was so beautiful on the evening he left—back then he liked to ride late, when it was cool, and so he set off for Oslo in the evening. It was just before Midsummer. I followed him out to the place where the road from the manor crosses the church road—do you remember the spot where there are several big flat rocks and barren fields all around? The worst land at Skog, and always arid; but that year the grain stood high in the furrows, and we talked about that. Lavrans was on foot, leading his horse, and I was holding you by the hand. You were four winters old.