Kristin Lavransdatter (125 page)

Kristin pitied the girl and cursed her assailants, and in her heart she gave thanks and exulted over what good luck it was that Naakkve would not come of age for three more years. Then she told him gently to bear in mind that he should be careful not to seek out Eyvor in her chamber late at night, as he had just done, or to show himself at Ulvsvold unless he had tasks for the landowner’s servants. Otherwise he might unwittingly cause people to gossip even worse about the unfortunate child. It was all well and good to say that those who claimed to doubt Eyvor’s word and refused to believe she had landed in this misfortune without blame, wouldn’t find him weak in the arms. All the same, it would be painful for the poor girl if there was more talk.

Three weeks later Eyvor’s father came to take his daughter home for a betrothal banquet and wedding. She was to marry a good farmer’s son from her parish. At first both fathers had opposed the marriage because they were feuding over several sections of land. In the winter the men had reached an agreement, and the two young people were about to be betrothed, but suddenly Eyvor had refused. She had set her heart on another man. Afterward she realized it was too late for her to reject her first suitor. In the meantime she went to visit her aunt in Sil, no doubt thinking that there she would receive help in concealing her shame, because she wanted to marry this new man. But when Hillebjørg of Ulvsvold saw what condition the girl was in, she sent her back to her parents. The rumors were true enough—her father was furious and had struck his daughter several times, and she had indeed fled to Ulvsvold—but now he had come to an agreement with her first suitor, and Eyvor would have to settle for the man, no matter how little she liked it.

Kristin saw that Naakkve took this greatly to heart. For days he went around without saying a word, and his mother felt so sorry for him that she hardly dared cast a glance in his direction. If he met his mother’s eye, he would turn bright red and look so ashamed that it cut Kristin to the heart.

Whenever the servants at Jørundgaard started talking about these events, their mistress would tell them sharply to hold their tongues. That filthy story and that wretched woman were not to be mentioned in her house. Frida was astonished. So many times she had heard Kristin Lavransdatter speak with forbearance and offer help with both hands to a maiden who had fallen into such misfortune. Frida herself had twice found salvation in the compassion of her mistress. But the few words Kristin said about Eyvor Haakonsdatter were as vile as anything a woman might say about another.

 

Erlend laughed when she told him how badly Naakkve had been fooled. It was one evening when she was sitting out on the green, spinning, and her husband came over and stretched out on the grass at her side.

“No misfortune has come of it,” said Erlend. “Rather, it seems to me the boy has paid a small price to learn that a man shouldn’t trust a woman.”

“Is that so?” said his wife. Her voice quivered with stifled indignation.

“Yes,” said Erlend, smiling. “Now you, when I first met you, I thought you were such a gentle maiden that you would hardly even take a bite out of a slice of cheese. As pliable as a silk ribbon and as mild as a dove. But you certainly fooled me, Kristin.”

“How do you think things would have gone for all of us if I had been that soft and gentle?” she asked.

“No . . .” Erlend took her hands, and she had to stop working. He looked up at her with a radiant smile. Then he laid his head in her lap. “No, I didn’t know, my sweet, what good fortune God was granting me when He set you in my path, Kristin.”

 

But because she constantly had to restrain herself in order to hide her despair at Erlend’s perpetual nonchalance, her anger would sometimes overwhelm her when she had to reprimand her sons. Her fists would turn harsh, and her words fierce. Ivar and Skule felt the brunt of it.

They were at the worst age, their thirteenth year, and so wild and willful that Kristin often wondered in utter despair whether any mother in Norway had ever given birth to such rogues. They were handsome, as all her children were, with black, silky soft, and curly hair, blue eyes beneath black brows, and lean, finely shaped faces. They were quite tall for their age, but still narrow-shouldered, with long, spare limbs. Their joints stood out like knots on a sprig of grain. They looked so much alike that no one outside their home could tell them apart, and in the countryside people called them the Jørundgaard swords—but it wasn’t meant as a title of honor. Simon had first given them this name in jest because Erlend had presented each of them with a sword, and they never let these small swords out of their grasp except when they were in church. Kristin wasn’t pleased with this gift, or with the fact that they were always rushing around with axes, spears, and bows. She feared it would land these hot-tempered boys in some kind of trouble. But Erlend said curtly that they were old enough now to become accustomed to carrying weapons.

She lived in constant fear for these twin sons of hers. When she didn’t know where they were, she would secretly wring her hands and implore the Virgin Mary and Saint Olav to lead them back home, alive and unharmed. They went through mountain passes and up steep cliffs where no one had ever traveled before. They plundered eagles’ nests and came home with hideous yellow-eyed fledglings hissing inside their tunics. They climbed among the boulders along the Laag and north in the gorge where the river plunged from one waterfall to the next. Once Ivar was nearly dragged to his death by his stirrups; he was trying to ride a half-tame young stallion, and God only knew how the boys had managed to put a saddle on the animal. And by chance, out of simple curiosity, they had ventured into the Finn’s hut in Toldstad Forest. They had learned a few words of the Sami language from their father, and when they used them to greet the Finnish witch, she welcomed them with food and drink. They had eaten until they were bursting, even though it was a fast day. Kristin had always strictly enjoined that when the grown-ups were fasting, the children should make do with a small portion of food they didn’t care for; it was what her own parents had accustomed her to when she was a child. For once Erlend also took his sons sternly to task. He burned all the tidbits that the Finnish woman had given the boys as provisions, and he strictly forbade them ever to approach even the outskirts of the woods where the Finns lived. And yet it amused him to hear about the boys’ adventure. Later he would often tell Ivar and Skule about his travels up north and what he had observed of the ways of those people. And he would talk to the boys in that ugly and heathen language of theirs.

Otherwise Erlend almost never chastised his children, and whenever Kristin complained about the wild behavior of the twins, Erlend would dismiss it with a jest. At home on the estate they got into a great deal of mischief, although they could make themselves useful if they had to; they weren’t clumsy-handed like Naakkve. But occasionally, when their mother had given them some chore to do and she went out to see how it was going, she would find the tools lying on the ground and the boys would be watching their father, who might be showing them how seafaring men tied knots.

When Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn painted tar crosses over the door to the livestock stalls or in other such places, he used to add a few flourishes with the brush: drawing a circle around the cross or painting a stroke through each of its arms. One day the twins decided to use one of these old crosses as a target. Kristin was beside herself with fury and despair at such unchristian behavior, but Erlend came to the children’s defense. They were so young; they shouldn’t be expected to think about the holiness of the cross every time they saw it painted above the door of a shed or on the back of a cow. The boys would be told to go up to the cross on the church hill, kneel down, and kiss it as they said five
Pater nosters
and fifteen
Ave Marias
. It wasn’t necessary to call in Sira Solmund for such a reason. But this time Kristin had the support of Bjørgulf and Naakkve. The priest was summoned, and he sprinkled holy water on the wall and reprimanded the two young sinners with great severity.

They fed oxen and goats the heads of snakes to make them more vicious. They teased Munan because he was still clinging to his mother’s skirts, and Gaute because he was the one they fought with most often. Otherwise the sons of Erlend stuck together with the greatest brotherly affection. But sometimes Gaute would give them a thrashing if they were too rough. Trying to talk some sense into them was like talking to a wall. And if their mother grew angry, they would stand there stiffly, their fists clenched, as they scowled at her with flashing eyes beneath frowning brows, their faces fiery red with rage. Kristin thought about what Gunnulf had said about Erlend: He had flung his knife at their father and raised his hand against him many times when he was a child. Then she would strike the twins, and strike them hard, because she was frightened. How would things end up for these children of hers if they weren’t tamed in time?

Simon Darre was the only one who had ever had any power over the two wild boys. They loved their uncle, and they always complied whenever he chided them, in a friendly and calm manner. But now that they didn’t see him anymore, Kristin hadn’t noticed that they missed him. Dejected, she thought how faithless a child’s heart could be.

But secretly, in her own heart, she knew that she was actually proudest of these two. If only she could break their terrible defiant and wild behavior, she thought that none of their brothers would make more promising men than they would. They were healthy, with good physical abilities; they were fearless, honest, generous, and kind toward all the poor. And more than once they had shown an alacrity and resourcefulness that seemed to her far beyond what might be expected of such young boys.

One evening during the hay harvesting Kristin was up late in the cookhouse when Munan came rushing in, screaming that the old goat shed was on fire. There were no men at home on the manor. Some were in the smithy, sharpening their scythes; some had gone north to the bridge where the young people usually gathered on summer evenings. Kristin grabbed a couple of buckets and set off running, calling to her maids to follow her.

The goat shed was a little old building with a roof that reached all the way down to the ground. It stood in the narrow passageway between the farmyard and the courtyard of the estate, right across from the stable and with other houses built close on either side. Kristin ran onto the gallery of the hearth house and found a broadaxe and a fire hook, but as she rounded the corner of the stable, she didn’t see any fire, just a cloud of smoke billowing out of a hole in the roof of the goat shed. Ivar was sitting up on the ridge, hacking at the roof; Skule and Lavrans were inside, pulling down patches of the thatching and then stomping and trampling out the fire. Now they were joined by Erlend, Ulf, and the men who had been in the smithy. Munan had run over to warn them; so the fire was put out in short order. And yet the most terrible of misfortunes might easily have occurred. It was a sultry, still evening, but with occasional gusts of wind from the south, and if the fire had engulfed the goat shed, all the buildings at the north end of the courtyard—the stable, storerooms, and living quarters—would certainly have burned with it.

Ivar and Skule had been up on the stable roof. They had snared a hawk and were going to hang it from the gable when they caught a whiff of fire and saw smoke coming from the roof below them. They leaped to the ground at once, and with the small axes they were carrying they began chopping at the smoldering sod while they sent off Lavrans and Munan, who were playing nearby—one to find hooks and the other to get their mother. Fortunately the rafters and beams in the roof were quite rotten, but it was clear that this time the twins had saved their mother’s estate by instantly setting about tearing down the burning roof and not wasting time by first running to get help from the grown-ups.

It was hard to understand how the fire had started, except that Gaute had passed that way an hour before, carrying embers to the smithy, and he admitted that the container had not been covered. A spark had probably flown up onto the tinder-dry sod roof.

But less was said about this than about the quick-wittedness of the twins and Lavrans when Ulf later imposed a fire watch and all the servants kept him company during the night while Kristin had strong ale and mead carried out to them. All three boys had been singed on their hands and feet; their shoes were so burned that they split into pieces. Young Lavrans was only nine years old, so it was hard for him to bear the pain patiently for very long, but from the start he was the proudest of the lot, walking around with his hands wrapped up and taking in the praise of the manor servants.

That night Erlend took his wife in his arms. “My Kristin, my Kristin . . . Don’t complain so much about your children. Can’t you see, my dear, what good breeding there is in our sons? You always treat these two hearty boys as if you thought their path would lead between the gallows and the execution block. Now it seems to me that you should enjoy some pleasure after all the pain and suffering and toil you’ve borne through all the years when you constantly carried a child under your belt, with another child at your breast and one on your arm. Back then you would talk of nothing else but those little imps, and now that they’ve grown up to be both sensible and manly, you walk among them as if you were deaf and dumb, hardly even answering when they speak to you. God help me, but it’s as if you love them less now that you no longer have to worry for their sake and these big, handsome sons of ours can give you both help and joy.”

Kristin didn’t trust herself to answer with a single word.

But she lay in bed, unable to sleep. And toward morning she carefully stepped over her slumbering husband and walked barefoot over to the shuttered peephole, which she opened.

The sky was a hazy gray, and the air was cool. Far off to the south, where the mountains merged and closed off the valley, rain was sweeping over the plateaus. Kristin stood there for a moment, looking out. It was always so hot and stuffy in this loft above the new storeroom where they slept in the summertime. The trace of moisture in the air brought the strong, sweet scent of hay to her. Outside a bird or two chittered faintly in their sleep in the summer night.