“That I will, brother-in-law!” Simon had turned crimson; he felt oddly embarrassed and powerless at Erlend’s candid speech. “I will gladly do anything I can to honor Ulf Haldorssøn.”
Kristin had been sitting in the corner with Andres; the boy wanted his aunt to help him undress. Now she came forward into the light, holding the half-naked child, who had his arms around her neck.
“That’s kind of you, Simon,” she said softly, holding out her hand. “For this we all thank you.”
Simon lightly clasped her hand for a moment.
“Not at all, Kristin. I have always been fond of Ulf. You should know that I do this gladly.” He reached up to take his son, but Andres pretended to fret, kicking at his father with his little bare feet, laughing and clinging to Kristin.
Simon listened to the two of them as he sat and talked to Erlend about Ulf’s money matters. The boy suddenly started giggling; she knew so many lullabies and nursery rhymes, and she laughed too, a gentle, soft cooing sound from deep in her throat. Once he glanced in their direction and saw that she had made a kind of stairway with her fingers, and Andres’s fingers were people walking up it. At last she put him in the cradle and sat down next to Ramborg. The sisters chatted to each other in hushed voices.
It was true enough, he thought as he lay down that night: He had always been fond of Ulf Haldorssøn. And ever since that winter in Oslo when they had both struggled to help Kristin, he had felt himself bound to the man with a kind of kinship. He never thought that Ulf was anything but his equal, the son of a nobleman. The fact that he had no rights from his father’s family because he had been conceived in adultery meant only that Simon was even more respectful in his dealings with Ulf. Somewhere in the depths of his own heart there was always a prayer for Arngjerd’s well-being. But otherwise this was not a good situation to get involved with: a middle-aged man and such a young child. Well, if Jardtrud Herbrandsdatter had strayed when she was at the
ting
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last summer, it was none of his concern. He had done nothing to offend these people, and Ulf was the close kinsman of his brother-in-law.
Unasked, Ramborg had offered to help Kristin by overseeing the table at the wedding. He thought this kind of her. When it mattered, Ramborg always showed what lineage she was from. Yes indeed, Ramborg was a good woman.
CHAPTER 5
THE DAY AFTER Saint Catherine’s Day, Erlend Nikulaussøn celebrated the wedding of his kinsman in a most beautiful and splendid fashion. Many good people had gathered; Simon Darre had seen to that. He and his wife were exceedingly well liked in all the surrounding villages. Both priests from the Olav Church were in attendance, and Sira Eirik blessed the house and the bed. This was considered a great honor since nowadays Sira Eirik only said mass on the high holy days and performed other priestly duties only for those few who had been coming to him for confession for many years. Simon Darre read aloud the document detailing Ulf’s betrothal and wedding gifts to his bride, and Erlend gave an admirable speech to his kinsman at the table. Ramborg Lavransdatter oversaw the serving of the food along with her sister, and she was also present to help the bride undress in the loft.
And yet it was not a truly joyous wedding. The bride was from an old and respected family there in the valley; her kinsmen and neighbors could not possibly think she had won an equal match since she had to make do with an outsider and one who had served on another man’s estate, even though it belonged to a kinsman. Neither Ulf’s birth, as the son of a wealthy knight and his maid, nor his kinship with Erlend Nikulaussøn seemed to impress the sons of Herbrand as any great honor.
Apparently the bride herself was not content either, considering how she had behaved. Kristin sounded quite despondent when she spoke to Simon about this. He had come to Jørundgaard to take care of some matters several weeks after the wedding. Jardtrud was urging her husband to move to his property at Skaun. Weeping, she had said within Kristin’s earshot that the worst thing she could imagine was that her child should be called the son of a servant. Ulf had not replied. The newly married couple lived in the building known as the foreman’s house because Jon Einarssøn had lived there before Lavrans bought all of Laugarbru and moved him out there. But this name displeased Jardtrud. And she resented keeping her cows in the same shed as Kristin’s; no doubt she was afraid that someone might think she was Kristin’s servingwoman. That was reasonable enough, thought Kristin. She would have a shed built for the foreman’s house if Ulf didn’t decide to take his wife and move to Skaun. But perhaps that might be best after all. He was no longer so young that it would be easy for him to change the way he lived; perhaps it would be less difficult for him in a new place.
Simon thought she might be right about that. Ulf was greatly disliked in the region. He spoke scornfully about everything there in the valley. He was a capable and hardworking farmer, but he was unaccustomed to so many things in that part of the country. He took on more livestock in the fall than he could manage to feed through the winter, and when the cows languished or he ended up having to slaughter some of the starving beasts toward spring, he would grow angry and blame the fact that he was unused to the meager ways of the region, where people had to scrape off bark for fodder as early as Saint Paal’s Day.
There was another consideration: In Trøndelag the custom had gradually developed between the landowner and his tenants that he would demand as lease payment the goods that he needed most—hay, skins, flour, butter, or wool—even though certain goods or sums had been specified when the lease was settled. And it was the landowner or his envoys who recalculated the worth of one item in replacement for another, completely arbitrarily. But when Ulf made these demands upon Kristin’s leaseholders around the countryside, people called them injurious and grievously unlawful, as they were, and the tenants complained to their mistress. She took Ulf to task as soon as she heard of the matter, but Simon knew that people blamed not only Ulf but Kristin Lavransdatter as well. He had tried to explain, wherever talk of this arose, that Kristin hadn’t known about Ulf’s demands and that they were based on customs of the man’s own region. Simon feared this had done little good, although no one had said as much to his face.
For this reason he wasn’t sure whether he should wish for Ulf to stay or to leave. He didn’t know how Kristin would handle things without her diligent and loyal helper. Erlend was completely incapable of managing the farmwork, and their sons were far too young. But Ulf had turned much of the countryside against her, and now there was this: He had seduced a young maiden from a wealthy and respected family in the valley. God only knew that Kristin was already struggling hard enough, as the situation now stood.
And they were in difficult straits, the people of Jørundgaard. Erlend was no better liked than Ulf. If Erlend’s overseer and kinsman was arrogant and surly, the master himself, with his gentle and rather indolent manner, was even more irksome. Erlend Niku laussøn probably had no idea that he was turning people against him; he seemed unaware of anything except that, rich or poor, he was the same man he had always been, and he wouldn’t dream that anyone would call him arrogant for that very reason. He had plotted to incite a group of rebels against his king even though he was Lord Magnus’s kinsman, vassal, and retainer; then he himself had caused the downfall of the plan through his own foolish recklessness. But he evidently never thought that he might be branded a villain in anyone’s eyes because of these matters. Simon couldn’t see that Erlend gave much thought to anything at all.
It was hard to figure the man out. If one sat and conversed with Erlend, he was far from stupid, thought Simon, but it was as if he could never take to heart the wise and splendid things he often said. It was impossible to remember that this man would soon be old; he could have had grandchildren long ago. Upon closer study, his face was lined and his hair sprinkled with gray, yet he and Nikulaus looked more like brothers than father and son. He was just as straight-backed and slender as when Simon had seen him for the first time; his voice was just as young and resonant. He moved among others with the same ease and confidence, with that slightly muted grace to his manner. With strangers he had always been rather quiet and reserved; letting others seek him out instead of seeking their company himself, during times of both prosperity and adversity. That no one sought his company now was something that Erlend didn’t seem to notice. And the whole circle of noblemen and landowners all along the valley, intermarried and closely related with each other as they were, resented the way this haughty Trøndelag chieftain, who had been cast into their midst by misfortune, nevertheless considered himself too highborn and noble to seek their favor.
But what had caused the most bad blood toward Erlend Niku laussøn was the fact that he had drawn the men of Sundbu into misfortune along with him. Guttorm and Borgar Trondssøn had been banished from Norway, and their shares of the great Gjesling estates, as well as their half of the ancestral manor, had been seized by the Crown. Ivar of Sundbu had to buy himself reconciliation with King Magnus. The king gave the confiscated properties—not ithout demanding compensation, it was said—to Sir Sigurd Er lendssøn Eldjarn. Then the youngest of the sons of Trond, Ivar and Haavard, who had not known of their brothers’ treasonous plans, sold their shares of the Vaage estates to Sir Sigurd, who was their cousin as well as the cousin of the daughters of Lavrans. Sigurd’s mother, Gudrun Ivarsdatter, was the sister of Trond Gjesling and Ragnfrid of Jørundgaard. Ivar Gjesling moved to Ringheim at Toten, a manor that he had acquired from his wife. His children would do well to live where they had inheritance and property rights from their mother’s family. Haavard still owned a great deal of property, but it was mostly in Valdres, and with his marriage he had now come into possession of large estates in the Borge district. But the inhabitants of Vaage and northern Gudbrandsdal thought it the greatest misfortune that the ancient lineage of landowners had lost Sundbu, where they had lived and ruled the countryside for as far back as people could remember.
For a short time Sundbu had been in the hands of King Haakon Haakonssøn’s loyal retainer Erlend Eldjarn of Godaland at Agder. The Gjeslings had never been warm friends with King Sverre or his noblemen, and they had sided with Duke Skule when he rallied the rebels against King Haakon.
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But Ivar the Younger had won Sundbu back in an exchange of properties with Erlend Eldjarn and had given his daughter Gudrun to him in marriage. Ivar’s son, Trond, had not brought honor of any kind to his lineage, but his four sons were handsome, well liked, and intrepid men, and people took it hard when they lost their ancestral estate.
Before Ivar moved away from the valley, an accident occurred that made people even more sorrowful and indignant about the fate of the Gjeslings. Guttorm was unmarried, but Borgar’s young wife had been left behind at Sundbu. Dagny Bjarnesdatter had always been a little slow-witted, and she had openly shown that she loved her husband beyond all measure. Borgar Trondssøn was handsome but had rather loose ways. The winter after he had fled from the land, Dagny fell through a hole in the ice of Vaage Lake and drowned. It was called an accident, but people knew that grief and longing had robbed Dagny of the few wits she had left, and everyone felt deep pity for the simple, sweet, and pretty young woman who had met with such a terrible end. That’s when the rancor became widespread toward Erlend Nikulaussøn, who had brought such misfortune upon the best people of the region. And then everybody began to gossip about how he had behaved when he was to marry the daughter of Lavrans Lagmandssön. She too was a Gjesling, after all, on her mother’s side.
The new master of Sundbu was not well liked, even though no one had anything specific to say against Sigurd himself. But he was from Egde, and his father, Erlend Eldjarn, had quarreled with everyone in this part of the land with whom he had had any dealings. Kristin and Ramborg had never met this cousin of theirs. Simon had known Sir Sigurd in Raumarike; he was the close kinsman of the Haftorssøns, and they in turn were close kinsmen of Gyrd Darre’s wife. But as complicated as matters now were, Simon avoided meeting Sir Sigurd as much as possible. He never had any desire to go to Sundbu anymore. The Trondssøns had been his dear friends, and Ramborg and the wives of Ivar and Borgar used to visit each other every year. Sir Sigurd Erlendssøn was also much older than Simon Andressøn; he was a man of almost sixty.
Things had become so tangled up because Erlend and Kristin were now living at Jørundgaard that although the marriage of their overseer could not be called important news, Simon Darre thought it was enough to make the situation even more vexed. Usually he would not have troubled his young wife if he was having any difficulties or setbacks. But this time he couldn’t help discussing these matters a bit with Ramborg. He was both surprised and pleased when he saw how sensibly she spoke about them and how admirably she tried to do all that she could to help.
She went to see her sister at Jørundgaard much more often than she had before, and she gave up her sullen demeanor with Erlend. On Christmas Day, when they met on the church hill after the mass, Ramborg kissed not only Kristin but her brother-in-law as well. In the past she had always fiercely mocked these foreign customs of his: the fact that he used to kiss his mother-in-law in greeting and the like.
It suddenly occurred to Simon when he saw Ramborg put her arms around Erlend’s neck that he might do the same with his wife’s sister. But then he realized that he couldn’t do it after all. He had never been in the habit of kissing the wives of his kinsmen; his mother and sisters had laughed at him when he suggested trying it when he came home after he had been at court, in service as a page.