Erlend spoke a little French and could fluently speak the kind of German that mercenaries spoke; the discussion between him and the foreign knight flowed easily and courteously. But Kristin noticed that the Flemish man did not seem pleased as things progressed, although he strove to conceal his displeasure. Erlend had told his sons to wait over in the loft of the new storehouse until he sent word for them to join them, but they were not sent for.
Erlend and his wife escorted the knight and the priest to the gate. When their guests disappeared among the fields, Erlend turned to Kristin and said with that smile she found so distasteful, “I wouldn’t let Naakkve leave the estate with that fellow even to go south to Breidin.”
Ulf Haldorssøn came over to them. He and Erlend spoke a few words that Kristin couldn’t hear, but Ulf swore fiercely and spat.
Erlend laughed and slapped the man on the shoulder. “Yes, if I’d been such a country dolt as the good farmers around here . . . But I’ve seen enough that I wouldn’t let my fair young falcons out of my hands by selling them to the Devil. Sira Solmund had no idea, that blessed fool.”
Kristin stood with her arms hanging at her sides, the color ebbing and rising in her face. Horror and shame overcame her, making her feel sick; her legs seemed to lose all strength. She had known about such things—as something endlessly remote—but that this unmentionable might venture as close as her own doorstep . . . It was like the last wave, threatening to overturn her storm-tossed, overloaded boat. Holy Mary, did she also need to fear
that
for her sons?
Erlend said with the same loathsome smile, “I already had my doubts last night. Sir Allart seemed to me a little too chivalrous from Naakkve’s account. I know that it’s not the custom among knights anywhere in the world to welcome a man who is to be taken into service by kissing him on the lips or by giving him costly presents before seeing proof of his abilities.”
Shaking from head to toe, Kristin said, “Why did you ask me to strew the floor with roses and cover my table with linen cloths for such a—” And she uttered the worst of words.
Erlend frowned. He had picked up a stone and was keeping an eye on Munan’s red cat, which was slithering on its stomach through the tall grass along the wall of the house, heading for the chickens near the stable door. Whoosh! He threw the stone. The cat streaked around the corner, and the flock of hens scattered. He turned to face his wife.
“I thought I could at least have a
look
at the man. If he had been a trustworthy fellow, then . . . But in that case I had to show the proper courtesy. I’m not Sir Allart’s confessor. And you heard that he’s planning to go to Oslo.” Erlend laughed again. “Now it’s possible that some of my true friends and dear kinsmen from the past may hear that we’re not sitting up here at Jørundgaard shaking the lice from our rags or eating herring and oat
lefse
.”
Bjørgulf had a headache and was lying in bed when Kristin came up to the loft at suppertime, and Naakkve said he didn’t want to go over to the main house for the evening meal.
“You seem to me morose tonight, son,” said his mother.
“How can you think that, Mother?” said Naakkve with a scornful smile. “The fact that I’m a worse fool than other men and it’s easier to throw sand in my eyes . . . surely that’s nothing to be morose about.”
“Console yourself,” said his father as they sat down at the table and Naakkve was still too quiet. “No doubt you’ll go out into the world and have a chance to try your luck.”
“That depends, Father,” replied Naakkve in a low voice, as if he intended only Erlend to hear him, “whether Bjørgulf can go with me.” Then he laughed softly. “But talk to Ivar and Skule about what you just said. They’re merely waiting to reach the proper age before they set off.”
Kristin stood up and put on her hooded cloak. She was going to go north to tend to the beggar at Ingebjørg’s hut, she told them when they asked. The twins offered to go along and carry her sack, but she wanted to go alone.
The evenings were already quite dark, and north of the church the path passed through the woods and beneath the shadow of Hammer Ridge. There gusts of cold wind always issued from Rost Gorge, and the din of the river brought a trace of moisture to the air. Swarms of big white moths hovered and flitted under the trees, sometimes flying straight at her. The pale glow of the linen around her face and on her breast seemed to draw them in the dark. She swatted them away with her hand as she rushed upward, sliding on the slippery carpet of needles and stumbling over the writhing roots that sprawled across the path she was following.
A certain dream had haunted Kristin for many years. The first time she had it was on the night before Gaute was born, but occasionally she would still wake up, soaked with sweat, her heart hammering as if it would shatter in her chest, and she had dreamed the same thing.
She saw a meadow with flowers, a steep hill deep inside a pine forest that bordered the mound on three sides, dark and dense. At the foot of the slope a small lake mirrored the dim forest and the dappled green of the clearing. The sun was behind the trees; at the top of the hill the last long golden rays of evening light filtered through the boughs, and at the bottom of the lake sun-touched, gleaming clouds swam among the leaves of water lilies.
Halfway up the slope, standing deep in the avalanche of alpine catchflies and globeflowers and the pale green clouds of angelica, she saw her child. It must have been Naakkve the first time she had the dream; back then she had only two, and Bjørgulf was still in the cradle. Later she was never certain which of her children it might be. The little round, sunburned face under the fringe of yellow-brown hair seemed to her to resemble first one and then another of her sons, but the child was always between two and three years old and dressed in the kind of small dark yellow tunic that she usually sewed for her little boys as everyday attire, from homespun wool, dyed with lichen, and trimmed with red ribbon.
Sometimes she seemed to be on the other side of the lake. Or she might not be present at all when it happened, and yet she saw everything.
She saw her little son moving about, here and there, turning his face as he tugged at the flowers. And even though her heart felt the clutch of a dull anguish—a premonition of the evil about to occur—the dream always brought with it first a powerful, aching sweetness as she gazed at the lovely child there in the meadow.
Then she sees emerging from the darkness at the edge of the woods a furry bulk that is alive. It moves soundlessly, its tiny, vicious eyes smoldering. The bear reaches the top of the meadow and stands there, its head and shoulders swaying, as it considers the slope. Then it leaps. Kristin had never seen a bear alive, but she knew bears didn’t leap that way. This is not a real bear. It runs like a cat; at the same moment it turns gray, and like a giant light-colored cat it flies with long, soft strides down the hill.
The mother is deathly frightened, but she can’t reach the child to protect him; she can’t make a sound of warning. Then the boy notices that
something
is there; he turns halfway and looks over his shoulder. With a horrifying, low-pitched cry of terror he tries to run downhill, lifting his legs high in the tall grass the way children do. And his mother hears the tiny crack of sap-filled stalks breaking as he runs through the profusion of blossoms. Now he stumbles over something in the grass, falls headlong, and in the next instant the beast is upon him with its back arched and its head lowered between its front paws. Then she wakes up.
And each time she would lie awake for hours before her attempts to reassure herself did any good. It was only a dream after all! She would draw into her arms her smallest child, who lay between herself and the wall, thinking that if it had been real, she could have done such and such: scared off the animal with a shriek or with a pole. And there was always the long, sharp knife that hung from her belt.
But just as she had convinced herself in this manner to calm down, it would sieze hold of her once again: the unbearable anguish of her dream as she stood powerless and watched her little son’s pitiful, hopeless flight from the strong, ruthlessly swift, and hideous beast. Her blood felt as if it were boiling inside her, foaming so that it made her body swell, and her heart was about to burst, for it couldn’t contain such a violent surge of blood.
Ingebjørg’s hut lay up on Hammer Ridge, a short distance below the main road that led up to the heights. It had stood empty for many years, and the land had been leased to a man who had been allowed to clear space for a house nearby. An ill beggar who had been left behind by a procession of mendicants had now taken refuge inside. Kristin had sent food and clothing and medicine up to him when she heard of this, but she hadn’t had time to visit him until now.
She saw that the poor man’s life would soon be over. Kristin gave her sack to the beggar woman who was staying with him and then tended to the ill man, doing what little she could. When she heard that they had sent for the priest, she washed his face, hands, and feet so they would be clean to receive the last anointment.
The air was thick with smoke, and a terribly oppressive, foul smell filled the tiny room. When two women from the neighboring household came in, Kristin asked them to send word to Jørundgaard for anything they might need; then she bade them farewell and left. She suddenly had a strange, sick fear of meeting the priest with the
Corpus Domini
, so she took the first side path she encountered.
It was merely a cattle track, she soon realized. And it led her right into the wilderness. The fallen trees with their tangle of roots sticking up frightened her; she had to crawl over them in those places where she couldn’t make her way around. Layers of moss slid out from under her feet when she clambered down over large rocks. Spiderwebs clung to her face, and branches swung at her and caught on her clothes. When she had to cross a small creek or she came to a marshy clearing in the woods, it was almost impossible to find a place where she could slip though the dense, wet thickets of leafy shrubs. And the loathsome white moths were everywhere, teeming beneath the trees in the darkness, swarming up in great clouds from the heath-covered mounds when she trod on them.
But at last she reached the flat rocks down by the Laag River. Here the pine forest thinned out because the trees had to twine their roots over barren rocks, and the forest floor was almost nothing but dry grayish-white reindeer moss, which crackled under her feet. Here and there a black, heath-covered mound was visible. The fragrance of pine needles was hotter and drier and sharper than higher up. Here all the branches of the trees always looked yellow-scorched from early spring on. The white moths continued to plague her.
The roar of the river drew her. She walked all the way over to the edge and looked down. Far below, the water shimmered white as it seethed and thundered over the rocks from one pool to the next.
The monotonous drone of the waterfalls resonated through her overwrought body and soul. It kept reminding her of something, of a time that was an eternity ago; even back then she realized that she would not have the strength to bear the fate she had chosen for herself. She had laid bare her protected, gentle girl’s life to a ravaging, fleshly love; she had lived in anguish, anguish, anguish ever since—an unfree woman from the first moment she became a mother. She had given herself up to the world in her youth, and the more she squirmed and struggled against the bonds of the world, the more fiercely she felt herself imprisoned and fettered by them. She struggled to protect her sons with wings that were bound by the constraints of earthly care. She had striven to conceal her anguish and her inexpressible weakness from everyone, walking forward with her back erect and her face calm, holding her tongue, and fighting to ensure the welfare of her children in any way she could.
But always with that secret, breathless anguish: If things go badly for them, I won’t be able to bear it. And deep in her heart she wailed at the memory of her father and mother. They had borne anguish and sorrow over their children, day after day, until their deaths; they had been able to carry this burden, and it was not because they loved their children any less but because they loved with a better kind of love.
Was this how she would see her struggle end? Had she conceived in her womb a flock of restless fledgling hawks that simply lay in her nest, waiting impatiently for the hour when their wings were strong enough to carry them beyond the most distant blue peaks? And their father would clap his hands and laugh: Fly, fly, my young birds.
They would take with them bloody threads from the roots of her heart when they flew off, and they wouldn’t even know it. She would be left behind alone, and all the heartstrings, which had once bound her to this old home of hers, she had already sundered. That was how it would end, and she would be neither alive nor dead.
She turned on her heel, stumbling hastily across the pale, parched carpet of reindeer moss, with her cloak pulled tight around her because it was so unpleasant when it caught on the branches. At last she emerged onto the sparse meadow plains that lay slightly north of the farmers’ banquet hall and the church. As she cut across the field, she caught sight of someone in the road. He called out: “Is that you, Kristin?” and she recognized her husband.
“You were gone a long time,” said Erlend. “It’s almost night, Kristin. I was starting to grow frightened.”
“Were you frightened for me?” Her voice sounded more harsh and haughty than she had intended.
“Well, not exactly frightened . . . But I thought I would come out to meet you.”
They barely spoke as they walked southward. All was quiet when they entered the courtyard. Some of the horses they kept on the manor were slowly moving along the walls of the main house, grazing, but all the servants had gone to bed.