Kristin swallowed her tears, whispering in a thick voice, “You’re saying this to hurt me.”
“Do you think I want to hurt you?” asked Simon softly.
“This is not how things would have been if you . . . ,” Kristin said hesitantly. “You were never asked, either, Simon. It was your father and mine who decided on this marriage. It would have been different if you had chosen me yourself.”
Simon drove his dagger into the bench so that it stood upright. After a moment he pulled it out and tried to slip it back into its scabbard. But it refused to go in because the tip was bent. Then he went back to fumbling with it, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“You know very well . . . ,” he said, his voice low and shaking. “You know that you would be lying if you tried to pretend that I didn’t . . . You know quite well what I wanted to talk to you about, many times, but you received me in such a way that I wouldn’t have been a man if I had mentioned it afterward, not if they tried to draw it out of me with burning tongs.
“At first I thought it was the dead boy. I thought I should give you some time . . . you didn’t know me. . . . I thought it would be harmful to you, such a short time after. Now I see that you didn’t need long to forget . . . and now . . . now . . . now . . .”
“No,” said Kristin quietly. “I understand, Simon. I can’t expect you to be my friend any longer.”
“Friend!” Simon gave an odd little laugh. “Are you in need of my friendship now?”
Kristin blushed.
“You’re a man now,” she said softly. “And old enough. You can decide on your own marriage.”
Simon gave her a sharp look. Then he laughed as he had before.
“I see. You want me to say that I’m the one who . . . I should take the blame for this breach of promise?
“If it’s true that you are set in your decision—if you dare and are determined to press your case—then I will do it,” he said softly. “To my family back home and before all your kinsmen—except one. You will have to tell your father the truth, such as it is. If you wish, I will take your message to him and make it as easy for you as I can. But Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn must know that I would never go against a promise that I have made to him.”
Kristin gripped the edge of the bench with both hands; this affected her more strongly than everything else Simon Darre had said. Pale and frightened, she glanced up at him.
Simon stood up.
“We must go in now,” he said. “I think we’re both freezing, and the sister is waiting for us with the key. I’ll give you a week to think things over. I have some business here in town. I’ll come back to talk to you before I leave, but I doubt you’ll want to see me before then.”
CHAPTER 8
SO THAT WAS FINALLY SETTLED, Kristin told herself. But she felt exhausted, drained, and sick with yearning for Erlend’s arms.
She lay awake most of the night, and she decided to do what she had never before dared—she would send a message to Erlend. It wasn’t easy to find someone who could carry out this errand for her. The lay sisters never went out alone, and she couldn’t think of anyone she knew who would do it. The men who did the farm work were older and seldom came near the nuns’ residence except to speak with the abbess. So Olav was the only one. He was a half-grown boy who worked in the gardens. He had been Fru Groa’s foster son ever since he was found one morning as a newborn infant on the steps of the church. People said his mother was one of the lay sisters. She was supposed to become a nun, but after she had sat in the dark cell for six months—for gross disobedience, it was said, and that was after the child was found—she was given lay-sister garb, and since then she had worked in the farmyard. During the past months Kristin had often thought about Sister Ingrid’s fate, but she had never had the chance to talk to her. It was risky to count on Olav; he was only a child, and Fru Groa and all the nuns talked to him and teased him whenever they saw him. But Kristin thought she had very little left to lose. And a couple of days later, when Olav was about to go into town one morning, Kristin asked him to take her message out to Akersnes, telling Erlend to find some excuse so they could meet alone.
That same afternoon Ulv, Erlend’s own servant, appeared at the speaking gate. He said he was Aasmund Bjørgulfsøn’s man and had been sent by his master to ask whether Aasmund’s niece might come into town for a while, because he didn’t have time to come up to Nonneseter himself. Kristin thought this would never work; but when Sister Potentia asked her whether she knew the messenger, she said yes. So she went with Ulv over to Brynhild Fluga’s house.
Erlend was waiting for her in the loft. He was nervous and tense, and Kristin realized at once that he was again afraid of the one thing that he seemed to fear most.
She always felt a pang in her heart that he should be so terrified that she might be carrying a child, when they couldn’t seem to stay away from each other. So anxious was she feeling that evening that she said as much to him, quite angrily. Erlend’s face turned dark red; he lay his head on her shoulder.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should try to leave you alone, Kristin, and not keep testing your luck in this way. If you want me to . . .”
She threw her arms around him and laughed, but he clasped her tightly around the waist and pressed her down onto a bench; then he sat down on the other side of the table. When she reached her hand across to him, he impetuously kissed her palm.
“I’ve been trying harder than you have,” he said fiercely. “If you only knew how important I think it is for both of us that we be married with full honor.”
“Then you should not have taken me,” said Kristin.
Erlend hid his face in his hands.
“No, I wish to God that I hadn’t done you this wrong,” he said.
“Neither one of us wishes that,” said Kristin with a giddy laugh. “And as long as I can be reconciled and make peace in the end with my family and with God, then I won’t grieve if I have to be wed wearing the wimple of a married woman. As long as I can be with you, I often think that I could even do without peace.”
“You’re going to bring honor back to my manor,” said Erlend. “I’m not going to pull you down into my disgrace.”
Kristin shook her head. Then she said, “You’ll be glad to hear that I have spoken to Simon Andressøn—and he’s not going to bind me to the agreements that were made for us before I met you.”
Erlend was jubilant, and Kristin had to tell him everything, although she kept to herself the derogatory words that Simon had spoken about Erlend. But she did mention that he refused to let Lavrans think he was the one to blame.
“That’s reasonable,” said Erlend curtly. “They like each other, your father and Simon, don’t they? Lavrans will like me less.”
Kristin took these words to mean that Erlend understood she would still have a difficult path ahead of her before they had settled everything, and she was grateful for that. But he didn’t return to this topic. He was overjoyed and said he had been afraid she wouldn’t have the courage to speak to Simon.
“I can see that you’re fond of him, in a way,” he said.
“Does it matter to you,” asked Kristin, “after all that you and I have been through, that I realize Simon is both a just and capable man?”
“If you had never met me,” said Erlend, “you could have enjoyed good days with him, Kristin. Why do you laugh?”
“Oh, I’m thinking about something that Fru Aashild once said,” replied Kristin. “I was only a child back then. But it was something about good days being granted to sensible people, but the grandest of days are enjoyed by those who dare to act unwisely.”
“God bless Aunt Aashild for teaching you that,” said Erlend, taking her onto his lap. “It’s strange, Kristin, but I haven’t noticed that you were ever afraid.”
“Haven’t you ever noticed?” she asked, pressing herself to him.
He set her on the edge of the bed and took off her shoes, but then he pulled her back over to the table.
“Oh no, Kristin—now things look bright for both of us. I wouldn’t have acted toward you as I have,” he said, stroking her hair over and over, “if it hadn’t been for the fact that every time I saw you, I thought it was so unlikely that they would ever give me such a fine and beautiful wife. Sit down here and drink with me.”
At that moment there was a pounding on the door, as if someone were striking it with the hilt of a sword.
“Open the door, Erlend Nikulaussøn, if you’re in there!”
“It’s Simon Darre,” said Kristin softly.
“Open up, man, in the name of the Devil—if you
are
a man!” shouted Simon, striking the door again.
Erlend went over to the bed and took his sword down from the peg. He looked around in bewilderment. “There’s no place here for you to hide—except in the bed . . .”
“It wouldn’t make things any better if I did that,” said Kristin. She had stood up and spoke quite calmly, but Erlend saw that she was trembling. “You’ll have to open the door,” she said in the same voice. Simon was hammering on the door again.
Erlend went over and drew back the bolt. Simon stepped inside, holding a drawn sword in his hand, but he stuck it back into its scabbard at once.
For a moment the three of them stood there without saying a word. Kristin was shaking, and yet in those first few moments she felt an oddly sweet excitement—deep inside her something rose up, sensing this fight between two men—and she exhaled slowly: here was the culmination to those endless months of silent waiting and longing and fear. She looked from one man to the other, their faces pale, their eyes shining; then her excitement collapsed into an unfathomable, freezing despair. There was more cold contempt than indignation or jealousy in Simon Darre’s eyes, and she saw that Erlend, behind his obstinate expression, was burning with shame. It dawned on her how other men would judge him—he who had allowed her to come to him in such a place—and she realized that it was as if he had been struck in the face; she knew that he was burning to pull out his sword and fall upon Simon.
“Why have you come here, Simon?” she shouted loudly, sounding frightened.
Both men turned toward her.
“To take you home,” said Simon. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You no longer have any right to command Kristin Lavransdatter,” said Erlend furiously. “She is mine now.”
“No doubt she is,” said Simon coarsely. “And what a lovely bridal house you’ve brought her to.” He stood there for a moment, breathing hard. Then he regained control over his voice and continued calmly, “But as things stand right now, I’m still her betrothed—until her father can come to get her. And until then I intend to defend with both the point and the edge of my sword as much of her honor as can be protected—in the judgment of other people.”
“You don’t need to do that; I can do it myself.” Erlend again turned as red as blood under Simon’s gaze. “Do you think I would allow myself to be threatened by a whelp like you?” he bellowed, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Simon put his hands behind his back.
“I’m not so timid that I’m afraid you’ll think I’m afraid of you,” he said in the same tone as before. “I shall fight you, Erlend Nikulaussøn, you can bet the Devil on that, if you do not ask Kristin’s father for her hand within a reasonable time.”
“I won’t do it at your bidding, Simon Andressøn,” said Erlend angrily; crimson washed over his face again.
“No, do it to right the wrong you have done to so young a wife,” replied Simon, unperturbed. “That will be better for Kristin.”
Kristin screamed shrilly, tormented by Erlend’s pain. She stamped on the floor.
“Go now, Simon, go! What right do you have to meddle in our affairs?”
“I have already told you,” replied Simon. “You’ll have to put up with me until your father has released us from each other.”
Kristin broke down completely.
“Go, go, I’ll come right away. Jesus, why are you tormenting me like this, Simon? You can’t think it’s worth it for you to worry about my affairs.”
“It’s not for your sake I’m doing this,” replied Simon. “Erlend, won’t you tell her that she has to come with me?”
Erlend’s face quivered. He touched her shoulder.
“You have to go now, Kristin. Simon Darre and I will talk about this some other time.”
Kristin rose obediently. She fastened her cloak around her. Her shoes stood next to the bed; she remembered them, but didn’t have the courage to put them on with Simon watching.
Outside the fog had descended again. Kristin rushed along with her head bowed and her hands clutching at her cloak. Her throat was bursting with suppressed sobs; wildly she wished that there was some place she could go to be alone, to weep and weep. The worst, the very worst she still had ahead of her. She had experienced something new that night, and now she was writhing from it—how it felt to see the man she had given herself to humiliated.
Simon was at her elbow as she dashed through the narrow alleys and across the streets and the open squares where the buildings had vanished; they could see nothing but the fog. Once, when she stumbled over something, he gripped her arm and stopped her from falling.
“Don’t run so fast,” he said. “People are staring at us. How you’re trembling,” he said in a gentler tone. Kristin was silent and kept walking.
She slipped on the muck of the road, she was soaking wet, and her feet were ice cold. The hose she wore were made of leather, but quite thin; she could feel them starting to split open, and the mud seeped in to her naked feet.
They reached the bridge across the convent creek and walked more slowly up the slope on the other side.
“Kristin,” said Simon suddenly, “your father must never hear of this.”
“How did you know that I was . . . there?” Kristin asked.
“I came to talk to you,” replied Simon tersely. “Then I heard about the servant sent by your uncle. I knew that Aasmund was at Hadeland. The two of you aren’t very good at inventing ruses. Did you hear what I just said?”