They had been sitting there, sleepy and silent, for a while when they heard the hoofbeats of a single horse; a man came riding at great speed into the wet courtyard. Astrid went to the entryway to ook outside. She returned at once, followed by Lavrans Bjørg ulfsøn.
Both his wife and daughter saw at once that he was quite drunk. He staggered and grabbed hold of the smoke vent pole as Ragnfrid removed his soaking wet cape and hat and unfastened his scabbard belt.
“What have you done with Halvdan and Kolbein?” she asked apprehensively. “Did you leave them behind along the road?”
“No, I left them behind at Loptsgaard,” he said, laughing a bit. “I had such an urge to come home. I couldn’t rest before I did. They went to bed down there, but I took Guldsvein and raced homeward.
“Go and find me some food, Astrid,” he said to the maid. “Bring it over here so you won’t have to walk so far in the rain. But be quick; I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”
“Didn’t you have any food at Loptsgaard?” asked his wife in surprise.
Lavrans sat down on a bench and rocked back and forth, chuckling.
“There was food enough, but I didn’t feel like eating while I was there. I drank with Sigurd for a while, but then I thought I might just as well come home at once instead of waiting till morning.”
Astrid brought ale and food; she also brought dry shoes for her master.
Lavrans fumbled as he tried to unfasten his spurs but he kept lurching forward.
“Come over here, Kristin,” he said, “and help your father. I know you’ll do it with a loving heart—yes, a loving heart—today at least.”
Kristin obeyed and knelt down. Then he put his hands on either side of her head and tilted her face up.
“You know very well, my daughter, that I want only what is best for you. I wouldn’t cause you sorrow unless I saw that I was saving you from many sorrows later on. You’re still so young, Kristin. You only turned seventeen this year, three days after Saint Halvard’s Day. You’re seventeen . . .”
Kristin had finished her task. Somewhat pale, she got up and sat down on her stool by the hearth again.
The intoxication seemed to wear off to some extent as Lavrans ate. He answered questions from his wife and the servant girl about the
ting
. Yes, it had been magnificent. They had bought grain and flour and malt, some in Oslo and some in Tunsberg. They were imported goods—could have been better, but could have been worse too. Yes, he had met many kinsmen and acquaintances and brought greetings from them all. He simply sat there, the answers dripping from him.
“I talked to Sir Andres Gudmundsøn,” he said when Astrid had gone. “Simon has celebrated his betrothal to the young widow at Manvik. The wedding will be at Dyfrin on Saint Andreas’s Day. The boy made the decision himself this time. I tried to avoid Sir Andres in Tunsberg, but he sought me out. He wanted to tell me that he was absolutely certain that Simon saw Fru Halfrid for the first time around midsummer this year. He was afraid I’d think that Simon was planning on this wealthy marriage when he broke off with us.” Lavrans sat for a moment, laughing mirthlessly. “You see, this honorable man was terribly afraid that we’d think something like that of his son.”
Kristin sighed with relief. She thought that this was what her father was so upset about. Maybe he had been hoping all along that it would still take place—the marriage between Simon An-dressøn and herself. At first she had been afraid that he had inquired about her behavior down south in Oslo.
She stood up and said goodnight. Then her father told her to stay a while.
“I have some other news,” said Lavrans. “I might have kept it from you, Kristin, but it’s better that you hear it. Here it is: That man you have set your heart on, you must try to forget.”
Kristin had been standing with her arms at her sides and her head bowed. Now she raised her head and looked into her father’s face. Her lips moved, but she couldn’t manage a single audible word.
Lavrans turned away from his daughter’s gaze; he threw out his hand.
“You know I wouldn’t be against it if I sincerely believed that it would be to your benefit,” he said.
“What news have you heard on this journey, Father?” asked Kristin, her voice steady.
“Erlend Nikulaussøn and his kinsman Sir Munan Baardsøn came to me in Tunsberg,” replied Lavrans. “Sir Munan asked me for your hand on Erlend’s behalf, and I told him no.”
Kristin stood in silence for a moment, breathing heavily.
“Why won’t you give me to Erlend Nikulaussøn?” she asked.
“I don’t know how much you know about this man you want for your husband,” said Lavrans. “If you don’t know the reason yourself, it won’t be pleasant for you to hear it from my lips.”
“Is it because he was excommunicated and outlawed?” asked Kristin in the same tone as before.
“Do you know what it was that caused King Haakon to drive his close kinsman from his court? And do you know that he was banned by the Church in the end because he defied the archbishop’s decree? And that he did not leave the country alone?”
“Yes,” said Kristin. Her voice grew uncertain. “I know too that he was eighteen years old when he met her—his mistress.”
“That’s how old I was when I was married,” said Lavrans. “When I was young, we reckoned that from a man’s eighteenth birthday he could answer for himself and be responsible for his own welfare and that of others.”
Kristin stood in silence.
“You called her his mistress, that woman he has lived with for ten years and who has borne him children,” said Lavrans after a moment. “I would regret the day I sent my daughter off with a husband who had lived openly with a mistress for years on end before he married. But you know it was more than merely living in sin.”
“You weren’t so harsh to judge Fru Aashild and Herr Bjørn,” said Kristin quietly.
“Yet I cannot say I would willingly join families with them,” replied Lavrans.
“Father,” said Kristin, “have you and Mother been so without sin all your lives that you dare judge Erlend so harshly?”
“God knows,” replied Lavrans sternly, “that I judge no man to be a greater sinner than I am myself. But one cannot expect me to give my daughter to any man who wishes to ask for her, just because we all need God’s mercy.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” said Kristin hotly. “Father, Mother, you were both young once. Don’t you remember that it’s not easy to guard yourself against the sin that love provokes?”
Lavrans turned blood-red.
“No,” he said curtly.
“Then you don’t know what you’re doing,” screamed Kristin in despair, “if you separate Erlend Nikulaussøn and me!”
Lavrans sat down on the bench again.
“You’re only seventeen years old, Kristin,” he continued. “It might be that the two of you are more fond of each other than I thought. But he’s not so young a man that he shouldn’t have realized . . . If he were a good man, then he wouldn’t have approached such a young, immature child as you with words of love. He seems to have considered it trivial that you were promised to someone else.
“But I will not betroth my daughter to a man who has two children with another man’s true wife. Don’t you realize that he has children?
“You’re too young to understand that such an injustice breeds endless quarrels and strife among kinsmen. The man cannot abandon his own offspring; neither can he claim them. It will be difficult for him to find a way to present his son in society, or to marry off his daughter to anyone other than a servant boy or a smallholder. And his children would not be made of flesh and blood if they didn’t despise you and your children. . . .
“Don’t you see, Kristin? Sins like this . . . God may forgive such sins more readily than many others, but they damage a lineage so severely that it can never be redeemed. I was thinking about Bjørn and Aashild myself. There stood that Munan, her son. He was dripping with gold and he sits on the King’s council. He and his brothers control the inheritance from their mother, and yet he hasn’t visited Aashild in her poverty in all these years. Yes, this was the man that your friend chose as his spokesman.
“No, I say, no! You shall never be part of that family as long as my head is above ground.”
Kristin covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. “Then I’ll pray to God night and day, night and day, to take me away from here if you won’t change your mind!”
“It’s useless to discuss this any more tonight,” said her father, aggrieved. “You may not believe it, but I must watch over you in such a way that I can answer for the consequences. Go to bed now, child.”
He held out his hand to her, but she refused to acknowledge it and went sobbing out of the room.
The parents sat for a moment in silence.
Then Lavrans said to his wife, “Would you mind bringing some ale over here? No, bring some wine. I’m tired.”
Ragnfrid did as he asked. When she returned with the tall goblet, her husband was sitting with his face in his hands. He looked up, and then stroked his hands over the wimple covering her head and down along her arms.
“Poor thing, now you’ve gotten wet. Drink a toast to me, Ragnfrid.”
She placed the goblet to her lips.
“No, drink
with
me,” said Lavrans vehemently, pulling his wife down onto his lap. Reluctantly she yielded to him.
Lavrans said, “You’ll stand behind me in this matter, won’t you, my wife? It will be best for Kristin if she realizes from the very start that she must put this man out of her mind.”
“It will be hard for the child,” said Ragnfrid.
“Yes, I know that,” replied Lavrans.
They sat in silence for a while, and then Ragnfrid asked, “What does he look like, this Erlend of Husaby?”
“Oh,” said Lavrans, hesitating, “he’s a handsome fellow—in a way. But he doesn’t look as if he were much good for anything but seducing women.”
They were silent again for a while, and then Lavrans went on, “He has handled the great inheritance he received from Sir Nikulaus in such a way that it is much reduced. I haven’t struggled and striven to protect my children for a son-in-law like that.”
Ragnfrid paced the floor nervously.
Lavrans went on, “I was most displeased by the fact that he tried to bribe Kolbein with silver—he was supposed to carry a secret letter from Erlend to Kristin.”
“Did you look at the letter?” asked Ragnfrid.
“No, I didn’t want to,” said Lavrans crossly. “I tossed it back to Sir Munan and told him what I thought of such behavior. He had put his seal on it too; I don’t know what to make of such childish pranks. Sir Munan showed me the seal—said it was King Skule’s privy seal that Erlend had inherited from his father. He thought I ought to realize that it’s a great honor that they would ask for my daughter. But I don’t think that Sir Munan would have presented this matter on Erlend’s behalf with such great warmth if he hadn’t realized that, with this man, the power and honor of the Husaby lineage—won in the days of Sir Nikulaus and Sir Baard—are now in decline. Erlend can no longer expect to make the kind of marriage that was his birthright.”
Ragnfrid stopped in front of her husband.
“I don’t know whether you’re right about this matter or not, my husband. First I ought to mention that, in these times, many a man on the great estates has had to settle for less power and honor than his father before him. You know quite well yourself that it’s not as easy for a man to gain wealth, whether from the land or through commerce, as it was before.”
“I know, I know,” interrupted her husband impatiently. “All the more reason to handle with caution what one
has
inherited.”
But his wife continued. “There is also this: It doesn’t seem to me that Kristin would be an unequal match for Erlend. In Sweden your lineage is among the best; your grandfather and your father bore the title of knight in this country. My distant ancestors were barons, son after father for many hundreds of years down to Ivar the Old; my father and my grandfather were sheriffs of the county. It’s true that neither you nor Trond has acquired a title or land from the Crown. But I think it could be said that things are no different for Erlend Nikulaussøn than for the two of you.”
“It’s not the same thing,” said Lavrans vehemently. “Power and a knight’s title lay just within reach for Erlend, and he turned his back on them for the sake of whoring. But I see now that you’re against me too. Maybe you think, like Aasmund and Trond, that it’s an honor for me that these noblemen want my daughter to be one of their kinswomen.”
“I told you,” said Ragnfrid rather heatedly, “that I don’t think you need to be so offended and afraid that Erlend’s kinsmen will think they’re condescending in this matter. But don’t you realize one thing above all else? That gentle, obedient child had the courage to stand up to us and reject Simon Darre. Haven’t you noticed that Kristin has not been herself since she came back from Oslo? Don’t you see that she’s walking around as if she had just stepped out from the spell of the mountain? Don’t you realize that she loves this man so much that if you don’t give in, a great misfortune may befall us?”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Lavrans, looking up sharply.
“Many a man greets his son-in-law and does not know it,” said Ragnfrid.
Her husband seemed to stiffen; he slowly turned white in the face.
“And you are her mother!” he said hoarsely. “Have you . . . have you seen . . . such certain signs . . . that you dare accuse your own daughter of this?”
“No, no,” said Ragnfrid quickly. “I didn’t mean what you think. But no one can know what may have happened or is going to happen. Her only thought is that she loves this man. That much I’ve seen. She may show us someday that she loves him more than her honor—or her life!”
Lavrans leaped up.
Have you taken leave of your senses? How can you think such things of our good, beautiful child? Nothing much can have happened to her there, with the nuns. I know she’s no milkmaid who gives up her virtue behind a fence. You must realize that she can’t have seen this man or spoken to him more than a few times. She’ll get over him. It’s probably just the whim of a young maiden. God knows it hurts me dearly to see her grieving so, but you know that this
has
to pass with time!