“Yes, for that which I’ve carried under my heart may already belong to the Devil! It cannot be saved. Oh, if only I had drunk the potion that Eline offered me—that might have been atonement for all the sins we’ve committed, Erlend and I. Then this child would never have been conceived. Oh, I’ve thought this whole time, Gunnulf, that when I saw what I had fostered inside me, then I would come to realize that it would have been better for me to drink the leprosy potion that she offered me—rather than drive to her death the woman to whom Erlend had first bound himself.”
“Kristin,” said the priest, “you’ve lost your senses. You weren’t the one who drove that poor woman to her death. Erlend
couldn’t
keep the promise that he’d given her when he was young and knew little of law and justice. He could never have lived with her without sin. And she herself allowed another man to seduce her, and Erlend wanted to marry her to him when he heard of it. The two of you were not to blame for her taking her own life.”
“Do you want to know how it happened that she took her life?” Kristin was now so full of despair that she spoke quite calmly. “We were together at Haugen, Erlend and I, when she arrived. She had brought along a drinking horn, and she wanted me to drink with her. I now see that she probably intended it for Erlend, but when she found me there with him, she wanted me to . . . I realized it was treachery—I saw that she didn’t drink any herself when she put the horn to her lips. But I wanted to drink and I didn’t care whether I lived or died when I found out that she had been with him here at Husaby the whole time. Then Erlend came in—he threatened her with his knife: ‘You must drink first.’ She begged and begged, and he was about to let her go. Then the Devil took hold of me; I grabbed the horn—‘One of us, your two mistresses,’ I said—I egged Erlend on—‘You can’t keep both of us,’ I said. And so it was that she killed herself with Erlend’s knife. But Bjørn and Aashild found a way to conceal what had happened.”
“So Aunt Aashild took part in this concealment,” said Gunnulf harshly. “I see . . . she played you into Erlend’s hands.”
“No,” said Kristin vehemently. “Fru Aashild pleaded with us. She begged Erlend and she begged me so that I don’t understand how I dared defy her—to step forward in as honorable a manner as was still possible, to fall at my father’s feet and implore him to forgive us for what we had done. But I didn’t dare. I argued that I was afraid that Father would kill Erlend—but oh, I knew full well that Father would never harm a man who put himself and his case into his hands. I argued that I was afraid he would suffer such sorrow that he would never be able to hold his head high again. But I have since shown that I was not so afraid to cause my father sorrow. You can’t know, Gunnulf, what a good man my father is—no one can realize it who doesn’t know him, how kind he has been to me all my days. Father has always been so fond of me. I don’t want him to find out that I behaved shamelessly while he thought I was living with the sisters in Oslo and learning everything that was right and just. I even wore the clothing of a lay sister as I met with Erlend in cowsheds and lofts in town.”
She looked up at Gunnulf. His face was pale and hard as stone.
“Do you see now why I’m frightened? She who took him in when he arrived, infected with leprosy . . .”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” the priest asked gently.
“Of course, of course, of course.” A shadow of that wild, sweet smile of the past flickered across the woman’s ravaged face.
“But Erlend wasn’t infected,” said Gunnulf. “No one except Father ever thought that Mother died of leprosy.”
“But I must be like a leper in God’s eyes,” said Kristin. She rested her face on the priest’s arm which she was gripping. “Such as I am, infected with sins.”
“My sister,” said the priest softly, placing his other hand on her wimple. “I doubt that you are so sinful, young child, that you have forgotten that just as God can cleanse a person’s flesh of leprosy, He can also cleanse your soul of sin.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sobbed, hiding her face on his arm. “I don’t know—and I don’t feel any remorse, Gunnulf. I’m afraid, and yet . . . I was afraid when I stood at the church door with Erlend and the priest married us. I was afraid when I went inside for the wedding mass with him, with the golden crown on my flowing hair, for I didn’t dare speak of shame to my father, with all my sins unatoned for; I didn’t even dare confess fully to my parish priest. But as I went about here this winter and saw myself growing more hideous for each day that passed—then I was even more frightened, for Erlend did not act toward me as he had before. I thought about those days when he would come to me in my chamber at Skog in the evenings. . . .”
“Kristin,” the priest tried to lift her face, “you mustn’t think about this now! Think about God, who sees your sorrow and your remorse. Turn to the gentle Virgin Mary, who takes pity on every sorrowful—”
“Don’t you see? I drove another human being to take her own life!”
“Kristin,” the priest said sternly. “Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”
He stroked her wimple over and over.
“Don’t you remember, my sister, when the Devil tried to tempt Saint Martin? Then the Fiend asked Saint Martin whether he dared believe it when he promised God’s mercy to all the sinners whose confessions he heard. And the bishop answered, ‘Even to you I promise God’s forgiveness at the very instant you ask for it—if only you will give up your pride and believe that His love is greater than your hatred.’ ”
Gunnulf continued to stroke the head of the weeping woman. All the while he thought: Was
this
the way that Erlend had behaved toward his young bride? His lips grew pale and grim at the thought.
Audfinna Audunsdatter was the first of the women to arrive. She found Kristin in the little house; Gunnulf was sitting with her, and a couple of maids were bustling about the room.
Audfinna greeted the priest with deference, but Kristin stood up and went toward her with her hand outstretched.
“I must give you thanks for coming, Audfinna. I know it’s not easy for your family to be without you at home.”
Gunnulf had given the woman a searching look. Now he too stood up and said, “It was good of you to come so quickly. My sister-in-law needs someone she can trust to be with her. She’s a stranger here, young and inexperienced.”
“Jesus, she’s as white as her linen wimple,” whispered Audfinna. “Do you think, sir, that I might give her a sleeping potion? She needs to rest a while before it gets much worse.”
She set to work, quietly and efficiently, inspecting the bed that the servant women had prepared on the floor, and telling them to bring more cushions and straw. She put small stone vessels of herbs on the fire to heat. Then she proceeded to loosen all the ribbons and ties on Kristin’s clothing, and finally she pulled out all the pins from the ill woman’s hair.
“I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said when the cascading, silky, golden-brown mane tumbled down around the pale face. She had to laugh. “It certainly hasn’t lost much of either fullness or sheen, even though you went bareheaded a little longer than was proper.”
She settled Kristin comfortably among the cushions on the floor and covered her with a blanket.
“Drink this now, and you won’t feel the pains as much—and see if you can sleep a little now and then.”
Gunnulf was ready to leave. He went over and bent down toward Kristin.
“You will pray for me, Gunnulf?” she implored him.
“I will pray for you until I see you with your child in your arms—and after that too,” he said as he tucked her hand back under the covers.
Kristin lay there, dozing. She felt almost content. The pain in her loins came and went, came and went—but it was unlike anything she had ever felt before, so that each time it was over, she wondered whether she had just imagined it. After the anguish and dread of the early morning hours, she felt as if she were already beyond the worst fear and torment. Audfinna walked about quietly, hanging up the infant clothes, blankets, and furs to warm at the hearth—and stirring her pots a little so the room smelled of spices. Finally Kristin slept between each wave of pain; she thought she was back home in the brewhouse at Jørundgaard and was supposed to help her mother dye a large woven fabric—probably because of the steam from the ash bark and nettles.
Then the neighbor women arrived, one after another—wives from the estates in the parish and in Birgsi. Audfinna withdrew to her place with the maids. Toward evening, Kristin began to suffer terrible pain. The women told her to walk around as long as she could bear it. This tormented her greatly; the house was now crowded with women, and she had to walk around like a mare that was for sale. Now and then she had to let the women squeeze and touch her body all over, and then they would confer with each other. At last Fru Gunna from Raasvold, who was in charge of things, said that now Kristin could lie down on the floor. She divided up the women: some to sleep and some to keep watch. “This isn’t going to pass quickly—but go ahead and scream, Kristin, when it hurts, and don’t pay any mind to those who are sleeping. We’re all here to help you, poor child,” she said, gentle and kind, patting the young woman’s cheek.
But Kristin lay there biting her lips to shreds and crushing the corners of the blanket in her sweaty hands. It was suffocatingly hot, but they told her that was as it should be. After each wave of pain, the sweat poured off her.
At times she would lie there thinking about food for all these women. She fervently wanted them to see that she kept good order in her house. She had asked Torbjørg, the cook, to put whey in the water for boiling the fresh fish. If only Gunnulf wouldn’t regard this as breaking the fast. Sira Eirik had said that it wasn’t, for whey was not milk, and the fish broth would be thrown out. They mustn’t be allowed to taste the dried fish that Erlend had brought home in the fall, spoiled and full of mites that it was.
Blessed Virgin Mary—will it be long before you help me? Oh, how it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. . . .
She was trying to hold out a little longer, before she gave in and screamed.
Audfinna sat next to the hearth and tended the pots of water. Kristin wished that she dared ask her to come over and hold her hand. There was nothing she wouldn’t give to hold on to a familiar and kind hand right now. But she was ashamed to ask for it.
The next morning a bewildered silence hovered over Husaby. It was the day before the Feast of the Annunciation and the farm work was supposed to be finished by mid-afternoon prayers, but the men were distracted and somber, and the frightened maids were careless with their chores. The servants had grown fond of their young mistress, and it was said that things were not going well for her.
Erlend stood outside in the courtyard, talking to his smith. He tried to keep his thoughts on what the man was saying. Then Fru Gunna came rushing over to him.
“There’s no progress with your wife, Erlend—we’ve tried everything we know. You must come. It might help if she sits on your lap. Go in and change into a short tunic. But be quick; she’s suffering greatly, your poor young wife!”
Erlend had turned blood-red. He remembered he had heard that if a woman was having trouble delivering a child she had conceived in secrecy, then it might help if she were placed on her husband’s knee.
Kristin was lying on the floor under several blankets; two women were sitting with her. The moment that Erlend came in, he saw her body convulse and she buried her head in the lap of one of the women, rocking it from side to side. But she didn’t utter a single whimper.
When the pain had passed, she looked up with wild, frightened eyes, her cracked, brown lips gasping. All trace of youth and beauty had vanished from the swollen, flushed red face. Even her hair was matted together with bits of straw and wool from the fur of a filthy hide. She looked at Erlend as if she didn’t immediately recognize him. But when she realized why the women had sent for him, she shook her head vigorously.
“It’s not the custom where I come from . . . for men to be present when a woman is giving birth.”
“It’s sometimes done here in the north,” said Erlend quietly. “If it can lessen the pain a little for you, my Kristin, then you must—”
“Oh!” When he knelt beside her she threw her arms around his waist and pressed herself to him. Hunched over and shaking, she fought her way through the pain without a murmur.
“May I have a few words with my husband alone?” she said when it was over, her breathing rapid and harsh. The women withdrew.
“Was it when she was suffering the agony of childbirth that you promised her what she told me—that you would marry her when she was widowed . . . that night when Orm was born?” whispered Kristin.
Erlend gasped for air, as if he had been struck deep in the heart. Then he vehemently shook his head.
“I was at the castle that night; my men and I had guard duty. It was when I came back to our hostel in the morning and they put the boy in my arms. . . . Have you been lying here thinking about this, Kristin?”
“Yes.” Again she clung to him as the waves of pain washed over her. Erlend wiped away the sweat that poured down her face.
“Now you know,” he said, when she lay quiet once more. “Don’t you want me to stay with you, as Fru Gunna says?”
But Kristin shook her head. And finally the women had to let Erlend go.
But then it seemed as if her power to endure was broken. She screamed in wild terror of the pain that she could feel approaching, and begged pitifully for help. And yet when the women talked of bringing her husband back, she screamed “No!” She would rather be tortured to death.
Gunnulf and the cleric who was with him walked over to the church to attend evensong. Everyone on the estate went along who was not tending to the woman giving birth. But Erlend slipped out of the church before the service was over and walked south toward the buildings.