Kristin Lavransdatter Part 16

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 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 Gudmundsn," 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-dressn 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 Nikulaussn and his kinsman Sir Munan Baardsn 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 Nikulaussn?" 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 Aas.h.i.+ld and Herr Bjrn," 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?"

"G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 Nikulaussn 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 . . . G.o.d 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 Bjrn and Aas.h.i.+ld 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 Aas.h.i.+ld 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 G.o.d 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 with me," said Lavrans vehemently, pulling his wife down onto his lap. Reluctantly she yielded to him. 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 has inherited." 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle or land from the Crown. But I think it could be said that things are no different for Erlend Nikulaussn than for the two of you."

"It's not the same thing," said Lavrans vehemently. "Power and a knight's t.i.tle 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 n.o.blemen 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 hoa.r.s.ely. "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. G.o.d knows it hurts me dearly to see her grieving so, but you know that this has has to pa.s.s with time! to pa.s.s with time!

"Life, you say, and honor. Here at home on my own farm I can surely protect my own daughter. And I don't believe any maiden of good family and with an honorable and Christian upbringing would part so easily with her honor, or her life. No, this is the kind of thing people write ballads about. I think when a man or a maiden is tempted to do something like that, they make up a ballad about it, which helps them, but they refrain from actually doing it. . . .

"Even you," he said, stopping in front of his wife. "There was another man you would rather have had, back when the two of us were married. What kind of situation do you think you'd have been in if your father had let you make up your own mind?"

Now it was Ragnfrid's turn to grow pale as death.

"Jesus and Maria! Who told you . . ."

"Sigurd of Loptsgaard said something about it, right after we moved here to the valley," said Lavrans. "But give me an answer to my question. Do you think you would have been happier if Ivar had given you to that man?"

His wife stood with her head bowed low.

"That man," she said almost inaudibly, "didn't want me me." A shudder seemed to pa.s.s through her body; she struck at the air with a clenched fist.

Then her husband gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Is that that it?" he said, overcome, and a profound and sorrowful amazement filled his voice. "Is it?" he said, overcome, and a profound and sorrowful amazement filled his voice. "Is that that it? For all these years . . . have you been harboring sorrow for it? For all these years . . . have you been harboring sorrow for him him, Ragnfrid?"

She was shaking, but she did not answer.

"Ragnfrid?" he said in the same tone of voice. "But after Bjr-gulf died . . . and when you . . . when you wanted me to be toward you-in a way that I couldn't . . . Were you thinking about the other man then?" he whispered, frightened and confused and tormented.

"How can you think such things?" she whispered, on the verge of tears.

Lavrans leaned his forehead against his wife's and turned his head gently from side to side.

"I don't know. You're so strange, everything you said tonight . . . I was afraid, Ragnfrid. I don't understand women very well."

Ragnfrid smiled wanly and put her arms around his neck.

"G.o.d knows, Lavrans . . . I begged you because I loved you more than is good for a human soul. And I hated the other man so much that I knew it made the Devil happy."

"I have loved you, dear wife, with all my heart," said Lavrans tenderly, kissing her. "Do you know that? I thought we were so happy together-weren't we, Ragnfrid?"

"You are the best husband," she said with a little sob, pressing herself against him.

Ardently he embraced her.

"Tonight I want to sleep with you, Ragnfrid. And if you would be toward me the way you were in the old days, then I wouldn't be . . . such a fool."

His wife stiffened in his arms and pulled away a little.

"It's fasting time," she said quietly, her voice strangely hard.

"So it is." Her husband chuckled. "You and I, Ragnfrid, we have observed all the fast days and have tried to live by G.o.d's commandments in all things. And now it almost seems to me . . . that we might have been happier if we had had more to regret."

"Don't talk that way," implored his wife in despair, holding his temples in her gaunt hands. "You know that I don't want you to do anything except what you think is right."

He pulled her to him once more. He gasped aloud as he said, "G.o.d help her. G.o.d help us all, my Ragnfrid.

"I'm tired," he said, releasing her. "You should go to bed now too, shouldn't you?"

He stood by the door, waiting as she put out the fire in the hearth, blew out the little iron lamp by the loom, and pinched the wick. Together they walked through the rain over to the main house.

Lavrans already had his foot on the stairs up to the loft when he turned back to his wife, who was still standing in the door to the entryway. He pulled her fervently to him one last time and kissed her in the darkness. Then he made the sign of the cross over his wife's face and went upstairs.

Ragnfrid threw off her clothes and crept into bed. She lay still for a while, listening to her husband's footsteps overhead in the loft room; then the bed creaked up there and silence fell. Ragnfrid crossed her thin arms over her withered b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Yes, G.o.d help her. What kind of woman was she? What kind of mother was she? She would soon be old. And yet she was just the same. She no longer begged the way she had when they were young, when she had threatened and raged against this man who closed himself off, shy and modest, when she grew ardent-who turned cold when she wanted to give him more than his husband's right. That's the way things were, and that's how she had gotten with child, time after time-humiliated, furious with shame because she couldn't be content with his lukewarm, married man's love. Then, when she was pregnant and in need of kindness and tenderness, he had had so much to give. Whenever she was sick or tormented, her husband's tireless, gentle concern for her fell like dew on her hot soul. He willingly took on all her troubles and bore them, but there was something of his own that he refused to share. She had loved her children so much that it felt as though her heart were cut out of her each time she lost one of them. G.o.d, G.o.d, what kind of woman was she, who in the midst of her suffering was capable of tasting that drop of sweetness when he took on her sorrow and laid it close to his own?

Kristin. She would gladly have walked through fire for her daughter; they wouldn't believe it, neither Lavrans nor the child, but it was true. And yet she felt an anger toward her that was close to hatred right now. It was to forget his own sorrow over the child's sorrow that Lavrans had wished tonight that he could have given in to his wife.

Ragnfrid didn't dare get up, for she didn't know whether Kristin might be lying awake over in the other bed. But she got soundlessly to her knees, and with her forehead leaning against the footboard of the bed, she tried to pray-for her daughter, for her husband, and for herself. As her body gradually grew stiff with the cold, she set out once more on one of her familiar night journeys, trying to break a path to a peaceful home for her heart.