Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  That’s where it stood at home, and her father had his high seat at the head of the table. But at Jørundgaard the beds stood along the wall to the entryway. At home her mother sat at the end of the outer bench so that she could go back and forth and keep an eye on the food being served. Only when there were guests did Ragnfrid sit at her husband’s side. But here the high seat was in the middle beneath the east gable, and Erlend always wanted Kristin to sit with him. At home her father always offered God’s servants a place in the high seat if they were guests at Jørundgaard, and he and Ragnfrid would serve them while they ate and drank. But Erlend refused to do so unless they were of high rank. He had little love for priests or monks—they were costly friends, he said. Kristin thought about what her father and Sira Eirik always said when people complained about the avarice of clerics: every man forgets the sinful pleasure he has enjoyed when he has to pay for it.

  She asked Erlend about life at Husaby in the old days. But he knew very little. Such and such he had heard, if he remembered rightly—but he couldn’t recall exactly. King Skule had owned the manor and built it up, presumably intending to make Husaby his home when he donated Rein manor to the convent. Erlend was exceedingly proud that he was descended from the duke, as he always called the king, and from Bishop Nikulaus. The bishop was the father of his grandfather, Munan Biskopssøn. But Kristin thought that he knew less about these men than she did from her own father’s stories. At home things were different. Neither her father nor her mother boasted of the power or prestige of their deceased ancestors. But they often spoke of them, holding out the good they knew about them as an example and telling of their faults and the evil that had resulted as a warning. And they knew amusing little tales—about Ivar Gjesling the Elder and his enmity with King Sverre, about Dean Ivar’s sharp and witty replies, about Haavard Gjesling’s tremendous girth, and about Ivar Gjesling the Younger’s wondrous luck in hunting. Lavrans told of his grandfather’s brother who abducted the Folkung maiden from Vreta cloister; about his grandfather, the Swedish knight Ketil; and about his grandmother, Ramborg Sunesdatter, who always longed for her home in Västergötaland and who one day drove her sleigh through the ice of Lake Vänern when she was visiting her brother at Solberga. He told of his father’s skill with weapons and of his inexpressible sorrow at the death of his young first wife, Kristin Sigurdsdatter, who died in childbed, giving birth to Lavrans. And he read from a book about his ancestor, the Holy Fru Elin of Skøvde, who was blessed to become God’s martyr. Lavrans had often said that he and Kristin should make a pilgrimage to the grave of the holy widow. But nothing had ever come of it.

  In her fear and need, Kristin tried to pray to this holy woman to whom she was bound by blood. She prayed to Saint Elin for her child and kissed the cross that her father had given her; inside was a scrap of the holy saint’s shroud. But Kristin was afraid of Saint Elin, now that she had shamed her lineage so terribly. When she prayed to Saint Olav and Saint Thomas for their intercession, she often felt that her laments reached living ears and sympathetic hearts. Her father loved these two martyrs of righteousness above all the other saints, even more than Saint Lavrans himself, whose name he bore, and whose feast day in late summer he always honored with a great banquet and rich alms. Kristin’s father had seen Saint Thomas in his dreams one night when he lay wounded outside of Baagahus. No one could describe how loving and venerable he was in appearance, and Lavrans himself had not been able to utter anything but “Lord, Lord!” But the radiant bishop had tenderly touched the man’s wound and promised him life and vigor so that he would once again see his wife and daughter, as he had prayed for. And yet at that time not a soul had believed that Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn would live through the night.

  Well, Erlend had said. One heard so many things. Nothing like that had ever happened to him, and it wasn’t likely to, either. He had never been a pious man like Lavrans.

  Then Kristin asked about the people who had attended their homecoming feast. Erlend had little to say about them either. It occurred to Kristin that her husband did not resemble the people here in the countryside. Many of them were handsome; blond and ruddy-hued, with round, hard heads; strong and stocky in build. Many of the old men were immensely fat. Erlend looked like a strange bird among his guests. He was a head taller than most of the men, thin and lean, with slender limbs and fine joints. And he had black, silken hair and a tan complexion, but pale blue eyes beneath coal black brows and shadowy black lashes. His forehead was high and narrow, his temples hollowed; his nose was a little too big and his mouth a little too small and weak for a man. And yet he was handsome; Kristin had never seen a man who was half as handsome as Erlend. Even his soft, quiet voice was unlike the husky voices of the others.

  Erlend laughed and said that his lineage was not from around here, except for his paternal great-grandmother, Ragnrid Skulesdatter. People said that he was much like his mother’s father, Gaute Erlendssøn of Skogheim. Kristin asked him what he knew of this man. But he knew almost nothing.

  One evening Erlend and Kristin were undressing. Erlend couldn’t unfasten the strap on his shoe, so he cut it off, and the knife sliced into his hand. He bled heavily and cursed fiercely. Kristin took a cloth out of her linen chest. She was wearing only her shift. Erlend put his other arm around her waist as she bandaged his hand.

  Suddenly he looked down into her face with horror and confusion—and flushed bright red himself. Kristin bowed her head.

  Erlend withdrew his arm. He said nothing, and so Kristin walked quietly away and climbed into bed. Her heart thudded hollowly and hard against her ribs. Now and then she cast a glance at her husband. He had turned his back to her, slowly taking off one garment after the other. Then he came over and lay down.

  Kristin waited for him to speak. She waited so long that her heart seemed to stop beating and just stood still, quivering in her breast.

  But Erlend didn’t say a word. And he didn’t take her into his arms.

  At last he hesitantly placed his hand on her breast and pressed his chin against her shoulder so that the stubble of his beard prickled her skin. When he still said nothing, Kristin turned over to face the wall.

  She felt as if she were sinking and sinking. He had not one word to offer her—now that he knew she had been carrying his child these long, difficult days. Kristin clenched her teeth in the dark. She would not beg him. If he remained silent, then she would be silent too, even if it lasted until the day she gave birth. Resentment surged up inside her. But she lay absolutely still next to the wall. Erlend too lay still in the dark. Hour after hour they lay there this way, and each one knew that the other was not asleep. Finally Kristin heard by his regular breathing that Erlend had dozed off. Then she allowed her tears to fall as they would, from sorrow and hurt and shame. This, she felt, she would never be able to forgive him.

  For three days Erlend and Kristin went about in this manner—he seemed like a wet dog, thought the young wife. She was burning and stony with anger, becoming wild with bitterness whenever she felt him give her a searching look but then swiftly shift his glance if she turned her eyes toward his.

  On the morning of the fourth day Kristin was sitting in the main house when Erlend appeared in the doorway, dressed for riding. He said that he was going west to Medalby and asked whether she wanted to accompany him to visit the manor; it was part of her wedding-morning gift. Kristin assented, and Erlend himself helped her to put on the fur-lined boots and the black cloak with sleeves and silver clasps.

  Out in the courtyard stood four saddled horses, but Erlend told Haftor and Egil to stay home and help with the threshing. Then he helped his wife into the saddle. Kristin realized that Erlend was now planning to speak about the matter which lay unspoken between them. Yet he said nothing as they slowly rode off, southward, toward the forest.

  It was now nearly the end of the slaughtering month, but still no snow had fallen in the parish. The day was fresh and beautiful; the sun had just come up, and it glittered and sparkled
on the white frost everywhere, on the fields and on the trees. They rode across Husaby’s land. Kristin saw that there were few cultivated acres or stubble fields, but mostly fallow land and old meadows, tufted with grass, moss-covered, and overgrown with alder saplings. She mentioned this.

  Her husband replied merrily, “Don’t you know, Kristin—you who know so well how to tend and manage farms—that it does no good to grow grain this close to a trading port? You gain more by trading butter and wool for grain and flour from the foreign merchants.”

  “Then you should have traded the goods that are lying in your lofts and have rotted long ago,” said Kristin. “I also know that the law says that every man who leases land must sow grain on three parts but let the fourth part lie fallow. And surely the estate of the master should not be worse tended than the farms of his leaseholders—that’s what my father always said.”

  Erlend laughed a bit and said, “I have never asked about the law in that regard. As long as I receive what is my due, my tenants can run their farms as they see fit, and I will run Husaby in the manner that seems to me best and most suitable.”

  “Do you think yourself wiser then,” said Kristin, “than our deceased ancestors and Saint Olav and King Magnus, who established these laws?”

  Erlend laughed again and said, “I hadn’t given any thought to that. What a devilish good grasp you have of our country’s laws and regulations, Kristin.”

  “I have some understanding of these matters,” said Kristin, “because Father often asked Sigurd of Loptsgaard to recite laws for us when he came to visit and we sat at home in the evening. Father thought it was beneficial for the servants and the young people to have some knowledge of such things, and so Sigurd would recount one passage or another.”

  “Sigurd . . .” said Erlend. “Oh, yes, now I remember. I saw him at our wedding. He was the toothless old man with the long drooping nose who slobbered and wept and patted you on the breast. He was still dead drunk in the morning when everyone came up to us and watched as I put the linen wimple of a married woman on your head.”

  “He has known me for as long as I can remember,” said Kristin crossly. “He used to take me on his lap and play with me when I was a little maiden.”

  Erlend laughed again. “That was an odd kind of amusement—that you had to sit and listen to the old man chanting the law, passage by passage. Lavrans is unlike any other man in every way. Usually it is said that if the tenant knew the full law of the land and the stallion knew his strength, then the Devil would be a knight. . . .”

  Kristin gave a shout and struck her horse on the flank. Erlend threw his wife an angry and astonished look as she rode away from him.

  Suddenly he spurred his horse. Jesus, the ford in the river—it was impossible to cross there now, the earth had slid away recently. Sløngvanbauge took longer strides when he noticed another horse chasing him. Erlend was deathly afraid—how she was racing down the steep slopes. He bounded past her through the copse-wood and doubled back on the road where it flattened out for a short stretch to make her stop. When he came up alongside her, he saw that Kristin herself had grown a little scared.

  Erlend leaned over toward his wife and struck her a ringing blow beneath the ear; Sløngvanbauge leaped sideways, startled, and reared up.

  “Well, you deserved that,” said Erlend, his voice shaking, after the horses had calmed down and they once again rode side by side. “The way you rushed off like that, senseless with fury . . . You frightened me.”

  Kristin held her hand to her head so that he couldn’t see her face. Erlend wished that he hadn’t hit her. But he repeated, “Yes, you scared me, Kristin—to dash off like that! And to do so now . . . ,” he said softly.

  Kristin didn’t reply, nor did she look at him. But Erlend felt that she was less angry than before, when he had mocked her home. He was greatly surprised by this, but he saw that it was so.

  They arrived at Medalby, and Erlend’s leaseholder came out and wanted to show them into the main house. But Erlend thought they first ought to inspect the buildings, and Kristin should come along. “She owns the farm now, and she has a better understanding of such things than I do, Stein,” he said with a laugh. Several farmers were there too, who were to act as witnesses, and some of them were also Erlend’s tenants.

  Stein had come to the farm on the last turnover day4 and since then he had been begging the master to come up and see the condition that the buildings were in when he took over, or to send an envoy in his stead. The farmers testified that not one building had been without leaks, and those that were now in a state of collapse had been that way when Stein arrived. Kristin saw that it was a good farm, but it had been poorly maintained. She saw that this Stein was a capable man, and Erlend was also very amenable and promised him some reductions in his land rent until he was able to repair the buildings.

  Then they went into the main house where the table was set with good food and strong ale. The leaseholder’s wife asked Kristin’s forgiveness for not coming out to greet her. But her husband would not allow her to step out under open sky until she had been to church after giving birth.5 Kristin greeted the woman kindly, and then she had to go over to the cradle to see the child. It was the couple’s first, and it was a son, twelve nights old, big and strong.

  Then Erlend and Kristin were led to the high seat, and everyone sat down and ate and drank for a good long time. Kristin was the one who talked most during the meal; Erlend didn’t say much, nor did the farmers, and yet Kristin noticed that they seemed to like her.

  Then the child woke up, at first whimpering but then shrieking so terribly that the mother had to put him to her breast to calm his cries. Kristin glanced over at the two of them several times, and when the boy had had enough, she took him from the woman and held him in her arms.

  “Look, husband,” she said, “don’t you think he’s a handsome and fine young fellow?”

  “That he is,” said Erlend, not looking in her direction.

  Kristin sat and held the child for a while before she gave him back to his mother.

  “I will send a gift over here to your son, Arndis,” she said. “For he’s the first child I’ve held in my arms since I came up here to the north.”

  Flushed and defiant, with a little smile Kristin cast a glance at her husband and then at the farmers sitting along the bench. A few of them showed a slight twitch at the corner of the mouth, but then they stared straight ahead, their faces stiff and solemn. After a moment a very old man stood up; he had been drinking heavily. Now he lifted the ladle out of the ale bowl, placed it on the table, and raised the large vessel.

  “So let us drink to that, mistress; that the next child you hold in your arms will be the new master of Husaby!”

  Kristin stood up and accepted the heavy bowl. First she offered it to her husband. Erlend barely touched it with his lips, but Kristin took a long, deep drink.

  “Thank you for that greeting, Jon of Skog,” she said with a cheery nod, her eyes twinkling. Then she sent the bowl around.

  Kristin could see that Erlend was red-faced and quite angry. She herself merely felt such a foolish urge to laugh and be merry. A short time later Erlend wanted to leave, and so they set off on their way home.

  They had been riding for a while without speaking when Erlend suddenly burst out, “Do you think it’s necessary to let even our tenants know that you were carrying a child when you were wed? You can wager your soul with the Devil that talk about the two of us will soon be flying through all the villages along the fjord.”

  Kristin didn’t reply at first. She stared into the distance over her horse’s head, and she was now so white in the face that Erlend grew frightened.

  “I will never forget for as long as I live,” she said at last, without looking at him, “that those were the first words you greeted him with, this son of yours that I carry under my belt.”

  “Kristin!” said Erlend, his voice pleading. “My Kristin,” he implored when she said nothing and
refused to look at him. “Kristin!”

  “Sir?” she replied coldly and courteously, without turning her head.

  Erlend cursed so that sparks flew; he spurred his horse and raced ahead along the road. But a few minutes later he came riding back toward her.

  “This time I was almost so furious,” he said, “that I was going to ride away from you.”

  Kristin said calmly, “Then you might have had to wait a good long time before I followed you to Husaby.”

  “The things you say!” said her husband, resigned.

  Once again they rode for some time without talking. In a while they reached a place where a small path led up over a ridge. Erlend said to his wife, “I was thinking that we could ride home this way, over the heights—it will take a little longer, but I’ve wanted to travel up this way with you for some time.”

  Kristin nodded indifferently.

  After a while Erlend said that now it would be better for them to walk. He tied their horses to a tree.

  “Gunnulf and I had a fortress up here on the ridge,” he said. “I’d like to see whether there’s anything left of our castle.”

  He took Kristin’s hand. She didn’t resist, but walked with her eyes downcast, looking at where she set her feet. It wasn’t long before they were up on the heights. Beyond the bare, frost-covered forest, in the crook of the little river, Husaby lay on the mountain slope directly across from them, looming big and grand with the stone church and all its massive buildings, surrounded by the broad acres, and the dark forested ridge behind.