Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  The next day, as the brothers-in-law rode home from Ranheim, Simon brought up the subject of the interview. Simon said that Erlend seemed to take it terribly lightly—and yet he thought he could see that many of the noblemen would have blamed something on him if they could.

  Erlend said he knew that’s what they would have liked, if it was within their power. For here in the north, most men now sided with the chancellor—except for the archbishop; in him, Erlend had a true friend. But Erlend’s actions in all matters were taken in accordance with the law; he always consulted with his scribe, Kløng Aressøn, who was exceptionally knowledgeable about the law. Erlend was now speaking somberly, and he smiled only briefly as he said that doubtless no one had expected him to have such a good grasp of his business affairs as he now had—neither his dear friends around the countryside nor the gentlemen of the Council. But he was no longer certain that he wanted the position of sheriff, if other conditions should apply than those he had been granted while Erling Vidkunssøn represented the king. His own situation was now such, especially since the death of his wife’s parents, that he no longer needed to secure the favor of those who had risen to power after the king had been proclaimed of age. Yes, that rotten boy might as well be declared of age now rather than later; he wasn’t going to become any more manly if they kept him hidden. Then they would know even sooner what he was concealing behind his shield—or how much the Swedish nobles controlled him. The people would learn the truth: that Erling had been right, after all. It would cost the Norwegians dearly if King Magnus tried to put Skaane4 under the Swedish Crown—and it would immediately lead to war with the Danes the moment one man, whether Danish or German, seized power there. And the peace in the north, which was supposed to be enforced for ten years . . . Half of that time had now passed, and it was uncertain whether the Russians would adhere to the treaty much longer. Erlend had not much faith in it, nor did Erling. No, Chancellor Paal was a learned man and in many respects sensible too—perhaps. But all the gentlemen of the Council, who had chosen him as their leader, had little more combined wit than his horse Soten. But now they were rid of Erling, for the time being. And until things changed, Erlend would just as soon step aside too. But surely Erling and his friends would want Erlend to maintain his power and prosperity up here in the north. He didn’t know what he should do.

  “It seems to me that now you’ve learned to sing Sir Erling’s tune,” Simon Darre couldn’t help remarking.

  Erlend replied that this was true. He had stayed at Sir Erling’s estate the summer before, when he was in Bjørgvin, and he now knew the man much better. It was evident that, above all else, Erling wanted to maintain peace in the land. But he wanted the Norwegian Crown to have the peace of the lion—which meant that no one should be allowed to break off a tooth or cut off a claw from their kinsman King Haakon’s lion. Nor should the lion be required to become the hunting dog for the people of some other country. And now Erling was also determined to bring to an end the old quarrels between the Norwegians and Lady Ingebjørg. Now that she had been left a widow by Sir Knut, it was only desirable for her to have some control over her son again. It was no doubt true that she felt such great love for the children she had borne to Knut Porse that she seemed to have almost forgotten her eldest son—but things would surely be different when she saw him again. And Lady Ingebjørg could have no reason to wish for King Magnus to interfere in the unrest occurring in Skaane, because it was under the authority of his half-brothers.

  Simon thought Erlend sounded quite well-informed. But he wondered about Erling Vidkunssøn. Did the former regent think that Erlend Nikulaussøn was capable of making decisions in such matters? Or was Erling merely grasping for any possible support? The knight from Bjarkøy would be unlikely to give up his power. He could never be accused of having used it for his own benefit, but his great wealth made this unnecessary. Everyone said that over the years he had become more and more obstinate and single-minded; and by the time the other men of the Council gradually started to oppose him, he had grown so belligerent that he hardly deigned to listen to anyone else’s opinion.

  It was like Erlend for him finally to climb aboard Erling Vid kunssøn’s ship with both feet, so to speak, as soon as the winds were against it. It was uncertain whether either Sir Erling or Erlend himself would benefit, now that he seemed to have joined forces wholeheartedly with his wealthy kinsman. And yet Simon had to admit that no matter how reckless Erlend’s words might be about both people and events, what he had said did not seem entirely foolish.

  But that evening he was quite wild and boisterous. Erlend was now staying at Nikulausgaard, which his brother had given to him when he joined the friars. Kristin was there too, along with their two eldest boys, their youngest son, and Erlend’s daughter Margret.

  Late in the evening a large group of people came to visit them, including many of the gentlemen who had been at the meeting with the archbishop the previous morning. Erlend laughed and talked loudly as they sat drinking at the table after supper. He had taken an apple from a bowl and had cut and carved it with his knife; then he rolled it across the table into the lap of Fru Sunniva Olavsdatter, who sat opposite him.

  The woman sitting next to Sunniva wanted to look at it, and she reached for the apple. But Sunniva refused to give it up, and the two women pushed and tugged at each other with much shrieking and laughter. Then Erlend cried that Fru Eyvor should have an apple from him too. Before long he had tossed apples to every woman there, and he claimed to have carved love-runes into all of them.

  “You’re going to be worn out, my boy, if you try to redeem all those pledges,” one of the men shouted.

  “Then I’ll have to forget about redeeming them—I’ve done that before,” replied Erlend, and there was more laughter.

  But the Icelander Kløng had taken a look at one of the apples and exclaimed that they weren’t runes but just meaningless cuts. He would show them how runes should be carved.

  Then Erlend shouted that he shouldn’t do that. “Or else they’ll tell me I have to tie you up, Kløng, and I can’t get along without you.”

  During all the commotion Erlend’s and Kristin’s youngest son had come padding into the hall. Lavrans Erlendssøn was now a little more than two years old and an exceptionally attractive child, plump and fair, with silky, fine blond curls. The women on the outer bench all wanted to hold the boy at once; they sent him from lap to lap, caressing him freely, for by now they were all giddy and wild. Kristin, who was sitting against the wall in the high seat next to her husband, asked to be given the child; he began fretting and wanted to go to his mother, but it did no good.

  Suddenly Erlend leaped across the table and picked up the boy, who was now howling because Fru Sunniva and Fru Eyvor were tugging at him and fighting over him. The father took the boy in his arms, speaking soothing words. When the child kept on crying, he began humming and singing as he held him and paced back and forth in the dim light of the hall. Erlend seemed to have completely forgotten about his guests. The child’s little blond head lay on his father’s shoulder beneath the man’s dark hair, and every once in a while Erlend would touch his parted lips to the small hand resting on his chest. He continued in this way until a serving maid came in who was supposed to watch the child and should have put him to bed long ago.

  Then some of the guests shouted that Erlend should sing them a ballad for a dance; he had such a fine voice. At first he declined, but then he went over to his young daughter who was sitting on the women’s bench. He put his arm around Margret and escorted her out to the floor.

  “You must come with me, my Margret. Take your father’s hand for a dance!”

  A young man stepped forward and took the maiden’s hand. “Margit promised to dance with me tonight,” he said. But Erlend lifted his daughter into his arms and set her down on the other side of him.

  “Dance with your wife, Haakon. I never danced with anyone else when I was so newly married as you are.”

 
“Ingebjørg says she doesn’t want to . . . and I did promise Haakon to dance with him, Father,” said Margret.

  Simon Darre had no wish to dance. He stood next to an old woman for a while and watched; now and then his gaze fell on Kristin. While her servants cleared away the dishes, wiped the table, and brought in more liquor and walnuts, Kristin stood at the end of the table. Then she sat down near the fireplace and talked to a priest who was one of the guests. After a while Simon sat down near them.

  They had danced to one or two ballads when Erlend came over to his wife. “Come and dance with us, Kristin,” he begged, holding out his hand.

  “I’m tired,” she said, looking up for a moment.

  “You ask her, Simon. She can’t refuse to dance with you.”

  Simon rose halfway and held out his hand, but Kristin shook her head. “Don’t ask me, Simon. I’m so tired. . . .”

  Erlend stood there for a moment, looking as if he were embarrassed. Then he went back to Fru Sunniva and took her hand in the circle of dancers as he shouted to Margit that now she should sing for them.

  “Who is that dancing next to your stepdaughter?” asked Simon. He thought he didn’t much care for that fellow’s face, even though he was a stalwart and boyish-looking young man with a healthy, tan complexion, fine teeth, and sparkling eyes, but they were set too close to his nose and he had a large, strong mouth and chin, although his face was narrow across the brow. Kristin told him it was Haakon Eindridessøn of Gimsar, the grandson of Tore Ein dridessøn, the sheriff of Gauldøla county. Haakon had recently married the lovely little woman who was sitting on the lap of Judge Olav—he was her godfather. Simon had noticed her because she looked a little like his first wife, although she was not as beautiful. When he now heard that there was kinship between them, he went over and greeted Ingebjørg and sat down to talk to her.

  After a while the dancing broke up. The older folks sat down to drink, but the younger ones continued to sing and frolic out on the floor. Erlend came over to the fireplace along with several elderly gentlemen, but he was still absentmindedly leading Fru Sunniva by the hand. The men sat down near the fire, but there was no room for Sunniva, so she stood in front of Erlend and ate the walnuts he cracked in his hands for her.

  “You’re an unchivalrous man, Erlend,” she said suddenly. “There you sit while I have to stand.”

  “Then sit down,” said Erlend with a laugh, pulling her down onto his lap. She struggled against him, laughing and shouting to his wife to come and see how her husband was treating her.

  “Erlend just does that to be kind,” replied Kristin, laughing too. “My cat can’t rub against his leg without him picking her up and putting her in his lap.”

  Erlend and Fru Sunniva remained sitting there as before, feigning nonchalance, but they had both turned crimson. He held his arm lightly around her, as if he hardly noticed she was sitting there, while he and the men talked about the enmity between Erling Vidkunssøn and Chancellor Paal which was so much on everyone’s mind. Erlend said that Paal Baardsøn had displayed his attitude toward Erling in quite a womanish way—as they could judge for themselves:

  “Last summer a young country boy had come to the gathering of the chieftains to offer his services to the king. Now this poor boy from Vors was so eager to learn courtly customs and manners that he tried to embellish his speech with Swedish words—it was French back when I was young, but today it’s Swedish. So one day the boy asks someone how to say traakig, which happens to mean ‘boring’ in Norwegian. Sir Paal hears this and says: ‘Traakig, my friend, that’s what Sir Erling’s wife, Fru Elin, is.’ The boy now thinks this means beautiful or noble, because that’s what she is, and apparently the poor fellow hadn’t had much opportunity to hear the woman talk. But one day Erling meets him on the stairs outside the hall, and he stops and speaks kindly to the youth, asking him whether he liked being in Nidaros, and such things, and then he tells him to give his greetings to his father. The boy thanks him and says it will please his father greatly when he returns home with greetings ‘from you, kind sir, and your boring wife.’ Whereupon Erling slaps him in the face so the boy tumbles backwards down three or four steps until a servant catches him in his arms. Now there’s a great commotion, people come running, and the matter is finally cleared up. Erling was furious at being made a laughingstock, but he feigned indifference. And the only response from the chancellor was that he laughed and said he should have explained that ‘traakig’ was what the regent was—then the boy couldn’t have misunderstood.”

  Everyone agreed that such behavior on the part of the chancellor was undignified, but all of them laughed a great deal. Simon listened in silence, sitting with his chin resting on his hand. He thought this was a peculiar way for Erlend to show his friendship for Erling Vidkunssøn. The story made it quite clear that Erling must be a little unbalanced if he could believe that a youth, freshly arrived from the countryside, would dare stand on the stairs to the king’s palace and ridicule him to his face. Erlend could hardly be expected to remember Simon’s former relationship as the brother-in-law of Fru Elin and Sir Erling.

  “What are you thinking about, Kristin?” he asked. She was sitting quietly, her back straight, with her hands crossed on her lap.

  She replied, “Right now I’m thinking about Margret.”

  Late that night, as Erlend and Simon were tending to a chore out in the courtyard, they scared off a couple standing behind the corner of the house. The nights were as light as day, and Simon recognized Haakon of Gimsar and Margret Erlendsdatter. Erlend stared after them; he was quite sober, and the other man could see that he wasn’t pleased. But Erlend said, as if in excuse, that the two had known each other since childhood and they had always teased each other. Simon thought that even if this meant nothing, it was still a shame for Haakon’s young wife, Ingebjørg.

  The next day young Haakon came over to Nikulausgaard on an errand, and he asked for Margit.

  Then Erlend furiously exclaimed, “My daughter is not Margit to you. And if you didn’t say everything you wanted to say yesterday, then you’ll have to forget about telling it to her.”

  Haakon shrugged his shoulders, but when he left, he asked them to give his greetings to Margareta.

  The people from Husaby stayed in Nidaros for the ting, but Simon took little pleasure in this. Erlend was often bad-tempered when he stayed at his estate in town, because Gunnulf had granted the hospital, which stood on the other side of the orchard, the right to use any of the buildings that faced in its direction, and also rights to part of the garden. Erlend wanted to buy these rights back from the hospital. He didn’t like seeing the patients in the garden or courtyard; many of them were also hideous in appearance, and he was afraid they would infect his children. But he couldn’t reach an agreement with the monks who were in charge of the hospital.

  And there was Margret Erlendsdatter. Simon knew that people gossiped about her a good deal and that Kristin took this to heart, but her father seemed not to care. Erlend seemed certain that he could protect his maiden and that the talk meant nothing. And yet he said to Simon one day that Kløng Aressøn would like to marry his daughter, and he didn’t quite know how to handle this matter. He had nothing against the Icelander except that he was the son of a priest; he didn’t want it to be said of Margret’s children that they bore the taint of both parents’ birth. Otherwise Kløng was a likeable man, good-humored, clever, and very learned. His father, Sira Are, had raised him himself and taught him well; he had hoped his son would become a priest and had even taken steps to obtain dispensation for him, but then Kløng refused to take the vows. It seemed as if Erlend intended to leave the matter unsettled. If no better match presented itself, then he could always give the maiden to Kløng Aressøn.

  And yet Erlend had already had such a good offer for his daughter that there was a great deal of talk about his arrogance and imprudence, when he allowed that match to slip away. It was the grandson of Baron Sigvat of Leirhole—Sigmund Finssøn wa
s his name. He wasn’t wealthy, because Finn Sigvatssøn had had eleven surviving children. Nor was he altogether young; he was about the same age as Erlend, but a respected and sensible man. And yet Margret would have been wealthy enough because of the properties Erlend had given her when he married Kristin Lavransdatter, along with all the jewelry and costly possessions he had given the child over the years, as well as the dowry he had agreed upon with Sigmund. Erlend had also been overjoyed to have such a suitor for his daughter born of adultery. But when he came home and told Margret about this bridegroom, the maiden protested that she wouldn’t have him because Sigmund had several warts on one of his eyelids, and she claimed this made her feel such revulsion for him. Erlend bowed to her wishes. When Sigmund became indignant and began talking of a breach of agreement, Erlend responded angrily and told the man that he should realize all agreements were made on the condition that the maiden was willing. His daughter would not be forced into a bridal bed. Kristin agreed with her husband on this matter; he shouldn’t force the girl. But she thought Erlend ought to have had a serious discussion with his daughter and made her realize that Sigmund Finssøn was such a good match that Margret couldn’t possibly expect to find any better, considering her birth. But Erlend grew terribly angry with his wife, simply because she had dared to broach the subject with him. All of this Simon had heard about at Ranheim. There they predicted that things could not possibly end well. Erlend might be a powerful man now, and the maiden was certainly lovely, but it had done her no good for her father to spoil her and encourage her stubbornness and arrogance for all these years.