Simon—the man who had never failed her. The one who had been loyal and good toward every child she had ever known and most of all toward herself and her own. And this son whom he loved above all else—shouldn’t she use every measure to save the boy’s life? Even if it was a sin?
Yes, it was sinful, but let the punishment fall on me, God. That poor, beautiful, innocent son of Simon and Ramborg. God would not allow Andres to be punished.
She went back and leaned over the bed, breathing on the tiny, waxen hand. She didn’t dare kiss it; he mustn’t be wakened.
So fair and blameless.
It was during the nights of terror when they were left alone at Haugen that Fru Aashild had told her about it—told her about her own errand to the cemetery at Kongunahelle. “That, Kristin, was surely the most difficult task I have ever undertaken.” But Bjørn Gunnarssøn was not an innocent child when he lay there after Aashild Gautesdatter’s cousins had come too close to his heart with their swords. He had slain one man before he was brought down himself, and the other man never regained his vigor after the day he exchanged blows with Herr Bjørn.
Kristin stood at the window and looked out into the courtyard. Servants were moving from building to building, going about the day’s chores. Several young calves were roaming about the yard; they were so lovely.
Many different thoughts rise up in the darkness—like those gossamer plants that grow in the lake, oddly bewitching and pretty as they bob and sway; but enticing and sinister, they exert a dark pull as long as they’re growing in the living, trickling mire. And yet they’re nothing but slimey brown clumps when the children pull them into the boat. So many strange thoughts, both terrifying and enticing, grow in the night. It was probably Brother Edvin who once said that those condemned to Hell had no wish to give up their torment: hatred and sorrow were their pleasures. That was why Christ could never save them. Back then this had sounded to her like wild talk. An icy shiver ran through her; now she was beginning to understand what the monk had meant.
She leaned over the bed once more, breathing in the smell of the little child. Simon and Ramborg were not going to lose him. Even though she had done it out of a need to prove herself to Simon, to show him that she could do something other than take from him. She had needed to take a risk on his behalf, to repay him.
Then she knelt again, repeating over and over as much as she could remember from the prayer book.
That morning Simon went out and sowed winter rye in the newly plowed field south of the grove. He had decided he must act as if this were merely reasonable, because the work on the estate had to continue as usual. The serving maids had been greatly surprised when he went in to them during the night to tell them that Kristin wanted to be alone with the boy until she sent word. He said the same to Ramborg when she got up: Kristin had requested that no one should go near the women’s house that day.
“Not even you?” she asked quickly, and Simon said no. That was when he went out to get the seed box.
But after the midday meal he stayed up at the manor; he didn’t have the heart to go far from the buildings. And he didn’t like the look in Ramborg’s eyes. A short time after the noonday rest it happened. He was standing down by the grain barn when he saw his wife racing across the courtyard. He rushed after her. Ramborg threw herself at the door to the women’s house, pounding on it with her fists and screaming shrilly for Kristin to open up.
Simon put his arms around her, speaking gently. Then she bent down as fast as lightning and bit him on the hand. He saw that she was like a raging beast.
“He’s my child! What have the two of you done to my son?”
“You know full well that your sister wouldn’t do anything to Andres except what might do him good.” When he put his arms around her again, Ramborg struggled and screamed.
“Come now, Ramborg,” said her husband, making his voice stern. “Aren’t you ashamed in front of our servants?”
But she kept on screaming. “He’s mine—that much I know. You weren’t with us when I gave birth to him, Simon,” she shouted. “We weren’t so precious to you back then.”
“You know what I had on my hands at the time,” replied her husband wearily. He dragged her across to the main house; he had to use all his strength.
After that he didn’t dare leave her side. Ramborg gradually calmed down, and when evening came, she obediently allowed her maids to help her undress.
Simon stayed up. His daughters were asleep over in their bed, and he had sent the servingwomen away. Once when he stood up and walked across the room, Ramborg asked from her bed where he was going; her voice sounded wide awake.
“I was thinking of lying down with you for a while,” he said after a moment. He took off his outer garments and shoes and then crawled under the blanket and woolen coverlet. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I realize, my Ramborg, that this has been a long and difficult day for you.”
“Your heart is beating so hard, Simon,” she said a little later.
“Well, I’m afraid for the boy too, you know. But we must wait patiently until Kristin sends us word.”
He sat up abruptly in bed, propping himself up on one elbow. In bewilderment he stared at Kristin’s white face. It was right above his own, glistening wet with tears in the candlelight; her hand was on his chest. For a moment he thought . . . But this time he wasn’t merely dreaming. Simon threw himself back against the headboard, and with a stifled moan he covered his face with his arm. He felt sick; his heart was hammering inside him, furious and hard.
“Simon, wake up!” Kristin shook him again. “Andres is calling for his father. Do you hear me? It was the first thing he said.” Her face was beaming with joy as her tears fell steadily.
Simon sat up, rubbing his face several times. Surely he hadn’t spoken in confusion when she woke him. He looked up at Kristin, who was standing next to the bed with a lantern in her hand.
Quietly, so as not to wake Ramborg, he crept out of the room with her. The loathsome nausea was still lodged in his chest. He felt as if something were about to burst inside him. Why couldn’t he stop having that dreadful dream? He who in his waking hours struggled and struggled to drive all such thoughts from his mind. But when he lay asleep, powerless and defenseless, he would have that dream, which the Devil himself must have sent. Even now, while she sat and kept watch over his deathly ill son, he dreamed like some kind of demon.
It was raining, and Kristin had no idea what time of night it might be. The boy had been half conscious, but he hadn’t spoken. And it was only when night came and she thought he was sleeping comfortably and soundly that she dared lie down for a moment to rest—with Andres in her arms so she would notice if he stirred. Then she had fallen asleep.
The boy looked so tiny as he lay alone in the bed. He was terribly pale, but his eyes were clear, and his face lit up with a smile when he saw his father. Simon dropped to his knees beside the bed, but when he reached out to lift the small body into his embrace, Kristin grabbed him by the arm.
“No, no, Simon. He’s soaked with sweat, and it’s cold in here.” She pulled the covers tighter around Andres. “Lie down next to him instead, while I send word for a maid to keep watch. I’ll go back to the main house now and get into bed with Ramborg.”
Simon crept under the covers. There was a warm hollow where she had lain and the faint, sweet scent of her hair on the pillowcase. Simon quietly uttered a moan, and then he gathered up his little son and pressed his face against the child’s damp, soft hair. Andres had become so small that he felt like nothing in Simon’s arms, but he lay there contentedly, occasionally saying a word or two.
Then he began tugging and poking at the opening of his father’s shirt; he stuck his clammy little hand inside and pulled out the amulet. “The rooster,” he said happily. “There it is.”
On the day of Kristin’s departure, as she made ready to leave, Simon came to see her in the women’s house and handed her a little wooden box.
> “I thought this was something you might like to have.”
Kristin knew from the carving that it was the work of her father. Inside, wrapped in a soft piece of glove leather, was a tiny gold clasp set with five emeralds. She recognized it at once. Lavrans had worn it on his shirt whenever he wanted to look particularly fine.
She thanked Simon, but then she turned blood red. She suddenly remembered that she had never seen her father wear this clasp since she had come home from the convent in Oslo.
“When did Father give this to you?” She regretted the question the moment she asked it.
“He gave it to me as a farewell gift one time when I was leaving the estate.”
“This seems to me much too great a gift,” she said softly, looking down.
Simon chuckled and replied, “You’re going to need many such things, Kristin, when the time comes for you to send out all your sons with betrothal gifts.”
Kristin looked at him and said, “You know what I mean, Simon—those things that my father gave you . . . You know that I’m as fond of you as if you had been his own son.”
“Are you?” He placed the back of his hand against her cheek and gave it a fleeting caress as he smiled, an odd little smile, and spoke as if to a child, “Yes, yes, Kristin. I know that.”
CHAPTER 4
LATER THAT FALL Simon Andressøn had business with his brother at Dyfrin. While he was there, a suitor was proposed for his daughter Arngjerd.
The matter was not settled, and Simon felt rather uneasy and apprehensive as he rode northward. Perhaps he ought to have agreed; then the child would have been well provided for, and he could stop all his worrying about her future. Perhaps Gyrd and Helga were right. It was foolish of him not to seize hold with both hands when he received such an offer for this daughter of his. Eiken was a bigger estate than Formo, and Aasmund himself owned more than a third of it; he would never have thought of proposing his son as a suitor for a maiden of such birth as Arngjerd—of lowly lineage and with no kin on her mother’s side—if Simon hadn’t held a mortgage on a portion of the estate worth three marks in taxes. The family had been forced to borrow money from both Dyfrin and the nuns in Oslo when Grunde Aas mundssøn happened to slay a man for the second time. Grunde grew wild when he was drunk, although he was otherwise an upright and well-meaning fellow, said Gyrd, and surely he would allow himself to be guided by such a good and sensible woman as Arngjerd.
But the fact was that Grunde was not many years younger than Simon himself. And Arngjerd was young. And the people at Eiken wanted the wedding to take place as early as spring.
It hung on like a bad memory in Simon’s mind; he tried not to think of it if he could avoid it. But now that Arngjerd’s marriage had come under discussion, it kept cropping up. He had been an unhappy man on that first morning when he woke up at Ramborg’s side. Certainly he had been no more giddy or bold than a bridegroom ought to be when he went to bed—although it had made him feel strange and reckless to see Kristin among the bride’s attendants, and Erlend, his new brother-in-law, was among the men who escorted him up to the loft. But when he woke up the next morning and lay there looking at his bride, who was still asleep, he had felt a terrible, painful shame deep in his heart—as if he had mistreated a child.
And yet he knew that he could have spared himself this sorrow.
But she had laughed when she opened her big eyes.
“Now you’re mine, Simon.” She ran her hands over his chest. “My father is your father, and my sister is your sister.” And he grew cold with anguish, for he wondered whether she knew that his heart had given a start at her words.
Otherwise he was quite content with his marriage—this much he firmly believed. His wife was wealthy, of distinguished lineage, young and lively, beautiful and kind. She had borne him a daughter and a son, and that was something a man valued after he had tried living among riches without producing any children who could keep the estate together after the parents were gone. Two children, and their position was assured. He was so rich that he could even obtain a good match for Arngjerd.
He would have liked to have another son; yes, he wouldn’t be sad if one or two more children were born on Formo. But Ramborg was probably happy as long as she was spared all that. And that was worth something too. For he couldn’t deny that things were much more comfortable at home when Ramborg was in good humor. He might well have wished that she had a more even temperament. He didn’t always know how he stood with his wife. And more attention could have been paid to the housekeeping in his home. But no man should dare expect to have all his bowls filled to the brim, as the saying goes. This is what Simon kept telling himself as he rode homeward.
Ramborg was to travel to Kruke during the week before Saint Clement’s Day; it always cheered her up to get away from home for a while.
God only knew how things would go over there this time around. Sigrid was now carrying her eighth child. Simon had been shocked when he paid a visit to his sister on his way south; she didn’t look as if she could stand much more.
He had offered four thick wax tapers to the ancient image of the Virgin Mary at Eyabu, which was supposed to be particularly powerful in effecting miracles, and he had promised many gifts if Sigrid made it through with her life and her health. How things would go with Geirmund and all their children if the mother died and left them behind . . . No, he couldn’t think about that.
They lived together so well, Sigrid and Geirmund. Never had she heard an unkind word from her husband, she said; never had he left anything undone that he thought might please her. When he noticed that Sigrid was wasting away with longing for the child she had borne in her youth with Gjavvald Arnessøn, he had asked Simon to bring the boy to visit so the mother could spend some time with him. But Sigrid had reaped only sorrow and disappointment from the reunion with that spoiled, rich man’s son. Since then Sigrid Andresdatter had clung to her husband and the children she had with him, the way a poor, ailing sinner clings to her priest and confession.
Now she seemed fully content in many ways. And Simon understood why. Few men were as pleasant to be with as Geirmund. He had such a fine voice that even if he was only talking about the narrow-hoofed horse that had been foisted upon him, it was almost like listening to harp music.
Geirmund Hersteinssøn had always had a strange and ugly face, but in the past he had been a strong man, with a handsome build and limbs, the best bowman and hunter, and better than most in all sports. Three years ago he had become a cripple, after he returned to the village from a hunting expedition, crawling on his hands and one knee, with the other leg crushed and dragging behind him. Now he couldn’t walk across the room without a cane, and he couldn’t mount a horse or hobble around the steep slopes of the fields without help. Misfortune constantly plagued him, such an odd and eccentric man as he was, and ill prepared for safeguarding his property or welfare. Anyone who had the heart for it could fool him in trade or business dealings. But he was clever with his hands, an able craftsman in both wood and iron, and a wise and skilled speaker. And when this man took his harp on his lap, Geirmund could make people laugh or cry with his singing and playing. It was almost like listening to the knight in Geirmund’s song who could entice the leaves from the linden tree and the horn from the lively cattle with his playing.
Then the older children would take up the refrain and sing along with their father. They were more lovely to hear than the chiming of all the bells in the bishop’s Hamar. The next youngest child, Inga, could walk if she held on to the bench, although she had not yet learned to talk. But she would hum and sing all day long, and her tiny voice was so light and delicate, like a little silver bell.
They lived crowded together in a small, dark old hearth house: the man and his wife, the children, and the servants. The loft, which Geirmund had talked of building all these years, would now probably never be built. He had barely managed to put up a new barn to replace the one that had burned the previous year. But the parents couldn
’t bear to part with a single one of their many children. Every time he visited Kruke, Simon had offered to take some of them in and raise them; Geirmund and Sigrid had thanked him but declined.
Simon sometimes thought that perhaps she was the one among his siblings who had found the best life, after all. Although Gyrd did say that Astrid was quite pleased with her new husband; they lived far south in Ry County, and Simon hadn’t seen them since their wedding. But Gyrd had mentioned that the sons of Torgrim were constantly quarreling with their stepfather.
And Gudmund was very happy and content. But if that was man’s happiness, then Simon thought it would not be a sin to thank God that their father hadn’t lived to see it. As soon as it could be decently permitted after Andres Darre’s death, Gudmund had celebrated his wedding to the widow whom his father wouldn’t allow him to marry. The knight of Dyfrin thought that since he had sought out young, rich, and beautiful maidens of distinguished families and unblemished reputation for his two eldest sons, and this had led to little joy for either Gyrd or Simon, then it would mean pure misery for Gudmund if his father allowed him to follow his own foolish wishes. Tordis Bergsdatter was much older than Gudmund, moderately wealthy, and she had had no children from her first marriage. But afterward she had given birth to a daughter by one of the priests at the Maria Church in Oslo, and people said that she had been much too amenable toward other men as well—including Gudmund Darre, as soon as she became acquainted with him. She was as ugly as a troll, and much too rude and coarse in speech for a woman, thought Simon. But she was lively and witty, intelligent and good-natured. He knew that he would have been fond of Tordis himself, if only she hadn’t married into their lineage. Now Gudmund was flourishing, and it was dreadful to witness; he was almost as stout and portly as Simon. And that was not Gudmund’s nature; in his youth he had been slender and handsome. He had grown so flabby and indolent that Simon felt an urge to give the boy a thrashing every time he saw him. But it was true that Gudmund had been a cursed simpleton all his days. And the fact that his children took their wits from their mother but their looks from him was at least one bit of luck in this misfortune. And yet Gudmund was thriving.
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