Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  She didn’t seem to hear or see him. Then Lavrans, who was sitting in his father’s arms and had gradually woken up, slid down to the ground. The moment his feet touched the grass, the boy collapsed and he lay in a heap.

  A tremor passed over his mother’s face. She leaned down and lifted the big boy in her arms, pressing his head against her throat, as if he were a little child. But his long legs hung down limply in front of her.

  “Kristin, my dearest love,” begged Erlend in despair. “Oh, Kristin, I know I’ve come to you much too late . . .”

  Again a tremor passed over his wife’s face.

  “It’s not too late,” she said, her voice low and harsh. She stared down at her son, who lay in a swoon in her arms. “Our last child is already in the ground, and now it’s Lavrans’s turn. Gaute has been banished by the Church, and our other sons . . . But the two of us still own much that can be ruined, Erlend!”

  She turned away from him and began walking across the courtyard with the child. Erlend rode after her, keeping his horse at her side.

  “Kristin—Jesus, what can I do for you? Kristin, don’t you want me to stay with you now?”

  “I don’t need you to do anything more for me,” said his wife in the same tone of voice. “You cannot help me, whether you stay here or you throw yourself into the Laag.”

  Erlend’s sons had come out onto the gallery of the high loft. Now Gaute ran down and raced toward his mother, trying to stop her.

  “Mother,” he begged. Then she gave him a look, and he halted in bewilderment.

  Several farmers were standing at the bottom of the loft stairs.

  “Move aside, men,” said the mistress, trying to pass them with her burden.

  Soten tossed his head and danced uneasily; Erlend turned the horse halfway around, and Kolbein Jonssøn grabbed the bridle. Kristin hadn’t seen what was happening; now she turned to look over her shoulder.

  “Let go of the horse, Kolbein. If he wants to ride off, then let him.”

  Kolbein took a firmer grip and replied, “Don’t you see, Kristin, that it’s time for the master to stay home on his estate? You at least should realize it,” he said to Erlend.

  But Erlend struck the man over the hand and urged the stallion forward, so the old man fell. A couple of other men leaped forward.

  Erlend shouted, “Get away from here! You have nothing to do with matters concerning me or my wife—and I’m not the master. I refuse to bind myself to a manor like a calf to the stall. I may not own this estate, but neither does this estate own me!”

  Kristin turned to face her husband and screamed, “Go ahead and ride off! Ride, ride like the Devil to Hell. That’s where you’ve driven me and cast off everything you’ve ever owned or been given—”

  What occurred next happened so fast that no one properly foresaw it or could prevent it. Tore Borghildssøn and another man grabbed her by the arms. “Kristin, you mustn’t speak that way to your husband.”

  Erlend rode up close to them.

  “Do you dare to lay hands on my wife?” He swung his axe and struck at Tore Borghildssøn. The blow fell between his shoulder blades, and the man sank to the ground. Erlend lifted his axe again, but as he raised up in the stirrups, a man ran a spear through him, and it pierced his groin. It was the son of Tore Borghildssøn who did this.

  Soten reared up and kicked with his front hooves. Erlend pressed his knees against the animal’s sides and leaned forward as he pulled on the reins with his left hand and again raised his axe. But almost at once he lost one of his stirrups, and the blood gushed down over his left thigh. Several arrows and spears whistled across the courtyard. Ulf and Erlend’s sons rushed into the throng with axes raised and swords drawn. Then a man stabbed the stallion Erlend was riding, and the animal fell to his knees, whinnying so wildly and shrilly that the horses in the stable replied.

  Erlend stood up, his legs straddling the animal. He put his hand on Bjørgulf’s shoulder and stepped off. Gaute came up and grabbed his father under the other arm.

  “Kill him,” he said, meaning the horse, which had now rolled onto his side and lay with his neck stretched out, blood frothing around his jaw, and his mighty hooves flailing. Ulf Haldorssøn complied.

  The farmers had retreated. Two men carried Tore Borghildssøn over to the foreman’s house, and one of the bishop’s men led away his companion, who was wounded.

  Kristin had put Lavrans down, since he had now regained his wits; they stood there, clinging to each other. She didn’t seem to understand what had taken place; it had all happened so fast.

  Her sons began helping their father toward the high loft house, but Erlend said, “I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to die where Lavrans died.”

  Kristin ran forward and threw her arms around her husband’s neck. Her frozen face shattered, contorted with sobs, the way ice is splintered when struck by a stone. “Erlend, Erlend!”

  Erlend bent his head down so his cheek touched hers, and he stood in that manner for a moment.

  “Help me up into the old storeroom, boys,” he said. “I want to lie down there.”

  Hastily Kristin and her sons made up the bed in the old loft and helped Erlend undress. Kristin bandaged his wounds. The blood was gushing in spurts from the gash of the spear in his groin, and he had an arrow wound on the lower left side of his chest, but it was not bleeding much.

  Erlend stroked his wife’s head. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to heal me, my Kristin.”

  She looked up, despairing. A great shudder passed through her body. She remembered that Simon had said the same thing, and this seemed to her the worst omen, that Erlend should speak the same words.

  He lay in bed, supported with pillows and cushions, and with his left leg raised to stop the blood flowing from his groin wound. Kristin sat leaning over him. Then he took her hand. “Do you remember the first night we slept together in this bed, my sweet? I didn’t know then that you were already carrying a secret sorrow for which I was to blame. And that was not the first sorrow you had to bear for my sake, Kristin.”

  She held his hand in both of hers. His skin was cracked, with dirt ingrained around his small, grooved fingernails and in the creases of every joint of his long fingers. Kristin lifted his hand to her breast and then to her lips; her tears streamed over it.

  “Your lips are so hot,” said Erlend softly. “I waited and waited for you . . . I longed so terribly . . . Finally I thought I should give in; I should come down here to you, but then I heard . . . I thought, when I heard that he had died, that now it would be too late for me to come to you.”

  Sobbing, Kristin replied, “I was still waiting for you, Erlend. I thought that someday you would have to come to the boy’s grave.”

  “But then you would not have welcomed me as your friend,” said Erlend. “And God knows you had no reason to do so either. As sweet and lovely as you are, my Kristin,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

  She sobbed quietly, in great distress.

  “Now nothing remains,” said her husband in the same tone as before, “except for us to try to forgive each other as a Christian husband and wife, if you can . . .”

  “Erlend, Erlend . . .” She leaned over him and kissed his white face. “You shouldn’t talk so much, my Erlend.”

  “I think I must make haste to say what I have to say,” replied her husband. “Where is Naakkve?” he asked uneasily.

  He was told that the night before, as soon as Naakkve heard that his younger brother was headed for Sundbu, he had set off after him as fast as his horse would go. He must be quite distraught by now, since he hadn’t found the child. Erlend sighed, his hands fumbling restlessly on the coverlet.

  His six sons stepped up to the bed.

  “No, I haven’t handled things well for you, my sons,” said their father. He began to cough, in a strange and cautious manner. Bloody froth seeped out of his lips. Kristin wiped it away with her wimple.

  Erlend lay quietly for a moment. “N
ow you must forgive me, if you can. Never forget, my fine boys, that your mother has striven on your behalf every day, during all the years that she and I have lived together. Never has there been any enmity between us except that for which I was to blame because I paid too little mind to your well-being. But she has loved you more than her own life.”

  “We won’t forget,” replied Gaute, weeping, “that you, Father, seemed to us all our days the most courageous of men and the noblest of chieftains. We were proud to be called your sons—no less so when fortune forsook you than during your days of prosperity.”

  “You say this because you understand so little,” said Erlend. He gave a brittle, sputtering laugh. “But do not cause your mother the sorrow of taking after me; she has had enough to struggle with since she married me.”

  “Erlend, Erlend,” sobbed Kristin.

  The sons kissed their father’s hand and cheek; weeping, they turned away and sat down against the wall. Gaute put his arm around Munan’s shoulder and pulled the boy close; the twins sat hand in hand. Erlend again placed his hand in Kristin’s. His was cold. Then she pulled the covers all the way up to his chin but sat holding his hand in her own under the blankets.

  “Erlend,” she said, weeping. “May God have mercy on us—we must send word to the priest for you.”

  “Yes,” said Erlend faintly. “Someone must ride up to Dovre to bring Sira Guttorm, my parish priest.”

  “Erlend, he won’t get here in time,” she said in horror.

  “Yes, he will,” said Erlend vehemently. “If God will grant me . . . For I refuse to receive the last rites from that priest who has been spreading gossip about you.”

  “Erlend—in the name of Jesus—you must not talk that way.”

  Ulf Haldorssøn stepped forward and bent over the dying man. “I will ride to Dovre, Erlend.”

  “Do you remember, Ulf,” said Erlend, his voice beginning to sound weak and confused, “the time we left Hestnes, you and I?” He laughed a bit. “And I promised that all my days I would stand by you as your loyal kinsman . . . God save me, kinsman . . . Of the two of us, it was most often you and not I who showed the loyalty of kin, my friend Ulf. I give you . . . thanks . . . for that, kinsman.”

  Ulf leaned down and kissed the man’s bloody lips. “I thank you too, Erlend Nikulaussøn.”

  He lit a candle, placed it near the deathbed, and left the room.

  Erlend’s eyes had closed again. Kristin sat staring at his white face; now and then she caressed it with her hand. She thought she could see that he was sinking toward death.

  “Erlend,” she implored him softly. “In the name of Jesus, let us send word to Sira Solmund for you. God is God, no matter what priest brings Him to us.”

  “No!” Her husband sat up in bed so that the covers slid down his naked, sallow body. The bandages across his breast and stomach were once again colored with bright red splotches from the fresh blood pouring out. “I am a sinful man. May God bestow on me the grace of His mercy, as much as He will grant me, but I know . . .” He fell back against the pillows and whispered almost inaudibly, “I will not live long enough to be . . . so old . . . and so pious . . . that I can bear . . . to sit calmly in the same room with someone who has told lies about you.”

  “Erlend, Erlend—think of your soul!”

  The man shook his head on the pillows. His eyelids had fallen shut again.

  “Erlend!” She clasped her hands; she screamed loudly, in the utmost distress. “Erlend, don’t you understand that after the way you have acted toward me, this has to be said!”

  Erlend opened his big eyes. His lips were pale blue, but a remnant of his youthful smile flickered across his ravaged face.

  “Kiss me, Kristin,” he whispered. There was a trace of laughter in his voice. “Surely there has been too much else between you and me—besides Christendom and marriage—for it to be possible for us to . . . take leave of each other . . . as a Christian husband and wife.”

  She called and called his name, but he lay with closed eyes, his face as pale as newly split wood beneath his gray hair. A little blood seeped from the corners of his mouth; she wiped it away, whispering entreaties. When she moved, she could feel her clothes were cold and sticky, wet with the blood that had spattered her when she helped him inside and put him to bed. Now and then a faint gurgling came from Erlend’s chest, and he seemed to have trouble breathing; but he did not move again, nor was he aware of anything more as he surely and steadily sank into the torpor of death.

  The loft door was abruptly thrown open. Naakkve came rushing in; he flung himself down beside the bed and seized his father’s hand as he called his name.

  Behind him came a tall, stout gentleman wearing a traveling cape. He bowed to Kristin.

  “If I had known, my kinswoman, that you were in need of the help of your kin . . .” Then he broke off as he saw that the man was dying. He crossed himself and went over to the farthest corner of the room. Quietly the Sundbu knight began saying the prayer for the dying, but Kristin seemed not to have even noticed Sir Sigurd’s arrival.

  Naakkve was on his knees, bending over the bed. “Father! Father! Don’t you know me anymore, Father?” He pressed his face against Erlend’s hand, which Kristin was holding. The young man’s tears and kisses showered the hands of both his parents.

  Kristin pushed her son’s head aside a little—as if she were suddenly half awake.

  “You’re disturbing us,” she said impatiently. “Go away.”

  Naakkve straightened up as he knelt there. “Go? But, Mother . . .”

  “Yes. Go sit down with your brothers over there.”

  Naakkve lifted his young face—wet with tears, contorted with grief—but his mother’s eyes saw nothing. Then he went over to the bench where his six brothers were already sitting. Kristin paid no attention; she simply stared, with wild eyes, at Erlend’s face, which now shone snow-white in the light of the candle.

  A short time later the door was opened again. Bearing candles and ringing a silver bell, deacons and a priest followed Bishop Halvard into the loft. Ulf Haldorssøn entered last. Erlend’s sons and Sir Sigurd stood up and then fell to their knees before the body of the Lord. But Kristin merely raised her head, and for a moment she turned her tear-filled eyes, seeing nothing, toward those who had arrived. Then she lay back down, the way she was before, stretched out across Erlend’s corpse.

  PART III

  THE CROSS

  CHAPTER 1

  ALL FIRES BURN out sooner or later.

  There came a time when these words spoken by Simon Darre resounded once more in Kristin’s heart.

  It was the summer of the fourth year after Erlend Nikulaussøn’s death, and of the seven sons, only Gaute and Lavrans remained with their mother at Jørundgaard.

  Two years before, the old smithy had burned down, and Gaute had built a new one north of the farm, up toward the main road. The old smithy had stood to the south of the buildings, down by the river in a low curve of land between Jørund’s burial mound and several great heaps of rocks which had apparently been cleared from the fields long ago. Almost every year during the flood season the water would reach all the way up to the smithy.

  Now there was nothing left on the site but the heavy, fire-scorched stones that showed where the threshold had been and the brick fireplace. Soft, slender blades of pale green grass were now sprouting from the dark, charred floor.

  This year Kristin Lavransdatter had sown a field of flax near the site of the old smithy; Gaute had wanted to put grain in the acres closer to the manor, where the mistresses of Jørundgaard, since ancient times, had always planted flax and cultivated onions. And so Kristin often went out to the far fields to see to her flax. On Thursday evenings she would carry a gift of ale and food to the farmer in the mound.1 On light summer evenings the lonely fireplace in the meadow looked at times like some ancient heathen altar as it was glimpsed through the grass, grayish white and streaked with soot. On hot summer days, under the baki
ng sun, she would take her basket to the rock heaps at midday to pick raspberries or to gather the leaves of fireweed, which could be used to make cooling drinks for a fever.

  The last notes of the church bells’ noon greeting to the Mother of God died away in the light-sated air up among the peaks. The countryside seemed to be settling into sleep beneath the flood of white sunlight. Ever since the dew-soaked dawn, scythes had been ringing in the flowery meadows; the scrape of iron against whet-stones and the shouting of voices could be heard from every farm, near and far. Now all the sounds of busy toiling fell away; it was time for the midday rest. Kristin sat down on a pile of stones and listened. Only the roar of the river could be heard now, and a slight rustling of the leaves in the grove, along with the faint rubbing and soft buzzing of flies over the meadow, and the clinking bell of a solitary cow somewhere off in the distance. A bird flapped its way, swift and mute, along the edge of the alder thicket; another flew up from a meadow tussock and with a harsh cry perched atop a thistle.

  But the drifting blue shadows on the hillsides, the fair-weather clouds billowing up over the mountain ridges and melting into the blue summer sky, the glitter of the Laag’s water beyond the trees, the white glint of sunlight on all the leaves—these things she noticed more as silent sounds, audible only to her inner ear, rather than as visible images. With her wimple pulled forward over her brow, Kristin sat and listened to the play of light and shadow across the valley.

  All fires burn out sooner or later.

  In the alder woods along the marshy riverbank, pockets of water sparkled in the darkness between the dense willow bushes. Star grass grew there, along with tufts of cotton grass and thick carpets of marshlocks with their dusty green, five-pointed leaves and reddish brown flowers. Kristin had picked an enormous pile of them. Many times she had pondered whether this herb might possess useful powers; she had dried it and boiled it and added it to ale and mead. But it didn’t seem good for anything. And yet Kristin could never resist going out to the marsh and getting her shoes wet to gather the plant.