Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  Kristin was taken by surprise when the girl lifted her face, so white and so lovely inside the drenched hood of her cloak. And she was so young and as small as a child.

  Then the girl said, “I do not expect to be welcomed by you, Gaute’s mother, but now all doors have been closed to me except this one. If you will tolerate my presence here on the manor, mistress, then I will never forget that I arrived here without property or honor, but with good intentions to serve you and Gaute, my lord.”

  Before she knew it, Kristin had taken the girl’s hands and said, “May God forgive my son for what he has brought upon you, my fair child. Come in, Jofrid. May God help both of you, just as I will help you as best I can!”

  A moment later she realized that she had offered much too warm a welcome to this woman, whom she did not know. But by then Jofrid had taken off her outer garments. Her heavy winter gown, which was a pale blue woven homespun, was dripping wet at the hem, and the rain had soaked right through her cloak to her shoulders. There was a gentle, sorrowful dignity about this child-like girl. She kept her small head with its dark tresses gracefully bowed; two thick pitch-black braids fell past her waist. Kristin kindly took Jofrid’s hand and led her to the warmest place on the bench next to the hearth. “You must be freezing,” she said.

  Gaute came over and gave his mother a hearty embrace. “Mother, things will happen as they must. Have you ever seen as beautiful a maiden as my Jofrid? I had to have her, whatever it may cost me. And you must treat her with kindness, my dearest mother. . . .”

  Jofrid Helgesdatter was indeed beautiful; Kristin could not stop looking at her. She was rather short, with wide shoulders and hips, but a soft and charming figure. And her skin was so delicate and pure that she was lovely even though her face was quite pale. The features of her face were short and broad, but the expansive, strong arc of her cheeks and chin gave it beauty, and her wide mouth had thin, rosy lips with small, even teeth that looked like a child’s first teeth. When she raised her heavy eyelids, her clear gray-green eyes were like shining stars beneath the long black eyelashes. Black hair, light-colored eyes—Kristin had always thought that was the most beautiful combination, ever since she had seen Erlend for the first time. Most of her own handsome sons had that coloring.

  Kristin showed Jofrid to a place on the women’s bench next to her own. She sat there, graceful and shy, among all the servants she didn’t know, eating little and blushing every time Gaute drank a toast to her during the meal.

  He was bursting with pride and restless elation as he sat in the high seat. To honor her son’s return home, Kristin had spread a cloth over the table that evening and set two wax tapers in the candlesticks made of gilded copper. Gaute and Sir Sigurd were constantly toasting each other, and the old gentleman grew more and more maudlin, putting his arm around Gaute’s shoulder and promising to speak on his behalf to his wealthy kinsmen, yes, even to King Magnus himself. Surely he would be able to obtain for him reconciliation with the maiden’s offended kin. Sigurd Eldjarn himself had not a single foe; it was his father’s rancorous temperament and his own misfortune with his wife that had made him so alone.

  In the end Gaute sprang to his feet with the drinking horn in his hand. How handsome he is, thought Kristin, and how like Father! Her father had been the same way when he was beginning to feel drunk—so radiant with joy, straight-backed and lively.

  “Things are now such between this woman, Jofrid Helgesdatter, and myself that today we celebrate our homecoming, and later we will celebrate our wedding, if God grants us such happiness. You, Sigurd, we thank for your steadfast kinship, and you, Mother, for welcoming us as I expected you would, with your loyal, motherly warmth. As we brothers have often discussed, you seem to us the most magnanimous of women and the most loving mother. Therefore I ask you to honor us by preparing our bridal bed in such a fine and beautiful manner that without shame I can invite Jofrid to sleep there beside me. And I ask you to accompany Jofrid up to the loft yourself, so that she might retire with as much seemliness as possible since she has neither a mother still alive nor any kinswomen here.”

  Sir Sigurd was now quite drunk, and he burst out laughing. “You slept together in my loft; if I didn’t know better . . . I thought the two of you had already shared a bed before.”

  Gaute shook his golden hair impatiently. “Yes, kinsman, but this is the first night Jofrid will sleep in my arms on her own manor, God willing.

  “But I beg you good people to drink and be merry tonight. Now you have seen the woman who will be my wife here at Jørundgaard. This woman and no other—I swear this before God, our Lord, and on my Christian faith. I expect all of you to respect her, both servants and maids, and I expect you, my men, to help me keep and protect her in a seemly manner, my boys.”

  During all the shouting and commotion that accompanied Gaute’s speech, Kristin quietly left the table and whispered to Ingrid to follow her up to the loft.

  Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn’s magnificent loft room had fallen into disrepair over the years, after the sons of Erlend had moved in. Kristin hadn’t wanted to give the reckless boys any but the coars est and most essential of bedclothes and pieces of furniture, and she seldom had the room cleaned, for it wasn’t worth the effort. Gaute and his friends tracked in filth and manure as quickly as she swept it out. There was an ingrained smell from men coming in and flinging themselves onto the beds, soaked and sweaty and muddy from the woods and the farmyard—a smell of the stables and leather garments and wet dogs.

  Now Kristin and her maid quickly swept and cleaned as best they could. The mistress brought in fine bed coverlets, blankets, and cushions and burned some juniper. On a little table which she moved close to the bed she placed a silver goblet filled with the last of the wine in the house, a loaf of wheat bread, and a candle in an iron holder. This was as elegant as she could make things on such short notice.

  Weapons hung on the timbered wall next to the alcove: Erlend’s heavy two-handed sword and the smaller sword he used to carry, along with felling axes and broadaxes; Bjørgulf’s and Naakkve’s axes still hung there too. And the two small axes that the boys seldom used because they considered them too lightweight. But these were the tools that her father had used to carve and shape all manner of objects with such skill and care that afterward he only had to do the fine polishing with his gouge and knife. Kristin carried the axes into the alcove and put them inside Erlend’s chest, where his bloody shirt lay, along with the axe he was holding in his hand when he received the mortal wound.

  Laughing, Gaute invited Lavrans to light the way up to the loft for his bride. The boy was both embarrassed and proud. Kristin saw that Lavrans understood his brother’s unlawful wedding was a dangerous game, but he was high-spirited and giddy from these strange events; with sparkling eyes he gazed at Gaute and his beautiful betrothed.

  On the stairs up to the loft the candle went out. Jofrid said to Kristin, “Gaute should not have asked you to do this, even though he was drunk. Don’t come any farther with me, mistress. Have no fear that I might forget I’m a fallen woman, cut off from the counsel of my kin.”

  “I’m not too good to serve you,” said Kristin, “not until my son has atoned for his sin against you and you can rightly call me mother-in-law. Sit down and I’ll comb your hair. Your hair is beautiful beyond compare, child.”

  But after the servants were asleep and Kristin was lying in bed, she once again felt a certain uneasiness. Without thinking, she had told this Jofrid more than she meant to . . . yet. But she was so young, and she showed so clearly that she didn’t expect to be regarded as any better than what she was: a child who had fled from honor and obedience.

  So that’s the way it looked . . . when people let the bridal procession and homeward journey come before the wedding. Kristin sighed. Once she too had been willing to risk the same for Erlend, but she didn’t know whether she would have dared if his mother had been living at Husaby. No, no, she wouldn’t make things any worse for the child upstairs
.

  Sir Sigurd was still staggering around the room; he was to sleep with Lavrans. In a mawkish way, but with sincere intentions, he talked about the two young people; he would spare nothing to help them find a good outcome to this reckless venture.

  The next day Jofrid showed Gaute’s mother what she had brought along to the manor: two leather sacks with clothes and a little chest made of walrus tusk in which she kept her jewelry. As if she had read Kristin’s thoughts, Jofrid said that these possessions belonged to her; they had been given to her for her own use, as gifts and inherited items, mostly from her mother. She had taken nothing from her father.

  Full of sorrow, Kristin sat leaning her cheek on her hand. On that night, an eternity ago, when she had collected her gold in a chest to steal away from home . . . Most of what she had put inside were gifts from the parents she had secretly shamed and whom she was openly going to offend and distress.

  But if these were Jofrid’s own possessions and if her mother’s inheritance was only jewelry, then she must come from an exceedingly wealthy home. Kristin estimated that the goods she saw before her were worth more than thirty marks in silver. The scarlet gown alone, with its white fur and silver clasps and the silk-lined hood that went with it, must have cost ten or twelve marks. It was all well and good if the maiden’s father would agree to reconcile with Gaute, but her son could never be considered an equal match for this woman. And if Helge brought such harsh charges against Gaute, as he had the right and ability to do, things looked quite bleak indeed.

  “My mother always wore this ring,” said Jofrid. “If you will accept it, mistress, then I’ll know that you don’t judge me as sternly as a good and highborn woman might be expected to do.”

  “Oh, but then I might be tempted to take the place of your mother,” said Kristin with a smile, putting the ring on her finger. It was a little silver ring set with a lovely white agate, and Kristin thought the child must consider it especially precious because it reminded her of her mother. “I expect I must give you a gift in return.” She brought over her chest and took out the gold ring with sapphires. “Gaute’s father put this ring in my bed after I brought his son into the world.”

  Jofrid accepted the ring by kissing Kristin’s hand. “Otherwise I had thought of asking you for another gift . . . Mother. . . .” She smiled so charmingly. “Don’t be afraid that Gaute has brought home a lazy or incapable woman. But I own no proper work dress. Give me an old gown of yours and allow me to lend you a hand; perhaps then you will soon grow to like me better than it is reasonable for me to expect right now.”

  And then Kristin had to show the young maiden everything she had in her chests, and Jofrid praised all of Kristin’s lovely handiwork with such rapt attention that the older woman ended up giving her one thing after another: two linen sheets with silk-knotted embroidery, a blue-trimmed towel, a coverlet woven in four panels, and finally the long tapestry with the falcon hunt woven into it. “I don’t want these things to leave this manor, but with the help of God and the Virgin Mary, this house will someday be yours.” Then they both went over to the storehouses and stayed there for many hours, enjoying each other’s company.

  Kristin wanted to give Jofrid her green homespun gown with the black tufts woven into the fabric, but Jofrid thought it much too fine for a work dress. Poor thing, she was just trying to flatter her husband’s mother, thought Kristin, hiding a smile. At last they found an old brown dress Jofrid thought would be suitable if she cut it shorter and sewed patches under the arms and on the elbows. She asked to borrow a scissors and sewing things at once, and then she sat down to sew. Kristin took up some mending as well, and the two women were still sitting there together when Gaute and Sir Sigurd came in for the evening meal.

  CHAPTER 3

  KRISTIN HAD TO admit with all her heart that Jofrid was a woman who knew how to use her hands. If things went well, then Gaute was certainly fortunate; he would have a wife who was as hardworking and diligent as she was rich and beautiful. Kristin herself could not have found a more capable woman to succeed her at Jørundgaard, not if she had searched through all of Norway. One day she said—and afterward she wasn’t sure what had happened to make the words spill from her lips—that on the day Jofrid Helgesdatter became Gaute’s lawful wife, she would give her keys to the young woman and move out to the old house with Lavrans.

  Afterward she thought she should have considered these words more carefully before she uttered them. There were already many instances when she had spoken of something too soon when she was talking with Jofrid.

  But there was the fact that Jofrid was not well. Kristin had noticed it almost at once after the young girl arrived. And Kristin remembered the first winter she had spent at Husaby; she at least had been married, and her husband and father were bound by kinship, no matter what might happen to their friendship after the sin came to light. All the same, she had suffered so terribly from remorse and shame, and her heart had felt bitter toward Erlend. But she was already nineteen winters old back then, while Jofrid was barely seventeen. And here she was now, abducted and without rights, far from her home and among strangers, carrying Gaute’s child under her heart. Kristin could not deny that Jofrid seemed to be stronger and braver than she herself had been.

  But Jofrid hadn’t breached the sanctity of the convent; she hadn’t broken promises and betrothal vows; she hadn’t betrayed her parents or lied to them or stolen their honor behind their backs. Even though these two young people had dared sin against the laws, constraints, and moral customs of the land, they needn’t have such an anguished conscience. Kristin prayed fervently for a good outcome to Gaute’s foolhardy deed, and she consoled herself that God, in His fairness, couldn’t possibly deal Gaute and Jofrid any harsher circumstances than she and Erlend had been given. And they had been married; their child of sin had been born to share in a lawful inheritance from all his kinsmen.

  Since neither Gaute nor Jofrid spoke of the matter, Kristin didn’t want to mention it either, although she longed to have a talk with the inexperienced young woman. Jofrid should spare herself and enjoy her morning rest instead of getting up before everyone else on the manor. Kristin saw that it was Jofrid’s desire to rise before her mother-in-law and to accomplish more than she did. But Jofrid was not the kind of person Kristin could offer either help or solicitude. The only thing she could do was silently take the heaviest work away from her and treat her as if she were the rightful young mistress on the estate, both when they were alone and in front of the servants.

  Frida was furious at having to relinquish her place next to her mistress and give it to Gaute’s . . . She used an odious word to describe Jofrid one day when she and Kristin were together in the cookhouse. For once Kristin struck her maid.

  “How splendid to hear such words from you, an old nag lusting after men as you do!”

  Frida wiped the blood from her nose and mouth.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be better than a poor man’s offspring, daughters of great chieftains such as yourself and this Jofrid? You know with certainty that a bridal bed with silken sheets awaits you. You’re the ones who must be shameless and lusting after men if you can’t wait but have to run off into the woods with young lads and end up with wayside bastards—for shame, I say to you!”

  “Hold your tongue now. Go out and wash yourself. You’re standing there bleeding into the dough,” said her mistress quite calmly.

  Frida met Jofrid in the doorway. Kristin saw from the young woman’s face that she must have heard the conversation with the maid.

  “The poor thing’s chatter is as foolish as she is. I can’t send her away; she has no place to go.” Jofrid smiled scornfully. Then Kristin said, “She was the foster mother for two of my sons.”

  “But she wasn’t Gaute’s foster mother,” replied Jofrid. “She reminds us both of that fact as often as she can. Can’t you marry her off?” she asked sharply.

  Kristin had to laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? But all it to
ok was for the man to have a few words with his future bride. . . .”

  Kristin thought she should seize the opportunity to talk with Jofrid, to let her know that here she would meet with only maternal goodwill. But Jofrid looked angry and defiant.

  In the meantime it was now clearly evident that Jofrid was not walking alone. One day she was going to clean some feathers for new mattresses. Kristin advised her to tie back her hair so it wouldn’t be covered with down. Jofrid bound a linen cloth around her head.

  “No doubt this is now more fitting than going bareheaded,” she said with a little laugh.

  “That may well be,” said Kristin curtly.

  And yet she wasn’t pleased that Jofrid should jest about such a thing.

  A few days later Kristin came out of the cookhouse and saw Jofrid cutting open several black grouse; there was blood spattered all over her arms. Horror-stricken, Kristin pushed her aside.

  “Child, you mustn’t do this bloody work now. Don’t you know better than that?”

  “Oh, surely you don’t believe everything women say is true,” said Jofrid skeptically.

  Then Kristin told her about the marks of fire that Naakkve had received on his chest. She purposely spoke of it in such a way that Jofrid would understand she was not yet married when she looked at the burning church.

  “I suppose you hadn’t thought such a thing of me,” she said quietly.

  “Oh yes, Gaute has already told me: Your father had promised you to Simon Andressøn, but you ran off with Erlend Nikulaussøn to his aunt, and then Lavrans had to give his consent.”

  “It wasn’t exactly like that; we didn’t run off. Simon released me as soon as he realized that I was more fond of Erlend than of him, and then my father gave his consent—unwillingly, but he placed my hand in Erlend’s. I was betrothed for a year. Does that seem worse to you?” asked Kristin, for Jofrid had turned bright red and gave her a look of horror.