The crowd that filled the farm-place fell apart to make way for the bridegroom’s train. Straightway the young groomsmen came riding forward — there went a stir among the women in the balcony.
Lady Aashild was standing by the bride.
“Bear you well now, Kristin,” said she, “ ’twill not be long now till you are safe under the linen coif.”*
Kristin nodded helplessly. She felt how deathly white her face must be.
“Methinks I am all too pale a bride,” she said, in a low voice.
“You are the fairest bride,” said Lady Aashild; “and there comes Erlend, riding — fairer pair than you twain would be far to seek.”
Now Erlend himself rode forward under the balcony. He sprang lightly from his horse, unhindered by his heavy, flowing garments. He seemed to Kristin so fair that ’twas pain to look on him.
He was in dark raiment, clad in a slashed silken coat falling to the feet, leaf-brown of hue and inwoven with black and white. About his waist he had a gold-bossed belt, and at his left thigh hung a sword with gold on hilt and sheath. Back over his shoulders fell a heavy dark-blue velvet cloak, and pressed down on his coal-black hair he wore a black French cap of silk that stood out at both sides in puckered wings and ended in two long streamers, whereof one was thrown from his left shoulder right across his breast and out behind over the other arm.
Erlend bowed low before his bride as she stood about; then went up to her horse and stood by it with his hand on the saddle-bow, while Lavrans went up the stairs. A strange dizzy feeling came over Kristin at the sight of all this splendour — in this solemn garment of green velvet, falling to his feet, her father might have been some stranger. And her mother’s face, under the linen coif, showed ashy-grey against the red of her silken dress. Ragnfrid came forward and laid the cloak about her daughter’s shoulders.
Then Lavrans took the bride’s hand and led her down to Erlend. The bridegroom lifted her to the saddle, and himself mounted. They stayed their horses, side by side, these two, beneath the bridal balcony, while the train began to form and ride out through the courtyard gate. First the priests: Sira Eirik, Sira Tormod from Ulvsvolden, and a Brother of the Holy Cross from Hamar, a friend of Lavrans. Then came the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, pair by pair. And now ’twas for Erlend and her to ride forth. After them came the bride’s parents, the kinsmen, friends and guests, in a long line down betwixt the fences to the highway. Their road for a long way onward was strewn with clusters of rowan-berries, branchlets of pine, and the last white dog-fennel of autumn, and folk stood thick along the waysides where the train passed by, greeting them with a great shouting.
On the Sunday, just after sunset, the bridal train rode back to Jörundgaard. Through the first falling folds of darkness the bonfires shone out red from the courtyard of the bridal house. Minstrels and fiddlers were singing and making drums and fiddles speak as the crowd of riders drew near to the warm red glare of the fires.
Kristin came near to falling her length on the ground when Erlend lifted her from her horse beneath the balcony of the upper hall.
“ ’Twas so cold upon the hills,” she whispered. “I am so weary —” She stood for a moment, and when she climbed the stairs to the loft-room, she swayed and tottered at each step.
Up in the hall the half-frozen wedding guests were soon warmed up again. The many candles burning in the room gave out heat; smoking hot dishes of food were borne around, and wine, mead and strong ale circled about. The loud hum of voices and the noise of many eating sounded like a far-off roaring in Kristin’s ears.
It seemed as she sat there she would never be warm through again. In a while her cheeks began to burn, but her feet were still unthawed, and shudders of cold ran down her back. All the heavy gold that was on her head and body forced her to lean forward as she sat in the high-seat by Erlend’s side.
Every time her bridegroom drank to her, she could not keep her eyes from the red stains and patches that stood out on his face so sharply as he began to grow warm after his ride in the cold. They were the marks left by the burns of last summer.
The horror had come upon her last evening, when they sat over the supper-board at Sundbu, and she met Björn Gunnarsön’s light-less eyes fixed on her and Erlend — unwinking, unwavering eyes. They had dressed up Sir Björn in knightly raiment — he looked like a dead man brought to life by an evil spell.
At night she had lain with Lady Aashild, the bridegroom’s nearest kinswoman in the wedding company.
“What is amiss with you, Kristin?” said Lady Aashild, a little sharply. “Now is the time for you to bear up stiffly to the end — not give way thus.”
“I am thinking,” said Kristin, cold with dread, “on all them we have brought to sorrow that we might see this day.”
“ ’Tis not joy alone, I trow, that you two have had,” said Lady Aashild. “Not Erlend at the least. And methinks it has been worse still for you.”
“I am thinking on his helpless children,” said the bride again. “I am wondering if they know their father is drinking to-day at his wedding-feast —”
“Think on your own child,” said the lady. “Be glad that you are drinking at your wedding with him who is its father.”
Kristin lay awhile, weak and giddy. ’Twas so strange to hear that name that had filled her heart and mind each day for three months and more, and whereof yet she had not dared speak a word to a living soul. It was but for a little, though, that this helped her.
“I am thinking on her who had to pay with her life, because she held Erlend dear,” she whispered, shivering.
“Well if you come not to pay with your life yourself, ere you are half a year older,” said Lady Aashild harshly. “Be glad while you may —
“What shall I say to you, Kristin?” said the old woman in a while, despairingly. “Have you clean lost courage this day of all days? Soon enough will it be required of you twain that you shall pay for all you have done amiss — have no fear that it will not be so.”
But Kristin felt as though all things in her soul were slipping, slipping — as though all were toppling down that she had built up since that day of horror at Haugen, in that first time when, wild and blind with fear, she had thought but of holding out one day more, and one day more. And she had held out till her load grew lighter — and at last grew even light, when she had thrown off all thought but this one thought: that now their wedding-day was coming at last, Erlend’s wedding-day at last.
But when she and Erlend knelt together in the wedding-mass, all around her seemed but some trickery of the sight — the tapers, the pictures, the glittering vessels, the priests in their copes and white gowns. All those who had known her where she had lived before — they seemed like visions of a dream, standing there, close-packed in the church in their unwonted garments. But Sir Björn stood against a pillar, looking at those two with his dead eyes, and it seemed to her that that other who was dead must needs have come back with him, on his arm.
She tried to look up at Saint Olav’s picture — he stood there red and white and comely, leaning on his axe, treading his own sinful human nature underfoot — but her glance would ever go back to Sir Björn; and nigh to him she saw Eline Ormsdatter’s dead face, looking unmoved upon her and Erlend. They had trampled her underfoot that they might come hither — and she grudged it not to them.
The dead woman had arisen and flung off her all the great stones that Kristin had striven to heap up above her: Erlend’s wasted youth, his honour and his welfare, his friends’ good graces, his soul’s health. The dead woman had shaken herself free of them all. He would have me and I would have him; you would have him and he would have you, said Eline. I have paid — and he must pay and you must pay when your time comes. When the time of sin is fulfilled it brings forth death.…
It seemed to her she was kneeling with Erlend on a cold stone. He knelt there with the red, burnt patches on his pale face; she knelt under the heavy bridal crown, and felt the dull, crushing weight within
her — the burden of sin that she bore. She had played and wantoned with her sin, had measured it as in a childish game. Holy Virgin — now the time was nigh when it should lie full-born before her, look at her with living eyes; show her on itself the brands of sin, the hideous deformity of sin; strike in hate with misshapen hands at its mother’s breast. When she had borne her child, when she saw the marks of her sin upon it and yet loved it as she had loved her sin, then would the game be played to an end.
Kristin thought: what if she shrieked aloud now, a shriek that would cut through the song and the deep voices intoning the mass, and echo out over the people’s heads? Would she be rid then of Eline’s face — would there come life into the dead man’s eyes? But she clenched her teeth together.
… Holy King Olav, I cry upon thee. Above all in heaven I pray for help to thee, for I know thou didst love God’s justice above all things. I call upon thee, that thou hold thy hand over the innocent that is in my womb. Turn away God’s wrath from the innocent; turn it upon me. Amen, in the precious name of the Lord.…
My children, said Eline’s voice, are they not guiltless? Yet is there no place for them in the lands where Christians dwell. Your child is begotten outside the law, even as were my children. No rights can you claim for it in the land you have strayed away from, any more than I for mine.…
Holy Olav! Yet do I pray for grace. Pray thou for mercy for my son; take him beneath thy guard; so shall I bear him to thy church on my naked feet, so shall I bear my golden garland of maidenhood in to thee and lay it down upon thy altar, if thou wilt but help me. Amen.
Her face was set hard as stone in her struggle to be still and calm; but her whole body throbbed and quivered as she knelt there through the holy mass that wedded her to Erlend.
And now, as she sat beside him in the high-seat at home, all things around her were but as shadows in a fevered dream.
There were minstrels playing on harps and fiddles in the loft-room; and the sound of music and song rose from the hall below and the courtyard outside. There was a red glare of fire from without, when the door was opened for the dishes and tankards to be borne in and out.
Those around the board were standing now; she was standing up between her father and Erlend. Her father made known with a loud voice that he had given Erlend Nikulaussön his daughter Kristin to wife. Erlend thanked his father-in-law, and he thanked all good folk who had come together there to honour him and his wife.
She was to sit down, they said — and now Erlend laid his bridal gifts in her lap. Sira Eirik and Sir Munan Baardsön unrolled deeds and read aloud from them concerning the jointures and settlements of the wedded pair; while the groomsmen stood around, with spears in their hands, and now and again during the reading, or when gifts and bags of money were laid on the table, smote with the butts upon the floor.
The tables were cleared away; Erlend led her forth upon the floor, and they danced together. Kristin thought: our groomsmen and our bridesmaids — they are all too young for us — all they that were young with us are gone from these places; how is it we are come back hither?
“You are so strange, Kristin,” whispered Erlend, as they danced. “I am afraid of you, Kristin — are you not happy — ?”
They went from house to house and greeted their guests. There were many lights in all the rooms, and everywhere crowds of people drinking and singing and dancing. It seemed to Kristin she scarce knew her home again — and she had lost all knowledge of time — hours and the pictures of her brain seemed strangely to float about loosely, mingled with each other.
The autumn night was mild; there were minstrels in the courtyard too, and people dancing round the bonfire. They cried out that the bride and bridegroom must honour them too — and then she was dancing with Erlend on the cold, dewy sward. She seemed to wake a little then, and her head grew more clear.
Far out in the darkness a band of white mist floated above the murmur of the river. The mountains stood around coal-black against the star-sprinkled sky.
Erlend led her out of the ring of dancers, and crushed her to him in the darkness under the balcony.
“Not once have I had the chance to tell you — you are so fair — so fair and so sweet. Your cheeks are red as flames —” He pressed his cheek to hers as he spoke. “Kristin, what is it ails you?”
“I am so weary, so weary,” she whispered back.
“Soon now will we go and sleep,” answered her bridegroom, looking up at the sky. The Milky Way had wheeled, and now lay all but north and south. “Mind you that we have not once slept together since that one only night I was with you in your bower at Skog?”
Soon after, Sira Eirik shouted with a loud voice out over the farmstead that now it was Monday. The women came to lead the bride to bed. Kristin was so weary that she was scarce able to struggle and hold back as ’twas fit and seemly she should do. She let herself be seized and led out of the loft-room by Lady Aashild and Gyrid of Skog. The groomsmen stood at the foot of the stair with burning torches and naked swords; they formed a ring round the troop of women and attended Kristin across the farm-place, and up into the old loft-room.
The women took off her bridal finery, piece by piece, and laid it away. Kristin saw that over the bed-foot hung the violet velvet robe she was to wear on the morrow, and upon it lay a long, snow-white, finely-pleated linen cloth. It was the wife’s linen coif. Erlend had brought it for her; to-morrow she was to bind up her hair in a knot and fasten the head-linen over it. It looked to her so fresh and cool and restful.
At last she was standing before the bridal bed, on her naked feet, bare-armed, clad only in the long golden-yellow silken shift. They had set the crown on her head again; the bridegroom was to take it off, when they two were left alone.
Ragnfrid laid her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek— the mother’s face and hands were strangely cold, but it was as though sobs were struggling deep in her breast. Then she drew back the coverings of the bed, and bade the bride seat herself in it. Kristin obeyed, and leaned back on the pillows heaped up against the bed-head — she had to bend her head a little forward to keep on the crown. Lady Aashild drew the coverings up to the bride’s waist, and laid her hands before her on the silken coverlid; then took her shining hair and drew it forward over her bosom and the slender bare upper arms.
Next the men led the bridegroom into the loft-room. Munan Baardsön unclasped the golden belt and sword from Erlend’s waist; when he leaned over to hang it on the wall above the bed, he whispered something to the bride — Kristin knew not what he said, but she did her best to smile.
The groomsmen unlaced Erlend’s silken robe and lifted off the long heavy garment over his head. He sate him down in the great chair and they helped him off with his spurs and boots.
Once, and once only, the bride found courage to look up and meet his eyes.
Then began the good-nights. Before long all the wedding-guests were gone from the loft. Last of all, Lavrans Björgulfsön went out and shut the door of the bride-house.
Erlend stood up, stripped off his underclothing, and flung it on the benches. He stood by the bed, took the crown and the silken cords from off her hair, and laid them away on the table. Then he came back and mounted into the bed. Kneeling by her side he clasped her round the head, and pressed it in against his hot, naked breast, while he kissed her forehead all along the red streak the crown had left on it.
She threw her arms about his shoulders and sobbed aloud — she had a sweet, wild feeling that now the horror, the phantom visions, were fading into air — now, now once again naught was left but he and she. He lifted up her face a moment, looked down into it, and drew his hand down over her face and body, with a strange haste and roughness, as though he tore away a covering.
“Forget,” he begged, in a fiery whisper, “forget all, my Kristin — all but this, that you are my own wife, and I am your own husband.…”
With his hand he quenched the flame of the last candle, then threw
himself down beside her in the dark — he too was sobbing now:
“Never have I believed it, never in all these years, that we should see this day.…”
Without, in the courtyard, the noise died down little by little. Wearied with the long day’s ride, and dizzy with much strong drink, the guests made a decent show of merry-making a little while yet, but more and ever more of them stole away and sought out the places where they were to sleep.
Ragnfrid showed all the guests of honour to their places, and bade them good-night. Her husband, who should have helped her in this, was nowhere to be seen.
The dark courtyard was empty, save for a few small groups of young folks — servants most of them — when at last she stole out to find her husband and bring him with her to his bed. She had seen as the night wore on that he had grown very drunken.
She stumbled over him at last, as she crept along in her search outside the cattle-yard — he was lying in the grass behind the bath-house on his face.
Groping in the darkness, she touched him with her hand — ay, it was he. She thought he was asleep, and took him by the shoulder — she must get him up off the icy-cold ground. But he was not asleep, at least not wholly.
“What would you?” he asked, in a thick voice.
“You cannot lie here,” said his wife. She held him up, as he stood swaying. With one hand she brushed the soil off his velvet robe. “ ’Tis time we too went to rest, husband.” She took him by the arm, and drew him, reeling, up towards the farmyard buildings.
“You looked not up, Ragnfrid, when you sat in the bridal bed beneath the crown,” he said in the same voice. “Our daughter — she was not so shamefast — her eyes were not shamefast when she looked upon her bridegroom.”
The Bridal Wreath Page 31