“Then you should have traded the goods that are lying in your lofts and have rotted long ago,” said Kristin. “I also know that the law says that every man who leases land must sow grain on three parts but let the fourth part lie fallow. And surely the estate of the master should not be worse tended than the farms of his leaseholders—that’s what my father always said.”
Erlend laughed a bit and said, “I have never asked about the law in that regard. As long as I receive what is my due, my tenants can run their farms as they see fit, and I will run Husaby in the manner that seems to me best and most suitable.”
“Do you think yourself wiser then,” said Kristin, “than our deceased ancestors and Saint Olav and King Magnus, who established these laws?”
Erlend laughed again and said, “I hadn’t given any thought to that. What a devilish good grasp you have of our country’s laws and regulations, Kristin.”
“I have some understanding of these matters,” said Kristin, “because Father often asked Sigurd of Loptsgaard to recite laws for us when he came to visit and we sat at home in the evening. Father thought it was beneficial for the servants and the young people to have some knowledge of such things, and so Sigurd would recount one passage or another.”
“Sigurd . . .” said Erlend. “Oh, yes, now I remember. I saw him at our wedding. He was the toothless old man with the long drooping nose who slobbered and wept and patted you on the breast. He was still dead drunk in the morning when everyone came up to us and watched as I put the linen wimple of a married woman on your head.”
“He has known me for as long as I can remember,” said Kristin crossly. “He used to take me on his lap and play with me when I was a little maiden.”
Erlend laughed again. “That was an odd kind of amusement—that you had to sit and listen to the old man chanting the law, passage by passage. Lavrans is unlike any other man in every way. Usually it is said that if the tenant knew the full law of the land and the stallion knew his strength, then the Devil would be a knight. . . .”
Kristin gave a shout and struck her horse on the flank. Erlend threw his wife an angry and astonished look as she rode away from him.
Suddenly he spurred his horse. Jesus, the ford in the river—it was impossible to cross there now, the earth had slid away recently. Sl?ngvanbauge took longer strides when he noticed another horse chasing him. Erlend was deathly afraid—how she was racing down the steep slopes. He bounded past her through the copse-wood and doubled back on the road where it flattened out for a short stretch to make her stop. When he came up alongside her, he saw that Kristin herself had grown a little scared.
Erlend leaned over toward his wife and struck her a ringing blow beneath the ear; Sl?ngvanbauge leaped sideways, startled, and reared up.
“Well, you deserved that,” said Erlend, his voice shaking, after the horses had calmed down and they once again rode side by side. “The way you rushed off like that, senseless with fury . . . You frightened me.”
Kristin held her hand to her head so that he couldn’t see her face. Erlend wished that he hadn’t hit her. But he repeated, “Yes, you scared me, Kristin—to dash off like that! And to do so now . . . ,” he said softly.
Kristin didn’t reply, nor did she look at him. But Erlend felt that she was less angry than before, when he had mocked her home. He was greatly surprised by this, but he saw that it was so.
They arrived at Medalby, and Erlend’s leaseholder came out and wanted to show them into the main house. But Erlend thought they first ought to inspect the buildings, and Kristin should come along. “She owns the farm now, and she has a better understanding of such things than I do, Stein,” he said with a laugh. Several farmers were there too, who were to act as witnesses, and some of them were also Erlend’s tenants.
Stein had come to the farm on the last turnover day4 and since then he had been begging the master to come up and see the condition that the buildings were in when he took over, or to send an envoy in his stead. The farmers testified that not one building had been without leaks, and those that were now in a state of collapse had been that way when Stein arrived. Kristin saw that it was a good farm, but it had been poorly maintained. She saw that this Stein was a capable man, and Erlend was also very amenable and promised him some reductions in his land rent until he was able to repair the buildings.
Then they went into the main house where the table was set with good food and strong ale. The leaseholder’s wife asked Kristin’s forgiveness for not coming out to greet her. But her husband would not allow her to step out under open sky until she had been to church after giving birth.5 Kristin greeted the woman kindly, and then she had to go over to the cradle to see the child. It was the couple’s first, and it was a son, twelve nights old, big and strong.