Then Erlend and Kristin were led to the high seat, and everyone sat down and ate and drank for a good long time. Kristin was the one who talked most during the meal; Erlend didn’t say much, nor did the farmers, and yet Kristin noticed that they seemed to like her.
Then the child woke up, at first whimpering but then shrieking so terribly that the mother had to put him to her breast to calm his cries. Kristin glanced over at the two of them several times, and when the boy had had enough, she took him from the woman and held him in her arms.
“Look, husband,” she said, “don’t you think he’s a handsome and fine young fellow?”
“That he is,” said Erlend, not looking in her direction.
Kristin sat and held the child for a while before she gave him back to his mother.
“I will send a gift over here to your son, Arndis,” she said. “For he’s the first child I’ve held in my arms since I came up here to the north.”
Flushed and defiant, with a little smile Kristin cast a glance at her husband and then at the farmers sitting along the bench. A few of them showed a slight twitch at the corner of the mouth, but then they stared straight ahead, their faces stiff and solemn. After a moment a very old man stood up; he had been drinking heavily. Now he lifted the ladle out of the ale bowl, placed it on the table, and raised the large vessel.
“So let us drink to that, mistress; that the next child you hold in your arms will be the new master of Husaby!”
Kristin stood up and accepted the heavy bowl. First she offered it to her husband. Erlend barely touched it with his lips, but Kristin took a long, deep drink.
“Thank you for that greeting, Jon of Skog,” she said with a cheery nod, her eyes twinkling. Then she sent the bowl around.
Kristin could see that Erlend was red-faced and quite angry. She herself merely felt such a foolish urge to laugh and be merry. A short time later Erlend wanted to leave, and so they set off on their way home.
They had been riding for a while without speaking when Erlend suddenly burst out, “Do you think it’s necessary to let even our tenants know that you were carrying a child when you were wed? You can wager your soul with the Devil that talk about the two of us will soon be flying through all the villages along the fjord.”
Kristin didn’t reply at first. She stared into the distance over her horse’s head, and she was now so white in the face that Erlend grew frightened.
“I will never forget for as long as I live,” she said at last, without looking at him, “that those were the first words you greeted him with, this son of yours that I carry under my belt.”
“Kristin!” said Erlend, his voice pleading. “My Kristin,” he implored when she said nothing and refused to look at him. “Kristin!”
“Sir?” she replied coldly and courteously, without turning her head.
Erlend cursed so that sparks flew; he spurred his horse and raced ahead along the road. But a few minutes later he came riding back toward her.
“This time I was almost so furious,” he said, “that I was going to ride away from you.”
Kristin said calmly, “Then you might have had to wait a good long time before I followed you to Husaby.”
“The things you say!” said her husband, resigned.
Once again they rode for some time without talking. In a while they reached a place where a small path led up over a ridge. Erlend said to his wife, “I was thinking that we could ride home this way, over the heights—it will take a little longer, but I’ve wanted to travel up this way with you for some time.”
Kristin nodded indifferently.
After a while Erlend said that now it would be better for them to walk. He tied their horses to a tree.
“Gunnulf and I had a fortress up here on the ridge,” he said. “I’d like to see whether there’s anything left of our castle.”
He took Kristin’s hand. She didn’t resist, but walked with her eyes downcast, looking at where she set her feet. It wasn’t long before they were up on the heights. Beyond the bare, frost-covered forest, in the crook of the little river, Husaby lay on the mountain slope directly across from them, looming big and grand with the stone church and all its massive buildings, surrounded by the broad acres, and the dark forested ridge behind.
“Mother used to come up here with us,” said Erlend softly. “Often. But she would always sit and stare off to the south, toward the Dovre Range. I suppose she was always yearning, night and day, to be far away from Husaby. Or she would turn toward the north and gaze out at the gap in the slopes—there where you can see blue in the distance; those are the mountains on the other side of the fjord. Not once did she look at the farm.”