Then she called in her heart upon Saint Olav.3 He was the one she had heard so much about that it was as though she had known him while he lived in Norway and had seen him here on this earth. He was not tall, quite stout, but straight-backed and fair, with the gold crown and shining halo on his golden curls, and a curly red beard on his firm, weatherbeaten, and intrepid face. But his deep-set and blazing eyes looked straight through everyone; those who had strayed did not dare look into them. Kristin didn’t dare either. She lowered her gaze before his eyes, but she was not afraid. It was more as if she were a child and had to lower her eyes before her father’s glance when she had done something wrong. Saint Olav looked at her, sternly but not harshly—she had promised to better her life, after all. She longed so fervently to go to Nidaros4 and kneel down before his shrine: Erlend had promised her this, when they came north—that they would go there very soon. But the journey had been postponed. And now Kristin realized that he was reluctant to travel with her; he was ashamed and afraid of gossip.
One evening when she was sitting at the table with her servants, one of the maids, a young girl who helped in the house, said, “I was wondering, Mistress, whether it wouldn’t be better if we started sewing swaddling clothes and infant garments before we set up the loom that you’re talking about. . . .”
Kristin pretended not to hear and kept on talking about wool dyeing.
Then the girl continued, “But perhaps you have brought such garments from home?”
Kristin smiled faintly and then turned back to the others. When she glanced at the maid a little while later, she was sitting there bright red in the face and peering anxiously at her mistress. Kristin smiled again and spoke to Ulf across the table. Then the young girl began to weep. Kristin laughed a bit, and the maid cried harder and harder until she was sniffing and snuffling.
“Stop that now, Frida,” Kristin finally said calmly. “You hired on here as a grown-up serving maid; you shouldn’t behave as if you were a little child.”
The maid whimpered. She hadn’t meant to be impertinent, and Kristin mustn’t be angry.
“No,” said Kristin, smiling again. “Eat your food now and stop crying. The rest of us have no more sense, either, than what God has granted us.”
Frida jumped up and ran out, sobbing loudly.
Later, when Ulf Haldorss?n stood talking to Kristin about the work that had to be done the next day, he laughed and said, “Erlend should have married you ten years ago, Kristin. Then his affairs would have been in a better state today, in every respect.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, smiling as before. “Back then I was nine winters old. Do you think Erlend would have been capable of waiting for a child bride for years on end?”
Ulf laughed and went out.
But at night Kristin would lie in bed and weep with loneliness and humiliation.
Then Erlend came home during the week before Christmas, and Orm, his son, rode at his father’s side. Kristin felt a stab in her heart when Erlend led the boy forward and told him to greet his stepmother.
He was the most handsome child. This was how she had thought he would look, the son that she carried. Sometimes, when she dared to be happy, to believe that her child would be born healthy and well-formed, and to think ahead about the boy who would grow up at her knee, then it was like this she pictured him—just like his father.
Orm was perhaps a little small for his age, and slight, but handsomely built, with fine limbs and a lovely face, his complexion and hair dark, but with big blue eyes and a soft red mouth. He greeted his stepmother courteously, but his expression was hard and cold. Kristin had not had the chance to talk with the boy further. But she sensed his eyes on her, wherever she walked or stood, and she felt as if her body and gait grew even more heavy and clumsy when she knew the boy was staring at her.
She didn’t notice Erlend talking much with his son, but she realized that it was the boy who held back. Kristin told her husband that Orm was handsome and looked intelligent. Erlend had not brought his daughter along; he thought Margret was too young to make the long journey in the winter. She was even more lovely than her brother, he said proudly when Kristin asked about the little maiden—and much more clever; she had her foster parents wrapped around her little finger. She had wavy golden hair and brown eyes.
Then she must look much like her mother, thought Kristin. And she couldn’t help the feeling of envy that burned inside her. She wondered whether Erlend loved his daughter the way her father had loved her. His voice had sounded so tender and warm when he spoke of Margret.