Gunnulf continued to stroke the head of the weeping woman. All the while he thought: Was this the way that Erlend had behaved toward his young bride? His lips grew pale and grim at the thought.
Audfinna Audunsdatter was the first of the women to arrive. She found Kristin in the little house; Gunnulf was sitting with her, and a couple of maids were bustling about the room.
Audfinna greeted the priest with deference, but Kristin stood up and went toward her with her hand outstretched.
“I must give you thanks for coming, Audfinna. I know it’s not easy for your family to be without you at home.”
Gunnulf had given the woman a searching look. Now he too stood up and said, “It was good of you to come so quickly. My sister-in-law needs someone she can trust to be with her. She’s a stranger here, young and inexperienced.”
“Jesus, she’s as white as her linen wimple,” whispered Audfinna. “Do you think, sir, that I might give her a sleeping potion? She needs to rest a while before it gets much worse.”
She set to work, quietly and efficiently, inspecting the bed that the servant women had prepared on the floor, and telling them to bring more cushions and straw. She put small stone vessels of herbs on the fire to heat. Then she proceeded to loosen all the ribbons and ties on Kristin’s clothing, and finally she pulled out all the pins from the ill woman’s hair.
“I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said when the cascading, silky, golden-brown mane tumbled down around the pale face. She had to laugh. “It certainly hasn’t lost much of either fullness or sheen, even though you went bareheaded a little longer than was proper.”
She settled Kristin comfortably among the cushions on the floor and covered her with a blanket.
“Drink this now, and you won’t feel the pains as much—and see if you can sleep a little now and then.”
Gunnulf was ready to leave. He went over and bent down toward Kristin.
“You will pray for me, Gunnulf?” she implored him.
“I will pray for you until I see you with your child in your arms—and after that too,” he said as he tucked her hand back under the covers.
Kristin lay there, dozing. She felt almost content. The pain in her loins came and went, came and went—but it was unlike anything she had ever felt before, so that each time it was over, she wondered whether she had just imagined it. After the anguish and dread of the early morning hours, she felt as if she were already beyond the worst fear and torment. Audfinna walked about quietly, hanging up the infant clothes, blankets, and furs to warm at the hearth—and stirring her pots a little so the room smelled of spices. Finally Kristin slept between each wave of pain; she thought she was back home in the brewhouse at J?rundgaard and was supposed to help her mother dye a large woven fabric—probably because of the steam from the ash bark and nettles.
Then the neighbor women arrived, one after another—wives from the estates in the parish and in Birgsi. Audfinna withdrew to her place with the maids. Toward evening, Kristin began to suffer terrible pain. The women told her to walk around as long as she could bear it. This tormented her greatly; the house was now crowded with women, and she had to walk around like a mare that was for sale. Now and then she had to let the women squeeze and touch her body all over, and then they would confer with each other. At last Fru Gunna from Raasvold, who was in charge of things, said that now Kristin could lie down on the floor. She divided up the women: some to sleep and some to keep watch. “This isn’t going to pass quickly—but go ahead and scream, Kristin, when it hurts, and don’t pay any mind to those who are sleeping. We’re all here to help you, poor child,” she said, gentle and kind, patting the young woman’s cheek.
But Kristin lay there biting her lips to shreds and crushing the corners of the blanket in her sweaty hands. It was suffocatingly hot, but they told her that was as it should be. After each wave of pain, the sweat poured off her.
At times she would lie there thinking about food for all these women. She fervently wanted them to see that she kept good order in her house. She had asked Torbj?rg, the cook, to put whey in the water for boiling the fresh fish. If only Gunnulf wouldn’t regard this as breaking the fast. Sira Eirik had said that it wasn’t, for whey was not milk, and the fish broth would be thrown out. They mustn’t be allowed to taste the dried fish that Erlend had brought home in the fall, spoiled and full of mites that it was.
Blessed Virgin Mary—will it be long before you help me? Oh, how it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. . . .