Then Kristin shrieked once more—a piercing, wild cry of lament that didn’t sound like the insane, inhuman animal cries of before. Erlend leaped up.
Gunnulf was bending down and holding on to Kristin, who was still on her knees. She was staring with deathly horror at something that Fru Gunna was holding in a sheepskin. The raw and dark red shape looked like nothing more than the entrails from a slaughtered beast.
The priest pulled her close.
“Dear Kristin—you have given birth to as fine and handsome a son as any mother should thank God for—and he’s breathing!” said Gunnulf fiercely to the weeping women. “He’s breathing—God would not be so harsh as not to hear us.”
And as the priest spoke, it happened. Through the exhausted, confused mind of the mother tumbled, hazily recalled, the sight of a bud she had seen in the cloister garden—something from which red, crinkled wisps of silk emerged and spread out to become a flower.
The shapeless lump moved—it whimpered. It stretched out and became a very tiny, wine-red infant in human form. It had arms and legs and hands and feet with fully formed fingers and toes. It flailed and hissed a bit.
“So tiny, so tiny, so tiny he is,” she cried in a thin, broken voice and then burst into laughing sobs. The women around her began to laugh and wipe their tears, and Gunnulf gave Kristin into their arms.
“Roll him in a trencher so he can scream better,” said the priest as he followed the women carrying the newborn son over to the hearth.
When Kristin awoke from a long faint, she was lying in bed. Someone had removed the dreadful, sweat-soaked garments, and a feeling of warmth and healing was blessedly streaming through her body. They had placed small pouches of warm nettle porridge on her and wrapped her in hot blankets and furs.
Someone hushed her when she tried to speak. It was quite still in the room. But through the silence came a voice that she couldn’t quite recognize.
“Nikulaus, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . .”
There was the sound of water trickling.
Kristin propped herself up on her elbow to take a look. Over by the hearth stood a priest in white garb, and Ulf Haldorss?n was lifting a kicking, red, naked child out of the large brass basin; he handed him to the godmother, and then took the lit taper.
She had given birth to a child, and he was screaming so loudly that the priest’s words were almost drowned out. But she was so tired. She felt numb and wanted to sleep.
Then she heard Erlend’s voice; he spoke quickly and with alarm.
“His head—he has such a strange head.”
“He’s swollen up,” said the woman calmly. “And it’s no wonder—he had to fight hard for his life, this boy.”
Kristin shouted something. She felt as if she were suddenly awake, to the very depths of her heart. This was her son, and he had fought for his life, just as she had.
Gunnulf turned around at once and laughed; he seized the tiny white bundle from Fru Gunna’s lap and carried it over to the bed. He placed the boy in his mother’s arms. Weak with tenderness and joy she rubbed her face against the little bit of red, silky-soft face visible among the linen wrappings.
She glanced up at Erlend. Once before she had seen his face look this haggard and gray—she couldn’t remember when, her head felt so dizzy and strange, but she knew that it was good she had no memory of it. And it was good to see him standing there with his brother; the priest had his hand on Erlend’s shoulder. An immeasurable sense of peace and well-being came over her as she looked at the tall man wearing alb and stole; the round, lean face beneath the black fringe of hair was strong, but his smile was pleasant and kind.
Erlend drove his dagger deep into the wall timber behind the mother and child.
“That’s not necessary now,” said the priest with a laugh. “The boy has been baptized, after all.”
Kristin suddenly remembered something that Brother Edvin once said. A newly baptized child was just as holy as the holy angels in heaven. The sins of the parents were washed from the child, and he had not yet committed any sins of his own. Fearful and cautious, she kissed the little face.
Fru Gunna came over to them. She was worn out and exhausted and angry at the father, who had not had the sense to offer a single word of thanks to all the women who had helped. And the priest had taken the child from her and carried him over to his mother. She should have done that, both because she had delivered the woman and because she was the godmother of the boy.
“You haven’t yet greeted your son, Erlend, or held him in your arms,” she said crossly.