Erlend slammed his fist against the ground, making his knuckles bleed.
“The Devil himself must have a hand in it when a man’s wife goes to his brother for confession!”
“She hasn’t confessed to me,” said the priest. “Nor am I her parish priest. She told me her laments during her bitter fear and anguish, and I tried to help her and give her such advice and solace as I thought best.”
“I see.” Erlend threw back his head and looked up at his brother. “I know that I shouldn’t have done it; I shouldn’t have allowed her to come to me at Brynhild’s inn.”
The priest sat speechless for a moment.
“At Brynhild Fluga’s?”
“Yes, didn’t she tell you that when she told you all the rest?”
“It will be hard enough for Kristin to say such things about her lawful husband in confession,” said the priest after a pause. “I think she would rather die than speak of it anywhere else.”
He fell silent and then said harshly and vehemently, “If you felt, Erlend, that you were her husband before God and the one who should protect and guard her, then I think your behavior was even worse. You seduced her in groves and in barns, you led her across a harlot’s threshold. And finally up to Bj?rn Gunnarss?n and Fru Aashild . . .”
“You mustn’t speak of Aunt Aashild that way,” said Erlend in a low voice.
“You’ve said yourself that you thought our aunt caused the death of our father’s brother—she and that man Bj?rn.”
“It makes no difference to me,” said Erlend forcefully. “I’m fond of Aunt Aashild.”
“Yes, so I see,” said the priest. A crooked, mocking little smile appeared on his lips. “Since you were ready to leave her to face Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n after you carried off his daughter. It seems as if you think that your affection is worth paying dearly for, Erlend.”
“Jesus!” Erlend hid his face in his hands.
But the priest continued quickly, “If only you had seen the torment of your wife’s soul as she trembled in horror of her sins, unconfessed and unredeemed—as she sat there, about to give birth to your child, with death standing at the door—so young a child herself, and so unhappy.”
“I know, I know!” Erlend was shaking. “I know she lay there thinking about this as she suffered. For Christ’s sake, Gunnulf, say no more. I’m your brother, after all!”
But he continued without mercy.
“If I had been a man like you and not a priest, and if I had led astray so young and good a maiden, I would have freed myself from that other woman. God help me, but I would have done as Aunt Aashild did to her husband and then burned in Hell forever after, rather than allow my innocent and dearest beloved to suffer such things as you have done.”
Erlend sat in silence for a moment, trembling.
“You say that you’re a priest,” he said softly. “Are you such a good priest that you have never sinned—with a woman?”
Gunnulf did not look at his brother. Blood flushed red across his face.
“You have no right to ask me that, but I will answer you all the same. He who died for us on the cross knows how much I need his mercy. But I tell you, Erlend—if on the whole round disk of this earth he had not one servant who was pure and unmarked by sin, and if in his holy Church there was not a single priest who was more faithful and worthy than I am, miserable betrayer of the Lord that I am, then the Lord’s commandments and laws are what we can learn from this. His Word cannot be defiled by the mouth of an impure priest; it can only burn and consume our own lips—although perhaps you can’t understand this. But you know as well as I, along with every filthy thrall of the Devil that He has bought with His own blood—God’s law cannot be shaken nor His honor diminished. Just as His sun is equally mighty, whether it shines above the barren sea and desolate gray moors or above these fair lands.”
Erlend had hidden his face in his hands. He sat still for a long time, but when he spoke his voice was dry and hard.
“Priest or no priest—since you’re not such a strict adherent of pure living—don’t you see . . . Could you have done that to a woman who had slept in your arms and borne you two children? Could you have done to her what our aunt did to her husband?”
The priest didn’t answer at first. Then he said with some scorn, “You don’t seem to judge Aunt Aashild too harshly.”
“But it can’t be the same for a man as for a woman,” said Erlend. “I remember the last time they were here at Husaby, and Herr Bj?rn was with them. We sat near the hearth, Mother and Aunt Aashild, and Herr Bj?rn played the harp and sang for them. I stood at his knee. Then Uncle Baard called to her—he was in bed, and he wanted her to come to bed too. He used words that were vulgar and shameless. Aunt Aashild stood up and Herr Bj?rn did too. He left the room, but before he did, they looked at each other. Later, when I was old enough to understand, I thought . . . that it might be true after all. I had begged for permission to light the way for Herr Bj?rn over to the loft where he was going to sleep, but I didn’t dare, and I didn’t dare sleep in the hall, either. I ran outside and went to sleep with the men in the servants’ house. By Jesus, Gunnulf—it can’t be the same for a man as it was for Aashild that evening. No, Gunnulf—to kill a woman who . . . unless I caught her with another man . . .”