“And I was afraid of myself because I, an impure man, had served at his altar, said mass with impure lips, and held up the Host with impure hands. And I felt that I was like the man who led his beloved to a place of shame and betrayed her.”
He caught Kristin in his arms when she fainted, and he and Orm carried the unconscious woman over to the bed.
After a while she opened her eyes; she sat up and covered her face with her hands. She burst into tears and uttered a wild and plaintive cry, “I can’t, Gunnulf, I can’t—when you talk like that, then I realize that I can never . . .”
Gunnulf took her hand. But she turned away from the man’s pale and agitated face.
“Kristin. You cannot settle for anything less than the love that is between God and the soul.
“Kristin, look around at what the world is like. You who have given birth to two children—have you never thought about the fact that every child who is born is baptized in blood, and the first thing a person breathes on this earth is the smell of blood? Don’t you think that as their mother you should put all your effort into one thing? To ensure that your sons do not fall back on that first baptismal pact with the world but instead hold on to the other pact, which they affirmed with God at the baptismal font.”
She sobbed and sobbed.
“I’m afraid of you,” she said again. “Gunnulf, when you talk like that, then I realize I’ll never be able to find my way to peace.”
“God will find you,” said the priest quietly. “Stay calm and do not flee from Him who has been seeking you before you even existed in your mother’s womb.”
He sat in silence for a moment near the edge of the bed. Then he asked calmly and evenly whether he should wake Ingrid and ask the woman to come and help her undress. Kristin shook her head.
He made the sign of the cross over her three times. He bade Orm good night and went into the alcove where he slept.
Orm and Kristin undressed. The boy seemed deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. After Kristin was in bed, he came over to her. He looked at her tear-stained face and asked whether he should sit with her until she fell asleep.
“Oh, yes . . . oh, no, Orm, you must be tired, you who are so young. It must be very late.”
Orm stood there a little longer.
“Don’t you think it’s strange,” he said suddenly. “Father and Uncle Gunnulf—they’re so unlike each other—and yet they’re alike in a certain way.”
Kristin lay there, thinking to herself, Yes, perhaps. They’re unlike any other men.
A moment later she was asleep, and Orm went over to the other bed. He took off the rest of his clothes and crept under the covers. There was a linen sheet underneath and linen cases on the pillows. With pleasure the boy stretched out on the smooth, cool bed. His heart was pounding with excitement at these new adventures which his uncle’s words had pointed out to him. Prayers, fasts, everything he had practiced because he had been taught to do so, suddenly seemed new to him—weapons in a glorious war for which he longed. Perhaps he would become a monk—or a priest—if he could obtain dispensation because he had been born of adultery.
Gunnulf’s bed was a wooden bench with a sheet made from a hide spread over a little straw and a single, small pillow; he had to stretch himself out full length to sleep. The priest took off his surcoat, lay down wearing his undergarments, and pulled the thin homespun blanket over himself.
He left the little candlewick burning that was twined around an iron stake.
His own words had oppressed him with fear and uneasiness.
He felt faint with longing for that time—would he ever again find that nuptial joy in his heart that had filled him all spring long in Rome? Together with his three brothers he had wandered in the sunshine across the green, flower-starred meadows. He grew weak and trembled when he saw how beautiful the world was—and then to know that all of this was nothing compared to the riches of that other life. And yet this world greeted them with a thousand small joys and sweet reminders of the bridegroom. The lilies in the field and the birds in the sky reminded them of his words; he had spoken of donkeys like the ones they saw and of wells like the stone-lined cisterns they passed. They received food from the monks at the churches they visited, and when they drank the blood-red wine and broke off the golden crust from the bread made of wheat, all four priests from the barley lands understood why Christ had honored wine and wheat, which were purer than all other foodstuffs that God had given humankind, by manifesting himself in their likeness during the holy communion.