Not until the bells of the church rang for matins did Gunnulf get up. There was not a sound as he walked through the main hall—they were both asleep, Kristin and Orm.
Out in the dark courtyard the priest paused for a moment. But none of the servants appeared to accompany him to church. He didn’t require them to attend more than two services a day. But Ingrid, his foster mother, almost always went with him to matins. This morning she was evidently still asleep too. Well, she had been up late the night before.
All that day the three kinsmen spoke little to each other, and then only about unimportant things. Gunnulf looked tired, but he kept up his bantering just the same. “How foolish we were last night. We sat here so mournfully, like three fatherless children,” he said once. Many funny little things went on in Nidaros, with the pilgrims and such, which the priests often jested about among themselves. An old man from Herjedal had come to offer prayers on behalf of his fellow villagers, but he managed to mix them all up—and he later realized that things would have looked bad in his village if Saint Olav had taken him at his word.
Late that evening Erlend arrived, soaking wet. He had come to Nidaros by ship, and now the wind was blowing hard again. He was furious and fell upon Orm at once with angry words.
Gunnulf listened for a while and said, “When you speak to Orm in that manner, Erlend, you sound like our father—the way he used to speak to you.”
Erlend abruptly fell silent. Then he shouted, “But I know I never acted so senselessly when I was a boy—running off from the manor in a snowstorm, a woman who is ill and a whelp of a boy! There’s not much else to boast of about Orm’s manhood, but you can see that he’s not afraid of his father!”
“You weren’t afraid of Father either,” replied his brother with a smile.
Orm stood before his father without saying a word and tried to look indifferent.
“Well, you can go now,” said Erlend. “I’m tired of the whole lot at Husaby. But one thing I know—this summer Orm will go north with me, then I’ll make something of this pampered lamb of Kristin’s. He’s no bumbler, either,” he said eagerly to his brother. “He has a sure aim, I can tell you that. And he’s not afraid; but he’s always surly and morose, and it seems as if he has no marrow in his bones.”
“If you often rage at your son the way you did just now, then it’s not so strange that he would be morose,” said the priest.
Erlend’s mood shifted; he laughed and said, “I often had to suffer much worse from Father—and God knows I didn’t grow morose from that. It could very well be . . . but now that I’ve come here, we should celebrate Christmas, since it’s Christmastime, after all. Where’s Kristin? What was it she had to talk to you about again that she would . . .”
“I don’t think there was anything she wanted to talk to me about,” said the priest. “She had a mind to attend mass here during Christmas.”
“It seems to me that she could have made do with what we have at home,” said Erlend. “But it’s hard for her—all her youth is being stripped from her in this way.” He rammed one fist against the other. “I don’t understand why our Lord should think we need a new son every year.”
Gunnulf looked up at his brother.
“Well . . . I have no idea what our Lord thinks you may need. But what Kristin no doubt needs most is for you to be kind to her.”
“Yes, I suppose she does,” murmured Erlend.
The next day Erlend went to morning mass with his wife. They set off for Saint Gregor’s Church; Erlend always attended mass there when he was in Nidaros. The two of them went alone, and in the lane where the snow lay piled up in drifts, heavy and wet, Erlend led his wife by the hand, in a refined and courtly fashion. He hadn’t said a word to her about her flight, and he had been kind toward Orm after his first outburst.
Kristin walked along, pale and silent, with her head bowed slightly; the ankle-length, black fur cloak with the silver clasps seemed to weigh heavily on her frail, thin body.
“Would you like me to ride back home with you? Then Orm can travel home by ship,” her husband said. “I suppose you would prefer not to travel across the fjord.”
“No, you know I’m reluctant to journey by ship.”
The weather was calm and mild now—every once in a while mounds of heavy wet snow would slide down off the trees. The sky hung low and dark-gray over the white town. There was a watery, greenish-gray sheen to the snow; the timbered walls of the houses, the fences, and the tree trunks looked black in the damp air. Never, thought Kristin, had she seen the world look so cold and faded and pale.