“You let them run around too freely, Kristin. I think you’re most afraid that it’ll be hard to find a wet nurse this autumn.”
Kristin involuntarily smoothed down her gown over her slender waist. She had blushed dark red at the man’s words.
Ulf laughed harshly. “But if you keep carrying around Gaute this way, then things may go as they did last year. Come here to your foster father, my boy, and I’ll give you some food from my plate.”
Kristin didn’t reply. She set her three small sons in a row on the bench along the opposite wall, brought the basin of milk porridge, and pulled over a little stool close by. There she sat, feeding the boys, although Naakkve and Bj?rgulf grumbled—they wanted spoons so they could feed themselves. The oldest was now four, and the other would soon be three years old.
“Where’s Erlend?” asked Ulf.
“Margret wanted to go to the dance, and so he went with her.”
“It’s good he understands he should keep a watchful eye on that maiden of his,” said Ulf.
Again Kristin did not reply. She undressed the children and put them to bed—Gaute in the cradle and the other two in her own bed. Erlend had resigned himself to having them there after she recovered from her long illness the year before.
When Ulf had eaten his fill, he stretched out on the bench. Kristin pushed the chair carved from a tree stump over to the cradle, got her basket of wool, and began to wind up balls of yarn for her loom as she gently and quietly rocked the cradle.
“Shouldn’t you go to bed?” she asked once without turning her head. “Aren’t you tired, Ulf?”
The man got up, poked at the fire a bit, and came over to Kristin. He sat down on the bench across from her. Kristin saw that he was not as spent from carousing as he usually was whenever he had been in Nidaros for a few days.
“You don’t even ask about news from town, Kristin,” he said, looking at her as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
Her heart began pounding with fear. She could see from the man’s expression and manner that again there was news that wasn’t good. But she said with a gentle and calm smile, “You must tell me, Ulf—have you heard anything?”
“Yes, well . . .” But first he took out his traveling bag and unpacked the things he had brought from town for her. Kristin thanked him.
“I understand that you’ve heard some news in Nidaros,” she said after a while.
Ulf looked at the young mistress; then he turned his gaze to the pale, sleeping child in the cradle.
“Does he always sweat like this?” he asked softly, gently pushing back the boy’s damp, dark hair. “Kristin—when you were betrothed to Erlend . . . the document that was drawn up regarding the ownership of both your possessions—didn’t it state that you should manage with full authority those properties which he gave you as betrothal and wedding gifts?”
Kristin’s heart pounded harder, but she said calmly, “It’s also true, Ulf, that Erlend has always asked my advice and sought my consent in all dealings with those properties. Is this about the sections of the estate in Verdal that he has sold to Vigleik of Lyng?”
“Yes,” said Ulf. “He has bought a ship called Hugrekken from Vigleik. So now he’s going to maintain two ships. And what do you gain in return, Kristin?”
Erlend’s share of Skjervastad and two plots of land in Ulfkel stad—each taxed by one month’s worth of food—and what he owns of Aarhammar,” she said. “Surely you didn’t think Erlend would sell that estate without my permission or without repaying me?”
“Hmm . . .” Ulf sat in silence for a moment. “And yet your income will be reduced, Kristin. Skjervastad—that was where Erlend obtained hay this past winter and in return he released the farmer from the land tax for the next three years.”
“Erlend was not to blame because we had no dry hay last year. I know, Ulf, you did everything you could, but with all the misery we had here last summer—”
“He sold more than half of Aarhammar to the sisters at Rein back when he was preparing to flee the country with you.” Ulf laughed. “Or pledged it as security, which amounts to the same thing, in Erlend’s case. Free of war levies—the entire burden rests on Audun, who oversees the farm which you will now call your own.”
“Can’t he lease the land from the convent?” asked Kristin.
“The nuns’ tenant farmer on the neighboring estate has leased it,” said Ulf. “It’s difficult and risky for leaseholders to manage when lands are split up the way Erlend is bent on doing.”