“And yet I don’t want her if I have to marry her,” sneered the man crudely and laughed. “Besides, Aase Isaksdatter is too good for . . .” His voice changed. “I’ve never known any other father but my foster father, Kristin, and I think it’s my fate not to have any other children but foster children.”
“I’ll pray to the Virgin Mary that you’ll have better fortune, kinsman.”
“I’m not so young, either. Thirty-five winters, Kristin,” he laughed. “It wouldn’t take many more than that and I could be your father.”
“Then you must have begun your sinful ways early,” replied Kristin. She tried to make her voice sound merry and light-hearted.
“Shouldn’t you go to sleep now?” Ulf asked.
“Yes, soon—but you must be tired too, Ulf. You should go to bed.”
The man quietly bade her good night and left the room.
Kristin took the candlestick from the table and shone the light on the two sleeping boys in the enclosed bed. Bj?rgulf’s eyelashes were not festering—thank God for that. The weather would stay fine for a while yet. As soon as the wind blew hard or the weather forced the children to stay inside near the hearth, his eyes would grow inflamed. She stood there a long time, gazing at the two boys. Then she went over and bent down to look at Gaute in his cradle.
They had been as healthy as little fledglings, all three of her sons—until the sickness had come to the region last summer. A fever had carried off children in homes all around the fjord; it was a terrible thing to see and to hear about. She had been allowed to keep hers—all her own children.
For five days she had sat near the bed on the south wall where they lay, all three of them, with red spots covering their faces and with feverish eyes that shunned the light. Their small bodies were burning hot. She sat with her hand under the coverlet and patted the soles of Bj?rgulf’s feet while she sang and sang until her poor voice was no more than a whisper.
Shoe, shoe the knight’s great horse.
How are we to shoe it best?
Iron shoes will pass the test.
Shoe, shoe the earl’s great horse.
How are we to shoe it best?
Silver shoes will pass the test.
Shoe, shoe the king’s great horse.
How are we to shoe it best?
Golden shoes will pass the test.
Bj?rgulf was less sick than the others, and more restless. If she stopped singing for even a minute, he would throw off the coverlets at once. Gaute was then only ten months old; he was so ill that she didn’t think he would survive. He lay at her breast, wrapped in blankets and furs, and had no strength to nurse. She held him with one arm as she patted the soles of Bj?rgulf’s feet with her other hand.
Now and then, if all three of them happened to fall asleep for a while, she would stretch out on the bed beside them, fully dressed. Erlend came and went, looking helplessly at his three small sons. He tried to sing to them, but they didn’t care for their father’s fine voice—they wanted their mother to sing, even though she didn’t have the voice for it.
The servant women would come in, wanting their mistress to rest; the men would come in to inquire about the boys; and Orm tried to play with his young brothers. At Kristin’s advice, Erlend had sent Margret over to ?sterdal, but Orm wanted to stay—he was grown up now, after all. Sira Eiliv sat at the children’s bedside whenever he wasn’t out tending to the sick. Through work and worry the priest had shed all the corpulence he had acquired at Husaby; it grieved him greatly to see so many fair young children perish. And some grownups had died too.
By the evening of the sixth day, all the children were so much better that Kristin promised her husband to undress and go to bed that night. Erlend offered to keep watch along with the maids and to call Kristin if need be. But at the supper table she noticed that Orm’s face was bright red and his eyes were shiny with fever. He said it was nothing, but he jumped up abruptly and rushed out. When Erlend and Kristin went out to him, they found him vomiting in the courtyard.
Erlend threw his arms around the youth.
“Orm, my son. Are you ill?”
“My head aches,” complained the boy, and he let his head sink heavily onto his father’s shoulder.
That night they kept vigil over Orm. Most of the time he lay there muttering in delirium—then screaming loudly and flailing his long arms about, seeming to see hideous things. What he said they could not understand.
In the morning Kristin collapsed. It turned out that she must have been with child again; now it went very badly for her, and afterwards she lay as if immersed in a deathlike sleep; later she was seized by a terrible fever. Orm had been in the grave for more than two weeks before she learned of her stepson’s death.