At the time she was so weak that she couldn’t properly grieve. She felt so bloodless and faint that nothing seemed to reach her—she was content to lie in bed, only half-alive. There had been a dreadful time when the women hardly dared touch her or tend to her cleanliness, but that had all merged with the confusion of the fever. Now it felt good to submit to the care of others. Around her bed hung many fragrant wreaths of mountain flowers which were meant to keep the flies away—the people from the mountain pastures had sent them, and they smelled especially sweet whenever there was rain in the air. One day Erlend brought the children to her. She saw that they were haggard from their illness, and that Gaute didn’t recognize her, but even that didn’t trouble her. She merely sensed that Erlend seemed always to be at her side.
He went to mass every day, and he knelt at Orm’s grave to pray. The cemetery was next to the parish church at Vinjar, but some of the infants in the family had been given a resting place inside the manor church at Husaby—Erlend’s two brothers and one of Munan Biskopss?n’s little daughters. Kristin had often felt sorry for these little ones who lay so alone under the flagstones. Now Orm Erlendss?n had his final resting place among these children.
While the others feared for Kristin’s life, processions of beggars on their way to Nidaros just before Saint Olav’s Day began to pass through the region. They were mostly the same wandering men and women who had made the journey the year before; the pilgrims in Nidaros were always generous to the poor, since intercessions of this kind were considered particularly powerful. And they had learned to travel by way of Skaun during the years since Kristin had settled at Husaby. They knew that there on the estate they would be given shelter, alms, and an abundance of food before they continued on. This time the servants wanted to send them away because the mistress was ill. But when Erlend, who had been up north the last two summers, heard that his wife was accustomed to receiving the beggars so kindly, he ordered that they should be given food and lodging, just as they had before. And in the morning he himself tended to the wanderers, helping the servants to pour the ale and bring in food for them; he gave them alms as he quietly asked for their prayers of intercession for his wife. Many of the beggars wept when they heard that the gentle young woman lay close to death.
All of this Sira Eiliv had told Kristin when she began to regain her health. Not until Christmastime was she strong enough to take up her keys again.
Erlend had sent word to her parents as soon as she fell ill, but at the time they were in the south, attending a wedding at Skog. Later they came to Husaby; she was better by then, but so tired that she had little energy to talk to them. What she wanted most was simply to have Erlend at her bedside.
Weak and pale and always cold, she would cling to his healthy body. The old fire in her blood had gone. It had disappeared so completely that she could no longer remember how it felt to love in that way, but with it had also vanished the worry and bitterness from the past few years. She felt that things were better now, even though the sorrow over Orm’s death lay heavily on both of them, and even though Erlend didn’t realize how frightened she was for little Gaute. But things were so good between them. She saw that he had feared terribly that he might lose her.
And so it was difficult and painful for her to speak to him, to touch on matters that might destroy the peace and joy they now shared.
She was standing outside in the bright summer night, in front of the entrance to the main house, when the servants returned from the dance. Margret was clinging to her father’s arm. She was dressed and adorned in a fashion that would have been more suited to a wedding feast than to a dance out on the green, where all manner of folk came together. But her stepmother had stopped interfering in the maiden’s upbringing. Erlend could do as he pleased in raising his own daughter.
Erlend and Margret were both thirsty, so Kristin brought ale for them. The girl sat and talked with them for a while; she and her stepmother were good friends now that Kristin no longer attempted to instruct her. Erlend laughed at everything his daughter said about the dance. But finally Margret and her maid went up to the loft to sleep.
Erlend continued roaming around the hall; he stretched, yawned, but claimed he wasn’t tired. He ran his fingers through his long black hair.
“There wasn’t time for it after we were in the bathhouse. Because of the dance. I think you’ll have to cut my hair, Kristin; I can’t walk around like this during the holy days.”
Kristin protested that it was too dark, but Erlend laughed and pointed to the vent hole in the ceiling; it was already daylight again. Then she relit the candle, told him to sit down, and draped a cloth around his shoulders. As she worked, he squirmed from the tickling, and laughed when the scissors came too close to his neck.