It helped somewhat that they had stormy weather along the way, so he had other things to do than banter with the woman. They had to seek harbor in Dyn?y and wait a few days. While they were anchored there, something happened that made Fru Sunniva seem less enticing to him.
Erlend and Ulf and a couple of the servants slept in the same cabin where she and her maids slept. One morning he was there alone, and Fru Sunniva had not yet gotten up. Then she called to him, saying that she had lost a gold ring in her bed. He had to agree to come and help her look for it. She was crawling around in bed on her knees, wearing only her shift. Now and then they would bump into each other, and every time they would both get a devilish glint in their eyes. Then she grabbed hold of him. And it’s true that his behavior had not been overly proper, either; time and place were both against him. But she was so bold and disgracefully willing that he grew suddenly cold. Blushing with shame, he turned away from that face, which had dissolved with laughter and wantonness. He tore himself away without further explanation and left; then he sent in Fru Sunniva’s maidservants to her.
No, by Satan, he was not some young pup who allowed himself to be caught in the bedstraw. It was one thing to seduce—but to be seduced was something else entirely. But he had to laugh; here he stood, having fled from a beautiful woman like Joseph the Hebrew. Yes, strange things happened both at sea and on land.
No, Fru Sunniva. No, he had to think of one woman—a woman that he knew. She had come to meet him in a hostel for wandering soldiers—and she came with as much chasteness and dignity as a royal maiden going to mass. In groves and in barns she had been his. God forgive him—he had forgotten her birthright and her honor; and she had forgotten them for his sake, but she hadn’t been able to fling them away. Her lineage was evident in her, even when she did not think of it.
God bless you, dear Kristin. So help me, God—I will keep the promise that I made to you in secret and at the church door, or I will never be a man. So be it.
Then Erlend had Fru Sunniva put ashore at Yrjar where she had kinsmen. And best of all, she didn’t seem overly angry when they parted. There had been no need for him to bow his head with a somber expression, like a monk; they had chased each other out over the oarlocks, as the saying goes. In parting, Erlend gave her several costly furs for a cloak, and she promised that one day he would see her wearing that cloak. They would surely meet again. Poor thing, her husband was sickly and no longer young.
But Erlend was glad to come home to his wife with nothing on his conscience that he would have to conceal from her, and he was proud of his own newly tested steadfastness. He was quite giddy and wild with longing for Kristin. She was the sweetest and loveliest rose and lily—and she was his!
Kristin came out to the skerries to meet him when Erlend anchored at Birgsi. Fishermen had brought word to Vigg that Margygren had been seen near Yrjar. She had brought along her two eldest sons and Margret, and back home at Husaby a feast was being prepared for friends and kinsmen to celebrate Erlend’s homecoming.
She had grown so beautiful that it took Erlend’s breath away when he saw her. But she had changed. The girlish demeanor which had returned each time she had recovered from a childbirth—the frail and delicate nunlike face beneath the wimple of a married woman—was now gone. She was a blossoming young woman and mother. Her cheeks were round and a healthy pink, framed by the white wimple; her breasts were high and firm, covered with glittering chains and brooches. Her hips were rounder and wider, soft beneath the belt bearing her ring of keys and the gilded sheath holding her scissors and knife. Oh yes, she had grown even more lovely. She didn’t look as if she might be easily carried off to heaven as she had before. Even her large, slender hands had grown fuller and whiter.
They stayed at Vigg that night, in the abbot’s house. And this time it was a young, flushed, and happy Kristin, gentle and glowing with joy, who rode with Erlend to the celebration at Husaby when they set off for home the next day.
There were so many important matters that she had to speak with her husband about when he came home. There were hundreds of things about the children, about her worries for Margret, and about her plans to set the estates back on their feet. But all this was swallowed up in the festivities.
They went from one banquet to another, and she accompanied the new sheriff on his rounds. Erlend now had more men serving at Husaby. Messages and letters flew between him and his subordinates and envoys. Erlend was full of high spirits and merriment. Why shouldn’t he be a capable sheriff? He who had beat his head against nearly every barrier of Norwegian law and Christian commandment. Such things were well learned and not easily forgotten. The man was quick-witted and he had been taught well in his youth. Now all this became apparent in him again. He grew accustomed to reading letters himself, and he had acquired an Icelander as his scribe. In the past, Erlend had put his seal on everything that was read aloud to him, barely casting a glance at even a single line—this is what Kristin had discovered during the two years in which she had become familiar with all the papers she found in his chests of letters.