They almost never mentioned Kristin at J?rundgaard when he was within earshot.
Ramborg Lavransdatter grew up to be a lovely maiden. The local gossips were busy marrying her off. One time it was Eindride Haakonss?n of the Valders-Gjeslings. They were third cousins but Lavrans and Haakon were both so wealthy that they should be able to send a letter to the Pope in Italy and obtain dispensation.2 That would finally put an end to some of the old legal disputes that had continued ever since the old Gjeslings had sided with Duke Skule, and King Haakon had taken the Vaage estate away from them and given it to Sigurd Eldjar. Ivar Gjesling the Younger had, in turn, acquired Sundbu through marriage and the exchange of properties, but these matters had caused an endless number of quarrels and disagreements. Lavrans himself laughed at the whole thing; whatever compensation he might be able to claim for his wife wasn’t worth the parchment and wax he had used up on this matter—not to mention the toil and traveling. But he had been embroiled in the dispute ever since he had become a married man, so he couldn’t give it up.
But Eindride Gjesling celebrated his marriage to another maiden, and the people at J?rundgaard didn’t seem overly troubled by this. They were invited to the banquet, and Ramborg told everyone proudly when she came home that four men had spoken to Lavrans about her, either on their own behalf or for kinsmen. Lavrans had told them he wouldn’t agree to any betrothal for his daughter until she was old enough to have some say in the matter herself.
And that’s how things stood until the spring of the year when Ramborg was fourteen winters old. One evening she was out in the cowshed at Formo with Simon, looking at a new calf. It was white with a brown patch, and Ramborg thought the patch looked very much like a church. Simon was sitting on the edge of the grain bin, the maiden was leaning on his knees, and he was tugging at her braids.
“It looks as if you will soon be riding in a bridal procession to church, Ramborg!”
“You know quite well that my father wouldn’t refuse you if you asked for my hand,” she said. “I’m old enough now that I could be married this year.”
Simon gave a little start, but he tried to laugh.
“Are you talking about that foolishness again?”
“You know it’s not foolishness,” said the girl, looking up at him with her big eyes. “I’ve known for a long time that what I want is to move over here to Formo with you. Why have you kissed me and held me on your lap so often for all these years if you didn’t want to marry me?”
“Certainly I would like to marry you, dear Ramborg. But I’ve never thought that such a young, beautiful maiden would be intended for me. I’m seventeen years older than you; no doubt you haven’t thought about how you would end up with an old, bleary-eyed, big-bellied husband while you were a woman in the best of her years.”
“These are my best years,” she said, her face radiant. “And besides, you’re not so decrepit, Simon!”
“But I’m ugly too. You’d soon grow tired of kissing me!”
“You have no reason to think that,” she replied, laughing again as she tilted her face up toward him for a kiss. But he didn’t kiss her.
“I won’t take advantage of your imprudence, my sweet. Lavrans wants to take you with him to the south this summer. If you haven’t changed your mind when you return, then I will thank God and Our Lady for better fortune than I had ever expected—but I will not bind you to this, fair Ramborg.”
He took his dogs, his spear, and his bow and went up into the mountains that same evening. There was still a great deal of snow on the high plateau. He went to his hut to get a pair of skis and then stayed out by the lake south of the Boar Range and hunted reindeer for a week. But on the night he headed back toward the village, he grew uneasy and afraid again. It would be just like Ramborg to have said something to her father all the same. As he crossed the meadow near J?rundgaard’s mountain hut, he saw smoke and sparks coming from the roof. He thought Lavrans himself might be there, so he went over to the hut.
From the other man’s demeanor Simon thought he had guessed right. But they sat and talked about the bad summer the year before and about when might be a good time to move the livestock up to the mountain pastures; about the hunting and about Lavrans’s new falcon, which was sitting on the floor, flapping its wings over the entrails of the birds roasting on a spit over the fire. Lavrans had come up to see to his horse shed in Ilmandsdal; it was reported to have collapsed, according to several people from Alv dal who had passed through earlier that day. The two men spent most of the evening in this fashion.