The end was coming quickly for Lavrans. He had held on to his strength until Ramborg gave birth to her child and Ragnfrid no longer needed to be at Formo so often. He had also had his servants take him over there one day so he could see his daughter and granddaughter. The little maiden had been christened Ulvhild. But then he took to his bed, and it was unlikely he would ever get up again.
Lavrans lay in the hall of the high loft. They had made up a kind of bed for him on the high-seat bench, for he couldn’t bear to have his head raised; then he would grow dizzy at once and suffer fainting spells and heart spasms. They didn’t dare bleed him anymore; they had done it so often during the fall and winter that he was now quite lacking in blood, and he had little desire for food or drink.
The handsome features of his face were now sharp, and the tan had faded from his once-fresh complexion; it was sallow like bone, and bloodless and pale around his lips and eyes. The thick blond hair with streaks of white was now untrimmed, lying withered and limp against the blue-patterned expanse of the pillow. But what had changed him most was the rough, gray beard now covering the lower half of his face and growing on his long, broad neck, where the sinews stood out like thick cords. Lavrans had always been meticulous about shaving before every holy day. His body was so gaunt that it was little more than a skeleton. But he said he felt fine as long as he lay flat and didn’t move. And he was always cheerful and happy.
They slaughtered and brewed and baked for the funeral feast; they took out the bedclothes and mended them. Everything that could be done ahead of time was done now, so that there would be quiet when the last struggle came. It cheered Lavrans considerably to hear about these preparations. His last banquet would be far from the poorest to be held at J?rundgaard; in an honorable and worthy manner he was to take leave of his guardianship of the estate and his household. One day he wanted to have a look at the two cows that would be included in the funeral procession, to be given to Sira Eirik and Sira Solmund, and so they were led into the house. They had been fed extra fodder all winter long and were as splendid and fat as cows in the mountain pastures around Saint Olav’s Day, even though the valley was now in the midst of the spring shortages. He laughed the hardest every time one of the cows relieved itself on the floor.
But he was afraid his wife was going to wear herself out. Kristin had considered herself a diligent housewife, and that was her reputation back home in Skaun, but she now thought that compared to her mother she was completely incompetent. No one understood how Ragnfrid managed to accomplish everything she did—and yet she never seemed to be absent for very long from her husband’s side; she also helped to keep watch at night.
“Don’t think of me, husband,” she would say, putting her hand in his. “After you’re gone, you know that I’ll take a rest from all these toils.”
Many years before, Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n had purchased his resting place at the friars’ monastery in Hamar, and Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter would accompany his body there and then stay on. She would live on a corrody in a manor owned by the monks in town. But first the coffin would be carried to the church here at home, with splendid gifts for the church and the priests; Lavrans’s stallion would follow behind with his armor and weapons, and Erlend would then redeem them by paying forty-five marks of silver. One of his sons would be given the armor, preferably the child Kristin now carried, if it was a son. Perhaps there would be another Lavrans at J?rundgaard sometime in the future, said the ill man with a smile. On the journey south through Gudbrandsdal, the coffin would be carried into several more churches and stay there overnight; these would be remembered in Lavrans’s testament with gifts of money and candles.
One day Simon mentioned that his father-in-law had bedsores, and he helped Ragnfrid to lift the sick man and tend to him.
Kristin was in despair over her jealous heart. She could hardly bear to see her parents on such familiar terms with Simon Andress?n. He felt at home at J?rundgaard in a way that Erlend never had. Almost every day his huge, sorrel-colored horse would be tied to the courtyard fence, and Simon would be sitting inside with Lavrans, wearing his hat and cape. He wasn’t intending to stay long. But a short time later he would appear in the doorway and yell to the servants to put his horse in the stable after all. He was acquainted with all of her father’s business affairs; he would get out the letter box and take out deeds and documents. He took care of chores for Ragnfrid, and he talked to the overseer about the management of the farm. Kristin thought to herself that her greatest desire had been for her father to be fond of Erlend, but the first time Lavrans had taken his side against her, she had responded at once in the worst possible manner.