“Yes, Father. I understand everything you said.” Gaute lifted his small, fair face with a somber expression as he stood on the stairs.
“If Ulf isn’t home, tell Isak that he has to set off at once for Hevne and ride all night—he must tell them, and he knows who I mean, that I think a headwind has sprung up here, and that I fear my journey has now been cursed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father. I remember everything you’ve told me.”
“Go then. May God protect you, my son.”
Erlend dashed up to the weapons loft and was about to close the hatchway, but Kristin was already halfway through the opening. He waited until she had climbed up, then shut the hatch and ran over to a chest and took out several boxes of letters. He tore off the seals and stomped them to bits on the floor; he ripped the parchments into shreds and wrapped them around a key and tossed the whole thing out the window to the ground, where it landed in the tall nettles growing behind the building. With his hands on the windowsill, Erlend stood and watched the small boy who was walking along the edge of the grain field toward the meadow where the rows of harvest workers were toiling with scythes and rakes. When Gaute disappeared into the little grove of trees between the field and the meadow, Erlend pulled the window closed. The sound of hoofbeats was now loud and close to the manor.
Erlend turned to face his wife.
“If you can retrieve what I threw outside just now . . . let Skule do it, he’s a clever boy. Tell him to fling it into the ravine behind the cowshed. They’ll probably be watching you, and maybe the older boys as well. But I don’t think they would search you. . . .” He tucked the broken pieces of seal inside her bodice. “They can’t be recognized anymore, but even so . . .”
“Are you in some kind of danger, Erlend?” Kristin asked. As he looked down at her face, he threw himself into her open arms. For a moment he held her tight.
“I don’t know, Kristin. We’ll find out soon enough. Tore Ein dridess?n is riding in the lead, and I saw that Sir Baard is with them. I don’t expect that Tore is coming here for any good purpose.”
Now the horsemen had entered the courtyard. Erlend hesitated for a moment. Then he kissed his wife fervently, opened the hatchway, and ran downstairs. When Kristin came out onto the gallery, Erlend was standing in the courtyard below, helping the royal treasurer, an elderly and ponderous man, down from his saddle. There were at least thirty armed men with Sir Baard and the sheriff of Gauld?la county.
As Kristin walked across the courtyard, she heard the latter man say, “I bring you greetings from your cousins, Erlend. Borgar and Guttorm are enjoying the king’s hospitality in Ve?y, and I think that Haftor Toress?n has already paid a visit to Ivar and the young boy at home at Sundbu by this time. Sir Baard seized Graut yesterday morning in town.”
“And now you’ve come here to invite me to the same meeting of the royal retainers, I can see,” said Erlend with a smile.
“That is true, Erlend.”
“And no doubt you’ll want to search the manor? Oh, I’ve taken part in this kind of thing so many times that I should know how it goes. . . .”
“But you’ve never had such great matters as high treason on your hands before,” said Tore.
“No, not until now,” said Erlend. “And it looks as if I’m playing with the black chess pieces, Tore, and you have me check-mated—isn’t that so, kinsman?”
“We’re looking for the letters that you’ve received from Lady Ingebj?rg Haakonsdatter,” said Tore Eindridess?n.
“They’re in the chest covered with red leather, up in the weapons loft. But they contain little except such greetings as loving kinsmen usually send to each other; and all of them are old. Stein here can show you the way. . . .”
The strangers had dismounted, and the servants of the estate had now come swarming into the courtyard.
“There was much more than that in the one we took from Borgar Trondss?n,” said Tore.
Erlend began whistling softly. “I suppose we might as well go into the house,” he said. “It’s getting crowded out here.”
Kristin followed the men into the hall. At a sign from Tore, a couple of the armed guards came along.
“You’ll have to surrender your sword, Erlend,” said Tore of Gimsar when they came inside. “As a sign that you’re our prisoner.”
Erlend slapped his flanks to show that he carried no other weapon than the dagger at his belt.
But Tore repeated, “You must hand over your sword, as a sign—”