From the vault of the evening sky, from the countryside beneath her gaze came the murmur of the mass intoned as she had heard it thousands of times before, in the voice of her father, who had explained the words to her when she was a child and stood at his knee: Then Sira Eirik sings the Pr?fatio when he turns toward the altar, and in Norwegian it means: Truly it is right and just, proper and redemptive that we always and everywhere should thank Thee, Holy Lord, Almighty Father, eternal God. . . .
When she lifted her face from her hands, she saw Gaute coming up the hillside. Kristin sat quietly and waited until the boy stood before her; then she reached out to take his hand. There was grassy meadow all around and not a single place to hide anywhere near the rock where she sat.
“How have you carried out your father’s errand, my son?” she asked him softly.
“As he asked me to, Mother. I made my way to the farm without being seen. Ulf wasn’t home, so I burned what Father had given me in the hearth. I took it out of the wrapping.” He hesitated for a moment. “Mother—there were nine seals on it.”
“My Gaute.” His mother put her hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his face. “Your father has had to place important matters in your hands. If you don’t know what else to do, but you feel you need to speak of this to someone, then tell your mother what’s troubling you. But it would please me most if you could keep silent about this altogether, son!”
The fair complexion beneath the straight, flaxen hair, the big eyes, the full, firm red lips—he looked so much like her father now. Gaute nodded. Then he placed his arm around his mother’s shoulders. With painful sweetness Kristin noticed that she could lean her head against the boy’s frail chest; he was so tall now that as he stood there and she sat beside him, her head reached to just above his heart. It was the first time she had leaned for support against this child.
Gaute said, “Isak was home alone. I didn’t show him what I was carrying, just told him I had something that needed to be burned. Then he made a big fire in the hearth before he went out and saddled his horse.”
Kristin nodded. Then he released her, turned to face her, and asked in a childish voice full of fear and awe, “Mother, do you know what they’re saying? They’re saying that Father . . . wants to be king.”
“That sounds most unlikely, child,” she replied with a smile.
“But he comes from the proper lineage, Mother,” said the boy, somber and proud. “And it seems to me that Father might be better at it than most other men.”
“Hush.” She took his hand again. “My Gaute . . . you should realize, after Father has shown such trust in you . . . You and all the rest of us must neither think nor speak, but guard our tongues well until we learn more and can judge whether we ought to speak, and in what way. I’m going to ride to Nidaros tomorrow, and if I can talk to your father alone for a moment, I’ll tell him that you have carried out his errand well.”
“Take me with you, Mother!” begged the boy earnestly.
“We must not let anyone think you’re anything but a thoughtless child, Gaute. You will have to try, little son, to play and be as happy as you can at home—in that way you will serve him best.”
Naakkve and Bj?rgulf walked slowly up the hill. They came over to their mother and stood there, looking so young and strained and distraught. Kristin saw that they were still children enough to turn to their mother at this anxious time—and yet they were so close to being men that they wanted to console or reassure her, if they could find some way to do so. She reached out a hand to each of the boys. But neither of them said very much.
After a while they headed back home; Kristin walked with one hand on the shoulder of each of her eldest sons.
“Why are you looking at me that way, Naakkve?” she said. But the boy blushed, turned his head away, and did not reply.
He had never before thought about how his mother looked. It had been years ago that he began comparing his father to other men—his father was the most handsome of men, with the bearing most like a chieftain. His mother was the mother who had more and more children; they grew up and left the hands of women to join the life and companionship and fighting and friendship of the group of brothers. His mother had open hands through which everything they needed flowed; his mother had a remedy for almost every ill; his mother’s presence at the manor was like the fire in the hearth. She created life at home the way the fields around Husaby created the year’s crops; life and warmth issued from her as they did from the beasts in the cowshed and the horses in the stable. The boy had never thought to compare her to other women.