Kristin asked about her sister, and Simon replied that Ramborg had accompanied the Sundbu women down to Ringheim; Jostein had come to get his daughter, Helga, and then he wanted Dagny and Ramborg to come along too. He was such a merry, kind old man, and he had promised to take good care of the three young wives. Ramborg might stay there all winter. She was expecting a child around Saint Matthew’s Day, and Simon had thought he might have to be away from home that winter, so she would be better off with her young kinswomen. No, it made no difference to the housekeeping here at Formo whether she was home or not, laughed Simon. He had never demanded that young Ramborg trouble herself with all that toil.
As to Kristin’s plans, Simon said at once that he would travel south with her. He had so many kinsmen there, as well as his father’s friends and his own from the past, that he hoped to be able to serve her better than he had in Nidaros. And there it would be easier for him to determine whether it would be wise for her to pay a visit to the king himself. He could be ready to travel in three or four days.
They attended mass together the next day, which was Sunday, and afterwards they visited Sira Eirik at his home at Romundgaard. The priest was old now. He received Kristin kindly and seemed very saddened by her troubling fate. Then they went over to J?rundgaard.
The buildings looked the same, and the rooms held the same beds, benches, and tables. It was now her property, and it seemed most likely that her sons would grow up here; this was also where she herself would one day lie down and close her eyes. But never had she felt so clearly as at this moment that life in this home had depended on her father and mother. No matter what they had struggled with in private, from them had streamed warmth, help, peace, and security to everyone else who lived there.
Uneasy and dejected as she now felt, it made her weary to listen to Simon talk about his own affairs: his manor and his children. She knew she was being unreasonable; he was willing to do all he could to help her. She realized how good it was of him to agree to leave his home during the Christmas season, and to be away from his wife, as things now stood. No doubt he was thinking a great deal about whether he might have a son. He had only the one child with Ramborg, even though they had been married six years. Kristin couldn’t expect that he should take Erlend’s and her misfortune so much to heart that he would forget all the joy he had from his own life. But it was strange to be there with him; he seemed so happy and warm and secure in his own home.
Without thinking, Kristin had assumed that Ulvhild Simonsdatter would be like her own little sister, for whom the child had been named—fair and fragile and pure. But Simon’s little daughter was round and plump, with cheeks like apples and lips as red as a berry, lively gray eyes that looked like her father’s in his youth, and lovely brown curls. Simon had the greatest love for his pretty, merry child, and he was proud of her bright chatter.
“Even though this girl is so hideous and wicked and naughty,” he said, putting his hands around her chest and tumbling her around as he lifted her up into the air. “I think she must be a changeling that the trolls up here in the hills left in the cradle for her mother and me—such an ugly and loathsome child she is.” Then he set her down abruptly and hastily made the sign of the cross over her three times, as if he were frightened by his own imprudent words.
Arngjerd, the daughter born of his maid, was not beautiful, but she looked kind and sensible, and Simon took her with him whenever he could. He was constantly praising her cleverness. Kristin had to look at everything in Arngjerd’s marriage chest, at all she had spun and woven and stitched as part of her dowry.
“When I place the hand of my daughter into the hand of a faithful husband,” said Simon as he gazed after the child, “it will be one of the happiest days of my life.”
To spare expenses and so that the journey might proceed faster, Kristin was to take along no maids, nor any servant other than Ulf Haldorss?n. Two weeks before Christmas they left Formo, accompanied by Simon Andress?n and his two young, vigorous men.
When they arrived in Oslo, Simon learned at once that the king would not be coming to Norway—he would apparently celebrate Christmas in Stockholm. Erlend was being held in the castle at Akersnes; the chieftain was away, so for the time being it would be impossible for any of them to see him. But the deputy royal treasurer, Olav Kyrning, promised to let Erlend know that they had come to town. Olav was quite friendly toward Simon and Kristin because his brother was married to Ramborg Aasmundsdatter of Skog, which made him distantly related to the daughters of Lavrans.