“You’re lying, monk,” said the priest. “I’ve heard that story too, but it was friars, not priests, who were spewed out of the Devil’s behind like wasps from a wasp’s nest.”
Old Jon laughed louder than all the servants and cried, “No doubt it was both, I’ll bet it was. . . .”
“Then the Devil must have a very wide tail,” said Bj?rn Gunnars?n.
And Fru Aashild smiled and said, “Yes, haven’t you heard it said that everything bad has a long rump dragging behind?”
“You be quiet, Fru Aashild,” shouted Sira Sigurd. “You shouldn’t talk about the long rump that bad people drag behind them. Here you sit as if you were the mistress of the house instead of Ragnfrid. But it’s odd that you haven’t been able to cure her child—don’t you have any more of that powerful water you used to use? The water that could make a dismembered sheep whole again in the soup pot and turn a woman into a maiden in the bridal bed? I know all about that wedding here in the village when you prepared the bath for the despoiled bride. . . .”
Sira Eirik jumped up, grabbed the other priest by the shoulder and flank, and threw him right across the table so that pitchers and cups toppled and food and drink spilled onto the table-cloths and floor. Sira Sigurd landed flat on his back, his clothing torn.
Eirik leaped over the table and was about to strike him again, bellowing over the din, “Shut your filthy trap, you damned priest!”
Lavrans tried to separate them, but Ragnfrid stood at the table, as white as a corpse, wringing her hands. Then Fru Aashild ran over and helped Sira Sigurd to his feet and wiped the blood from his face.
She handed him a goblet of mead as she said, “You shouldn’t be so stern, Sira Eirik, that you can’t stand to hear a joke late in the evening after so many drinks. Now sit down, and I’ll tell you about that wedding. It wasn’t here in this valley at all, and it’s my misfortune that I was not the one who knew about that water. If I had been able to brew it, we wouldn’t be sitting up there on that little farm. Then I’d be a rich woman with property out in the big villages somewhere—near the town and cloisters and bishops and canons,” she said, smiling at the three clergymen.
“But someone must have known the art in the old days, because this was in the time of King Inge, as far as I know, and the bridegroom was Peter Lodins?n of Bratteland. But I won’t say which of his three wives was the bride, since there are living descendants from all three. Well, this bride probably had good reason to wish for that water, and she managed to get it too. She prepared a bath for herself out in the shed, but before she managed to bathe, in came the woman who was to be her mother-in-law. She was muddy and dirty from the ride to the wedding manor, so she took off her clothes and stepped into the tub. She was an old woman, and she had had nine children by Lodin. But on that night both Lodin and Peter had a different kind of pleasure than they had counted on.”
Everyone in the room laughed heartily, and both Gyrd and Jon called to Fru Aashild to tell more such ribald tales.
But she refused. “Here sit two priests and Brother Aasgaut and young boys and maidservants. We should stop now before the talk grows indecent and vulgar; remember that these are the holy days.”
The men protested, but the women agreed with Fru Aashild. No one noticed that Ragnfrid had left the room. A little later Kristin, who had been sitting at the far end of the women’s bench among the maidservants, stood up to go to bed. She was sleeping in Tordis’s house because there were so many guests at the farm.
It was biting cold, and the northern lights were flaring and flickering above the domed mountains to the north. The snow creaked under Kristin’s feet as she ran across the courtyard, shivering, with her arms crossed over her breast.
Then she noticed that in the shadows beneath the old loft someone was pacing vigorously back and forth in the snow, throwing out her arms, wringing her hands, and moaning loudly. Kristin recognized her mother. Frightened, she ran over to her and asked her if she was ill.
“No, no,” said Ragnfrid fiercely. “I just had to get out. Go to bed now, child.”
Kristin turned around when her mother softly called her name.
“Go into the house and lie down in bed with your father and Ulvhild—hold her in your arms so that he doesn’t crush her by mistake. He sleeps so heavily when he’s drunk. I’ll go up and sleep here in the old loft tonight.”
“Jesus, Mother,” said Kristin. “You’ll freeze to death if you sleep there—and all alone. What will Father say if you don’t come to bed tonight?”