As they rode off, he seemed at first to be freezing; he shivered several times. Then a little color crept into his cheeks, and his face brightened—as if sap and vitality were welling up inside him. Simon thought it was no easier to break Erlend than a willow branch.
They reached the hostel, and Kristin came out to meet her husband in the courtyard. Simon tried to avert his eyes, but he could not.
They took each other’s hands and exchanged a few words, their voices quiet and clear. They handled this meeting under the eyes of the servants in a manner that was graceful and seemly enough. Except that they flushed bright red as they gazed at each other for a moment, and then they both lowered their eyes. Erlend once again offered his wife his hand, and together they walked toward the loft room, where they would stay while they were in Oslo.
Simon turned toward the room which he and Kristin had shared up until now. Then she turned around on the lowest step to the loft room and called to him with a strange resonance in her voice.
“Aren’t you coming, brother-in-law? Have some food first—and you too, Ulf!”
Her body seemed so young and soft as she stood there with her hip turned slightly, looking back over her shoulder. As soon as she arrived in Oslo, she had begun fastening her wimple in a different manner than before. Here in the south only the wives of smallholders wore the wimple in the old-fashioned way she had worn it ever since she was married: tightly framing her face like a nun’s wimple, with the ends crossed in front so her neck was completely hidden, and the folds draped along the sides and over her hair, which was knotted at the nape of her neck. In Tr?ndelag it was considered a sign of piety to wear the wimple in this manner, which Archbishop Eiliv had always praised as the most seemly and chaste style for married women. But in order to fit in, Kristin had adopted the fashion of the south, with the linen cloth placed smoothly on her head and hanging straight back, so that her hair in front was visible, and her neck and shoulders were free. And another part of the style was to have the braids simply pinned up so they couldn’t be seen under the edge of the wimple, with the cloth fitted softly to the shape of her head. Simon had seen this before and thought it suited her—but he had never noticed how young it made her look. And her eyes were shining like stars.
Later in the day a great many people arrived to bring greetings to Erlend: Ketil of Skog, Markus Torgeirss?n, and later that evening Olav Kyrning himself, along with Sira Ingolf and Herr Guttorm, a priest from Saint Halvard’s Church. By the time the two priests arrived, it had begun to snow, a fine, dry powder, and they had lost their way in a field and wandered into some burdock bushes—their clothing was full of burrs. Everyone busily fell to picking the burdocks from the priests and their servants. Erlend and Kristin were helping Herr Guttorm; every now and then they would blush as they jested with the priest, their voices strangely unsteady and quavering when they laughed.
Simon drank a good deal early in the evening, but it didn’t make him merry—only a little more sluggish. He heard every word that was said, his hearing unbearably sharp. The others soon began speaking openly—none of them supported the king.
After a while he felt so strangely weary of it all. They sat there spouting foolish chatter, in loud and heated voices. Ketil Aas mundss?n was quite a simpleton, and his brother-in-law Markus was not much more clever himself; Olav Kyrning was a right-minded and sensible man, but short-sighted. And to Simon the two priests didn’t seem any more intelligent. Now they were all sitting there listening to Erlend and agreeing with him—and he grew more and more like the man he had always been: brash and impetuous. Now he had taken Kristin’s hand and placed it on his knee; he was sitting there playing with her fingers—and they sat close together, so their shoulders touched. Now she blushed bright red; she couldn’t take her eyes off him. When he put his arm around her waist, her lips trembled and she had trouble pressing them closed.
Then the door flew open, and Munan Baards?n stepped in.
“At last the mighty ox himself arrives,” shouted Erlend, jumping up and going to greet him.
“May God and the Virgin Mary help us—I don’t think you’re troubled in the least, Erlend,” said Munan, annoyed.
“And do you think it would do any good to whine and weep now, kinsman?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it—you’ve squandered all your wealth. . . .”
“Well, I was never the kind of man who would go to Hell with a bare backside merely to save my breeches from being burned,” said Erlend, and Kristin laughed softly, looking flustered.