He had certainly never demanded this of her. He had not asked her to bear any of the things she had taken upon her own shoulders. He had merely conceived seven sons with her. “I will provide for my seven sons, Arne.” God only knew what Erlend had meant by those words. Maybe he meant nothing; it was simply something he had said.
Erlend hadn’t asked her to restore order to Husaby and his other estates. He hadn’t asked her to fight with her life to save him. He had borne it like a chieftain that his property would be dispersed, that his life was at stake, and that he would lose everything he owned. Stripped and empty-handed, with chieftainlike dignity and calm he had accepted the misfortune; with chieftainlike calm and dignity he lived on her father’s manor like a guest.
And yet everything that was in her possession lawfully belonged to her sons. They lawfully owned her sweat and blood and all her strength. But then surely she and the estate had the right to make claims on them.
She hadn’t needed to flee to the mountain pastures like some kind of poor leaseholder’s wife. But the situation was such at home that she felt pressed and hemmed in from all sides—until she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Then she had felt the need to prove to herself that she could do the work of a peasant woman. She had toiled and labored every hour and every day since she had arrived at the estate of Erlend Nikulauss?n as his bride—and realized that someone there would have to fight to protect the inheritance of the one she carried under her heart. If the father couldn’t do it, then she must. But now she needed to be certain. For that matter, she had demonstrated before to her nursemaids and servant women that there wasn’t any kind of work she wasn’t capable of doing with her own hands. It was a good day up here if she didn’t feel an ache in her flanks from standing and churning. It felt good in the morning when she would go along to let out the cattle; the animals had grown fat and glossy in the summer. The tight grip on her heart eased when she stood in the sunset and called to the cows coming home. She liked to see food growing under her own hands; it felt as if she were reaching down into the very foundation from which the future of her sons would be rebuilt.
J?rundgaard was a good estate, but it was not as good as she had thought. And Ulf was a stranger here in the valley; he made mistakes, and he grew impatient. As people saw it in the region, they always had plenty of hay at J?rundgaard. They had the hay meadows along the river and out on the islands, but it wasn’t good hay, not the kind that Ulf was used to in Tr?ndelag. He wasn’t used to having to gather so much moss and foliage, heath and brushwood as they did here.
Her father had known every patch of his land; he had possessed all the farmer’s knowledge about the whims of the seasons and the way each particular strip of field handled rain or drought, windy summers or hot summers; about livestock that he himself had bred, raised, foddered, and sold from, generation after generation—the very sort of knowledge that was needed here. She did not have that kind of knowledge of her estate. But she would acquire it, and her sons would too.
And yet Erlend had never demanded this of her. He hadn’t married her in order to lead her into toil and travail. He had married her so she could sleep in his arms. Then, when her time came, the child lay at her side, demanding a place on her arm, at her breast, in her care.
Kristin moaned through clenched teeth. She was shivering with cold and anger.
“Pactum serva—in Norwegian it means ‘keep thy faith.’ ”
That was back when Arne Gjavvaldss?n and his brother Leif of Holm had come to Husaby to take her possessions and the children’s belongings to Nidaros. This too Erlend had left for her to handle; he had taken lodgings at the monastery at Holm. She was staying at their residence in town—now owned by the monks—and Arne Gjavvaldss?n was with her, helping her in word and deed. Simon had sent him letters about it.
Arne could not have been more zealous if he had been trying to salvage the goods for himself. On the evening he arrived in town with everything, he wanted both Kristin and Fru Gunna of Raasvold, who had come to Nidaros with the two small boys, to come out to the stable. Seven splendid horses—people wanted to be fair with Erlend Nikulauss?n, and they agreed to Arne’s claim that the five oldest boys each owned a horse and that one belonged to the mistress herself and one to her personal servant. He could testify that Erlend had given the Castilian, his Spanish stallion, to his son Nikulaus, even though this had been done mostly in jest. Not that Arne thought much of the long-legged animal, but he knew that Erlend was fond of the stallion.