“Yes, it is,” she said, almost angrily when Kristin shook her head and laughed lightly. “And you’re still more lovely than I have ever been. Our father and mother loved you more than me, all their days. You caused them sorrow and shame; I was docile and obedient and set my sights on the man they most wanted me to marry. And yet they loved you more.”
“No, sister. They were just as fond of you. Be happy, Ramborg, that you never gave them anything but joy; you cannot know how heavy the other is to bear. But they were younger back when I was young; perhaps that was why they talked to me more.”
“Yes, I think everybody was younger back when you were young,” said Ramborg, and sighed again.
A short time later she fell asleep. Kristin sat and looked at her. She had known her sister so little; Ramborg was a child when she herself was wed. It seemed to her that in some ways her sister had remained a child. As she sat beside her ill son she looked like a child, a pale, scared child who was trying stubbornly to fend off terror and misfortune.
Sometimes an animal would stop growing if it had young ones too soon. Ramborg was not even sixteen when she gave birth to her daughter, and ever since she had never seemed to grow properly again; she continued to be slender and small, lacking in vigor and fertility. She had given birth only to the one boy since then, and he was oddly weak—with a handsome face, fair and fine, but so pitifully frail and small. He had learned to walk late, and he still talked so poorly that only those who were with him every day could understand any of his chatter. He was also so shy and peevish with strangers that Kristin had hardly even touched her nephew until now. If only God and Holy Olav would grant her the joy to save this poor small boy, she would thank them for it all her days. The mother was such a child herself that she wouldn’t be able to bear losing him. And Kristin realized that for Simon Darre it would also be terribly difficult to bear if his only son were taken from him.
That she had become deeply fond of her brother-in-law became most apparent to her now as she saw how much he was suffering from fear and grief. No doubt she could understand her own father’s great love for Simon Andress?n. And yet she wondered whether he might have done wrong by Ramborg when he was in such haste to arrange this marriage. For as she gazed down at her little sister, she thought that Simon must be both too old and much too somber and steadfast to be the husband of this young child.
CHAPTER 3
THE DAYS PASSED, and Andres remained ill in bed; there were no great changes, either for the worse or for the better. The worst thing was that he got almost no sleep. The boy would lie with his eyes half open, seeming not to recognize anyone, his thin little body racked by coughs, gasping for breath, the fever rising and falling. One evening Kristin had given him a soothing drink, and then calm descended on him, but after a while she saw that the child had turned pale blue and his skin felt cold and clammy. Quickly she poured warm milk down his throat and placed heated stones at the soles of his feet. Then she didn’t dare give him any more sleeping potions; she realized that he was too young to tolerate them.
Sira Solmund came and brought the sacred vessels from the church to him. Simon and Ramborg promised prayers, fasts, and alms if God would hear them and grant their son his life.
Erlend stopped by one day; he declined to get down from his horse and go inside, but Kristin and Simon came out to the courtyard to talk to him. He gave them a look of great distress. And yet that expression of his had always annoyed Kristin in an oddly vague and unclear way. No doubt Erlend felt aggrieved whenever he saw anyone either sad or ill, but he seemed mostly perplexed or embarrassed; he looked genuinely bewildered when he felt sad for someone.
After that, either Naakkve or the twins would come to Formo each day to ask about Andres.
The sixth night brought no change, but later the following day the boy seemed a little better; he was not quite as feverish. Simon and Kristin were sitting alone with him around midday.
The father pulled out a gilded amulet he wore on a string around his neck under his clothing. He bent down over the boy, dangling the amulet before his eyes and then putting it in the child’s hand, closing the small fingers around it. But Andres didn’t seem to take any notice.
Simon had been given this amulet when he himself was a child, and he had worn it ever since; his father had brought it back from France. It had been blessed at a cloister called Mont Saint Michel, and it bore a picture of Saint Michael with great wings. Andres liked to look at it, Simon explained softly. But the little boy thought it was a rooster; he called the greatest of all the angels a rooster. At long last Simon had managed to teach the boy to say “angel.” But one day when they were out in the courtyard, Andres saw the rooster screeching at one of the hens, and he said, “The angel’s mad now, Father.”