So Simon didn’t need to fret as much as he did over his brother. And in some ways it was probably also needless for him to lament on Gyrd’s behalf. But each time he went home to his father’s manor and saw how things now stood there, he felt so dreadfully overwhelmed that his heart ached when he left.
The wealth of the estate had increased; Gyrd’s brother-in-law, Ulf Sakses?n, now enjoyed the king’s full favor and grace, and he had drawn Gyrd Andress?n into the circle of men who possessed the most power and advantages in the realm. But Simon didn’t care for the man and saw that Gyrd apparently didn’t either. Reluctantly and with little joy, Gyrd of Dyfrin followed the course that his wife and her brother had set for him in order to have some peace in his house.
Helga Saksesdatter was a witch. But it was Gyrd’s two sons who caused him to look as careworn as he did. Sakse, the older one, must be sixteen winters old by now. Nearly every night his personal servant had to heave the whelp into bed, dead drunk. He had already ruined his mind and his health with liquor; no doubt he would drink himself to death before he reached the age of a man. It would be no great loss; Sakse had acquired an ugly reputation in the region for coarseness and insolence, in spite of his youth. He was his mother’s favorite. Gyrd loved Jon, his younger son, better. He also had more of the temperament needed for him to bring honor to his lineage, if only he hadn’t been . . . Well, he was a bit misshapen, with hunched shoulders and a crooked back. And he had some kind of inner stomach complaint and was unable to tolerate any food other than gruel and flat bread.
Simon Andress?n had always taken secret refuge in a feeling of community with his family whenever his own life seemed to him . . . well, troublesome, or whatever he might call it. When he met with adversity, it bothered him less if he could remember the good fortune and well-being of his siblings. If only things had been the same at Dyfrin as during his father’s time, when peace, contentment, and prosperity reigned, then Simon thought there would have been much to ease his secret distress. He felt as if the roots of his own life were intertwined with those of his brothers and sisters, somewhere deep down in the dark earth. Every blow that struck, every injury that ate away at the marrow of one of them was felt by all.
He and Gyrd, at any rate, had felt this way, at least in the past. Now he wasn’t so sure that Gyrd felt the same anymore.
He had been most fond of his older brother and of Sigrid. He remembered when they were growing up: He could sit and feel such joy for his youngest sister that he had to do something to show it. Then he would pick a quarrel with her, tease and needle her, pull on her braids, and pinch her arm—as if he couldn’t show his affection for her in any other way without feeling ashamed. He had to tease her so that without embarrassment he could give her all the treasures he had stashed away; he could include the little maiden in his games when he built a millhouse at the creek, built farms for her, and cut willow whistles for the little girls in the springtime.
The memory of that day when he learned the full extent of her misfortune was like a brand scorched onto his mind. All winter long he had seen the way Sigrid was grieving herself into the grave over her dead betrothed, but he didn’t know any more than that. Then one Sunday in early spring he was standing on the gallery at Mandvik, feeling cross with the women for not appearing. The horses were in the courtyard, outfitted with their church saddles, and the servants had been waiting a long time. Finally he grew angry and went into the women’s house. Sigrid was still in bed. Surprised, he asked whether she was ill. His wife was sitting on the edge of the bed. A tremor passed over her gentle, withered face as she looked up.
“Ill she is indeed, the poor child. But even more than that, I think she’s frightened . . . of you and your kinsmen . . . and how you will take the news.”
His sister shrieked loudly, throwing herself headlong into Halfrid’s arms and clinging to her, wrapping her thin, bare arms around her sister-in-law’s waist. Her scream pierced Simon to the heart, so he thought it would stop and be drained of all blood. Her pain and her shame coursed through him, robbing him of his wits; then came the fear, and the sweat poured out. Their father—what would he do with Sigrid now?
He was so frightened as he struggled through the thawing muck on the journey home to Raumarike that at last the servant, who was traveling with him and knew nothing of the matter, began joking about the way Simon constantly had to get down from his horse. He had been a full-grown married man for many years, and yet he was so terrified at the thought of the meeting with his father that his stomach was in upheaval.