Simon thought she might be right about that. Ulf was greatly disliked in the region. He spoke scornfully about everything there in the valley. He was a capable and hardworking farmer, but he was unaccustomed to so many things in that part of the country. He took on more livestock in the fall than he could manage to feed through the winter, and when the cows languished or he ended up having to slaughter some of the starving beasts toward spring, he would grow angry and blame the fact that he was unused to the meager ways of the region, where people had to scrape off bark for fodder as early as Saint Paal’s Day.
There was another consideration: In Tr?ndelag the custom had gradually developed between the landowner and his tenants that he would demand as lease payment the goods that he needed most—hay, skins, flour, butter, or wool—even though certain goods or sums had been specified when the lease was settled. And it was the landowner or his envoys who recalculated the worth of one item in replacement for another, completely arbitrarily. But when Ulf made these demands upon Kristin’s leaseholders around the countryside, people called them injurious and grievously unlawful, as they were, and the tenants complained to their mistress. She took Ulf to task as soon as she heard of the matter, but Simon knew that people blamed not only Ulf but Kristin Lavransdatter as well. He had tried to explain, wherever talk of this arose, that Kristin hadn’t known about Ulf’s demands and that they were based on customs of the man’s own region. Simon feared this had done little good, although no one had said as much to his face.
For this reason he wasn’t sure whether he should wish for Ulf to stay or to leave. He didn’t know how Kristin would handle things without her diligent and loyal helper. Erlend was completely incapable of managing the farmwork, and their sons were far too young. But Ulf had turned much of the countryside against her, and now there was this: He had seduced a young maiden from a wealthy and respected family in the valley. God only knew that Kristin was already struggling hard enough, as the situation now stood.
And they were in difficult straits, the people of J?rundgaard. Erlend was no better liked than Ulf. If Erlend’s overseer and kinsman was arrogant and surly, the master himself, with his gentle and rather indolent manner, was even more irksome. Erlend Niku lauss?n probably had no idea that he was turning people against him; he seemed unaware of anything except that, rich or poor, he was the same man he had always been, and he wouldn’t dream that anyone would call him arrogant for that very reason. He had plotted to incite a group of rebels against his king even though he was Lord Magnus’s kinsman, vassal, and retainer; then he himself had caused the downfall of the plan through his own foolish recklessness. But he evidently never thought that he might be branded a villain in anyone’s eyes because of these matters. Simon couldn’t see that Erlend gave much thought to anything at all.
It was hard to figure the man out. If one sat and conversed with Erlend, he was far from stupid, thought Simon, but it was as if he could never take to heart the wise and splendid things he often said. It was impossible to remember that this man would soon be old; he could have had grandchildren long ago. Upon closer study, his face was lined and his hair sprinkled with gray, yet he and Nikulaus looked more like brothers than father and son. He was just as straight-backed and slender as when Simon had seen him for the first time; his voice was just as young and resonant. He moved among others with the same ease and confidence, with that slightly muted grace to his manner. With strangers he had always been rather quiet and reserved; letting others seek him out instead of seeking their company himself, during times of both prosperity and adversity. That no one sought his company now was something that Erlend didn’t seem to notice. And the whole circle of noblemen and landowners all along the valley, intermarried and closely related with each other as they were, resented the way this haughty Tr?ndelag chieftain, who had been cast into their midst by misfortune, nevertheless considered himself too highborn and noble to seek their favor.
But what had caused the most bad blood toward Erlend Niku lauss?n was the fact that he had drawn the men of Sundbu into misfortune along with him. Guttorm and Borgar Trondss?n had been banished from Norway, and their shares of the great Gjesling estates, as well as their half of the ancestral manor, had been seized by the Crown. Ivar of Sundbu had to buy himself reconciliation with King Magnus. The king gave the confiscated properties—not ithout demanding compensation, it was said—to Sir Sigurd Er lendss?n Eldjarn. Then the youngest of the sons of Trond, Ivar and Haavard, who had not known of their brothers’ treasonous plans, sold their shares of the Vaage estates to Sir Sigurd, who was their cousin as well as the cousin of the daughters of Lavrans. Sigurd’s mother, Gudrun Ivarsdatter, was the sister of Trond Gjesling and Ragnfrid of J?rundgaard. Ivar Gjesling moved to Ringheim at Toten, a manor that he had acquired from his wife. His children would do well to live where they had inheritance and property rights from their mother’s family. Haavard still owned a great deal of property, but it was mostly in Valdres, and with his marriage he had now come into possession of large estates in the Borge district. But the inhabitants of Vaage and northern Gudbrandsdal thought it the greatest misfortune that the ancient lineage of landowners had lost Sundbu, where they had lived and ruled the countryside for as far back as people could remember.