“No,” said Holmgeir thoughtfully. “Well, if I’d been such a rich man, I too might have had a mind to pay out sums for the peace of my soul. But I wouldn’t have given away my goods with both hands, the way he did, and then walk around with red eyes and white cheeks every time I’d been to see the priest to confess my sins. And Lavrans went to confession every month.”
“Tears of remorse are the fair gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit, Holmgeir,” said old Ingemund Bj?rnss?n. “Blessed is he who can weep for his sins here in this world; all the easier it will be for him to enter the other. . . .”
“Then Lavrans must have been in Heaven long ago,” said Holmgeir, “considering the way he fasted and disciplined his flesh. I’ve heard that on Good Friday he would lock himself in the loft above the storeroom and lash himself with a whip.”
“Hold your tongue,” said Simon Andress?n, trembling with bitterness; his face was blood red. Whether Holmgeir’s remark was true or not, he didn’t know. But when he was cleaning up his father-in-law’s belongings, he had found a small, oblong wooden box in the bottom of his book chest, and inside lay a silk whip that the cloisters called a flagellum. The braided strips of leather bore dark spots, which might have been blood. Simon had burned it, with a feeling of sad reverence. He realized that he had come upon something in the other man’s life that Lavrans had never wanted a living soul to see.
“I don’t think he would talk about such things to his servants, in any case,” said Simon when he trusted himself to speak.
“No, it’s just something that people have made up,” replied Holmgeir. “Surely he didn’t have such sins to repent that he would need to—” The man gave a little sneer. “If I had lived as blameless and Christian a life as Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n, and been married to a mournful woman like Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter, I think I would have wept for the sins that I hadn’t committed—”
Simon leaped up and struck Holmgeir in the mouth so the man tumbled back toward the hearth. His dagger fell to the floor, and in the next instant he grabbed it and tried to stab the other man. Simon shielded himself with his arm holding his cape as he seized Holmgeir’s wrist with his other hand and tried to wrest the dagger away. In the meantime the priest’s son aimed a number of blows at his face. Simon then gripped him by both arms, but the young man sank his teeth into Simon’s hand.
“You dare to bite me, you dog!” Simon let go, took several steps back, and pulled his sword from its sheath. He fell upon Holmgeir so that his young body arched back, with a few inches of steel buried in his chest. A moment later Holmgeir’s body slipped from the sword point and fell heavily, halfway in the hearth fire.
Simon flung his sword away and was about to lift Holmgeir out of the blaze when he saw Vidar’s axe raised to strike right above his head. He ducked and lunged to the side, seized hold of his sword again, and just managed to fend off the blade of the envoy, Alf Einarss?n; he whirled around and again had to shield himself from Vidar’s axe. Out of the corner of his eye he saw behind him that the Bj?rnss?ns and Bj?rn of Lunde were aiming spears at him from the other side of the hearth. He then drove Alf in front of him over to the opposite wall but sensed that Vidar was coming for him from behind. Vidar had dragged Holmgeir out of the fire; they were cousins, those two. And the louts from Lunde were approaching from around the hearth. He stood exposed on all sides, and in the midst of it all, even though he had more than enough to do to save his life, he felt a vague, unhappy sense of surprise that the men were all against him.
At the next moment Erlend’s sword flashed between the Lunde men and Simon. Toralde reeled aside and fell against the wall. Quick as lightning, Erlend shifted his sword to his left hand and struck Alf’s weapon away so that it slid with a clatter across the floor, while with his right hand he grabbed the shaft of Bj?rn’s spear and pressed it downward.
“Get outside,” he told Simon, breathing hard and shielding his brother-in-law from Vidar. Simon ground his teeth together and raced across the room toward Bj?rn and Ingemund. Erlend was at his side, screaming over the tumult and clanging of swords: “Get outside! Do you hear me, you fool? Head for the door—we have to get out!”
When Simon realized that Erlend meant for both of them to go out, he began moving backward, still fighting, toward the door. They ran through the entryway, and then they were out in the courtyard, Simon a few steps farther away from the building, and Erlend right in front of the door with his sword half raised and his face turned toward those who were swarming after them.