She had seen Naakkve walk past. The drenched garments clung to the boys as they sang at the top of their lungs to the sunshine: Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes. Kyrie, eleison, Christe, eleison, Christe, audi nos—。2
The priests with the cross had gone past; the group of farmers followed in their heavy, soaked clothing, but looking around them at the weather with amazed and shining faces as they took up the prayer’s refrain: Kyrie eleison!
Suddenly she saw . . . She couldn’t believe her own eyes, and now it was her turn to grab hold of the woman next to her for support. There was Erlend walking along in the procession; he was wearing a dripping wet coat made of reindeer hide with the hood pulled over his head. But it was him. His lips were slightly parted, and he was crying, Kyrie eleison, along with the others. He looked right at her as he walked past. She couldn’t properly decipher the expression on his face, but it looked as if he wore a shadow of a smile.
Together with the other women, she joined the procession as it moved up the church hill, calling out with the others as the young boys sang the litany. She was unaware of anything except the wild pounding of her own heart.
During the mass she caught a glimpse of him only once. She didn’t dare stand in her customary place but hid in the darkness of the north nave.
As soon as the service was over, she rushed outdoors. She fled from her maids who had been in church. Outside, the countryside was steaming in the sunshine. Kristin raced home without noticing the sodden state of the road.
She spread a cloth over the table and set a full horn of mead before the master’s high seat before she took time to exchange her wet clothes for her Sabbath finery: the dark blue, embroidered gown, silver belt, buckled shoes, and the wimple with the blue border. Then she knelt in the alcove. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t find the words she sought; over and over again she said the Ave Maria: Blessed Lady, dear Lord, son of the Virgin, you know what I want to say.
This went on for a long time. From her maids she heard that the men had gone back to the bridge; with broadaxes and hooks they were trying to remove the tangle of debris that had gotten caught. It was a matter of saving the bridge. The priests had also gone back after they had taken off their vestments.
It was well past midday when the men returned: Kristin’s sons, Ulf Haldorss?n, and the three servants—an old man and two youths who had been given refuge on the manor.
Naakkve had already sat down at his place, to the right of the high seat. Suddenly he stood up, stepped forward, and rushed for the door.
Kristin softly called out his name.
A moment later he came back and sat down. The color came and went in his young face; he kept his eyes lowered, and now and then he had to bite his lip. His mother saw that he was struggling hard to master his feelings, but he managed to do so.
Finally the meal came to an end. Her sons, who were seated on the inner bench, rose to their feet and came around the end of the table past the vacant high seat, adjusting their belts as they usually did after they had put their knives back in their sheaths. Then they left the room.
When they had all gone, Kristin followed. In the sunshine, water was now streaming off all the eaves. There wasn’t a soul in the courtyard except for Ulf; he was standing on the doorstep to his own house.
His face took on an oddly helpless expression when the mistress approached him. He didn’t speak, and so she asked quietly, “Did you talk to him?”
“Only a few words. I saw that he and Naakkve talked.”
After a moment he went on, “He was a little worried . . . about all of you . . . when the flooding got this bad. So he decided to head home to see how things were. Naakkve told him how you were handling everything.
“I don’t know how he happened to hear about it . . . that you gave away the pelts he sent with Gaute in the fall. He was cross about that. Also when he heard that you had rushed home right after the mass; he thought you would have stayed to talk to him.”
Kristin didn’t say a word; she turned on her heel and went back inside.
That summer there were constant quarrels and strife between Ulf Haldorss?n and his wife. The son of Ulf’s half brother, Haldor Jonss?n, had come to visit his kinsman in the spring, along with his wife; he had been married the year before. It was understood that Haldor would now lease the estate Ulf owned in Skaun and move there on turnover day.3 But Jardtrud was angry because she thought Ulf had given his nephew conditions that were too good, and she saw that it was the men’s intention to ensure for Haldor, perhaps through some kind of agreement, inheritance of the estate after his uncle’s death.