It was the mark of death. . . . She knew that.
She went back and slid her hand under the coverlet. His ankles were swollen all the way up to his calves.
“Do you want me—do you want me to send for Sira Eirik now?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes, tonight,” replied Simon.
He had to speak of it before he confessed and received the last rites. Afterward he must try to turn his thoughts in another direction.
“It’s odd that you should be the one who will probably have to tend to my body,” said Simon. “And I’m afraid I won’t be a particularly handsome corpse.”
Kristin forced back a sob. She moved away to prepare another soothing potion.
But Simon said, “I don’t like these potions of yours, Kristin. They make my thoughts so muddled.”
After a while he asked her to give him a little all the same. “But don’t put so much in it that it will make me drowsy. I have to talk to you about something.”
He took a sip and then lay waiting for the pain to ease enough that he would have the strength to talk to her clearly and calmly.
“Don’t you want us to bring Sira Eirik to you, so he can speak the words that might give you comfort?”
“Yes, soon. But there is something I must say to you first.”
He lay in silence for a while. Then he said, “Tell Erlend Niku lauss?n that the words I spoke to him the last time we parted—those words I have regretted every day since. I behaved in a petty and unmanly fashion toward my brother-in-law that night. Give him my greetings and tell him . . . beg him to forgive me.”
Kristin sat with her head bowed. Simon saw that she had turned blood red under her wimple.
“You will give this message to your husband, won’t you?” he asked.
She gave a small nod.
Then Simon went on. “If Erlend doesn’t come to my funeral, you must seek him out, Kristin, and tell him this.”
Kristin sat mutely, her face dark red.
“You wouldn’t refuse to do what I ask of you, now that I’m about to die, would you?” asked Simon Andress?n.
“No,” she whispered. “I will . . . do it.”
“It’s not good for your sons, Kristin, that there is enmity between their father and mother,” Simon continued. “I wonder whether you’ve noticed how much it torments them. It’s hard for those lively boys, knowing that their parents are the subject of gossip in the countryside.”
Kristin replied in a harsh, low voice, “Erlend left our sons—not I. First my sons lost their foothold in the regions where they were born into noble lineage and property. If they now have to bear having gossip spread about them here in the valley, which is my home, I am not to blame.”
Simon lay in silence for a moment. Then he said, “I haven’t forgotten that, Kristin. There is much you have a right to complain about. Erlend has managed poorly for his children. But you must remember, if that plan of his had been carried out, his sons would now be well provided for, and he himself would be among the most powerful knights in the realm. The man who fails in such a venture is called a traitor to his king, but if he succeeds, people speak quite differently. Half of Norway thought as Erlend did back then: that we were poorly served by sharing a king with the Swedes and that the son of Knut Porse was probably made of stronger stuff than that coddled boy, if we could have won over Prince Haakon in his tender years. Many men stood behind Erlend at the time and tugged on the rope along with him; my own brothers did so, and many others who are now called good knights and men with coats of arms. Erlend alone had to fall. And back then, Kristin, your husband showed that he was a splendid and courageous man, even though he may have acted otherwise, both before and since.”
Kristin sat in silence, trembling.
“I think, Kristin, that if this is the reason you’ve said bitter words to your husband, then you must take them back. You should be able to do it, Kristin. Once you held firmly enough to Erlend; you refused to listen to a word of truth about his behavior toward you when he acted in a way I never thought an honorable man would act, much less a highborn gentleman and a chivalrous retainer of the king. Do you remember where I found the two of you in Oslo? You could forgive Erlend for that, both at the time and later on.”
Kristin replied quietly, “I had cast my lot with his by then. What would have become of me afterward if I had parted my life from Erlend’s?”
“Look at me, Kristin,” said Simon Darre, “and answer me truthfully. If I had held your father to his promise and chosen to take you as you were . . . If I had told you that I would never remind you of your shame, but I would not release you . . . What would you have done then?”