“Yes,” said Kristin, “he’s a lovely child.”
Then they sat in silence for a long time. When they spoke again, it was of other matters.
She woke up in the gray light of dawn the next day, as she had every morning up there. She lay in bed listening to the horses plodding around outside the house. She had her arms wrapped around Erlend’s head. The other mornings, when she woke up in the early gray hour, she had been seized by the same anguish and shame as the first time; she had fought to subdue those feelings. The two of them were a married couple who had quarreled and now reconciled; nothing could benefit the children more than that their father and mother became friends once again.
But on this morning she lay there, struggling to remember her sons. For she felt as if she had been bewitched; Erlend had spirited her away and brought her up here, straight from the woods of Gerdarud, where he had taken her into his arms the first time. They were so young; it couldn’t be true that she had already borne this man seven sons. She was the mother of tall, grown-up men. But she felt as if she had been lying here in his arms and merely dreamed about those long years they had spent together as husband and wife at Husaby. All his impetuous words resounded and enticed her; dizzy with fear, she felt as if Erlend had swept away her sevenfold burden of responsibility. This is the way it must feel when the young mare is unsaddled up in the mountain pasture. The packs and saddle and bridle are removed, and the wind and air of the mountain plateau stream against her; she is free to graze the fine grass on the heights, free to run as far as she likes across all the slopes.
But at the same time she was already yearning, with a sweet and willing sense of longing, to bear a new burden. She was yearning with a faint, tender giddiness for the one who would now live nearest her heart for nine long months. She had been certain of it, from the first morning she woke up here in Erlend’s arms. Her barrenness had left her, along with the harsh, dry, gasping heat in her heart. She was hiding Erlend’s child in her womb, and with a strangely gentle feeling of impatience, her soul was reaching out toward the hour when the infant would be brought into the light.
My big sons no longer need me, she thought. They think I’m unreasonable, that I nag them. We’ll just be in their way, the little child and I. No, I can’t leave here; we must stay here with Erlend. I can’t leave.
But when they sat down together to eat breakfast, she mentioned nevertheless that she would have to return home to her children.
It was Lavrans and Munan she was thinking of. They were old enough now that she was embarrassed to imagine them living up here with Erlend and herself, perhaps looking with astonishment at their parents who had become so youthful. But those two couldn’t be without her.
Erlend sat and stared at her as she talked about going home. At last he gave her a fleeting smile. “Well . . . if that’s what you want, then you must go.”
He wanted to accompany her for part of the journey. He rode all the way through Rost Gorge and up to Sil, until they could see a little of the church roof above the tops of the spruce trees. Then he said goodbye. He smiled to the very end, slyly confident.
“You know now, Kristin, that whether you come at night or by day, whether I have to wait for you a short time or a long time, I will welcome you as if you were the Queen of Heaven come down from the clouds to my farm.”
She laughed. “I don’t dare speak as grandly as that. But you must now realize, my love, that there will be great joy at your manor on the day the master returns to his own home.”
He shook his head and chuckled. Smiling, they took leave of each other; smiling, Erlend leaned over as they sat on their horses, side by side, and kissed her many times, and between each kiss, he looked at her with his laughing eyes.
“So we’ll see,” he said finally, “which of us is more stubborn, my fair Kristin. This is not the last time we will meet; you and I both know that!” As she rode past the church, she gave a little shudder. She felt as if she were returning home from inside the mountain. As if Erlend were the mountain king himself and could not come past the church and the cross on the hill.
She pulled in the reins; she had a great urge to turn around and ride after him.
Then she looked out across the green slopes, down at her beautiful estate with the meadows and fields and the glistening curve of the river winding through the valley. The mountains rose up in a blue shimmer of heat. The sky was filled with billowing summer clouds. It was madness. There, with his sons, was where he belonged. He was no mountain knight; he was a Christian man, no matter how full he was of wild ideas and foolish whims. Her lawful husband, with whom she had endured both good and bad—beloved, beloved, no matter how sorely he had tormented her with his unpredictable impulses. She would have to be forbearing, since she could not live without him; she would have to strive to bear the anguish and uncertainty as best she could. She didn’t think it would be long before he followed her—now that they had been together once again.