It was true. She had begged to sleep in his arms—at first. But it wasn’t kind of him to remind her of that now. She thought it wasn’t kind of Erlend to send her such a reply with their sons.
The spring weather held on. The wind blew from the south, and the rain lasted for a week. The river rose, becoming swollen and thunderous. It roared and rushed down the slopes; the snow plunged down the mountainsides. And then the sunshine returned.
Kristin was standing outside behind the buildings in the grayish blue of the evening. A great chorus of birdsong came from the thicket down in the field. Gaute and the twins had gone up to the mountain pastures; they were in search of blackcock. In the morning the clamor of the birds’ mating dance on the mountain slopes could be heard all the way down at the manor.
She clasped her hands under her breast. There was so little time left; she had to bear these last days with patience. She too had doubtless been stubborn and difficult to live with quite often. Unreasonable in her worries about the children . . . For too long, as Erlend had said. Yet it seemed to her that he was being harsh now. But the day would soon arrive when he would have to come to her; surely he knew that too.
It was sunny and rainy by turns. One afternoon her sons called to her. All seven of them were standing out in the courtyard along with all the servants. Above the valley stretched three rainbows. The innermost one ended at the buildings of Formo; it was unbroken, with brilliant colors. The two outer ones were fainter and faded away at the top.
Even as they stood there, staring at this astonishing fair omen, the sky grew dark and overcast. From the south a blizzard of snow swept in. It began snowing so hard that soon the whole world had turned white.
That evening Kristin told Munan the story about King Snjo and his pretty white daughter, whose name was Mj?ll, and about King Harald Luva, who was brought up by the Dovre giant inside the mountain north of Dovre. She thought with sorrow and remorse that it was years since she had sat and told stories to her children in this fashion. She felt sorry that she had offered Lavrans and Munan so little pleasure of this kind. And they would soon be big boys. While the others had been small, back home at Husaby, she had spent the evenings telling them stories—often, so often.
She saw that her older sons were listening too. She blushed bright red and came to a stop. Munan asked her to tell them more. Naakkve stood up and moved closer.
“Do you remember, Mother, the story about Torstein Uksafot and the trolls of H?iland Forest? Tell us that one!”
As she talked, a memory came back to her. They had lain down to rest and to have something to eat in the birch grove down by the river: her father and the hay harvesters, both men and women. Her father was lying on his stomach; she was sitting astride him, on the small of his back, and kicking him in the flanks with her heels. It was a hot day, and she had been given permission to go barefoot, just like the grown-up women. Her father was reeling off the members of the H?iland troll lineage: Jernskjold married Skjoldvor; their daughters were Skjolddis and Skjoldgjerd, whom Torstein Uksafot killed. Skjoldgjerd had been married to Skjoldketil, and their sons were Skjoldbj?rn and Skjoldhedin and Valskjold, who wed Skjoldskjessa; they gave birth to Skjoldulf and Skjoldorm. Skjoldulf won Skjoldkatla, and together they conceived Skjold and Skjoldketil . . .
No, he had already used that name, cried Kolbj?rn, laughing. For Lavrans had boasted that he would teach them two dozen troll names, but he hadn’t even made it through the first dozen. Lavrans laughed too. “Well, you have to understand that even trolls revive the names of their ancestors!” But the workers refused to give in; they fined him a drink of mead for them all. And you shall have it, said the master. In the evening, after they went back home. But they wanted to have it at once, and finally Tordis was sent off to get the mead.
They stood in a circle and passed the big drinking horn around. Then they picked up their scythes and rakes and went back to the hay harvesting. Kristin was sent home with the empty horn. She carried it in front of her in both hands as she ran barefoot through the sunshine on the green path, up toward the manor. Now and then she would stop, whenever a few drops of mead had collected in the curve of the horn. Then she would tilt it over her little face and lick the gilded rim inside and out, as well as her fingers, tasting the sweetness.
Kristin Lavransdatter sat still, staring straight ahead. Father! She remembered a tremor passing over his face, a paleness, the way a forest slope grows pale whenever a stormy gust turns the leaves of the trees upside down. An edge of cold, sharp derision in his voice, a gleam in his gray eyes, like the glint of a half-drawn sword. A brief moment, and then it would vanish—into cheerful, good-humored jest when he was young, but becoming more often a quiet, slightly melancholy gentleness as he grew older. Something other than deep, tender sweetness had resided in her father’s heart. She had learned to understand it over the years. Her father’s marvelous gentleness was not because he lacked a keen enough perception of the faults and wretchedness of others; it came from his constant searching of his own heart before God, crushing it in repentance over his own failings.