“Even so, you must have a keg of foreign ale brought to them.”
Gunhild, the younger maid, was red-eyed from weeping. “None of the house servants believes this of you, Kristin Lavransdatter; surely you must know that. We always said that we knew it was a lie.”
“So you have heard this gossip before?” said her mistress. “It would have been better if you had mentioned it to me.”
“We didn’t dare because of Ulf,” said Frida.
And Gunhild said as she wept, “He warned us to keep it from you. I often thought that I should mention it and beg you to be more wary . . . when you would sit and talk to Ulf until late into the night.”
“Ulf . . . so he has known about this?” asked Kristin softly.
“Jardtrud has accused him of it for a long time; that was apparently always the reason that he struck her. One evening during Christmas, about the time when you were growing heavy, we were sitting and drinking with them in the foreman’s house. Solveig and ?ivind were there too, along with several people from south in the parish. Suddenly Jardtrud said that he was the one who had caused it. Ulf hit her with his belt so the buckle drew blood. Since then Jardtrud has gone around saying that Ulf did not deny it with a single word.”
“And ever since people have been talking about this in the countryside?” asked the mistress.
“Yes. But those of us who are your servants have always denied it,” said Gunhild in tears.
To calm Munan, Kristin had to lie down next to the boy and take him in her arms, but she did not undress, and she did not sleep that night.
In the meantime, up in the high loft, young Lavrans had gotten out of bed and put on his clothes. Toward evening, when Naakkve went downstairs to help tend to the livestock, the boy went out to the stable. He saddled the red gelding that belonged to Gaute; it was the best horse except for the stallion, which he didn’t trust himself to ride.
Several of the men standing guard on the estate came out and asked the boy where he was headed.
“I didn’t know that I was a prisoner too,” replied young Lavrans. “But I don’t need to hide it from you. Surely you wouldn’t refuse to allow me to ride to Sundbu to bring back the knight to defend his kinswoman.”
“It will soon be dark, my boy,” said Kolbein Jonss?n. “We can’t let this child ride across Vaage Gorge at night. We must speak to his mother.”
“No, don’t do that,” said Lavrans. His lips quivered. “The purpose of my journey is such that I will trust in God and the Virgin Mary to keep watch over me, if my mother is without blame. And if not, then it makes little difference—” He broke off, for he was close to tears.
The man stood in silence for a moment. Kolbein gazed at the handsome, fair-haired child. “Go on then, and may God be with you, Lavrans Erlendss?n,” he said, and was about to help the boy into the saddle.
But Lavrans led the horse forward so the men had to step aside. At the big boulder near the manor gate, he climbed up and then flung himself onto the back of Raud. Then he galloped westward, along the road to Vaagaa.
CHAPTER 8
LAVRANS HAD RIDDEN his horse into a lather by the time he reached the spot where he knew a path led up through the scree and steep cliffs that rise up everywhere on the north side of Silsaa valley. He knew he had to make it to the heights before dark. He didn’t know these mountains between Vaagaa, Sil, and Dovre, but the gelding had grazed here one summer, and he had carried Gaute to Haugen many times, although along different paths. Young Lavrans leaned forward and patted the neck of his horse.
“You must find the way to Haugen, Raud, my son. You must carry me to Father tonight, my horse.”
As soon as he reached the crest of the mountains and was once again sitting in the saddle, darkness fell quickly. He rode through a marshy hollow; an endless progression of narrow ridges was silhouetted against the ever-darkening sky. There were groves of birches on the valley slopes, and their trunks shone white. Wet clusters of leaves constantly brushed against the horse’s chest and the boy’s face. Stones were dislodged by the animal’s hooves and rolled down into the creek at the bottom of the incline. Raud found his way in the dark, up and down the hillsides, and the trickling of the creek sounded first close and then far away. Once some beast bayed into the mountain night, but Lavrans couldn’t tell what it was. And the wind rushed and sang, first stronger, then fainter.
The child held his spear along the neck of his horse, so that the tip pointed forward between the animal’s ears. This was bear country, this valley here. He wondered when it would end. Very softly he began to hum into the darkness: “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.”