“But then you would not have welcomed me as your friend,” said Erlend. “And God knows you had no reason to do so either. As sweet and lovely as you are, my Kristin,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
She sobbed quietly, in great distress.
“Now nothing remains,” said her husband in the same tone as before, “except for us to try to forgive each other as a Christian husband and wife, if you can . . .”
“Erlend, Erlend . . .” She leaned over him and kissed his white face. “You shouldn’t talk so much, my Erlend.”
“I think I must make haste to say what I have to say,” replied her husband. “Where is Naakkve?” he asked uneasily.
He was told that the night before, as soon as Naakkve heard that his younger brother was headed for Sundbu, he had set off after him as fast as his horse would go. He must be quite distraught by now, since he hadn’t found the child. Erlend sighed, his hands fumbling restlessly on the coverlet.
His six sons stepped up to the bed.
“No, I haven’t handled things well for you, my sons,” said their father. He began to cough, in a strange and cautious manner. Bloody froth seeped out of his lips. Kristin wiped it away with her wimple.
Erlend lay quietly for a moment. “Now you must forgive me, if you can. Never forget, my fine boys, that your mother has striven on your behalf every day, during all the years that she and I have lived together. Never has there been any enmity between us except that for which I was to blame because I paid too little mind to your well-being. But she has loved you more than her own life.”
“We won’t forget,” replied Gaute, weeping, “that you, Father, seemed to us all our days the most courageous of men and the noblest of chieftains. We were proud to be called your sons—no less so when fortune forsook you than during your days of prosperity.”
“You say this because you understand so little,” said Erlend. He gave a brittle, sputtering laugh. “But do not cause your mother the sorrow of taking after me; she has had enough to struggle with since she married me.”
“Erlend, Erlend,” sobbed Kristin.
The sons kissed their father’s hand and cheek; weeping, they turned away and sat down against the wall. Gaute put his arm around Munan’s shoulder and pulled the boy close; the twins sat hand in hand. Erlend again placed his hand in Kristin’s. His was cold. Then she pulled the covers all the way up to his chin but sat holding his hand in her own under the blankets.
“Erlend,” she said, weeping. “May God have mercy on us—we must send word to the priest for you.”
“Yes,” said Erlend faintly. “Someone must ride up to Dovre to bring Sira Guttorm, my parish priest.”
“Erlend, he won’t get here in time,” she said in horror.
“Yes, he will,” said Erlend vehemently. “If God will grant me . . . For I refuse to receive the last rites from that priest who has been spreading gossip about you.”
“Erlend—in the name of Jesus—you must not talk that way.”
Ulf Haldorss?n stepped forward and bent over the dying man. “I will ride to Dovre, Erlend.”
“Do you remember, Ulf,” said Erlend, his voice beginning to sound weak and confused, “the time we left Hestnes, you and I?” He laughed a bit. “And I promised that all my days I would stand by you as your loyal kinsman . . . God save me, kinsman . . . Of the two of us, it was most often you and not I who showed the loyalty of kin, my friend Ulf. I give you . . . thanks . . . for that, kinsman.”
Ulf leaned down and kissed the man’s bloody lips. “I thank you too, Erlend Nikulauss?n.”
He lit a candle, placed it near the deathbed, and left the room.
Erlend’s eyes had closed again. Kristin sat staring at his white face; now and then she caressed it with her hand. She thought she could see that he was sinking toward death.
“Erlend,” she implored him softly. “In the name of Jesus, let us send word to Sira Solmund for you. God is God, no matter what priest brings Him to us.”
“No!” Her husband sat up in bed so that the covers slid down his naked, sallow body. The bandages across his breast and stomach were once again colored with bright red splotches from the fresh blood pouring out. “I am a sinful man. May God bestow on me the grace of His mercy, as much as He will grant me, but I know . . .” He fell back against the pillows and whispered almost inaudibly, “I will not live long enough to be . . . so old . . . and so pious . . . that I can bear . . . to sit calmly in the same room with someone who has told lies about you.”