“Erlend, Erlend—think of your soul!”
The man shook his head on the pillows. His eyelids had fallen shut again.
“Erlend!” She clasped her hands; she screamed loudly, in the utmost distress. “Erlend, don’t you understand that after the way you have acted toward me, this has to be said!”
Erlend opened his big eyes. His lips were pale blue, but a remnant of his youthful smile flickered across his ravaged face.
“Kiss me, Kristin,” he whispered. There was a trace of laughter in his voice. “Surely there has been too much else between you and me—besides Christendom and marriage—for it to be possible for us to . . . take leave of each other . . . as a Christian husband and wife.”
She called and called his name, but he lay with closed eyes, his face as pale as newly split wood beneath his gray hair. A little blood seeped from the corners of his mouth; she wiped it away, whispering entreaties. When she moved, she could feel her clothes were cold and sticky, wet with the blood that had spattered her when she helped him inside and put him to bed. Now and then a faint gurgling came from Erlend’s chest, and he seemed to have trouble breathing; but he did not move again, nor was he aware of anything more as he surely and steadily sank into the torpor of death.
The loft door was abruptly thrown open. Naakkve came rushing in; he flung himself down beside the bed and seized his father’s hand as he called his name.
Behind him came a tall, stout gentleman wearing a traveling cape. He bowed to Kristin.
“If I had known, my kinswoman, that you were in need of the help of your kin . . .” Then he broke off as he saw that the man was dying. He crossed himself and went over to the farthest corner of the room. Quietly the Sundbu knight began saying the prayer for the dying, but Kristin seemed not to have even noticed Sir Sigurd’s arrival.
Naakkve was on his knees, bending over the bed. “Father! Father! Don’t you know me anymore, Father?” He pressed his face against Erlend’s hand, which Kristin was holding. The young man’s tears and kisses showered the hands of both his parents.
Kristin pushed her son’s head aside a little—as if she were suddenly half awake.
“You’re disturbing us,” she said impatiently. “Go away.”
Naakkve straightened up as he knelt there. “Go? But, Mother . . .”
“Yes. Go sit down with your brothers over there.”
Naakkve lifted his young face—wet with tears, contorted with grief—but his mother’s eyes saw nothing. Then he went over to the bench where his six brothers were already sitting. Kristin paid no attention; she simply stared, with wild eyes, at Erlend’s face, which now shone snow-white in the light of the candle.
A short time later the door was opened again. Bearing candles and ringing a silver bell, deacons and a priest followed Bishop Halvard into the loft. Ulf Haldorss?n entered last. Erlend’s sons and Sir Sigurd stood up and then fell to their knees before the body of the Lord. But Kristin merely raised her head, and for a moment she turned her tear-filled eyes, seeing nothing, toward those who had arrived. Then she lay back down, the way she was before, stretched out across Erlend’s corpse.
PART III
THE CROSS
CHAPTER 1
ALL FIRES BURN out sooner or later.
There came a time when these words spoken by Simon Darre resounded once more in Kristin’s heart.
It was the summer of the fourth year after Erlend Nikulauss?n’s death, and of the seven sons, only Gaute and Lavrans remained with their mother at J?rundgaard.
Two years before, the old smithy had burned down, and Gaute had built a new one north of the farm, up toward the main road. The old smithy had stood to the south of the buildings, down by the river in a low curve of land between J?rund’s burial mound and several great heaps of rocks which had apparently been cleared from the fields long ago. Almost every year during the flood season the water would reach all the way up to the smithy.
Now there was nothing left on the site but the heavy, fire-scorched stones that showed where the threshold had been and the brick fireplace. Soft, slender blades of pale green grass were now sprouting from the dark, charred floor.
This year Kristin Lavransdatter had sown a field of flax near the site of the old smithy; Gaute had wanted to put grain in the acres closer to the manor, where the mistresses of J?rundgaard, since ancient times, had always planted flax and cultivated onions. And so Kristin often went out to the far fields to see to her flax. On Thursday evenings she would carry a gift of ale and food to the farmer in the mound.1 On light summer evenings the lonely fireplace in the meadow looked at times like some ancient heathen altar as it was glimpsed through the grass, grayish white and streaked with soot. On hot summer days, under the baking sun, she would take her basket to the rock heaps at midday to pick raspberries or to gather the leaves of fireweed, which could be used to make cooling drinks for a fever.