She saw that Bj?rgulf’s face was bleeding; he must have hit himself on the rock. Involuntarily Kristin pressed her hand to her lips and bit her own flesh.
On the stairs Bj?rgulf tried once more to pull away from Naakkve. He threw himself against the wall and shouted, “I curse, I curse the day I was born!”
When she heard Naakkve shut the loft door behind them, Kristin crept upstairs and stood outside on the gallery. For a long time she could hear Bj?rgulf’s voice inside. He raged and shouted and swore; a few of his vehement words she could understand. Every once in a while she would hear Naakkve talking to him, but his voice was only a subdued murmur. Finally Bj?rgulf began sobbing, loudly and as if his heart would break.
Kristin stood trembling with cold and anguish. She was wearing only a cloak over her shift; she stood there so long that her loose, flowing hair became wet with the raw night air. At last there was silence in the loft.
Entering the main room downstairs, she went over to the bed where Gaute and Lavrans were sleeping. They hadn’t heard anything. With tears streaming down her face, she reached out a hand in the dark and touched the two warm faces, listening to the boys’ measured, healthy breathing. She now felt as if these two were all that she had left of her riches.
Shivering with cold, she climbed into her own bed. One of the dogs lying next to Gaute’s bed came padding across the room and jumped up, circling around and then leaning against her feet. The dog was in the habit of doing this at night, and she didn’t have the heart to chase him away, even though he was heavy and pressed on her legs so they would turn numb. But the dog had belonged to Erlend and was his favorite—a shaggy coal-black old bearhound. Tonight, thought Kristin, it was good to have him lying there, warming her frozen feet.
She didn’t see Naakkve the next morning until at the breakfast table. Then he came in and sat down in the high seat, which had been his place since his father’s death.
He didn’t say a word during the meal, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His mother followed him when he went back outside.
“How is Bj?rgulf now?” she asked in a low voice.
Naakkve continued to evade her eyes, but he replied in an equally low voice that Bj?rgulf was asleep.
“Has . . . has he been this way before?” she whispered fearfully.
Naakkve nodded, turned away from her, and went back upstairs to his brother.
Naakkve watched over Bj?rgulf night and day, and kept his mother away from him as much as possible. But Kristin saw that the two young men spent many hours struggling with each other.
It was Nikulaus Erlendss?n who was supposed to be the master of J?rundgaard now, but he had no time to tend to the managing of the estate. He also seemed to have as little interest and ability as his father had had. And so Kristin and Gaute saw to everything, for that summer Ulf Haldorss?n had left her too.
After the unfortunate events that ended with the killing of Erlend Nikulauss?n, Ulf’s wife had gone home with her brothers. Ulf stayed on at J?rundgaard; he said he wanted to show everyone that he couldn’t be driven away by gossip and lies. But he hinted that he had lived long enough at J?rundgaard; he thought he might head north to his own estate in Skaun as soon as enough time had passed so that no one could say he was fleeing from the rumors.
But then the bishop’s plenipotentiary began making inquiries into the matter, to determine whether Ulf Haldorss?n had unlawfully spurned his wife. And so Ulf made preparations to leave; he went to get Jardtrud, and they were now setting off together for the north, before the autumn weather made the road through the mountains impassable. He told Gaute that he wanted to join forces with his half sister’s husband, who was a swordsmith in Nidaros, and live there, but he would settle Jardtrud at Skjoldvirkstad, which his nephew would continue to manage for him.
On his last evening Kristin drank a toast to him with the gold-chased silver goblet her father had inherited from his paternal grandfather, Sir Ketil the Swede. She asked him to accept the goblet as a keepsake to remember her by. Then she slipped onto his finger a gold ring that had belonged to Erlend; he was to have it in his memory.
Ulf gave her a kiss to thank her. “It’s customary among kinsmen,” he said with a laugh. “You probably never imagined, Kristin, when we first met, and I was the servant who came to get you to escort you to my master, that we would part in this way.”
Kristin turned bright red, for he was smiling at her with that old, mocking smile, but she thought she could see in his eyes that he was sad. Then she said, “All the same, Ulf, aren’t you longing for Tr?ndelag—you who were born and raised in the north? Many a time I too have longed for the fjord, and I lived there only a few years.” Ulf laughed again, and then she added quietly, “If I ever offended you in my youth, with my overbearing manner or . . . I didn’t know that you were close kin, you and Erlend. But now you must forgive me!”