Before she knew it, Kristin had taken the girl’s hands and said, “May God forgive my son for what he has brought upon you, my fair child. Come in, Jofrid. May God help both of you, just as I will help you as best I can!”
A moment later she realized that she had offered much too warm a welcome to this woman, whom she did not know. But by then Jofrid had taken off her outer garments. Her heavy winter gown, which was a pale blue woven homespun, was dripping wet at the hem, and the rain had soaked right through her cloak to her shoulders. There was a gentle, sorrowful dignity about this child-like girl. She kept her small head with its dark tresses gracefully bowed; two thick pitch-black braids fell past her waist. Kristin kindly took Jofrid’s hand and led her to the warmest place on the bench next to the hearth. “You must be freezing,” she said.
Gaute came over and gave his mother a hearty embrace. “Mother, things will happen as they must. Have you ever seen as beautiful a maiden as my Jofrid? I had to have her, whatever it may cost me. And you must treat her with kindness, my dearest mother. . . .”
Jofrid Helgesdatter was indeed beautiful; Kristin could not stop looking at her. She was rather short, with wide shoulders and hips, but a soft and charming figure. And her skin was so delicate and pure that she was lovely even though her face was quite pale. The features of her face were short and broad, but the expansive, strong arc of her cheeks and chin gave it beauty, and her wide mouth had thin, rosy lips with small, even teeth that looked like a child’s first teeth. When she raised her heavy eyelids, her clear gray-green eyes were like shining stars beneath the long black eyelashes. Black hair, light-colored eyes—Kristin had always thought that was the most beautiful combination, ever since she had seen Erlend for the first time. Most of her own handsome sons had that coloring.
Kristin showed Jofrid to a place on the women’s bench next to her own. She sat there, graceful and shy, among all the servants she didn’t know, eating little and blushing every time Gaute drank a toast to her during the meal.
He was bursting with pride and restless elation as he sat in the high seat. To honor her son’s return home, Kristin had spread a cloth over the table that evening and set two wax tapers in the candlesticks made of gilded copper. Gaute and Sir Sigurd were constantly toasting each other, and the old gentleman grew more and more maudlin, putting his arm around Gaute’s shoulder and promising to speak on his behalf to his wealthy kinsmen, yes, even to King Magnus himself. Surely he would be able to obtain for him reconciliation with the maiden’s offended kin. Sigurd Eldjarn himself had not a single foe; it was his father’s rancorous temperament and his own misfortune with his wife that had made him so alone.
In the end Gaute sprang to his feet with the drinking horn in his hand. How handsome he is, thought Kristin, and how like Father! Her father had been the same way when he was beginning to feel drunk—so radiant with joy, straight-backed and lively.
“Things are now such between this woman, Jofrid Helgesdatter, and myself that today we celebrate our homecoming, and later we will celebrate our wedding, if God grants us such happiness. You, Sigurd, we thank for your steadfast kinship, and you, Mother, for welcoming us as I expected you would, with your loyal, motherly warmth. As we brothers have often discussed, you seem to us the most magnanimous of women and the most loving mother. Therefore I ask you to honor us by preparing our bridal bed in such a fine and beautiful manner that without shame I can invite Jofrid to sleep there beside me. And I ask you to accompany Jofrid up to the loft yourself, so that she might retire with as much seemliness as possible since she has neither a mother still alive nor any kinswomen here.”
Sir Sigurd was now quite drunk, and he burst out laughing. “You slept together in my loft; if I didn’t know better . . . I thought the two of you had already shared a bed before.”
Gaute shook his golden hair impatiently. “Yes, kinsman, but this is the first night Jofrid will sleep in my arms on her own manor, God willing.
“But I beg you good people to drink and be merry tonight. Now you have seen the woman who will be my wife here at J?rundgaard. This woman and no other—I swear this before God, our Lord, and on my Christian faith. I expect all of you to respect her, both servants and maids, and I expect you, my men, to help me keep and protect her in a seemly manner, my boys.”
During all the shouting and commotion that accompanied Gaute’s speech, Kristin quietly left the table and whispered to Ingrid to follow her up to the loft.
Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n’s magnificent loft room had fallen into disrepair over the years, after the sons of Erlend had moved in. Kristin hadn’t wanted to give the reckless boys any but the coars est and most essential of bedclothes and pieces of furniture, and she seldom had the room cleaned, for it wasn’t worth the effort. Gaute and his friends tracked in filth and manure as quickly as she swept it out. There was an ingrained smell from men coming in and flinging themselves onto the beds, soaked and sweaty and muddy from the woods and the farmyard—a smell of the stables and leather garments and wet dogs.