“How splendid to hear such words from you, an old nag lusting after men as you do!”
Frida wiped the blood from her nose and mouth.
“Aren’t you supposed to be better than a poor man’s offspring, daughters of great chieftains such as yourself and this Jofrid? You know with certainty that a bridal bed with silken sheets awaits you. You’re the ones who must be shameless and lusting after men if you can’t wait but have to run off into the woods with young lads and end up with wayside bastards—for shame, I say to you!”
“Hold your tongue now. Go out and wash yourself. You’re standing there bleeding into the dough,” said her mistress quite calmly.
Frida met Jofrid in the doorway. Kristin saw from the young woman’s face that she must have heard the conversation with the maid.
“The poor thing’s chatter is as foolish as she is. I can’t send her away; she has no place to go.” Jofrid smiled scornfully. Then Kristin said, “She was the foster mother for two of my sons.”
“But she wasn’t Gaute’s foster mother,” replied Jofrid. “She reminds us both of that fact as often as she can. Can’t you marry her off?” she asked sharply.
Kristin had to laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? But all it took was for the man to have a few words with his future bride. . . .”
Kristin thought she should seize the opportunity to talk with Jofrid, to let her know that here she would meet with only maternal goodwill. But Jofrid looked angry and defiant.
In the meantime it was now clearly evident that Jofrid was not walking alone. One day she was going to clean some feathers for new mattresses. Kristin advised her to tie back her hair so it wouldn’t be covered with down. Jofrid bound a linen cloth around her head.
“No doubt this is now more fitting than going bareheaded,” she said with a little laugh.
“That may well be,” said Kristin curtly.
And yet she wasn’t pleased that Jofrid should jest about such a thing.
A few days later Kristin came out of the cookhouse and saw Jofrid cutting open several black grouse; there was blood spattered all over her arms. Horror-stricken, Kristin pushed her aside.
“Child, you mustn’t do this bloody work now. Don’t you know better than that?”
“Oh, surely you don’t believe everything women say is true,” said Jofrid skeptically.
Then Kristin told her about the marks of fire that Naakkve had received on his chest. She purposely spoke of it in such a way that Jofrid would understand she was not yet married when she looked at the burning church.
“I suppose you hadn’t thought such a thing of me,” she said quietly.
“Oh yes, Gaute has already told me: Your father had promised you to Simon Andress?n, but you ran off with Erlend Nikulauss?n to his aunt, and then Lavrans had to give his consent.”
“It wasn’t exactly like that; we didn’t run off. Simon released me as soon as he realized that I was more fond of Erlend than of him, and then my father gave his consent—unwillingly, but he placed my hand in Erlend’s. I was betrothed for a year. Does that seem worse to you?” asked Kristin, for Jofrid had turned bright red and gave her a look of horror.
The girl used her knife to scrape off the blood from her white arms.
“Yes,” she said in a low but firm voice. “I would not have squandered my good reputation and honor needlessly. But I won’t say anything of this to Gaute,” she said quickly. “He thinks his father carried you off by force because he could not win you with entreaty.”
No doubt what she said was true, thought Kristin.
As time passed and Kristin continued to ponder the matter, it seemed to her that the most honorable thing to do was for Gaute to send word to Helge of Hovland, to place his case in his hands and ask to be given Jofrid as his wife on such terms as her father decided to grant them. But whenever she spoke of this to Gaute, he would look dismayed and refuse to answer. Finally he asked his mother crossly whether she could get a letter over the mountains in the wintertime. No, she told him, but Sira Dag could surely send a letter to Nes and then onward along the coast; the priests always managed to get their letters through, even during the winter. Gaute said it would be too costly.
“Then it will not be with your wife that you have a child this spring,” said his mother indignantly.
“Even so, the matter cannot be arranged so quickly,” said Gaute. Kristin could see that he was quite angry.
A terrible, dark fear seized hold of her as time went on. She couldn’t help noticing that Gaute’s first ardent joy over Jofrid had vanished completely; he went about looking sullen and ill tempered. From the very start this matter of Gaute abducting his bride had seemed as bad as it could be, but his mother thought it would be much worse if afterward the man turned cowardly. If the two young people regretted their sin, that was all well and good, but she had an ugly suspicion that there was more of an unmanly fear in Gaute toward the man he had offended than any god-fearing remorse. Gaute—all her days she had thought the most highly of this son of hers; it couldn’t be true what people said: that he was unreliable and dealt carelessly with women, that he was already tired of Jofrid, now that his bride had faded and grown heavy and the day was approaching when he would have to answer for his actions to her kinsmen.