“What do you mean by that?” asked Kristin.
“I mean that when my kinsmen seek out Gaute, Sir Sigurd will meet them, so they will see that Gaute is not without kin. He will have to bear paying full restitution, but then Father will allow him to marry me, and I will regain my right to an inheritance along with my sisters.”
“So you are partially to blame,” said Kristin, “for the child coming into the world before you are married?”
“If I could run away with Gaute, then . . . Surely no one would believe that he has placed a sword blade in bed between us all these nights.”
“Didn’t he ever seek out your kinsmen to ask for your hand in marriage?” asked Kristin.
“No, we knew it would have been futile, even if Gaute had been a much richer man than he is.” Jofrid burst out laughing again. “Don’t you see, Mother? Father thinks he knows better than any man how to trade horses. But a person would have to be more alert than my father is if he wanted to fool Gaute Erlendss?n in an exchange of horses.”
Kristin couldn’t help smiling, in spite of her ill temper.
“I don’t know the law very well in such cases,” she said somberly. “But I’m not certain, Jofrid, that it will be easy for Gaute to obtain what you would consider a good reconciliation. If Gaute is sentenced as an outlaw, and your father takes you back home and lets you suffer his wrath, or if he demands that you enter a convent to atone for your sins . . .”
“He can’t send me to a convent without sending splendid gifts along with me, and it will be less costly and more honorable if he reconciles with Gaute and demands restitution. You see, then he won’t have to give up any cattle when he marries me off. And because of his dislike for Olav, my sister’s husband, I think I will share in the inheritance with my sisters. If not, then my kinsmen will have to see to this child’s welfare too. And I know Father would think twice before he tried to take me back home to Hovland with a bastard child, to let me suffer his wrath—knowing me as he does.
“I don’t know much about the law either, but I know Father, and I know Gaute. And now enough time has already passed that this proposal cannot be presented until I myself am delivered and healthy again. Then, Mother, you will not see me weeping! Oh no, I have no doubt that Gaute will have his reconciliation on such terms as—
“No, Mother . . . Gaute, who is a descendant of highborn men and kings . . . And you, who come from the best of lineages in Norway . . . If you have had to endure seeing your sons sink below the rank that was their birthright, then you will see prosperity regained for your descendants in the children that Gaute and I shall have.”
Kristin sat in silence. It was indeed conceivable that things might happen as Jofrid wished; she realized that she hadn’t needed to worry so much on her behalf. The girl’s face was now quite gaunt; the rounded softness of her cheeks had wasted away, and it was easier to see what a large, strong jaw she had.
Jofrid yawned, pushed herself up into a sitting position, and looked around for her shoes. Kristin helped her to put them on. Jofrid thanked her and said, “Don’t trouble Gaute anymore, Mother. He finds it hard to bear that we won’t be married beforehand, but I refuse to make my child poor even before he’s born.”
Two weeks later Jofrid gave birth to a big, fair son, and Gaute sent word to Sundbu the very same day. Sir Sigurd came at once to J?rundgaard, and he held Erlend Gautess?n when the boy was baptized. But as happy as Kristin Lavransdatter was with her grandson, it still angered her that Erlend’s name should be given for the first time to a paramour’s child.
“Your father risked more to give his son his birthright,” she told Gaute one evening as he sat in the weaving room and watched her get the boy ready for the night. Jofrid was already sleeping sweetly in her bed. “His love for old Sir Nikulaus was somewhat strained, but even so, he would never have shown his father such disrespect as to name his son after him if he were not lawfully born.”
“And Orm . . . he was named for his maternal grandfather, wasn’t he?” said Gaute. “Yes, I know, Mother, those may not be the words most becoming a good son. But you should realize that my brothers and I all noticed that while our father was alive, you didn’t think he was the proper example for us in many matters. And yet now you talk about him constantly, as if he had been a holy man, or close to it. You should know that we realize he wasn’t. All of us would be proud if we ever attained Father’s stature—or even reached to his shoulders. We remember that he was noble and courageous, foremost among men in terms of those qualities that suit a man best. But you can’t make us believe he was the most submissive or seemly of men in a woman’s chamber or the most capable of farmers.