CHAPTER 4
ONE SUMMER MORNING a year later Kristin was out on the gallery of the old hearth house, cleaning out several chests of tools that stood there. When she heard horses being led into the courtyard, she went to have a look, peering between the narrow pillars of the gallery. One of the servants was leading two horses, and Gaute had appeared in the stable doorway; the boy Erlend was sitting astride his father’s shoulders. The bright little face looked over the top of the man’s yellow hair, and Gaute was holding the boy’s tiny hands clasped in his own big tan hands under his chin. He handed the child to a maid who came across the courtyard and then mounted his horse. But when Erlend screamed and reached for his father, Gaute took him back and set him in front of him on the saddle. At that moment Jofrid came out of the main house.
“Are you taking Erlend with you? Where are you headed?”
Gaute replied that he was going up to the mill; the river was threatening to carry it away. “And Erlend says he wants to go with his father.”
“Have you lost your wits?” She quickly pulled the boy down, and Gaute roared with laughter.
“I think you actually believed I was going to take him along!”
“Yes.” His wife laughed too. “You’re always taking the poor boy everywhere. I think you’d do the same as the lynx: eat your own young before you’d let anyone else take him.”
She lifted the child’s hand to wave to Gaute as he rode off from the estate. Then she put the boy down on the grass and squatted down next to him for a moment to talk to him a bit before she continued on her way over to the new storeroom and up to the loft.
Kristin stood where she was, gazing at her grandson. The morning sun shone so brightly on the little child dressed in red. Young Erlend twirled around in circles, staring down at the grass. Then he caught sight of a big pile of wood chips, and at once he busily began strewing them all around. Kristin laughed.
He was fifteen months old, but his parents thought he was ahead of his age, because he could walk and run and even say two or three words. Now he was heading straight for the little stream that ran through the lower part of the courtyard and became a gurgling creek whenever it rained in the mountains. Kristin ran over and picked him up in her arms.
“You mustn’t. Your mother will be cross if you get wet.”
The boy drew his lips into a pout; he was probably wondering whether to cry because he wasn’t allowed to splash in the stream or to give in. Getting wet was quite a big sin for him. Jofrid was much too strict with him about such matters. But he looked so clever. Laughing, Kristin kissed the boy, put him down, and went back to the gallery. But she made little headway with her work; mostly she stood and looked out at the courtyard.
The morning sun glowed so gentle and lovely above the three storerooms across from her. Kristin felt as if she hadn’t taken a good look at them for a long time. How splendid the buildings were with the pillars adorning their loft galleries and the elaborate carvings. The gilded weather vane on the crossed timbers of the gable of the new storeroom glittered against the blue haze covering the mountains in the distance. This year, after the wet spring, the grass was so fresh on the rooftops.
Kristin gave a little sigh, cast another glance at little Erlend, and then turned back to the chests.
Suddenly the wailing cry of a child pierced the air behind her. She threw down everything she was holding and rushed outside. Erlend was shrieking as he looked back and forth from his finger to a half-dead wasp lying in the grass. When his grandmother lifted him up to soothe him, he screamed even louder. And when she, amid much crying and complaining, put some damp earth and a cold green leaf on the sting, his wailing became quite dreadful.
Hushing and caressing him, Kristin carried the boy into her house, but he screamed as if he were in deadly pain—and then stopped short in the middle of a howl. He recognized the box and horn spoon that his grandmother was taking down from above the door. Kristin dipped pieces of lefse in honey and fed them to the child as she continued to soothe him, placing her cheek against his fair neck where the hair was still short and curly from the days when he lay in his cradle and rubbed his head against the pillow. And then Erlend forgot all about his sorrow and turned his face up toward Kristin, offering to pat and kiss her with sticky hands and lips.
As they sat there, Jofrid came into the room.
“Have you brought him indoors? You didn’t need to do that, Mother. I was just upstairs in the loft.”
Kristin mentioned what had happened to Erlend outside. “Didn’t you hear him scream?”