Two days later, early in the morning, when Jofrid was only half dressed and Gaute was still in bed, Kristin came into their room. She was wearing a robe and cape of gray homespun, with a wide-brimmed black felt hat over her wimple and sturdy shoes on her feet. Gaute turned blood-red when he saw his mother dressed in such attire. Kristin said she wanted to go to Nidaros for the Feast of Saint Olav, and she asked her son to look after her chores while she was gone.
Gaute protested vigorously; she should at least borrow horses and men to escort her and take her maid along. But his words had little authority, as might be expected from a man lying naked in bed before his mother’s eyes. Kristin felt such pity for his bewilderment that she came up with the idea that she had had a dream.
“And I long to see your brothers again—” But then she had to turn away. She had not yet dared express in her heart how much she yearned for and dreaded this reunion with her two oldest sons.
Gaute insisted on accompanying his mother part of the way. While he dressed and had something to eat, Kristin sat laughing and playing with little Erlend; he chattered on, alert and lively with the morning. She kissed Jofrid farewell, and she had never done that before. Out in the courtyard all the servants had gathered; Ingrid had told them that Mistress Kristin was going on a pilgrimage to Nidaros.
Kristin picked up the heavy iron-shod staff, and since she didn’t want to ride, Gaute put her travel bag on his horse’s back and let the animal walk on ahead.
Up on the church hill Kristin turned around and looked down at her estate. How lovely it looked in the dewy, sun-drenched morning. The river shone white. The servants were still standing there; she could make out Jofrid’s light-colored gown and wimple, and the child like a red speck in her arms. Gaute saw that his mother’s face turned pale with emotion.
The road led up through the woods beneath the shadow of Hammer Ridge. Kristin walked as easily as a young maiden. She and her son said very little to each other. After they had walked for two hours, they reached the place where the road turns north under Rost Peak and the whole Dovre countryside stretches below, to the north. Then Kristin said that Gaute should go no farther with her, but first she wanted to sit down and rest for a while.
Beneath them lay the valley with the pale green ribbon of the river cutting through it and the farms like small green patches on the forested slopes. But higher up, the moss-covered heights, brown and lichen-yellow, arched against the gray scree and bare peaks, flecked with snowdrifts. The shadows of the clouds drifted over the valley and plains, but in the north the mountains were so brightly lit; one mountainous shape after another had freed itself from the misty cloak and loomed blue, one beyond the other. And Kristin’s yearning glided north with the cloud clusters to the long road she had before her and raced across the valley, in among the great barricading slopes and the steep, narrow paths through the wilds across the plateaus. A few more days and she would be on her way down through the beautiful green valleys of Tr?ndelag, following the current of the river toward the great fjord. She shuddered at the memory of the familiar villages along the sea, where she had spent her youth. Erlend’s handsome figure appeared before her eyes, shifting in stance and demeanor, swift and indistinct, as if she were seeing him mirrored in a rippling stream. At last she would reach Feginsbrekka, at the marble cross, and Nidaros would be lying there at the mouth of the river, between the blue fjord and the green Strind: on the shore the magnificent light-colored church with its dizzying towers and golden weather vanes, with the blaze of the evening sun on the rose in the middle of its breast. And deep inside the fjord, beneath the blue peaks of Frosta, lay Tautra, low and dark like the back of a whale, with its church tower like a dorsal fin. Oh, Bj?rgulf . . . oh, Naakkve.
But when she looked back over her shoulder, she could still catch a glimpse of her home mountain beneath H?vringen. It lay in shadow, but with an accustomed eye she could see where the pasture path wound through the woods. She knew the gray domes that rose up over the carpet of forest; they surrounded the old meadows belonging to the people of Sil.
The sound of a lur echoed from the hills: several shrill tones that died away and then reappeared. It sounded as if children were practicing blowing the horn. A distant clanging of bells, the rush of the river fading lazily away, and the deep sighs of the forest in the quiet, warm day. Kristin’s heart trembled anxiously in the silence.
Homesickness urged her forward; homesickness drew her back toward the village and the manor. Pictures of everyday things teemed before her eyes: She saw herself leaping with the goats along the path through the sparse woods south of their mountain pasture. A cow had strayed into the marsh; the sun was shining brightly. When she paused for a moment to listen, she felt her own sweat stinging her skin. She saw the courtyard back home in swirling snow—a dingy white, stormy day seething toward a wild winter night. She was almost blown back into the entryway when she opened the door; the blizzard took her breath away, but there they came, those two snow-covered bundles, men wearing long fur coats: Ivar and Skule had come home. The tips of their skis sank deep into the great snowdrift that always formed across the courtyard when the wind blew from the northwest. Then there were always huge drifts in two parts of the courtyard. All of a sudden she felt herself longing with love for those two drifts that she and all the manor servants had cursed each winter; she felt as if she were condemned never to see them again.