Not until she asked about her sons at Tautra did Gunnulf become more talkative. With heartfelt joy the monastery had welcomed the two novices who belonged to one of the land’s best lineages. Nikulaus seemed to have such splendid spiritual talents and made such progress in his learning and devotions that the abbot was reminded of his glorious ancestor, the gifted defender of the Church, Nikulaus Arness?n. That was in the beginning. But after the brothers had donned cloister attire, Nikulaus had started behaving quite badly, and he had caused great unrest in the monastery. Gunnulf wasn’t sure of all the reasons, but one was that Abbot Johannes would not allow young brothers to become ordained as priests until they were thirty, and he refused to make an exception to this rule for Nikulaus. And because the venerable father thought that Nikulaus prayed and brooded more than he was spiritually prepared for and was thereby ruining his health with his pious exercises, he wanted to send the young man to one of the cloister’s farms on the island of Inder; there, under the supervision of several older monks, he was to plant an apple orchard. Then Nikulaus had apparently openly disobeyed the abbot’s orders, accusing his brothers of depleting the cloister’s property through extravagant living, of indolence in their service to God, and of unseemly talk. Most of this incident was never reported beyond the monastery walls, Gunnulf said, but Nikulaus had evidently also rebelled against the brother appointed by the abbot to reprimand him. Gunnulf knew that for a period of time he had been locked in a cell, but at last he had been chastened when the abbot threatened to separate him from his brother Bj?rg ulf and send one of them to Munkabu; it was no doubt the blind brother who had urged him to do this. Then Nikulaus had grown contrite and meek.
“It’s their father’s temperament in them,” said Gunnulf bitterly. “Nothing else could have been expected but that my brother’s sons would have a difficult time learning obedience and would show inconstancy in a godly endeavor.”
“It could just as well be their mother’s inheritance,” replied Kristin sorrowfully. “Disobedience is my gravest sin, Gunnulf, and I was inconstant too. All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path.”
“Erlend’s errant paths, you mean,” said the monk gloomily. “It was not just once that my brother led you astray, Kristin; I think he led you astray every day you lived with him. He made you forgetful, so you wouldn’t notice when you had thoughts that should have made you blush, because from God the Almighty you could not hide what you were thinking.”
Kristin stared straight ahead.
“I don’t know whether you’re right, Gunnulf. I don’t know whether I’ve ever forgotten that God could see into my heart, and so my sin may be even greater. And yet it was not, as you might think, that I needed to blush the most over my shameful boldness or my weakness, but rather over my thoughts that my husband was many times more poisonous than the venom of snakes. But surely the latter has to follow the former. You were the one who once told me that those who have loved each other with the most ardent desire are the ones who will end up like two snakes, biting each other’s tails.
“But it has been my consolation over these past few years, Gunnulf, that as often as I thought about Erlend meeting God’s judgment, unconfessed and without receiving the sacraments, struck down with anger in his heart and blood on his hands, he never became what you said or what I myself became. He never held on to anger or injustice any more than he held on to anything else. Gunnulf, he was so handsome, and he looked at peace when I laid out his body. I’m certain that God the Almighty knows that Erlend never harbored rancor toward any man, for any reason.”
Erlend’s brother looked at her, his eyes wide. Then he nodded.
After a moment the monk asked, “Did you know that Eiliv Serkss?n is the priest and adviser for the nuns at Rein?”
“No!” exclaimed Kristin jubilantly.
“I thought that was why you had chosen to go there yourself,” said Gunnulf. Soon afterward he said that he would have to go back to his cloister.
The first nocturn had begun as Kristin entered the church. In the nave and around all the altars there were great throngs of people. But a verger noticed that she was carrying a pitiful child in her arms, and he began pushing a path for her through the crowds so that she could make her way up to the front among the groups of those most crippled and ill, who occupied the middle of the church beneath the vault of the main tower, with a good view of the choir.