As soon as Sira Eiliv had anointed her with the last oil and viaticum, Kristin Lavransdatter again lost consciousness. She lay there, violently vomiting blood, with a blazing fever, and the priest who was sitting with her told the nuns that the end would come quickly.
Several times the dying woman’s mind cleared enough that she could recognize one face or another: Sira Eiliv or the sisters. Fru Ragnhild herself was there once, and she saw Ulf. She struggled to show that she knew them and that it was good they were with her and wished her well. But for those who stood at her bedside, it merely looked as if she were flailing her hands in the throes of death.
Once she saw Munan’s face; her little son was peeking at her through a crack in the door. Then he pulled back his head, and his mother lay there, staring at the door to see if the boy would look through it again. Instead Fru Ragnhild appeared and wiped her face with a damp cloth, and that too felt good. Then everything disappeared in a dark red haze and a roar, which at first grew fearfully loud, but then the din gradually died away, and the red fog became thinner and lighter, and at last it was like a fine morning mist before the sun breaks through, and there was not a sound, and she knew that now she was dying.
Sira Eiliv and Ulf Haldorss?n left the deathbed together. In the doorway leading out to the convent courtyard, they stopped.
Snow had fallen. None of them had noticed this as they sat with her and she struggled with death. The white sheen was strangely dazzling on the steep slant of the church roof opposite them; the tower was pale against the murky gray sky. The snow lay so fine and white on all the window frames and all the jutting gray stones of the church walls. And the two men seemed to hesitate, not wanting to mar the new snow in the courtyard with their footprints.
They breathed in the air. After the suffocating smell that always surrounded someone stricken with the plague, it tasted sweet and cool, a little empty and thin, but as if this snowfall had washed sickness and contagion out of the air; it was as good as fresh water.
The bell in the tower began ringing again; the two men looked up to the movement behind the sound holes. Tiny snowflakes were shaken loose, rolling down to become little balls; some of the black shingles could be seen underneath.
“This snow won’t last,” said Ulf.
“No, it will melt away before evening,” replied the priest. There were pale golden rifts in the clouds, and a faint, tentative ray of sunshine fell across the snow.
The men stayed where they were. Then Ulf Haldorss?n said quietly, “I’ve been thinking, Sira Eiliv . . . I want to give some land to this church . . . and a goblet she gave me that once belonged to Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n . . . to establish a mass for her . . . and my foster sons . . . and for him, Erlend, my kinsman.”
The priest’s voice was equally quiet, and he did not look at the man. “I think you might also mean that you want to show Him your gratitude for leading you here last night. You must be grateful that you were allowed to help her through this night.”
“Yes, that was what I meant,” said Ulf Haldorss?n. Then he laughed a little. “And now I almost regret, priest, that I have been such a pious man—toward her.”
“It’s useless to waste your time over such futile regrets,” replied the priest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it’s only a man’s sins that it does any good for him to regret.”
“Why is that?”
“Because no one is good without God. And we can do nothing good without Him. So it’s futile to regret a good deed, Ulf, for the good you have done cannot be taken back; even if all the mountains should fall, it would still stand.”
“Well, well. That’s not how I see things, my Sira. I’m tired . . .”
“Yes . . . and you must be hungry too. Come with me over to the cookhouse, Ulf,” said the priest.
“Thank you, but I have no wish to eat anything,” said Ulf Hal dorss?n.
“All the same, you must come with me and have some food,” said Sira Eiliv, placing his hand on Ulf’s sleeve and pulling him along. They headed across the courtyard and over toward the cookhouse. Without thinking, they both walked as lightly and carefully as they could in the new snow.