In the past she had so often thought that this was bound to happen one day. And she had not been terribly afraid of it. But it wouldn’t have been the same back then, when they could not and would not be allowed to marry in the proper fashion. It was considered … yes, it was thought to be shameful in many ways, and a sin too. But if it was a matter of two young people who refused to be forced from each other, that was something everyone would remember, and they would speak of the two with compassion. She would not have been ashamed. But when it happened to those who were betrothed, then everyone merely laughed and teased them mercilessly. She realized herself that it was laughable. Here they were brewing ale and making wine, slaughtering and baking and cooking for a wedding that would be talked about far and wide—and she, the bride, felt ill at the mere smell of food and crept behind the outbuildings, in a cold sweat, to throw up.
Erlend. She clenched her teeth in anger. He should have spared her this. She had not been willing. He should have remembered how it had been before, when everything had been uncertain for her, when she had had nothing to hold on to except his love; then she had always, always gladly yielded to his wishes. He should have left her alone this time, when she tried to refuse because she thought it improper for them to steal something in secret after her father had placed their hands together in the sight of all their kinsmen. But he had taken her, partly by force, but with laughter and with caresses too, so she had been unable to show him that she was serious in her refusal.
Kristin went inside to tend to the ale, and then came back and stood leaning over the fence. The grain swayed faintly, glinting in the light breeze. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the crops so dense and lush as this year. She caught a glimpse of the river in the distance, and she heard her father’s voice shouting; she couldn’t distinguish his words, but the workers out on the islet were laughing.
What if she went to her father and told him? It would be better to forgo all this trouble, to marry her to Erlend quietly, without a church wedding and grand feast—now that it was a matter of her acquiring a wife’s name before it became apparent to everyone that she was already carrying Erlend’s child.
Erlend would be ridiculed too, just as much as she would be, or more. He was not a young boy, after all. But he was the one who wanted this wedding, he wanted to see her as a bride wearing silk and velvet and a high golden crown; he wanted that, but he also wanted to possess her during all those sweet, secret hours. She had acquiesced to everything. She would continue to do as he wanted in this matter too.
And in the end, no doubt, he would realize that no one could have both. He who had talked of the great Christmas celebration he would hold at Husaby during the first year she was his wife on the manor—then he would show all his kinsmen and friends and the people of the villages far and wide what a beautiful wife he had won. Kristin smiled spitefully. Christmas this year would hardly be a fitting occasion for that.
It would happen around Saint Gregor’s Day. Her thoughts seemed to swirl in her head whenever she told herself that sometime close to Saint Gregor’s Day she would give birth to a child. She was a little frightened by it too; she remembered her mother’s shrill screams, which had rung out over the farm for two days when Ulvhild had come into the world. Over at Ulvsvold two young women had died, one after the other, in childbirth; and Sigurd of Loptsgaard’s first two wives had died too. And her own grandmother, for whom she was named.
But fear was not what she felt most. These past years, when she realized again that she was still not pregnant, she had thought that perhaps this was to be their punishment, hers and Friend‘s—that she would continue to be barren. They would wait and wait in vain for what they had feared before; they would hope so futilely, just as they had feared so needlessly. Until at last they would realize that one day they would be carried out from his ancestral estate and vanish. His brother was a priest, after all, and the children that Erlend already had could never inherit from him. Munan the Stump and his sons would come in and take their place, and Erlend would be erased from the lineage.
She pressed her hand hard against her womb. It was there—between her and the fence, between her and the vat. Between her and the whole world—Friend’s legitimate son. She had tried everything she had heard Fru Aashild once speak of, with blood from her right and left arm. She was carrying a son, whatever fate he might bring her. She remembered her brothers who had died and her parents’ sorrowful faces whenever they mentioned them; she remembered all those times when she had seen them in despair over Ulvhild, and the night she died. And she thought about all the sorrow she herself had caused them, and about her father’s care-worn face. And yet this was not the end of the grief she would bring to her father and mother.