The river was small and low, and it flowed so quietly; it was nothing more than tiny currents trickling between the sandbars and the heavy shoals of white stones worn smooth. No streams rushed down the slopes; it had been such a dry autumn. There were glints of moisture all over the fields, but it was only the dampness that always seeped up from the earth in the fall, no matter how hot the day or how clear the sky.
The throng of people down in the courtyard parted to make way for the bridegroom’s entourage. The young groomsmen rode forward. There was a ripple of excitement among the women on the gallery.
Fru Aashild was standing next to the bride.
“Be strong now, Kristin,” she said. “It won’t be long before you are safely under the wimple of a married woman.”
Kristin nodded helplessly. She could feel how terribly pale her face was.
“I’m much too pale a bride,” she murmured.
“You are the loveliest bride,” replied Aashild. “And there’s Erlend—it would be hard to find a more handsome pair than the two of you.”
Erlend rode forward beneath the gallery. He leaped from his horse, agile and unhampered by the heavy drapery of his clothing. Kristin thought he was so handsome that her whole body ached.
He was dressed in dark attire: a silk surcoat, pale brown interwoven with a black-and-white pattern, ankle-length and slit at the sides. Around his waist he wore a gold-studded belt and on his left hip a sword with gold on the hilt and scabbard. Over his shoulders hung a heavy, dark-blue velvet cape, and on his black hair he wore a black French silk cap which was shirred like wings at the sides and ended in two long streamers, one of which was draped across his chest from his left shoulder and then thrown back over the other.
Erlend greeted his bride, went over to her horse, and stood there with his hand on the saddlebow as Lavrans climbed the stairs. Kristin felt so odd and dizzy faced with all this splendor; her father seemed a stranger in the formal green velvet surcoat that reached to his ankles. But her mother’s face was ashen white beneath the wimple she wore with her red silk dress. Ragnfrid came over and placed the cloak around her daughter.
Then Lavrans took the bride’s hand and led her down to Erlend, who lifted her up onto her horse and then mounted his own. They sat there, side by side, in front of the bridal loft as the procession began to pass through the farm gates: first the priests, Sira Eirik and Sira Tormod from Ulvsvold, and a Brother of the Cross from Hamar who was a friend of Lavrans. Next came the groomsmen’ and the maidens, two by two. And then it was time for Erlend and Kristin to ride forward. After them followed the bride’s parents, kinsmen, friends, and guests in long lines, riding between the fences out to the village road. A long stretch of the road was strewn with clusters of mountain ash berries, spruce boughs, and the last white chamomile blossoms of the autumn. People stood along the road as the procession passed, greeting it with cheers.
On Sunday just after sundown the mounted procession returned to J?rundgaard. Through the first patches of twilight the bonfires shone red from the courtyard of the bridal farm. Musicians and fiddlers sang and played their drums and fiddles as the group rode toward the warm red glow.
Kristin was about to collapse when Erlend lifted her down from her horse in front of the gallery to the high loft.
“I was so cold crossing the mountain,” she whispered. “I’m so tired.” She stood still for a moment; when she climbed the stairway to the loft, she swayed on every step.
Up in the high loft the frozen wedding guests soon had the warmth restored to their bodies. It was hot from all the candles burning in the room, steaming hot food was served, and wine and mead and strong ale were passed around. The din of voices and the sounds of people eating droned in Kristin’s ears.
She sat there, unable to get warm. Her cheeks began to burn after a while, but her feet refused to thaw out and shivers of cold ran down her spine. All the heavy gold forced her to lean forward as she sat in the high seat at Erlend’s side.
Every time the bridegroom drank a toast to her, she had to look at the red blotches and patches that were so evident on his face now that he was warming up after the ride in the cold air. They were the marks of the burns from that summer.
A terrible fear had come over her the evening before, while they were at dinner at Sundbu, when she felt the vacant stare of Bj?rn Gunnars?n on her and Erlend—eyes that did not blink and did not waver. They had dressed Herr Bj?rn in knight’s clothing; he looked like a dead man who had been conjured back to life.
That night she shared a bed with Fru Aashild, who was the bridegroom’s closest kinswoman.