Ragnfrid placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and kissed her cheek; the mother’s face and hands were strangely cold, but she felt sobs bursting deep inside her breast. Then she threw back the covers of the bed and invited the bride to sit down. Kristin obeyed and leaned back on the silk pillows propped up against the headboard; she had to tilt her head slightly forward because of the crown. Fru Aashild pulled the covers up to Kristin’s waist, placed the bride’s hands on top of the silk coverlet, and arranged her shining hair, spreading it out over her breast and her slender, naked arms.
Then the men led the bridegroom into the loft. Munan Baards?n removed Erlend’s gold belt and sword; when he hung it up on the wall above the bed, he whispered something to the bride. Kristin didn’t understand what he said, but she did her best to smile.
The groomsmen unlaced Erlend’s silk clothing and lifted the long, heavy garment over his head. He sat down in the high-backed armchair, and they helped him take off his spurs and boots.
Only once did the bride dare to look up and meet his eyes.
Then everyone wished the couple good night. The wedding guests left the loft. Last to leave was Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n, who closed the door to the bridal chamber.
Erlend stood up and tore off his underclothes and threw them onto the bench. He stood before the bed, took the crown and silk ribbons from Kristin’s hair, and placed them over on the table. Then he came back and climbed into bed. And kneeling beside her on the bed, he took her head in his hands, pressing it to his hot, naked chest as he kissed her forehead all along the red band that the crown had made.
She threw her arms around him and sobbed loudly. Sweet and wild, she felt that now it would all be chased away—the terror, the ghostly visions—now, at last, it was just the two of them again. He raised her face for a moment, looked down at her, and stroked her face and her body with his hand, strangely quick and rough, as if he were tearing away a covering.
“Forget,” he begged in an ardent whisper, “forget everything, my Kristin—everything except that you’re my wife, and I’m your husband.”
With his hand he put out the last flame and threw himself down next to her in the dark; he was sobbing too.
“I never believed, never in all these years, that we would live to see this day.”
Outside in the courtyard the noise died out, little by little. Weary from the ride earlier in the day and bleary with drink, the guests wandered around a while longer for the sake of propriety, but more and more of them began to slip away to find the places where they would sleep.
Ragnfrid escorted the most honored guests to their beds and bade them good night. Her husband, who should have been helping her with this, was nowhere to be found.
Small groups of youths, mostly servants, were the only ones remaining in the dark courtyard when she finally slipped away to find her husband and take him along to bed. She had noticed that Lavrans had grown exceedingly drunk as the evening wore on.
At last she stumbled upon him as she was walking stealthily outside the farmyard, looking for him. He was lying face down in the grass behind the bathhouse.
Fumbling in the dark, she recognized him—yes, it was him. She thought he was sleeping, and she touched his shoulder, trying to pull him up from the ice-cold ground. But he wasn’t asleep—at least not completely.
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice groggy.
“You can’t stay here,” said his wife. She held on to him, for he was reeling as he stood there. With her other hand she brushed off his velvet clothes. “It’s time for us to go to bed too, husband.” She put her hand under his arm and led the staggering man up toward the farm. They walked along behind the farmyard buildings.
“You didn’t look up, Ragnfrid, when you sat in the bridal bed wearing the crown,” he said in the same voice. “Our daughter was less modest than you were; her eyes were not shy as she looked at her bridegroom.”
“She has waited for him for three and a half years,” said the mother quietly. “After that I think she would dare to look up.”
“No, the Devil take me if they’ve waited!” shouted the father, and his wife hushed him, alarmed.
They were standing in the narrow lane between the back of the latrine and the fence. Lavrans slammed his fist against the lower timber of the outhouse.
“I put you here to suffer ridicule and shame, you timber. I put you here so the muck would devour you. I put you here as punishment because you struck down my pretty little maiden. I should have put you above the door of my loft and honored and thanked you with decorative carvings because you saved her from shame and from sorrow—for you caused my Ulvhild to die an innocent child.”