On the following morning when Kristin got up, she learned that her uncle and his entire entourage had left J?rundgaard—in anger. Trond had called his sister a crazy, demented woman and her husband a spineless fool who had never learned to rein in his wife. Kristin grew flushed with rage, but she was also ashamed. She realized that a grave impropriety had taken place when her mother had driven her closest kinsmen from the manor. And for the first time it occurred to Kristin that there was something about her mother that was not as it should be—that she was different from other women.
As she stood and pondered this, a maidservant came up to her and asked her to go up to the loft to her father.
But when she stepped into the loft room Kristin forgot all about tending to him, for across from the open doorway, with the light shining directly in her face, sat a small woman, whom she realized must be the witch—although Kristin had not expected her to look like that.
She seemed as small as a child, and delicate, for she was sitting in the big high-backed chair that had been brought up to the room. A table had also been placed in front of her, covered with Ragnfrid’s finest embroidered linen cloth. Pork and fowl were set forth on silver platters, there was wine in a bowl of curly birchwood, and she had Lavrans’s own silver goblet to drink from. She had finished eating and was wiping her small, slender hands on one of Ragnfrid’s best towels. Ragnfrid herself stood in front of her, holding a brass basin of water.
Fru Aashild let the towel drop into her lap, smiled at the child, and said in a lovely, clear voice, “Come over here to me!” And to Kristin’s mother she said, “You have beautiful children, Ragnfrid.”
Her face was full of wrinkles but pure white and pink like a child‘s, and her skin looked as if it were just as soft and fine to the touch. Her lips were as red and fresh as a young woman’s, and her big hazel eyes gleamed. An elegant white linen wimple framed her face and was fastened tightly under her chin with a gold brooch; over it she wore a veil of soft, dark-blue wool, which fell loosely over her shoulders and onto her dark, well-fitting clothes. She sat as erect as a candle, and Kristin sensed rather than thought that she had never seen such a beautiful or noble woman as this old witch whom the gentry of the village refused to have anything to do with.
Fru Aashild held Kristin’s hand in her own soft old hands; she spoke to her kindly and with humor, but Kristin could not find a word to reply.
Fru Aashild said to Ragnfrid with a little laugh, “Do you think she’s afraid of me?”
“No, no,” Kristin almost shouted.
Fru Aashild laughed even more and said, “She has wise eyes, this daughter of yours, and good strong hands. And she’s not accustomed to slothfulness either, I can see. You’re going to need someone who can help you care for Ulvhild when I’m not here. So you can let Kristin assist me while I’m at the manor. She’s old enough for that, isn’t she? Eleven years old?”
Then Fru Aashild left, and Kristin was about to follow her. But Lavrans called to her from his bed. He was lying flat on his back with pillows stuffed under his knees; Fru Aashild had ordered him to lie in this manner so that the injury to his chest would heal faster.
“You’re going to get well soon, aren’t you, Father?” asked Kristin, using the formal means of address. Lavrans looked up at her. Never before had she addressed him in that manner.
Then he said somberly, “I’m not in danger, but it’s much more serious for your sister.”
“I know,” said Kristin with a sigh.
Then she stood next to his bed for a while. Her father did not speak again, and Kristin could find nothing more to say. And when Lavrans told her some time later to go downstairs to her mother and Fru Aashild, Kristin hurried out and rushed across the courtyard to the winter house.
CHAPTER 4
FRU AASHILD stayed at J?rundgaard for most of the summer, which meant that people came there to seek her advice. Kristin heard Sira Eirik speak jeeringly of this, and it dawned on her that her parents did not much care for it either. But she pushed aside all thoughts of these things, nor did she pay any heed to what her own opinion of Fru Aashild might be; she was her constant companion and never tired of listening to and watching the woman.
Ulvhild still lay stretched out flat on her back in the big bed. Her small face was white to the very edge of her lips, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her lovely blond hair smelled sharply of sweat because it hadn’t been washed in such a long time; it had turned dark and had lost its sheen and curl so that it looked like old, windblown hay. She looked tired and tormented and patient, and she would smile, feeble and wan, whenever Kristin sat by her on the bed to talk and to show her all the lovely presents she had received from her parents and their friends and kinsmen far and wide. There were dolls, toy birds and cattle, a little board game, jewelry, velvet caps, and colorful ribbons. Kristin had put it all in a box for her. Ulvhild would look at everything with her somber eyes, sigh, and then let the treasures fall from her weary hands.