Simon sat up suddenly and gave a long whistle.
“You don’t care for the idea?” asked Lavrans.
“Oh, yes, yes,” replied the other man hastily. “This seems to be the best counsel, dear father-in-law. Send her to the sisters in Oslo for a year; then she’ll learn how people talk about each other out in the world. I happen to know a little about several of the maidens who are there,” he said and laughed. “They wouldn’t lie down and die of grief over two mad boys tearing each other apart for their sake. Not that I would want such a maiden for my wife, but I don’t think it would do Kristin any harm to meet some new people.”
Lavrans put the rest of the food in the knapsack and said, without looking at the young man, “You are fond of Kristin, I think.”
Simon laughed a little but did not look at Lavrans.
“You must know that I have great affection for her—and for you, as well,” Simon said brusquely, and then he stood up and put on his skis. “I have never met any maiden I would rather marry.”
Right before Easter, while it was still possible to drive a sleigh down the valley and across Lake Mj?sa, Kristin made her second journey to the south. Simon came to escort her to the cloister. So this time she traveled with her father and her betrothed, sitting in the sleigh, wrapped in furs. And accompanying them were servants and sleighs full of her chests of clothing and gifts of food and furs for the abbess and the sisters of Nonneseter.
PART II
THE WREATH
CHAPTER 1
EARLY ONE SUNDAY morning at the end of April, Aasmund Bj?rg ulfs?n’s church boat glided past the point on the island of Hoved? as the bells rang in the cloister church, and bells from the town chimed their reply out across the bay, sounding louder, then fainter as the wind carried the notes.
The sky was clear and pale blue, with light fluted clouds drifting across it, and the sun was glinting restlessly on the rippling water. It seemed quite springlike along the shore; the fields were almost bare of snow, and there were bluish shadows and a yellowish sheen on the leafy thickets. But snow was visible in the spruce forest atop the ridges framing the settlements of Aker, and to the west, on the distant blue mountains beyond the fjord, many streaks of white still gleamed.
Kristin was standing in the bow of the boat with her father and Gyrid, Aasmund’s wife. She turned her gaze toward the town, with all of its light-colored churches and stone buildings rising up above the multitudes of grayish-brown wooden houses and the bare crowns of the trees. The wind ruffled the edges of her cloak and tousled her hair beneath her hood.
They had let the livestock out to pasture at Skog the day before, and Kristin had suddenly felt such a homesickness for J?rundgaard. It would be a long time before they could let out the cattle back home. She felt a tender and sympathetic longing for the winter-gaunt cattle in the dark stalls; they would have to wait and endure for many days yet. She missed everyone so—her mother, Ulvhild, who had slept in her arms every night for all these years, little Ramborg. She longed for all the people back home and for the horses and dogs; for Kortelin, whom Ulvhild would take care of while she was gone; and for her father’s hawks, sitting on their perches with hoods over their heads. Next to them hung the gloves made of horsehide, which had to be worn when handling them, and the ivory sticks used to scratch them.
All the terrible events of the winter now seemed so far away, and she only remembered her home as it had been before. They had also told her that no one in the village thought ill of her. Nor did Sira Eirik; he was angry and aggrieved by what Bentein had done. Bentein had escaped from Hamar, and it was said that he had run off to Sweden. So things had not been as unpleasant between her family and the people of the neighboring farm as Kristin had feared.
On their way south they had stayed at Simon’s home, and she had met his mother and siblings; Sir Andres was still in Sweden. She had not felt at ease there, and her dislike of the family at Dyfrin was all the greater because she knew of no reasonable explanation for it. During the entire journey she had told herself that they had no reason to be haughty or to consider themselves better than her ancestors—no one had ever heard of Reidar Darre, the Birch-Leg, until King Sverre found the widow of the baron at Dyfrin for him to wed.
But they turned out not to be haughty at all, and Simon even spoke of his ancestor one evening. “I have now found out for certain that he was supposed to have been a comb maker—so you will truly be joining a royal lineage, Kristin,” he said.
“Guard your tongue, my boy,” said his mother, but they all laughed.