Kristin thought about Arne and had the greatest difficulty in holding back her sobs. She stared straight ahead, with tear-filled eyes, as the nun read the end of the story—how Didymus was led off to the gallows and Theodora came rushing down from the mountains, threw herself at the executioner’s feet, and begged to be allowed to die in his place. Then those two pious people argued about who would be the first to win the crown, and they were both beheaded on the same day. It was the twenty-eighth day of April in the year A.D. 304, in Antioch, as Saint Ambrosius has written of it.
When they rose from the table, Sister Potentia came over and patted Kristin kindly on the cheek. “Yes, I can imagine that you are longing for your mother.” Then Kristin’s tears began to fall. But the nun pretended not to notice, and she led Kristin to the dormitory where she was going to live.
It was in one of the stone buildings along the colonnade, a beautiful room with glass windowpanes and an enormous fireplace at the far end. Along one wall stood six beds and along the other were all of the maidens’ chests.
Kristin wished she would be allowed to sleep with one of the little girls, but Sister Potentia called to a plump, fair-haired, fully grown maiden.
“This is Ingebj?rg Filippusdatter, who will be your bedmate. The two of you should get acquainted.” And then she left.
Ingebj?rg took Kristin’s hand at once and began to talk. She was not very tall and much too fat, especially in her face; her eyes were tiny because her cheeks were so fat. But her complexion was pure, pink and white, and her hair was yellow like gold and so curly that her thick braids twisted and turned like ropes, and little locks were constantly slipping out from under her headband.
She immediately began asking Kristin about all sorts of things but never waited for an answer. Instead, she talked about herself and reeled off all her ancestors in all the branches; they were grand and enormously wealthy people. Ingebj?rg was also betrothed, to a rich and powerful man, Einar Einarss?n of Agan?s—but he was much too old and had twice been widowed. It was her greatest sorrow, she said. But Kristin couldn’t see that she was taking it particularly hard. Then Ingebj?rg talked a little about Simon Darre—it was strange how carefully she had studied him during that brief moment when they passed each other in the arcade. Then Ingebj?rg wanted to look in Kristin’s chest, but first she opened her own and showed Kristin all of her gowns. As they were rummaging in the chests, Sister Cecilia came in. She reproached them and told them that was not a proper activity on a Sunday. And then Kristin felt downhearted again. She had never been reprimanded by anyone except her own mother, and it felt odd to be scolded by strangers.
Ingebj?rg was completely unperturbed.
That night, after they had gone to bed, Ingebj?rg lay there talking, right up until Kristin fell asleep. Two elderly lay sisters slept in a corner of the room. They were supposed to see to it that the maidens did not remove their shifts at night—for it was against the rules for the girls to undress completely—and that they got up in time for matins at the church. But otherwise they didn’t concern themselves with keeping order in the dormitory, and they pretended not to notice when the maidens lay in bed talking or eating treats they had hidden in their chests.
When Kristin awoke the next morning, Ingebj?rg was already in the middle of a long story, and Kristin wondered whether she had been talking all night.
CHAPTER 2
THE FOREIGN MERCHANTS who spent the summer trading in Oslo arrived in the city in the spring, around Holy Cross Day, which was ten days before the Vigil of Saint Halvard. For that celebration, people came in throngs from all the villages from Lake Mj?sa to the Swedish border, so the town was teeming with people during the first weeks of May. It was best to buy goods from the foreigners during that time, before they had sold too many of their wares.
Sister Potentia was in charge of the shopping at Nonneseter, and on the day before the Vigil of Saint Halvard she had promised Ingebj?rg and Kristin that they could go along with her into town. But around noon some of Sister Potentia’s kinsmen came to the convent to visit her; she would not be able to go out that day. Then Ingebj?rg managed to beg permission for them to go alone, although this was against the rules. As an escort, an old farmer who received a corrody from the cloister was sent along with them. His name was Haakon.
By this time, Kristin had been at Nonneseter for three weeks, and in all that time she had not once set foot outside the convent’s courtyards and gardens. She was astonished to see how springlike it had become outside. The small groves of leafy trees out in the fields were shiny green, and the wood anemones were growing as thick as a carpet beneath the lustrous tree trunks. Bright fair-weather clouds came sailing above the islands in the fjord, and the water looked fresh and blue, rippled by small gusts of spring wind.