Kristin swallowed her tears, whispering in a thick voice, “You’re saying this to hurt me.”
“Do you think I want to hurt you?” asked Simon softly. “This is not how things would have been if you … ,” Kristin said hesitantly. “You were never asked, either, Simon. It was your father and mine who decided on this marriage. It would have been different if you had chosen me yourself.”
Simon drove his dagger into the bench so that it stood upright. After a moment he pulled it out and tried to slip it back into its scabbard. But it refused to go in because the tip was bent. Then he went back to fumbling with it, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“You know very well … ,” he said, his voice low and shaking. “You know that you would be lying if you tried to pretend that I didn’t … You know quite well what I wanted to talk to you about, many times, but you received me in such a way that I wouldn’t have been a man if I had mentioned it afterward, not if they tried to draw it out of me with burning tongs.
“At first I thought it was the dead boy. I thought I should give you some time … you didn’t know me… I thought it would be harmful to you, such a short time after. Now I see that you didn’t need long to forget … and now … now … now …”
“No,” said Kristin quietly. “I understand, Simon. I can’t expect you to be my friend any longer.”
“Friend!” Simon gave an odd little laugh. “Are you in need of my friendship now?”
Kristin blushed.
“You’re a man now,” she said softly. “And old enough. You can decide on your own marriage.”
Simon gave her a sharp look. Then he laughed as he had before.
“I see. You want me to say that I’m the one who … I should take the blame for this breach of promise?
“If it’s true that you are set in your decision—if you dare and are determined to press your case—then I will do it,” he said softly. “To my family back home and before all your kinsmen—except one. You will have to tell your father the truth, such as it is. If you wish, I will take your message to him and make it as easy for you as I can. But Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n must know that I would never go against a promise that I have made to him.”
Kristin gripped the edge of the bench with both hands; this affected her more strongly than everything else Simon Darre had said. Pale and frightened, she glanced up at him.
Simon stood up.
“We must go in now,” he said. “I think we’re both freezing, and the sister is waiting for us with the key. I’ll give you a week to think things over. I have some business here in town. I’ll come back to talk to you before I leave, but I doubt you’ll want to see me before then.”
CHAPTER 8
SO THAT WAS FINALLY SETTLED, Kristin told herself. But she felt exhausted, drained, and sick with yearning for Erlend’s arms.
She lay awake most of the night, and she decided to do what she had never before dared—she would send a message to Erlend. It wasn’t easy to find someone who could carry out this errand for her. The lay sisters never went out alone, and she couldn’t think of anyone she knew who would do it. The men who did the farm work were older and seldom came near the nuns’ residence except to speak with the abbess. So Olav was the only one. He was a half-grown boy who worked in the gardens. He had been Fru Groa’s foster son ever since he was found one morning as a newborn infant on the steps of the church. People said his mother was one of the lay sisters. She was supposed to become a nun, but after she had sat in the dark cell for six months—for gross disobedience, it was said, and that was after the child was found—she was given lay-sister garb, and since then she had worked in the farmyard. During the past months Kristin had often thought about Sister Ingrid’s fate, but she had never had the chance to talk to her. It was risky to count on Olav; he was only a child, and Fru Groa and all the nuns talked to him and teased him whenever they saw him. But Kristin thought she had very little left to lose. And a couple of days later, when Olav was about to go into town one morning, Kristin asked him to take her message out to Akersnes, telling Erlend to find some excuse so they could meet alone.
That same afternoon Ulv, Erlend’s own servant, appeared at the speaking gate. He said he was Aasmund Bj?rgulfs?n’s man and had been sent by his master to ask whether Aasmund’s niece might come into town for a while, because he didn’t have time to come up to Nonneseter himself. Kristin thought this would never work; but when Sister Potentia asked her whether she knew the messen ger, she said yes. So she went with Ulv over to Brynhild Fluga’s house.