Four black spots emerged from the forest halfway down the slope. Four men on horseback. There was the flash of a spear point in the moonlight. They were making their way across with difficulty. No one had come here since the snowfall. Were they heading this way?
Four armed men. It was unlikely that anyone with a legitimate reason for visiting her would travel in such company. She thought about the chest containing Bj?rn’s and her valuables. Should she hide in the outbuilding?
She looked out across the wintry landscape and wilderness around her. Then she went into the house. The two old dogs that had been lying in front of the fireplace beat their tails against the floorboards. Bj?rn had taken the younger dogs along with him to the mountains.
She blew at the coals in the hearth and laid on some wood. She filled the iron pot with snow and hung it over the fire. She strained some milk into a wooden cask and carried it to the storeroom near the entryway.
Aashild took off her filthy, undyed homespun dress that stank of sweat and the cowshed and put on a dark blue one. She exchanged the rough muslin kerchief for a white linen wimple which she draped around her head and throat. She took off her fleecy leather boots and put on silver-buckled shoes.
Then she set about putting the room in order. She smoothed out the pillows and furs on the bed where Bj?rn had been sleeping during the day, wiped off the long table, and straightened the cushions on the benches.
Fru Aashild was standing in front of the fireplace, stirring the evening porridge, when the dogs gave warning. She heard the horses in the yard, the men coming into the gallery, and a spear striking the door. Aashild lifted the pot from the fire, straightened her dress, and, with the dogs at her side, stepped forward and opened the door.
Out in the moonlit courtyard three young men were holding four frost-covered horses. The man standing in the gallery shouted joyfully, “Aunt Aashild, is that you opening the door yourself? Then I must say ‘Ben trouvé!’ ”
“Nephew—is that you? Then I must say the same! Come inside while I show your men to the stable.”
“Are you alone on the farm?” asked Erlend. He followed along as she showed the men where to go.
“Yes, Herr Bj?rn and his man went out with the sleigh. They were going to see about bringing back some supplies we have stored on the mountain,” said Fru Aashild. “And I have no servant girl,” she added, laughing.
Soon afterward the four young men were seated on the outer bench with their backs against the table, watching the old woman quietly bustling about and putting out food for them. She spread a cloth on the table and set down a single lighted candle; she brought butter, cheese, a bear thigh, and a tall stack of fine, thin pieces of flatbread. She brought ale and mead from the cellar beneath the room, and then she served up the porridge in a beautiful wooden trencher and invited them to sit down and begin.
“It’s not much for you young fellows,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll have to cook another pot of porridge. Tomorrow you’ll have better fare—but I close up the cookhouse in the winter except when I’m baking or brewing. There are only a few of us here on the farm, and I’m starting to get old, my kinsman.”
Erlend laughed and shook his head. He noticed that his men showed the old woman more courtesy and respect than he had ever seen them show before.
“You’re a strange woman, Aunt. Mother was ten years younger than you, but the last time we visited, she looked older than you do tonight.”
“Yes, youth fled quickly enough from Magnhild,” said Fru Aashild softly. “Where are you coming from now?” she asked after a while.
“I’ve been spending some time on a farm up north in Lesja,” said Erlend. “I’ve rented lodgings there. I don’t know whether you can guess why I’ve come here to these parts.”
“You mean whether I know that you’ve asked for the hand of Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n’s daughter here in the south, at J?rundgaard?” asked Fru Aashild.
“Yes,” said Erlend. “I asked for her in proper and honorable fashion, and Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n stubbornly said no. Since Kristin and I refuse to let anything part us, I know of no other way than to take her away by force. I have … I’ve had a scout here in the village, and I know that her mother is supposed to be at Sundbu until some time after Saint Clement’s Day and that Lavrans is out at the headland with the other men to bring in the winter provisions for Sil.”
Fru Aashild sat in silence for a moment.
“You’d better give up that idea, Erlend,” she said. “I don’t think the maiden would follow you willingly, and you wouldn’t use force, would you?”