Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  She sat in silence for a long time.

  “You who are so good toward our children, Ulf,” she said at last. “It would seem to me more reasonable if you married and had your own worries to tend to—than that you should stay here, tormenting yourself . . . with Erlend’s and my troubles.”

  Ulf turned to face her. He stood with his hands gripping the edge of the table behind him and looked at Kristin Lavransdatter. She was still straight-backed and slender and beautiful as she sat there. Her gown was made of dark, hand-dyed woolen cloth, but she wore a fine, soft linen wimple around her calm, pale face. The belt from which her ring of keys hung was adorned with small silver roses. On her breast glittered two chains with crosses, the larger one on gilded links which hung almost to her waist; that one had been given to her by her father. On top lay the thin silver chain with the little cross which Orm had given to his stepmother, asking her to wear it always.

  So far she had recovered from each childbirth looking just as lovely as ever—only a little quieter, with heavier responsibilities on her young shoulders. Her cheeks were thinner, her eyes a little darker and more somber beneath the wide, white forehead, and her lips were a little less red and full. But her beauty would soon be worn away before many more years had passed if things continued in this fashion.

  “Don’t you think, Ulf, that you would be happier if you settled down on your own farm?” she continued. “Erlend told me that you’ve bought three more plots of land at Skjoldvirkstad—you will soon own half the estate. And Isak has only the one child—Aase is both beautiful and kind, a capable woman, and she seems to like you—”

  “And yet I don’t want her if I have to marry her,” sneered the man crudely and laughed. “Besides, Aase Isaksdatter is too good for . . .” His voice changed. “I’ve never known any other father but my foster father, Kristin, and I think it’s my fate not to have any other children but foster children.”

  “I’ll pray to the Virgin Mary that you’ll have better fortune, kinsman.”

  “I’m not so young, either. Thirty-five winters, Kristin,” he laughed. “It wouldn’t take many more than that and I could be your father.”

  “Then you must have begun your sinful ways early,” replied Kristin. She tried to make her voice sound merry and light-hearted.

  “Shouldn’t you go to sleep now?” Ulf asked.

  “Yes, soon—but you must be tired too, Ulf. You should go to bed.”

  The man quietly bade her good night and left the room.

  Kristin took the candlestick from the table and shone the light on the two sleeping boys in the enclosed bed. Bjørgulf’s eyelashes were not festering—thank God for that. The weather would stay fine for a while yet. As soon as the wind blew hard or the weather forced the children to stay inside near the hearth, his eyes would grow inflamed. She stood there a long time, gazing at the two boys. Then she went over and bent down to look at Gaute in his cradle.

  They had been as healthy as little fledglings, all three of her sons—until the sickness had come to the region last summer. A fever had carried off children in homes all around the fjord; it was a terrible thing to see and to hear about. She had been allowed to keep hers—all her own children.

  For five days she had sat near the bed on the south wall where they lay, all three of them, with red spots covering their faces and with feverish eyes that shunned the light. Their small bodies were burning hot. She sat with her hand under the coverlet and patted the soles of Bjørgulf’s feet while she sang and sang until her poor voice was no more than a whisper.

  Shoe, shoe the knight’s great horse.

  How are we to shoe it best?

  Iron shoes will pass the test.

  Shoe, shoe the earl’s great horse.

  How are we to shoe it best?

  Silver shoes will pass the test.

  Shoe, shoe the king’s great horse.

  How are we to shoe it best?

  Golden shoes will pass the test.

  Bjørgulf was less sick than the others, and more restless. If she stopped singing for even a minute, he would throw off the coverlets at once. Gaute was then only ten months old; he was so ill that she didn’t think he would survive. He lay at her breast, wrapped in blankets and furs, and had no strength to nurse. She held him with one arm as she patted the soles of Bjørgulf’s feet with her other hand.

  Now and then, if all three of them happened to fall asleep for a while, she would stretch out on the bed beside them, fully dressed. Erlend came and went, looking helplessly at his three small sons. He tried to sing to them, but they didn’t care for their father’s fine voice—they wanted their mother to sing, even though she didn’t have the voice for it.

  The servant women would come in, wanting their mistress to rest; the men would come in to inquire about the boys; and Orm tried to play with his young brothers. At Kristin’s advice, Erlend had sent Margret over to Østerdal, but Orm wanted to stay—he was grown up now, after all. Sira Eiliv sat at the children’s bedside whenever he wasn’t out tending to the sick. Through work and worry the priest had shed all the corpulence he had acquired at Husaby; it grieved him greatly to see so many fair young children perish. And some grownups had died too.

  By the evening of the sixth day, all the children were so much better that Kristin promised her husband to undress and go to bed that night. Erlend offered to keep watch along with the maids and to call Kristin if need be. But at the supper table she noticed that Orm’s face was bright red and his eyes were shiny with fever. He said it was nothing, but he jumped up abruptly and rushed out. When Erlend and Kristin went out to him, they found him vomiting in the courtyard.

  Erlend threw his arms around the youth.

  “Orm, my son. Are you ill?”

  “My head aches,” complained the boy, and he let his head sink heavily onto his father’s shoulder.

  That night they kept vigil over Orm. Most of the time he lay there muttering in delirium—then screaming loudly and flailing his long arms about, seeming to see hideous things. What he said they could not understand.

  In the morning Kristin collapsed. It turned out that she must have been with child again; now it went very badly for her, and afterwards she lay as if immersed in a deathlike sleep; later she was seized by a terrible fever. Orm had been in the grave for more than two weeks before she learned of her stepson’s death.

  At the time she was so weak that she couldn’t properly grieve. She felt so bloodless and faint that nothing seemed to reach her—she was content to lie in bed, only half-alive. There had been a dreadful time when the women hardly dared touch her or tend to her cleanliness, but that had all merged with the confusion of the fever. Now it felt good to submit to the care of others. Around her bed hung many fragrant wreaths of mountain flowers which were meant to keep the flies away—the people from the mountain pastures had sent them, and they smelled especially sweet whenever there was rain in the air. One day Erlend brought the children to her. She saw that they were haggard from their illness, and that Gaute didn’t recognize her, but even that didn’t trouble her. She merely sensed that Erlend seemed always to be at her side.

  He went to mass every day, and he knelt at Orm’s grave to pray. The cemetery was next to the parish church at Vinjar, but some of the infants in the family had been given a resting place inside the manor church at Husaby—Erlend’s two brothers and one of Munan Biskopssøn’s little daughters. Kristin had often felt sorry for these little ones who lay so alone under the flagstones. Now Orm Erlendssøn had his final resting place among these children.

  While the others feared for Kristin’s life, processions of beggars on their way to Nidaros just before Saint Olav’s Day began to pass through the region. They were mostly the same wandering men and women who had made the journey the year before; the pilgrims in Nidaros were always generous to the poor, since intercessions of this kind were considered particularly powerful. And they had learned to travel by way of Skaun during the years since Kristin had settled at Hu
saby. They knew that there on the estate they would be given shelter, alms, and an abundance of food before they continued on. This time the servants wanted to send them away because the mistress was ill. But when Erlend, who had been up north the last two summers, heard that his wife was accustomed to receiving the beggars so kindly, he ordered that they should be given food and lodging, just as they had before. And in the morning he himself tended to the wanderers, helping the servants to pour the ale and bring in food for them; he gave them alms as he quietly asked for their prayers of intercession for his wife. Many of the beggars wept when they heard that the gentle young woman lay close to death.

  All of this Sira Eiliv had told Kristin when she began to regain her health. Not until Christmastime was she strong enough to take up her keys again.

  Erlend had sent word to her parents as soon as she fell ill, but at the time they were in the south, attending a wedding at Skog. Later they came to Husaby; she was better by then, but so tired that she had little energy to talk to them. What she wanted most was simply to have Erlend at her bedside.

  Weak and pale and always cold, she would cling to his healthy body. The old fire in her blood had gone. It had disappeared so completely that she could no longer remember how it felt to love in that way, but with it had also vanished the worry and bitterness from the past few years. She felt that things were better now, even though the sorrow over Orm’s death lay heavily on both of them, and even though Erlend didn’t realize how frightened she was for little Gaute. But things were so good between them. She saw that he had feared terribly that he might lose her.

  And so it was difficult and painful for her to speak to him, to touch on matters that might destroy the peace and joy they now shared.

  She was standing outside in the bright summer night, in front of the entrance to the main house, when the servants returned from the dance. Margret was clinging to her father’s arm. She was dressed and adorned in a fashion that would have been more suited to a wedding feast than to a dance out on the green, where all manner of folk came together. But her stepmother had stopped interfering in the maiden’s upbringing. Erlend could do as he pleased in raising his own daughter.

  Erlend and Margret were both thirsty, so Kristin brought ale for them. The girl sat and talked with them for a while; she and her stepmother were good friends now that Kristin no longer attempted to instruct her. Erlend laughed at everything his daughter said about the dance. But finally Margret and her maid went up to the loft to sleep.

  Erlend continued roaming around the hall; he stretched, yawned, but claimed he wasn’t tired. He ran his fingers through his long black hair.

  “There wasn’t time for it after we were in the bathhouse. Because of the dance. I think you’ll have to cut my hair, Kristin; I can’t walk around like this during the holy days.”

  Kristin protested that it was too dark, but Erlend laughed and pointed to the vent hole in the ceiling; it was already daylight again. Then she relit the candle, told him to sit down, and draped a cloth around his shoulders. As she worked, he squirmed from the tickling, and laughed when the scissors came too close to his neck.

  Kristin carefully gathered up the hair clippings and burned them in the hearth; she shook out the cloth over the fire as well. Then she combed Erlend’s hair straight down from his scalp and snipped here and there, wherever the ends weren’t quite even.

  Erlend grabbed her hands tightly as she stood behind him, placed them at his throat, and smiled as he tilted his head back to look up at her.

  But then he let her go, saying, “You’re tired.” And he stood up with a little sigh.

  Erlend sailed to Bjørgvin right after Midsummer. He was disconsolate because his wife was again unable to travel with him. She smiled wearily; all the same, she wouldn’t have been able to leave Gaute.

  And so Kristin was once again alone at Husaby in the summer. But she was glad that this year she wouldn’t give birth until Saint Matthew’s Day; it would be difficult both for her and for the women who would attend her if it occurred during the harvest season.

  She wondered whether it would always be this way. Times were different now than when she was growing up. She had heard her father speak of the Danish war, and she remembered when he was away from home during the campaign against Duke Eirik. That was how he got the terrible scars on his body. But back home in the valleys, war had still seemed so far away, and no doubt most people thought it would never return. It was mostly peaceful, and her father was home, managing his estates, and thinking about and caring for all of them.

  Nowadays there was always unrest—everyone talked about wars and campaigns and the ruling of the kingdom. In Kristin’s mind it all merged with her image of the sea and the coast, which she had seen only once since she had moved north. From the coast they sailed and to the coast they came—men whose heads were full of ideas and plans and counterplots and deliberations; clergymen and laymen. To these men belonged Erlend, by virtue of his high birth and his wealth. But she felt that he stood partially outside their circles.

  She pondered and thought about this. What was it that caused her husband to have such a position? How did his peers truly regard him?

  When he was simply the man she loved, she had never asked about such things. She could see that he was short-tempered and impetuous and rash, that he had a particular penchant for acting unwisely. But back then she had found excuses for everything, never troubling to think about what his temperament might bring upon them both. When they had won her father’s consent to marry, everything would be different—that was how she had consoled herself. Gradually it dawned on her that it was from the moment a child was born to them that she began to think about things. What kind of man was Erlend, whom people called irresponsible and imprudent, a man whom no one could trust?

  But she had trusted him. She remembered Brynhild’s loft, she remembered how the bond between him and that other woman had finally been severed. She remembered his conduct after she had become his lawful bride. But he had stood by her in spite of all the humiliations and rejections; and she had seen that he did not want to lose her for all the gold on earth.

  She thought about Haftor of Godøy. He was always following her around, speaking words of nonsense and affection whenever they met, but she had never cared for his attentions. That must be his way of jesting. She didn’t think it was more than that; she had been fond of the handsome and boisterous man, and she was still fond of him. But to think that anyone would act that way in mere jest—no, she didn’t understand it.

  She had met Haftor Graut again at the royal banquets in Nidaros, and he sought out her company there too, just as he usually did. One evening he convinced her to go into a loft room, and she lay down with him on a bed that stood there. Back home in Gudbrandsdal she would never have thought of doing such a thing—there it was not a banquet custom for men and women to slip away, two by two. But here everyone did it; no one seemed to find it improper—it was apparently common practice among knights in other countries. When they first entered the room, Fru Elin, the wife of Sir Erling, was lying on the other bed with a Swedish knight; Kristin could hear that they were talking about the king’s earache. The Swede looked pleased when Fru Elin wanted to get up and go back to the hall.

  When Kristin realized that Haftor was quite serious about the intentions behind his request as they lay there and talked, she was so astonished that she failed to be either frightened or suitably indignant. They were both married, after all, and they both had children with their spouses. She had never truly believed that such things actually went on. In spite of all she herself had done and experienced—no, she hadn’t believed that such things happened. Haftor had always been merry and affectionate and full of laughter. She couldn’t say that what he wanted was to try to seduce her; he hadn’t been serious enough for that. And yet he wanted her to commit the worst of sins.

  He got off the bed the minute she told him to go. He had turned submissive, but he seemed more surprised than ash
amed. And he asked in utter disbelief: Did she truly think that married people were never unfaithful? But she must know that few men could admit to never having a paramour. Women were perhaps a little better than the men, and yet . . .

  “Did you believe everything the priests preach about sin and the like even back when you were a young maiden?” he asked. “Then I don’t understand, Kristin Lavransdatter, how Erlend ever managed to have his way with you.”

  Then he had looked into her eyes—and her eyes must have spoken, although she wouldn’t have discussed this matter with Haftor for any amount of gold. But his voice rang with amazement as he said, “I thought that was only something they wrote about—in ballads.”

  Kristin had not mentioned this episode to anyone, not even Erlend. He was fond of Haftor. And of course it was dreadful that some people could behave as recklessly as Haftor Graut, but she couldn’t see that it was any concern of hers. And he hadn’t attempted to be overly familiar toward her since then. Now whenever they met, he would simply sit and stare at her with obvious astonishment in his sea-blue eyes.

  No, if Erlend behaved rashly, it was not in that fashion, at any rate. And was he truly so imprudent? she wondered. She saw that people were startled by things he said, and afterwards they would put their heads together to talk. There was often much that was truthful and just in the opinions that Erlend Nikulaussøn expressed. The problem was that he never saw what the other men never allowed to slip from view: the cautious hindsight with which they kept an eye on each other. Intrigue, Erlend called it, and then he would laugh insolently, which seemed to provoke people at first but eventually won them over. They would laugh too, slap him on the shoulder, and say that he could be sharp-witted enough, but short-sighted.

  Then he would undo his own words with raucous and impudent banter. And people tolerated a great deal of this sort of behavior from Erlend. His wife was dimly aware of why everyone put up with his reckless talk, and it made her feel humiliated. For Erlend would yield as soon as he encountered any man who held firm to his own opinion; even if he understood no more than that this opinion was foolish, Erlend would nevertheless relinquish his own view on the matter. But he covered his retreat with disrespectful gossip about the man. And people were satisfied that Erlend had this cowardice of spirit—reckless as he was with his own welfare, adventurous, and boldly enamored of any danger that could be faced with armed force. All the same, they had no need to worry about Erlend Nikulaussøn.