Erlend stayed behind, his face deathly white. Suddenly he started running. North of the church there were several small hills with scraggly grass slopes and shrubs of juniper and alpine birch that had been grazed over; goats usually roamed there. Erlend raced to the top. From there he would be able to see her for a little while longer, until she disappeared into the woods.
Gunnulf slowly followed his brother. The priest looked so tall and dark in the bright morning light. He too was very pale.
Erlend was standing with his mouth half-open and tears streaming down his white cheeks. Abruptly he bent forward and dropped to his knees; then he threw himself down full length on the scruffy grass. He lay there sobbing and sobbing, tugging at the heather with his long tan fingers.
Gunnulf stood quite still. He stared down at the weeping man and then gazed out toward the forest where the woman had disappeared.
Erlend raised his head off the ground. “Gunnulf—was it necessary for you to compel her to do this? Was it necessary?” he asked again. “Couldn’t you have offered her absolution?”
The other man did not reply.
Then Erlend spoke again. “I made my confession and offered penance.” He sat up. “I bought for her thirty masses and an annual mass for her soul and burial in consecrated ground; I confessed my sin to Bishop Helge and I traveled to the Shrine of the Holy Blood in Schwerin. Couldn’t that have helped Kristin a little?”
“Even though you have done that,” said the priest quietly, “even though you have offered God a contrite heart and been granted full reconciliation with Him, you must realize that year after year you will still have to strive to erase the traces of your sin here on earth. The harm you did to the woman who is now your wife when you dragged her down, first into impure living and then into blood guilt—you cannot absolve her of that, only God can do so. Pray that He holds His hand over her during this journey when you can neither follow her nor protect her. And do not forget, brother, for as long as you both shall live, that you watched your wife leave your estate in this manner—for the sake of your sins more than for her own.”
A little later Erlend said, “I swore by God and my Christian faith before I stole her virtue that I would never take any other wife, and she promised that she would never take any other husband for as long as we both should live. You said yourself, Gunnulf, that this was then a binding marriage before God; whoever later wed another would be living in sin in His eyes. So it could not have been impure living that Kristin was my . . .”
“It was not a sin that you lived with her,” said the priest after a moment, “if it could have been done without breaking other laws. But you drove her into sinful defiance against everyone God had put in charge of this child—and then you brought the shame of blood upon her. I told you this too, back when we talked of this matter. That’s why the Church has created laws regarding marriage, why banns must be announced, and why we priests must not marry man and maiden against the will of their kinsmen.” He sat down, clasped his hands around one knee, and stared out across the summer-bright landscape, where the little lake glinted blue at the bottom of the valley. “Surely you must realize that, Erlend. You had sown a thicket of brambles around yourself, with nettles and thorns. How could you draw a young maiden to you without her being cut and flayed bloody?”
“You stood by me more than once, brother, during that time when I was with Eline,” said Erlend softly. “I have never forgotten that.”
“I don’t think I would have done so,” replied Gunnulf, and his voice quavered, “if I had imagined that you would have the heart to behave in such a manner toward a pure and delicate maiden—and a mere child compared to you.”
Erlend said nothing.
Gunnulf asked him gently, “That time in Oslo—didn’t you ever think about what would happen to Kristin if she became with child while she was living in the convent? And was betrothed to another man? Her father a proud and honorable man—and all her kinsmen of noble lineage, unaccustomed to bearing shame.”
“Of course I thought about it.” Erlend had turned his face away. “Munan promised to take care of her—and I told her that too.”
“Munan! Would you deign to speak to a man like Munan of Kristin’s honor?”
“He’s not the sort of man you think,” said Erlend curtly.
“But what about our kinswoman Fru Katrin? For surely you didn’t intend for him to take Kristin to any of his other estates, where his paramours live. . . .”
Erlend slammed his fist against the ground, making his knuckles bleed.
“The Devil himself must have a hand in it when a man’s wife goes to his brother for confession!”
“She hasn’t confessed to me,” said the priest. “Nor am I her parish priest. She told me her laments during her bitter fear and anguish, and I tried to help her and give her such advice and solace as I thought best.”
“I see.” Erlend threw back his head and looked up at his brother. “I know that I shouldn’t have done it; I shouldn’t have allowed her to come to me at Brynhild’s inn.”
The priest sat speechless for a moment.
“At Brynhild Fluga’s?”
“Yes, didn’t she tell you that when she told you all the rest?”
“It will be hard enough for Kristin to say such things about her lawful husband in confession,” said the priest after a pause. “I think she would rather die than speak of it anywhere else.”
He fell silent and then said harshly and vehemently, “If you felt, Erlend, that you were her husband before God and the one who should protect and guard her, then I think your behavior was even worse. You seduced her in groves and in barns, you led her across a harlot’s threshold. And finally up to Bj?rn Gunnarss?n and Fru Aashild . . .”
“You mustn’t speak of Aunt Aashild that way,” said Erlend in a low voice.
“You’ve said yourself that you thought our aunt caused the death of our father’s brother—she and that man Bj?rn.”
“It makes no difference to me,” said Erlend forcefully. “I’m fond of Aunt Aashild.”
“Yes, so I see,” said the priest. A crooked, mocking little smile appeared on his lips. “Since you were ready to leave her to face Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n after you carried off his daughter. It seems as if you think that your affection is worth paying dearly for, Erlend.”
“Jesus!” Erlend hid his face in his hands.
But the priest continued quickly, “If only you had seen the torment of your wife’s soul as she trembled in horror of her sins, unconfessed and unredeemed—as she sat there, about to give birth to your child, with death standing at the door—so young a child herself, and so unhappy.”
“I know, I know!” Erlend was shaking. “I know she lay there thinking about this as she suffered. For Christ’s sake, Gunnulf, say no more. I’m your brother, after all!”
But he continued without mercy.
“If I had been a man like you and not a priest, and if I had led astray so young and good a maiden, I would have freed myself from that other woman. God help me, but I would have done as Aunt Aashild did to her husband and then burned in Hell forever after, rather than allow my innocent and dearest beloved to suffer such things as you have done.”
Erlend sat in silence for a moment, trembling.
“You say that you’re a priest,” he said softly. “Are you such a good priest that you have never sinned—with a woman?”