“You might as well hear it from my lips, then—the news will doubtless reach here soon enough.” He sat in silence for a moment. “Gjavvald died three days before Winter Night.1 He fell off his horse and broke his back. Do you remember before you reach Dyfrin how the road heads east of the river and there’s a steep drop-off? No, you probably don’t. We were on our way to their betrothal celebration; Arne and his sons had come by ship to Oslo.” Then Simon fell silent.
“She must have been happy, Sigrid—because she was going to marry Gjavvald,” said Kristin, shy and timid.
“Yes,” said Simon. “And she had a son by him—on the Feast Day of the Apostles this spring.”
“Oh, Simon!”
Sigrid Andresdatter, with the brown curls framing her small round face. Whenever she laughed, deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. The dimples and the small, childish white teeth—Simon had them too. Kristin remembered that when she grew less kindly inclined toward her betrothed, these things seemed to her unmanly, especially after she had met Erlend. They were much alike, Sigrid and Simon; but in her case it seemed charming that she was so plump and quick to laughter. She was fourteen winters old back then. Kristin had never heard such merry laughter as Sigrid’s. Simon was always teasing his youngest sister and joking with her; Kristin could see that of all his siblings, he was most fond of her.
“You know that Father loved Sigrid best,” said Simon. “That’s why he wanted to see whether she and Gjavvald would like each other before he made this agreement with Arne. And they did—in my mind a little more than was proper. They always had to sit close whenever they met, and they would steal looks at each other and laugh. That was last summer at Dyfrin. But they were so young. No one could have imagined this. And our sister Astrid—you know she was betrothed when you and I . . . Well, she voiced no objections; Torgrim is very wealthy and kind, and in a certain way . . . but he finds fault with everyone and everything, and he thinks he suffers from all the ailments and troubles that anyone can name. So all of us were happy when Sigrid seemed so pleased with the man chosen for her.
“And then we brought Gjavvald’s body to the manor. Halfrid, my wife, arranged things so that Sigrid would come home with us to Mandvik. And then it came out that Sigrid wasn’t left alone when Gjavvald died.”
They were silent for a while. Then Kristin said softly, “This has not been a joyful journey for you, Simon.”
“No, it hasn’t.” Then he gave a laugh. “But I’ve gotten used to traveling on unfortunate business, Kristin. And I was the closest one, after all—Father lacked the courage, and they’re living with me at Mandvik, Sigrid and her son. But now he’ll have a place in his father’s lineage, and I could see from all of them there that he won’t be unwelcome, the poor little boy, when he goes to live with them.”
“But what of your sister?” asked Kristin, breathlessly. “Where is she to live?”
Simon looked down at the ground.
“Father will take her home to Dyfrin now,” he said in a low voice.
“Simon! Oh, how can you have the heart to agree to this?”
“You must realize,” he replied without looking up, “that it’s a great advantage for the boy, that he’ll be part of his father’s family from the beginning. Halfrid and I, we would have liked to keep both of them with us. No sister could be more loyal and loving toward another than Halfrid is toward Sigrid. None of our kinsmen has been unkind toward her—you mustn’t think that. Not even Father, although this has made him a broken man. But can’t you see? It wouldn’t be right if any of us objected to the innocent boy gaining inheritance and lineage from his father.”
Kristin’s child let go of her breast. She quickly drew her garments closed over her bosom and, trembling, hugged the infant close. He hiccupped happily a couple of times and then spit up a little over himself and his mother’s hands.
Simon glanced at the two of them and said with an odd smile, “You had better luck, Kristin, than my sister did.”
“Yes, no doubt it may seem unfair to you,” said Kristin softly,
“that I’m called wife and my son was lawfully born. I might have deserved to be left with the fatherless child of a paramour.”
“That would seem to me the worst thing I could have heard,” said Simon. “I wish you only the best, Kristin,” he said even more quietly.
A moment later he asked her for directions. He mentioned that he had come north by ship from Tunsberg. “Now I must continue on and see about catching up with my servant.”
“Is it Finn who’s traveling with you?” asked Kristin.
“No. Finn is married now; he’s no longer in my service. Do you still remember him?” asked Simon, and his voice sounded pleased.
“Is Sigrid’s son a handsome child?” asked Kristin, looking at Naakkve.
“I hear that he is. I think one infant looks much like another,” replied Simon.
“Then you must not have children of your own,” said Kristin, giving a little smile.
“No,” he said curtly. Then he bid her farewell and rode off.
When Kristin continued on, she didn’t put her child on her back. She carried him in her arms, pressing his face against the hollow of her neck. She could think of nothing else but Sigrid Andresdatter.
Her own father would not have been able to do it. Should Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n ride off to beg for a place and rank for his daughter’s bastard child among the father’s kinsmen? He would never have been able to do that. And never, never would he have had the heart to take her child away from her—to pull a tiny infant out of his mother’s arms, tear him away from her breast while he still had mother’s milk on his innocent lips. My Naakkve, no he wouldn’t do that—even if it were ten times more just to do so, my father would not have done it.
But she couldn’t get the image out of her mind: a group of horsemen vanishing north of the gorge, where the valley grows narrow and the mountains crowd together, black with trees. Cold wind comes in gusts from the river, which thunders over the rocks, icy green and frothing, with deep black pools in between. Whoever throws himself into it would be crushed in the rapids at once. Jesus, Maria.
Then she envisioned the fields back home at J?rundgaard on a light summer night. She saw herself running down the path to the green clearing in the alder grove near the river, where they used to wash clothes. The water rushed past with a loud, monotonous roar along the flat riverbed filled with boulders. Lord Jesus, there is nothing else I can do.
Oh, but Father would not have had the heart to do it. No matter how right it was. If I begged and begged him, begged on my knees: Father, you mustn’t take my child from me.
Kristin stood on the hill at Feginsbrekka and looked down at the town lying at her feet in the golden evening sun. Beyond the wide, glittering curve of the river lay brown farm buildings with green sod roofs; the crowns of the trees were dark and domelike in the gardens. She saw light-colored stone houses with stepped gables, churches thrusting their black, shingle-covered backs into the air, and churches with dully gleaming roofs of lead. But above the green landscape, above the glorious town, rose Christ Church so magnificently huge and radiantly bright, as if everything lay prone at its feet. With the evening sun on its breast and the sparkling glass of its windows, with its towers and dizzying spires and gilded weather vanes, the cathedral stood pointing up into the bright summer sky.
All around lay the summer-green land, bearing venerable manors on its hills. In the distance the fjord opened out, shining and wide, with drifting shadows from the large summer clouds that billowed up over the glittering blue mountains on the other side. The cloister island looked like a green wreath with flowers of stone-white buildings, softly lapped by the sea. So many ships’ masts out among the islands, so many beautiful houses.
Overcome and sobbing, the young woman sank down before the cross at the side of the road, where thousands of pilgrims had lain and thanked God because helping hands were extended to them on their journey through the perilous and beautiful world.