It must be as Erlend had said: It was necessary for him to lead his life and maintain his estates in as costly a fashion as he did. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to assert himself among his peers and win the rights and revenues that were his birthright under the Crown. She would have to believe that he understood this better than she did.
It was senseless to think that things might have been better in some ways for him—and even for her—back when he was living tangled up in sin with that other woman. In glimpses of memory she saw his face from that time, ravaged with sorrow, contorted with passion. No, no, things were fine as they were now. He was merely a little too carefree and thoughtless.
Erlend returned home just before Michaelmas. He had hoped to find Kristin confined to bed, but she was still on her feet. She came to meet him out on the road. Her gait was terribly cumbersome this time—but she had Gaute in her arms, as usual; the two older sons came running ahead of her.
Erlend jumped down from his horse and lifted the boys onto the saddle. Then he took his youngest son from his wife so he could carry him. Kristin’s pale, worn face lit up when Gaute wasn’t frightened by his father; he must have recognized him, after all. She asked nothing about her husband’s travels, but talked only about Gaute’s four new teeth which had made him so sick.
Then the boy started to scream; he had scraped his cheek bloody on the filigree brooch on his father’s chest. He wanted to go back to his mother, and she wanted to take him, no matter how much Erlend protested.
Not until evening, when they were sitting alone in the hall and the children were asleep, did Kristin ask her husband about his journey to Bj?rgvin—as if she only then happened to think about it.
Erlend glanced furtively at Kristin. His poor wife—she looked so miserable. He began to tell her all kinds of news. Erling had asked him to send his greetings and give her this—it was a bronze dagger, corroded with verdigris. They had found it in a heap of stones out at Giske; it was supposed to be beneficial to place such a thing in the cradle in case it was rickets that had stricken Gaute.
Kristin wrapped up the dagger again, awkwardly rose from her chair, and went over to the cradle. She put the bundle under the bedclothes with everything else that lay there: a stone axe found buried in the ground, the musk gland of a beaver, a cross made from daphne twigs, old silver, flint, roots of a Mariahand orchid, and an Olav’s Beard fern.
“Lie down now, dear Kristin,” Erlend said tenderly. He came over and pulled off her shoes and stockings. All the while he talked.
Haakon Ogmundss?n had come back, and peace with the Russians and Karelians had been concluded and sealed. Erlend himself would have to travel north this fall. For it was certain that calm would not be restored at once, and a man was needed at Varg?y who knew the region. He would be given full authority as the king’s officer in command at the fortress up there, which had to be better secured so that peace could be defended at the new border markers.
Erlend looked up into his wife’s face with excitement. She seemed a bit alarmed—but she didn’t ask many questions, and it was clear that she had little understanding of what his news meant. He saw how tired she was, so he spoke no more about this matter but remained sitting on the edge of her bed for a while.
He understood the gravity of what he had taken on. Erlend laughed quietly to himself as he took his time undressing. There would be no sitting back with his silver belt around his belly, holding feasts for friends and kinsmen, and filing his nails straight and clean as he dispatched his vassals and lieutenants here and there—the way the king’s commanders of the castles did here in the south of Norway. And the castle at Varg?y was quite a different sort of fortress.
Finns, Russians, Karelians, and mixed breeds of all kinds—troll rabble, conjurers, heathen dogs, the Devil’s own precious lambs who had to be taught to pay taxes to the Norwegian emissaries and to leave the Norwegian settlements in peace, which were spread out with as much distance between each other as from Husaby all the way to M?re. Peace—perhaps the king’s peace would be possible up there someday, but in his lifetime there would be peace only when the Devil attended mass. And he would have his own roughnecks to keep in check too. Especially toward the spring, when they began to grow despondent from the darkness and the cold and the hellish roar of the sea—when the flour and butter and liquor were in short supply, and they began fighting over their women, and life on the island grew unbearable. Erlend had witnessed some of this when he was there as a young boy with Gissur Galle. No, he wouldn’t be lying about idle!
Ingolf Peit, who was now in charge, was able enough. But Erling was right: A man from the knighthood should take control of things up there—not until then would anyone realize that it was the Norwegian king’s firm intention to assert his power over the land. Ha, ha—in that territory he would be like a needle in a coverlet. Not a single Norwegian settlement until as far south as Malang.
Ingolf was a capable fellow, but only as long as he had someone in command over him. He would put Ingolf in charge of his ship Hugrekken. Margygren was the most splendid of ships; that much he had now learned. Erlend laughed softly and happily. He had told Kristin so often before, this was one mistress she would have to put up with.
He was awakened by one of the children crying in the dark. Over by the bed on the opposite wall, he could hear Kristin stirring and speaking gently—it was Bj?rgulf who was complaining. Sometimes the boy woke up in the night and couldn’t open his festering eyes; then his mother would moisten them with her tongue. Erlend had always been repelled by the sight of this.
Kristin was softly humming. The thin, weak sound of her voice annoyed him.
Erlend remembered what he had been dreaming. He was walking along a shore somewhere; it was low tide, and he was leaping from stone to stone. In the distance the sea was glistening and pale, lapping at the seaweed; it was like a silent, cloudy summer evening, with no sun. At the mouth of the silvery fjord he saw the ship anchored, black and sleek, rocking gently on the waves. There was an ungodly, delicious smell of sea and kelp.
His heart grew sick with longing. Now in the darkness of the night, as he lay here in the guest bed and listened to the monotonous sound of the lullaby gnawing at his ear, he felt how strong his longing was. To be away from this house and the swarms of children who filled it, away from talk of farming matters and servants and tenants and children—and from his anguished concern for her, who was always ill and whom he always had to pity.
Erlend clasped his hands over his heart. It felt as if it had stopped; it merely lay there, shivering with fright inside his breast. He longed to be away from her. When he thought about what she would have to endure, as weak and frail as she now was—and he knew that it could happen at any hour—he felt as if he would suffocate from fear. But if he should lose Kristin . . . He didn’t know how he would be able to live without her. But he didn’t feel able to live with her, either, not now. He wanted to flee from everything and breathe freely—as if it were a matter of life itself for him.
Jesus, my Savior—oh, what kind of man was he! He realized it now, tonight. Kristin, my sweet, my dearest wife—the only time he had known deep, heartfelt joy with her was when he was leading her astray.