ERLEND NIKULAUSS?N SERVED as the king’s military commander and chieftain at the fortress of Varg?y for almost two years. In all that time he never ventured farther south than to Bjark?y, when he and Sir Erling Vidkunss?n once arranged a meeting there. During the second summer Erlend was away, Heming Alfss?n finally died, and Erlend was appointed sheriff of Orkd?la county in his place. Haftor Graut traveled north to succeed him at Varg?y.
Erlend was a happy man when he sailed south in the autumn, several days after the Feast of the Birth of Mary. This was the redress he had been seeking all these years—to become sheriff of the region as his father had once been. Not that this had been a goal which he had ever worked to achieve. But it had always seemed to him that this was what he needed in order to assume the standing which he rightfully deserved—both in his own eyes and those of his peers. Now it no longer mattered that he was considered somewhat different from the men who were bench sitters—there was no longer anything awkward about his special position.
And he longed for home. It had been more peaceful in Finnmark than he had expected. Even the first winter took its toll on him; he sat idle in the castle and could do nothing about repairing the fortress. It had been well restored seventeen years before, but now it had fallen into terrible disrepair.
Then came spring and summer with great activity and commotion—meetings at various places along the fjords with the Norwegian and half-Norwegian tax collectors and with spokesmen for the peoples of the inland plains. Erlend sailed here and there with his two ships and enjoyed himself immensely. On the island the buildings were repaired and the castle fortified. But the following year, peace still prevailed.
Haftor would no doubt see to it that troubles commenced soon enough. Erlend laughed. They had sailed together almost as far as Trjanema, and there Haftor had found himself a Sami woman from Kola1 whom he had taken with him. Erlend had spoken to him sternly. He had to remember that it was important for the heathens to realize that the Norwegians were the masters. And he would have to conduct himself so as not to provoke anyone unnecessarily, considering the small group of men he had with him. He shouldn’t intervene if the Finns fought and killed each other; they were to be granted that pleasure without interference. But act like a hawk over the Russians and the Kola people, or whatever that rabble was called. And leave the women alone—for one thing, they were all witches; and for another, there were plenty who would offer themselves willingly. But the God?y youth would just have to take care of himself, until he learned.
Haftor wanted to get away from his estates and his wife. Erlend now wanted to go back home to his. He felt a blissful longing for Kristin and Husaby and his home district and all his children—for everything that was back home with Kristin.
At Lyngsfjord he got word of a ship with several monks on board; they were supposedly Dominican friars from Nidaros who were heading north to try to plant the true faith among heathens and heretics in the border territories.
Erlend felt certain that Gunnulf was among them. And three nights later he was indeed sitting alone with his brother in a sod hut that belonged to a little Norwegian farm near the shore where they had found each other.
Erlend felt strangely moved. He had attended mass and had taken communion with his crew for the first time since he had come north, except when he was at Bjark?y. The church at Varg?y was without a priest; a deacon lived at the castle, and he had made an effort to observe the holy days for them, but otherwise the Norwegians in the north had found little help for their souls. They had to console themselves with the thought that they were part of a kind of crusade, and surely their sins would not be judged so severely.
Erlend sat talking to Gunnulf about this, and his brother listened with an odd, remote smile on his thin, compressed lips. It looked as if he were constantly sucking on his lower lip, the way a person often does when he is thinking hard about something and is on the verge of understanding but has not yet achieved full clarity in his mind.
It was late at night. All the other people on the farm were asleep in the shed; the brothers knew that they were now the only ones awake. And they were both struck by the strange circumstance that the two of them should be sitting there alone.
The muffled and muted sound of the storm and the roaring sea reached them through the sod walls. Now and then gusts of wind would blow in, breathe on the embers of the hearth, and make the flame of the oil lamp flicker. There was no furniture in the hut; the brothers were sitting on the low earthen bench which ran along three sides of the room, and between them lay Gunnulf’s writing board with ink horn, his quill pen, and a rolled-up parchment. Gunnulf had been writing down a few notes as his brother told him about meetings and Norwegian settlements, about navigation markers and weather indications and words in the Sami language—everything Erlend happened to think of. Gunnulf was piloting the ship himself; it was named Sunnivasuden, for the friars had chosen Saint Sunniva2 as the patron saint for their endeavor.
“As long as you don’t suffer the same fate as the martyred Selje men,” said Erlend, and Gunnulf again gave him a little smile.
“You call me restless, Gunnulf,” Erlend continued. “Then what should we call you? First you wander around in the southern lands for all those years, and then you’ve barely returned home before you give up your benefice and prebends3 to go off to preach to the Devil and his offspring up north in Velliaa. You don’t know their language and they don’t know yours. It seems to me that you’re even more inconstant than I am.”
“I own neither manors nor kinsmen to answer for,” said the monk. “I have now freed myself from all bonds, but you have bound yourself, brother.”
“Yes, well . . . I suppose the man who owns nothing is free.”
Gunnulf replied, “A man’s possessions own him more than he owns them.”
“Hmm. No, by God, I might concede that Kristin owns me. But I won’t agree that the manor and the children own me too.”
“Don’t think that way, brother,” said Gunnulf softly. “For then you might easily lose them.”
“No, I refuse to be like those other old men, up to their chins in the muck of their land,” said Erlend, laughing, and his brother smiled with him.
“I’ve never seen fairer children than Ivar and Skule,” he said. “I think you must have looked like them at that age—it’s no wonder our mother loved you so much.”
Both brothers rested a hand on the writing board, which lay between them. Even in the faint light of the oil lamp it was possible to see how unlike the hands of these two men were. The monk’s fingers bore no rings; they were white and sinewy, shorter and stubbier than the other man’s fingers, and yet they looked much stronger—even though the palm of Erlend’s fist was now as hard as horn and a blue-white scar from an arrow wound furrowed the dark skin from his wrist all the way up his sleeve. But the fingers of Erlend’s slender, tanned hand were dry and knotty-jointed like tree branches, and they were completely covered with rings of gold and precious stones.
Erlend had an urge to take his brother’s hand, but he was too embarrassed to do so; instead, he drank a toast to him, grimacing at the bad ale.
“And you think that Kristin has now regained her full health?” Erlend continued.
“Yes, she had blossomed like a rose when I was at Husaby in the summer,” said the monk with a smile. He paused for a moment and then said somberly, “I ask this of you, brother—think more about the welfare of Kristin and your children than you have done in the past. Abide by her advice and agree to the decisions she and Eiliv have made; they’re only waiting for your consent to conclude them.”
“I’m not greatly in favor of these plans you speak of,” said Erlend with some reluctance. “And now my position will be quite different.”
“Your lands will gain in value if you consolidate your property more,” replied the monk. “Kristin’s plans seemed sensible when she explained them to me.”