He had learned that it was not as simple to live in this world as he had thought back home at Dyfrin. There his father ruled over everything, and his views were always right. Simon had been one of the king’s retainers, and he had served as a page for a while; he had also been taught by his father’s resident priest at home. At times he would find what his father said a bit old-fashioned. Occasionally he would voice his opposition, but it was only meant in jest, and it was taken as such. “What a quick wit Simon has,” laughed his father and mother and siblings, who never spoke against Sir Andres. But everything was done as his father commanded, and Simon himself thought this reasonable.
During the years he was married to Halfrid Erlingsdatter and lived at Mandvik, he learned a little more each day that life could be more complicated and difficult than Sir Andres Gudmundss?n had ever dreamed.
Simon could never have imagined that he would not be happy with such a wife as he had now won. Deep in his soul he felt a painful sense of amazement whenever he looked at his wife, as she moved about the house all day long, so lovely, with her gentle eyes, and her mouth so sweet as long as it was closed. He had never seen any other woman wear gowns and jewelry with such grace. But in the dark gloom of the night his aversion to her stripped him of all youth and vigor. She was sickly, her breath was tainted, and her caresses plagued him. And yet she was so kind that he felt a desperate sense of shame, but he still could not overcome his dislike of her.
They hadn’t been married long before he realized that she would never give him a healthy, living child. He could see that she herself grieved over this even more than he did. The pain he felt was like knives in his heart whenever he thought of her fate in this matter. One way or another he had heard that she was this way because Sir Finn had kicked and struck her so badly that she had miscarried many times while she was married to him. He had been insanely jealous of his beautiful young wife. Her kinsmen wanted to take her away from him, but Halfrid felt that it was a Christian wife’s duty to stay with her lawful husband, no matter how he behaved.
But as long as Simon had no children with her, he would feel all his days that it was her land they lived on and her riches that he managed. He managed sensibly and carefully, but during those years there rose up in his soul a longing for Formo, his grandmother’s ancestral estate, which he had always been destined to inherit after his father. He began to feel that he belonged north in Gudbrandsdal even more than at Romerike.
People continued to call Halfrid “the knight’s wife,” as they had during the time of her first husband. And this made Simon feel even more as if he were merely her advisor at Mandvik.
Then one day, Simon and his wife were sitting alone in the hall. One of the maids had just come in on some errand. Halfrid stared after her as she left.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I’m afraid that Jorunn is with child this summer.”
Simon was holding a crossbow on his lap, adjusting the locking device. He adjusted the crank, sighted down the spring assembly, and said without looking up, “Yes, and it’s mine.”
His wife didn’t reply. When he finally looked up at her, she was sitting there sewing, going about her work just as steadily as he had been doing his.
Simon was truly sorry. Sorry he had offended his wife in this manner, and sorry he had taken up with this girl, regretting that he had now assumed the burden of fatherhood. He was far from certain that it was actually his—Jorunn had loose ways. And he had never really liked her; she was ugly, but she was quick-witted and amusing to talk to. And she was the one who had always sat up to wait for him whenever he came home late the winter before. He had spoken rashly because he expected his wife to berate and denounce him. That was foolish of him; he should have known that Halfrid would consider herself above such conduct. But now it was done, and he wouldn’t retreat from his own words. He would have to put up with being called father of his maid’s child, whether he was or not.
Halfrid didn’t mention the matter until a year later; then she asked Simon one day whether he knew that Jorunn was to be married over at Borg. Simon knew this quite well, since he himself had given her a dowry. Where was the child to live? his wife wanted to know. With the mother’s parents, where she now was, replied Simon.
Then Halfrid said, “It seems to me that it would be more proper for your daughter to grow up here on your manor.”
“On your manor, you mean?” asked Simon.
A slight tremor flickered across his wife’s face.
“You know full well, dear husband, that as long as we both live, you are the one who rules here at Mandvik,” she said.
Simon went over and placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders.
“If it’s true, Halfrid, that you think you can stand to see that child here with us, then I owe you great thanks for your generosity.”
But he didn’t like it. Simon had seen the girl several times—she was a rather unattractive child, and he couldn’t see that she looked like him or anyone else in his family. He was even less inclined to believe that he was the father. And he had resented it deeply when he heard that Jorunn had the child baptized Arngjerd, after his mother, without asking his permission. But he would have to let Halfrid do as she wished. She brought the child to Mandvik, found a foster mother for her, and saw to it that the girl lacked for nothing. If she caught sight of the child, she would often take her onto her lap and chat with her, kindly and lovingly. And gradually, as Simon saw more of the child, he grew fond of the little maiden—he had great affection for children. Now he also thought he could see some resemblance between Arngjerd and his father. It was possible that Jorunn had been wise enough to restrain herself after the master had come too close to her. If so, then Arngjerd was indeed his daughter, and what Halfrid had persuaded him to do was honorable and right.
After they had been married for five years, Halfrid bore her husband a fully formed son. She was radiant with joy, but soon after the birth she fell ill, and it quickly became clear to everyone that she would die. And yet she was without fear, the last time that she had her full wits about her for a moment. “Now you will sit here, Simon, master of Mandvik, and rule over the estate for your lineage and mine,” she told her husband.
After that her fever rose so sharply that she was no longer aware of anything, and so she did not have to suffer the grief, while she was still in this world, of hearing that the boy had died one day before his mother. And no doubt in that other home she would not feel sorrow over such things, but would be glad that she had their Erling with her, thought Simon.
Later, Simon remembered that on the night when the two bodies were laid out in the loft, he had stood leaning over the fence next to a field down by the sea. It was just before Midsummer, and the night was so bright that the glow of the full moon was barely visible. The water was gleaming and pale, rippling and lapping along the shore. Simon had slept no more than an hour at a time, off and on, since the night the boy was born. That seemed to him very long ago now, and he was so tired that he scarcely felt able to grieve.
He was then twenty-seven years old.