“I hear you’ve been making raids around the countryside—now you’re my prisoner, and tomorrow your parents can come over to see me and we’ll negotiate the ransom.”
And with that he gave a laugh and a wave and rode off with the boy wriggling and laughing in his arms. Simon had become great friends with Erlend’s sons. Kristin remembered that he had always had a way with children; her younger sisters had loved him dearly. Oddly enough it made her cross that he should be so fond of children and take pleasure in playing with them when her own husband had little interest in listening to children’s prattle.
The next day, when they were at Formo, Kristin realized that Simon had not won any favors with his wife by bringing this guest home with him.
“No one should expect Ramborg to care much for children yet,” said Ragnfrid. “She’s hardly more than a child herself. Things will be different when she’s older.”
“No doubt you’re right.” Simon and his mother-in-law exchanged a look and a little smile.
Ah, thought Kristin. Well, it had already been two months since the wedding.
Distressed and agitated as Kristin now was, she took her feelings out on Erlend. He had accepted this stay at his wife’s ancestral estate with the satisfaction and pleasure of a righteous man. He was good friends with Ragnfrid and made it known that he had a deep fondness for his wife’s father. And Lavrans, in turn, seemed to have affection for his son-in-law. But Kristin had now become so sensitive and wary that she saw in her father’s kindness toward Erlend much of the same tolerant tenderness that Lavrans had always shown toward every living creature he felt was less able to take care of itself. His love for his other son-in-law was different; he treated Simon as a friend and equal. And even though Erlend was much closer in age to his father-in-law than Simon was, it was Lavrans and Simon who addressed each other in the informal manner. Ever since Erlend had become betrothed to Kristin, Lavrans had addressed Erlend informally, while Erlend had continued to use the more formal mode. It was up to Lavrans to change this, but he had never offered to do so.
Simon and Erlend got along well whenever they were together, but they didn’t seek out each other’s company. Kristin still felt a secret shyness toward Simon Darre—because of what he knew about her, and even more because she knew that he was the one whose conduct had been honorable, while Erlend had acted with shame. It made her furious when she realized that Erlend could forget even this. And so she wasn’t always amenable toward her husband. If Erlend was in a mood to bear her irritability with good humor and gentleness, it would annoy her that he wasn’t taking her words seriously. On some other day he might have little patience, and then his temper would flare, but she would respond with bitterness and coldness.
One evening they were sitting in the hearth room at J?rundgaard. Lavrans always felt most comfortable in this building, especially in weather that was rainy and oppressive, as it was on that day. In the main building, up in the hall, the ceiling was flat and the smoke from the fireplace could be bothersome. But in the hearth room the smoke would rise up to the central beam in the pitched roof, even when they had to close the smoke vent because of the weather.
Kristin sat near the hearth, sewing. She was feeling out of sorts and bored. Right across from her was Margret, dozing over her needlework and yawning now and then. The children were noisily running about the room. Ragnfrid was at Formo, and most of the servants were elsewhere. Lavrans sat in the high seat, with Erlend at his elbow, at the end of the outer bench. They had a chessboard between them and they were moving the pieces in silence, after much reflection. Once, when Ivar and Skule were tugging on a puppy, trying to tear it in half, Lavrans stood up and took the poor howling animal away from them. He didn’t say a word, but simply sat down to his game again with the dog on his lap.
Kristin went over to them and stood with one hand on her husband’s shoulder, watching the game. Erlend was a much less skilled chess player than his father-in-law, so he was most often the loser when they took out the board in the evening, but he bore this with gentle equanimity. This evening he was playing especially badly. Kristin stood there castigating him, and not in a particularly kind or sweet way.
Finally Lavrans said rather harshly, “Erlend can’t keep his thoughts on the game when you’re standing here bothering him. What do you want, anyway, Kristin? You’ve never understood board games!”
“No, you don’t seem to think I understand much at all.”
“There’s one thing I see that you don’t understand,” said her father sharply, “and that’s the proper way for a wife to speak to her husband. It would be better if you went and reined in your sons—they’re behaving worse than a pack of Christmas trolls.”
Kristin went over and set her children in a row on a bench and then sat down next to them.
“Be quiet now, my sons,” she said. “Your grandfather doesn’t want you to play in here.”
Lavrans glanced at his daughter but didn’t speak. A little later the foster mothers came in, and Kristin left with her maids and Margret to put the children to bed.
Erlend said after a moment, when he and Lavrans were alone, “I would have wished, Father-in-law, that you hadn’t reprimanded Kristin in that way. If it gives her some comfort to carp at me when she’s in a bad temper, then . . . It does no good to talk to her, and she won’t stand for anyone saying a word against her children.”
“And what about you?” said Lavrans. “Do you intend to allow your sons to grow up so ill-behaved? Where were the maids who are supposed to watch and tend to the children?”
“In the servants’ house with your men, I would think,” said Erlend, laughing and stretching. “But I don’t dare say a word to Kristin about her serving maids. Then she flies into a fury and tells me that she and I have never been examples for anyone.”
The following day Kristin was picking strawberries in the meadow south of the farm when her father called to her from the smithy door and asked her to come over to him.
Kristin went, though rather reluctantly. It was probably Naakkve again—that morning he had left a gate open, and the cows had wandered into a barley field.
Lavrans pulled a glowing iron from the forge and set it on the anvil. His daughter sat down to wait, and for a long time there was no sound other than the pounding of the hammer against the glowing piece of iron and the ringing reply of the anvil. Finally Kristin asked her father what he wanted to say to her.
The iron was now cold. Lavrans put down his tongs and hammer and came over to Kristin. With soot on his face and hair, his clothing and hands blackened, and garbed as he was in the big leather apron, Lavrans looked much sterner than usual.
“I called you over here, my daughter, because I want to tell you this. Here on my estate you will show your husband the respect that is proper for a wife. I refuse to hear my daughter speaking the way you did to Erlend last night.”
“This is something new, Father, for you to think Erlend is a man worthy of people’s respect.”
“He’s your husband,” said Lavrans. “I didn’t force you to arrange this marriage. You should remember that.”
“You’re such warm friends,” replied Kristin. “If you had known him back then the way you know him now, then you might well have done so.”
Lavrans looked down at her, his face somber and sad.
“Now you’re speaking rashly, Kristin, and saying things that are untrue. I didn’t try to force you when you wanted to cast off the man to whom you were lawfully betrothed, even though you know I was very fond of Simon.”