“And yet it seems strange to me that she doesn’t want to nurse the child herself,” said Kristin.
“Simon is also against it. He says he wouldn’t reward her for the gift by wearing her out in that way. You must remember that Ramborg was not even sixteen, and she had barely grown out of her own childhood shoes when her daughter was born. And she has never known a moment of ill health before. It’s not so strange that she would have little patience. You were a grown woman when you were married, my Kristin.”
Suddenly Kristin was overcome by violent sobs; she hardly knew what she was crying about. But it was true: She had loved her children from the first moment she held them in her womb; she had loved them even as they had tormented her with anguish, weighing her down and spoiling her looks. She had loved their small faces from the first moment she saw them, and loved them every single hour as they grew and changed, becoming young men. But no one had loved them as she had or rejoiced along with her. It was not in Erlend’s nature. He was fond of them, of course, but he had always thought that Naakkve came too early, and that each son afterwards was one too many. She recalled what she had thought about the fruit of sin during the first winter she lived at Husaby; she realized she had tasted its bitterness, although not as much as she had feared. Things had gone wrong between her and Erlend back then and apparently could never be rectified.
Kristin hadn’t been close to her mother. Her sisters were mere children when she was already a grown maiden, and she had never had companions to play with. She was brought up among men; she was able to be gentle and soft because there had always been men around to hold up protective and shielding hands between her and everything else in the world. Now it seemed reasonable to her that she gave birth only to sons—boys to nurse with her blood and at her breast, to love and protect and care for until they were old enough to join the ranks of men. She remembered that she had heard of a queen who was called the Mother of Boys. She must have had a wall of watchful men around her when she was a child.
“What is it now, Kristin?” asked her father quietly after a while.
She couldn’t tell him any of this; when she stopped crying enough to talk, she said, “Shouldn’t I grieve, Father, when you are lying here . . . ?”
Finally, when Lavrans pressed her, she told him of her fears for the unbaptized child. Then he at once ordered the boy to be taken to church the next time mass was celebrated; he said he didn’t think it would cause his death any sooner than God willed it.
“And besides, I’ve been lying here long enough,” he said with a laugh. “Wretched deeds accompany our arrival and our departure, Kristin. In sickness we are born and in sickness we die, except for those who die in battle. That seemed to me the best kind of death when I was young: to be killed on the battlefield. But a sinful man has need of a sickbed, and yet I don’t think my soul will be any better healed if I lie here longer.”
And so the boy was baptized on the following Sunday and was given his grandfather’s name. Kristin and Erlend were bitterly criticized for this in the outlying villages. Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n told everyone who came to visit that it was done on his orders; he refused to have a heathen in his house when death came to the door.
Lavrans now began to worry that his death would come in the middle of the spring farm work, which would be a great hardship for many people who wanted to honor him by escorting his funeral procession. But two weeks after the child was baptized, Erlend came to Kristin in the old weaving room where she had been sleeping since giving birth. It was late in the morning, past breakfast time, but she was still in bed because the boy had been restless. Erlend was deeply distressed, but he said in a calm and loving voice that now she must get up and go to her father. Lavrans had suffered terrible convulsions and heart spasms at daybreak, and since then he lay drained of all strength. Sira Eirik was with him now, and had just heard his confession.
It was the fifth day after the Feast of Saint Halvard. It was raining lightly but steadily. When Kristin went out into the courtyard, she noticed in the gentle southern wind the earthy smell of newly plowed and manured fields. The countryside was brown in the spring rain, the sky was pale blue between the high mountains, and the mist was drifting by, halfway up the slopes. The ringing of little bells came from the groves of trees along the swollen gray river; herds of goats had been let out, and they were nibbling at the bud-covered branches. This was the kind of weather that had always filled her father’s heart with joy. The cold of winter was over for both people and livestock, the animals were finally released from their dark, narrow stalls and scanty fodder.
Kristin saw at once from her father’s face that death was now very near. The skin around his nostrils was snowy white, but bluish under his eyes and at his lips; his hair had separated into sweaty strings lying on his broad, damp forehead. But he had his full wits about him and spoke clearly, although slowly and in a weak voice.
The servants approached the bed, one by one, and Lavrans gave his hand to each of them, thanking them for their service, telling them to live well and asking for forgiveness if he had ever offended them in any way; and he asked them to remember him with a prayer for his soul. Then he said goodbye to his kinsmen. He told his daughters to bend down so he could kiss them, and he asked God and all the saints to bless them. They wept bitterly, both of them; and young Ramborg threw herself into her sister’s arms. Holding on to each other, Lavrans’s two daughters went back to their place at the foot of their father’s bed, and the younger one continued to weep on Kristin’s breast.
Erlend’s face quivered and the tears ran down his face when he lifted Lavrans’s hand to kiss it, as he quietly asked his father-in-law to forgive him for the sorrows he had caused him over the years. Lavrans said he forgave him with all his heart, and he prayed that God might be with him all his days. There was a strange, pale light in Erlend’s handsome face when he silently moved away to stand at his wife’s side, hand in hand with her.
Simon Darre did not weep, but he knelt down as he took his father-in-law’s hand to kiss it, and he held on to it tightly as he stayed on his knees a moment longer. “Your hand feels warm and good, son-in-law,” said Lavrans with a faint smile. Ramborg turned to her husband when he went to her, and Simon put his arm around her thin, girlish shoulders.
Last of all, Lavrans said goodbye to his wife. They whispered a few words to each other that no one else could hear, and exchanged a kiss in everyone’s presence, as was now proper when death was in the room. Then Ragnfrid knelt in front of her husband’s bed, with her face turned toward him; she was pale, silent, and calm.
Sira Eirik stayed with them after he had anointed the dying man with oil and given him the viaticum. He sat near the headboard and prayed; Ragnfrid was now sitting on the bed. Several hours passed. Lavrans lay with his eyes half-closed. Now and then he would move his head restlessly on the pillow and pick at the covers with his hands, breathing heavily and groaning from time to time. They thought he had lost his voice, but there was no death struggle.
Dusk came early, and the priest lit a candle. Everyone sat quietly, watching the dying man and listening to the dripping and trickling of the rain outside the house. Then the sick man grew agitated, his body trembled, his face turned blue, and he seemed to be fighting for breath. Sira Eirik put his arm under Lavrans’s shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position as he supported his head against his chest and held up the cross before his face.
Lavrans opened his eyes, fixed his gaze on the crucifix in the priest’s hand, and said softly, but so clearly that almost everyone in the room could hear him: