Ragnfrid shook her head and cried softly, “I have lost so many, priest, I cannot lose her too.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” replied the priest, “and pray with all my might. But you must try, Ragnfrid, to bear whatever fate God visits upon you.”
The mother murmured softly, “Never have I loved any of my children as I have loved this one. If she too is taken from me, I think my heart will break.”
“God help you, Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter,” said Sira Eirik, shaking his head. “You want nothing more from all your prayers and fasting than to force your will on God. Does it surprise you, then, that it has accomplished so little good?”
Ragnfrid gave the priest a stubborn look and said, “I have sent for Fru Aashild.”
“Well, you may know her, but I do not,” said the priest.
“I will not live without Ulvhild,” said Ragnfrid in the same voice as before. “If God won’t help her, then I will seek the aid of Fru Aashild, or offer myself up to the Devil if he will help!”
The priest looked as if he wanted to make a sharp retort, but he restrained himself. He leaned down and touched the injured girl’s limbs again.
“Her hands and feet are cold,” he said. “We must put some kegs of hot water next to her—and then you must not touch her again until Fru Aashild arrives.”
Kristin soundlessly slipped down onto the bench and pretended to sleep. Her heart was pounding with fear. She had not understood much of the conversation between Sira Eirik and her mother, but it had frightened her greatly, and she knew it wasn’t meant for her ears.
Her mother stood up to get the kegs; then she broke down, sobbing. “Pray for us, nevertheless, Sira Eirik!”
A little while later her mother came back with Tordis. The priest and the women bustled around Ulvhild, and then Kristin was discovered and sent away.
The light dazzled Kristin as she stood in the courtyard. She thought that most of the day had passed while she sat in the dark winter house, but the buildings were light gray and the grass was shimmering, as glossy as silk in the white midday sun. Beyond the golden lattice of the alder thicket, with its tiny new leaves, the river glinted. It filled the air with its cheerful, monotonous roar, for it flowed strongly down a flat, rocky riverbed near J?rundgaard. The mountainsides rose up in a clear blue haze, and the streams leaped down the slopes through melting snow. The sweet, strong spring outside made Kristin weep with sorrow at the helplessness she felt all around her.
No one was in the courtyard, but she heard people talking in the servants’ room. Fresh earth had been spread over the spot where her father had killed the ox. She didn’t know what to do with herself; then she crept behind the wall of the new building, which had been raised to a height of a couple of logs. Inside were Ulvhild’s and her playthings; she gathered them up and put them into a hole between the lowest log and the foundation. Lately Ulvhild had wanted all of Kristin’s toys, and that had made her unhappy at times. She thought now that if her sister got well, she would give her everything she owned. And that thought comforted her a little.
Kristin thought about the monk at Hamar—he at least was convinced that miracles could happen for everyone. But Sira Eirik was not as sure of it, nor were her parents, and they were the ones she was most accustomed to listening to. It fell like a terrible burden upon her when she realized for the first time that people could have such different opinions about so many things. And not just evil, godless people disagreeing with good people, but also good people such as Brother Edvin and Sira Eirik—or her mother and father. She suddenly realized that they too thought differently about many things.
Tordis found Kristin asleep there in the corner late in the day, and she took her indoors. The child hadn’t eaten a thing since morning. Tordis kept vigil with Ragnfrid over Ulvhild that night, and Kristin lay in her bed with Jon, Tordis’s husband, and Eivind and Orm, her little boys. The smell of their bodies, the man’s snoring, and the even breathing of the two children made Kristin quietly weep. Only the night before she had lain in bed, as she had every night of her life, with her own father and mother and little Ulvhild. It was like thinking about a nest that had been torn apart and scattered, and she herself had been flung from the shelter and wings that had always warmed her. At last she cried herself to sleep, alone and miserable among all those strangers.
On the following morning when Kristin got up, she learned that her uncle and his entire entourage had left J?rundgaard—in anger. Trond had called his sister a crazy, demented woman and her husband a spineless fool who had never learned to rein in his wife. Kristin grew flushed with rage, but she was also ashamed. She realized that a grave impropriety had taken place when her mother had driven her closest kinsmen from the manor. And for the first time it occurred to Kristin that there was something about her mother that was not as it should be—that she was different from other women.
As she stood and pondered this, a maidservant came up to her and asked her to go up to the loft to her father.
But when she stepped into the loft room Kristin forgot all about tending to him, for across from the open doorway, with the light shining directly in her face, sat a small woman, whom she realized must be the witch—although Kristin had not expected her to look like that.
She seemed as small as a child, and delicate, for she was sitting in the big high-backed chair that had been brought up to the room. A table had also been placed in front of her, covered with Ragnfrid’s finest embroidered linen cloth. Pork and fowl were set forth on silver platters, there was wine in a bowl of curly birchwood, and she had Lavrans’s own silver goblet to drink from. She had finished eating and was wiping her small, slender hands on one of Ragnfrid’s best towels. Ragnfrid herself stood in front of her, holding a brass basin of water.
Fru Aashild let the towel drop into her lap, smiled at the child, and said in a lovely, clear voice, “Come over here to me!” And to Kristin’s mother she said, “You have beautiful children, Ragnfrid.”
Her face was full of wrinkles but pure white and pink like a child’s, and her skin looked as if it were just as soft and fine to the touch. Her lips were as red and fresh as a young woman’s, and her big hazel eyes gleamed. An elegant white linen wimple framed her face and was fastened tightly under her chin with a gold brooch; over it she wore a veil of soft, dark-blue wool, which fell loosely over her shoulders and onto her dark, well-fitting clothes. She sat as erect as a candle, and Kristin sensed rather than thought that she had never seen such a beautiful or noble woman as this old witch whom the gentry of the village refused to have anything to do with.
Fru Aashild held Kristin’s hand in her own soft old hands; she spoke to her kindly and with humor, but Kristin could not find a word to reply.
Fru Aashild said to Ragnfrid with a little laugh, “Do you think she’s afraid of me?”
“No, no,” Kristin almost shouted.
Fru Aashild laughed even more and said, “She has wise eyes, this daughter of yours, and good strong hands. And she’s not accustomed to slothfulness either, I can see. You’re going to need someone who can help you care for Ulvhild when I’m not here. So you can let Kristin assist me while I’m at the manor. She’s old enough for that, isn’t she? Eleven years old?”
Then Fru Aashild left, and Kristin was about to follow her. But Lavrans called to her from his bed. He was lying flat on his back with pillows stuffed under his knees; Fru Aashild had ordered him to lie in this manner so that the injury to his chest would heal faster.
“You’re going to get well soon, aren’t you, Father?” asked Kristin, using the formal means of address. Lavrans looked up at her. Never before had she addressed him in that manner.
Then he said somberly, “I’m not in danger, but it’s much more serious for your sister.”