“That is true, Erlend.”
“And no doubt you’ll want to search the manor? Oh, I’ve taken part in this kind of thing so many times that I should know how it goes. . . .”
“But you’ve never had such great matters as high treason on your hands before,” said Tore.
“No, not until now,” said Erlend. “And it looks as if I’m playing with the black chess pieces, Tore, and you have me check-mated—isn’t that so, kinsman?”
“We’re looking for the letters that you’ve received from Lady Ingebj?rg Haakonsdatter,” said Tore Eindridess?n.
“They’re in the chest covered with red leather, up in the weapons loft. But they contain little except such greetings as loving kinsmen usually send to each other; and all of them are old. Stein here can show you the way. . . .”
The strangers had dismounted, and the servants of the estate had now come swarming into the courtyard.
“There was much more than that in the one we took from Borgar Trondss?n,” said Tore.
Erlend began whistling softly. “I suppose we might as well go into the house,” he said. “It’s getting crowded out here.”
Kristin followed the men into the hall. At a sign from Tore, a couple of the armed guards came along.
“You’ll have to surrender your sword, Erlend,” said Tore of Gimsar when they came inside. “As a sign that you’re our prisoner.”
Erlend slapped his flanks to show that he carried no other weapon than the dagger at his belt.
But Tore repeated, “You must hand over your sword, as a sign—”
“Well, if you want to do this formally . . .” said Erlend, laughing a bit. He went over and took down his sword from the peg, holding it by the sheath and offering the hilt to Tore Eindridess?n with a slight bow.
The old man from Gimsar loosened the fastenings, pulled the sword all the way out, and stroked the blade with a fingertip.
“Was it this sword, Erlend, that you used . . . ?”
Erlend’s blue eyes glittered like steel; he pressed his lips together into a narrow line.
“Yes. It was with this sword that I punished your grandson when I found him with my daughter.”
Tore stood holding the sword; he looked down at it and said in a threatening tone, “You who were supposed to uphold the law, Erlend—you should have known then that you were going farther than the law would follow you.”
Erlend threw back his head, his eyes blazing and fierce. “There is a law, Tore, that cannot be subverted by sovereigns or tings, which says that a man must protect the honor of his women with the sword.”
“You’ve been fortunate, Erlend Nikulauss?n, that no man has ever used that law against you,” replied Tore of Gimsar, his voice full of malice. “Or you might have needed as many lives as a cat.”
Erlend’s response was infuriatingly slow.
“Isn’t the present undertaking serious enough that you would think it inopportune to bring up those old charges from my youth?”
“I don’t know whether Baard of Lensvik would consider them old charges.” Rage surged up inside Erlend and he was about to reply, but Tore shouted, “You ought to find out first, Erlend, whether your paramours are so clever that they can read, before you run around on your nightly adventures with secret letters in your belt. Just ask Baard who it was that warned us you were planning treachery against your king, to whom you’ve sworn loyalty and who granted you the position of sheriff.”
Involuntarily Erlend pressed a hand to his breast—for a moment he glanced at his wife, and the blood rushed to his face. Then Kristin ran forward and threw her arms around his neck. Erlend looked down into her face—he saw nothing but love in her eyes.
“Erlend—husband!”
The royal treasurer had remained largely silent. Now he went over to the two of them and said softly, “My dear mistress, perhaps it would be best if you took the children and the serving women with you into the women’s house and stayed there as long as we’re here at the manor.”
Erlend let go of his wife with one last squeeze of his arm around her shoulder.
“It would be best, my dear Kristin. Do as Sir Baard advises.”
Kristin stood on her toes and offered Erlend her lips. Then she went out into the courtyard and collected her children and serving women from among the crowd, taking them with her into the little house. There was no other women’s house at Husaby.
They sat there for several hours; the composure of their mistress kept the frightened group more or less calm. Then Erlend entered, bearing no weapons and dressed for travel. Two strangers stood guard at the door.
He shook hands with his eldest sons and then lifted the smallest ones into his arms, while he asked where Gaute was. “Well, you must give him my greetings, Naakkve. He must have gone off into the woods with his bow the way he usually does. Tell him he can have my English longbow after all—the one I refused to give him last Sunday.”
Kristin pulled him to her without speaking a word.
Then she whispered urgently, “When are you coming back, Erlend, my friend?”
“When God wills it, my wife.”
She stepped back, struggling not to break down. Normally he never addressed her in any other way except by using her given name; his last words had shaken her to the heart. Only now did she fully understand what had happened.
At sunset Kristin was sitting up on the hill north of the manor.
She had never before seen the sky so red and gold. Above the opposite ridge stretched an enormous cloud; it was shaped like a bird’s wing, glowing from within like iron in the forge, and gleaming brightly like amber. Small golden shreds like feathers tore away and floated into the air. And far below, on the lake at the bottom of the valley, spread a mirror image of the sky and the cloud and the ridge. Down in the depths the radiant blaze was flaring upward, covering everything in sight.
The grass in the meadows had grown tall, and the silky tassels of the straw shone dark red beneath the crimson light from the sky; the barley had sprouted spikes and caught the light on the young, silky-smooth awn. The sod-covered rooftops of the farm buildings were thick with sorrel and buttercups, and the sun lay across them in wide bands. The blackened shingles of the church roof gleamed darkly, and its light-colored stone walls were becoming softly gilded.
The sun broke through from beneath the cloud, perched on the mountain rim, and lit up one forested ridge after another. It was such a clear evening; the light opened up vistas to small hamlets amidst the spruce-decked slopes. She could make out mountain pastures and tiny farms in among the trees that she had never been able to see before from Husaby. The shapes of huge mountains rose up, reddish-violet, in the south toward Dovre, in places that were usually covered by haze and clouds.
The smallest bell down in the church began to ring, and the church bell at Vinjar answered. Kristin sat bowed over her folded hands until the last notes of the ninefold peal died away.
Now the sun was behind the ridge; the golden glow paled and the crimson grew softer and pinker. After the ringing of the bells had ceased, the rustling sound from the forest swelled and spread again; the tiny creek trickling through the leafy woods down in the valley sounded louder. From the pasture nearby came the familiar clinking of the livestock bells; a flying beetle buzzed halfway around her and then disappeared.
She sent a last sigh after her prayers; an appeal for forgiveness because her thoughts had been elsewhere while she prayed.