The twins leaped up from the bench. During the rest of the meal they both chattered at once. They wanted to go with Erling, who would be camping north among the Gray Peaks with the sheep. Three years before, the sheepherders from Sil had caught a poacher and killed him near his stone hut in the Boar Range; he was a man who had been banished to the forest from ster ?dal. As soon as the servants got up from the table, Ivar and Skule brought into the hall all the weapons they owned and sat down to tinker with them.
A little later that evening Kristin set off southward with Simon Andress?n’s daughters and her own sons Gaute and Lavrans. Arngjerd Simonsdatter had been at J?rundgaard most of the winter. The maiden was now fifteen years old, and one day during Christmas at Formo, Simon had mentioned that Arngjerd ought to learn something more than what they could teach her at home; she was just as skilled as the serving maids. Kristin had then offered to take the girl home with her and teach her as best she could, for she could see that Simon dearly loved his daughter and worried a great deal about her future. And the child needed to learn other ways than those practiced at Formo. Since the death of his wife’s parents Simon Andress?n was now one of the richest men in the region. He managed his properties with care and good sense, and he oversaw the farm work at Formo with zeal and intelligence. But indoors things were handled poorly; the serving women were in charge of everything. Whenever Simon noticed that the disarray and slovenliness in the house had surpassed all bounds, he would hire one or two more maids, but he never spoke of such things to his wife and seemed neither to wish nor to expect that she should pay more attention to the housekeeping. It was almost as if he didn’t yet consider her to be fully grown up, but he was exceedingly kind and amenable toward Ramborg and was constantly showering her and the children with gifts.
Kristin grew fond of Arngjerd after she got to know her. The maiden was not pretty, but she was clever, gentle, good-hearted, nimble-fingered, and diligent. When the young girl accompanied her around the house or sat by her side in the weaving room in the evenings, Kristin often thought that she wished one of her own children had been a daughter. A daughter would spend more time with her mother.
She was thinking about that on this evening as she led Lavrans by the hand and looked at the two children, Gaute and Arngjerd, who were walking ahead of her along the road. Ulvhild was running about, stomping through the brittle layer of nighttime ice on the puddles of water. She was pretending to be some kind of animal and had turned her red cloak around so that the white rabbit fur was on the outside.
Down in the valley in the dusk the shadows were deepening across the bare brown fields. But the air of the spring evening seemed sated with light. The first stars were sparkling, wet and white, high up in the sky, where the limpid green was turning blue, moving toward darkness and night. Above the black rim of the mountains on the other side of the valley a border of yellow light still lingered, and its glow lit up the scree covering the steep slope that towered above them as they walked. At the very top, where the snowdrifts jutted out over the ridges, the snow glistened, and underneath glittered the glaciers, which gave birth to the streams rushing and splashing everywhere down through the scree. The sound of water completely filled the air of the countryside; from below reverberated the loud roar of the river. And the singing of birds came from the groves and leafy shrubbery on all sides.
Once Ulvhild stopped, picked up a stone, and threw it toward the sound of the birds. Her big sister grabbed her arm, and she walked on calmly for a while. But then she tore herself away and ran down the hill until Gaute shouted after her.
They had reached the place where the road headed into the forest; from the thickets came the ringing of a steel bow. Inside the woods snow lay on the ground, and the air smelled cold and fresh. A little farther on, in a small clearing, stood Erlend with Ivar and Skule.
Ivar had taken a shot at a squirrel; the arrow was stuck high up in the trunk of a fir tree, and now he was trying to get it down. He pitched stone after stone at it; the huge mast tree resonated when he struck the trunk.
“Wait a minute. I’ll try to see if I can shoot it down for you,” said his father. He shook his cape back over his shoulders, placed an arrow in his bow, and took aim rather carelessly in the uncertain light among the trees. The string twanged; the arrow whistled through the air and buried itself in the tree trunk right next to the boy’s. Erlend took out another arrow and shot again; one of the two arrows sticking out of the tree clattered down from branch to branch. The shaft of the other one had splintered, but the point was still embedded in the tree.
Skule ran into the snow to pick up the two arrows. Ivar stood and stared up at the treetop.
“It’s mine—the one that’s still up there, Father! It’s buried up to the shaft. That was a powerful shot, Father!” Then he proceeded to explain to Gaute why he hadn’t hit the squirrel.
Erlend laughed softly and straightened his cape. “Are you going to turn back now, Kristin? I’m setting off for home; we’re planning to go after wood grouse early in the morning, Naakkve and I.”
Kristin told him briskly no, that she wanted to accompany the maidens to their manor. She wanted to have a few words with her sister tonight.
“Then Ivar and Skule can go with Mother and escort her home if I can stay with you, Father,” said Gaute.
Erlend lifted Ulvhild Simonsdatter up in his arms in farewell. Because she was so pretty and pink and fresh, with her brown curls under the white fur hood, he kissed her before he set her back down and then turned and headed for home with Gaute.
Now that Erlend had nothing else to occupy him, he was always in the company of a few of his sons. Ulvhild took her aunt’s hand and walked on a bit; then she started running again, rushing in between Ivar and Skule. Yes, she was a beautiful child, but wild and unruly. If they had had a daughter, Erlend would have no doubt taken her along and played with her too.
At Formo Simon was alone in the house with his little son when they came in. He was sitting in the high seat1 in the middle of the long table, looking at Andres. The child was kneeling on the outer bench and playing with several old wooden pegs, trying to make them stand on their heads on the table. As soon as Ulvhild saw this, she forgot about greeting her father. She climbed right up onto the bench next to her brother, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and pounded his face against the table while she screamed that they were her pegs; Father had given them to her.
Simon stood up to separate the children; then he happened to knock over a little pottery dish standing near his elbow. It fell to the floor and shattered.
Arngjerd crawled under the table and gathered up the pieces. Simon took them from her and looked at them, greatly dismayed. “Your mother is going to be angry.” It was a pretty little flower-painted dish made of shiny white ceramic that Sir Andres Darre had brought home from France. Simon explained that Helga had inherited it, but she had given it to Ramborg. The women considered it a great treasure. At that moment he heard his wife out in the entryway, and he hid his hands, holding the pottery shards, behind his back.
Ramborg came in and greeted her sister and nephews. She took off Ulvhild’s cloak, and the maiden ran over to her father and clung to him.
“Look how fine you are today, Ulvhild. I see that you’re wearing your silver belt on a workday.” But he couldn’t hug the child because his hands were full.
Ulvhild shouted that she had been visiting her aunt Kristin at J?rundgaard; that was why Mother had dressed her so nicely in the morning.
“Yes, your mother keeps you dressed so splendid and grand; they could set you up on the shrine on the north side of the church, the way you look,” said Simon, smiling. The only work Ramborg ever did was to sew garments for her daughter; Ulvhild was always magnificently clothed.
“Why are you standing there like that?” Ramborg asked her husband.
Simon showed her the pottery pieces. “I don’t know what you’re going to say about this—”