He sat up abruptly in bed, propping himself up on one elbow. In bewilderment he stared at Kristin’s white face. It was right above his own, glistening wet with tears in the candlelight; her hand was on his chest. For a moment he thought . . . But this time he wasn’t merely dreaming. Simon threw himself back against the headboard, and with a stifled moan he covered his face with his arm. He felt sick; his heart was hammering inside him, furious and hard.
“Simon, wake up!” Kristin shook him again. “Andres is calling for his father. Do you hear me? It was the first thing he said.” Her face was beaming with joy as her tears fell steadily.
Simon sat up, rubbing his face several times. Surely he hadn’t spoken in confusion when she woke him. He looked up at Kristin, who was standing next to the bed with a lantern in her hand.
Quietly, so as not to wake Ramborg, he crept out of the room with her. The loathsome nausea was still lodged in his chest. He felt as if something were about to burst inside him. Why couldn’t he stop having that dreadful dream? He who in his waking hours struggled and struggled to drive all such thoughts from his mind. But when he lay asleep, powerless and defenseless, he would have that dream, which the Devil himself must have sent. Even now, while she sat and kept watch over his deathly ill son, he dreamed like some kind of demon.
It was raining, and Kristin had no idea what time of night it might be. The boy had been half conscious, but he hadn’t spoken. And it was only when night came and she thought he was sleeping comfortably and soundly that she dared lie down for a moment to rest—with Andres in her arms so she would notice if he stirred. Then she had fallen asleep.
The boy looked so tiny as he lay alone in the bed. He was terribly pale, but his eyes were clear, and his face lit up with a smile when he saw his father. Simon dropped to his knees beside the bed, but when he reached out to lift the small body into his embrace, Kristin grabbed him by the arm.
“No, no, Simon. He’s soaked with sweat, and it’s cold in here.” She pulled the covers tighter around Andres. “Lie down next to him instead, while I send word for a maid to keep watch. I’ll go back to the main house now and get into bed with Ramborg.”
Simon crept under the covers. There was a warm hollow where she had lain and the faint, sweet scent of her hair on the pillowcase. Simon quietly uttered a moan, and then he gathered up his little son and pressed his face against the child’s damp, soft hair. Andres had become so small that he felt like nothing in Simon’s arms, but he lay there contentedly, occasionally saying a word or two.
Then he began tugging and poking at the opening of his father’s shirt; he stuck his clammy little hand inside and pulled out the amulet. “The rooster,” he said happily. “There it is.”
On the day of Kristin’s departure, as she made ready to leave, Simon came to see her in the women’s house and handed her a little wooden box.
“I thought this was something you might like to have.”
Kristin knew from the carving that it was the work of her father. Inside, wrapped in a soft piece of glove leather, was a tiny gold clasp set with five emeralds. She recognized it at once. Lavrans had worn it on his shirt whenever he wanted to look particularly fine.
She thanked Simon, but then she turned blood red. She suddenly remembered that she had never seen her father wear this clasp since she had come home from the convent in Oslo.
“When did Father give this to you?” She regretted the question the moment she asked it.
“He gave it to me as a farewell gift one time when I was leaving the estate.”
“This seems to me much too great a gift,” she said softly, looking down.
Simon chuckled and replied, “You’re going to need many such things, Kristin, when the time comes for you to send out all your sons with betrothal gifts.”
Kristin looked at him and said, “You know what I mean, Simon—those things that my father gave you . . . You know that I’m as fond of you as if you had been his own son.”
“Are you?” He placed the back of his hand against her cheek and gave it a fleeting caress as he smiled, an odd little smile, and spoke as if to a child, “Yes, yes, Kristin. I know that.”
CHAPTER 4
LATER THAT FALL Simon Andress?n had business with his brother at Dyfrin. While he was there, a suitor was proposed for his daughter Arngjerd.
The matter was not settled, and Simon felt rather uneasy and apprehensive as he rode northward. Perhaps he ought to have agreed; then the child would have been well provided for, and he could stop all his worrying about her future. Perhaps Gyrd and Helga were right. It was foolish of him not to seize hold with both hands when he received such an offer for this daughter of his. Eiken was a bigger estate than Formo, and Aasmund himself owned more than a third of it; he would never have thought of proposing his son as a suitor for a maiden of such birth as Arngjerd—of lowly lineage and with no kin on her mother’s side—if Simon hadn’t held a mortgage on a portion of the estate worth three marks in taxes. The family had been forced to borrow money from both Dyfrin and the nuns in Oslo when Grunde Aas mundss?n happened to slay a man for the second time. Grunde grew wild when he was drunk, although he was otherwise an upright and well-meaning fellow, said Gyrd, and surely he would allow himself to be guided by such a good and sensible woman as Arngjerd.
But the fact was that Grunde was not many years younger than Simon himself. And Arngjerd was young. And the people at Eiken wanted the wedding to take place as early as spring.
It hung on like a bad memory in Simon’s mind; he tried not to think of it if he could avoid it. But now that Arngjerd’s marriage had come under discussion, it kept cropping up. He had been an unhappy man on that first morning when he woke up at Ramborg’s side. Certainly he had been no more giddy or bold than a bridegroom ought to be when he went to bed—although it had made him feel strange and reckless to see Kristin among the bride’s attendants, and Erlend, his new brother-in-law, was among the men who escorted him up to the loft. But when he woke up the next morning and lay there looking at his bride, who was still asleep, he had felt a terrible, painful shame deep in his heart—as if he had mistreated a child.
And yet he knew that he could have spared himself this sorrow.
But she had laughed when she opened her big eyes.
“Now you’re mine, Simon.” She ran her hands over his chest. “My father is your father, and my sister is your sister.” And he grew cold with anguish, for he wondered whether she knew that his heart had given a start at her words.
Otherwise he was quite content with his marriage—this much he firmly believed. His wife was wealthy, of distinguished lineage, young and lively, beautiful and kind. She had borne him a daughter and a son, and that was something a man valued after he had tried living among riches without producing any children who could keep the estate together after the parents were gone. Two children, and their position was assured. He was so rich that he could even obtain a good match for Arngjerd.
He would have liked to have another son; yes, he wouldn’t be sad if one or two more children were born on Formo. But Ramborg was probably happy as long as she was spared all that. And that was worth something too. For he couldn’t deny that things were much more comfortable at home when Ramborg was in good humor. He might well have wished that she had a more even temperament. He didn’t always know how he stood with his wife. And more attention could have been paid to the housekeeping in his home. But no man should dare expect to have all his bowls filled to the brim, as the saying goes. This is what Simon kept telling himself as he rode homeward.