“I have nothing to say. You must decide about this matter, dear Father.”
“This is how things stand, Arngjerd: I would like to grant you a few more free years, free from childbirth and cares and responsibilities—all those things that fall to a woman’s lot as soon as she is married. But I wonder if perhaps you might be longing to have your own home and to take charge yourself?”
“There is no need for haste on my account,” said the girl with a little smile.
“You know that if you moved to Eiken through marriage, you would have your wealthy kinsmen nearby. Bare is the brotherless back.” He noticed the glint in Arngjerd’s eyes and her fleeting smile. “I mean Gyrd, your uncle,” he said quickly, a little embarrassed.
“Yes, I know you didn’t mean my kinswoman Helga,” she said, and they both laughed.
Simon felt a warmth in his soul, in gratitude to God and the Virgin Mary, and to Halfrid, who had made him acknowledge this daughter as his own. Whenever he and Arngjerd happened to laugh together in this way, he needed no further proof of his paternity.
He stood up and brushed off some flour that she had on her sleeve. “And the suitor—what do you think of the man?” he asked.
“I like him well enough, the little that I’ve seen of him. And one shouldn’t believe everything one hears. But you must decide, Father.”
“Then we’ll do as I’ve said. Aasmund and Grunde can wait a while longer, and if they’re of the same mind when you’re a little older . . . Otherwise, you must know, my daughter, that you may decide on your marriage yourself, insofar as you have the sense to choose in your own best interest. And your judgment is sound enough, Arngjerd.”
He put his arms around her. She blushed when her father kissed her, and Simon realized that it had been a long time since he had done this. He was usually not the kind of man who was afraid to embrace his wife in the light of day or to banter with his children. But it was always done in jest, and Arngjerd . . . It suddenly dawned on Simon that his young daughter was probably the only person at Formo with whom he sometimes spoke in earnest.
He went over and pulled the peg out of the slit in the south wall. Through the small hole he gazed out across the valley. The wind was coming from the south, and big gray clouds were piling up where the mountains converged and blocked out the view. When a ray of sun broke through, the brilliance of all the colors deepened. The mild weather had licked away the sallow frost; the fields were brown, the fir trees blue-black, and high on the mountain crests the light gleamed with a golden luster where the bare slopes began, covered with lichen and moss.
Simon felt as if he could glean a singular power from the autumn wind outside and the shifting radiance over the countryside. If they had a lasting thaw for All Saints’ Day, there would be mill water in the creeks, at least until Christmas. And he could send men into the mountains to gather moss. It had been such a dry fall; the Laag was a meager, small stream running through the fish traps made of yellow gravel and pale stones.
Up in the north end of the valley only J?rundgaard and the parsonage had millhouses on the river. He had little desire to ask permission to use the J?rundgaard mill. No doubt everyone in the region would be taking their grain there, since Sira Eirik charged a mill fee. And people thought he gained too good an idea of how much grain they had; he was so greedy about demanding tithes. But Lavrans had always allowed people to grind their grain at his mill without charge, and Kristin wanted things to continue in the same way.
If he so much as thought of her, his heart would begin trembling, sick and anguished.
It was the day before both Saint Simon’s Day and the Feast of Saint Jude, the day when he always used to go to confession. It was to search his soul, to fast and to pray, that he was sitting there in the S?mund house while the house servants were doing the threshing in the barn.
It took no time at all to go over his sins: He had cursed; he had lied when people asked about matters that were not their concern; he had shot a deer long after he had seen by the sun that the Sabbath had begun on a Saturday evening; and he had gone hunting on Sunday morning when everyone else in the village was at mass.
What had happened when the boy lay ill—that was something he must not and dared not mention. But this was the first time in his life that he reluctantly kept silent about a sin before his parish priest.
He had thought much about it and suffered terribly over it in his heart. Surely this must be a great sin, whether he himself had used sorcery to heal or had directly lured another person into doing so.
But he wasn’t able to feel remorse when he thought about the fact that otherwise his son would now be lying in the ground. He felt fearful and dejected and kept watch to see if the child had changed afterward. He didn’t think he could discern anything.
He knew it was true of many kinds of birds and wild animals. If human hands touched the eggs or their young, the parents wanted no more to do with them but would turn away from their offspring. A man who had been granted the light of reason by God could not do the same. For Simon the situation had become such that when he held his son, he almost felt as if he couldn’t let the child out of his hands because he had grown so fearful for Andres. Sometimes he could understand why the heathen dumb beasts felt such loathing for their young because they had been touched. He too felt as if his child had been in some way infected.
But he had no regrets, did not wish that it hadn’t happened. He merely wished it had been someone other than Kristin. It was difficult enough for him that they lived in the same region.
Arngjerd came in to ask for a key. Ramborg didn’t think she had gotten it back after her husband had used it.
There was less and less order to the housekeeping on the manor. Simon remembered giving the key back to his wife; that was before he journeyed south.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll find it,” said Arngjerd.
She had such a nice smile and wise eyes. She wasn’t truly ugly either, thought her father. And her hair was lovely when she wore it loose, so thick and blond, for holy days and feasts.
The daughter of Erlend’s paramour had been pretty enough, and nothing but trouble had come of it.
But Erlend had had that daughter with a fair and highborn woman. Erlend had probably never even glanced at a woman like Arngjerd’s mother. He had sauntered jauntily through the world, and beautiful, proud women and maidens had lined up to offer him love and adventure.
Simon’s only sin of that kind—and he didn’t count the boyish pranks when he was at the king’s court—might have had a little more grandeur to it when he finally decided to betray his good and worthy wife. And he hadn’t paid her any more heed, that Jorunn; he couldn’t even remember how it happened that he first came too near the maid. He had been out carousing with friends and acquaintances a good deal that winter, and when he came home to his wife’s estate, Jorunn would always be waiting there, to see that he got into bed without causing any accidents with the hearth.
It had been no more splendid an adventure than that.
He had deserved even less that the child should turn out so well and bring him such joy. But he shouldn’t dwell on such thoughts now, when he was supposed to be thinking about his confession.
It was drizzling when Simon walked home from Romundgaard in the dark. He cut across the fields. In the last faint glimmer of daylight the stubble shone pale and wet. Over by the old bathhouse wall something small and white lay shining on the slope. Simon went over to have a look. It was the pieces of the French bowl that had been broken in the spring; the children had set a table made from a board placed across two stones. Simon struck at it with his axe and it toppled over.