Simon remembered how Erlend had been when he was in the company of his peers up north. Easy and confident enough; he wasn’t lacking in that regard. Impetuous and rash in his speech, but always with something slightly ingratiating about his manner. He was not in the least indifferent to what others thought of him if he considered them his peers or kinsmen. On the contrary, he had doubtless put great effort into winning their approval.
With an oddly fierce sense of bitterness, Simon suddenly felt allied with these farmers from here in the valley—men whom Erlend respected so little that he didn’t even wonder what they might think of him. He had done it for Erlend’s sake. For his sake Simon had parted with the circles of the gentry and well-to-do. It was all very well to be the rich farmer of Formo, but he couldn’t forget that he had turned his back on his peers, kinsmen, and the friends of his youth. Because he had assumed the role of a supplicant among them, he no longer had the strength to meet them, hardly had the strength to think of it at all. For this brother-in-law of his he had as good as denied his king and departed from the ranks of royal retainers. He had revealed to Erlend something that he found more bitter than death to recall whenever it entered his thoughts. And yet Erlend behaved toward him as if he had understood nothing and remembered nothing. It didn’t seem to trouble the fellow at all that he had wreaked havoc with another man’s life.
At that moment Erlend said to him, “We should see about leaving, Simon, if we want to make it back home tonight. I’ll go out and see to the horses.”
Simon looked up, feeling a strange ill will at the sight of the other man’s tall, handsome figure. Under the hood of his cape Erlend wore a small black silk cap that fit snugly to his head and was tied under his chin. His lean dark face with the big pale blue eyes sunk deep in the shadow of his brow looked even younger and more refined under that cap.
“And pack up my bag in the meantime,” he said from the door as he went out.
The other men had continued to talk about the case. It was quite peculiar, said one of them, that Lavrans hadn’t been able to arrange things better; the man usually knew what he was doing. He was the most experienced of farmers in all matters regarding the purchase and sale of land.
“It’s probably my father who is to blame,” said Holmgeir, the priest’s son. “He said as much this morning. If he had listened to Lavrans back then, everything would have been plain and clear. But you know how Lavrans was. . . . Toward priests he was always as amenable and submissive as a lamb.”
Even so, Lavrans of J?rundgaard had always guarded his own welfare, said someone else.
“Yes, and no doubt he thought he was doing so when he followed the priest’s advice,” said Holmgeir, laughing. “That can be the wise thing to do, even with earthly matters—as long as you’re not eyeing the same patch that the Church has set its sights on.”
Lavrans had been a strangely pious man, thought Vidar. He had never spared either property or livestock with regard to the Church or the poor.
“No,” said Holmgeir thoughtfully. “Well, if I’d been such a rich man, I too might have had a mind to pay out sums for the peace of my soul. But I wouldn’t have given away my goods with both hands, the way he did, and then walk around with red eyes and white cheeks every time I’d been to see the priest to confess my sins. And Lavrans went to confession every month.”
“Tears of remorse are the fair gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit, Holmgeir,” said old Ingemund Bj?rnss?n. “Blessed is he who can weep for his sins here in this world; all the easier it will be for him to enter the other. . . .”
“Then Lavrans must have been in Heaven long ago,” said Holmgeir, “considering the way he fasted and disciplined his flesh. I’ve heard that on Good Friday he would lock himself in the loft above the storeroom and lash himself with a whip.”
“Hold your tongue,” said Simon Andress?n, trembling with bitterness; his face was blood red. Whether Holmgeir’s remark was true or not, he didn’t know. But when he was cleaning up his father-in-law’s belongings, he had found a small, oblong wooden box in the bottom of his book chest, and inside lay a silk whip that the cloisters called a flagellum. The braided strips of leather bore dark spots, which might have been blood. Simon had burned it, with a feeling of sad reverence. He realized that he had come upon something in the other man’s life that Lavrans had never wanted a living soul to see.
“I don’t think he would talk about such things to his servants, in any case,” said Simon when he trusted himself to speak.
“No, it’s just something that people have made up,” replied Holmgeir. “Surely he didn’t have such sins to repent that he would need to—” The man gave a little sneer. “If I had lived as blameless and Christian a life as Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n, and been married to a mournful woman like Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter, I think I would have wept for the sins that I hadn’t committed—”
Simon leaped up and struck Holmgeir in the mouth so the man tumbled back toward the hearth. His dagger fell to the floor, and in the next instant he grabbed it and tried to stab the other man. Simon shielded himself with his arm holding his cape as he seized Holmgeir’s wrist with his other hand and tried to wrest the dagger away. In the meantime the priest’s son aimed a number of blows at his face. Simon then gripped him by both arms, but the young man sank his teeth into Simon’s hand.
“You dare to bite me, you dog!” Simon let go, took several steps back, and pulled his sword from its sheath. He fell upon Holmgeir so that his young body arched back, with a few inches of steel buried in his chest. A moment later Holmgeir’s body slipped from the sword point and fell heavily, halfway in the hearth fire.
Simon flung his sword away and was about to lift Holmgeir out of the blaze when he saw Vidar’s axe raised to strike right above his head. He ducked and lunged to the side, seized hold of his sword again, and just managed to fend off the blade of the envoy, Alf Einarss?n; he whirled around and again had to shield himself from Vidar’s axe. Out of the corner of his eye he saw behind him that the Bj?rnss?ns and Bj?rn of Lunde were aiming spears at him from the other side of the hearth. He then drove Alf in front of him over to the opposite wall but sensed that Vidar was coming for him from behind. Vidar had dragged Holmgeir out of the fire; they were cousins, those two. And the louts from Lunde were approaching from around the hearth. He stood exposed on all sides, and in the midst of it all, even though he had more than enough to do to save his life, he felt a vague, unhappy sense of surprise that the men were all against him.
At the next moment Erlend’s sword flashed between the Lunde men and Simon. Toralde reeled aside and fell against the wall. Quick as lightning, Erlend shifted his sword to his left hand and struck Alf’s weapon away so that it slid with a clatter across the floor, while with his right hand he grabbed the shaft of Bj?rn’s spear and pressed it downward.
“Get outside,” he told Simon, breathing hard and shielding his brother-in-law from Vidar. Simon ground his teeth together and raced across the room toward Bj?rn and Ingemund. Erlend was at his side, screaming over the tumult and clanging of swords: “Get outside! Do you hear me, you fool? Head for the door—we have to get out!”
When Simon realized that Erlend meant for both of them to go out, he began moving backward, still fighting, toward the door. They ran through the entryway, and then they were out in the courtyard, Simon a few steps farther away from the building, and Erlend right in front of the door with his sword half raised and his face turned toward those who were swarming after them.
For a moment Simon felt blinded; the winter day was so dazzling bright and clear. Under the blue sky the mountains arched white-gold in the last rays of the sun; the forest was weighted down with snow and frost. The expanse of fields glittered and gleamed like gemstones.
He heard Erlend say, “It will not make amends for the misfortune if more deaths occur. We should use our wits, good sirs, so there is no more bloodshed. Things are bad enough as they are, with my brother-in-law having slain a man.”