And now he had broken with his brothers. He felt as if he would bleed to death when he thought about it, as if bonds of flesh and blood had been severed. He was the poorer for it. Bare is the brotherless back.
But however things now stood, in the midst of the heated exchange of words he had suddenly realized—he didn’t know exactly why—that Gyrd’s closed and stony demeanor wasn’t solely due to the fact that he was hard pressed to find any peace at home. In a flash Simon saw that Gyrd still loved Helga; that was what made him so strangely fettered and powerless. And in some secretive, incomprehensible way, this aroused his fury over . . . well, over life itself.
Simon hid his face in his hands. Yes, in that sense they had been good, obedient sons. It had been easy for Gyrd and him to feel love for the brides whom his father announced he had chosen for them. The old man had made a long, splendid speech to them one evening, and afterward they had both sat there feeling abashed. About marriage and friendship and faithfulness between honorable, noble spouses; in the end their father even mentioned prayers of intercession and masses. It was too bad their father hadn’t given them advice on how to forget as well—when the friendship was broken and the honor dead and the faithfulness a sin and a secret, disgraceful torment, and there was nothing left of the bond but the bleeding wound that would never heal.
After Erlend was released, an odd feeling of calm came over Simon—if only because a man can’t continue to endure the kind of pain he had suffered during that time in Oslo. Either something happens, or it gets better of its own accord.
Simon had not been pleased when Kristin moved to J?rund gaard with her husband and all their children so that he had to see them more often and keep up their friendship and kinship. But he consoled himself that it would have been much worse if he had been forced to live with her in a fashion that is unbearable for a man: to live with a woman he loves when she is not his wife or his kinswoman by blood. He chose to ignore what had occurred between his brother-in-law and himself on that evening when they celebrated Erlend’s release from the tower. Erlend had probably understood only half of it and surely hadn’t given it much thought. Erlend had such a rare talent for forgetting. And Simon had his own estate, a wife whom he loved, and his children.
He had found some semblance of peace with himself. It was not his fault that he loved his wife’s sister. She had once been his betrothed, and he was not the one who had broken his promise. Back when he had set his heart on Kristin Lavransdatter, it had simply been his duty to do so, because he thought she was intended to be his wife. The fact that he married her sister . . . that was Ramborg’s doing, and her father’s. Lavrans, as wise a man as he was, hadn’t thought to ask whether Simon had forgotten. But he knew that he couldn’t have stood to be asked that question by Lavrans.
Simon wasn’t good at forgetting. He was not to blame for that. And he had never spoken a single word that he ought to have withheld. But he couldn’t help it if the Devil plagued him with impulses and dreams that violated the bonds of blood; he had never willingly indulged in sinful thoughts of love. And he had always behaved like a loyal brother toward her and her kin. Of that he was certain.
At last he had managed to be tolerably content with his lot.
But only as long as he knew that he was the one who had served those two: Kristin and the man she had chosen in his stead. They had always been in need of his support.
Now this had changed. Kristin had risked her life and soul to save the life of his son. It felt as if all the old wounds had opened up ever since he allowed that to happen.
Later he became indebted to Erlend for his own life.
And then, in return, he had affronted the man—not intentionally, and only in his thoughts, but still . . .
“Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittibus debitoribus nostris.” It was strange that the Lord hadn’t also taught them to pray: “sicut et nos dimittibus creditoribus nostris.” He didn’t know whether this was proper Latin; he had never been particularly good at the language. But he knew that in some way he had always been able to forgive his debtors. It seemed much harder to forgive anyone who had bound a debt around his neck.
But now they were even: he and those two. He felt all the old resentments, which he had trampled underfoot for years, rip open and come to life.
He could no longer shove Erlend aside in his thoughts as a foolish chatterer who couldn’t see or learn or remember or ponder anything at all. Now the other man weighed on his mind precisely because no one knew what Erlend saw or thought or remembered; he was completely unfathomable.
Many a man is given what was intended for another, but no one is given another man’s fate.
How truly spoken.
Simon had loved his young betrothed. If he had won her, he would certainly have been a contented man; surely they would have lived well together. And she would have continued to be as she was when they first met: gentle and seemly, intelligent enough that a man would gladly seek her counsel even on important matters, a bit headstrong about petty things, but otherwise amenable, accustomed as she was to accepting from her father’s hands guidance and support and protection. But then that man had seized hold of her: a man incapable of restraining himself, who had never offered protection to anything. He had ravaged her sweet innocence, broken her proud calm, destroyed her womanly soul, and forced her to stretch and strain to the utmost every faculty she possessed. She had to defend her lover, the way a tiny bird protects its nest with a trembling body and shrill voice when anyone comes too close. It had seemed to Simon that her lovely, slender body was created to be lifted up and fervently shielded by a man’s arms. He had seen it tense with wild stubbornness, as her heart pounded with courage and fear and the will to fight, and she battled for her husband and children, the way even a dove can turn fierce and fearless if she has young ones.
If he had been her husband, if she had lived with his honorable goodwill for fifteen winters, he was certain that she would have stood up to defend him too if he had landed in misfortune. With shrewdness and courage she would have stood by his side. But he would never have seen that stony face she turned toward him on the evening in Oslo when she told him that she had been over to take a look around in that house. He would never have heard her scream his own name in such desperate need and distress. And it was not the honorable and just love of his youth that had answered in his heart. The ardor that rose up and cried out toward her wild spirit . . . he would never have known that such feeling could reside in his own heart if things had happened between them as their fathers had intended.
Her expression, as she walked past him and went out into the night to find help for his child . . . She would not have dared to take those measures if she had not been Erlend’s wife and had grown accustomed to acting fearlessly, even when her heart trembled with anguish. Her tear-streaked smile when she woke him up and said the boy was calling for his father . . . A smile of such heartbreaking sweetness was possible only for someone who knew what it meant both to lose a battle and to win.
It was Erlend’s wife whom he loved—the way he loved her now. But that meant his love was sinful, and that was why things stood as they did and why he was unhappy. He was so unhappy that sometimes he felt only a great astonishment that he was the one this had befallen, and he could see no way out of his distress.