Kristin felt dismayed and uneasy when she noticed that Erlend and her eldest son would fall silent or change the topic of their conversation as soon as she came near, and this was not a rare occurrence.
Gaute and Lavrans and Munan kept closer to their mother than Nikulaus had ever done, and she had always talked more to them than to him. And yet she still felt that of all her children, her firstborn son was in some sense closest to her heart. After she had returned to live at J?rundgaard, memories of the time when she bore this son under her heart and gave birth to him became strangely vivid and alive. For she noticed in so many ways that the people of Sil had not forgotten the sins of her youth. It was almost as if they felt she had tarnished the honor of the entire region when she, daughter of the man who was regarded as their chieftain, had gone astray. They had not forgiven her, or the fact that she and Erlend had added mockery to Lavrans’s sorrow and shame when they fooled him into giving away a seduced maiden with the grandest wedding that had ever been seen in Gudbrandsdal.
Kristin didn’t know whether Erlend realized that people had begun gossiping about these old subjects again. If he did, he probably paid them no mind. He considered her neighbors no more than homespun farmers and fools, every one of them. And he taught his sons to think the same. It pained her soul to know that these people who had wished her so well back when she was Lavrans Bj?rg ulfs?n’s pretty daughter, the rose of the northern valley, now despised Erlend Nikulauss?n and his wife and judged them harshly. She didn’t plead with them; she didn’t weep because she had become a stranger among them. But it hurt nevertheless. And it seemed as if even the steep mountains surrounding the valley that had sheltered her childhood now looked differently at her and her home: black with menace and stone-gray with a fierce determination to subdue her.
Once she had wept bitterly. Erlend knew about it, and he had had little patience with her back then. When he discovered that she had walked alone for many months with the burden of his child under her frightened, sorrowful heart, he did not take her in his arms and console her with tender and loving words. He was bitter and ashamed that it would come out how dishonorably he had acted toward Lavrans. But he hadn’t thought about how much more difficult it would be for her on that day when she stood in disgrace before her proud and loving father.
And Erlend had not greeted his son with much joy when she finally brought the child into the light of life. That moment when her soul was released from endless anguish and dread and torment and she saw the hideous, shapeless fruit of her sin come alive under the fervent prayers of the priest and become the most beloved and healthy of children, then it felt as if her heart would melt with humble joy, and even the hot, defiant blood of her body turned to sweet, white, innocent milk. Yes, with God’s help the boy would doubtless become a man, Erlend had said as she lay in bed, wanting him to rejoice with her over this precious treasure, which she could hardly bear to let out of her arms when the women wanted to tend to the child. He loved the children he had by Eline Ormsdatter—that much she had both seen and sensed—but when she carried Naakkve over to Erlend and tried to place him in his father’s arms, Erlend wrinkled his nose and asked what he was supposed to do with this infant who leaked from both ends. For years Erlend would only grudgingly look at his eldest, lawfully born son, unable to forget that Naakkve had come into the world at an inopportune time. And yet the boy was such a handsome and good and promising child that any father would rejoice to see such a son grow up to succeed him.
From the time he was quite little, Naakkve loved his father so dearly that it was wondrous to behold. His whole small, fair face would light up like the sun whenever his father took him on his knee for a moment and spoke a few words to him or he was allowed to hold his father’s hand to cross the courtyard. Steadfastly Naakkve had courted his father’s favor during that time when Erlend was more fond of all his other children than the eldest. Bj?rgulf was his father’s favorite when the boys were small, and occasionally Erlend would take his sons along to the armory when he went up there. That was where all the armor and weapons were kept that were not in daily use at Husaby. While his father talked and bantered with Bj?rgulf, Naakkve would sit quietly on top of a chest, simply breathing with happiness because he was allowed to be there.
But as time passed and Bj?rgulf’s poor eyesight meant that he could not accompany Erlend as readily as his other sons, and Bj?rg ulf also grew more taciturn and withdrawn, things changed. Erlend began to seem almost a little embarrassed in the boy’s presence. Kristin wondered whether Bj?rgulf, in his heart, blamed his father for destroying their well-being and taking his sons’ future with him when he fell—and whether Erlend knew or guessed as much. However that might be, Bj?rgulf was the only one of Erlend’s sons who did not seem to look up to him with blind love and boundless pride at calling him Father.
One morning the two smallest boys noticed that Erlend was reading from the prayer book and fasting on bread and water. They asked him why he was doing this since it wasn’t a fast day. Erlend replied that it was because of his sins. Kristin knew that these fast days were part of the penance that had been imposed upon Erlend for breaking his marriage vows with Sunniva Olavsdatter, and she knew that her oldest sons were aware of this. Naakkve and Gaute seemed untroubled by it, but she happened to glance at Bj?rgulf at that moment. The boy was sitting at the table, squinting nearsightedly at his bowl of food and chuckling to himself. Kristin had seen Gunnulf smile that way several times when Erlend was being most boastful. She didn’t like it.
Now it was Naakkve whom Erlend always wanted to take along. And the youth seemed to come alive, as if all his roots were attached to his father. Naakkve served his father the way a young page serves his lord and chieftain. He took care of his father’s horse himself and kept his harnesswork and weapons in order. He fastened Erlend’s spurs on his feet and brought his hat and cape when Erlend was going out. He filled his father’s goblet and served him slices of meat at the table, sitting on the bench just to the right of Erlend’s seat. Erlend jested a bit over the boy’s chivalrous and noble manners, but he was pleased, and he commanded more and more of Naakkve’s attention.
Kristin saw that Erlend had now completely forgotten how she had struggled and begged to win from him a scrap of fatherly love for this child. And Naakkve had forgotten the time when she was the one he turned to, seeking solace from all his ills and advice for all his troubles when he was little. He had always been a loving son toward his mother, and he still was in many ways, but she felt that the older the boy became, the farther away he moved from her and her concerns. Naakkve lacked all sense for what she had to cope with. He was never disobliging when she gave him a task to do, but he was oddly awkward and clumsy at anything that might be called farm work. He did the chores without interest or desire and never finished anything. His mother thought that in many ways he was not unlike his deceased half brother, Orm Er lendss?n; he also resembled him in appearance. But Naakkve was strong and healthy, a lively dancer and sportsman, an excellent bowman and tolerably skilled in the use of other weapons, a good horseman and a superb skier. Kristin spoke about this one day to Ulf Haldorss?n, Naakkve’s foster father.
Ulf said, “No one has lost more from Erlend’s folly than that boy. There is not another youth growing up in Norway today who would make a more splendid horseman and chieftain than Naakkve.”
But Kristin saw that Naakkve never gave a thought to what his father had ruined for him.