At that time there was once again great unrest in Norway, and rumors were flying all through the valleys, some of them reasonable and some of them completely unlikely. The noblemen in the south and west of the kingdom as well as in the uplands had grown exceedingly discontented with the rule of King Magnus. It was said they had even threatened to take up arms, rally the peasantry, and force Lord Magnus Eirikss?n to rule in accordance with their wishes and advice; otherwise they would proclaim his cousin, the young Jon Haftorss?n of Sudrheim, their king. His mother, Lady Agnes, was the daughter of the blessed King Haakon Haalegg. Not much was heard from Jon himself, but his brother Sigurd was supposed to be in the vanguard of the entire enterprise, and Bjarne, Erling Vidkunss?n’s young son, was also part of it. People said that Sigurd had promised that if Jon became king, he would take one of Bjarne’s sisters as his queen because the maidens of Giske were also descended from the ancient Norwegian kings. Sir Ivar Ogmundss?n, who had formerly been one of King Magnus’s most ardent supporters, was now said to have joined forces with these young noblemen, as had many others among the wealthiest and most highborn of men. People said that Erling Vidkunss?n himself and the bishop of Bj?rgvin stood behind the effort.
Kristin paid little mind to these rumors; she thought bitterly that she and her family were commoners now and the affairs of the realm no longer concerned them. And yet she had talked about this a bit with Simon Andress?n during the previous fall, and she also knew that he had spoken of it to Erlend. But she saw that Simon was loath to discuss such things—partly, no doubt, because he disapproved of his brothers getting involved in such dangerous matters. And Gyrd, at any rate, was being led along by his wife’s kinsmen. But Simon also feared that it wouldn’t be pleasant for Erlend to hear such talk since he had been born to take his place among men who counseled the rulers of Norway, but now misfortune had shut him out from the company of his peers.
And yet Kristin saw that Erlend spoke of these matters with his sons. One day she heard Naakkve say, “But if these men win out against King Magnus, then surely they can’t be so cowardly, Father, that they wouldn’t take up your case and force the king to make amends with you.”
Erlend laughed.
His son continued, “You were the first to show the way to these men and remind them that it was never the custom among Norwegian nobles in the past to sit back calmly and tolerate injustice from their kings. It cost you your ancestral estates and your position as sheriff. The men who supported you escaped without a scratch. You alone have paid the price for all of them.”
“Yes, and that’s all the more reason why they would want to forget me,” said Erlend with a laugh. “And the archbishopric has acquired Husaby against a loan. I don’t think the gentlemen of the council will urge impoverished King Magnus to redeem it.”
“The king is your kinsman, as are Sigurd Haftorss?n and most of the other men,” replied Naakkve vehemently. “Not without shame can they desert the man who carried his shield with honor to the borderlands of the north and cleared Finnmark and the Gandvik coast1 of the enemies of God and the Crown. Then they would indeed be miserable cowards.”
Erlend gave a whistle. “Son, one thing I can tell you. I don’t know how this venture of the Haftorss?ns will end, but I would wager my own neck they don’t dare show Lord Magnus the naked blade of a Norwegian sword. Talk and compromise are what I think will result, with not a single arrow fired. And those fellows won’t exert themselves for my sake, because they know me and realize that I’m not as squeamish about honed steel as some of the others.
“Kinsmen you say . . . Yes, they’re your third cousins, both Magnus and those sons of Haftor. I remember them from the time I served at King Haakon’s court. It was fortunate that my kinswoman Lady Agnes was the daughter of a king; otherwise she might have found herself out on the wharves, pulling in fish, if a woman like your mother, out of pious mercy, didn’t hire her to help out in the cowshed. More than once I’ve wiped the snouts of those Haftorss?ns when they had to appear before their grandfather, and they came racing into the hall as snot-nosed as if they had just crept from their mother’s lap. And if I gave them a swat out of loving kinship, to teach them some proper manners, they would shriek like stuck pigs. I hear they’ve made men of these Sudrheim changelings at last. But if you expect to receive the help of kinsmen from those quarters, you’d be looking for solace in the backside of a dog.”
Later Kristin said to Erlend, “Naakkve is so young, my dear husband. Don’t you think it’s unwise to speak so openly about such matters with him?”
“You speak so gently, my dear wife,” replied Erlend with a smile, “that I see you wish to rebuke me. When I was Naakkve’s age, I was headed north to Varg?y for the first time. If Lady Inge bj?rg had remained loyal to me,” he exclaimed vehemently, “I would have sent Naakkve and Gaute to serve her. In Denmark there might have been a future for two intrepid adventurers skilled with weapons.”
“When I gave birth to these children,” said Kristin bitterly, “I didn’t think that our sons would seek their living in a foreign land.”
“You know I didn’t intend that either,” said Erlend. “But man proposes, God disposes.”
Then Kristin told herself that it wasn’t simply that she felt a stab in her heart every time she noticed that Erlend and her sons, now that they were getting older, acted as if their concerns were beyond the comprehension of a woman. But she feared Erlend’s reckless tongue; he never remembered that his sons were little more than children.
And yet as young as the boys were—Nikulaus was now seventeen winters old, Bj?rgulf would be sixteen, and Gaute would turn fifteen in the fall—all three had a certain way with women that made their mother uneasy.
Admittedly nothing had happened that she could point to. They didn’t run after women, they were never coarse or discourteous in speech, and they didn’t like it when the servant men told vulgar stories or brought filthy rumors back to the manor. But Erlend too had always been very chivalrous and seemly; she had seen him blush at words over which both her father and Simon laughed heartily. But at the time she had vaguely felt that the other two laughed the way peasants laugh at tales about the Devil, while learned men, who know better his ferocious cunning, have little affection for such jests.