Now, much later, he feared that it was probably intended more as an appeal to King Haakon than for the sake of God or Mary that he had acquired these small epistles with prayers and learned them while he was among the king’s retainers. All the young men did so, for the king was in the habit of quizzing the pages about what they knew of such useful knowledge when he lay in bed at night, unable to sleep.
Oh yes . . . that was so long ago. The king’s bedchamber in the stone hall of the Oslo palace. On the little table next to his bed burned a single candle; the light fell across the finely etched, faded, and aging face of the man, resting above the red silken quilts. When the priest had finished reading aloud and taken his leave, the king often picked up the book himself and lay in bed, reading with the heavy volume resting against his propped-up knees. On two footstools over by the brick fireplace sat the pages; Simon nearly always had the watch with Gunstein Ingas?n. It was pleasant in the chamber. The fire burned brightly, giving heat without smoke, and the room seemed so snug with the cross-beamed ceiling and the walls always covered with tapestries. But they would grow sleepy from sitting there in that fashion, first listening to the priest read and then waiting for the king to fall asleep, as he rarely did until close to midnight. When he was sleeping, they were allowed to take turns keeping guard and napping on the bench between the fireplace and the door to the royal Council hall.
Occasionally the king would converse with them; this didn’t happen often, but when it did, he was inexpressibly kind and charming. Or he would read aloud from the book a sentence or a few stanzas of a verse that he thought the young men might find useful or beneficial to hear.
One night Simon was awakened by King Haakon calling for him in pitch-darkness. The candle had burned out. Feeling wretched with shame, Simon blew some life into the embers and lit a new candle. The king lay in bed, smiling secretively.
“Does that Gunstein always snore so terribly?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“You share a bed with him in the dormitory, don’t you? It might be deemed reasonable if you asked for another bedfellow for a while who makes less noise when he sleeps.”
“Thank you, my Lord, but it doesn’t bother me, Your Majesty!”
“Surely you must wake up, Simon, when that thunder explodes right next to your ear—don’t you?”
“Yes, Your Grace, but then I give him a shove and turn him over a bit.”
The king laughed. “I wonder whether you young men realize that being able to sleep so soundly is one of God’s great gifts. When you reach my age, Simon my friend, perhaps you will remember my words.”
That seemed endlessly far away—still clear, but not as if he were the same man, sitting here now, who had once been that young page.
One day at the beginning of Advent, when Kristin was almost alone on the estate—her sons were bringing home firewood and moss—she was surprised to see Simon Darre come riding into the courtyard. He had come to invite her and her sons to be their guests during Christmas.
“You know quite well, Simon, that we can’t do that,” she said somberly. “We can still be friends in our hearts, you and Ramborg and I, but as you know, it’s not always possible for us to determine what we must do.”
“Surely you don’t mean that you’re going to take this so far that you won’t come to your only sister when she has to lie down to give birth.”
Kristin prayed that all would go well and bring both of them joy. “But I can’t tell you with certainty that I will come.”
“Everyone will think it remarkably strange,” admonished Simon. “You have a reputation for being the best midwife, and she’s your sister, and the two of you are the mistresses of the largest estates in the northern part of the region.”
“Quite a few children have been brought into the world on the great manors around here over the past few years, but I’ve never been asked to come. It’s no longer the custom, Simon, for a birth to be considered improperly attended if the mistress of J?rund gaard is not in the room.” She saw that he was greatly distressed by her words, and so she continued, “Give my greetings to Ramborg, and tell her that I will come to help her when it’s time; but I cannot come to your Christmas feast, Simon.”
But on the eighth day of the Christmas season she met Simon as he came to mass without Ramborg. No, she was feeling fine, he said, but she needed to rest and gather her strength, for the next day he was taking her and the children south to Dyfrin. The weather was so good for traveling by sleigh, and since Gyrd had invited them, and Ramborg was so keen on going, well . . .
CHAPTER 4
ON THE DAY after Saint Paal’s Day, Simon Darre rode north across Lake Mj?sa, accompanied by two men. A bitter frost had set in, but he didn’t think he could stay away from home any longer; the sleighs would have to follow later, as soon as the cold had let up a bit.
At Hamar he met a friend, Vigleik Paalss?n of Fagaberg, and they continued on together. When they reached Lillehammer, they rested for a while at a farm where ale was served. As they sat and drank, several drunken fur peddlers began brawling in the room. Finally Simon stood up, stepped into the thick of things and separated them, but in doing so, he received a knife wound in his right forearm. It was little more than a scratch, so he paid it no mind, although the proprietress of the alehouse insisted on being allowed to bind a cloth around it.
He rode home with Vigleik and stayed the night at his manor. The men shared a bed, and toward morning Simon was awakened because the other man was thrashing in his sleep. Several times Vigleik called out his name, and so Simon woke him up to ask what was wrong.
Vigleik couldn’t remember his dream properly. “But it was loathsome, and you were in it. One thing I do remember: Simon Reidarss?n stood in this room and asked you to leave with him. I saw him so clearly that I could have counted every single freckle on his face.”
“I wish you could sell me that dream,” said Simon, half in jest and half seriously. Simon Reidarss?n was his uncle’s son, and they had been good friends when they were growing up, but the other Simon had died at the age of thirteen.
In the morning when the men sat down to eat, Vigleik noticed that Simon hadn’t buttoned the sleeve of his tunic around his right wrist. The flesh was red and swollen all the way down to the back of his hand. He mentioned it, but Simon merely laughed.
A little later, when his friend begged him to stay on a few more days and to wait there for his wife—Vigleik couldn’t forget his dream—Simon Andress?n replied, almost indignantly, “Surely you haven’t had such a bad dream about me that I should keep to my bed because of a mere louse bite?”
Around sunset Simon and his men rode down to Lake Losna. It had been the most beautiful day; now the towering blue and white peaks turned gold and crimson in the twilight, while along the river the groves, heavy with rime, stood furry gray in the shadows. The men had excellent horses and a brisk ride ahead of them across the long lake; tiny bits of ice sprayed up, ringing and clinking beneath the hooves of the horses. A biting wind blew hard against them. Simon was freezing, but in spite of the cold, strange nauseating waves of heat kept washing over him, followed by icy spells that seemed to seep all the way into the marrow of his spine. Now and then he noticed that his tongue was swollen and felt oddly thick at the back of his throat. Even before they had crossed the lake he had to stop and ask one of his men to help him fasten his cape so it would support his right arm.
The servants had heard Vigleik Paalss?n recounting his dream; now they wanted their master to show them his wound. But Simon said it was nothing; it merely stung a bit. “I may have to get used to being left-handed for a few days.”