It was sunny and rainy by turns. One afternoon her sons called to her. All seven of them were standing out in the courtyard along with all the servants. Above the valley stretched three rainbows. The innermost one ended at the buildings of Formo; it was unbroken, with brilliant colors. The two outer ones were fainter and faded away at the top.
Even as they stood there, staring at this astonishing fair omen, the sky grew dark and overcast. From the south a blizzard of snow swept in. It began snowing so hard that soon the whole world had turned white.
That evening Kristin told Munan the story about King Snjo and his pretty white daughter, whose name was Mj?ll, and about King Harald Luva, who was brought up by the Dovre giant inside the mountain north of Dovre. She thought with sorrow and remorse that it was years since she had sat and told stories to her children in this fashion. She felt sorry that she had offered Lavrans and Munan so little pleasure of this kind. And they would soon be big boys. While the others had been small, back home at Husaby, she had spent the evenings telling them stories—often, so often.
She saw that her older sons were listening too. She blushed bright red and came to a stop. Munan asked her to tell them more. Naakkve stood up and moved closer.
“Do you remember, Mother, the story about Torstein Uksafot and the trolls of H?iland Forest? Tell us that one!”
As she talked, a memory came back to her. They had lain down to rest and to have something to eat in the birch grove down by the river: her father and the hay harvesters, both men and women. Her father was lying on his stomach; she was sitting astride him, on the small of his back, and kicking him in the flanks with her heels. It was a hot day, and she had been given permission to go barefoot, just like the grown-up women. Her father was reeling off the members of the H?iland troll lineage: Jernskjold married Skjoldvor; their daughters were Skjolddis and Skjoldgjerd, whom Torstein Uksafot killed. Skjoldgjerd had been married to Skjoldketil, and their sons were Skjoldbj?rn and Skjoldhedin and Valskjold, who wed Skjoldskjessa; they gave birth to Skjoldulf and Skjoldorm. Skjoldulf won Skjoldkatla, and together they conceived Skjold and Skjoldketil . . .
No, he had already used that name, cried Kolbj?rn, laughing. For Lavrans had boasted that he would teach them two dozen troll names, but he hadn’t even made it through the first dozen. Lavrans laughed too. “Well, you have to understand that even trolls revive the names of their ancestors!” But the workers refused to give in; they fined him a drink of mead for them all. And you shall have it, said the master. In the evening, after they went back home. But they wanted to have it at once, and finally Tordis was sent off to get the mead.
They stood in a circle and passed the big drinking horn around. Then they picked up their scythes and rakes and went back to the hay harvesting. Kristin was sent home with the empty horn. She carried it in front of her in both hands as she ran barefoot through the sunshine on the green path, up toward the manor. Now and then she would stop, whenever a few drops of mead had collected in the curve of the horn. Then she would tilt it over her little face and lick the gilded rim inside and out, as well as her fingers, tasting the sweetness.
Kristin Lavransdatter sat still, staring straight ahead. Father! She remembered a tremor passing over his face, a paleness, the way a forest slope grows pale whenever a stormy gust turns the leaves of the trees upside down. An edge of cold, sharp derision in his voice, a gleam in his gray eyes, like the glint of a half-drawn sword. A brief moment, and then it would vanish—into cheerful, good-humored jest when he was young, but becoming more often a quiet, slightly melancholy gentleness as he grew older. Something other than deep, tender sweetness had resided in her father’s heart. She had learned to understand it over the years. Her father’s marvelous gentleness was not because he lacked a keen enough perception of the faults and wretchedness of others; it came from his constant searching of his own heart before God, crushing it in repentance over his own failings.
No, Father, I will not be impatient. I too have sinned greatly toward my husband.
On the evening of Holy Cross Day Kristin was sitting at the table with her house servants and seemed much the same as usual. But when her sons had gone up to the high loft to sleep, she quietly called Ulf Haldorss?n to her side. She asked him to go down to Isrid at the farm and ask her to come up to her mistress in the old weaving room.
Ulf said, “You must send word to Ranveig at Ulvsvold and to Haldis, the priest’s sister, Kristin. It would be most fitting if you sent for Astrid and Ingebj?rg of Loptsgaard to take charge of the room.”
“There’s no time for that,” said Kristin. “I felt the first pangs just before midafternoon prayers. Do as I say, Ulf. I want only my own maids and Isrid at my side.”
“Kristin,” said Ulf somberly, “don’t you see what vile gossip may come of this if you creep into hiding tonight.”
Kristin let her arms fall heavily onto the table. She closed her eyes.
“Then let them talk, whoever wants to talk! I can’t bear to see the eyes of those other women around me tonight.”
The next morning her big sons sat in silence, their eyes lowered, as Munan talked on and on about the little brother he had seen in his mother’s arms over in the weaving room. Finally Bj?rgulf said that he didn’t need to talk anymore about that.
Kristin lay in bed, merely listening; she felt as if she never slept so soundly that she wasn’t listening and waiting.
She got out of bed on the eighth day, but the women who were with her could tell that she wasn’t well. She was freezing, and then waves of heat would wash over her. On one day the milk would pour from her breasts and soak her clothes; the next day she didn’t have enough to give the child his fill. But she refused to go back to bed. She never let the child out of her arms; she never put him in the cradle. At night she would take him to bed with her; in the daytime she carried him around, sitting at the hearth with him, sitting on her bed, listening and waiting and staring at her son, although at times she didn’t seem to see him or to hear that he was crying. Then she would abruptly wake up. She would hold the boy in her arms and walk back and forth in the room with him. With her cheek pressed against his, she would hum softly to him, then sit down and place him to her breast, and sit there staring at him as she had before, her face as hard as stone.
One day when the boy was almost six weeks old, and the mother had not yet taken a single step across the threshold of the weaving room, Ulf Haldorss?n and Skule came in. They were dressed for travel.
“We’re riding north to Haugen now, Kristin,” said Ulf. “There has to be an end to this matter.”
Kristin sat mute and motionless, with the boy at her breast. At first she didn’t seem to comprehend. All of a sudden she jumped up, her face flushed blood red. “Do as you like. If you’re longing for your proper master, I won’t hold you back. It would be best if you drew your earnings now; then you won’t need to come back here for them later.”
Ulf began cursing fiercely. Then he looked at the woman standing there with the infant clutched to her bosom. He pressed his lips together and fell silent.
But Skule took a step forward. “Yes, Mother, I’m riding up to see Father now. If you’re forgetting that Ulf has been a foster father to all of us children, then you should at least remember that you can’t command and rule me as if I were a servant or an infant.”
“Can’t I?” Kristin struck him a blow to the ear so the boy staggered. “I think I can command and rule all of you as long as I give you food and clothing. Get out!” she shrieked, stomping her foot.