Skule was furious. But Ulf said quietly, “It’s better this way, my boy, better for her to be unreasonable and angry than to see her sitting and staring as if she had lost her wits to grief.”
Gunhild, her maid, came running after them. They were to come at once to see her mistress in the weaving room. She wanted to talk to them and to all her sons. In a curt, sharp voice, Kristin asked Ulf to ride down to Breidin to speak with a man who had leased two cows from her. He should take the twins along with him, and there was no need to return home until the next day. She sent Naakkve and Gaute up to the mountain pastures. She wanted them to go to Illmanddal to see to the horse paddock there. And on their way up they were to stop by to see Bj?rn, the tar-burner and Isrid’s son, and ask him to come to J?rundgaard that evening. It would do no good for them to object since tomorrow was the Sabbath.
The next morning, as the bells were ringing, the mistress left J?rundgaard, accompanied by Bj?rn and Isrid, who carried the child. She had given them good and proper clothing, but for this first church visit after the birth Kristin herself was adorned with so much gold that everyone could see she was the mistress and the other two her servants.
Defiant and proud, she faced the indignant astonishment she felt directed at her from everyone on the church green. Oh yes, in the past she had come to church quite differently on such an occasion, accompanied by the most noble of women. Sira Solmund looked at her with unkind eyes as she stood before the church door with a taper in her hand, but he received her in his customary fashion.
Isrid had retreated into childhood by now and understood very little; Bj?rn was an odd and taciturn man, who never interfered in anyone else’s affairs. These two were the godmother and godfather.
Isrid told the priest the child’s name. He gave a start. He hesitated. Then he pronounced it so loudly that it was heard by the people standing in the nave.
“Erlend. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . .”
A shudder seemed to pass through the entire assembled congregation. And Kristin felt a wild, vindictive joy.
The child had looked quite strong when he was born. But from the very first week Kristin thought she could tell that he was not going to thrive. She herself had felt, at the moment she gave birth, that her heart was collapsing like an extinguished ember. When Isrid showed her the newborn son, she imagined that the spark of life had only an uncertain hold on this child. But she pushed this thought aside; an unspeakable number of times she had already felt as if her heart would break. And the child was plenty big and did not look weak.
But her uneasiness over the boy grew from day to day. He whimpered constantly and had a poor appetite. She often had to struggle for a long time before she could get him to take her breast. When she had finally enticed him to suckle, he would fall asleep almost at once. She couldn’t see that he was getting any bigger.
With inexpressible anguish and heartache she thought she saw that from the day he was baptized and received his father’s name, little Erlend began to weaken more quickly.
None of her children, no, none of them had she loved as she did this little unfortunate boy. None of them had she conceived in such sweet and wild joy; none had she carried with such happy anticipation. She thought back on the past nine months; in the end she had fought with all her life to hold on to hope and belief. She couldn’t bear to lose this child, but neither could she bear to save him.
Almighty God, merciful Queen, Holy Olav. She could feel that this time it would do her no good to fling herself down and beg for her child’s life.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.
She went to church every Sabbath, as was her custom. She kissed the doorpost, sprinkled herself with holy water, sank to her knees before the ancient crucifix above the choir. The Savior gazed down, sorrowful and gentle in his death throes. Christ died to save his murderers. Holy Olav stands before him, perpetually praying for intercession for those who drove him into exile and killed him.
As we forgive those who have sinned against us.
Blessed Mary, my child is dying!
Don’t you know, Kristin, that I would rather have carried his cross and suffered his death myself than stand under my son’s cross and watch him die? But since I knew that this had to happen to save the sinners, I consented in my heart. I consented when my son prayed: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
As we forgive those who have sinned against us . . .
What you scream in your heart does not become a prayer until you have said your Pater noster without deceit.
Forgive us our sins . . . Do you remember how many times your sins were forgiven? Look at your sons over there on the men’s side. Look at him standing in front, like the chieftain of that handsome group of youths. The fruit of your sin . . . For nearly twenty years you have seen God grant him greater looks, wisdom, and manliness. See His mercy. Where is your own mercy toward your youngest son back home?
Do you remember your father? Do you remember Simon Darre?
But deep in her heart Kristin felt that she had not forgiven Erlend. She could not, because she would not. She held on to her bowl of love, refusing to let it go, even though it now contained only these last, bitter dregs. The moment when she left Erlend behind, no longer thinking of him even with this corrosive bitterness, then everything that had been between them would be over.
So she stood there during mass and knew that it would be of no benefit to her. She tried to pray: Holy Olav, help me. Work a miracle on my heart so that I might say my prayer without deceit and think of Erlend with God-fearing peace in my soul. But she knew that she did not want this prayer to be heard. Then she felt that it was useless for her to pray to be allowed to keep the child. Young Erlend was on loan from God. Only on one condition could she keep him, and she refused to accept that condition. And it was useless to lie to Saint Olav. . . .
So she kept watch over the ill child. Her tears spilled out; she wept without a sound and without moving. Her face was as gray and stony as ever, although gradually the whites of her eyes and her eyelids turned blood red. If anyone came near her, she would quickly wipe her face and simply sit there, stiff and mute.
And yet it took so little to thaw her heart. If one of her big sons came in, cast a glance at the tiny child, and spoke a few kind and sympathetic words to him, then Kristin could hardly keep from bursting into loud sobs. If she could have talked to her grown-up sons about her anguish over the infant, she knew her heart would have melted. But they had grown shy around her now. Ever since that day when they came home and learned what name she had given their youngest brother, the boys seemed to have drawn closer together and stood so far away from her.
But one day, when Naakkve was looking at the child, he said, “Mother, give me permission . . . to seek out Father and tell him how things stand with the boy.”
“It will no longer do any good,” replied his mother in despair.
Munan didn’t understand. He brought his playthings to the little brother, rejoiced when he was allowed to hold him, and thought he had made the child smile. Munan talked about when his father would come home and wondered what he would think of the new son. Kristin sat in silence, her face gray, and let her soul be torn apart by the boy’s chatter.
The infant was now thin and wrinkled like an old man; his eyes were unnaturally big and clear. And yet he had begun to smile at his mother; she would moan softly whenever she saw this. Kristin caressed his small, thin limbs, held his feet in her hands. Never would this child lie there and reach with surprise for the sweet, strange, pale pink shapes that flailed in the air above him, which he didn’t recognize as his own legs. Never would these tiny feet walk on the earth.