“Keep silent, priest. I cannot listen to more than one of you at a time,” said Lord Halvard impatiently. “Speak, Olav Trondss?n.”
Olav Trondss?n said, “The priest tried to rankle the sons of Erlend, but Bj?rgulf and Gaute countered his words, calmly enough. Gaute also said what we all know is true: that Kristin was with her husband at Dovre for a time this past summer, and that’s when he was conceived, the poor infant who has stirred up all this trouble. But then the priest said the people of J?rundgaard have always had so much book learning—no doubt she knew the story of King David and Bathsheba—but Erlend Nikulauss?n might have been just as cunning as Uriah the knight.”2
The bishop’s face turned as purple as his robes; his black eyes flashed. He looked at Sira Solmund for a moment, but he did not speak to him.
“Surely you must know, Gaute Erlendss?n, that with this deed you have brought the ban of the Church upon your head,” he said. Then he ordered the sons of Erlend to be escorted home to J?rundgaard; he sent along two of his men and four farmers, whom the bishop selected from among the most honorable and sensible, to keep guard over them.
“You must go with them as well, Nikulaus,” he told Naakkve. “But stay calm. Your brothers have not helped your mother, but I realize they were sorely vexed.”
In his heart the bishop of Hamar didn’t think that Kristin’s sons had harmed her case. He saw that there were already many who held a different opinion of the mistress of J?rundgaard than they had in the morning, when she caused the goblet to overflow by coming to church with Ulf Haldorss?n so that he might be godfather to her son. One of them was Kolbein Jonss?n, so Lord Halvard put him in charge of the guards.
Naakkve was the first to enter the high loft where Kristin was sitting on the bed with Lavrans, holding Munan on her lap. He told her what had happened but put great weight on the fact that the bishop considered her innocent and also thought the younger brothers had been greatly provoked to react as violently as they had. He counseled his mother not to seek out the bishop herself.
Then the four brothers were escorted into the room. Their mother stared at them; she was pale, with an odd look in her eye. In the midst of her deep despair and anguish, she felt again the strange swelling of her heart, as if it might burst. And yet she said calmly to Gaute, “Ill advised was your behavior, son, and you brought little honor to the sword of Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n by drawing it against a crowd of farmers who stood there gnawing on rumors.”
“First I drew it against the bishop’s armed men,” said Gaute indignantly. “But it’s true it did little honor to our grandfather that we had to bear arms against anyone for such a reason.”
Kristin looked at her son. Then she had to turn away. As much as his words pained her, she had to smile too—like when a child bites his mother’s nipple with his first teeth, she thought.
“Mother,” said Naakkve, “now I think it best if you go, and take Munan with you. You mustn’t leave him alone even for a moment until he is calmer,” he said quietly. “Keep him indoors so he doesn’t see that his brothers are under guard.”
Kristin stood up. “My sons, if you don’t think me undeserving, then I would ask that you kiss me before I leave.”
Naakkve, Bj?rgulf, Ivar, and Skule went over and kissed her. The one who had been banned gave his mother a sorrowful look; when she held out her hand to him, he took a fold of her sleeve and kissed it. Kristin saw that all of them, except for Gaute, were now taller than she was. She straightened up Lavrans’s bed a bit, and then she left with Munan.
There were four buildings with lofts at J?rundgaard: the high loft house, the new storeroom—which had been the summer quarters during Kristin’s childhood, before Lavrans built the large house—the old storeroom, and the salt shed, which also had a loft. That’s where the servingwomen slept in the summer.
Kristin went up to the loft above the new storeroom with Munan. The two of them had slept there ever since the death of the infant. She was pacing back and forth when Frida and Gunhild brought the evening porridge. Kristin asked Frida to see to it that the guardsmen were given ale and food. The maid replied that she had already done so—at Naakkve’s bidding—but the men had said they would not accept anything from Kristin since they were at her manor for such a purpose. They had received food and drink from somewhere else.
“Even so, you must have a keg of foreign ale brought to them.”
Gunhild, the younger maid, was red-eyed from weeping. “None of the house servants believes this of you, Kristin Lavransdatter; surely you must know that. We always said that we knew it was a lie.”
“So you have heard this gossip before?” said her mistress. “It would have been better if you had mentioned it to me.”
“We didn’t dare because of Ulf,” said Frida.
And Gunhild said as she wept, “He warned us to keep it from you. I often thought that I should mention it and beg you to be more wary . . . when you would sit and talk to Ulf until late into the night.”
“Ulf . . . so he has known about this?” asked Kristin softly.
“Jardtrud has accused him of it for a long time; that was apparently always the reason that he struck her. One evening during Christmas, about the time when you were growing heavy, we were sitting and drinking with them in the foreman’s house. Solveig and ?ivind were there too, along with several people from south in the parish. Suddenly Jardtrud said that he was the one who had caused it. Ulf hit her with his belt so the buckle drew blood. Since then Jardtrud has gone around saying that Ulf did not deny it with a single word.”
“And ever since people have been talking about this in the countryside?” asked the mistress.
“Yes. But those of us who are your servants have always denied it,” said Gunhild in tears.
To calm Munan, Kristin had to lie down next to the boy and take him in her arms, but she did not undress, and she did not sleep that night.
In the meantime, up in the high loft, young Lavrans had gotten out of bed and put on his clothes. Toward evening, when Naakkve went downstairs to help tend to the livestock, the boy went out to the stable. He saddled the red gelding that belonged to Gaute; it was the best horse except for the stallion, which he didn’t trust himself to ride.
Several of the men standing guard on the estate came out and asked the boy where he was headed.
“I didn’t know that I was a prisoner too,” replied young Lavrans. “But I don’t need to hide it from you. Surely you wouldn’t refuse to allow me to ride to Sundbu to bring back the knight to defend his kinswoman.”
“It will soon be dark, my boy,” said Kolbein Jonss?n. “We can’t let this child ride across Vaage Gorge at night. We must speak to his mother.”
“No, don’t do that,” said Lavrans. His lips quivered. “The purpose of my journey is such that I will trust in God and the Virgin Mary to keep watch over me, if my mother is without blame. And if not, then it makes little difference—” He broke off, for he was close to tears.
The man stood in silence for a moment. Kolbein gazed at the handsome, fair-haired child. “Go on then, and may God be with you, Lavrans Erlendss?n,” he said, and was about to help the boy into the saddle.
But Lavrans led the horse forward so the men had to step aside. At the big boulder near the manor gate, he climbed up and then flung himself onto the back of Raud. Then he galloped westward, along the road to Vaagaa.
CHAPTER 8