Kolbein took a firmer grip and replied, “Don’t you see, Kristin, that it’s time for the master to stay home on his estate? You at least should realize it,” he said to Erlend.
But Erlend struck the man over the hand and urged the stallion forward, so the old man fell. A couple of other men leaped forward.
Erlend shouted, “Get away from here! You have nothing to do with matters concerning me or my wife—and I’m not the master. I refuse to bind myself to a manor like a calf to the stall. I may not own this estate, but neither does this estate own me!”
Kristin turned to face her husband and screamed, “Go ahead and ride off! Ride, ride like the Devil to Hell. That’s where you’ve driven me and cast off everything you’ve ever owned or been given—”
What occurred next happened so fast that no one properly foresaw it or could prevent it. Tore Borghildss?n and another man grabbed her by the arms. “Kristin, you mustn’t speak that way to your husband.”
Erlend rode up close to them.
“Do you dare to lay hands on my wife?” He swung his axe and struck at Tore Borghildss?n. The blow fell between his shoulder blades, and the man sank to the ground. Erlend lifted his axe again, but as he raised up in the stirrups, a man ran a spear through him, and it pierced his groin. It was the son of Tore Borghildss?n who did this.
Soten reared up and kicked with his front hooves. Erlend pressed his knees against the animal’s sides and leaned forward as he pulled on the reins with his left hand and again raised his axe. But almost at once he lost one of his stirrups, and the blood gushed down over his left thigh. Several arrows and spears whistled across the courtyard. Ulf and Erlend’s sons rushed into the throng with axes raised and swords drawn. Then a man stabbed the stallion Erlend was riding, and the animal fell to his knees, whinnying so wildly and shrilly that the horses in the stable replied.
Erlend stood up, his legs straddling the animal. He put his hand on Bj?rgulf’s shoulder and stepped off. Gaute came up and grabbed his father under the other arm.
“Kill him,” he said, meaning the horse, which had now rolled onto his side and lay with his neck stretched out, blood frothing around his jaw, and his mighty hooves flailing. Ulf Haldorss?n complied.
The farmers had retreated. Two men carried Tore Borghildss?n over to the foreman’s house, and one of the bishop’s men led away his companion, who was wounded.
Kristin had put Lavrans down, since he had now regained his wits; they stood there, clinging to each other. She didn’t seem to understand what had taken place; it had all happened so fast.
Her sons began helping their father toward the high loft house, but Erlend said, “I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to die where Lavrans died.”
Kristin ran forward and threw her arms around her husband’s neck. Her frozen face shattered, contorted with sobs, the way ice is splintered when struck by a stone. “Erlend, Erlend!”
Erlend bent his head down so his cheek touched hers, and he stood in that manner for a moment.
“Help me up into the old storeroom, boys,” he said. “I want to lie down there.”
Hastily Kristin and her sons made up the bed in the old loft and helped Erlend undress. Kristin bandaged his wounds. The blood was gushing in spurts from the gash of the spear in his groin, and he had an arrow wound on the lower left side of his chest, but it was not bleeding much.
Erlend stroked his wife’s head. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to heal me, my Kristin.”
She looked up, despairing. A great shudder passed through her body. She remembered that Simon had said the same thing, and this seemed to her the worst omen, that Erlend should speak the same words.
He lay in bed, supported with pillows and cushions, and with his left leg raised to stop the blood flowing from his groin wound. Kristin sat leaning over him. Then he took her hand. “Do you remember the first night we slept together in this bed, my sweet? I didn’t know then that you were already carrying a secret sorrow for which I was to blame. And that was not the first sorrow you had to bear for my sake, Kristin.”
She held his hand in both of hers. His skin was cracked, with dirt ingrained around his small, grooved fingernails and in the creases of every joint of his long fingers. Kristin lifted his hand to her breast and then to her lips; her tears streamed over it.
“Your lips are so hot,” said Erlend softly. “I waited and waited for you . . . I longed so terribly . . . Finally I thought I should give in; I should come down here to you, but then I heard . . . I thought, when I heard that he had died, that now it would be too late for me to come to you.”
Sobbing, Kristin replied, “I was still waiting for you, Erlend. I thought that someday you would have to come to the boy’s grave.”
“But then you would not have welcomed me as your friend,” said Erlend. “And God knows you had no reason to do so either. As sweet and lovely as you are, my Kristin,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
She sobbed quietly, in great distress.
“Now nothing remains,” said her husband in the same tone as before, “except for us to try to forgive each other as a Christian husband and wife, if you can . . .”
“Erlend, Erlend . . .” She leaned over him and kissed his white face. “You shouldn’t talk so much, my Erlend.”
“I think I must make haste to say what I have to say,” replied her husband. “Where is Naakkve?” he asked uneasily.
He was told that the night before, as soon as Naakkve heard that his younger brother was headed for Sundbu, he had set off after him as fast as his horse would go. He must be quite distraught by now, since he hadn’t found the child. Erlend sighed, his hands fumbling restlessly on the coverlet.
His six sons stepped up to the bed.
“No, I haven’t handled things well for you, my sons,” said their father. He began to cough, in a strange and cautious manner. Bloody froth seeped out of his lips. Kristin wiped it away with her wimple.
Erlend lay quietly for a moment. “Now you must forgive me, if you can. Never forget, my fine boys, that your mother has striven on your behalf every day, during all the years that she and I have lived together. Never has there been any enmity between us except that for which I was to blame because I paid too little mind to your well-being. But she has loved you more than her own life.”
“We won’t forget,” replied Gaute, weeping, “that you, Father, seemed to us all our days the most courageous of men and the noblest of chieftains. We were proud to be called your sons—no less so when fortune forsook you than during your days of prosperity.”
“You say this because you understand so little,” said Erlend. He gave a brittle, sputtering laugh. “But do not cause your mother the sorrow of taking after me; she has had enough to struggle with since she married me.”
“Erlend, Erlend,” sobbed Kristin.
The sons kissed their father’s hand and cheek; weeping, they turned away and sat down against the wall. Gaute put his arm around Munan’s shoulder and pulled the boy close; the twins sat hand in hand. Erlend again placed his hand in Kristin’s. His was cold. Then she pulled the covers all the way up to his chin but sat holding his hand in her own under the blankets.
“Erlend,” she said, weeping. “May God have mercy on us—we must send word to the priest for you.”
“Yes,” said Erlend faintly. “Someone must ride up to Dovre to bring Sira Guttorm, my parish priest.”
“Erlend, he won’t get here in time,” she said in horror.
“Yes, he will,” said Erlend vehemently. “If God will grant me . . . For I refuse to receive the last rites from that priest who has been spreading gossip about you.”
“Erlend—in the name of Jesus—you must not talk that way.”