In the alder woods along the marshy riverbank, pockets of water sparkled in the darkness between the dense willow bushes. Star grass grew there, along with tufts of cotton grass and thick carpets of marshlocks with their dusty green, five-pointed leaves and reddish brown flowers. Kristin had picked an enormous pile of them. Many times she had pondered whether this herb might possess useful powers; she had dried it and boiled it and added it to ale and mead. But it didn’t seem good for anything. And yet Kristin could never resist going out to the marsh and getting her shoes wet to gather the plant.
Now she stripped all the leaves from the stalks and plaited a wreath from the dark flowers. They had the color of both red wine and brown mead, and in the center, under the knot of red filaments, they were as moist as honey. Sometimes Kristin would plait a wreath for the picture of the Virgin Mary up in the high loft; she had heard from priests who had been to the southern lands that this was the custom there.
Otherwise she no longer had anyone to make wreaths for. Here in the valley the young men didn’t wear wreaths on their heads when they went out to dance on the green. In some areas of Tr?ndelag the men who came home from the royal court had introduced the custom. Kristin thought this thick, dark red wreath would be well suited to Gaute’s fair face and flaxen hair or Lavrans’s nut-brown mane.
It was so long ago that she used to walk through the pasture above Husaby with the foster mothers and all her young sons on those long, fair-weather days in the summer. Then she and Frida couldn’t make wreaths fast enough for all the impatient little children. She remembered when she still had Lavrans at her breast, but Ivar and Skule thought the infant should have a wreath too; the four-year-olds thought it should be made from very tiny flowers.
Now she had only grown-up children.
Young Lavrans was fifteen winters old; he couldn’t yet be considered full-grown. But his mother had gradually realized that this son was in some ways more distant from her than all the other children. He didn’t purposely shun her, as Bj?rgulf had done, and he wasn’t aloof, nor did he seem particularly taciturn, the way the blind boy was. But he was apparently much quieter by nature, although no one had noticed this when all the brothers were home. He was bright and lively, always seemed happy and kind, and everyone was fond of the charming child without thinking about the fact that Lavrans nearly always went about in silence and alone.
He was considered the handsomest of all the handsome sons of Kristin of J?rundgaard. Their mother always thought that the one she happened to be thinking about at the moment was the most handsome, but she too could see there was a radiance about Lavrans Erlendss?n. His light brown hair and apple-fresh cheeks seemed gilded, sated with sunshine; his big dark gray eyes seemed to be strewn with tiny yellow sparks. He looked much the way she had looked when she was young, with her fair coloring burnished tan by the sun. And he was tall and strong for his age, capable and diligent at any task he was given, obedient to his mother and older brothers, merry, good-natured, and companionable. And yet there was this odd sense of reserve about the boy.
During the winter evenings, when the servants gathered in the weaving room to pass the time with talk and banter as each person was occupied with some chore, Lavrans would sit there as if in a dream. Many a summer evening, when the daily work on the farm was done, Kristin would go out and sit with the boy as he lay on the green, chewing on a piece of resin or twirling a sprig of sorrel between his lips. She would look at his eyes as she spoke to him; he seemed to be shifting his attention back from far away. Then he would smile up at his mother’s face and give her a proper and sensible reply. Often the two of them would sit together for hours on the hillside, talking comfortably and with ease. But as soon as she stood up to go inside, it seemed as if Lavrans would let his thoughts wander again.
She couldn’t figure out what it was the boy was pondering so deeply. He was skilled enough in sports and the use of weapons, but he was much less zealous than her other sons had been about such things, and he never went out hunting alone, although he was pleased whenever Gaute asked him to go along on a hunt. And he never seemed to notice that women cast tender eyes on this fair young boy. He had no interest in book learning, and the youngest son paid little attention to all the older boys’ talk of their plans to enter a monastery. Kristin couldn’t see that the boy had given any thought to his future, other than that he would continue to stay there at home all his days and help Gaute with the farm work, as he did now.
Sometimes this strange, aloof creature reminded Kristin Lavransdatter a bit of his father. But Erlend’s soft, languid manner had often given way to a boisterous wildness, and Lavrans had none of his father’s quick, hot disposition. Erlend had never been far removed from what was going on around him.
Lavrans was now the youngest. Munan had long ago been laid to rest in the grave beside his father and little brother. He died early in the spring, the year after Erlend was killed.
After her husband’s death the widow had behaved as if she neither heard nor saw a thing. Stronger than pain or sorrow was the feeling she had of a numbing chill and a dull lassitude in both her body and soul, as if she herself were bleeding to death from his mortal wounds.
Her whole life had resided in his arms ever since that thunder-laden midday hour in the barn at Skog when she gave herself to Erlend Nikulauss?n for the first time. Back then she was so young and inexperienced; she understood so little about what she was doing but strove to hide that she was close to tears because he was hurting her. She smiled, for she thought she was giving her lover the most precious of gifts. And whether or not it was a good gift, she had given him herself, completely and forever. Her maidenly life, which God had mercifully adorned with beauty and health when He allowed her to be born into secure and honorable circumstances, which her parents had protected during all those years as they brought her up with the most loving strictness: With both hands she had given all this to Erlend, and ever since she had lived within his embrace.