“Even so, the matter cannot be arranged so quickly,” said Gaute. Kristin could see that he was quite angry.
A terrible, dark fear seized hold of her as time went on. She couldn’t help noticing that Gaute’s first ardent joy over Jofrid had vanished completely; he went about looking sullen and ill tempered. From the very start this matter of Gaute abducting his bride had seemed as bad as it could be, but his mother thought it would be much worse if afterward the man turned cowardly. If the two young people regretted their sin, that was all well and good, but she had an ugly suspicion that there was more of an unmanly fear in Gaute toward the man he had offended than any god-fearing remorse. Gaute—all her days she had thought the most highly of this son of hers; it couldn’t be true what people said: that he was unreliable and dealt carelessly with women, that he was already tired of Jofrid, now that his bride had faded and grown heavy and the day was approaching when he would have to answer for his actions to her kinsmen.
She sought excuses for her son. If Jofrid had allowed herself to be seduced so easily . . . she who had never witnessed anything during her upbringing other than the seemly behavior of pious people . . . Kristin’s sons had known from childhood that their own mother had sinned, that their father had conceived children with another man’s wife during his youth, and that he had sinned with a married woman when they were nearly grown boys. Ulf Haldorss?n, their foster father, and Frida’s frivolous chatter . . . Oh, it wasn’t so strange that these young men should be weak in that way. Gaute would have to marry Jofrid, if he could win the consent of her kinsmen, and be grateful for it. But it would be a shame for Jofrid if she should now see that Gaute married her reluctantly and without desire.
One day during Lent Kristin and Jofrid were preparing sacks of provisions for the woodcutters. They pounded dried fish thin and flat, pressed butter into containers, and filled wooden casks with ale and milk. Kristin saw that Jofrid now found it terribly difficult to stand or walk for very long, but she merely grew annoyed if Kristin told her to sit down and rest. To appease her a little, Kristin happened to mention the story about the stallion that Gaute had supposedly tamed with a maiden’s hair ribbon. “Surely it must have been yours?”
“No,” said Jofrid crossly, turning crimson. But then she added, “The ribbon belonged to Aasa, my sister.” She laughed and said, “Gaute courted her first, but when I came home, he couldn’t decide which of us he liked best. But Aasa was the one he had expected to find visiting Dagrun last summer when he went to Sogn. And he was angry when I teased him about her; he swore by God and man that he was not the sort to come too close to the daughters of worthy men. He said there had been nothing between him and Aasa that would prevent him from sleeping without sin in my arms that night. I took him at his word.” She laughed again. When she saw Kristin’s expression, she nodded stubbornly.
“Yes, I want Gaute to be my husband, and he will be, you can count on that, Mother. I most often get what I want.”
Kristin woke up to pitch-darkness. The cold bit at her cheeks and chin; when she pulled the blanket more snugly around her, she noticed there was frost on it from her breath. It had to be nearly morning, but she dreaded getting up and seeing the stars. She curled up under the covers to warm herself a little more. At that moment she remembered her dream.
She seemed to be lying in bed in the little house at Husaby, and she had just given birth to a child. She was holding him in her arms, wrapped in a lambskin, which had rolled up and fallen away from the infant’s little dark red body. He was holding his tiny clenched hands over his face, with his knees tucked up to his belly and his feet crossed; now and then he would stir a bit. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why the boy wasn’t swaddled properly and why there were no other women with them in the room. Her heat was still enveloping the child as he lay close to her; through her arm she could feel a tug at the roots of her heart every time he stirred. Weariness and pain were still shrouding her like a darkness that was starting to fade as she lay there and gazed at her son, feeling her joy and love for him ceaselessly growing the way the rim of daylight grows brighter along the mountain crest.
But at the same time as she lay there in bed, she was also standing outside the house. Below her stretched the countryside, lit by the morning sun. It was an early spring day. She drank in the sharp, fresh air; the wind was icy cold, but it tasted of the faraway sea and of thawing snow. The ridges were bathed with morning sunlight on the opposite side of the valley, with snowless patches around the farms. Pale crusted snow shone like silver in all the clearings amid the dark green forests. The sky was swept clean, a bright yellow and pale blue with only a few dark, windblown clusters of clouds hovering high above. But it was cold. Where she was standing the snowdrift was still frozen hard after the night frost, and between the buildings lay cold shadows, for the sun was directly above the eastern ridge, behind the manor. And right in front of her, where the shadows ended, the morning wind was rippling through the pale year-old grass; it moved and shimmered, with clumps of ice shiny as steel still among the roots.
Oh . . . Oh . . . Against her will, a sigh of lament rose up from her breast. She still had Lavrans; she could hear the boy’s even breathing from the other bed. And Gaute. He was asleep up in the loft with his paramour. Kristin sighed again, moved restlessly, and Erlend’s old dog settled against her legs, which were tucked up underneath the bedclothes.
Now she could hear that Jofrid was up and walking across the floor. Kristin quickly got out of bed and stuck her feet into her fur-lined boots, putting on her homespun dress and fur jacket. In the dark she fumbled her way over to the hearth, crouched down to stir the ashes and blow on them, but there was not the slightest spark; the fire had died out in the night.
She pulled her flint out of the pouch on her belt, but the tinder must have gotten wet and then froze. Finally she gave up trying, picked up the ember pan, and went upstairs to borrow some coals from Jofrid.
A good fire was burning in the little fireplace, lighting up the room. In the glow of the flames Jofrid sat stitching the copper clasp more securely to Gaute’s reindeer coat. Over in the dim light of the bed, Kristin caught a glimpse of the man’s naked torso. Gaute slept without covers even in the most biting cold. He was sitting up and having something to eat in bed.
Jofrid got to her feet heavily, with a proprietary air. Wouldn’t Mother like a drop of ale? She had heated up the morning drink for Gaute. And Mother should take along this pitcher for Lavrans; he was going out with Gaute to cut wood that day. It would be cold for the men.
Kristin involuntarily grimaced when she was back downstairs and lit the fire. Seeing Jofrid busy with domestic chores and Gaute sitting there, openly allowing his wife to serve him . . . and his paramour’s concern for her unlawful husband—all this seemed to Kristin so loathsome and immodest.
Lavrans stayed out in the forest, but Gaute came home that night, worn out and hungry. The women sat at the table after the servants had left, keeping the master company while he drank.
Kristin saw that Jofrid was not feeling well that evening. She kept letting her sewing sink to her lap as spasms of pain flickered across her face.
“Are you in pain, Jofrid?” asked Kristin softly.