“Your father risked more to give his son his birthright,” she told Gaute one evening as he sat in the weaving room and watched her get the boy ready for the night. Jofrid was already sleeping sweetly in her bed. “His love for old Sir Nikulaus was somewhat strained, but even so, he would never have shown his father such disrespect as to name his son after him if he were not lawfully born.”
“And Orm . . . he was named for his maternal grandfather, wasn’t he?” said Gaute. “Yes, I know, Mother, those may not be the words most becoming a good son. But you should realize that my brothers and I all noticed that while our father was alive, you didn’t think he was the proper example for us in many matters. And yet now you talk about him constantly, as if he had been a holy man, or close to it. You should know that we realize he wasn’t. All of us would be proud if we ever attained Father’s stature—or even reached to his shoulders. We remember that he was noble and courageous, foremost among men in terms of those qualities that suit a man best. But you can’t make us believe he was the most submissive or seemly of men in a woman’s chamber or the most capable of farmers.
“And yet no one need wish anything better for you, my Erlend, than that you should take after him!” He picked up his child, now properly swaddled, and touched his chin to the tiny red face framed by the light-colored wool cloth. “This gifted and promising boy, Erlend Gautess?n of J?rundgaard—you should tell your grandmother that you aren’t afraid your father will fail you.” He made the sign of the cross over the child and put him back in Kristin’s arms, then went over to the bed and looked down at the slumbering young mother.
“My Jofrid is as well as she can be, you say? She looks pale, but I suppose you must know best. Sleep well in here, and may God’s peace be with you.”
One month after the birth of the boy, Gaute held a splendid christening feast, and his kinsmen came from far away to attend the celebration. Kristin assumed that Gaute had asked them to come in order to counsel him on his position; it was now spring, and he could soon expect to hear news from Jofrid’s kin.
Kristin had the joy of seeing Ivar and Skule come home together. And her cousins came to J?rundgaard too: Sigurd Kyrning, who was married to her uncle’s daughter from Skog, Ivar Gjesling of Ringheim, and Haavard Trondss?n. She hadn’t seen the Trondss?ns since Erlend had brought misfortune down upon the men of Sundbu. Now they were older; they had always been carefree and reckless, but intrepid and magnanimous, and they hadn’t changed much at all. They greeted the sons of Erlend and Sir Sigurd, who was their cousin and successor at Sundbu, with a free and open manner befitting kinsmen. The ale and mead flowed in rivers in honor of little Erlend. Gaute and Jofrid welcomed their guests as unrestrainedly as if they had been wed and the king himself had married them. Everyone was joyous, and no one seemed to consider that the honor of these two young people was still at stake. But Kristin learned that Jofrid had not forgotten.
“The more bold and swaggering they are when they meet my father, the more easily he will comply,” she said. “And Olav Piper could never hide the fact that he would be pleased to sit on the same bench as men from the ancient lineages.”
The only one who did not seem to feel quite comfortable in this gathering of kin was Sir Jamm?lt Halvardss?n. King Magnus had made him a knight at Christmas; Ramborg Lavransdatter was now the wife of a knight.
This time Sir Jamm?lt had brought his eldest son, Andres Si monss?n, along with him. Kristin had asked him to do so the last time Jamm?lt came north, for she had heard a rumor that there was supposedly something strange about the boy. Then she grew terribly frightened; she wondered whether some harm might have been done to his soul or body because of what she had done in his behalf when he was a child. But his stepfather said no, the boy was healthy and strong, as good as gold, and perhaps cleverer than most people. But it was true that he had second sight. Sometimes he seemed to drift away, and when he came back, he would often do peculiar things. Such as the year before. One day he took his silver spoon, the one Kristin had given to him at his birth, and a torn shirt that had belonged to his father, and he left the manor and went down to a bridge that stretches across the river along the main road near ?lin. There he sat for many hours, waiting. Eventually three poor people came walking across the bridge: an old beggar and a young woman holding an infant. Andres went over and gave the things to them, and then asked if he might carry the child for the woman. Back home everyone was desperate with anguish when Andres didn’t appear for meals or by nightfall. They went out looking for him, and at last Jamm?lt heard that Andres had been seen far north in the next parish, in the company of a couple known as Krepp and Kraaka; he was carrying their infant. When Jamm?lt finally found the boy on the following day, Andres explained that he had heard a voice during mass on the previous Sunday while he was looking at the images painted on the front of the altar. It showed the Mother of God and Saint Joseph leaving the land of Egypt and carrying a child, and he wished that he had lived back then, for he would have asked to accompany them and carry the child for the Virgin Mary. Then he heard a voice, the gen tlest and sweetest voice in the world, and it promised to show him a sign if he would go out to Bjerkheim Bridge on a certain day.
Otherwise Andres was reluctant to speak of his visions, because their parish priest had said they were partly imagined and partly due to a confused and muddled state of mind, and he frightened his mother out of her wits with his strange ways. But he talked to an old servant woman, an exceedingly pious woman, and to a friar who used to wander through the countryside during Lent and Advent. The boy would doubtless choose the spiritual life, so Simon Simonss?n was sure to be the one who would settle at Formo when the time came. He was a healthy and lively child who looked a great deal like his father, and he was Ramborg’s favorite.
Ramborg and Jamm?lt had not yet had a child of their own. Kristin had heard from those who had seen Ramborg at Raumarike that she had grown quite fat and lazy. She kept company with the wealthiest and mightiest people in the south, but she never wanted to make the trip to her home valley, and Kristin hadn’t seen her only sister since they parted on that day at Formo. But Kristin was convinced that Ramborg’s resentment toward her remained unchanged. She got on well with Jamm?lt, and he tended to the well-being of his stepchildren with loving care. If he should die with no children of his own, he had arranged for the eldest son of the man who would inherit most of his property to marry Ulvhild Simonsdatter; in that way at least the daughter of Simon Darre would have some benefit from his inheritance. Arngjerd had married Grunde of Eiken the year after her father’s death; Gyrd Darre and Jamm?lt had provided her with a rich dowry, as they knew Simon would have wanted. And Jamm?lt said she was well. Grunde appeared to let his wife guide him in all manner of things, and they already had three handsome children.
Kristin was strangely moved when she saw Simon and Ramborg’s oldest son again. He was the living image of Lavrans Bj?rg ulfs?n, even more than Gaute. And over the past few years Kristin had given up her belief that Gaute might be anything like her father in temperament.
Andres Darre was now twelve years old, tall and slender, fair and lovely and rather quiet, although he seemed robust and cheerful enough, with good physical abilities and a hearty appetite, except that he refused to eat meat. There was something that set him apart from other boys, but Kristin couldn’t say what it was, although she watched him closely. Andres became good friends with his aunt, but he never mentioned his visions, and he didn’t have any of his spells while in Sil.