Kristin was standing in the bow of the boat with her father and Gyrid, Aasmund’s wife. She turned her gaze toward the town, with all of its light-colored churches and stone buildings rising up above the multitudes of grayish-brown wooden houses and the bare crowns of the trees. The wind ruffled the edges of her cloak and tousled her hair beneath her hood.
They had let the livestock out to pasture at Skog the day before, and Kristin had suddenly felt such a homesickness for J?rundgaard. It would be a long time before they could let out the cattle back home. She felt a tender and sympathetic longing for the winter-gaunt cattle in the dark stalls; they would have to wait and endure for many days yet. She missed everyone so—her mother, Ulvhild, who had slept in her arms every night for all these years, little Ramborg. She longed for all the people back home and for the horses and dogs; for Kortelin, whom Ulvhild would take care of while she was gone; and for her father’s hawks, sitting on their perches with hoods over their heads. Next to them hung the gloves made of horsehide, which had to be worn when handling them, and the ivory sticks used to scratch them.
All the terrible events of the winter now seemed so far away, and she only remembered her home as it had been before. They had also told her that no one in the village thought ill of her. Nor did Sira Eirik; he was angry and aggrieved by what Bentein had done. Bentein had escaped from Hamar, and it was said that he had run off to Sweden. So things had not been as unpleasant between her family and the people of the neighboring farm as Kristin had feared.
On their way south they had stayed at Simon’s home, and she had met his mother and siblings; Sir Andres was still in Sweden. She had not felt at ease there, and her dislike of the family at Dyfrin was all the greater because she knew of no reasonable explanation for it. During the entire journey she had told herself that they had no reason to be haughty or to consider themselves better than her ancestors—no one had ever heard of Reidar Darre, the Birch-Leg, until King Sverre found the widow of the baron at Dyfrin for him to wed.
But they turned out not to be haughty at all, and Simon even spoke of his ancestor one evening. “I have now found out for certain that he was supposed to have been a comb maker—so you will truly be joining a royal lineage, Kristin,” he said.
“Guard your tongue, my boy,” said his mother, but they all laughed.
Kristin felt so oddly distressed when she thought of her father. He laughed a great deal whenever Simon gave him the least reason to do so. The thought occurred to her that perhaps her father would have liked to laugh more often in his life. But she didn’t like it that he was so fond of Simon.
During Easter they were all at Skog. Kristin noticed that her Uncle Aasmund was a stern master toward his tenants and servants. She met a few people who asked after her mother and who spoke affectionately of Lavrans; they had enjoyed better days when he was living there. Aasmund’s mother, who was Lavrans’s stepmother, lived on the farm in her own house. She was not particularly old, but she was sickly and feeble. Lavrans seldom spoke of her at home. Once when Kristin asked her father whether he had had a quarrelsome stepmother, he had replied, “She has never done much for me, good or bad.”
Kristin reached for her father’s hand, and he squeezed hers in return.
“I know you’ll be happy with the worthy sisters, my daughter. There you’ll have other things to think about than yearning for us back home.”
They sailed so close to the town that the smell of tar and salt fish drifted out to them from the docks. Gyrid pointed out the churches and farms and roads that stretched upward from the water’s edge. Kristin recognized nothing from the last time she had been there except for the ponderous towers of Halvard’s Cathedral. They sailed west, around the entire town, and then put in at the nuns’ dock.
Kristin walked between her father and her uncle past a cluster of warehouses and then reached the road, which led uphill past the fields. Gyrid followed after them, escorted by Simon. The servants stayed behind to help several men from the cloister load the trunks onto a cart.
The convent Nonneseter and all of Leiran lay inside the town’s boundaries, but there were only a few houses clustered here and there along the road. The larks were chirping overhead in the pale blue sky, and tiny yellow Michaelmas daisies teemed on the sallow dirt hills, but along the fences the roots of the grass were green.
As they went through the gate and entered the colonnade, all the nuns came walking toward them in a procession from church, with music and song streaming after them from the open doorway.
Kristin stared uneasily at the many black-clad women with white wimples framing their faces. She sank into a curtsey, and the men bowed with their hats pressed to their chests. Following the nuns came a group of young maidens—some of them were children—wearing dresses of undyed homespun, with black-and-white belts made of twisted cord around their waists. Their hair was pulled back from their faces and braided tightly with the same kind of black-and-white cord. Kristin unconsciously put on a haughty expression for the young maidens because she felt shy, and she was afraid that they would think she looked unrefined and foolish.
The convent was so magnificent that she was completely overwhelmed. All the buildings surrounding the inner courtyard were made of gray stone. On the north side the long wall of the church loomed above the other buildings; it had a two-tiered roof and a tower at the west end. The surface of the courtyard was paved with flagstones, and the entire area was enclosed by a covered arcade supported by stately pillars. In the center of the square stood a stone statue of Mater Misericordiae, spreading her cloak over a group of kneeling people.
A lay sister came forward and asked them to follow her to the parlatory, the abbess’s reception room. Abbess Groa Guttormsdatter was a tall, stout old woman. She would have been good-looking if she hadn’t had so many stubbly hairs around her mouth. Her voice was deep and made her sound like a man. But she had a pleasant manner, and she reminded Lavrans that she had known his parents, and then asked after his wife and their other children. At last she turned kindly to Kristin.
“I have heard good things of you, and you seem to be clever and well brought up, so I do not think you will give us any reason for displeasure. I have heard that you are promised to that noble and good man, Simon Andress?n, whom I see before me. We think it wise of your father and your betrothed to send you here to the Virgin Mary’s house for a time, so that you can learn to obey and to serve before you are charged with giving orders and commands. I want to impress on you now that you should learn to find joy in prayer and the divine services so that in all your actions you will be in the habit of remembering your Creator, the Lord’s gentle Mother, and all the saints who have given us the best examples of strength, rectitude, fidelity, and all the virtues that you ought to demonstrate if you are to manage property and servants and raise children. You will also learn in this house that one must pay close attention to time, because here each hour has a specific purpose and chore. Many young maidens and wives are much too fond of lying in bed late in the morning, and of lingering at the table in the evening, carrying on useless conversation. But you do not look as if you were that kind. Yet you can learn a great deal from this year that will benefit you both here and in that other home.”
Kristin curtseyed and kissed her hand. Then Fru Groa told Kristin to follow an execeptionally fat old nun, whom she called Sister Potentia, over to the nuns’ refectory. She invited the men and Fru Gyrid to dine with her in a different room.