Later, when Kristin arrived back at the convent, Sister Ingrid met her at the gate with the message that one of her sons had come to see her; he called himself Skule, and he was waiting at the speaking gate.
He was conversing with his fellow seamen but leaped to his feet when his mother came to the door. Oh, she recognized her son by his agile movements: his small head, held high on his broad shoulders, and his long-limbed, slender figure. Beaming, she stepped forward to greet him, but she stopped abruptly and caught her breath when she saw his face. Oh, who had done such a thing to her handsome son?
His upper lip was completely flattened; a blow must have crushed it, and then it had grown back flat and long and ruined, striped with shiny white scar tissue. It had pulled his mouth askew, so he looked as if he were always sneering scornfully. And his nose had been broken and then healed crooked. He lisped slightly when he spoke; he was missing a front tooth, and another one was blue-black and dead.
Skule blushed under his mother’s gaze. “Could it be that you don’t know me, Mother?” He chuckled and touched a finger to his lip, not necessarily to point out his injury; it might simply have been an involuntary gesture.
“We haven’t been parted so many years, my son, that your mother wouldn’t recognize you,” replied Kristin calmly, smiling without restraint.
Skule Erlendss?n had arrived on a swift sailing ship from Bj?rgvin two days before with letters from Bjarne Erlingss?n for the archbishop and the royal treasurer in Nidaros. Later that day mother and son walked down to the garden beneath the apple trees, and when they could finally talk to each other alone, Skule told his mother news of his brothers.
Lavrans was still in Iceland; Kristin hadn’t even known that he’d gone there. Oh yes, said Skule, he had met his youngest brother in Oslo the previous winter at a meeting of the nobles; he was there with Jamm?lt Halvardss?n. But the boy had always had a desire to go out and see the world, and so he had entered the service of the bishop of Skaalholt and left Norway.
Skule himself had accompanied Sir Bjarne to Sweden and then on a war campaign to Russia. His mother silently shook her head; she hadn’t known about that either! The life suited him, he said with a laugh. He had finally had a chance to meet all the old friends his father had talked so much about: Karelians, Ingrians, Russians. No, his splendid scar of honor had not been won in a war. He gave a chuckle. Yes, it was in a brawl; the fellow who gave it to him would never have need to beg for his bread again. Otherwise Skule seemed to have little interest in telling her any more about the incident or about the campaign. He was now the head of Sir Bjarne’s guardsmen, and the knight had promised to regain for him several properties his father had once owned in Orkedal that were now in the possession of the Crown. But Kristin noticed that Skule’s big steel-gray eyes had a strange look in them as he spoke of this.
“But you think that such a promise cannot be counted on?” asked his mother.
“No, no.” Skule shook his head. “The documents are being drawn up at this very time. Sir Bjarne has always kept his promises, in all the days I’ve been in his service; he calls me kinsman and friend. My position on his estate is much like that of Ulf back home with us.” He laughed. It didn’t suit his damaged face.
But he was the handsomest of men in terms of bearing, now that he was full-grown. The clothing he wore was cut according to the new fashion, with close-fitting hose and a snug, short cote-hardi, which reached only to mid-thigh and was fastened with tiny brass buttons all the way down the front, revealing with almost unseemly boldness the supple power of his body. It looked as if he were wearing only undergarments, thought his mother. But his forehead and handsome eyes were unchanged.
“You look as if something were weighing on your heart, Skule,” ventured his mother.
“No, no, no.” It was just the weather, he said, giving himself a shake. There was a strange reddish brown sheen to the fog as the veiled sun set. The church towered above the treetops in the garden, eerie and dark and indistinct in a liver-red haze. They had been forced to row all the way into the fjord in the becalmed sea, said Skule. Then he shifted his clothes a bit and told her more about his brothers.
He had been sent on a mission by Sir Bjarne to southern Norway in the spring, so he could bring her recent news from Ivar and Gaute because he had traveled back north through the countryside and over the mountains from Vaagaa, home to Vestland. Ivar was well; he and his wife had two small sons at Rognheim, Erlend and Gamal, both handsome children. “At J?rundgaard I arrived for a christening feast. And Jofrid and Gaute said that since you were now dead to the world, they would name their little maiden after you; Jofrid is so proud of the fact that you’re her mother-in-law. Yes, you may laugh, but now that the two of you don’t have to live on the same manor, you can be sure that Jofrid thinks it splendid to speak of her mother-in-law, Kristin Lavransdatter. And I gave Kristin Gautesdatter my best gold ring, for she has such lovely eyes that I think she will come to look much like you.”
Kristin smiled sadly.
“Soon you’ll have me believing, my Skule, that my sons thought I was as fine and grand as old people always become as soon as they’re in their graves.”
“Don’t talk like that, Mother,” said the man, his voice strangely vehement. Then he laughed a little. “You know quite well that my brothers and I have always thought, ever since we wore our first pair of breeches, that you were the most splendid and magnanimous woman, even though you clutched us tightly under your wings so many times that we had to flap hard before we could escape the nest.
“But you were right that Gaute was the one with the makings of a chieftain among us brothers,” he added, and he roared with laughter.
“You don’t need to mock me about that, Skule,” said Kristin, and Skule saw that his mother blushed, looking young and lovely.
Then he laughed even harder. “It’s true, my mother. Gaute Er lendss?n of J?rundgaard has become a powerful man in the northern valleys. He won quite a reputation for himself by abducting his bride.” Skule bellowed with laughter; it didn’t suit his ruined mouth. “People are singing a ballad about it; yes, they’re even singing that he took the maiden with iron and steel and that he fought with her kinsmen for three long days up on the moors. And the banquet that Sir Sigurd held at Sundbu, making peace among kin with gold and silver: Gaute is given credit for that too in the ballad. But it doesn’t seem to have caused any harm by being a lie. Gaute rules the entire parish and some distance beyond, and Jofrid rules Gaute.”
Kristin shook her head with a sad little smile. But her face looked young as she gazed at Skule. Now she thought that he looked most like his father; this young soldier with the ravaged face had so much of Erlend’s lively courage. And the fact that he had been forced to take his own fate into his hands early on had given him a cool and steadfast spirit, which brought an odd sense of comfort to his mother’s heart. With the words Sira Eiliv had spoken the day before still in her mind, she suddenly realized that as fearful as she had been for her reckless sons and as sternly as she had often admonished them because she was tormented with anguish for their sakes, she would have been less content with her children if they had been meek and timid.
Then she asked again and again about her grandson, little Erlend, but Skule had not seen much of him; yes, he was healthy and handsome and used to having his own way at all times.