“Go out to her hovel, and I’m sure you’ll find her there,” replied Arntor.
“Yes, someone should send word to the poor woman that we have her boy here,” said Kristin to the nuns. “We can go out to see her tomorrow.”
Arntor snickered, but another man shouted reluctantly, “No, no . . . She’s dead.” He told Kristin, “Fourteen days ago Bjarne went out to her place and bolted the door shut. She was lying there, close to death.”
“She was lying there?” Kristin gave the men a look of horror. “Didn’t anyone bring a priest to her? Is . . . the body . . . still lying there? And no one has had enough mercy to put her into consecrated ground? And her child you were going to . . .”
Seeing her horror seemed to make the men lose their wits from fear and shame; they began shouting all at once.
Above all the other voices, one man cried out, “Go and get her yourself, sister!”
“Yes! Which of you will go with me?”
No one answered.
Arntor shouted, “You’ll have to go alone.”
“Tomorrow, as soon as it’s light, we will go to get her, Arntor. I myself will pay for her resting place and a mass for her soul.”
“Go out there now. Go there tonight. Then I’ll believe that you’re all full of holiness and virtue.”
Arntor had thrust his face close to hers. Kristin raised her clenched fist up before his eyes; she uttered a loud sob of fury and terror.
Fru Ragnhild came over and stood at Kristin’s side; she struggled to speak. The nuns cried that the next day the dead woman would be brought to her grave.
But the Devil seemed to have robbed Arntor of all reason; he kept on screaming, “Go now. Then we’ll believe in the mercy of God.”
Kristin straightened up; pale and rigid, she said, “I will go.”
She lifted up the child and put him into Sister Torunn’s arms; she shoved the men aside and began running swiftly toward the gate, stumbling over hillocks and heaps of earth, as the wailing nuns raced after her and Sister Agata yelled that she would go with her. The abbess shook her fists to say that Kristin should stop, but she seemed completely beside herself.
At that moment there was a great commotion in the darkness over by the cemetery gate. In the next instant Sira Eiliv’s voice asked: “Who is holding a ting here?” He stepped into the glow of the lantern; they saw that he was carrying an axe in his hand. The nuns crowded around him; the men made haste to disappear into the darkness, but at the gate they were met by a man holding a drawn sword in his hand. A tumult ensued, with the clang of weapons, and Sira Eiliv called out: “Woe to any man who breaks the peace of the cemetery.” Kristin heard someone say it was the mighty smith from Credoveit. A moment later a tall, broad-shouldered man with white hair appeared at her side. It was Ulf Haldorss?n.
The priest handed him the axe—he had borrowed it from Ulf—and then took the boy, Tore, from the nun as he said, “It’s already past midnight. All the same, it would be best if you all came back to the church. I want to tend to these matters tonight.”
No one had any other thought but to comply. But when they reached the road, one of the pale gray figures slipped away from the flock of women and headed for the path leading into the woods. The priest shouted, ordering her to come with the others.
Kristin’s voice replied from the dark; she was already a good way down the path: “I can’t come, Sira Eiliv, until I’ve kept my promise.”
The priest and several others set off running. She was leaning against the fence when Sira Eiliv reached her. He raised the lantern. Her face was dreadfully white, but when he looked into her eyes, he realized that she had not gone mad, as he first had feared.
“Come home, Kristin,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll go with you, several men. I will go with you myself.”
“I’ve given my word. I can’t go home, Sira Eiliv, until I have done as I promised.”
The priest stood in silence for a moment. Then he said softly, “Perhaps you are right. Go then, sister, in God’s name.”
Strangely shadowlike, Kristin slipped into the darkness, which swallowed up her gray-clad figure.
When Ulf Haldorss?n appeared at her side, she said in a halting and vehement voice, “Go back. I didn’t ask you to come with me.”
Ulf laughed quietly. “Kristin, my mistress, haven’t you learned yet that things can happen without your request or orders? And I see you still don’t realize, no matter how many times you’ve witnessed it, that you can’t always manage alone everything that you’ve taken on. But I will help you to undertake this burden.”
There was a rushing sound in the pine forest all around them, and the roar of the waves out on the shore grew louder and then fainter, carried on the gusts of wind. They were walking in pitch-darkness.
After a while Ulf said, “I’ve accompanied you before, Kristin, when you went out at night. I thought I could be of some help if I came with you this time as well.”
She was breathing hard in the dark. Once she stumbled over something, and Ulf grabbed hold of her. Then he took her hand and led the way. After a moment he noticed that she was weeping as she walked along, and he asked her what she was crying about.
“I’m crying because I was thinking that you’ve always been so kind and loyal toward us, Ulf. What can I say? I know that it was mostly for Erlend’s sake, but I almost think, kinsman . . . you’ve always judged me less harshly than you had the right to, after what you first saw of my actions.”
“I have always been fond of you, Kristin—no less than I was of him.” He fell silent. Kristin saw that he was overcome by great emotion. Then he continued, “That’s why it was so hard for me as I sailed over here today. I came to bring you news that I find difficult to tell you. May God give you strength, Kristin.”
“Is it Skule?” asked Kristin in a low voice after a moment. “Is Skule dead?”
“No, Skule was fine when I spoke to him yesterday, and now few people are dying in town. But I received news from Tautra this morning—” He heard her give a deep sigh, but she did not speak.
After a moment he said, “It’s already been ten days since they died. But there are only four brothers left alive at the monastery, and the island is almost swept clean of people.”
They had now reached the edge of the woods. Over the flat expanse of land before them came the roaring din of the wind and sea. Up ahead in the darkness shone a patch of white—sea swells in a small inlet, with a steep pale sand dune above.
“That’s where she lives,” said Kristin. Ulf noticed that slow, fitful tremors passed over her. He gripped her hand hard.
“You’ve chosen to take this burden upon yourself. Keep that in mind, and don’t lose your wits now.”
Kristin said in an oddly thin, pure voice, which the wind seized and carried off, “Now Bj?rgulf’s dream will come true. I trust in the mercy of God and the Virgin Mary.”
Ulf tried to see her face, but it was too dark. They walked across the tide flats; several places were so narrow beneath the cliff that a wave or two surged all the way up to their feet. They made their way over tangled seaweed and large rocks. After a while they glimpsed a bulky dark shape against the sand dune.