They were riding between the fences of the convent’s fields when the stranger spoke to Ingebj?rg again. He asked her what she thought would be best: Should he escort her to the door and ask to speak with Fru Groa, so that he could tell her how this had all come about? But Ingebj?rg thought they should sneak in through the church; then they might be able to slip into the convent without being noticed. They had been gone much too long. Perhaps Sister Potentia had forgotten them because of the visit from her kinsmen.
It didn’t occur to Kristin to wonder why it was so quiet in the square in front of the west entrance of the church. Usually there was a great hubbub in the evening as people from the neighboring area came to the nuns’ church. And all around stood houses where many of the lay servants and corrodians lived. This was where they said farewell to Erlend. Kristin paused to pet his horse; it was black, with a handsome head and gentle eyes. She thought it looked like Morvin, the horse she had ridden back home when she was a child.
“What’s the name of your horse, sir?” she asked as the animal turned his head and snuffled at the man’s chest.
“Bajard,” he said, looking at Kristin over the horse’s neck. “You ask the name of my horse, but not mine?”
“I would indeed like to know your name, sir,” she replied, with a little bow.
“Erlend Nikulauss?n is my name,” he said.
“Then we must thank you, Erlend Nikulauss?n, for your good assistance tonight,” replied Kristin, giving him her hand.
Suddenly her face flushed bright red; she pulled her hand halfway out of his grasp.
“Fru Aashild Gautesdatter at Dovre—is she your kinswoman?” she asked.
She saw with surprise that he too turned blood red. He let go of her hand abruptly and replied, “She is my mother’s sister. It’s true that I am Erlend Nikulauss?n of Husaby.” He gave Kristin such a strange look that she grew even more confused, but she pulled herself together.
“I should have thanked you with better words, Erlend Niku lauss?n, but I don’t know what to say to you.”
Then he bowed, and she thought she should say goodbye, even though she would have preferred to talk with him longer. At the entrance to the church she turned around, and when she saw that Erlend was still standing next to his horse, she raised her hand and waved.
Inside the convent great fear and commotion reigned. Haakon had sent a messenger home on horseback while he himself walked through the town searching for the maidens, and servants had been sent out to help him. The nuns had heard that the wild animals had supposedly killed and devoured two children in town. This turned out to be a rumor, and the leopard—there was only one— had been captured well before vespers by several men from the king’s castle.
Kristin stood with her head bowed and kept silent as the abbess and Sister Potentia vented their anger on the maidens. She seemed to be asleep inside. Ingebj?rg wept and spoke in their defense: they had gone out with Sister Potentia’s permission, after all, with the proper escort, and they were not to blame for what had happened afterward.
But Fru Groa told them to stay in the church until the clock struck midnight and try to turn their thoughts to spiritual matters and thank God, who had saved their lives and honor. “God has clearly shown you the truth about the world,” she said. “Wild beasts and the Devil’s servants threaten His children every step of the way, and there is no salvation unless you cleave to Him with entreaties and prayers.”
She gave each of them a lit candle and told them to go with Sister Cecilia Baardsdatter, who often sat in the church alone, praying into the night.
Kristin placed her candle on the altar of Saint Laurentius and knelt down on the prayer bench. She stared steadily into the flame as she said her Pater noster and Ave Maria. Gradually the glow of the taper seemed to envelop her, shutting out everything else surrounding her and the candle. She felt her heart open up, brimming over with gratitude and promises and love for God and His gentle Mother—she felt them so near. She had always known that they saw her, but on this night she felt that it was so. She saw the world as if in a vision: a dark room into which a beam of sunlight fell, with dust motes tumbling in and out, from darkness to light, and she felt that now she had finally moved into the sunbeam.
She thought she would gladly have stayed in the quiet night-dark church forever—with the few tiny specks of light like golden stars in the night, the sweet fragrance of old incense, and the warm smell of burning wax. With herself resting inside her own star.
This sense of joy seemed to vanish when Sister Cecilia silently approached and touched her shoulder. Curtseying before the altar, the three women slipped out of the small south entrance into the convent courtyard.
Ingebj?rg was so sleepy that she got into bed without talking. Kristin was relieved; she was reluctant to be disturbed, now that she was thinking so clearly. And she was glad they had to keep their shifts on at night—Ingebj?rg was so fat and sweated heavily.
Kristin lay awake for a long time, but the deep current of sweetness which had borne her as she knelt in the church would not return. And yet she still felt its warmth inside her; she fervently thanked God, and she sensed a feeling of strength in her spirit as she prayed for her parents and her sisters and for the soul of Arne Gyrds?n.
Father, she thought. She felt such a longing for him, for all they had had together before Simon Darre had entered their lives. A new tenderness for Lavrans welled up inside her, as if there were a presentiment of maternal love and maternal sorrows in her love for her father that night. She was dimly aware that there was much in life that he had not received. She thought of the old black wooden church at Gerdarud, where at Eastertide she had seen the graves of her three little brothers and her grandmother—her father’s own mother, Kristin Sigurdsdatter—who had died as she gave birth to him.
What could Erlend Nikulauss?n be doing at Gerdarud? She could not fathom it.
She wasn’t conscious of giving any more thought to him that night, but the whole time the memory of his thin, dark face and his quiet voice had hovered somewhere in the shadows, just beyond the radiance of her soul.
When Kristin woke up the next morning, the sun was shining in the dormitory, and Ingebj?rg told her that Fru Groa herself had sent word to the lay sisters that they should not be awakened for matins. They had permission to go over to the cookhouse now to have some food. Kristin felt warm with joy at the kindness of the abbess. It was as if the whole world had been good to her.
CHAPTER 3
THE FARMERS’ GUILD at Aker was dedicated to Saint Margareta, and every year began its meeting on the twentieth of July, which was Saint Margareta’s Day. On that day the brothers and sisters would gather with their children, guests, and servants at Aker Church to attend mass at the Saint Margareta altar. Afterward they would go to the guild hall, which stood near Hofvin Hospice; there they would drink for five days.
But because both Aker Church and Hofvin Hospice belonged to Nonneseter, and since many of the Aker peasants were tenant farmers of the convent, the custom had arisen for the abbess and several of the eldest sisters to honor the guild by attending the celebrations on the first day. And the young maidens of the convent who were there to be educated but who were not going to enter the order were allowed to go along and dance in the evening; and for this celebration they would wear their own clothes and not their convent attire.