“Eline came back this fall,” he said after a moment. “I can’t make her leave the farm,” he continued angrily, “not unless I carry her by force out to the sleigh and drive her away myself. And I don’t think I could do that—she brought both of our children home with her.”
Kristin felt as if she were sinking deeper and deeper. In a voice that was brittle with fear she said, “I thought you had parted from her.”
“I thought so too,” replied Erlend curtly. “But she apparently heard in ?sterdal, where she was living, that I was thinking of marriage. You saw the man I was with at the Christmas banquet—that was my foster father, Baard Peters?n of Hestn?s. I went to him when I returned from Sweden; I visited my kinsman, Heming Alvs?n, in Saltvik too. I told them that I wanted to get married now and asked them to help me. That must be what Eline heard.
“I told her to demand whatever she wanted for herself and the children. But they don’t expect Sigurd, her husband, to survive the winter, and then no one can prevent us from living together.
“I slept in the stables with Haftor and Ulv, and Eline slept in the house in my bed. I think my men had a good laugh behind my back.”
Kristin couldn’t say a word.
After a moment Erlend went on, “You know, on the day when our betrothal is formally celebrated, she’ll have to realize that it will do her no good—that she has no power over me any longer.
“But it will be bad for the children. I hadn’t seen them in a year—they’re good-looking children—and there’s little I can do to secure their situation. It wouldn’t have helped them much even if I had been able to marry their mother.”
Tears began to slide down Kristin’s cheeks.
Then Erlend said, “Did you hear what I said? That I have spoken to my kinsmen? And they were pleased that I want to marry. Then I told them that it was you I wanted and no one else.”
“And weren’t they pleased about that?” asked Kristin at last, timidly.
“Don’t you see,” said Erlend gloomily, “that there was only one thing they could say? They cannot and they will not ride with me to speak with your father until this agreement between you and Simon Andress?n has been dissolved. It hasn’t made things any easier for us, Kristin, that you have celebrated Christmas with the Dyfrin people.”
Kristin broke down completely and began to sob quietly. She had no doubt felt that there was something unwise and ignoble about her love, and now she realized that the blame was hers.
She shivered with cold as she got out of bed a short time later and Erlend wrapped both cloaks around her. It was now completely dark outside, and Erlend accompanied her to Clement’s churchyard; then Brynhild escorted her the rest of the way to Nonneseter.
CHAPTER 7
THE FOLLOWING WEEK Brynhild Fluga came with word that the cloak was now finished, and Kristin went with her and was with Erlend in the loft room as before.
When they parted he gave her a cloak, “so you have something to show at the convent,” he said. It was made of blue velvet interwoven with red silk, and Erlend asked her whether she noticed that they were the same colors as the dress she had worn on that day in the forest. Kristin was surprised that she could be so happy over what he said; she felt as if he had never given her greater joy than with those words.
But now they could no longer use this excuse to meet, and it was not easy to think of something else. Erlend went to vespers at the convent church, and several times after the service Kristin went on an errand up to the corrodians’ farms; they stole a few words with each other up along the fences in the dark of the winter evening.
Then Kristin thought of asking Sister Potentia for permission to visit several palsied old women, charity cases of the convent, who lived in a house out in a field some distance away. Behind the house was a shed where the women kept a cow. Kristin offered to tend to the animal for them when she visited, and then she would let Erlend come in while she worked.
She noticed with some surprise that in spite of Erlend’s joy at being with her, a tiny scrap of bitterness had settled in his mind that she had been able to think up this excuse.
“It was not to your best advantage that you became acquainted with me,” he said one evening. “Now you’ve learned to use these kinds of secret ruses.”
“You should not be blaming me for that,” replied Kristin de jectedly.
“It’s not you that I blame,” said Erlend at once, embarrassed.
“I never thought,” she went on, “that it would be so easy for me to lie. But what must be done can be done.”
“That’s not always true,” said Erlend in the same voice as before. “Do you remember this past winter, when you couldn’t tell your betrothed that you wouldn’t have him?”
Kristin didn’t reply, but merely stroked his face.
She never felt so strongly how much she loved Erlend as when he said such things that made her feel dejected or surprised. And she was glad that she could take the blame for everything that was disgraceful or ignoble about their love. If she had had the courage to speak to Simon as she should have, then they could have progressed a long way in settling these matters. Erlend had done all that he could when he had spoken of marriage to his kinsmen. This is what she told herself whenever the days at the convent grew long and dreary. Erlend had wanted to make everything right and proper. With tender little smiles she would think about him as he looked whenever he described their wedding. She would ride to the church dressed in silk and velvet, and she would be led to the bridal bed with the tall golden crown on her hair, which would be spread out over her shoulders—her lovely, beautiful hair, he said, running her braids through his fingers.
“But for you it won’t be the same as if you had never possessed me,” Kristin once said thoughtfully when he had spoken of such things.
Then he had pulled her ardently to him.
“Don’t you think I can remember the first time I celebrated Christmas, or the first time I saw the mountainsides turn green back home after winter? Oh, of course I’ll remember the first time I had you, and every time after that. But to possess you, that’s like perpetually celebrating Christmas or hunting birds on the green slopes.”
Joyfully she crept closer in his arms.
Not that she for a moment believed that things would go as Erlend so confidently expected. Kristin thought that a judgment day was sure to befall them before long. It was impossible for things to continue to go so well. But she was not particularly afraid. She was much more frightened that Erlend might have to travel north before the matter could be settled, and she would have to stay behind, separated from him. He was over at the fortress on Akersnes right now; Munan Baards?n was there while the Royal Treasurer was in Tunsberg, where the king lay deathly ill. But one day Erlend would no doubt have to return home to see to his property. She refused to admit that this frightened her because he would be going home to Husaby where his mistress was waiting for him. But she was less afraid of being caught in sin with Erlend than of standing up alone and telling Simon, and her father as well, what was in her heart.
And so she almost wished that some punishment would befall her, and soon. For now she had no thoughts for anything but Erlend. She longed for him in the daytime and she dreamed of him at night. She felt no repentance, but she consoled herself with the thought that the day would come when she would have to pay dearly for everything they had taken in secret. And during those brief evening hours when she could be together with Erlend in the poor women’s cowshed, she would throw herself into his arms so ardently, as if she had paid with her soul to be his.