“Erlend Nikulauss?n and I have promised ourselves on our Christian faith,” she said, trembling, “that if we cannot be joined in marriage, then neither of us will ever take a husband or a wife.”
Simon was silent for a long time. Then he said wearily, “Then I don’t understand what you meant, Kristin, when you said that he had neither seduced you nor promised you anything. He has lured you away from the counsel of all your kinsmen. Have you thought about what kind of husband you’ll have if you marry a man who took another man’s wife as his mistress? And now he wants to take as his wife another man’s betrothed.”
Kristin swallowed her tears, whispering in a thick voice, “You’re saying this to hurt me.”
“Do you think I want to hurt you?” asked Simon softly.
“This is not how things would have been if you . . . ,” Kristin said hesitantly. “You were never asked, either, Simon. It was your father and mine who decided on this marriage. It would have been different if you had chosen me yourself.”
Simon drove his dagger into the bench so that it stood upright. After a moment he pulled it out and tried to slip it back into its scabbard. But it refused to go in because the tip was bent. Then he went back to fumbling with it, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“You know very well . . . ,” he said, his voice low and shaking. “You know that you would be lying if you tried to pretend that I didn’t . . . You know quite well what I wanted to talk to you about, many times, but you received me in such a way that I wouldn’t have been a man if I had mentioned it afterward, not if they tried to draw it out of me with burning tongs.
“At first I thought it was the dead boy. I thought I should give you some time . . . you didn’t know me. . . . I thought it would be harmful to you, such a short time after. Now I see that you didn’t need long to forget . . . and now . . . now . . . now . . .”
“No,” said Kristin quietly. “I understand, Simon. I can’t expect you to be my friend any longer.”
“Friend!” Simon gave an odd little laugh. “Are you in need of my friendship now?”
Kristin blushed.
“You’re a man now,” she said softly. “And old enough. You can decide on your own marriage.”
Simon gave her a sharp look. Then he laughed as he had before.
“I see. You want me to say that I’m the one who . . . I should take the blame for this breach of promise?
“If it’s true that you are set in your decision—if you dare and are determined to press your case—then I will do it,” he said softly. “To my family back home and before all your kinsmen—except one. You will have to tell your father the truth, such as it is. If you wish, I will take your message to him and make it as easy for you as I can. But Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n must know that I would never go against a promise that I have made to him.”
Kristin gripped the edge of the bench with both hands; this affected her more strongly than everything else Simon Darre had said. Pale and frightened, she glanced up at him.
Simon stood up.
“We must go in now,” he said. “I think we’re both freezing, and the sister is waiting for us with the key. I’ll give you a week to think things over. I have some business here in town. I’ll come back to talk to you before I leave, but I doubt you’ll want to see me before then.”
CHAPTER 8
SO THAT WAS FINALLY SETTLED, Kristin told herself. But she felt exhausted, drained, and sick with yearning for Erlend’s arms.
She lay awake most of the night, and she decided to do what she had never before dared—she would send a message to Erlend. It wasn’t easy to find someone who could carry out this errand for her. The lay sisters never went out alone, and she couldn’t think of anyone she knew who would do it. The men who did the farm work were older and seldom came near the nuns’ residence except to speak with the abbess. So Olav was the only one. He was a half-grown boy who worked in the gardens. He had been Fru Groa’s foster son ever since he was found one morning as a newborn infant on the steps of the church. People said his mother was one of the lay sisters. She was supposed to become a nun, but after she had sat in the dark cell for six months—for gross disobedience, it was said, and that was after the child was found—she was given lay-sister garb, and since then she had worked in the farmyard. During the past months Kristin had often thought about Sister Ingrid’s fate, but she had never had the chance to talk to her. It was risky to count on Olav; he was only a child, and Fru Groa and all the nuns talked to him and teased him whenever they saw him. But Kristin thought she had very little left to lose. And a couple of days later, when Olav was about to go into town one morning, Kristin asked him to take her message out to Akersnes, telling Erlend to find some excuse so they could meet alone.
That same afternoon Ulv, Erlend’s own servant, appeared at the speaking gate. He said he was Aasmund Bj?rgulfs?n’s man and had been sent by his master to ask whether Aasmund’s niece might come into town for a while, because he didn’t have time to come up to Nonneseter himself. Kristin thought this would never work; but when Sister Potentia asked her whether she knew the messenger, she said yes. So she went with Ulv over to Brynhild Fluga’s house.
Erlend was waiting for her in the loft. He was nervous and tense, and Kristin realized at once that he was again afraid of the one thing that he seemed to fear most.
She always felt a pang in her heart that he should be so terrified that she might be carrying a child, when they couldn’t seem to stay away from each other. So anxious was she feeling that evening that she said as much to him, quite angrily. Erlend’s face turned dark red; he lay his head on her shoulder.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should try to leave you alone, Kristin, and not keep testing your luck in this way. If you want me to . . .”
She threw her arms around him and laughed, but he clasped her tightly around the waist and pressed her down onto a bench; then he sat down on the other side of the table. When she reached her hand across to him, he impetuously kissed her palm.
“I’ve been trying harder than you have,” he said fiercely. “If you only knew how important I think it is for both of us that we be married with full honor.”
“Then you should not have taken me,” said Kristin.
Erlend hid his face in his hands.
“No, I wish to God that I hadn’t done you this wrong,” he said.
“Neither one of us wishes that,” said Kristin with a giddy laugh. “And as long as I can be reconciled and make peace in the end with my family and with God, then I won’t grieve if I have to be wed wearing the wimple of a married woman. As long as I can be with you, I often think that I could even do without peace.”
“You’re going to bring honor back to my manor,” said Erlend. “I’m not going to pull you down into my disgrace.”
Kristin shook her head. Then she said, “You’ll be glad to hear that I have spoken to Simon Andress?n—and he’s not going to bind me to the agreements that were made for us before I met you.”
Erlend was jubilant, and Kristin had to tell him everything, although she kept to herself the derogatory words that Simon had spoken about Erlend. But she did mention that he refused to let Lavrans think he was the one to blame.
“That’s reasonable,” said Erlend curtly. “They like each other, your father and Simon, don’t they? Lavrans will like me less.”
Kristin took these words to mean that Erlend understood she would still have a difficult path ahead of her before they had settled everything, and she was grateful for that. But he didn’t return to this topic. He was overjoyed and said he had been afraid she wouldn’t have the courage to speak to Simon.
“I can see that you’re fond of him, in a way,” he said.
“Does it matter to you,” asked Kristin, “after all that you and I have been through, that I realize Simon is both a just and capable man?”