He told her that he had been at Eyabu since Christmas; some wealthy farmers in the village had promised during the bad year to furnish their church with new adornments. But his work had gone slowly; he had been ill during the winter. There was something wrong with his stomach that made him vomit blood, and he couldn’t tolerate food. He didn’t think he had long to live, so he was headed home to his cloister; he wanted to die there, among his brothers. But he had set his mind on coming north through the valley one last time, and so he had accompanied the monk from Hamar when he traveled north to become the new resident priest at the pilgrim hostel in Roaldstad. From Fron he had gone on alone.
“I heard that you were betrothed,” he said, “to that man. . . . And then I had such a yearning to see you. I felt so anguished that our meeting in the church at the cloister should be our last. It’s been weighing so heavy on my heart, Kristin, that you had strayed from the path of peace.”
Kristin kissed the monk’s hand and said, “I don’t understand, Father, what I have done to deserve your willingness to show me such great love.”
The monk replied quietly, “I have often thought, Kristin, that if it had been possible for us to meet more often, you might have become my spiritual daughter.”
“Do you mean you would have guided me so that I turned my heart to the convent life?” asked Kristin. After a pause she went on. “Sira Eirik impressed on me that if I couldn’t win my father’s consent to marry Erlend, then I would have to enter a holy sisterhood and do penance for my sins.”
“I have often prayed that you might have a yearning for the convent life,” said Brother Edvin, “but not since you told me what you know. I wish that you could have come to God with your wreath, Kristin.”
When they reached J?rundgaard, Brother Edvin had to be carried inside and put to bed. They put him in the old winter house, in the hearth room, and made him as comfortable as they could. He was very ill, and Sira Eirik came and tended to him with medicaments for his body and soul. But the priest said that the old man was suffering from cancer, and that he didn’t have long to live. Brother Edvin himself thought that when he had regained some of his strength he would head south again and try to make it back to his cloister. Sira Eirik told the others that he didn’t believe this was likely.
Everyone at J?rundgaard felt that great peace and joy had come to them with the monk. People went in and out of the hearth room all day long, and it was never difficult to find someone willing to keep vigil over the sick man at night. They flocked around him, as many as could find the time to sit and listen when Sira Eirik came and read to the dying man from the holy books; and they talked with Brother Edvin about spiritual matters. And even though much of what he said was vague and obscure, as was his manner of speaking, the people seemed to draw strength and comfort for their souls, because everyone could see that Brother Edvin was filled with his love for God.
But the monk also wanted to hear about everything else; he asked for news from the villages and wanted Lavrans to tell him about the bad year. Some people had seized upon evil counsel in that time of adversity and had sought out the sort of help that Christian men must shun. A short way into the mountains west of the valley, there was a place with great white stones that were shaped like the secret parts of human beings, and some men had fallen to sacrificing boars and cats before this monstrosity. Sira Eirik had then taken several of the most pious and brave of the farmers out there one night, and they had smashed the stones flat. Lavrans had gone along and could testify that they were completely smeared with blood, and there were bones and the like lying all around. Up in Heidal people had apparently made an old woman sit outside on a buried stone and recite ancient incantations on three Thursday nights in a row.
One night Kristin was sitting alone with Brother Edvin.
Around midnight he woke up and seemed to be suffering great pain. Then he asked Kristin to read to him from the book about the miracles of the Virgin Mary, which Sira Eirik had lent to him.
Kristin wasn’t used to reading aloud, but she sat down on the step of the bed and put the candle next to her. She placed the book on her knees and read as best she could.
After a while she noticed that the sick man was lying in bed with his teeth clamped tight, and he had clenched his emaciated hands into fists from the pain.
“You’re suffering badly, dear Father,” said Kristin with dismay.
“It seems that way to me now. But I know it’s because God has made me into a child again, and is tossing me up and down.
“I remember a time when I was small—I was four winters old—and I ran away from home and headed into the forest. I got lost and was out there for many days and nights. My mother was with the people who found me, and when she lifted me up into her arms, I remember that she bit me on the back of the neck. I thought it was because she was angry with me, but later I understood otherwise.
“Now I’m longing for home, away from this forest. It is written: ‘Forsake all things and follow me.’ But there has been far too much here in this world that I didn’t have the heart to forsake.”
“You, Father?” said Kristin. “I’ve always heard everyone say that you were a model of pure living and poverty and humility.”
The monk chuckled.
“Ah, young child, you probably think there’s nothing else that entices in the world save sensual pleasure and wealth and power. I must tell you that these are small things that are found along the side of the road—but I, I have loved the roads themselves. It was not the small things of the world that I loved but the entire world. God in His mercy allowed me to love Sister Poverty and Sister Celibacy even in my youth, and that was why I thought that with these lay sisters I could walk in safety. And so I have wandered and roamed, wishing that I could travel all the roads of the world. And my heart and my thoughts have wandered and roamed too—I fear that I have often gone astray in my thoughts about the darkest of things. But now that’s over, little Kristin. Now I want to go back to my home and put aside all my own thoughts and listen to the clear words of the guardian about what I should believe, and think about my sins and about God’s mercy.”
A little while later he fell asleep. Kristin sat down near the hearth and tended the fire. But toward morning, when she was also about to doze off, Brother Edvin suddenly said to her from the bed, “I’m glad, Kristin, that this matter between Erlend Nikulauss?n and you has come to a good end.”
Then Kristin burst into tears.
“We have done so much wrong to come this far. And worst of all is this gnawing at my heart that I have caused my father such great sorrow. He’s not happy about this either. And yet he doesn’t know . . . if he knew everything, then he would surely withdraw all his affection from me.”
“Kristin,” said Brother Edvin gently, “don’t you understand, child, that this is why you must never tell him, and why you must not cause him any more sorrow? Because he would never demand penance from you. Nothing you do could ever change your father’s heart toward you.”
A few days later Brother Edvin was feeling so much better that he wanted to head south. Since he had set his heart on this, Lavrans had a kind of stretcher made that was hung between two horses, and in this manner he carried the sick man as far south as Lidstad. There Brother Edvin was given new horses and a new escort, and in this way he was taken as far as Hamar. There he died in the monastery of the Dominican brothers and was buried in their church. Later the barefoot friars demanded that the body be delivered to them, because many people in the villages considered him a holy man and called him Saint Even. The farmers in the outlying districts and valleys as far north as Nidaros prayed to him. And thus there was a long dispute between the two cloisters over his body.
Kristin didn’t hear of this until much later. But she grieved deeply when she parted with the monk. It seemed to her that he alone knew her whole life—he had known the foolish child that she had been under her father’s care, and he had known of her secret life with Erlend. So he was like a clasp, she thought, which bound everything she had loved to all that now filled her heart. She was now quite cut off from the person she had been—the time when she was a maiden.
CHAPTER 7