When she walked back across the courtyard, she saw that sparks were rising up from the cookhouse roof. The maids had set about preparing food for the churchgoers.
It was gloomy in the hall. The candles on the table had burned out, and the fire in the hearth was barely smoldering. Kristin put more wood on and blew at the embers. Then she noticed that Orm was sitting in her chair. He stood up as soon as his stepmother saw him.
“My dear—” said Kristin. “Didn’t you go with your father and the others to mass?”
Orm swallowed hard a couple of times. “I guess he forgot to wake me. Father told me to lie down for a while in the bed on the south wall. He said he would wake me. . . .”
“That’s too bad, Orm,” said Kristin.
The boy didn’t reply. After a moment he said, “I thought you went with them after all. I woke up and was alone here in the hall.”
“I went over to the church for a little while,” said Kristin.
“Do you dare to go out on Christmas Eve?” asked the boy. “Don’t you know that the spirits of the dead could come and seize you?”7
“I don’t think it’s only the evil spirits that are out tonight,” she said. “Christmas Eve must be for all spirits. I once knew a monk who is now dead and standing before God, I think, because he was pure goodness. He told me . . . Have you ever heard about the animals in the stable and how they talked to each other on Christmas Eve? They could speak Latin back then. And the rooster crowed: ‘Christus natus est!’ No, now I can’t remember the whole thing. The other animals asked ‘Where?’ and the goat bleated, ‘Betlem, Betlem,’ and the sheep said, ‘Eamus, eamus.’ ”
Orm smiled scornfully.
“Do you think I’m such a child that you can comfort me with tales? You should offer to take me on your lap and put me to your breast.”
“I told the story mostly to comfort myself, Orm,” said Kristin quietly. “I would have liked to go to mass too.”
Now she couldn’t stand to look at the littered table any longer. She went over, swept all the scraps into a trencher and set it on the floor for the dog. Then she found the whisk made of sedge under the bench and scrubbed off the tabletop.
“Would you come with me over to the western storehouse, Orm? To get bread and salted meat. Then we’ll set the table for the holy day,” said Kristin.
“Why don’t you let your maidservants do that?” asked the boy.
“This is the way I was taught by my father and mother,” replied the young mistress. “That at Christmastime no one should ever ask anyone else for anything, but we all should strive to do our utmost. Whoever serves the others most during the holidays is the most blessed.”
“But you’re asking me,” said Orm.
“That’s a different matter—you’re the son here on the estate.”
Orm carried the lantern and they walked across the courtyard together. Inside the storehouse Kristin filled two trenchers with Christmas food. She also took a bundle of large tallow candles.
While they were working, the boy said, “That must be a peasant custom, what you mentioned a moment ago. For I’ve heard he’s nothing more than a homespun farmer, Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n.”
“Who did you hear that from?” asked Kristin.
“From Mother,” said Orm. “I heard her say it all the time to Father when we were living here at Husaby before. She said he could see that not even a gray-clad farmer would give his daughter’s hand in marriage to him.”
“It must have been pleasant here at Husaby back then,” said Kristin curtly.
The boy didn’t reply. His lips quivered.
Kristin and Orm carried the filled trenchers back to the hall, and she set the table. But she had to go back over to the storehouse for food once again.
Orm took the trencher and said, a little awkwardly, “I’ll go over there for you, Kristin. It’s so slippery in the courtyard.”
She stood outside the door and waited until he returned.
Then they sat down near the hearth, Kristin in the armchair and the boy on a three-legged stool nearby. After a moment Orm Er lendss?n said softly, “Tell me another story while we sit here, my stepmother.”
“A story?” asked Kristin, her voice equally quiet.
“Yes, a tale or some such—that would be suitable on Christmas Eve,” said the boy shyly.
Kristin leaned back in her chair and wrapped her thin hands around the animal heads on the armrests.
“That monk I mentioned—he had also been to England. And he said there is a region where wild rosebushes grow that bloom with white blossoms on Christmas night. Saint Joseph of Arimathea8 put ashore in that area when he was fleeing from the heathens, and there he stuck his staff into the ground and it took root and flowered. He was the first to bring the Christian faith to Bretland. The name of the region is Glastonbury—now I remember. Brother Edvin had seen the bushes himself. King Arthur, whom you’ve no doubt heard stories of, was buried there in Glastonbury with his queen. He was one of the seven most noble defenders of Christendom.
“They say in England that Christ’s Cross was made of alderwood. But we burned ash during Christmas at home, for it was the ash tree that Saint Joseph, the stepfather of Christ, used when he needed to light a fire for the Virgin Mary and the newborn Son of God. That’s something else that Father heard from Brother Edvin.”
“But very few ash trees grow up north here,” said Orm. “They used them all up for spear poles in the olden days, you know. I don’t think there are any ash trees here on Husaby’s land other than the one standing east of the manor gate, and Father can’t chop that one down, because the spirit of the first owner lives underneath. 9 But you know, Kristin, they have the Holy Cross in Romaborg; so they must be able to find out whether it was made of alderwood.”
“Well,” said Kristin, “I don’t know whether it’s true. For you know it’s said that the cross was made from a shoot of the tree of life, which Seth was allowed to take from the Garden of Eden and bring home to Adam before he died.”
“Yes,” said Orm. “But then tell me . . .”
Some time later Kristin said to the boy, “Now you should lie down for a while, kinsman, and sleep. It will be a long time yet before the churchgoers return.”
Orm stood up.
“We have not yet toasted each other as kinsmen, Kristin Lavransdatter.” He went over and took a drinking horn from the table, drank to his stepmother, and handed her the vessel.
She felt as if ice water were running down her back. She couldn’t help remembering that time when Orm’s mother wanted to drink with her. And the child inside her womb began to thrash violently. What’s going on with him tonight? wondered the mother. It seemed as if her unborn son felt everything that she felt, was cold when she was cold, and shrank in fear when she was frightened. But then I mustn’t be so weak, thought Kristin. She took the horn and drank with her stepson.
When she handed it back to Orm, she gently stroked his dark hair. No, I’m certainly not going to be a harsh stepmother to you, she thought. You handsome, handsome son of Erlend.
She had fallen asleep in her chair when Erlend came home and tossed his frozen mittens onto the table.
“Are you back already?” said Kristin, astonished. “I thought you would stay for the daytime mass.”
“Oh, two masses will last me for a long time,” said Erlend as Kristin picked up his icy cape. “Yes, the sky is clear now, so the frost has set in.”
“It was a shame that you forgot to wake Orm,” said his wife.
“Was he sad about it?” asked Erlend. “I didn’t actually forget,” he went on in a low voice. “But he was sleeping so soundly, and I thought . . . You can well believe that people stared enough because I came to church without you. I didn’t want to step forward with the boy at my side on top of that.”
Kristin said nothing, but she felt distressed. She didn’t think Erlend had handled this very well.
CHAPTER 3