But when he stood up to move toward the door, she cried loudly after him, “No, no, don’t leave me!”
“It will soon be over,” the priest consoled her, “since you are already so ill.”
“That’s not it!” She gripped his arm hard. “Gunnulf!”
He thought he had never seen such terror in anyone’s face.
“Kristin—you should remember that this is no worse for you than for other women.”
“But it is, it is.” She pressed her face against the priest’s arm. “For now I know that Eline and her children should be sitting here. He had promised her fidelity and marriage before I became his paramour.”
“You know about that?” said Gunnulf calmly. “Erlend himself didn’t know any better back then. But you must understand that he could not keep that promise; the archbishop would never have given his consent for those two to marry. You mustn’t think that your marriage isn’t valid. You are Erlend’s rightful wife.”
“Oh, I gave up all right to walk this earth long before then. And yet it’s worse than I imagined. Oh, if only I might die and this child would never be born. I don’t think I dare look at what I’ve been carrying.”
“May God forgive you, Kristin—you don’t know what you’re saying! Would you wish for your child to die stillborn and unbaptized?”
“Yes, for that which I’ve carried under my heart may already belong to the Devil! It cannot be saved. Oh, if only I had drunk the potion that Eline offered me—that might have been atonement for all the sins we’ve committed, Erlend and I. Then this child would never have been conceived. Oh, I’ve thought this whole time, Gunnulf, that when I saw what I had fostered inside me, then I would come to realize that it would have been better for me to drink the leprosy potion that she offered me—rather than drive to her death the woman to whom Erlend had first bound himself.”
“Kristin,” said the priest, “you’ve lost your senses. You weren’t the one who drove that poor woman to her death. Erlend couldn’t keep the promise that he’d given her when he was young and knew little of law and justice. He could never have lived with her without sin. And she herself allowed another man to seduce her, and Erlend wanted to marry her to him when he heard of it. The two of you were not to blame for her taking her own life.”
“Do you want to know how it happened that she took her life?” Kristin was now so full of despair that she spoke quite calmly. “We were together at Haugen, Erlend and I, when she arrived. She had brought along a drinking horn, and she wanted me to drink with her. I now see that she probably intended it for Erlend, but when she found me there with him, she wanted me to . . . I realized it was treachery—I saw that she didn’t drink any herself when she put the horn to her lips. But I wanted to drink and I didn’t care whether I lived or died when I found out that she had been with him here at Husaby the whole time. Then Erlend came in—he threatened her with his knife: ‘You must drink first.’ She begged and begged, and he was about to let her go. Then the Devil took hold of me; I grabbed the horn—‘One of us, your two mistresses,’ I said—I egged Erlend on—‘You can’t keep both of us,’ I said. And so it was that she killed herself with Erlend’s knife. But Bj?rn and Aashild found a way to conceal what had happened.”
“So Aunt Aashild took part in this concealment,” said Gunnulf harshly. “I see . . . she played you into Erlend’s hands.”
“No,” said Kristin vehemently. “Fru Aashild pleaded with us. She begged Erlend and she begged me so that I don’t understand how I dared defy her—to step forward in as honorable a manner as was still possible, to fall at my father’s feet and implore him to forgive us for what we had done. But I didn’t dare. I argued that I was afraid that Father would kill Erlend—but oh, I knew full well that Father would never harm a man who put himself and his case into his hands. I argued that I was afraid he would suffer such sorrow that he would never be able to hold his head high again. But I have since shown that I was not so afraid to cause my father sorrow. You can’t know, Gunnulf, what a good man my father is—no one can realize it who doesn’t know him, how kind he has been to me all my days. Father has always been so fond of me. I don’t want him to find out that I behaved shamelessly while he thought I was living with the sisters in Oslo and learning everything that was right and just. I even wore the clothing of a lay sister as I met with Erlend in cowsheds and lofts in town.”
She looked up at Gunnulf. His face was pale and hard as stone.
“Do you see now why I’m frightened? She who took him in when he arrived, infected with leprosy . . .”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” the priest asked gently.
“Of course, of course, of course.” A shadow of that wild, sweet smile of the past flickered across the woman’s ravaged face.
“But Erlend wasn’t infected,” said Gunnulf. “No one except Father ever thought that Mother died of leprosy.”
“But I must be like a leper in God’s eyes,” said Kristin. She rested her face on the priest’s arm which she was gripping. “Such as I am, infected with sins.”
“My sister,” said the priest softly, placing his other hand on her wimple. “I doubt that you are so sinful, young child, that you have forgotten that just as God can cleanse a person’s flesh of leprosy, He can also cleanse your soul of sin.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sobbed, hiding her face on his arm. “I don’t know—and I don’t feel any remorse, Gunnulf. I’m afraid, and yet . . . I was afraid when I stood at the church door with Erlend and the priest married us. I was afraid when I went inside for the wedding mass with him, with the golden crown on my flowing hair, for I didn’t dare speak of shame to my father, with all my sins unatoned for; I didn’t even dare confess fully to my parish priest. But as I went about here this winter and saw myself growing more hideous for each day that passed—then I was even more frightened, for Erlend did not act toward me as he had before. I thought about those days when he would come to me in my chamber at Skog in the evenings. . . .”
“Kristin,” the priest tried to lift her face, “you mustn’t think about this now! Think about God, who sees your sorrow and your remorse. Turn to the gentle Virgin Mary, who takes pity on every sorrowful—”
“Don’t you see? I drove another human being to take her own life!”
“Kristin,” the priest said sternly. “Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”
He stroked her wimple over and over.
“Don’t you remember, my sister, when the Devil tried to tempt Saint Martin? Then the Fiend asked Saint Martin whether he dared believe it when he promised God’s mercy to all the sinners whose confessions he heard. And the bishop answered, ‘Even to you I promise God’s forgiveness at the very instant you ask for it—if only you will give up your pride and believe that His love is greater than your hatred.’ ”
Gunnulf continued to stroke the head of the weeping woman. All the while he thought: Was this the way that Erlend had behaved toward his young bride? His lips grew pale and grim at the thought.
Audfinna Audunsdatter was the first of the women to arrive. She found Kristin in the little house; Gunnulf was sitting with her, and a couple of maids were bustling about the room.
Audfinna greeted the priest with deference, but Kristin stood up and went toward her with her hand outstretched.
“I must give you thanks for coming, Audfinna. I know it’s not easy for your family to be without you at home.”
Gunnulf had given the woman a searching look. Now he too stood up and said, “It was good of you to come so quickly. My sister-in-law needs someone she can trust to be with her. She’s a stranger here, young and inexperienced.”