“Is it even so?” said Lady Aashild slowly.…“A heavy sin have you laid upon your soul, Erlend Nikulaussön. ’Twas well with Kristin at home with her father and mother — a good marriage was agreed for her with a comely and honourable man of good kindred —”
“Kristin hath told me herself how you said once that she and I would match well together. And that Simon Andressön was no husband for her —”
“Oh — I have said, and I have said!” Aashild broke in. “I have said so many things in my time.… Neither can I understand at all that you can have gained your will with Kristin so lightly. So many times you cannot have met together. And never could I have thought that maid had been so light to win —”
“We met at Oslo,” said Erlend. “Afterwards she was dwelling out at Gerdarud with her father’s brother. She came out and met me in the woods.” He looked down and spoke very low: “I had her alone to myself out there —”
Lady Aashild started up. Erlend bent his head yet lower.
“And after that … she still was friends with you?” she asked unbelievingly.
“Ay.” Erlend smiled a weak, wavering smile. “We were friends still. And ’twas not so bitterly against her — but no blame lies on her. ’Twas then she would have had me take her away — she was loth to go back to her kin —”
“But you would not?”
“No. I was minded to try to win her for my wife with her father’s will.”
“Is it long since?” asked Lady Aashild.
“ ’Twas a year last Lawrence-mass,” answered Erlend.
“You have not hasted overmuch with your wooing,” said the other.
“She was not free before from her first betrothal.”
“And since then you have not come nigh her?” asked Aashild.
“We managed so that we met once and again.” Once more the wavering smile flitted over the man’s face. “In a house in the town.”
“In God’s name!” said Lady Aashild. “I will help you and her as best I may. I can see it well: not long could Kristin bear to live there with her father and mother, hiding such a thing as this.… Is there yet more?” she asked of a sudden.
“Not that I have heard,” said Erlend shortly.
“Have you bethought you,” asked the lady in a while, “that Kristin has friends and kinsmen dwelling all down the Dale?”
“We must journey as secretly as we can,” said Erlend. “And therefore it behoves us to make no delay in setting out, that we may be well on the way before her father comes home. You must lend us your sleigh, Moster.”
Aashild shrugged her shoulders.
“Then is there her uncle at Skog — what if he hear that you are holding your wedding with his brother’s daughter at Gerdarud?”
“Aasmund has spoken for me to Lavrans,” said Erlend. “He would not be privy to our counsels, but ’tis like he will wink an eye — we must come to the priest by night, and journey onward by night. And afterward, I trow well Aasmund will put it to Lavrans that it befits not a God-fearing man like him to part them that a priest has wedded — and that ’twill be best for him to give his consent, that we may be lawful wedded man and wife. And you must say the like to the man, Moster. He may set what terms he will for atonement between us, and ask all such amends as he deems just.”
“I trow Lavrans Björgulfsön will be no easy man to guide in this matter,” said Lady Aashild. “And God and St. Olav know, sister’s son, I like this business but ill. But I see well ’tis the last way left you to make good the harm you have wrought Kristin. Tomorrow will I ride myself to Jörundgaard, if so be you will lend me one of your men, and I get Ingrid of the croft above us here to see to my cattle.”
Lady Aashild came to Jörundgaard next evening just as the moonlight was struggling with the last gleams of day. She saw how pale and hollow-cheeked Kristin was, when the girl came out into the courtyard to meet her guest.
The lady sat by the fireplace playing with the two children. Now and then she stole keen glances at Kristin, as she went about and set the supper-board. Thin she was truly, and still in her bearing. She had ever been still, but it was a stillness of another kind that was on the girl now. Lady Aashild guessed at all the straining and the stubborn defiance that lay behind.
“ ’Tis like you have heard,” said Kristin, coming over to her, “what befell here this last autumn.”
“Ay — that my sister’s son has made suit for you.”
“Mind you,” asked Kristin, “how you said once he and I would match well together? Only that he was too rich and great of kin for me?”
“I hear that Lavrans is of another mind,” said the lady drily.
There was a gleam in Kristin’s eyes, and she smiled a little. She will do, no question, thought Lady Aashild. Little as she liked it, she must hearken to Erlend, and give the helping hand he had asked.
Kristin made ready her parents’ bed for the guest, and Lady Aashild asked that the girl should sleep with her. After they had lain down and the house was silent, Lady Aashild brought forth her errand.
She grew strangely heavy at heart as she saw that this child seemed to think not at all on the sorrow she would bring on her father and mother. Yet I lived with Baard for more than twenty years in sorrow and torment, she thought. Well, maybe ’tis so with all of us. It seemed Kristin had not even seen how Ulvhild had fallen away this autumn — ’tis little like, thought Aashild, that she will see her little sister any more. But she said naught of this — the longer Kristin could hold to this mood of wild and reckless gladness, the better would it be, no doubt.
Kristin rose up in the dark, and gathered together her ornaments in a little box which she took with her into the bed. Then Lady Aashild could not keep herself from saying:
“Yet methinks, Kristin, the best way of all would be that Erlend ride hither, when your father comes home — that he confess openly he hath done you a great wrong — and put himself in Lavrans’ hands.”
“I trow that, then, father would kill Erlend,” said Kristin.
“That would not Lavrans, if Erlend refuse to draw steel against his love’s father.”
“I have no mind that Erlend should be humbled in such wise,” said Kristin. “And I would not father should know that Erlend had touched me before he asked for me in seemliness and honour.”
“Think you Lavrans will be less wroth,” asked Aashild, “when he hears that you have fled from his house with Erlend; and think you ’twill be a lighter sorrow for him to bear? So long as you live with Erlend, and your father has not given you to him, you can be naught but his paramour before the law,”
“ ’Tis another thing,” said Kristin, “if I be Erlend’s paramour after he has tried in vain to win me for his lawful wife.”
Lady Aashild was silent. She thought of her meeting with Lavrans Björgulfsön when he came home and learnt that his daughter had been stolen away.
Then Kristin said:
“I see well, Lady Aashild, I seem to you an evil, thankless child. But so has it been in this house ever since father came from the Haugathing, that every day has been a torment to him and to me. ’Tis best for all that there be an end of this matter.”
They rode from Jörundgaard betimes the next day, and came to Haugen a little after nones. Erlend met them in the courtyard, and Kristin threw herself into his arms, paying no heed to the man who was with her and Lady Aashild.
In the house she greeted Björn Gunnarsön; and then greeted Erlend’s two men, as though she knew them well already. Lady Aashild could see no sign in her of bashfulness or fear. And after, when they sat at the board, and Erlend set forth his plan, Kristin put her word in with the others and gave counsel about the journey: that they should ride forth from Haugen next evening so late that they should come to the gorge when the moon was setting, and should pass in the dark through Sil to beyond Loptsgaard, thence up along the Otta stream to the bridge, and from thence along the west side of the Otta and the Laagen over bypaths through the waste as far
as the horses could bear them. They must lie resting through the day at one of the empty spring sæters on the hillside there; “for till we are out of the Holledis country there is ever fear that we may come upon folk that know me.”
“Have you thought of fodder for the horses?” said Aashild. “You cannot rob folk’s sæters in a year like this — even if so be there is fodder there — and you know none in all the Dale has fodder to sell this year.”
“I have thought of that,” answered Kristin. “You must lend us three days’ food and fodder. ’Tis a reason the more why we must not journey in so strong a troop. Erlend must send Jon back to Husaby. The year has been better on the Trondheim side, and surely some loads can be got across the hills before the Yuletide snows. There are some poor folk dwelling southward in the parish, Lady Aashild, that I would fain you should help with a gift of fodder from Erlend and me.”
Björn set up an uncanny, mirthless horse-laugh. Lady Aashild shook her head. But Erlend’s man Ulf lifted his keen, swarthy visage and looked at Kristin with his bold smile:
“At Husaby there is never abundance, Kristin Lavransdatter, neither in good years nor in bad. But maybe things will be changed when you come to be mistress there. By your speech a man would deem you are the housewife that Erlend needs.”
Kristin nodded to the man calmly, and went on. They must keep clear of the high-road as far as might be. And she deemed it not wise to take the way that led through Hamar. But, Erlend put in, Munan was there — and the letter to the Duchess they must have.
“Then Ulf must part from us at Fagaberg and ride to Sir Munan, while we hold on west of Mjösen and make our way by land and the byroads through Hadeland down to Hakedal. Thence there goes a waste way south to Margretadal, I have heard my uncle say. ’Twere not wise for us to pass through Raumarike in these days, when a great wedding-feast is toward at Dyfrin,” she said with a smile.
Erlend went round and laid his arm about her shoulders, and she leaned back to him, paying no heed to the others who sat by looking on. Lady Aashild said angrily:
“None would believe aught else than that you are well-used to running away”; and Sir Björn broke again into his horse-laugh.
In a little while Lady Aashild stood up to go to the kitchen-house and see to the food. She had made up the kitchen fire so that Erlend’s men could sleep there at night. She bade Kristin go with her: “For I must be able to swear to Lavrans Björgulfsön that you were never a moment alone together in my house,” she said wrathfully.
Kristin laughed and went with the lady. Soon after, Erlend came strolling in after them, drew a stool forward to the hearth, and sat there, hindering the women in their work. He caught hold of Kristin every time she came nigh him, as she hurried about her work. At last he drew her down on his knee:
“ ’Tis even as Ulf said, I trow; you are the housewife I need.”
“ Ay, ay,” said Aashild, with a vexed laugh. “She will serve your turn well enough. ’Tis she that stakes all in this adventure — you hazard not much.”
“You speak truth,” said Erlend. “But I wot well I have shown I had the will to come to her by the right road. Be not so angry, Moster Aashild.”
“I do well to be angry,” said the lady. “Scarce have you set your house in order, but you must needs guide things so that you have to run from it all again with a woman.”
“You must bear in mind, kinswoman — so hath it ever been, that ’twas not the worst men who fell into trouble for a woman’s sake — all sagas tell us that.”
“Oh, God help us all!” said Aashild. Her face grew young and soft. “That tale have I heard before, Erlend.” She laid her hand on his head and gave his hair a little tug.
At that moment Ulf Haldorsön tore open the door, and shut it quickly behind him:
“Here is come yet another guest, Erlend — the one you are least fain to see, I trow.”
“Is it Lavrans Björgulfsön?” said Erlend, starting up.
“Well if it were,” said the man. “ ’Tis Eline Ormsdatter.”
The door was opened from without; the woman who came in thrust Ulf aside and came forward into the light. Kristin looked at Erlend; at first he seemed to shrivel and shrink together; then he drew himself up, with a dark flush on his face:
“In the devil’s name, where come you from — what would you here?”
Lady Aashild stepped forward and spoke:
“You must come with us to the hall, Eline Ormsdatter. So much manners at least we have in this house, that we welcome not our guests in the kitchen.”
“I look not, Lady Aashild,” said the other, “to be welcomed as a guest by Erlend’s kinsfolk. — Asked you from whence I came? — I come from Husaby, as you might know. I bear you greetings from Orm and Margret; they are well.”
Erlend made no answer.
“When I heard that you had had Gissur Arnfinsön raise money for you, and that you were for the south again,” she went on, “I thought ’twas like you would bide awhile this time with your kinsfolk in Gudbrandsdal. I knew that you had made suit for the daughter of a neighbour of theirs.”
She looked across at Kristin for the first time, and met the girl’s eyes. Kristin was very pale, but she looked calmly and keenly at the other.
She was stony-calm. She had known it from the moment she heard who was come — this was the thought she had been fleeing from always; this thought it was she had tried to smother under impatience, restlessness and defiance; the whole time she had been striving not to think whether Erlend had freed himself wholly and fully from his former paramour. Now she was overtaken — useless to struggle any more. But she begged not nor beseeched for herself.
She saw that Eline Ormsdatter was fair. She was young no longer; but she was fair — once she must have been exceeding fair. She had thrown back her hood; her head was round as a ball, and hard; the cheek-bones stood out — but none the less it was plain to see, once she had been very fair. Her coif covered but the back part of her head; while she was speaking, her hands kept smoothing the waving, bright-gold front-hair beneath the linen. Kristin had never seen a woman with such great eyes; they were dark brown, round and hard; but under the narrow coal-black eyebrows and the long lashes they were strangely beautiful against her golden hair. The skin of her cheeks and lips was chafed and raw from her ride in the cold, but it could not spoil her much; she was too fair for that. The heavy riding-dress covered up her form, but she bore herself in it as does only a woman most proud and secure in the glory of a fair body. She was scarce as tall as Kristin; but she held herself so well that she seemed yet taller than the slender, spare-limbed girl.
“Hath she been with you at Husaby the whole time?” asked Kristin, in a low voice.
“I have not been at Husaby,” said Erlend curtly, flushing red again. “I have dwelt at Hestnæs the most of the summer.”
“Here now are the tidings I came to bring you, Erlend,” said Eline. “You need not any longer take shelter with your kinsfolk and try their hospitality for that I am keeping your house. Since this autumn I have been a widow.”
Erlend stood motionless.
“It was not I that bade you come to Husaby last year, to keep my house,” said he with effort.
“I heard that all things were going to waste there,” said Eline. “I had so much kindness left for you from old days, Erlend, that methought I should lend a hand to help you — although God knows you have not dealt well with our children or with me.”
“For the children I have done what I could,” said Erlend. “And well you know, ’twas for their sake I suffered you to live on at Husaby. That you profited them or me by it you scarce can think yourself, I trow,” he added, smiling scornfully. “Gissur could guide things well enough without your help.”
“Ay, you have ever had such mighty trust in Gissur,” said Eline, laughing softly. “But now the thing is this, Erlend — now I am free. And if so be you will, you can keep the promise now you made me once.”
Erlend stood
silent.
“Mind you,” asked Eline, “the night I bore your son? You promised then that you would wed me when Sigurd died.”
Erlend passed his hand up under his hair, that hung damp with sweat.
“Ay, — I remember,” he said.
“Will you keep that promise now?” asked Eline.
“No,” said Erlend.
Eline Ormsdatter looked across at Kristin — then smiled a little and nodded. Then she looked again at Erlend.
“It is ten years since, Eline,” said the man. “And since that time you and I have lived together year in year out like two damned souls in hell.”
“But not only so, I trow!” said she, with the same smile.
“It is years and years since aught else has been,” said Erlend dully. “The children would be none the better off. And you know — you know I can scarce bear to be in a room with you any more!” he almost screamed.
“I marked naught of that when you were at home in the summer,” said Eline, with a meaning smile. “Then we were not unfriends — always.”
“If you deem that we were friends, have it as you will, for me,” said Erlend wearily.
“Will you stand here without end?” broke in Lady Aashild. She poured the porridge from the pot into two great wooden dishes and gave one to Kristin. The girl took it. “Bear it to the hall — and you, Ulf, take the other — and set them on the board; supper we must have, whether it be so, or so.”
Kristin and the man went out with the dishes. Lady Aashild said to the two others:
“Come now, you two; what boots it that you stand here barking at each other?”
“ ’Tis best that Eline and I have our talk out together now,” said Erlend.
Lady Aashild said no more, but went out and left them.
In the hall Kristin had laid the table and fetched ale from the cellar. She sat on the outer bench, straight as a wand and calm of face, but she ate nothing. Nor had the others much stomach to their food, neither Björn nor Erlend’s men. Only the man that had come with Eline and Björn’s hired man ate greedily. Lady Aashild sate herself down and ate a little of the porridge. No one spoke a word.