At length Eline Ormsdatter came in alone. Lady Aashild bade her sit between Kristin and herself; Eline sat down and ate a little. Now and again a gleam as of a hidden smile flitted across her face, and she stole a glance at Kristin.
A while after, Lady Aashild went out to the kitchen-house.
The fire on the hearth was almost burnt out. Erlend sat by it on his stool, crouched together, his head down between his arms.
Lady Aashild went to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“God forgive you, Erlend, that you have brought things to this pass.”
Erlend turned up to her a face besmeared with wretchedness.
“She is with child,” he said, and shut his eyes.
Lady Aashild’s face flamed up, she gripped his shoulder hard.
“Which of them?” she asked, roughly and scornfully.
“My child it is not,” said Erlend, in the same dead voice. “But like enough you will not believe me — none will believe me —” He sank together again.
Lady Aashild sat down in front of him on the edge of the hearth.
“Now must you try to play the man, Erlend. ’Tis not so easy to believe you in this matter. Do you swear it is not yours?”
Erlend lifted his ravaged face.
“As surely as I need God’s mercy — as surely as I hope — that God in heaven has comforted mother for all she suffered here — I have not touched Eline since first I saw Kristin!” He cried out the words, so that Lady Aashild had to hush him.
“Then I see not that this is so great, a misfortune. You must find out who the father is, and make it worth his while to wed her.”
“ ’Tis in my mind that it is Gissur Arnfinsön — my steward at Husaby,” said Erlend wearily. “We talked together last year — and since then too — Sigurd’s death has been looked for this long time past. He was willing to wed her, when she was a widow, if I would give her a fitting portion —”
“Well?” said Lady Aashild. Erlend went on:
“She swears with great oaths she will have none of him. She will name me as the father. And if I swear I am not — think you any will believe aught but that I am forsworn?”
“You must sure be able to turn her purpose,” said Lady Aashild. “There is no other way now but that you go home with her to Husaby no later than to-morrow. And there must you harden your heart and stand firm till you have this marriage fixed between your steward and Eline.”
“Ay,” said Erlend. Then he threw himself forward again and groaned aloud:
“Can you not see — Moster — what think you Kristin will believe-?”
At night Erlend lay in the kitchen-house with the men. In the hall Kristin slept with Lady Aashild in the lady’s bed, and Eline Ormsdatter in the other bed that was there. Björn went out and lay down in the stable.
The next morning Kristin went out with Lady Aashild to the byre. While the lady went to the kitchen to make ready the breakfast, Kristin bore the milk up to the hall.
A candle stood burning on the table. Eline was sitting dressed on the edge of her bed. Kristin greeted her silently, then fetched a milkpan and poured the milk into it.
“Will you give me a drink of milk?” asked Eline. Kristin took a wooden ladle, filled it and handed it to the other; she drank eagerly, looking at Kristin over the rim of the cup.
“So you are that Kristin Lavransdatter, that hath stolen from me Erlend’s love,” she said, as she gave back the ladle.
“You should know best if there was any love to steal,” said the girl.
Eline bit her lip.
“What will you do,” she said, “if Erlend one day grow weary of you, and offer to wed you to his serving-man? Will you do his will in that as well?”
Kristin made no answer. Then the other laughed, and said:
“You do his will in all things now, I well believe. What think you, Kristin — shall we throw dice for our man, we too paramours of Erlend Nikulaussön?” When no answer came, she laughed again and said: “Are you so simple, that you deny not you are his paramour?”
“To you I care not to lie,” said Kristin.
“ ’Twould profit you but little if you did,” answered Eline, still laughing. “I know the boy too well. He flew at you like a blackcock, I trow, the second time you were together. ’Tis pity of you too, fair child that you are.”
Kristin’s cheeks grew white. Sick with loathing, she said low:
“I will not speak with you —”
“Think you he is like to deal with you better than with me?” went on Eline. Then Kristin answered sharply:
“No blame will I ever cast on Erlend, whatever he may do. I went astray of my own will — I shall not whimper or wail if the path lead out on to the rocks —”
Eline was silent for a while. Then she said unsteadily, flushing red:
“I was a maid too, when he came to me, Kristin — even though I had been wife in name to the old man for seven years. But like enough you could never understand what the misery of that life was.”
Kristin began to tremble violently. Eline looked at her. Then from her travelling-case that stood by her on the step of the bed she took a little horn. She broke the seal that was on its mouth and said softly:
“You are young and I am old, Kristin. I know well it boots not for me to strive against you — your time is now. Will you drink with me, Kristin?”
Kristin did not move. Then the other raised the horn to her own lips; but Kristin marked that she did not drink. Eline said:
“So much honour you sure can do me, to drink to me — and promise you will not be a hard stepmother to my children?”
Kristin took the horn. At that moment Erlend opened the door. He stood a moment, looking from one to the other of the women.
“What is this?” he asked.
Kristin answered, and her voice was wild and piercing:
“We are drinking to each other — we — your paramours —”
He gripped her wrist and took the horn from her.
“Be still,” he said harshly. “You shall not drink with her.”
“Why not?” cried Kristin as before. “She was pure as I was, when you tempted her —”
“That hath she said so often, that I trow she is come to believe it herself,” said Erlend. “Mind you, Eline, when you made me go to Sigurd with that tale, and he brought forth witness that he had caught you before with another man?”
White with loathing, Kristin turned away. Eline had flushed darkly — now she said defiantly:
“Yet will it scarce bring leprosy on the girl, if she drink with me!”
Erlend turned on Eline in wrath — then of a sudden his face seemed to grow long and hard as stone, and he gasped with horror:
“Jesus!” he said below his breath. He gripped Eline by the arm.
“Drink to her, then,” he said, in a harsh and quivering voice. “Drink you first; then she shall drink to you.”
Eline wrenched herself away with a groan. She fled backwards through the room, the man after her. “Drink,” he said. He snatched the dagger from his belt and held it as he followed. “Drink out the drink you have brewed for Kristin!” He seized Eline’s arm again and dragged her to the table, then forced her head forward toward the horn.
Eline shrieked once and buried her face on her arm. Erlend released her and stood trembling.
“A hell was mine with Sigurd,” shrieked Eline. “You — you promised — but you have been worst to me of all, Erlend!”
Then came Kristin forward and grasped the horn:
“One of us two must drink — both of us you cannot keep —”
Erlend wrenched the horn away and flung her from him so that she reeled and fell near by Lady Aashild’s bed. Again he pushed the horn against Eline Ormsdatter’s mouth — with one knee on the bench he stood by her side, and with a hand round her head tried to force the drink between her teeth.
She reached out under his arm, snatched his dagger from the table, and struck hard at the ma
n. The blow did but scratch his flesh through the clothes. Then she turned the point against her own breast, and the instant after sank sidelong down into his arms.
Kristin rose and came to them. Erlend was holding Eline, her head hanging back over his arm. The rattle came in her throat almost at once — blood welled up and ran out of her mouth. She spat some of it out and said:
“ ’Twas for you I meant — that drink — for all the times — you deceived me —”
“Bring Lady Aashild hither,” said Erlend, in a low voice. Kristin stood immovable.
“She is dying,” said Erlend as before.
“Then is she better served than we,” said Kristin. Erlend looked at her — the despair in his eyes softened her. She left the room.
“What is it?” asked Lady Aashild, when Kristin called her out from the kitchen.
“We have killed Eline Ormsdatter,” said Kristin. “She is dying —”
Lady Aashild set off running to the hall. But Eline breathed her last as the lady crossed the threshold.
Lady Aashild had laid out the dead woman on the bench, wiped the blood from her face and covered it with the linen of her coif. Erlend stood leaning against the wall, behind the body.
“Know you,” said Aashild, “that this was the worst thing that could befall?”
She had filled the fireplace with twigs and firewood; now she thrust the horn into the midst of them and blew them into a blaze.
“Can you trust your men?” asked the lady again.
“Ulf and Haftor are trusty, methinks — of Jon and the man with Eline I know but little.”
“You know, belike,” said the lady, “should it come out that Kristin and you were together here, and that you two were alone with her when she died, ’twere as well for Kristin you had let her drink of Eline’s brew.… And should there be talk of poison, all men will call to mind what once was laid to my charge.… Had she any kindred or friends?”
“No,” said Erlend, in a low voice. “She had none but me.”
“Yet,” said Lady Aashild again, “it may well be a hard matter to cover up this thing and hide the body away, without the ugliest of misthought falling on you.”
“She shall rest in hallowed ground,” said Erlend, “if it cost me Husaby. What say you, Kristin?”
Kristin nodded.
Lady Aashild sat silent. The more she thought, the more hopeless it seemed to her to find any way out. In the kitchen-house were four men — even if Erlend could bribe them all to keep silence, even if some of them, if Eline’s man, could be bribed to leave the country — still, sure they could never be. And ’twas known at Jörundgaard that Kristin had been here — if Lavrans heard of this, she feared to think what he would do. And how to bear the dead woman hence. The mountain-path to the west was not to be thought of now — there was the road to Romsdal, or over the hills to Trondheim, or south down the Dale. And should the truth come out, it would never be believed — even if folk let it pass for true.
“I must take counsel with Björn in this matter,” she said, and rose and went out to call him.
Björn Gunnarsön listened to his wife’s story without moving a muscle and without withdrawing his eyes from Erlend’s face.
“Björn,” said Aashild desperately. “There is naught for it but that one must swear he saw her lay hands upon herself.”
Björn’s dead eyes grew slowly dark, as life came into them; he looked at his wife, and his mouth drew aside into a crooked smile:
“And you mean that I should be the one?”
Lady Aashild crushed her hands together and lifted them towards him:
“Björn, you know well what it means for these two —”
“And you think that, whether or no, ’tis all over with me?” he said slowly. “Or think you there is so much left of the man I once was that I dare be forsworn to save that boy there from going down to ruin? I that was dragged down myself — all those years ago. Dragged down, I say,” he repeated.
“You say it because I am old now,” whispered Aashild.
Kristin burst out into such weeping that the piercing sound filled the room. She had sat in the corner by Aashild’s bed, stark and silent. Now she began weeping wildly and loud. It was as though Lady Aashild’s voice had torn her heart open. The voice had been heavy with the memories of the sweetness of love; it was as though its sound had made her understand for the first time what her love and Erlend’s had been. The memory of hot and passionate happiness swept over all else — swept away the hard despair and hatred of last night. All she knew of now was her love and her will to hold out.
They looked at her — all three. Then Sir Björn went across and lifted her chin with his hand and looked at her:
“Say you, Kristin, she did it herself?”
“Every word you have heard is true,” said Kristin firmly. “We threatened her till she did it.”
“She had meant Kristin should suffer a worse fate,” said Aashild. Sir Björn let go the girl. He went over to the body, lifted it up into the bed where Eline had lain the night before, and laid it close to the wall, drawing up the coverings well over it:
“Jon and the man you do not know you must send home to Husaby, with word that Eline is journeying south with you. Let them ride at midday. Say that the women are asleep in the hall; they must take their food in the kitchen. Afterward you must speak with Ulf and Haftor. Hath she threatened before to do this? So that you can bring witness to it, if such question should be asked?”
“Every soul that was at Husaby the last years we lived together there,” said Erlend wearily, “can witness that she threatened to take her own life — and mine too sometimes — when I spoke of parting from her.”
Björn laughed harshly:
“I thought as much. To-night we must clothe her in her riding-coats and set her in the sleigh. You must sit beside her —” Erlend swayed on his feet where he stood: “I cannot!”
“God knows how much manhood will be left in you when you have gone your own gait twenty years more,” said Björn. “Think you, then, you can drive the sleigh? For then will I sit beside her. We must travel by night and by lonely paths, till we are come down to Fron. In this cold none can know how long she has been dead. We will drive into the monks’ hospice at Roaldstad. There will you and I bear witness that you two were together in the sleigh, and it came to bitter words betwixt you. There is witness enough that you would not live with her since the ban was taken off you, and that you have made suit for a maiden of birth that fits your own. Ulf and Haftor must hold themselves aloof the whole way, so they can swear, if need be, she was alive when last they saw her. You can bring them to do so much, I trow? At the monastery you can have the monks lay her in her coffin — and afterward you must bargain with the priests for grave-peace for her and soul’s peace for yourself.…
“… Ay, a fair deed it is not. But so as you have guided things, no fairer can it be. Stand not there like a breeding woman ready to swoon away. God help you, boy, a man can see you have not proved before what ’tis to feel the knife-edge at your throat.”
A biting blast came rushing down from the mountains, driving a fine silvery smoke from the snow-wreaths up into the moon-blue air, as the men made ready to drive away.
Two horses were harnessed, one in front of the other. Erlend sat in the front of the sleigh. Kristin went up to him:
“This time, Erlend, you must try to send me word how this journey goes, and what becomes of you after.”
He crushed her hand till she thought the blood must be driven out from under the nails.
“Dare you still hold fast to me, Kristin?”
“Ay, still,” she said; and after a moment: “Of this deed we are both guilty — I egged you on — for I willed her death.”
Lady Aashild and Kristin stood and looked after the sleigh, as it rose and dipped over the snow-drifts. It went down from sight into a hollow — then came forth again farther down on a snow-slope. And then the men passed into the shadow of a fell
, and were gone from sight for good.
The two women sat by the fireplace, their backs to the empty bed, from which Aashild had borne away all the bedding and straw. Both could feel it standing there empty and gaping behind them.
“Would you rather that we should sleep in the kitchen-house to-night?” asked Lady Aashild at length.
“ ’Tis like it will be the same where we lie,” said Kristin.
Lady Aashild went out to look at the weather.
“Ay, should the wind get up or a thaw come on, they will not journey far before it comes out,” said Kristin.
“Here at Haugen it blows ever,” answered Lady Aashild. “ ’Tis no sign of a change of weather.”
They sat on as before.
“You should not forget,” said the lady at last, “what fate she had meant for you two.” Kristin answered low:
“I was thinking, maybe in her place I had willed the same.”
“Never would you have willed that another should be a leper,” said Aashild vehemently.
“Mind you, Moster, you said to me once that ’tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair, but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it?”
“You had not dared to do it, because ’twas sin,” said Lady Aashild.
“No, I believe not so,” said Kristin. “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not do because ’twas sin. But I saw not till, now what sin brings with it — that we must tread others underfoot.”
“Erlend would fain have made an end of his ill life long before he met you,” said Aashild eagerly. “All was over between those two.”
“I know it,” said Kristin. “But I trow she had never cause to deem Erlend’s purposes so firm that she could not shake them.”
“Kristin,” begged the lady fearfully, “surely you would not give up Erlend now? You cannot be saved now except you save each other.”
“So would a priest scarce counsel,” said Kristin, smiling coldly. “But well I know that never can I give up Erlend now — not if I should tread my own father underfoot.”
Lady Aashild rose:
“We had as well put our hands to some work as sit here thus,” she said. “Like enough ’twould be vain for us to try to sleep.”