"Is that what you want to tell me-that you still love Kristin even though you like me well enough to want to play with me?"

"I don't know how well I like you . . . You were the one who showed your affection for me."

"And Kristin doesn't care for your love?" she sneered. "I've seen how tenderly she looks at you, Erlend. . . ."

"Be silent!" he shouted. "Perhaps she knew how worthless I was," he said, his voice harsh and hateful. "You and I might be each other's equal."

"Is that it?" threatened Sunniva. "Am I supposed to be the whip you use to punish your wife?"

Erlend stood there, breathing hard. "You could call it that. But you put yourself willingly into my hands."

"Take care," said Sunniva, "that the whip doesn't turn back on you."

She was sitting up in bed, waiting. But Erlend made no attempt to argue or to make amends with his lover. He finished getting dressed and left without saying another word.

He wasn't overly pleased with himself or with the way he had parted with Sunniva. There was no honor in it for him. But it didn't matter now; at least he was rid of her.

CHAPTER 4.

DURING THAT SPRING and summer they saw little of the master at home at Husaby. On those occasions when he did return to his manor, he and his wife behaved with courtesy and friendliness toward each other. Erlend didn't try in any way to breach the wall that she had now put up between them, even though he would often give her a searching look. Otherwise, he seemed to have much to think about outside his own home. And he never inquired with a single word about the management of the estate.

This was something his wife mentioned when, shortly after Holy Cross Day, he asked her whether she wanted to accompany him to Raumsdal. He had business to tend to in the Uplands; perhaps she would like to take the children along, spend some time at Jrundgaard, visit kinsmen and friends in the valley? But Kristin had no wish to do so, under any circ.u.mstances.

Erlend was in Nidaros during the Law ting ting and afterwards out in Orkedal. Then he returned home to Husaby but immediately began preparations for a journey to Bjrgvin. The and afterwards out in Orkedal. Then he returned home to Husaby but immediately began preparations for a journey to Bjrgvin. The Margygren Margygren was anch.o.r.ed out at Nidarholm, and he was only waiting for Haftor Graut, who was supposed to sail with him. was anch.o.r.ed out at Nidarholm, and he was only waiting for Haftor Graut, who was supposed to sail with him.

Three days before Saint Margareta's Day, the hay harvesting began at Husaby. It was the finest weather, and when the workers went back out into the meadows after the midday rest, Olav the overseer asked the children to come along.

Kristin was up in the clothing chamber, which was on the second story of the armory. The house was built in such a fashion that an outside stair led up to this room and the exterior gallery running along the side; projecting over it was the third floor, which could be reached only by means of a ladder through a hatchway inside the clothing chamber. It was standing open because Erlend was up in the weapons loft.

Kristin carried the fur cape that Erlend wanted to take along on his sea voyage out to the gallery and began to shake it. Then she heard the thunder of a large group of hors.e.m.e.n, and a moment later she saw men come riding out of the forest on Gauldal Road. An instant later, Erlend was standing at her side.

"Is it true what you said, Kristin, that the fire went out in the cookhouse this morning?"

"Yes, Gudrid knocked over the soup kettle. We'll have to borrow some embers from Sira Eiliv."

Erlend looked over at the parsonage.

"No, he can't get mixed up in this. . . . Gaute," he called softly to the boy dawdling under the gallery, picking up one rake after another, with little desire to go out to the hay harvesting. "Come up the stairs, but stop at the top or they'll be able to see you."

Kristin stared at her husband. She'd never seen him look this way before. A taut, alert calm came over his voice and face as he peered south toward the road, and over his tall, supple body as he ran inside the loft and came back at once with a flat package wrapped in linen. He handed it to the boy.

"Put this inside your shirt, and pay attention to what I tell you. You must safeguard these letters-it's more important than you can possibly know, my Gaute. Put your rake over your shoulder and walk calmly across the fields until you reach the alder thickets. Keep to the bushes down by the woods-you know the place well, I know you do-and then sneak through the densest underbrush all the way over to Skjoldvirkstad. Make sure that things are calm at the farm. If you notice any sign of unrest or strange men around, stay hidden. But if you're sure it's safe, then go down and give this to Ulf, if he's home. If you can't put the letters into his own hand and you're sure that no one is near, then burn them as soon as you can. But take care that both the writing and the seals are completely destroyed, and that they don't fall into anyone's hands but Ulf's. May G.o.d help us, my son-these are weighty matters to put into the hands of a boy only ten winters old; many a good man's life and welfare . . . Do you understand how important this is, Gaute?"

"Yes, Father. I understand everything you said." Gaute lifted his small, fair face with a somber expression as he stood on the stairs.

"If Ulf isn't home, tell Isak that he has to set off at once for Hevne and ride all night-he must tell them, and he knows who I mean, that I think a headwind has sprung up here, and that I fear my journey has now been cursed. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Father. I remember everything you've told me."

"Go then. May G.o.d protect you, my son."

Erlend dashed up to the weapons loft and was about to close the hatchway, but Kristin was already halfway through the opening. He waited until she had climbed up, then shut the hatch and ran over to a chest and took out several boxes of letters. He tore off the seals and stomped them to bits on the floor; he ripped the parchments into shreds and wrapped them around a key and tossed the whole thing out the window to the ground, where it landed in the tall nettles growing behind the building. With his hands on the windowsill, Erlend stood and watched the small boy who was walking along the edge of the grain field toward the meadow where the rows of harvest workers were toiling with scythes and rakes. When Gaute disappeared into the little grove of trees between the field and the meadow, Erlend pulled the window closed. The sound of hoofbeats was now loud and close to the manor.

Erlend turned to face his wife.

"If you can retrieve what I threw outside just now . . . let Skule do it, he's a clever boy. Tell him to fling it into the ravine behind the cowshed. They'll probably be watching you, and maybe the older boys as well. But I don't think they would search you. . . ." He tucked the broken pieces of seal inside her bodice. "They can't be recognized anymore, but even so . . ."

"Are you in some kind of danger, Erlend?" Kristin asked. As he looked down at her face, he threw himself into her open arms. For a moment he held her tight.

"I don't know, Kristin. We'll find out soon enough. Tore Ein dridessn is riding in the lead, and I saw that Sir Baard is with them. I don't expect that Tore is coming here for any good purpose."

Now the hors.e.m.e.n had entered the courtyard. Erlend hesitated for a moment. Then he kissed his wife fervently, opened the hatchway, and ran downstairs. When Kristin came out onto the gallery, Erlend was standing in the courtyard below, helping the royal treasurer, an elderly and ponderous man, down from his saddle. There were at least thirty armed men with Sir Baard and the sheriff of Gauldla county.

As Kristin walked across the courtyard, she heard the latter man say, "I bring you greetings from your cousins, Erlend. Borgar and Guttorm are enjoying the king's hospitality in Vey, and I think that Haftor Toressn has already paid a visit to Ivar and the young boy at home at Sundbu by this time. Sir Baard seized Graut yesterday morning in town."

"And now you've come here to invite me to the same meeting of the royal retainers, I can see," said Erlend with a smile.

"That is true, Erlend."

"And no doubt you'll want to search the manor? Oh, I've taken part in this kind of thing so many times that I should know how it goes. . . ."

"But you've never had such great matters as high treason on your hands before," said Tore.

"No, not until now," said Erlend. "And it looks as if I'm playing with the black chess pieces, Tore, and you have me check-mated-isn't that so, kinsman?"

"We're looking for the letters that you've received from Lady Ingebjrg Haakonsdatter," said Tore Eindridessn.

"They're in the chest covered with red leather, up in the weapons loft. But they contain little except such greetings as loving kinsmen usually send to each other; and all of them are old. Stein here can show you the way. . . ."

The strangers had dismounted, and the servants of the estate had now come swarming into the courtyard.

"There was much more than that in the one we took from Borgar Trondssn," said Tore.

Erlend began whistling softly. "I suppose we might as well go into the house," he said. "It's getting crowded out here."

Kristin followed the men into the hall. At a sign from Tore, a couple of the armed guards came along.

"You'll have to surrender your sword, Erlend," said Tore of Gimsar when they came inside. "As a sign that you're our prisoner."

Erlend slapped his flanks to show that he carried no other weapon than the dagger at his belt.

But Tore repeated, "You must hand over your sword, as a sign-"

"Well, if you want to do this formally . . ." said Erlend, laughing a bit. He went over and took down his sword from the peg, holding it by the sheath and offering the hilt to Tore Eindridessn with a slight bow.

The old man from Gimsar loosened the fastenings, pulled the sword all the way out, and stroked the blade with a fingertip.

"Was it this sword, Erlend, that you used . . . ?"

Erlend's blue eyes glittered like steel; he pressed his lips together into a narrow line.

"Yes. It was with this sword that I punished your grandson when I found him with my daughter."

Tore stood holding the sword; he looked down at it and said in a threatening tone, "You who were supposed to uphold the law, Erlend-you should have known then that you were going farther than the law would follow you."

Erlend threw back his head, his eyes blazing and fierce. "There is a law, Tore, that cannot be subverted by sovereigns or tings, tings, which says that a man must protect the honor of his women with the sword." which says that a man must protect the honor of his women with the sword."

"You've been fortunate, Erlend Nikulaussn, that no man has ever used that law against you," replied Tore of Gimsar, his voice full of malice. "Or you might have needed as many lives as a cat."

Erlend's response was infuriatingly slow.

"Isn't the present undertaking serious enough that you would think it inopportune to bring up those old charges from my youth?"

"I don't know whether Baard of Lensvik would consider them old charges." Rage surged up inside Erlend and he was about to reply, but Tore shouted, "You ought to find out first, Erlend, whether your paramours are so clever that they can read, before you run around on your nightly adventures with secret letters in your belt. Just ask Baard who it was that warned us you were planning treachery against your king, to whom you've sworn loyalty and who granted you the position of sheriff."

Involuntarily Erlend pressed a hand to his breast-for a moment he glanced at his wife, and the blood rushed to his face. Then Kristin ran forward and threw her arms around his neck. Erlend looked down into her face-he saw nothing but love in her eyes.

"Erlend-husband!"

The royal treasurer had remained largely silent. Now he went over to the two of them and said softly, "My dear mistress, perhaps it would be best if you took the children and the serving women with you into the women's house and stayed there as long as we're here at the manor."

Erlend let go of his wife with one last squeeze of his arm around her shoulder.

"It would be best, my dear Kristin. Do as Sir Baard advises."

Kristin stood on her toes and offered Erlend her lips. Then she went out into the courtyard and collected her children and serving women from among the crowd, taking them with her into the little house. There was no other women's house at Husaby.

They sat there for several hours; the composure of their mistress kept the frightened group more or less calm. Then Erlend entered, bearing no weapons and dressed for travel. Two strangers stood guard at the door.

He shook hands with his eldest sons and then lifted the smallest ones into his arms, while he asked where Gaute was. "Well, you must give him my greetings, Naakkve. He must have gone off into the woods with his bow the way he usually does. Tell him he can have my English longbow after all-the one I refused to give him last Sunday."

Kristin pulled him to her without speaking a word.

Then she whispered urgently, "When are you coming back, Erlend, my friend?"

"When G.o.d wills it, my wife."

She stepped back, struggling not to break down. Normally he never addressed her in any other way except by using her given name; his last words had shaken her to the heart. Only now did she fully understand what had happened.

At sunset Kristin was sitting up on the hill north of the manor.

She had never before seen the sky so red and gold. Above the opposite ridge stretched an enormous cloud; it was shaped like a bird's wing, glowing from within like iron in the forge, and gleaming brightly like amber. Small golden shreds like feathers tore away and floated into the air. And far below, on the lake at the bottom of the valley, spread a mirror image of the sky and the cloud and the ridge. Down in the depths the radiant blaze was flaring upward, covering everything in sight.

The gra.s.s in the meadows had grown tall, and the silky ta.s.sels of the straw shone dark red beneath the crimson light from the sky; the barley had sprouted spikes and caught the light on the young, silky-smooth awn. The sod-covered rooftops of the farm buildings were thick with sorrel and b.u.t.tercups, and the sun lay across them in wide bands. The blackened shingles of the church roof gleamed darkly, and its light-colored stone walls were becoming softly gilded.

The sun broke through from beneath the cloud, perched on the mountain rim, and lit up one forested ridge after another. It was such a clear evening; the light opened up vistas to small hamlets amidst the spruce-decked slopes. She could make out mountain pastures and tiny farms in among the trees that she had never been able to see before from Husaby. The shapes of huge mountains rose up, reddish-violet, in the south toward Dovre, in places that were usually covered by haze and clouds.

The smallest bell down in the church began to ring, and the church bell at Vinjar answered. Kristin sat bowed over her folded hands until the last notes of the ninefold peal died away.

Now the sun was behind the ridge; the golden glow paled and the crimson grew softer and pinker. After the ringing of the bells had ceased, the rustling sound from the forest swelled and spread again; the tiny creek trickling through the leafy woods down in the valley sounded louder. From the pasture nearby came the familiar clinking of the livestock bells; a flying beetle buzzed halfway around her and then disappeared.

She sent a last sigh after her prayers; an appeal for forgiveness because her thoughts had been elsewhere while she prayed.

The beautiful large estate lay below her on the hillside, like a jewel on the wide bosom of the slope. She gazed out across all the land she had owned along with her husband. Thoughts about the manor and its care had filled her soul to the brim. She had worked and struggled. Not until this evening did she realize how much she had struggled to put this estate back on its feet and keep it going-how hard she had tried and how much she had accomplished.

She had accepted it as her fate, to be borne with patience and a straight back, that this had fallen to her. Just as she had striven to be patient and steadfast no matter what life presented, every time she learned she was carrying yet another child under her breast-again and again. With each son added to the flock she recognized that her responsibility had grown for ensuring the prosperity and secure position of the lineage. Tonight she realized that her ability to survey everything at once and her watchfulness had also grown with each new child entrusted to her care. Never had she seen it so clearly as on this evening-what destiny had demanded of her and what it had given her in return with her seven sons. Over and over again joy had quickened the beat of her heart; fear on their behalf had rent it in two. They were her children, these big sons with their lean, bony, boy's bodies, just as they had been when they were small and so plump that they barely hurt themselves when they tumbled down on their way between the bench and her knee. They were hers, just as they had been back when she lifted them out of the cradle to her milk-filled breast and had to support their heads, which wobbled on their frail necks the way a bluebell nods on its stalk. Wherever they ended up in the world, wherever they journeyed, forgetting their mother-she thought that for her, their lives would be like a current in her own life; they would be one with her, just as they had been when she alone on this earth knew about the new life hidden inside, drinking from her blood and making her cheeks pale. Over and over she had endured the sinking, sweat-dripping anguish when she realized that once again her time had come; once again she would be pulled under by the groundswell of birth pains-until she was lifted up with a new child in her arms. How much richer and stronger and braver she had become with each child was something that she first realized tonight.

And yet she now saw that she was the same Kristin from Jrundgaard, who had never learned to bear an unkind word because she had been protected all her days by such a strong and gentle love. In Erlend's hands she was still the same . . .

Yes. Yes. Yes. It was true that all this time she had remembered, year after year, every wound he had ever caused her-even though she had always known that he never wounded her the way a grown person intends harm to another, but rather the way a child strikes out playfully at his companion. Each time he offended her, she had tended to the memory the way one tends to a venomous sore. And with each humiliation he brought upon himself by acting on any impulse he might have-it struck her like the lash of a whip against her flesh, causing a suppurating wound. It wasn't true that she willfully or deliberately harbored ill feelings toward her husband; she knew she wasn't usually narrow-minded, but with him she was. If Erlend had a hand in it, she forgot nothing-and even the smallest scratch on her soul would continue to sting and bleed and swell and ache if he was the one to cause it.

About him she would never be wiser or stronger. She might strive to seem capable and fearless, pious and strong in her marriage with him-but in truth, she wasn't. Always, always there was the yearning lament inside her: She wanted to be his Kristin from the woods of Gerdarud.

Back then she would have done everything she knew was wrong and sinful rather than lose him. To bind Erlend to her, she had given him all that she possessed: her love and her body, her honor and her share of G.o.d's salvation. And she had given him anything else she could find to give: her father's honor and his faith in his child, everything that grown and clever men had built up to protect an innocent little maiden if she should fall. She had set her love against their plans for the welfare and progress of her lineage, against their hopes for the fruit of their labors after they themselves lay buried. She had put at risk much more than her own life n this game, in which the only prize was the love of Erlend Niku laussn.

And she had won. She had known from the first time he kissed her in the garden of Hofvin until he kissed her today in the little house, before he was escorted from his home as a prisoner-Erlend loved her as dearly as his own life. And if he had not counseled her well, she had known from the first moment she met him how he had counseled himself. If he had not always treated her well, he had nonetheless treated her better than he did himself.

Jesus, how she had won him! She admitted it to herself tonight; she had driven him to break their marriage vows with her own coldness and poisonous words. She now admitted to herself that even during those years when she had looked on his unseemly flirting with that woman Sunniva with resentment, she had also felt, in the midst of her rancor, an arrogant and spiteful joy. No one knew of any obvious stain on Sunniva Olavsdatter's reputation, and yet Erlend talked and jested with her like a hired man with an alehouse maid. About Kristin he knew that she could lie and betray those who trusted her most, that she could be willingly lured to the worst of places-and yet he had trusted her, he had honored her as best he could. As easily as he forgot his fear of sin, as easily as he had finally broken his promise to G.o.d before the church door-he had still grieved over his sins against her, he had struggled for years to keep his promises to her.

She had chosen him herself. She had chosen him in an ecstasy of pa.s.sion, and she had chosen him again each day during those difficult years back home at Jrundgaard-his impetuous pa.s.sion in place of her father's love, which would not allow even the wind to touch her harshly. She had refused the destiny that her father had wished for her when he wanted to put her into the arms of a man who would have safely led her onto the most secure paths, even bending down to remove every little pebble that she might tread upon. She had chosen to follow the other man, whom she knew traveled on dangerous paths. Monks and priests had pointed out remorse and repentance as the road home to peace, but she had chosen strife rather than give up her precious sin.

So there was only one thing left for her; she could not lament or complain over whatever might now befall her at this man's side. It made her dizzy to think how long ago she had left her father. But she saw his beloved face and remembered his words on that day in the smithy when she stabbed the last knife into his heart; she remembered how they talked together up on the mountain that time when she realized that death's door stood open behind her father. It was shameful to complain about the fate she had chosen herself. Holy Olav, help me, so that I do not now prove myself unworthy of my father's love.

Erlend, Erlend . . . When she met him in her youth, life became for her like a roiling river, rushing over cliffs and rocks. During these years at Husaby, life had expanded outward, becoming wide and s.p.a.cious like a lake, mirroring everything around her. She remembered back home when the Laag overflowed in the spring, stretching wide and gray and mighty along the valley floor, carrying with it drifting logs; and the crowns of the trees that stood rooted to the bottom would rock in the water. In the middle appeared small, dark, menacing eddies, where the current ran rough and wild and dangerous beneath the smooth surface. Now she knew that her love for Erlend had rushed like a turbulent and dangerous current through her life for all these years. Now it was carrying her outward-she didn't know where.

Erlend, dear friend!

Once again Kristin spoke the words of a prayer to the Virgin into the red of the evening. Hail Mary, full of grace! I dare not ask you for more than one thing-I see that now. Save Erlend, save my husband's life!

She looked down at Husaby and thought about her sons. Now, as the manor lay swathed in the evening light like a dream vision that might be whirled away, as her fear for the uncertain fate of her children shook her heart, she remembered this: She had never fully thanked G.o.d for the rich fruits her toils had borne over the years, she had never fully thanked Him for giving her a son seven times.

From the vault of the evening sky, from the countryside beneath her gaze came the murmur of the ma.s.s intoned as she had heard it thousands of times before, in the voice of her father, who had explained the words to her when she was a child and stood at his knee: Then Sira Eirik sings the Praefatio Praefatio when he turns toward the altar, and in Norwegian it means: when he turns toward the altar, and in Norwegian it means: Truly it is right and just, proper and redemptive that we always and everywhere should thank Thee, Holy Lord, Almighty Father, eternal G.o.d. . . .

When she lifted her face from her hands, she saw Gaute coming up the hillside. Kristin sat quietly and waited until the boy stood before her; then she reached out to take his hand. There was gra.s.sy meadow all around and not a single place to hide anywhere near the rock where she sat.

"How have you carried out your father's errand, my son?" she asked him softly.

"As he asked me to, Mother. I made my way to the farm without being seen. Ulf wasn't home, so I burned what Father had given me in the hearth. I took it out of the wrapping." He hesitated for a moment. "Mother-there were nine seals on it."