"Were you frightened for me?" Her voice sounded more harsh and haughty than she had intended.

"Well, not exactly frightened . . . But I thought I would come out to meet you."

They barely spoke as they walked southward. All was quiet when they entered the courtyard. Some of the horses they kept on the manor were slowly moving along the walls of the main house, grazing, but all the servants had gone to bed.

Erlend headed straight for the storeroom loft, but Kristin turned toward the cookhouse. "I have to see to something," she replied to his query.

He stood leaning over the gallery railing, waiting for his wife, when he saw her come out of the cookhouse with a pine torch in her hand and go over to the hearth house. Erlend waited a moment and then ran down and followed her inside.

She had lit a candle and placed it on the table. Erlend felt an odd, cold shiver of fear pa.s.s through him when he saw her standing there with the lone candle in the empty house. Only the built-in furniture remained in the room, and the glow of the flame shimmered over the worn wood, unadorned and bare. The hearth was cold and swept clean, except for the torch, which had been tossed into it, still smoldering. They never used this building, Erlend and Kristin, and it must have been almost half a year since a fire had been lit inside. The air was strangely oppressive; missing was the vital blend of smells from people living there and coming and going; the smoke vent and doors had not been opened in all that time. The place also smelled of wool and hides; several rolled-up skins and sacks, which Kristin had taken from among the goods in the storeroom, were piled up on the empty bed that had belonged to Lavrans and Ragnfrid.

On the table lay a heap of small skeins of thread and yarn-linen and wool to be used for mending-which Kristin had set aside when she did the dyeing. She was going through them now, setting them in order.

Erlend sat down in the high seat at the end of the table. It seemed oddly s.p.a.cious for the slender man, now that it had been stripped of its cushions and coverings. The two Olav warriors, with their helmets and shields bearing the sign of the cross, that Lavrans had carved into the armrests of the high seat scowled glumly and morosely under Erlend's slim tan hands. No man could carve foliage and animals more beautifully than Lavrans, but he had never been very skilled at capturing human likenesses.

The silence between them was so complete that not a sound was heard except for the hollow thudding out on the green, where the horses were plodding around in the summer night.

"Aren't you going to bed soon, Kristin?" he finally asked.

"Aren't you?"

"I thought I would wait for you," said her husband.

"I don't want to go yet. . . . I can't sleep."

After a moment he asked, "What is weighing so heavily on your heart, Kristin, that you don't think you'll be able to sleep?"

Kristin straightened up. She stood holding a skein of heather-green wool in her hands, tugging and pulling on it with her fingers.

"What was it you said to Naakkve today?" She swallowed a couple of times; her throat felt so parched. "Some piece of advice . . . He didn't think it was much good for him . . . but the two of you talked about Ivar and Skule. . . ."

"Oh . . . that!" Erlend gave a little smile. "I just told the boy . . . I do have a son-in-law, now that I think of it. Although Gerlak wouldn't be as eager to kiss my hands or carry my cape and sword as he used to be. But he has a ship on the sea and wealthy kin both in Bremen and in Lynn. Surely the man must realize that he's obliged to help his wife's brothers. I didn't stint on my gifts when I was a rich man and married my daughter to Gerlak Tiedekenssn."

Kristin did not reply.

At last Erlend exclaimed vehemently, "Jesus, Kristin, don't just stand there staring like that, as if you had turned to stone."

"I never thought, when we were first married, that our children would have to roam the world, begging food from the manors of strangers."

"No, and the Devil take me, I don't mean for them to beg! But if all seven of them have to grow their own food here on your estates, then it will be a peasant's diet, my Kristin. And I don't think my sons are suited to that. Ivar and Skule look like they'll turn out to be daredevils, and out in the world there is both wheat bread and cake for the man willing to slice his food with a sword."

"You intend your sons to become hired soldiers and mercenaries?"

"I hired on myself when I was young and served Earl Jacob. May G.o.d bless him, I say. I learned a few things back then that a man can never learn at home in this country, whether he's sitting in splendor in his high seat with a silver belt around his belly and swilling down ale or he's walking behind a plow and breathing in the farts of the farm horse. I lived a robust life in the earl's service; I say that even though I ended up with that stump chained to my foot when I was no older than Naakkve. But I was allowed to enjoy some of my youth."

"Silence!" Kristin's eyes grew dark. "Wouldn't you think it the most unbearable sorrow if your sons should be lured into such sin and misfortune?"

"Yes, may G.o.d protect them from that. But surely it shouldn't be necessary for them to copy all the follies of their father. It is is possible, Kristin, to serve a n.o.ble lord without being saddled with such a burden." possible, Kristin, to serve a n.o.ble lord without being saddled with such a burden."

"It is written that he who draws his sword shall lose his life by the sword, Erlend!"

"Yes, I've heard that said, my dear. And yet most of our forefathers, both yours and mine, Kristin, died peacefully and in a Christian manner in their beds, with the last rites and comfort for their souls. You only need think of your own father; he proved in his youth that he was a man who could use his sword."

"But that was during a war, Erlend, at the summons of the king to whom they had sworn allegiance; it was in order to protect their homeland that Father and the others took up their weapons. And yet Father said himself that it was not G.o.d's will that we should bear arms against each other-baptized Christian men."

"Yes, I know that. But the world has been this way ever since Adam and Eve ate from the tree-and that was before my time. It's not my fault that we're born with sin inside us."

"What shameful things you're saying!"

Erlend heatedly interrupted her. "Kristin, you know full well that I have never refused to atone and repent for my sins as best I could. It's true that I'm not a pious man. I saw too much in my childhood and youth. My father was such a dear friend of the great lords of the chapter.2 They came and went at his house like gray pigs: Lord Eiliv, back when he was a priest, and Herr Sigvat Lande, and all the others, and they brought little else with them but quarrels and disputes. They were hardhearted and merciless toward their own bishop; they proved to be no more holy or peaceable even though each day they held the most sacred relics in their hands and lifted up G.o.d Himself in the bread and wine." They came and went at his house like gray pigs: Lord Eiliv, back when he was a priest, and Herr Sigvat Lande, and all the others, and they brought little else with them but quarrels and disputes. They were hardhearted and merciless toward their own bishop; they proved to be no more holy or peaceable even though each day they held the most sacred relics in their hands and lifted up G.o.d Himself in the bread and wine."

"Surely we are not to judge the priests. That's what Father always said: It's our obligation to bow before the priesthood and obey them, but their human behavior shall be judged by G.o.d alone."

"Yes, well . . ." Erlend hesitated. "I know he said that, and you've also said the same in the past. I know you're more pious than I can ever be. And yet, Kristin, I have difficulty accepting that this is the proper interpretation of G.o.d's words: that you should go about storing everything away and never forgetting. He had a long memory too, Lavrans did. No, I won't say anything about your father except that he was pious and n.o.ble, and you are too; I know that. But often when you speak so gently and sweetly, as if your mouth were full of honey, I fear that you're thinking mostly about old wrongs, and G.o.d will have to judge whether you're as pious in your heart as you are in words."

Suddenly Kristin fell forward, stretched out across the table with her face buried in her arms, and began shrieking. Erlend leaped to his feet. She lay there, weeping with raw, ragged sobs that shuddered down her back. Erlend put his arm around her shoulder.

"Kristin, what is it? What is it?" he repeated, sitting down next to her on the bench and trying to lift her head. "Kristin, don't weep like this. I think you must have lost your senses."

"I'm frightened!" She sat up, wringing her hands together in her lap. "I'm so frightened. Gentle Virgin Mary, help us all. I'm so frightened. What will become of my sons?"

"Yes, my Kristin . . . but you must get used to it. You can't keep hiding them under your skirts. Soon they'll be grown men, all our sons. And you're still acting like a b.i.t.c.h with pups." He sat with his legs crossed and his hands clasped around one knee, looking down at his wife with a weary expression. "You snap blindly at both friend and foe over anything that has to do with your offspring."

Abruptly she got to her feet and stood there for a moment, mutely wringing her hands. Then she began swiftly pacing the room. She didn't say a word, and Erlend sat in silence, watching her.

"Skule . . ." She stopped in front of her husband. "You gave your son an ill-fated name. But you insisted on it. You wanted wanted the duke to rise up again in that child." the duke to rise up again in that child."

"It's a fine name, Kristin. Ill fated . . . that can mean many things. When I revived my great-grandfather through my son, I remembered that good fortune had deserted him, but he was still a king, and with better rights than the combmaker's descendants."

"You were certainly proud, you and Munan Baardsn, that you were close kinsmen of King Haakon Haalegg."

"Yes, you know that Sverre's lineage gained royal blood from my father's aunt, Margret Skulesdatter."

For a long time both husband and wife stood staring into each other's eyes.

"Yes, I know what you're thinking, my fair wife." Erlend went back to the high seat and sat down. With his hands resting on the heads of the two warriors, he leaned forward slightly, giving her a cold and challenging smile. "But as you can see, my Kristin, it hasn't broken me to become a poor and friendless man. You should know that I have no fear that the lineage of my forefathers has fallen along with me from power and honor for all eternity. Good fortune has also deserted me; but if my plan had been carried out, my sons and I would now have positions and seats at the king's right hand, which we, his close kinsmen, are ent.i.tled to by birth. For me, no doubt, the game is over. But I see in my sons, Kristin, that they will attain the positions which are their birthright. You don't need to lament over them, and you must not try to bind them to this remote valley of yours. Let them freely make their own way. Then you might see, before you die, that they have once again won a foothold in their father's ancestral regions."

"Oh, how you can talk!" Hot, bitter tears rose up in his wife's eyes, but she brushed them aside and laughed, her mouth contorted. "You seem even more childish than the boys, Erlend! Sitting there and saying . . . when it was only today that Naakkve nearly won the kind of fortune that a Christian man can hardly speak of, if G.o.d hadn't saved us."

"Yes, and I was the one lucky enough to be G.o.d's instrument this time." Erlend shrugged his shoulders. Then he added in a somber voice, "Such things . . . you needn't fear, my Kristin. If this is what has frightened you from your wits, my poor wife!" He lowered his eyes and said almost timidly, "You should remember, Kristin, that your blessed father prayed for our children, just as he prayed for all of us, morning and night. And I firmly believe that salvation can be found for many things, for the worst of things, in such a good man's prayers of intercession." She noticed that her husband secretly made the sign of the cross on his own chest with his thumb.

But as distressed as she was, this only infuriated her more.

"Is that how you console yourself, Erlend, as you sit in my father's high seat? That your sons will be saved by his prayers, just as they are fed by his estates?"

Erlend grew pale. "Do you mean, Kristin, that I'm not worthy to sit in the high seat of Lavrans Bjrgulfsn?"

His wife's lips moved, but not a word came.

Erlend rose to his feet. "Do you mean that? For if you do, then as surely as G.o.d is above us both, I will never sit here again.

"Answer me," he insisted when she remained standing in silence. A long shudder pa.s.sed through his wife's body.

"He was . . . a better husband . . . the man who sat there before you." Her words were barely audible.

"Guard your tongue now, Kristin!" Erlend took a few steps toward her.

She straightened up with a start. "Go ahead and strike me. I've endured it before, and I can bear it now."

"I had no intention of . . . striking you." He stood leaning on the table. Again they stared at each other, and his face had that oddly unfamiliar calm she had seen only a few times before. Now it drove her into a rage. She knew she was in the right; what Erlend had said was foolish and irresponsible, but that expression of his made her feel as if she were utterly wrong.

She gazed at him, and feeling sick with anguish at her own words, she said, "I fear that it won't be my my sons that will thrive once more among your lineage in Trndelag." sons that will thrive once more among your lineage in Trndelag."

Erlend turned blood red.

"You couldn't resist reminding me of Sunniva Olavsdatter, I see."

"I wasn't the one to mention her name. You did."

Erlend blushed even more.

"Haven't you ever thought, Kristin, that you weren't entirely without blame in that . . . misfortune? Do you remember that evening in Nidaros? I came and stood by your bed. I was terribly meek and sad about having grieved you, my wife. I came to beg your forgiveness for my wrong. You answered me by saying that I should go to bed where I had slept the night before."

"How could I know that you had slept with the wife of your kinsman?"

Erlend was silent for a moment. His face turned white and then red again. Abruptly he turned on his heel and left the room without a word.

Kristin didn't move. For a long time she stood there motionless, with her hands clasped under her chin, staring at the candle.

Suddenly she lifted her head and let out a long breath. For once he had been forced to listen.

Then she became aware of the sound of horse hooves out in the courtyard. She could tell from its gait that a horse was being led out of the stable. She crept over to the door and out onto the gallery and peered from behind the post.

The night had already turned a pale gray. Out in the courtyard stood Erlend and Ulf Haldorssn. Erlend was holding his horse, and she saw that the animal was saddled and her husband was dressed for travel. The two men talked for a moment, but she couldn't make out a single word. Then Erlend swung himself up into the saddle and began riding north, at a walking pace, toward the manor gate. He didn't look back but seemed to be talking to Ulf, who was striding along next to the horse.

When they had disappeared between the fences, she tiptoed out, ran as soundlessly as she could up to the gate, and stood there listening. Now she could hear that Erlend had let Soten begin trotting along the main road.

A little later Ulf came walking back. He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Kristin at the gate. For a moment they stood and stared at each other in the gray light. Ulf had bare feet in his shoes and was wearing a linen tunic under his cape.

"What is it?" his mistress asked heatedly.

"Surely you must know, for I have no idea."

"Where was he riding off to?" she asked.

"To Haugen." Ulf paused. "Erlend came in and woke me. He said he wanted to ride there tonight, and he seemed in a great hurry. He asked me to see to it that certain things were sent to him up there later on."

Kristin fell silent for a long time.

"He was angry?"

"He was calm." After a moment Ulf said quietly, "I fear, Kristin . . . I wonder if you might have said what should have been best left unspoken."

"Surely Erlend for once should be able to stand hearing me speak to him as if he were a sensible man," said Kristin vehemently.

They walked slowly down the hill. Ulf turned toward his own house, but she followed him.

"Ulf, kinsman," she implored him anxiously. "In the past you were the one who told me morning and night that for the sake of my sons I had to steel myself and speak to Erlend."

"Yes, but I've grown wiser over the years, Kristin. You haven't," he replied in the same tone of voice.

"You offer me such solace now," she said bitterly.

He placed his hand heavily on the woman's shoulder, but at first he didn't speak. As they stood there, it was so quiet they could both hear the endless roar of the river, which they usually didn't notice. Out across the countryside the roosters were crowing, and the cry of Kristin's own rooster echoed from the stable.

"Yes, I've had to learn to ration out the solace sparingly, Kristin. There's been a cruel shortage of it for several years now. We have to save it up because we don't know how long it might have to last."

She tore herself away from his hand. With her teeth biting her lower lip, she turned her face away. And then she fled back to the hearth house.

The morning was icy cold. She wrapped her cloak tightly around her and pulled the hood up over her head. With her dew-drenched shoes tucked up under her skirts and her crossed arms resting on her knees, she huddled at the edge of the cold hearth to think. Now and then a tremor pa.s.sed over her face, but she did not cry.

She must have fallen asleep. She started up with an aching back, her body frozen through and stiff. The door stood ajar. She saw that sunlight filled the courtyard.

Kristin went out onto the gallery. The sun was already high; from the fenced pasture below she could hear the bell of the horse that had gone lame. She looked toward the new storehouse. Then she noticed that Munan was standing up on the loft gallery, peering out from between the posts.

Her sons. It raced through her mind. What had they thought when they woke up and saw their parents' bed untouched?

She ran across the courtyard and up to the child. Munan was wearing only his shirt. As soon as his mother reached him, he put his hand in hers, as if he were afraid.

Inside the loft none of the boys was fully dressed; she realized that no one had woken them. All of them looked quickly at their mother and then glanced away. She picked up Munan's leggings and began helping him to put them on.

"Where's Father?" asked Lavrans in surprise.

"Your father rode north to Haugen early this morning," she replied. She saw that the older boys were listening as she said, "You know he's been talking about it so long, that he wanted to go up there to see to his manor."

The two youngest sons looked up into their mother's face with wide, atonished eyes, but the five older brothers hid their gaze from her as they left the loft.