The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(105)
“You may have to pay with your own life before you’re half a year older,” said Fru Aashild harshly. “Be happy while you can.
“What should I say to you, Kristin?” the old woman continued, in despair. “Have you lost all your courage? The time will come soon enough when the two of you will have to pay for everything that you’ve taken—have no fear of that.”
But Kristin felt as if one landslide after another were ravaging her soul; everything was being torn down that she had built up since that terrifying day at Haugen. During those first days she had simply thought, wildly and blindly, that she had to hold out, she had to hold out one day at a time. And she had held out until things became easier—quite easy, in the end, when she had cast off all thoughts except one: that now their wedding would take place at last, Erlend’s wedding at last.
She and Erlend knelt together during the wedding mass, but it was all like a hallucination: the candles, the paintings, the shining vessels, the priests dressed in linen albs and long chasubles. All those people who had known her in the past seemed like dream images as they stood there filling the church in their unfamiliar festive garb. But Herr Bj?rn was leaning against a pillar and looking at them with his dead eyes, and she thought that the other dead one must have come back with him, in his arms.
She tried to look up at the painting of Saint Olav—he stood there, pink and white and handsome, leaning on his axe, treading his own sinful human form underfoot—but Herr Bj?rn drew her eyes. And next to him she saw Eline Ormsdatter’s dead countenance; she was looking at them with indifference. They had trampled over her in order to get here, and she did not begrudge them that.
She had risen up and cast off all the stones that Kristin had striven so hard to place over the dead. Erlend’s squandered youth, his honor and well-being, the good graces of his friends, the health of his soul—the dead woman shook them all off. “He wanted me and I wanted him, you wanted him and he wanted you,” said Eline. “I had to pay, and he must pay, and you must pay when your time comes. When the sin is consummated it will give birth to death.”
Kristin felt that she was kneeling with Erlend on a cold stone. He knelt with the red, singed patches on his pale face. She knelt beneath the heavy bridal crown and felt the crushing, oppressive weight in her womb—the burden of sin she was carrying. She had played and romped with her sin, measuring it out as if in a child’s game. Holy Virgin—soon it would be time for it to lie fully formed before her, looking at her with living eyes, revealing to her the brands of her sin, the hideous deformity of sin, striking hatefully with misshapen hands at his mother’s breast. After she had borne her child, after she had seen the marks of sin on him and loved him the way she had loved her sin, then the game would be played to the end.
Kristin thought: What if she screamed now so that her voice pierced through the song and the deep, droning male voices and reverberated out over the crowd? Would she then be rid of Eline’s face? Would life appear in the dead man’s eyes? But she clenched her teeth together.
Holy King Olav, I call to you. Among all those in Heaven, I beg you for help, for I know that you loved God’s righteousness above all else. I beseech you to protect the innocent one who is in my womb. Turn God’s anger away from the innocent, turn it toward me. Amen, in the precious name of the Lord.
“My children are innocent,” said Eline, “yet there is no room for them in a land where Christian people live. Your child was conceived out of wedlock just as my children were. You can no more demand justice for your child in the land you have strayed from than I could demand it for mine.”
Holy Olav, I beg for mercy nevertheless, I beg for compassion for my son. Take him under your protection, then I will carry him to your church in my bare feet. I will bring my golden crown to you and place it on your altar, if you will help me. Amen.
Her face was as rigid as stone, she was trying so hard to keep herself calm, but her body trembled and shuddered as she knelt there and was married to Erlend.
And now Kristin sat beside him in the high seat at home and sensed everything around her as a mere illusion in the delirium of fever.
There were musicians playing on harps and fiddles in the high loft; singing and music came from the room below and from out in the courtyard. A reddish glow from the fire outside was visible whenever servants came through the door, carrying things back and forth.
Everyone stood up around the table; she stood between her father and Erlend. Her father announced in a loud voice that now he had given his daughter Kristin to Erlend Nikulauss?n as his wife. Erlend thanked his father-in-law and all the good people who had gathered to honor him and his wife.
Then they told Kristin to sit down, and Erlend placed his wedding gifts in her lap. Sira Eirik and Sir Munan Baards?n unrolled documents and read off a list of their property. The groomsmen stood by with spears in hand, pounding the shafts on the floor now and then during the reading and whenever gifts or moneybags were placed on the table.
The tabletops and trestles were removed. Erlend led her out onto the floor and they danced. Kristin thought: Our bridesmaids and groomsmen are much too young for us. Everyone who grew up with us has moved away from this region; how can it be that we have come back here?
“You seem so strange, Kristin,” whispered Erlend as they danced. “I’m afraid for you, Kristin. Aren’t you happy?”