The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(13)

Indoors the leather bags with their traveling goods were opened up again, and forgotten items were placed inside. Ragnfrid reminded her husband of all the things he was supposed to tend to for her, and she talked about kinsmen and acquaintances who lived along the way—he must give a certain person her greetings, and he must not forget to ask after someone else she mentioned.

Kristin ran in and out, saying goodbye many times to everyone in the house, unable to sit still anywhere.

“Are you so happy then, Kristin, to be going so far away from me, and for such a long time?” asked her mother. Kristin felt both sad and crestfallen, and she wished that her mother had not said such a thing. But she replied as best she could.

“No, dear Mother, but I’m happy to be going with my father.”

“Yes, I suppose you are,” said Ragnfrid with a sigh. Then she kissed the child and fussed with the maiden’s clothes a bit.

At last they sat in the saddles, everyone who was to accompany them on the journey. Kristin was riding Morvin, the horse that had once been her father’s. He was old, wise, and steady. Ragnfrid handed the silver goblet with one last fortifying drink to her husband, placed a hand on her daughter’s knee, and told her to remember everything that she had impressed upon her.

Then they rode out of the courtyard into the gray dawn. The fog hovered as white as milk over the village. But in a while it began to disperse and then the sun seeped through. Dripping with dew and green with the second crop of hay, the pastures shimmered in the white haze, along with pale stubble-fields and yellow trees and mountain ash with glittering red berries. The blue of the mountainsides was dimly visible, rising up out of the mist and steam. Then the fog broke and drifted in wisps among the grassy slopes, and they rode down through the valley in the most glorious sunshine—Kristin foremost in the group, at her father’s side.



They arrived in Hamar on a dark and rainy evening. Kristin was sitting in front on her father’s saddle, for she was so tired that everything swam before her eyes—the lake gleaming palely off to the right, the dark trees dripping moisture on them as they rode underneath, and the somber black clusters of buildings in the colorless, wet fields along the road.

She had stopped counting the days. It seemed to her that she had been on this long journey forever. They had visited family and friends who lived along the valley. She had gotten to know children on the large manors, she had played in unfamiliar houses and barns and courtyards, and she had worn her red dress with the silk sleeves many times. They had rested along the side of the road in the daytime when it was good weather. Arne had gathered nuts for her, and after their meals she had been allowed to sleep on top of the leather bags containing their clothes. At one estate they had been given silk-covered pillows in their beds. On another night they had slept in a roadside hostel, and whenever Kristin woke up she could hear a woman weeping softly and full of despair in one of the other beds. But every night she had slept snugly against her father’s broad, warm back.



Kristin woke up with a start. She didn’t know where she was, but the odd ringing and droning sound she had heard in her dreams continued. She was lying alone in a bed, and in the room where it stood, a fire was burning in the hearth.

She called to her father, and he rose from the hearth where he was sitting and came over to her, accompanied by a heavyset woman.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Lavrans laughed and said, “We’re in Hamar now, and this is Margret, Shoemaker Fartein’s wife. You must greet her nicely, for you were asleep when we arrived. But now Margret will help you get dressed.”

“Is it morning?” asked Kristin. “I thought you would be coming to bed now. Can’t you help me instead?” she begged, but Lavrans replied rather sternly that she should thank Margret for her willingness to help.

“And look at the present she has for you!”

It was a pair of red shoes with silk straps. The woman smiled at Kristin’s joyful face and then helped her put on her shift and stockings in bed so that she wouldn’t have to step barefoot onto the dirt floor.

“What’s making that sound?” asked Kristin. “Like a church bell, but so many of them.”

“Those are our bells,” laughed Margret. “Haven’t you heard about the great cathedral here in town? That’s where you’re going now. That’s where the big bell is ringing. And bells are ringing at the cloister and the Church of the Cross too.”

Margret spread a thick layer of butter on Kristin’s bread and put honey in her milk so that the food would be more filling—she had so little time to eat.

Outside it was still dark and frost had set in. The mist was so cold that it bit into her skin. The footpaths made by people and cattle and horses were as hard as cast iron, so that Kristin’s feet hurt in her thin new shoes. In one place, she stepped through the ice into a rut in the middle of the narrow street, which made her legs wet and cold. Then Lavrans lifted her up on his back and carried her.

She peered into the darkness, but there was little she could see of the town—she glimpsed the black gables of houses and trees outlined against the gray sky. Then they reached a small meadow that glittered with rime, and on the other side of the meadow she could make out a pale gray building as huge as a mountain. There were large stone buildings surrounding it, and here and there light shone through peepholes in the wall. The bells, which had been silent for a while, started ringing again, and now the sound was so powerful that it made icy shivers run down her spine.