The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(19)

It was a great miracle that Ulvhild had not been crushed; the log had fallen in such a way that it had come to rest with one end lying on top of a rock in the grass. When Lavrans straightened up, blood ran from his mouth, and his clothes had been ripped to shreds across his chest from the ox’s horns.

Tordis came running with a sheet made from hides; carefully she and Ragnfrid lifted the child onto it, but she sounded as if she was suffering intolerable pain at even the slightest touch. Ragnfrid and Tordis carried her into the winter house.

Kristin stood pale and rigid on the pile of timbers; the little boys clung to her, crying. All the servants of the farm had now gathered in the courtyard, the women weeping and wailing. Lavrans ordered them to saddle Guldsvein and one more horse. But when Arne brought the horses, Lavrans fell to the ground when he tried to mount. Then he ordered Arne to ride over to the priest while Halvdan would travel south to bring back a wise woman who lived near the place where the rivers converged.

Kristin saw that her father’s face was grayish white; he had bled so much that his light-blue clothing was completely covered with reddish-brown spots. Suddenly he straightened up, tore an axe out of the hands of one of the men, and strode over to where several servants were still holding on to the ox. He struck the beast between the horns with the blade of the axe so that the ox sank to its knees, but Lavrans kept on hammering away until blood and brains were spattered everywhere. Then he was seized by a coughing fit and fell backward onto the ground. Trond and one of the men had to carry him inside.

Kristin thought her father was dead; she screamed loudly and ran after him as she called to him with all her heart.

Inside the winter house Ulvhild had been placed on her parents’ bed. All of the pillows had been thrown to the floor so that the child could lie flat. It looked as if she had already been laid out on the straw of her deathbed. But she was moaning loudly and incessantly, and her mother was leaning over her, stroking and patting her, wild with grief because there was nothing she could do.

Lavrans was lying on the other bed. He got up and staggered across the floor to console his wife.

Then she sprang up and screamed, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Jesus, Jesus, I am so worthless that you should strike me dead—will there never be an end to the misfortune I bring upon you?”

“You haven’t ... my dear wife, this is not something you have brought upon us,” said Lavrans, placing a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch and her pale gray eyes glistened in her gaunt, sallow face.

“No doubt she means that I am the one who caused this,” said Trond Ivars?n harshly.

His sister shot him a look of hatred and replied, “Trond knows what I mean.”

Kristin ran to her parents but they both pushed her aside. And Tordis, who came over with a kettle of hot water, took her gently by the shoulders and said, “Go over to our house, Kristin. You’re in the way here.”

Tordis wanted to attend to Lavrans, who was sitting on the step of the bed, but he told her that he was not gravely wounded.

“But can’t you ease Ulvhild’s pain a little? God help us, her moans could arouse pity from the stone inside the mountain.”

“We don’t dare touch her until the priest arrives, or Ingegjerd, the wise woman,” said Tordis.

Arne came in just then and reported that Sira Eirik was not at home.

Ragnfrid stood there for a moment, wringing her hands. Then she said, “Send word to Fru Aashild at Haugen. Nothing else matters, if only Ulvhild can be saved.”

No one paid any attention to Kristin. She crept up onto the bench behind the headboard of the bed, tucked up her legs, and rested her head on her knees.

Now she felt as if her heart were being crushed between hard fists. Fru Aashild was going to be summoned! Her mother had never wanted them to send for Fru Aashild, not even when she herself was near death when she gave birth to Ulvhild, nor when Kristin was so ill with fever. People said she was a witch; the bishop of Oslo and the canons of the cathedral had sat in judgment on her. She would have been executed or burned at the stake if she hadn’t been of such high birth that she was like a sister to Queen Ingebj?rg. But people said that she had poisoned her first husband, and that she had won her present husband, Herr Bj?rn, through witchcraft. He was young enough to be her son. She did have children, but they never came to visit their mother. So those two high-born people, Bj?rn and Aashild, sat on their small farm in Dovre, having lost all their riches. None of the gentry in the valley would have anything to do with them, but secretly people sought out Fru Aashild’s advice. Poor folk even went to her openly with their troubles and ills; they said she was kind, but they were also afraid of her.

Kristin thought that her mother, who was otherwise constantly praying, should have called on God and the Virgin Mary instead. She tried to pray herself—especially to Saint Olav,1 for she knew that he was kind and he had helped so many who suffered from illness and wounds and broken bones. But she couldn’t collect her thoughts.

Her parents were now alone in the room. Lavrans was lying on the bed again and Ragnfrid sat leaning over the injured child, occasionally wiping Ulvhild’s forehead and hands with a damp cloth and moistening her lips with wine.

A long time passed. Tordis looked in on them now and then; she wanted so desperately to help, but each time Ragnfrid sent her away. Kristin wept soundlessly and prayed in silence, but every once in a while she would think about the witch, and she waited tensely to see her enter the room.