The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(22)

Then she stood next to his bed for a while. Her father did not speak again, and Kristin could find nothing more to say. And when Lavrans told her some time later to go downstairs to her mother and Fru Aashild, Kristin hurried out and rushed across the courtyard to the winter house.





CHAPTER 4


FRU AASHILD stayed at J?rundgaard for most of the summer, which meant that people came there to seek her advice. Kristin heard Sira Eirik speak jeeringly of this, and it dawned on her that her parents did not much care for it either. But she pushed aside all thoughts of these things, nor did she pay any heed to what her own opinion of Fru Aashild might be; she was her constant companion and never tired of listening to and watching the woman.

Ulvhild still lay stretched out flat on her back in the big bed. Her small face was white to the very edge of her lips, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her lovely blond hair smelled sharply of sweat because it hadn’t been washed in such a long time; it had turned dark and had lost its sheen and curl so that it looked like old, windblown hay. She looked tired and tormented and patient, and she would smile, feeble and wan, whenever Kristin sat by her on the bed to talk and to show her all the lovely presents she had received from her parents and their friends and kinsmen far and wide. There were dolls, toy birds and cattle, a little board game, jewelry, velvet caps, and colorful ribbons. Kristin had put it all in a box for her. Ulvhild would look at everything with her somber eyes, sigh, and then let the treasures fall from her weary hands.

But whenever Fru Aashild came over to her, Ulvhild’s face would light up with joy. Eagerly she drank the refreshing and sleep-inducing brews that Fru Aashild prepared for her. She never complained when the woman tended to her, and she would lie still, listening happily, whenever Fru Aashild played Lavrans’s harp and sang—she knew so many ballads that were unfamiliar to the people there in the valley.

Often she would sing for Kristin when Ulvhild had fallen asleep. And sometimes she spoke of her youth, when she lived in the south of the country and frequented the courts of King Magnus and King Eirik and their queens.

Once, as they were sitting there and Fru Aashild was telling stories, Kristin blurted out what she had thought about so often.

“It seems strange to me that you’re always so happy, when you’ve been used to—” she broke off, blushing.

Fru Aashild looked down at the child, smiling.

“You mean because now I’m separated from all those things?” She laughed quietly and then she said, “I’ve had my glory days, Kristin, but I’m not foolish enough to complain because I have to be content with sour, watered-down milk now that I’ve drunk up all my wine and ale. Good days can last a long time if one tends to things with care and caution; all sensible people know that. That’s why I think that sensible people have to be satisfied with the good days—for the grandest of days are costly indeed. They call a man a fool who fritters away his father’s inheritance in order to enjoy himself in his youth. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion about that. But I call him a true idiot and fool only if he regrets his actions afterward, and he is twice the fool and the greatest buffoon of all if he expects to see his drinking companions again once the inheritance is gone.

“Is something wrong with Ulvhild?” Fru Aashild asked gently, turning to Ragnfrid, who had given a start from her place near the child’s bed.

“No, she’s sleeping quietly,” said the mother as she came over to Fru Aashild and Kristin, who were sitting near the hearth. With her hand on the smoke vent pole, Ragnfrid stood and looked down into the woman’s face.

“Kristin doesn’t understand all this,” she said.

“No,” replied Fru Aashild. “But she also learned her prayers before she understood them. At those times when one needs either prayers or advice, one usually has no mind to learn or to understand.”

Ragnfrid raised her black eyebrows thoughtfully. When she did that, her light, deep-set eyes looked like lakes beneath a black forest meadow. That’s what Kristin used to think when she was small, or perhaps she had heard someone say that. Fru Aashild looked at her with that little half smile of hers. Ragnfrid sat down at the edge of the hearth, picked up a twig, and poked at the embers.

“But the person who has wasted his inheritance on the most wretched of goods—and then later sees a treasure he would give his life to own—don’t you think that he would deplore his own stupidity?”

“No bargain is without some loss, Ragnfrid,” said Fru Aashild. “And whoever wishes to give his life must take the risk and see what he can win.”

Ragnfrid jerked the burning twig from the fire, blew out the flame, and curled her hand around the glowing end so that a blood-red light shone between her fingers.

“Oh, it’s all nothing but words, words, words, Fru Aashild.”

“There is very little worth paying for so dearly, Ragnfrid,” said the other woman, “as with one’s own life.”

“Yes, there is,” said Kristin’s mother fervently. “My husband,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

“Ragnfrid,” said Fru Aashild quietly, “many a maiden has had the same thought when she was tempted to bind a man to her and gave up her maidenhood to do so. But haven’t you read about men and maidens who gave God all they owned, and entered cloisters or stood naked in the wilderness and then regretted it afterward? They’re called fools in the holy books. And it would certainly be a sin to think that God was the one who had deceived them in their bargain.”