The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(54)

“Any able-bodied young man has to have a certain amount of defiance in him,” said Aasmund Bj?rgulfs?n. “And the woman was exceedingly beautiful. But you have no reason to have anything to do with Erlend, so pay no heed to his affairs.”



Erlend did not attend the mass as he had promised Kristin he would, and she thought more about this than about the word of God. But she felt no remorse over it. She merely had the odd feeling of being a stranger to everything to which she had previously felt herself bound.

She tried to console herself; Erlend probably thought it best that no one who had authority over her should find out about their friendship. She could understand this herself. But she had longed to see him with all her heart, and she wept when she went to bed that evening in the loft where she slept with Aasmund’s small daughters.



The next day she headed up toward the woods with the youngest of her uncle’s children, a little maiden six years old. When they had gone some distance, Erlend came running after them. Kristin knew who it was before she even saw him.

“I’ve been sitting up here on the hill looking down at the farmyard all day long,” he said. “I was sure that you’d find some chance to slip away.”

“Do you think I’ve come out here to meet you?” said Kristin with a laugh. “And aren’t you afraid to be wandering in my uncle’s woods with your dogs and bow?”

“Your uncle has given me permission to hunt here for a short time,” said Erlend. “And the dogs belong to Aasmund—they found me up here this morning.” He patted the dogs and picked up the little girl. “You remember me, don’t you, Ragndid? But you mustn’t say that you’ve talked to me, and then I’ll give you this.” He took out a little bundle of raisins and handed it to the child. “I had intended it for you,” he told Kristin. “Do you think this child can keep quiet?”

Both of them spoke quickly and laughed. Erlend was wearing a short, snug brown tunic, and he had a small red silk cap pressed down onto his black hair; he looked so young. He laughed and played with the child, but every once in a while he would take Kristin’s hand, squeezing it so hard it hurt.

He talked about the rumors of the campaign with joy. “Then it will be easier for me to win back the friendship of the king. Everything will be easier then,” he said fervently.

At last they sat down in a meadow some distance up in the woods. Erlend had the child on his lap. Kristin sat at his side. He was playing with her fingers in the grass. He put into her hand three gold rings tied together with a string.

“Later on,” he whispered to her, “you shall have as many as you can fit on your fingers.

“I’ll wait for you here in this field every day at this time, for as long as you are at Skog,” he said as they parted. “Come when you can.”



The next day Aasmund Bj?rgulfs?n, along with his wife and children, left for Gyrid’s ancestral estate at Hadeland. They had become alarmed by the rumors of the campaign. The people around Oslo were still filled with terror ever since Duke Eirik’s devastating incursion2 into the region some years before. Aasmund’s old mother was so frightened that she decided to seek refuge at Nonneseter; she was too frail to travel with the others. So Kristin would stay at Skog with the old woman, whom she called Grandmother, until Aasmund returned from Hadeland.

Around noontime, when the servants on the farm were resting, Kristin went up to the loft where she slept. She had brought along some clothing in a leather bag, and she hummed as she changed her clothes.

Her father had given her a dress made of thick cotton fabric from the East; it was sky-blue with an intricate red flower pattern. This is what she put on. She brushed and combed out her hair, tying it back from her face with red silk ribbons. She wrapped a red silk belt tightly around her waist and slipped Erlend’s rings onto her fingers, all the while wondering whether he would find her beautiful.

She had let the two dogs that had been up in the forest with Erlend sleep in the loft with her at night. Now she enticed them to come with her. She sneaked around the buildings and took the same path up through the outlying fields that she had used the day before.

The forest meadow lay empty and still in the glare of the noonday sun. There was a hot fragrance coming from the spruce trees that surrounded it on all sides. The blazing sun and the blue sky seemed strangely close and harsh against the treetops.

Kristin sat down in the shade at the edge of the clearing. She wasn’t disappointed at Erlend’s absence. She was sure that he would come, and she felt a peculiar joy at being allowed to sit there alone, the first to arrive.

She listened to the soft buzz of insects across the yellow, scorched grass. She plucked off several dry, spice-scented flowers that she could reach without moving more than her hand. She twirled them between her fingers and sniffed at them; with her eyes wide open she sank into a kind of trance.

She didn’t move when she heard a horse approaching from the forest. The dogs growled and raised their hackles; then they bounded up across the meadow, barking and wagging their tails. Erlend jumped down from his horse at the edge of the forest and let it go with a slap on its loins. Then he ran down toward Kristin with the dogs leaping around him. He grabbed their snouts with his hands and walked toward her between the two animals, which were elk-gray and wolflike. Kristin smiled and reached out her hand without getting up.