The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(71)

Kristin clasped her hands to her heart. She felt that she had to hold on to it to make herself as hard as she needed to be.

“Why are you telling me this?” she whispered after a moment. “You neither want to possess me nor marry me anymore.”

“That ... I do not,” said Simon uncertainly. “God help me, Kristin. I remember you on that night in the loft at Finsbrekken. But may the Devil take me alive if I ever trust a maiden by her eyes again!

“Promise me this, that you will not see Erlend until your father arrives,” he said as they stood at the gate.

“I won’t promise that,” said Kristin.

“Then he will make me this promise,” said Simon.

“I won’t meet him,” replied Kristin quickly.

“That poor little dog I once sent you,” said Simon before they parted. “You must let your sisters have him—they’re so fond of him—if you don’t mind seeing him in the house, that is.

“I’m heading north tomorrow morning,” he said, taking her hand in farewell as the sister keeping the gate looked on.



Simon Darre walked down toward the town. He struck at the air with his clenched fist as he walked, muttering in a low voice and cursing at the mist. He swore to himself that he wasn’t sorry about her. Kristin was like something he had believed to be pure gold, but when he saw it up close, it was merely brass and tin. White as a snowflake, she had knelt and put her hand into the flame; that was a year ago. This year she was drinking wine with an excommunicated rogue in Fluga’s loft. The Devil take it, no! It was because of Lavrans Bj?rgulfs?n, who was sitting up there at J?rundgaard and believed ... Never would it have occurred to Lavrans that they might betray him in this way. Now he would have to bring Lavrans the message himself and be an accomplice in lying to this man. That was why his heart was burning with grief and rage.

Kristin had not intended to keep her promise to Simon Darre, but she managed to exchange only a few words with Erlend, one evening up on the road.

She stood there holding his hand, strangely submissive, while he talked about what had happened up in Brynhild’s loft the last time they had met. He would speak to Simon Andress?n some other time. “If we had fought up there, news of it would have spread all over town,” said Erlend angrily. “He knew that quite well, that Simon.”

Kristin could see how the incident had made him suffer. She had also been thinking about it constantly ever since. There was no escaping the fact that in this situation, Erlend was left with even less honor than she was. And she felt that now they were truly one flesh; she would have to answer for everything he did, even when she disliked his conduct, and she would feel it on her own hand when Erlend so much as scratched his skin.




Three weeks later Lavrans Blorgulfson came to Oslo to get his daughter.

Kristin was both afraid and sick at heart when she went to the parlatory to meet her father. The first thing that struck her as she watched him conversing with Sister Potentia was that he didn’t look the same as she remembered him. Perhaps he had not actually changed since they parted a year ago, but over the years she had always seen him as the young, vigorous, and handsome man she had been so proud to have as her father when she was small. Each winter and each summer that had passed up there at home had no doubt marked him and made him age, just as they had seen her develop into a grown-up young woman—but she had not noticed it. She hadn’t noticed that his hair had paled in some spots and had acquired a rusty reddish sheen at his temples, the way blond hair goes gray. His cheeks had become dry and thin so that the muscles of his face extended like cords to his mouth; his youthful white and pink complexion had grown uniformly weather-beaten. His back was not bowed, and yet his shoulder blades curved in a different manner beneath his cape. His step was light and steady as he came toward her with his hand outstretched, but these were not the same limber, brisk movements of the past. All of these things had probably been present the year before, but Kristin simply hadn’t noticed. Perhaps there was a slight touch of something else—a touch of dejection—that made her see these things now. She burst into tears.

Lavrans put his arm around her shoulder and held his hand to her cheek.

“Now, now, try to calm yourself, child,” he said gently.

“Are you angry with me, Father?” she asked softly.

“Surely you must realize that I am,” he replied, but he kept on caressing her cheek. “But you also know full well that you needn’t be afraid of me,” he said sadly. “No, you must calm down now, Kristin; aren’t you ashamed to be acting this way?” She was crying so hard that she had to sit down on a bench. “We’re not going to speak of these matters here where people are coming and going,” he said, sitting down next to her and taking her hand. “Aren’t you going to ask me about your mother? And your sisters?”

“What does Mother say about all this?” asked his daughter.

“Oh, you can imagine what she thinks—but we’re not going to talk about that here,” he said again. “Otherwise she’s fine.” And then he began to tell her all about everyone back home, until Kristin gradually grew calmer.

But she felt as if the tension only grew worse as her father refused to say anything about her breach of promise. He gave her money to distribute among the poor at the convent and gifts for the lay sisters; he himself gave generously to the convent and to the sisters, and no one at Nonneseter had any other thought than that Kristin was now going home to celebrate her betrothal and her marriage. They both ate the last meal at Fru Groa’s table in the abbess’s room, and the abbess gave Kristin the best report.