The Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter #1)(94)

She must be much older than he is, thought Kristin—almost thirty. Fru Halfrid was short and delicate and thin, but she had an unusually lovely face. Even the pale brown color of her hair, which billowed from under her wimple, seemed so gentle, and her eyes were full of gentleness too; they were large and gray with a sprinkling of tiny glints of gold. Every line of her face was fine and pure; but her complexion was a pale gray, and when she opened her mouth, it was apparent that she did not have good teeth. She didn’t look strong, and she was also said to be sickly. Kristin had heard that she had already miscarried several times. She wondered how Simon felt about this wife.

The people from J?rundgaard and from Formo had greeted each other across the church hill several times, though they had not spoken. But on the third day Simon came to church without his wife. Then he came over to Lavrans, and they talked together for a while. Kristin heard them mention Ulvhild. Afterward he spoke to Ragnfrid. Ramborg, who was with her mother, said quite loudly, “I remember you. I know who you are.”

Simon lifted up the child and swung her around. “It was nice of you not to forget me, Ramborg.” Kristin he greeted only from a short distance away. And her parents didn’t mention the meeting again.

But Kristin thought a great deal about it. It had been strange to see Simon Darre as a married man. So many things from the past came alive once more: she remembered her own blind and submissive love for Erlend back then. Now it was somehow different. She wondered whether Simon had told his wife how the two of them had parted. But she knew that he wouldn’t have done that, “for my father’s sake,” she thought with derision. She felt so oddly destitute to be still unmarried and living at home with her parents. But they were betrothed; Simon could see that they had forced their will through. Whatever else Erlend might have done, he had remained faithful to her, and she had been neither reckless nor frivolous.




One evening in early spring Ragnfrid wanted to send a message south to Old Gunhild, the widow who sewed fur pelts. The evening was so beautiful that Kristin asked if she could go. In the end she was given permission because all the men were busy.

It was after sunset, and a fine white frosty mist rose up toward the golden-green sky. With every hoofbeat Kristin heard the brittle sound of evening ice as it shattered and then dispersed with a rattling sound. But in the twilight, from the thickets along the road, came a jubilant birdsong, soft and full of spring.

Kristin rode briskly down the road without thinking about much of anything, simply feeling how good it was to be outside alone. She rode with her gaze fixed on the new moon, which was about to sink behind the mountain ridge on the other side of the valley. She almost fell off her horse when the animal abruptly swerved to the side and then reared up.

She saw a dark body curled up at the edge of the road. At first she was afraid. The dire fear of meeting someone alone out on the road never left her. But she thought it might be a wanderer who had fallen ill, so when she had regained control of her horse, she turned around and rode back as she called out, “Is anyone there?”

The bundle stirred a bit and a voice said, “I think it must be you, Kristin Lavransdatter.”

“Brother Edvin?” she asked softly. She almost thought it was a phantom or some kind of deviltry that was trying to fool her. But she went over to him, and it was the old man after all, but he couldn’t get up without help.

“My dear Father, are you out here wandering at this time of year?” she asked in astonishment.

“Praise be to God for sending you this way tonight,” said the monk. Kristin noticed that he was shivering all over. “I was on my way north to visit you, but I could go no farther tonight. I almost thought it was God’s will that I should lie here and die on the roads where I’ve roamed and slept all my life. But I would have liked to receive absolution and the last rites. And I wanted to see you again, my daughter.”

Kristin helped the monk up onto her horse and then led it by the bridle as she supported him. In between his protests that she was getting her feet wet in the icy slush, he moaned softly in pain.

He told her that he had been at Eyabu since Christmas; some wealthy farmers in the village had promised during the bad year to furnish their church with new adornments. But his work had gone slowly; he had been ill during the winter. There was something wrong with his stomach that made him vomit blood, and he couldn’t tolerate food. He didn’t think he had long to live, so he was headed home to his cloister; he wanted to die there, among his brothers. But he had set his mind on coming north through the valley one last time, and so he had accompanied the monk from Hamar when he traveled north to become the new resident priest at the pilgrim hostel in Roaldstad. From Fron he had gone on alone.

“I heard that you were betrothed,” he said, “to that man.... And then I had such a yearning to see you. I felt so anguished that our meeting in the church at the cloister should be our last. It’s been weighing so heavy on my heart, Kristin, that you had strayed from the path of peace.”

Kristin kissed the monk’s hand and said, “I don’t understand, Father, what I have done to deserve your willingness to show me such great love.”

The monk replied quietly, “I have often thought, Kristin, that if it had been possible for us to meet more often, you might have become my spiritual daughter.”

“Do you mean you would have guided me so that I turned my heart to the convent life?” asked Kristin. After a pause she went on. “Sira Eirik impressed on me that if I couldn’t win my father’s consent to marry Erlend, then I would have to enter a holy sisterhood and do penance for my sins.”