A week later Brynhild Fluga came with the word that the cloak was ready, and Kristin went with her and met Erlend in the loft-room as before.
When they parted, he gave her a cloak: “So that you may have something to show in the convent,” said he. It was of blue velvet with red silk inwoven, and Erlend bade her mark that ’twas of the same hues as the dress she had worn that day in the woods. Kristin wondered it should make her so glad that he said this—she thought he had never given her greater happiness than when he had said these words.
But now they could no longer make use of this way of meeting, and it was not easy to find a new one. But Erlend came often to the vespers at the convent church, and sometimes Kristin would make herself an errand after the service up to the commoners’ houses; and then they would snatch a few words together by stealth up by the fences in the murk of the winter evening.
Then Kristin thought of asking leave of Sister Potentia to visit some old, crippled women, alms-folk of the convent, who dwelt in a cottage standing in one of the fields. Behind the cottage was an outhouse where the women kept a cow; Kristin offered to tend it for them; and while she was there Erlend would join her and she would let him in.
She wondered a little to mark that, glad as Erlend was to be with her, it seemed to rankle in his mind that she could devise such a plan.
“’Twas no good day for you when you came to know me,” said he one evening. “Now have you learnt to follow the ways of deceit.”
“You ought not to blame me,” answered Kristin sadly.
“’Tis not you I blame,” said Erlend quickly with a shamed look.
“I had not thought myself,” went on Kristin, “that ’twould come so easy to me to lie. But one can do what one must do.”
“Nay, ’tis not so at all times,” said Erlend as before. “Mind you not last winter, when you could not bring yourself to tell your betrothed that you would not have him?”
To this Kristin answered naught, but only stroked his face.
She never felt so strongly how dear Erlend was to her, as when he said things like this that made her grieve or wonder. She was glad when she could take upon herself the blame for all that was shameful and wrong in their love. Had she found courage to speak to Simon as she should have done, they might have been a long way now on the road to have all put in order. Erlend had done all he could when he had spoken of their wedding to his kinsmen. She said this to herself when the days in the convent grew long and evil—Erlend had wished to make all things right and good again. With little tender smiles she thought of him as he drew a picture of their wedding for her,—she should ride to church in silks and velvet, she should be led to the bridal bed with the high golden crown on her flowing hair—“your lovely, lovely hair,” he said, drawing her plaits through his hand.
“Yet can it not be the same to you as though I had never been yours,” said Kristin musingly, once when he talked thus.
Then he clasped her to him wildly:
“Can I call to mind the first time I drank in Yule-tide think you, or the first time I saw the hills at home turn green when winter was gone? Aye, well do I mind the first time you were mine, and each time since—but to have you for my own is like keeping Yule and hunting birds on green hillsides for ever—”
Happily she nestled to him. Not that she ever thought for a moment it would turn out as Erlend was so sure it would—Kristin felt that before long a day of judgment must come upon them. It could not be that things should go well for them in the end.... But she was not so much afraid—she was much more afraid Erlend might have to go northward before it all came to light, and she be left behind, parted from him. He was over at the castle at Akersnes now; Munan Baardsön was posted there while the bodyguard was at Tunsberg, where the King lay grievously sick. But sometime Erlend must go home and see to his possessions. That she was afraid of his going home to Husaby because Eline sat there awaiting for him, she would not own even to herself; and neither would she own that she was less afraid to be taken in sin along with Erlend than of standing forth alone and telling Simon and her father what was in her heart.
Almost she could have wished for punishment to come upon her, and that soon. For now she had no other thought than of Erlend; she longed for him in the day and dreamed of him at night; she could not feel remorse, but she took comfort in thinking the day would come when she would have to pay dear for all they had snatched by stealth. And in the short evening hours she could be with Erlend in the almswomen’s cow-shed, she threw herself into his arms with as much passion as if she knew she had paid with her soul already that she might be his.
But time went on, and it seemed as though Erlend might have the good fortune he had counted on. Kristin never marked that any in the convent mistrusted her. Ingebjörg, indeed, had found out that she met Erlend, but Kristin saw the other never dreamed ’twas aught else than a little passing sport. That a maid of good kindred, promised in marriage, should dare wish to break the bargain her kinsfolk had made, such a thought would never come to Ingebjörg, Kristin saw. And once more a pang of terror shot through her—it might be ’twas a quite unheard of thing, this she had taken in hand. And at this thought she wished again that discovery might come, and all be at an end.
Easter came. Kristin knew not how the winter had gone; every day she had not seen Erlend had been long as an evil year, and the long evil days had linked themselves together into weeks without end—but now it was spring and Easter was come, she felt ’twas no time since the Yule-tide feast. She begged Erlend not to seek her till the Holy Week was gone by; and he yielded to her in this, as he did to all her wishes, thought Kristin. It was as much her own blame as his that they had sinned together in not keeping the Lenten fast. But Easter she resolved they should keep. Yet it was misery not to see him. Maybe he would have to go soon—he had said naught of it, but she knew that now the King lay dying, and mayhap this might bring some turn in Erlend’s fortunes, she thought.
Thus things stood with her, when one of the first days after Easter word was brought her to go down to the parlour to her betrothed.
As soon as he came toward her and held out his hand, she felt there was somewhat amiss—his face was not as it was wont to be; his small, grey eyes did not laugh, they did not smile when he smiled. And Kristin could not help seeing it became him well to be a little less merry. He looked well, too, in a kind of travelling dress—a long blue, close-fitting outer garment men called kothardi, and a brown shoulder-cape with a hood, which was thrown back now; the cold air had given his light-brown hair a yet stronger curl.
They sat and talked for a while. Simon had been at Formo through Lent, and had gone over to Jörundgaard almost daily. They were well there; Ulvhild as well as they dared look that she should be; Ramborg was at home now, she was a fair child and lively.
“’Twill be over one of these days—the year you were to be here at Nonneseter,” said Simon. “By this the folks at your home will have begun to make ready for our betrothal feast—yours and mine.”
Kristin said naught, and Simon went on:
“I said to Lavrans, I would ride hither to Oslo and speak to you of this.”
Kristin looked down and said low:
“I, too, would fain speak with you of that matter, Simon—alone.”
“I saw well myself that we must speak of it alone,” answered Simon, “and I was about to ask even now that you would pray Lady Groa to let us go together into the garden for a little.”
Kristin rose quickly and slipped from the room without a sound. Soon after she came back followed by one of the nuns with a key.
There was a door leading from the parlour out into an herb-garden that lay behind the most westerly of the convent buildings. The nun unlocked the door and they stepped out into a mist so thick they could see but a few paces in among the trees. The nearest stems were coal-black; the moisture stood in beads on every twig and bough. A little fresh snow lay melting upon the wet mould, but under the bushes some white and yellow lily plants were blooming already, and a fresh, cool smell rose from the violet leaves.
Simon led her to the nearest bench. He sat a little bent forward with his elbows resting upon his knees. Then he looked up at her with a strange little smile:
“Almost I think I know what you would say to me,” said he. “There is another man, who is more to you than I—”
“It is so,” answered Kristin faintly.
“Methinks I know his name too,” said Simon, in a harder tone. “It is Erlend Nikulaussön of Husaby?”
After a while Kristin asked in a low voice:
“It has come to your ears then?”
Simon was a little slow in answering.
“You can scarce think I could be so dull as not to see somewhat when we were together at Yule? I could say naught then, for my father and mother were with us. But this it is that has brought me hither alone this time. I know not whether it be wise of me to touch upon it—but methought we must talk of these things before we are given to one another.
“But so it is now, that when I came hither yesterday—I met my kinsman Master Öistein. And he spoke of you. He said you two had passed across the churchyard of St. Clement’s one evening, and with you was a woman they call Brynhild Fluga. I swore a great oath that he must have seen amiss! And if you say it is untrue, I shall believe your word.”
“The priest saw aright,” answered Kristin defiantly. “You foreswore yourself, Simon.”
He sat a little ere he asked:
“Know you who this Brynhild Fluga is, Kristin?” As she shook her head, he said: “Munan Baardsön set her up in a house here in the town, when he wedded—she carries on unlawful dealings in wine—and other things—”
“You know her?” asked Kristin mockingly.
“I was never meant to be a monk or a priest,” said Simon reddening. “But I can say at least that I have wronged no maid and no man’s wedded wife. See you not yourself that ’tis no honourable man’s deed to bring you out to go about at night in such company—”
“Erlend did not draw me on,” said Kristin, red with anger, “nor has he promised me aught. I set my heart on him without his doing aught to tempt me—from the first time I saw him, he was dearer to me than all other men.”
Simon sat playing with his dagger, throwing it from one hand to the other.
“These are strange words to hear from a man’s betrothed maiden,” said he. “Things promise well for us two now, Kristin.”
Kristin drew a deep breath:
“You would be ill served should you take me for your wife now, Simon.”
“Aye, God Almighty knows that so it seems indeed,” said Simon Andressön.
“Then I dare hope,” said Kristin meekly and timidly, “that you will uphold me, so that Sir Andres and my father may let this bargain about us be undone?”
“Do you so?” said Simon. He was silent for a little. “God knows whether you rightly understand what you say.”
“That do I,” said Kristin. “I know the law is such that none may force a maid to marriage against her will; else can she take her plea before the Thing—”
“I trow ’tis before the bishop,” said Simon, with something of a grim smile. “True it is, I have had no cause to search out how the law stands in such things. And I wot well you believe not either that ’twill come to that pass. You know well enough that I will not hold you to your word, if your heart is too much set against it. But can you not understand—’tis two years now since our marriage was agreed, and you have said no word against it till now, when all is ready for the betrothal and the wedding. Have you thought what it will mean, if you come forth now an seek to break the bond, Kristin?”
“But you want me not either,” said Kristin.
“Aye, but I do,” answered Simon curtly. “If you think otherwise, you must even think better of it—”
“Erlend Nikulaussön and I have vowed to each other by our Christian faith,” said she, trembling, “that if we cannot come together in wedlock, then neither of us will have wife or husband all our days—”
Simon was silent a good while. Then he said with effort:
“Then I know not, Kristin, what you meant when you said Erlend had neither drawn you on nor promised you aught—he has lured you to set yourself against the counsel of all your kin.—Have you thought what kind of husband you will get, if you wed a man who took another’s wife to be his paramour—and now would take for wife another man’s betrothed maiden—?”
Kristin gulped down her tears; she whispered thickly:
“This you say but to hurt me.”
“Think you I would wish to hurt you?” asked Simon in a low voice.
“’Tis not as it would have been, had you—” said Kristin falteringly. “You were not asked either, Simon—’twas your father and my father who made the pact. It had been otherwise had you chosen me yourself—”
Simon stuck his dagger into the bench so that it stood upright. A little after he drew it out again, and tried to slip it back into its sheath, but it would not go down, the point was bent. Then he sat passing it from hand to hand as before.
“You know yourself,” said he in a low tone, and with a shaking voice, “you know that you lie, if you would have it that I did not—You know well enough, what I would have spoken of with you—many times—when you met me so that I had not been a man, had I been able to say it—after that—not if they had tried to drag it out of me with redhot pincers....
“—First I thought ’twas yonder dead lad. I thought I must leave you in peace awhile—you knew me not—I deemed ’twould have been a wrong to trouble you so soon after. Now I see you did not need so long a time to forget—now—now—now—”
“No,” said Kristin quietly. “I know it, Simon. Now I cannot look that you should be my friend any longer.”
“Friend—!” Simon gave a short, strange laugh. “Do you need my friendship now, then?”
Kristin grew red.
“You are a man,” said she softly. “And old enough now—you can choose yourself whom you will wed—”
Simon looked at her sharply. Then he laughed as before:
“I understand. You would have me say ’tis I who—I am to take the blame for the breaking of our bond?
“If so be that your mind is fixed—if you have the will and the boldness to try to carry through your purpose—then I will do it,” he said low. “At home with all my own folks and before all your kin—save one. To your father you must tell the truth, even as it is. If you would have it so, I will bear your message to him, and spare you, in giving it, in so far as I can—but Lavrans Björgulfsön shall know that never, with my will, would I go back from one word that I have spoken to him.”
Kristin clutched the edge of the bench with both hands: this was harder for her to bear than all else that Simon Darre had said. Pale and fearful, she stole a glance at him.
“Now must we go in,” said he. “Methinks we are nigh frozen, both of us, and the sister is sitting waiting with the key.—I will give you a week to think upon the matter—I have business in the town here. I shall come hither and speak with you when I am ready to go, but you will scarce care to see aught of me meanwhile.”