“Is it because he has been outlawed, and banned by the Church?” asked Kristin as before.
“Know you what was the cause that King Haakon banished his near kinsman from his Court—and how at last he fell under the Church’s ban for defying the Archbishop’s bidding—and that when he fled the land ’twas not alone?”
“Aye,” said Kristin. Her voice grew unsteady: “I know, too, that he was but eighteen years old when he first knew her—his paramour.”
“No older was I when I was wed,” answered Lavrans. “We reckoned, when I was young, that at eighteen years a man was of age to answer for himself, and care for others’ welfare and his own.”
Kristin stood silent.
“You called her his paramour, the woman he has lived with for ten years, and who has borne him children,” said Lavrans after a while. “Little joy would be mine the day I sent my daughter from her home with a husband who had lived openly with a paramour year out year in before ever he was wed. But you know that ’twas not loose life only, ’twas life in adultery.”
Kristin spoke low:
“You judged not so hardly of Lady Aashild and Sir Björn.”
“Yet can I not say I would be fain we should wed into their kindred,” answered Lavrans.
“Father,” said Kristin, “have you been so free from sin all your life, that you can judge Erlend so hardly—?”