The Bridal Wreath

by Sigrid Undset

And though Kristin’s heart was benumbed with despair and fear, she felt a glow of thankfulness to her father for his words.

Ragnfrid said then, that if Kristin was to go, they must eat their evening porridge before they started. She wished, too, to send gifts to Inga by them—a new linen sheet, wax-candles and fresh-baked bread; and she bade them say she would come up herself and help to prepare for the burial.

There was little eating, but much talking in the room while the food was on the table. One reminded the other of the trials that God had laid upon Gyrd and Inga. Their farm had been laid waste by stone-slips and floods: more than one of their elder children were dead, so that all Arne’s brothers and sisters were still but little ones. They had had fortune with them now for some years, since the Bishop placed Gyrd at Finsbrekken as his bailiff; and the children who were left to them were fair and full of promise. But his mother loved Arne more than all the rest—

They pitied Sira Eirik too. The priest was beloved and well respected and the folk of the parish were proud of him; he was learned and skilled in his office and in all the years he had had their church he had never let a holy day or mass or a service pass that he was in duty bound to hold. In his youth he had been man-at-arms under Count Alv of Tornberg but he had had the misfortune to kill a man of very high birth, and so had taken refuge with the Bishop of Oslo; when the Bishop saw what a turn Eirik had for book-learning, he had him trained for a priest. And had it not been that he still had enemies by reason of that slaying of long ago, it was like Sira Eirik would not have stayed here in this little charge. True enough, he was very greedy of pence, both for his own purse and for the church, but then, was not his church richly fitted out with plate and vestments and books? and he himself had these children—and he had had naught but sorrow and trouble with his family. In these far away country parishes folk held it was not reason that priests should live like monks, for they must at the least have women to help on their farms, and they might well need a woman to look after things for them, seeing what long and toilsome journeys they must make round the parishes, and that too in all kinds of weather; besides folk had not forgotten that it was not so very long since priests in Norway had been wedded men. Thus no one had blamed Sira Eirik over much that he had had three children by the woman who tended his house, while he was yet young. But this evening they said, it looked, indeed, as though ’twas God’s will to punish Eirik for his loose living, so much evil had his children and his children’s children brought upon him. And some thought there was good reason, too, that a priest should have neither wife nor children—for after this it was much to be feared that bitterness and enmity would arise between the priest and the folk on Finsbrekken, who until now had been the best of friends.

Simon Andressön knew much of Bentein’s doings in Oslo; and he told of them. Bentein had been clerk to the Dean of the Church of the Holy Virgin, and he had the name of being a quick-witted youth. There were many women, too, who liked him well—he had roving eyes, and a glib tongue. Some held him a comely man—these were for the most part such women as thought they had a bad bargain in their husbands, and then young maids, the sort that liked well that men should be somewhat free with them. Simon laughed—aye, they understood? Well, Bentein was so sly, he never went too far with that kind of woman; he was all talk with them, and so he got a name for clean-living. But the thing was that King Haakon, as they knew, was a good and pious man himself, and fain would keep order among his men and hold them to a seemly walk and conversation—the young ones at least; the others were apt to be too much for him. And it came about that whatever pranks the youngsters managed to slip out and take part in—drinking bouts, gambling and beer-drinking and such like—the priest of the King’s household always got to hear of, and the mad-caps had to confess and pay scot and suffer hard reproof; aye, two or three of the wildest youths of all were hunted away. But at last it came out it was this fox, Bentein secretarius—unknown to anyone he had been made free of all the beer-houses and worse places still; he confessed the serving-wenches and gave them absolution—

Kristin sat at her mother’s side; she tried to eat so that no one should mark how it was with her, though her hand shook so that she spilled the milk porridge at each spoonful, and her tongue felt so thick and dry in her mouth that she could not swallow the morsels of bread. But when Simon began to tell of Bentein, she had to give up making believe to eat; she held on to the bench beneath her—terror and loathing seized her, so that she felt dizzy and sick. It was he who had wanted to—Bentein and Arne, Bentein and Arne—Beside herself with impatience, she waited for them to be finished. She longed to see Arne, Arne’s comely face, to throw herself down beside him and mourn and forget all else.

As her mother helped her with her outer wrappings, she kissed her daughter on the cheek. Kristin was so little used to endearments from her mother now, it comforted her much—she laid her head upon Ragnfrid’s shoulder a moment, but she could not weep.

When they came out of the courtyard, she saw that others were going with them—Halvdan, Jon from Laugarbru, and Simon and his man. It gave her a pang, she knew not why, that the two strangers should be coming with them.

It was a bitter cold evening, and the snow crackled under foot; in the black sky the stars crowded thick, glittering like rime. When they had ridden a little way, they heard yells and howls and furious hoof-beats from the flats to the south—a little further up the road a whole troop of horsemen came tearing up behind and swept past them with a ringing of metal, leaving behind a vapour of reeking, rime-covered horseflesh, which reached them even where they stood aside in the deep snow. Halvdan hailed the wild crew—they were youths from the farms in the south of the parish; they were still keeping Yule-tide and were out trying their horses. Some, who were too drunk to understand, thundered on at a gallop, roaring at the top of their voices and hammering on their shields. But a few grasped the tidings which Halvdan shouted to them; they fell out of the troop, grew silent, joined Lavrans’ company and talked in whispers to those in the rear.

At last they came in sight of Finsbrekken, on the hillside beyond the Sil river. There were lights about the houses—in the middle of the courtyard pine-root torches had been planted in a heap of snow, and their glare lay red over the white slopes, but the black houses looked as though smeared with clotted blood. One of Arne’s little sisters stood outside and stamped her feet; she hugged her hands beneath her cloak. Kristin kissed the tear-stained, half-frozen child. Her heart was heavy as stone, and it seemed as though she had lead in her limbs, as she climbed the stairs to the loft-room where they had laid him.