But Ingebjörg made her way toward the loft where Didrek the shoemaker sat; he was a German, but had a Norse wife and owned a house in the Mickle Yard.
The old man was standing bargaining with an esquire wearing a traveller’s cloak, and a sword at his belt; but Ingebjörg went forward unabashed, bowed and said:
“Good sir, will you not suffer us of your courtesy to have speech with Didrek first; we must be home in our convent by vespers; you, perchance, have no such great haste?”
The esquire bowed and stepped aside. Didrek nudged Ingebjörg with his elbow and asked laughing whether they danced so much in the convent that she had worn out already all the shoon she had of him the year before. Ingebjörg nudged him again and said they were still unworn, thank heaven, but here was this other maid—and she pulled Kristin forward. Then Didrek and his lad bore forth a box into the balcony; and out of it he brought forth shoes, each pair finer than the last. They had Kristin sit down upon a chest that he might try them on her—there were white shoes and brown and red and green and blue, shoes with painted wooden heels and shoes without heels, shoes with buckles and shoes with silken laces in them, shoes in leather of two or three hues. Kristin felt she would fain have had them all. But they cost so dear she was quite dismayed—not one pair cost less than a cow at home. Her father had given her a purse with a mark of silver in counted money when he left—that was for pocket money, and Kristin had deemed it great riches. But she soon saw that Ingebjörg thought it no great store to go a marketing with.
Ingebjörg, too, must try on some shoes for the jest of it; that cost no money, said Didrek laughing. She did buy one pair of leaf-green shoes with red heels—she said she must have them on trust, but then Didrek knew her and her folks.
Kristin thought, indeed, that Didrek liked this none too well, and that he was vexed too, that the tall esquire in the travelling coat had left the loft—much time had been taken up with the trying-on. So she chose for herself a pair of heel-less shoes of thin purple-blue leather, broidered with silver and with rose-red stones. But she liked not the green silk laces in them. Didrek said he could change these, and took the maids with him into a room at the back of the loft. Here he had coffers full of silk ribbons and small silver buckles—’twas against the law, strictly, for shoemakers to trade in these things—and the ribbons, too, were many of them too broad and the buckles too big for foot-gear.
They felt they had to buy one or two of the smaller things, and when they had drunk a cup of sweet wine with Didrek and he had packed the things they had bought into a wadmal cloth, the hour was grown somewhat late, and Kristin’s purse much lighter.
When they had come to the Östre Stræte again the sunlight was turned golden and, by reason of the traffic in the town, the dust hung over the street in a bright haze. The evening was warm and fair, and folk were coming down from Eikaberg with great armfuls of green branches wherewith to deck their houses for the holy day. And now the whim took Ingebjörg that they should go out to the Gjeita bridge—at fair-times there was wont to be so much merry-making in the fields on the further side of the river, both jugglers and fiddlers—nay, Ingebjörg had heard there was come a whole shipful of outlandish beasts that were being shown in booths down by the waterside.
Haakon had had a pot or two of German beer at the Mickle Yard, and was now easy and mild of mood; so when the maidens took him by the arm and begged him sweetly, he gave way at last, and the three went out towards Eikaberg.
Beyond the stream there were but a few small dwelling-places scattered about the green slopes between the river and the steep hillside. They went past the Minorite monastery, and Kristin’s heart sank with shame as she bethought her how she had meant to give most of her silver for the good of Arne’s soul. But she had had no mind to speak of it to the priest at Nonneseter; she feared to be asked questions—she had thought that she could maybe come out to the barefoot friars and find if by chance Brother Edwin were in the cloister now. She was fain to meet him again—but she knew not, either, what would be the most seemly way to get speech with one of the monks and tell him her desire. And now she had so little money she knew not whether she could buy a mass—maybe she must be content to offer a thick wax-candle.