Kristin Lavransdatter Part 41

Oh . . . He held his breath in fear. Behind him lay an entire lifetime of memories from which he had fled, and he couldn't bear to think of it. Now, tonight, he understood. He could forget about it to some extent from day to day. But he couldn't protect himself from the memories turning up at some moment such as this-and then it felt as if all courage had been conjured out of him.

Those days at Haugen-he had almost succeeded in forgetting about them entirely. He hadn't been back to Haugen since that night when he drove off, and he hadn't seen Bjrn or Aas.h.i.+ld again after his wedding. And now . . . He thought about what Munan had told him-it was said that their spirits had come back. Haugen was so haunted that the buildings stood deserted; no one wanted to live there, even if they were given the farm free.

Bjrn Gunnarssn had possessed a type of courage that Erlend knew he himself would never have. His hand had been steady when he stabbed his wife-right through the heart, said Munan.

It would be two years this winter since Bjrn and Fru Aas.h.i.+ld died. People had not seen smoke coming from the buildings at Haugen for nearly a week; finally several men gathered their courage and went over there. Herr Bjrn was lying in bed with his throat cut; he was holding his wife's body in his arms. On the floor next to the bed lay his b.l.o.o.d.y dagger.

Everyone knew what had happened, and yet Munan Baardsn and his brother managed to have the two buried in consecrated ground. Perhaps they had fallen victim to robbers, people said, although the chest containing Bjrn's and Aas.h.i.+ld's valuables had not been touched. And the bodies were untouched by mice or rats-in fact, those kinds of vermin never came to Haugen, and people took this as a sign of the woman's sorcery skills.

Munan Baardsn had been terribly distressed by his mother's death. He had set off on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela2 at once. at once.

Erlend remembered the morning following his own mother's death. They were anch.o.r.ed in Moldy Sound, but the fog was so white and thick that only occasionally could they catch a glimpse of the mountain ridge towering above them. But there was a m.u.f.fled echo from the hollow sound of the boat being rowed to sh.o.r.e with the priest. Erlend stood in the bow and watched them rowing away from the s.h.i.+p. Everything he came near was wet with fog; beads of moisture covered his hair and clothing. And the priest and his acolyte, who were strangers to Erlend, sat in the bow of the boat, their shoulders hunched as they bent over the holy vessels they held on their laps. They looked like hawks in the rain. The slap of the oars and the sc.r.a.pe of the oarlocks and the echo from the mountain continued to resound long after the boat had been spirited away by the fog.

On that day Erlend had also vowed to make a pilgrimage. He had only had one thought back then: that he be allowed to see his mother's lovely, sweet face again, the way it had been before, with ts soft, smooth, light tan complexion. Now she lay dead be lowdecks, with her face ravaged by the terrible sores that ruptured and seeped little drops of clear fluid whenever she had tried to smile at him.

He was not to blame for the way his father had received him. Nor for the fact that he had turned to someone who was outcast, like himself. But then Erlend had pushed the pilgrimage from his mind, and he had refused to think any more about his mother. As painful as her life had been here on earth, she must now be in that place of peace-and there was not much peace for him, after he took up with Eline again.

Peace-he had known it only once in his life; on that night when he sat behind the stone wall near the woods of Hofvin and held Kristin as she slept on his lap-the safe, tender, undisturbed sleep of a child. He hadn't been able to hold out for long before he shattered her tranquillity. And it wasn't peace that he found with her later on, and he had no peace with her now. And yet he saw that everyone else in his home did find peace in the presence of his young wife.

Now he longed only to go away to that strife-torn place. He yearned madly and wildly for that remote promontory and for the thundering sea surrounding the forelands of the north, for the endless coastline and the enormous fjords which could conceal all manner of traps and deceptions, for the people whose language he understood only slightly, for their sorcery and inconstancy and cunning, for war and the sea, and for the singing of weapons, both his own and his men's.

At last Erlend fell asleep, and then woke up again-what was it he had dreamed? Oh yes. That he was lying in a bed with a black-haired Finnish girl on either side of him. Something half-forgotten that had happened to him back when he was up north with Gissur. A wild night when they had all been drunk and reeling. He couldn't recall much more of the whole night than the rank, wild-beast smell of the women.

And now here he lay with his sick little son in his arms and dreamed of such things. He was so shocked at himself that he didn't dare try to sleep anymore. And he couldn't bear to lie awake in bed. He must truly be fated to unhappiness. Rigid with anguish he lay motionless and felt the clench of his heart in his breast, while he longed for the redemption of dawn.

He persuaded Kristin to stay in bed the next day. He didn't think he could stand to see her so miserable, dragging herself around the house. He sat with her and played with her hand. She had had the loveliest arms-slim and yet so plump that the small, delicate bones were hardly visible in the slender joints. Now they stood out like knots on her gaunt forearm, and the skin underneath was bluish-white.

Outside it stormed and rained so hard that water gushed down the slopes. Erlend came out of the armory later in the day and heard Gaute screaming and crying from somewhere in the courtyard. He found his small sons in the narrow pa.s.sageway between two of the buildings, sitting directly under the dripping eaves. Naakkve was clutching the youngest boy while Bjrgulf was trying to force-feed him a worm-he had a whole fistful of pink worms, twisting and squirming.

The boys looked crestfallen as their father scolded them. It was Old Aan, they said, who had mentioned that Gaute's teeth would come in with no trouble if they could get him to take a bite of a live worm.

They were soaked through from head to toe, all three of them. Erlend bellowed for the nursemaids, who came rus.h.i.+ng out-one from the workroom and the other from the stable. Their master cursed them roundly, stuffed Gaute under his arm like a piglet, and then chased the other two ahead of him into the hall.

A little while later, dry and content in their best blue tunics, the boys sat in a row on the step of their mother's bed. Erlend had brought a stool over, and he chattered nonsense and fussed over his sons, hugging them close and laughing in order to drive out the remnants of the nighttime terror from his mind. But Kristin smiled happily because Erlend was playing with their children. Erlend told them that he had a Finnish witch; she was two hundred winters old, and so wizened that she was no bigger than this. He kept her in a leather pouch in the big chest that stood in his boathouse. Oh yes, he gave her food, all right; every Christmas he gave her the thigh of a Christian man-that was enough to last her the whole year. And if they weren't nice and quiet and didn't stop plaguing their mother, who was ill, then he would put them in the pouch too.

"Mother is sick because she's carrying our sister," said Naakkve, proud that he knew about such matters.

Erlend pulled the boy by the ears down onto his knee.

"Yes, and after she's born, this sister of yours, I'm going to let my old Finnish woman work her magic on all three of you and turn you into polar bears so you can go padding around in the wild forest, but my daughter will inherit all that I own."

The children shrieked and tumbled into their mother's bed. Gaute didn't understand, but he yelled and scrambled up there too, after his brothers. Kristin complained-Erlend shouldn't tease them so horribly. But Naakkve toppled off the bed again; in an ecstasy of laughter and fright he rushed at his father, hung on to his belt, and bit at Erlend's hands, while he shouted and cheered.

Erlend didn't get the daughter he had wished for this time, either. His wife gave birth to two big, handsome sons, but they almost cost Kristin her life.

Erlend had them baptized; one of them was named after Ivar Gjesling and the other after King Skule. His name had otherwise not been continued in their family; Fru Ragnrid had said that her father was a man fated to misfortune, and no one should be named for him. But Erlend swore that none of his sons bore a prouder name than the youngest.

It was now so late in the autumn that Erlend had to journey north as soon as Kristin was out of the worst danger. And he felt in his heart that it was just as well that he left before she was out of bed again. Five sons in five years-that should be enough, and he didn't want to have to worry that she would die in childbirth while he sat up north at Vargy.

He could see that Kristin had thought much the same. She no longer complained that he was going to leave her behind. She had accepted each child that came as a precious gift from G.o.d, and the suffering as something to which she had to submit. But this time the experience had been so appallingly difficult that Erlend could tell that all courage seemed to have been stripped from her. She lay in bed listlessly, her face yellow as clay, staring at the two little bundles at her side; and her eyes were not as happy as they had been with the others.

Erlend sat beside her and went over the entire trip north in his mind. It would doubtless be a hard sea voyage so late in the fall-and strange to arrive there for the long nights. But he felt such an unspeakable yearning. This last bout of fear for his wife had completely broken all resistance in his soul-helplessly he surrendered to his own longing to flee from home.

CHAPTER 4.

ERLEND NIKULAUSSN SERVED as the king's military commander and chieftain at the fortress of Vargy for almost two years. In all that time he never ventured farther south than to Bjarky, when he and Sir Erling Vidkunssn once arranged a meeting there. During the second summer Erlend was away, Heming Alfssn finally died, and Erlend was appointed sheriff of Orkdla county in his place. Haftor Graut traveled north to succeed him at Vargy.

Erlend was a happy man when he sailed south in the autumn, several days after the Feast of the Birth of Mary. This was the redress he had been seeking all these years-to become sheriff of the region as his father had once been. Not that this had been a goal which he had ever worked to achieve. But it had always seemed to him that this was what he needed in order to a.s.sume the standing which he rightfully deserved-both in his own eyes and those of his peers. Now it no longer mattered that he was considered somewhat different from the men who were bench sitters-there was no longer anything awkward about his special position.

And he longed for home. It had been more peaceful in Finnmark than he had expected. Even the first winter took its toll on him; he sat idle in the castle and could do nothing about repairing the fortress. It had been well restored seventeen years before, but now it had fallen into terrible disrepair.

Then came spring and summer with great activity and commotion-meetings at various places along the fjords with the Norwegian and half-Norwegian tax collectors and with spokesmen for the peoples of the inland plains. Erlend sailed here and there with his two s.h.i.+ps and enjoyed himself immensely. On the island the buildings were repaired and the castle fortified. But the following year, peace still prevailed.

Haftor would no doubt see to it that troubles commenced soon enough. Erlend laughed. They had sailed together almost as far as Trjanema, and there Haftor had found himself a Sami woman from Kola1 whom he had taken with him. Erlend had spoken to him sternly. He had to remember that it was important for the heathens to realize that the Norwegians were the masters. And he would have to conduct himself so as not to provoke anyone unnecessarily, considering the small group of men he had with him. He shouldn't intervene if the Finns fought and killed each other; they were to be granted that pleasure without interference. But act like a hawk over the Russians and the Kola people, or whatever that rabble was called. And leave the women alone-for one thing, they were all witches; and for another, there were plenty who would offer themselves willingly. But the G.o.dy youth would just have to take care of himself, until he learned. whom he had taken with him. Erlend had spoken to him sternly. He had to remember that it was important for the heathens to realize that the Norwegians were the masters. And he would have to conduct himself so as not to provoke anyone unnecessarily, considering the small group of men he had with him. He shouldn't intervene if the Finns fought and killed each other; they were to be granted that pleasure without interference. But act like a hawk over the Russians and the Kola people, or whatever that rabble was called. And leave the women alone-for one thing, they were all witches; and for another, there were plenty who would offer themselves willingly. But the G.o.dy youth would just have to take care of himself, until he learned.

Haftor wanted to get away from his estates and his wife. Erlend now wanted to go back home to his. He felt a blissful longing for Kristin and Husaby and his home district and all his children-for everything that was back home with Kristin.

At Lyngsfjord he got word of a s.h.i.+p with several monks on board; they were supposedly Dominican friars from Nidaros who were heading north to try to plant the true faith among heathens and heretics in the border territories.

Erlend felt certain that Gunnulf was among them. And three nights later he was indeed sitting alone with his brother in a sod hut that belonged to a little Norwegian farm near the sh.o.r.e where they had found each other.

Erlend felt strangely moved. He had attended ma.s.s and had taken communion with his crew for the first time since he had come north, except when he was at Bjarky. The church at Vargy was without a priest; a deacon lived at the castle, and he had made an effort to observe the holy days for them, but otherwise the Norwegians in the north had found little help for their souls. They had to console themselves with the thought that they were part of a kind of crusade, and surely their sins would not be judged so severely.

Erlend sat talking to Gunnulf about this, and his brother listened with an odd, remote smile on his thin, compressed lips. It looked as if he were constantly sucking on his lower lip, the way a person often does when he is thinking hard about something and is on the verge of understanding but has not yet achieved full clarity in his mind.

It was late at night. All the other people on the farm were asleep in the shed; the brothers knew that they were now the only ones awake. And they were both struck by the strange circ.u.mstance that the two of them should be sitting there alone.

The m.u.f.fled and muted sound of the storm and the roaring sea reached them through the sod walls. Now and then gusts of wind would blow in, breathe on the embers of the hearth, and make the flame of the oil lamp flicker. There was no furniture in the hut; the brothers were sitting on the low earthen bench which ran along three sides of the room, and between them lay Gunnulf's writing board with ink horn, his quill pen, and a rolled-up parchment. Gunnulf had been writing down a few notes as his brother told him about meetings and Norwegian settlements, about navigation markers and weather indications and words in the Sami language-everything Erlend happened to think of. Gunnulf was piloting the s.h.i.+p himself; it was named Sunnivasuden, Sunnivasuden, for the friars had chosen Saint Sunniva for the friars had chosen Saint Sunniva2 as the patron saint for their endeavor. as the patron saint for their endeavor.

"As long as you don't suffer the same fate as the martyred Selje men," said Erlend, and Gunnulf again gave him a little smile.

"You call me restless, Gunnulf," Erlend continued. "Then what should we call you? First you wander around in the southern lands for all those years, and then you've barely returned home before you give up your benefice and prebends3 to go off to preach to the Devil and his offspring up north in Velliaa. You don't know their language and they don't know yours. It seems to me that you're even more inconstant than I am." to go off to preach to the Devil and his offspring up north in Velliaa. You don't know their language and they don't know yours. It seems to me that you're even more inconstant than I am."

"I own neither manors nor kinsmen to answer for," said the monk. "I have now freed myself from all bonds, but you have bound yourself, brother."

"Yes, well . . . I suppose the man who owns nothing is free."

Gunnulf replied, "A man's possessions own him more than he owns them."

"Hmm. No, by G.o.d, I might concede that Kristin owns me. But I won't agree that the manor and the children own me too."

"Don't think that way, brother," said Gunnulf softly. "For then you might easily lose them."

"No, I refuse to be like those other old men, up to their chins in the muck of their land," said Erlend, laughing, and his brother smiled with him.

"I've never seen fairer children than Ivar and Skule," he said. "I think you must have looked like them at that age-it's no wonder our mother loved you so much."

Both brothers rested a hand on the writing board, which lay between them. Even in the faint light of the oil lamp it was possible to see how unlike the hands of these two men were. The monk's fingers bore no rings; they were white and sinewy, shorter and stubbier than the other man's fingers, and yet they looked much stronger-even though the palm of Erlend's fist was now as hard as horn and a blue-white scar from an arrow wound furrowed the dark skin from his wrist all the way up his sleeve. But the fingers of Erlend's slender, tanned hand were dry and knotty-jointed like tree branches, and they were completely covered with rings of gold and precious stones.

Erlend had an urge to take his brother's hand, but he was too embarra.s.sed to do so; instead, he drank a toast to him, grimacing at the bad ale.

"And you think that Kristin has now regained her full health?" Erlend continued.

"Yes, she had blossomed like a rose when I was at Husaby in the summer," said the monk with a smile. He paused for a moment and then said somberly, "I ask this of you, brother-think more about the welfare of Kristin and your children than you have done in the past. Abide by her advice and agree to the decisions she and Eiliv have made; they're only waiting for your consent to conclude them."

"I'm not greatly in favor of these plans you speak of," said Erlend with some reluctance. "And now my position will be quite different."

"Your lands will gain in value if you consolidate your property more," replied the monk. "Kristin's plans seemed sensible when she explained them to me."

"And there isn't another woman in all of Norway who offers advice more freely than she does," said Erlend.

"But in the end you're the one who commands. And you now command Kristin too, and can do as you please," Gunnulf said, his voice strangely weak.

Erlend laughed softly from deep in his throat, then stretched and yawned. Suddenly somber, he said, "You have also counseled her, my brother. And at times your advice may well have come between our friends.h.i.+p."

"Do you mean the friends.h.i.+p between you and your wife, or the friends.h.i.+p between the two of us?" the monk asked hesitantly.

"Both," replied Erlend, as if the thought had just now occurred to him.

"It isn't usually necessary for a laywoman to be so pious," he continued in a lighter tone of voice.

"I have counseled her as I thought best. As it was was best," Gunnulf corrected himself. best," Gunnulf corrected himself.

Erlend looked at the monk dressed in the rough, grayish-white friar's robes, with the black cowl thrown back so that it lay in thick folds around his neck and over his shoulders. The crown of his head was shaved so that only a narrow fringe of hair now remained, encircling his round, gaunt, pallid face; but his hair was no longer thick and black as it had been in Gunnulf's younger days.

"Well, you aren't as much my brother anymore as you are the brother of all men," said Erlend, surprising himself by the great bitterness in his own voice.

"That's not true-although it ought to be."

"So help me G.o.d, I think that's the real reason that you want to go up there to the Finns!"

Gunnulf bowed his head. His amber eyes smoldered.

"To some extent that's true," he said swiftly.

They spread out the furs and coverlets they had brought with them. It was too cold and raw in the room for them to undress, so they bade each other good night and lay down on the earthen bench, which was quite low to the floor to escape the smoke from the hearth.

Erlend lay there thinking about the news he had received from home. He hadn't heard much during the past years-two letters from his wife had reached him, but they had been outdated by the time they arrived. Sira Eiliv had written them for her. Kristin could write, and she had a beautiful hand, but she was never eager to do so, because she didn't think it quite proper for an uneducated woman.

She would no doubt become even more pious now that they had acquired a holy relic in the neighboring village, and it was from a man whom she had known while he was alive. And Gaute had now won release from his illness there, and Kristin herself had recovered her full health after having been weak ever since giving birth to the twins. Gunnulf said that the friars of Hamar had finally been forced to give Edvin Rikardssn's body back to his brothers in Oslo, and they had now written down everything about Brother Edvin's life and about the miracles he was said to have performed, both during his lifetime and after death. It was their intention to send these writings to the Pope in an attempt to have the monk proclaimed a saint. Several brothers from Gauldal and Medaldal had journeyed south to bear witness to the wonders that Brother Edvin had achieved with his prayers of intercession in the parishes and with a crucifix he had carved; it was now at Medalhus. They had vowed to build a small church on Vatsfjeld, the mountain where he had spent several summers, living a hermit's existence, and where a mountain spring had become endowed with healing powers. And the brothers were given a hand from his body to enshrine in the church.

Kristin had contributed two silver bowls and the large cloak clasp with blue stones which she had inherited from her grandmother, Ulvhild Haavardsdatter, so that Tiedeken Paus in Nidaros could fas.h.i.+on a silver hand for Brother Edvin's bones. And she had been to Vatsfjeld with Sira Eiliv and her children and a great entourage when the archbishop consecrated the church at Midsummer the year after Erlend had departed for the north.

Afterwards, Gaute's health quickly improved; he had learned to walk and talk, and he was now like any other child his age. Erlend stretched out his limbs. That was the greatest joy they had been granted-that Gaute was now well. He would donate some land to the church. Gunnulf had told him that Gaute was blond, with a fair complexion, like his mother. If only he had been a little maiden, then he would have been named Magnhild. Yes, he was also longing for his handsome sons now.

Gunnulf Nikulaussn lay there thinking about the spring day three years ago when he rode toward Husaby. On the way he met a man from the manor. The mistress was not at home, he had said; she was tending to a woman who was ill.

He was riding along a narrow, gra.s.s-covered road between old split-rail fences. Young, leafy trees covered the slopes, from the top all the way down to the swollen river rus.h.i.+ng through the ravine below. He rode into the sun, and the tender green leaves glittered like golden flames on the branches, but inside the forest the shadows were already spreading, cool and deep, across the gra.s.sy floor.

Gunnulf reached a place where he could catch a glimpse of the lake, with a reflection of the dark opposite sh.o.r.e and the blue of the sky, and an image of the great summer clouds constantly merging and dispersed by the ripples. Far below the road was a small farm on green, flower-strewn slopes. A group of women wearing white wimples stood outside in the courtyard, but Kristin was not among them.

A little farther away he saw her horse; it was walking around in the pasture with several others. The road dipped down into a hollow of green shadows ahead of him, and where it curved up over the next rise in the hills, he saw her standing next to the fence beneath the foliage, listening to the birds singing. He looked at her slim, dark figure, leaning over the fence, facing the woods; there was a gleam of white from her wimple and her arm. He reined in his horse and rode toward her slowly, step by step. But when he drew closer, he saw that it was the slender stump of an old birch tree standing there.

The next evening, when his servants sailed his s.h.i.+p into Nidaros, the priest himself was at the helm. He felt his heart beating in his chest, steadfast and newborn. Now nothing could deter his purpose.

He now knew that what had held him back in life was the unquenchable longing he had carried with him ever since childhood. He wanted to win the love of others. To do so he had been kind-hearted, gentle, and good-natured toward the poor; he had let his wisdom s.h.i.+ne, but with moderation and humility, among the priests of the town so that they would like him; he had been submissive toward Lord Eiliv Kortin because the archbishop was friends with his father, and he knew how Lord Eiliv wanted people to behave. He had been loving and gentle toward Orm, in order to win the boy's affection away from his moody father. And Gunnulf had been stern and demanding toward Kristin because he saw what she needed: to encounter something that would not give way when she reached for help, something that would not lead her astray when she came, ready to follow.

But now he realized that he had sought to win her trust for himself more than he had tried to strengthen her faith in G.o.d.

Erlend had found expression for it this evening: Not as much my brother anymore as the brother of all men. This was the detour he would have to take before his brotherly love could benefit anyone at all.

Two weeks later he had divided up his possessions among his kinsmen and the Church and donned the robes of a friar. And now, this spring, when everyone was profoundly troubled by the terrible misfortune that had befallen the country-lightning had struck Christ Church in Nidaros and partially destroyed Saint Olav's shrine-Gunnulf had won the support of the archbishop for his old plan. Together with Brother Olav Jonssn, who was an ordained priest like himself, and three younger monks-one from Nidaros and two from the order in Bjrgvin-he was now headed north to bring the light of the Word to the lost heathens who lived and died in darkness within the boundaries of a Christian land.

Christ, you who were crucified! Now I have given up everything that could bind me. And I have placed myself in your hands, if you would find my life worthy enough to be freed from its servitude to Satan. Take me so that I may feel that I am your slave, for then I will possess you in return.

Then someday, once again, his heart would crow and sing in his chest, as it did when he walked across the green plains at Romaborg, from pilgrim church to pilgrim church: "I am my Beloved's, and to Him belongs my desire."

The two brothers lay there, each on his own bench in the little hut, and let their thoughts lull them to sleep. A tiny ember smoldered in the hearth between them. Their thoughts took them farther and farther away from each other. And the following day one of them headed north, and the other south.

Erlend had promised Haftor Graut to go out to G.o.dy and take his sister south with him. She was married to Baard Aasulfssn of Lensvik, who was also one of Erlend's kinsmen, but distantly related.

On the first morning, as Margygren Margygren cut through the waters of G.o.dy Sound with its sails billowing against the blue mountains in the fine breeze, Erlend was standing on the raised afterdeck of the s.h.i.+p. Ulf Haldorssn had the helm. Then Fru Sunniva came up to them. The hood of her cloak was draped over her shoulders, and the wind was blowing her wimple back from her curly, sun-yellow hair. She had the same sea-blue, gleaming eyes as her brother, and like him she had a fair complexion, but with many freckles, which also covered her small, plump hands. cut through the waters of G.o.dy Sound with its sails billowing against the blue mountains in the fine breeze, Erlend was standing on the raised afterdeck of the s.h.i.+p. Ulf Haldorssn had the helm. Then Fru Sunniva came up to them. The hood of her cloak was draped over her shoulders, and the wind was blowing her wimple back from her curly, sun-yellow hair. She had the same sea-blue, gleaming eyes as her brother, and like him she had a fair complexion, but with many freckles, which also covered her small, plump hands.

From the first evening Erlend saw her at G.o.dy-their eyes met, and then they looked away, both of them smiling secretively-he was convinced that she knew him, and he knew her. Sunniva Olavsdatter-he could take her with his bare hands, and she was waiting for him to do so.

Now, as he stood with her hand in his-he had helped her up onto the deck-he happened to look into Ulf's coa.r.s.e, dark face. No doubt Ulf knew it too. Erlend felt oddly ashamed under the other man's gaze. He suddenly remembered everything that this kinsman and weaponsbearer had witnessed-every mad prank that Erlend had gotten caught up in, ever since his youth. Ulf didn't need to look at him so scornfully. Erlend consoled himself that he hadn't intended to come any closer to this woman than honor and virtue permitted. He was old enough by now, and wise from his mistakes; he could be allowed north to Haalogaland without getting himself tangled up in some foolishness with another man's wife. He had a wife himself now. He had been faithful to Kristin from the very first time he saw her and to this day. No reasonable man would count those few incidents that had occurred up north. But otherwise he hadn't even looked at another woman-in that way. He knew . . . with a Norwegian woman, and even worse, with one of their peers . . . no, he would never have a moment's peace in his heart if he betrayed Kristin in that way. But this voyage south with her on board-it might easily prove risky.