Gradually she began to understand what it was all about. Ever since he had come to Sil, her father had sought to acquire land there in the village, and now Sir Andres Gudmunds?n had offered to exchange Formo, which was his mother’s ancestral estate, for Skog, which lay closer to him, since he was one of the king’s retainers and seldom came to the valley. Lavrans was loath to part with Skog, which was his ancestral farm; it had come into his family as a gift from the king. And yet the exchange would be advantageous to him in many ways. But Lavrans’s brother, Aasmund Bj?rgulfs?n, was also interested in acquiring Skog—he was now living in Hadeland, where he had a manor that he had obtained through marriage—and it was uncertain whether Aasmund would relinquish his ancestral property rights.
But one day Lavrans told Ragnfrid that this year he wanted to take Kristin along with him to Skog. She should at least see the estate where she had been born and the home of his forefathers if it was going to pass out of their possession. Ragnfrid thought this a reasonable request, even though she was a little uneasy about sending so young a child on such a long journey when she was not going along herself.
During the first days after Kristin had seen the elf maiden, she was so fearful that she kept close to her mother; she was even frightened by the mere sight of any of the servants who had been up on the mountain that day and who knew what had happened to her. She was glad that her father had forbidden anyone to mention it.
But after some time had passed, she thought that she would have liked to talk about it. In her own mind she told someone about it—she wasn’t sure who—and the strange thing was that the more time that passed, the better she seemed to remember it, and the clearer her memory was of the fair woman.
But the strangest thing of all was that every time she thought about the elf maiden, she would feel such a yearning to travel to Skog, and she grew more and more afraid that her father would refuse to take her.
Finally one morning she woke up in the loft above the storeroom and saw that Old Gunhild and her mother were sitting on the doorstep looking through Lavrans’s bundle of squirrel skins. Gunhild was a widow who went from farm to farm, sewing furs into capes and other garments. Kristin gathered from their conversation that now she was the one who was to have a new cloak, lined with squirrel skins and trimmed with marten. Then she realized that she was going to accompany her father, and she jumped out of bed with a cry of joy.
Her mother came over to her and caressed her cheek.
“Are you so happy then, my daughter, to be going so far away from me?”
Ragnfrid said the same thing on the morning of their departure from J?rundgaard. They were up before dawn; it was dark outside, and a thick mist was drifting between the buildings when Kristin peeked out the door at the weather. It billowed like gray smoke around the lanterns and in front of the open doorways. Servants ran back and forth from the stables to the storehouses, and the women came from the cookhouse with steaming pots of porridge and trenchers of boiled meat and pork. They would have a good meal of hearty food before they set off in the cold of the morning.
Indoors the leather bags with their traveling goods were opened up again, and forgotten items were placed inside. Ragnfrid reminded her husband of all the things he was supposed to tend to for her, and she talked about kinsmen and acquaintances who lived along the way—he must give a certain person her greetings, and he must not forget to ask after someone else she mentioned.
Kristin ran in and out, saying goodbye many times to everyone in the house, unable to sit still anywhere.
“Are you so happy then, Kristin, to be going so far away from me, and for such a long time?” asked her mother. Kristin felt both sad and crestfallen, and she wished that her mother had not said such a thing. But she replied as best she could.
“No, dear Mother, but I’m happy to be going with my father.”
“Yes, I suppose you are,” said Ragnfrid with a sigh. Then she kissed the child and fussed with the maiden’s clothes a bit.
At last they sat in the saddles, everyone who was to accompany them on the journey. Kristin was riding Morvin, the horse that had once been her father’s. He was old, wise, and steady. Ragnfrid handed the silver goblet with one last fortifying drink to her husband, placed a hand on her daughter’s knee, and told her to remember everything that she had impressed upon her.
Then they rode out of the courtyard into the gray dawn. The fog hovered as white as milk over the village. But in a while it began to disperse and then the sun seeped through. Dripping with dew and green with the second crop of hay, the pastures shimmered in the white haze, along with pale stubble-fields and yellow trees and mountain ash with glittering red berries. The blue of the mountainsides was dimly visible, rising up out of the mist and steam. Then the fog broke and drifted in wisps among the grassy slopes, and they rode down through the valley in the most glorious sunshine—Kristin foremost in the group, at her father’s side.
They arrived in Hamar on a dark and rainy evening. Kristin was sitting in front on her father’s saddle, for she was so tired that everything swam before her eyes—the lake gleaming palely off to the right, the dark trees dripping moisture on them as they rode underneath, and the somber black clusters of buildings in the colorless, wet fields along the road.
She had stopped counting the days. It seemed to her that she had been on this long journey forever. They had visited family and friends who lived along the valley. She had gotten to know children on the large manors, she had played in unfamiliar houses and barns and courtyards, and she had worn her red dress with the silk sleeves many times. They had rested along the side of the road in the daytime when it was good weather. Arne had gathered nuts for her, and after their meals she had been allowed to sleep on top of the leather bags containing their clothes. At one estate they had been given silk-covered pillows in their beds. On another night they had slept in a roadside hostel, and whenever Kristin woke up she could hear a woman weeping softly and full of despair in one of the other beds. But every night she had slept snugly against her father’s broad, warm back.
Kristin woke up with a start. She didn’t know where she was, but the odd ringing and droning sound she had heard in her dreams continued. She was lying alone in a bed, and in the room where it stood, a fire was burning in the hearth.
She called to her father, and he rose from the hearth where he was sitting and came over to her, accompanied by a heavyset woman.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Lavrans laughed and said, “We’re in Hamar now, and this is Margret, Shoemaker Fartein’s wife. You must greet her nicely, for you were asleep when we arrived. But now Margret will help you get dressed.”
“Is it morning?” asked Kristin. “I thought you would be coming to bed now. Can’t you help me instead?” she begged, but Lavrans replied rather sternly that she should thank Margret for her willingness to help.
“And look at the present she has for you!”
It was a pair of red shoes with silk straps. The woman smiled at Kristin’s joyful face and then helped her put on her shift and stockings in bed so that she wouldn’t have to step barefoot onto the dirt floor.
“What’s making that sound?” asked Kristin. “Like a church bell, but so many of them.”
“Those are our bells,” laughed Margret. “Haven’t you heard about the great cathedral here in town? That’s where you’re going now. That’s where the big bell is ringing. And bells are ringing at the cloister and the Church of the Cross too.”
Margret spread a thick layer of butter on Kristin’s bread and put honey in her milk so that the food would be more filling—she had so little time to eat.