The upper part of the town between the Nunsbeck and the bishop’s palace was a quiet neighbourhood; there were here neither shops nor taverns; most of the dwelling-places belonged to great folk from the parishes around, and the houses turned dark, windowless, timber gables to the street. But on this day whole crowds of people were roaming about the roads even up here, and the serving-folk stood loitering about the courtyard gates gossiping with the passersby.
When they were come out near the bishop’s palace, there was a great crush upon the place in front of Halvard’s Church and the Olav-cloister—booths had been set up on the grassy slopes, and there were showmen making trained dogs jump through barrel-hoops. But Haakon would not have the maids stand and look at these things, and he would not let Kristin go into the church—he said ’twould be better worth her seeing on the great Feast-day itself.
As they came down over the open space by St. Clement’s Church Haakon took them by the hands, for here was the greatest press of folk coming from the wharves or out from the alleys between the traders’ yards. The maidens were bound for the Mickle Yard, where the shoemakers plied their trade. For Ingebjörg had found the clothes Kristin had brought from home very good and sightly, but she said the shoes she had with her from the Dale were not fit to wear for best. And when Kristin had seen the shoes from the outland Ingebjörg had in her chest—more pairs than one—she felt she could not rest until she too had bought some like them.
The Mickle Yard was one of the largest in Oslo; it stretched from the wharves up to the Souters’ Alley, with more than forty houses round two great courts. And now they had set up booths with wadmal roofs in the courts as well. Above the roofs of these tents there rose a statue of St. Crispinus. Within the courts was a great throng of folk buying and selling, women running between the kitchens with pots and pails, children getting in the way of folks’ feet, horses being led in and out of the stables, and serving-men carrying packages to and from the warehouses. From the balconies of the lofts above, where the finest wares were sold, shoemakers and their apprentices shouted to the two maids and dangled small gaily-coloured or gold-embroidered shoes before them.
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 footgear.
They felt
