Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross

by Sigrid Undset Book 3 in the Kristin Lavransdatter series.

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Kristin and Erlend live at Jørundgaard after the loss of Husaby, but their marriage is increasingly shaped by grievance, separation and the divided loyalties of their sons. Erlend withdraws from the household, and when he returns to defend Kristin against accusations of adultery, a violent quarrel leaves him mortally wounded. Kristin must then face widowhood, the dispersal of her children and the knowledge that neither passion nor endurance has protected the family from the consequences of its earlier choices.

In later life Kristin travels to the Trondheim region and enters Rein Abbey as a lay sister. When the Black Death reaches Norway in 1349, she works among the sick as fear, social order and ordinary burial practices collapse around the convent. Her final actions include protecting a child threatened by a desperate sacrificial rite and tending plague victims despite the certainty of infection. The trilogy ends with Kristin’s death from the disease and with the cross she has worn becoming the final sign of a faith repeatedly tested by guilt and loss.