Текст книги "The Road to Jerusalem"

Автор книги: Ян Гийу

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   When Arn entered the big cookhouse the well-cured lamb carcasses had already been cut up and placed in basins to marinate with olive oil, garlic, mint, and various strong herbs from the home region of the Provençal cooks. The big baking ovens were being fired up. The roasts and ribs would be baked in the oven after they had soaked long enough in their marinade, but in the meantime the shoulders and the rest of the animals were cut into smaller pieces and placed in big iron pots. For supper there would be lamb soup with root vegetables and cabbage, and then some cherries with honey and roasted hazelnuts. The lamb would be served with white bread, olive oil, and fresh goat cheese.

   It wasn't usual to drink wine every day at Vitae Schola. This had nothing to do with the cloister rules, but rather with the difficulties of transporting wine in large enough quantities from Burgundy all the way to the North. So it was Brother Rugiero who decided when wine would be served with the meals, and when water would suffice. He found that wine would go best with the roast lamb, and Arn was sent out to the wine cellars to fetch half a cask. He was admonished to take it from the far end of the wine cellar, where the oldest wine was stored. They always drank the wine in a specific order, and he was carefully instructed how the cask would be marked. Yet Arn still returned with the wrong wine cask on his wheelbarrow, and so he had to go back and do the task properly.

   When the midday meal was served and everyone else began to eat, Arn went back out to the cookhouse and took a scoop of water from the pure water stream that ran straight into the cookhouse and was not to be confused with the drainage stream that came from the lavatorium. He drank the cold water, savoring it as a gift from God. Then he prayed an extra long grace before he took some of the white bread.

   He felt neither hunger nor envy for the brothers. They were merely eating a normal meal, about the same as they always ate at Vitae Schola. When he was done he began cleaning up and tending to the big pots that contained the next meal.

   After midnight mass the cookhouses had to be scoured carefully with water and all the waste had to be removed. It was put either into the drainage channel to be transported further to the stream and then down to the fjord, or it was taken out to the big compost heap behind the cookhouses among all the stinging nettles. Brother Lucien was very finicky about how the compost heaps were tended, since it meant so much for his work to keep making the earth more fruitful.

   When Arn was done he was supposed to have two hours of sleep before baking the bread. But tonight he had worked so hard inside the hot cookhouses that he couldn't calm down; he still had the heat and the bustling pace in his body.

   It was a cool summer night but he could smell the first scent of autumn in the air. The stars were out, the wind was still, and there was a half moon.

   First he sat for a while on the stone steps of the big cookhouse and looked up at the stars without thinking about anything in particular. His thoughts flitted from the day's intense work to all the strong aromas in the cookhouses, and then to the morning's talk with Father Henri. He was sure that there was still something he didn't understand about love.

   Then he went down to see Khamsiin and called him over. The powerful stallion snorted mightily as he recognized the boy and came trotting over at once, with legs lifted high and his tail in the air. Khamsiin was still a young stallion, but fully grown, and his color had now changed from the slightly childish white to a shimmering of gray and white. In the moonlight he looked like he was colored silver.

   Without knowing why, Arn threw his arms around the stallion's strong neck and hugged him and caressed him. Then he began to cry. His chest shook with an emotion that he could not understand.

   "I love you, Khamsiin, I truly do love you," he whispered, and his tears fell like a flowing stream. Inside he felt that he had thought something sinful and forbidden that he couldn't explain.

   For the first time ever, he decided that there was something that he could not confess.

Chapter 6

Monasterio Beatae Mariae de Varnhemio became the name of the cloister in Varnhem. Father Henri, who now sat in his old scriptorium, felt a shiver of pleasure when he printed the name. It was only right that the Blessed Virgin should have this monastery dedicated to her, since it was she who, by sending Fru Sigrid a vision during the dedication of Skara Cathedral, was most responsible for the genesis of this cloister. And now at last there would be better order here.

   Father Henri in truth had much to rejoice about, and he was now trying to express it all in his long letter. The Cistercians had won a complicated and dangerous game against the emperor of Germany, Frederick I Barbarossa himself. And Father Henri had been allowed to attend in a corner, since his two good friends Archbishop Eskil of Lund and Father Stéphan from Alvastra were present too. Who could have imagined such a development twenty years ago when he and Stéphan had come wandering the long, cold, and gloomy road to the North?

   Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had deposed Pope Alexander III and named his own more docile antipope in Rome. The Christian world thus had to choose sides, either the true pope, Alexander, or the usurper in Rome. The outcome of this strife was in no way certain.

   Many kings feared the German emperor and thus wanted to stand with him; among them unfortunately was King Valdemar of Denmark and several of his more timorous bishops. But Archbishop Eskil of Lund, the friend of the Cistercians, had taken a stand against his king and for the true pope, Alexander III. Because of this, Eskil had been forced into exile.

   The strife, of course, actually dealt with the old story about whether kings and emperors should have power over the Church, or whether the Church would remain exempt from worldly power.

   The Cistercians' countermove had been Svealand and Götaland. King Karl Sverkersson, who did not know enough about Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to fear him, was persuaded to go along with the creation of a new archbishopric comprising Svealand and the two Goth lands. As the situation now stood, it did not make much difference in which city the archbishop's see was placed, as long as it was done. King Sverker had wisely avoided his own city of Linköping in favor of the Swedish city of Östra Aros. That was fine, the Cistercians had reasoned, because the main thing was to strike while the iron was hot.

   And so it came to pass that Father Henri was allowed to attend the meeting in the cathedral in Sens when Eskil, in the presence of the pope himself, anointed Stéphan as archbishop over the new archdiocese of Svealand and the two Goth lands. Since the archdiocese of Norway was also faithful to the true pope, the struggle now turned to the disadvantage of Frederick Barbarossa and his antipope. Eskil had recently been able to return to Denmark in triumph, and Stéphan was already installed in Östra Aros. The battle was won.

   A Cistercian brother holding the position of the third Nordic archbishop was truly no small thing. Varnhem, of course, had already been restored to favor by King Erik Jedvardsson, but now his successor Karl Sverkersson had assured the monastery new properties and new privileges. He had even donated some of his own land to establish a Cistercian nunnery up in Vreta in Eastern Götaland.

   Now that the monastery was finally secure, it was time to make a new attempt to restore it to its former state. For Varnhem had long been languishing with only twelve brothers, whose task it was to repair and maintain the cloister and prevent the property from going to ruin.

   During the years that had passed, Vitae Schola in Denmark had surpassed Varnhem in every respect. For that very reason it was also natural, now that Father Henri had taken on the management of the restoration work at Varnhem, to draw the first new monks from Vitae Schola itself.

   Among those who were called to Varnhem were Brother Guilbert and Arn.

For Arn nowhere was home. Varnhem was not home, just as little as Vitae Schola by the Limfjord was home, or any other place. His home was wherever the brothers were, and, most important, where Brother Guilbert and Father Henri happened to be.

   The difficult part about leaving Vitae Schola had been to leave Khamsiin. Brother Guilbert had decided that Khamsiin had to stay behind for breeding at Vitae Schola. He had explained this to Arn by drawing complicated patterns in the sand show ing which horses had been sired by Khamsiin and which had been sired by Nasir, and why Nasir and a young stallion sired by Khamsiin and Aisha had to go with the caravan to Varnhem, while Khamsiin had to stay at Vitae Schola. Arn had not been able to question this decision.

   The young stallion was dappled red and gray, and after the farewell mass at Vitae Schola Brother Guilbert had told Arn that the young stallion would be named Shimal, which in the secret language of horses meant the North. But when Brother Guilbert saw the sorrow in Arn's eyes he took him aside and explained that this was not a sin, nothing to be ashamed of, to miss his horse. Those who said that a horse was only a thing, a possession without a soul, and therefore not worthy of love, knew nothing. They were correct only in formal terms, but the world was full of men, also good men of God, who were formally right about one thing or another, and yet lacked true understanding. Before God and for many of God's men, it was entirely proper to love a horse such as Khamsiin. This Brother Guilbert swore.

   On the other hand, Arn had to realize that his horses, like his neighbors and his brothers and kinsmen, would all eventually die. Even the simple fact that horses did not live as long as human beings meant that Arn would most likely have to mourn more than one horse. Grief was a part of life, such as God had ordered it.

   Arn let himself be consoled somewhat, but only because it was not sinful to grieve when he was forced to leave Khamsiin behind.

   Although he was now reckoned as a man and not a boy, he couldn't help shedding a tear as the column left Vitae Schola. No one saw it but Brother Guilbert. And no one but Brother Guilbert would have understood the reason. Like Arn, the other brothers and lay brothers had no home anywhere except where brothers resided in God's good world. And what did the others know about horses from Outremer?

   Just before Bartelsmas in late August, the busiest harvesttime and also when the goats were slaughtered in Western Götaland, Arn saw Varnhem's church tower rising up in the distance, at first indistinct like some oddly scraggly or dried-up treetop or one that had been struck by lightning, in the midst of a luxuriant grove of oaks. Later it became very clear.

   He recognized the church tower from his childhood, but that was not what moved him. He knew that buried inside the church lay his mother, whom he still talked to every evening in his prayers. He felt as though she might be found alive in there, although only her bones remained. From the recesses of his memory he retrieved a vague image of himself as a child standing alone among strange men, not yet his beloved brothers, at the funeral mass. Now, filled with solemnity, he rode in through the cloister gate, paying scant attention to whether he recognized the place, which he no doubt did, or to how dilapidated everything had become. When Arn greeted Father Henri coming to meet the newcomers just inside the cloister gate, he begged forgiveness and hurried into the church, falling to his knees at the entrance, and crossing himself before he continued up the aisle toward the altar.

   At the front of the church knelt two lay brothers who were working with hammer and chisel on the stone block that covered his mother's grave. Previously it had been provided only with a small, almost unnoticeable symbol. Now that the Cistercians had won their great victory over the worldly power, and Monasterio Beatae Mariae de Varnhemio was a safe place for both the brothers and the bones of the dead, Father Henri had decided that the grave should be marked. The thought had been for the work to be completed before the caravan from Vitae Schola arrived, but the weather during their journey had been unexpectedly favorable.

   Arn shyly greeted the lay brothers, first in Latin, which they didn't know very well; then in French, which they didn't understand at all; and finally in Norse, which was their language, although it was more lilting than he remembered. Then he fell to his knees and prayed in thanksgiving for arriving successfully.

   When he read the text on the gravestone, both that which had already been carved and that which was only sketched in, he felt as if his mother were still alive. Not only her soul but also her flesh and blood self, as if she lay there beneath the limestone, smiling up at him. "Under this stone rests Sigrid, our most highly valued donor, in eternal peace, born in the year of the Lord 1127, died 1155, in blessed remembrance," he read. After the text there was a sketch of a lion and something else that he didn't recognize. He saw her hands before him and smelled her scent and thought he could hear her voice.

   At the welcome mass when all were gathered, his mother was mentioned time after time in the prayers of thanksgiving. It filled him with feelings that he couldn't quite understand, which he at once decided to confess. He feared that he had been struck by pride.

In the weeks before Father Henri's reinstallation as prior at Varnhem, which Archbishop Stéphan himself would attend on a visitation, Brother Guilbert and Arn worked feverishly along with a couple of local lay brothers to get the water supply fixed. The big millpond had silted up and had to be dredged; the aqueduct that was supposed to carry the water to the large and small drive wheels was in disrepair, so that the flow was diminished to a mere tenth of its potential power. The mill wheel and gear system also needed numerous repairs. The water stream was both the cloister's motor and its cleansing soul, just as important in the lavatorium and cookhouse as it was as a power source for the bellows, mills, and hammer-anvil. Because of the great importance of this repair work, the small group in charge of the water was relieved of attending all the day's masses and study hours. Arn fell into bed after vespers and slept dreamlessly until morning mass. One workday followed another until he began to have the feeling that time had stopped and the hours flowed together into one long work shift.

   But on the day that the archbishop and his retinue came riding in through the cloister gates of Varnhem, new fresh water was purling through the lavatorium and cookhouse, and the guest rooms stood newly whitewashed and clean. In one of the smithies the clang of hammer on anvil was already heard.

   After the installation mass the archbishop preached to the brothers about the victory of good over evil, and how the Cistercian order now held such a strong position that no outside threat was to be found in this corner of the world. What remained, however, was the constant threat that always existed inside each human being, that his own sins, pride or sloth or indifference, might bring down on him God's righteous wrath. And for this reason no one could take his rest or lean back in gorged contentment; each man had to continue his work in God's garden with the same assiduous perseverance as always.

   After the thanksgiving meal, Archbishop Stéphan and Father Henri retired to the place out in the arcade where they always used to sit together in the past, near the garden plot that was now clearly overgrown. They had a long talk about something they didn't want the other brothers to hear, speaking so low that the brothers working in the garden could hear only an occasional word when one of the reverends flared up, briefly and intensely like a dry piece of tinder, and then quickly returned to more subdued tones.

   After about an hour the two men seemed to have reached a reconciliation, and then they summoned Arn, who was already hard at work in one of the smithies where the mechanisms that were supposed to drive the bellows had completely broken down.

   Arn went to the lavatorium and washed his whole body clean, wondering whether he ought to shave his tonsure, which he had not done in recent weeks after he was relieved of all his duties except work on the water lines. When he ran his hand over his scalp he felt half an inch of stubble—no state in which to meet an archbishop. On the other hand, he could not be late now that they had summoned him.

   Feeling a bit abashed, Arn went out to the arcade, knelt before the archbishop and kissed his hand, asking forgiveness for his unkempt appearance. Father Henri hastened to explain that Arn was one of those who had been assigned special work duties in recent weeks, but the archbishop simply waved off such a minor concern and asked Arn to sit down, which was an astonishing concession.

   Arn sat on a stone bench facing the two venerable men but felt no peace with the situation. He could not understand why they wanted to speak with him in particular, since he was but a young lay brother. He would never have guessed what was now to become of him, since he no doubt believed that his life had already been given a fixed path, just as predictable as the stars' movement across the firmament.

   "Do you happen to remember me, young man?" asked the archbishop kindly, surprisingly speaking in French instead of Latin.

   "No, monseigneur, I cannot honestly say that I do," replied Arn with embarrassment, looking at the ground.

   "The first time we met you tried to slap me, called me an old codger or something on that order, and said you didn't want to sit and read boring books. But I suppose you've forgotten that too?" the archbishop went on, with a sternness that was so clearly feigned that anyone on earth except Arn could have seen right through it.

   " Monseigneur, I truly beg your pardon, I can only defend myself by saying that I was a child and knew no better," Arn replied, blushing with shame as he imagined himself laying a hand on an archbishop. But then both the archbishop and Father Henri burst out laughing.

   "Now now, young man, I was trying to jest. I'm not actually here to demand vengeance for that tiny offense. I should be grateful, from what I've heard, that it's not today you choose to strike me. No, don't apologize again! Instead, you must listen to me. My dear old friend Henri and I have discussed your situation back and forth, as we also did when you came here as a child. You do know that it was a miracle that brought you to us, don't you, my son?"

   "I've read the account," Arn said quietly. "But I don't remember any of it myself; I only recall what I read."

   "But if Saint Bernard and the Lord did raise you up from the realm of the dead to bring you to us, what sort of conclusion would you draw from that? Have you contemplated that dilemma?" the archbishop asked in a new and more serious tone, as if he were now beginning the conversation in earnest.

   "When I was a little boy and fell from a high wall, the Lord showed mercy toward me and perhaps toward my mother and father as well for their fervent prayers. That's what is true, that much we can consider certain," replied Arn, still not daring to raise his eyes.

   "Certain, well, that's not saying too much, is it?" said Archbishop Stéphan with a scarcely perceptible hint of impatience in his voice. "But then don't we come immediately to the question of why?"

   "Yes," said Arn. "We do come to the question of why, but I've never been able to find an answer. When it comes to the grace of the Lord, it is many times beyond what humans can conceive. I'm not exactly the only one who cannot understand everything about the grace of God."

   "Aha! Now I'm starting to recognize the little rascal who tried to strike me and called me an old codger. That's good, young man! Just keep talking back, and I'm not being sarcastic; I like it when you talk back. So we haven't transformed you into some sort of passive vegetable in the garden; you have your free will and your mind intact, and we both think that is splendid. Henri has made a point of describing this characteristic of yours. By the way, I haven't spoken French in a long time, do you mind if we switch to Latin?"

   "No, Your Grace."

   "Good. Actually I had just intended to retaliate, because when we met the first time you chided me for not speaking very good Norse. Well, that jest fell flat, since your French is excellent. How can that be, since most of your studies are in Latin?"

   "We've had an arrangement whereby I speak Latin about spiritual and academic matters, French when doing the other half of the work, and Norse with the lay brothers who don't speak much French," replied Arn, raising his head for the first time and looking the archbishop in the eye. By now he had conquered the worst of his embarrassment.

   "An excellent arrangement. It's good that you retain your Norse language, even better if things turn out the way I think," muttered the archbishop pensively. "But let me now ask you something specific, and I really want an honest answer. Has the Lord God spoken to you? Has He revealed His intentions for you?"

   "No, Your Grace. God has never spoken directly to me, and I know nothing of His intentions for me," Arn replied, once again feeling embarrassed and at a disadvantage. It was as if through sin he had made himself unworthy of God's original plan, whatever it may have been.

   The two older men pondered Arn's reply thoughtfully and in silence. They said nothing at all for a long time, but at last they exchanged a knowing look and nodded to each other. Father Henri made a great show of clearing his throat, the way he always did before launching into a long explanation.

   "My beloved son, you must now listen to me and not be frightened," Father Henri began with visible emotion. "My good friend Stéphan and I have reached a decision which we believe is the only right one. We know as little as you do about what God has in mind for you; all we know is that it must be something special. But since none of us knows, it might be that His call has simply not been made as yet. Our task, and yours, could be to prepare you as well as possible for the call when it does come, don't you think?"

   "Yes, of course, Father," Arn replied in a low voice. His throat was suddenly dry.

   "Your education is remarkable and the work of your hands is of great joy to us here within these walls," Father Henri went on. "But you know nothing of the world outside. That is why you must now go out into that world; you must return to your father's estate at Arnäs, which lies a day's ride from here. Well, a Nordic day's ride, that is . . . you know what I mean, with horses from Outremer it would probably take half a day, I would guess. This is the commandwe now give you. You must return to the place that was once your home."

   "I . . . I will naturally obey your command," said Arn, although the words stuck in his throat. He felt as though he'd been felled by an unexpected blow, as if he'd been excommunicated, cast out from the holy community.

   "I see that you are not happy with our command," said the archbishop.

   "No, Your Grace. I've tried to acquit myself well here at the cloister, and I don't mean to boast in any way when I say that, but I can honestly argue that I've done my best," said Arn, crushed.

   "You are a Cistercian, my young friend," said Archbishop Stéphan. "Think on that. You will always be one of us, for what is done cannot be undone. Perhaps it is also intended that you shall remain one of us in tra murosforever, that is what we do not know. Perhaps you will come back after finding that the world out there does not suit you, fully prepared to make your vows to the cloister. But first you must learn of the things about which you have no knowledge, and you can't learn about the outside world in here, no matter how hard you study. We want what is best for you. You should know that both Henri and I truly love you, and we will both pray for you while you are out there. But you must learn something about the other world, that is what is needed."

   "When may I come back? How long do I have to stay out there?" asked Arn with a new spark of hope.

   "When God wills it, you will come back to us. If God does not will it, He will give you another purpose out there. You must ask Him in your prayers. It's not something we can decide, since it's a matter between you and God," said the archbishop, starting to stand up as if the conversation were over. But then he thought of something to add and brightened up a little.

   "Oh yes, one more thing, young man. When you are out there you must know that not only will your brothers within these walls be praying for you, but you also have the archbishop as your friend. You can always come to me with your troubles, remember that!"

   With that Archbishop Stéphan stood up and held out his hand to Arn, who fell to his knees and with his head bowed as a sign of obedience, kissed the archbishop's hand.

When Arn rode out from Varnhem it was at first with a very heavy heart. In spite of all Father Henri's explanations and exhortations he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he was being punished, as if he had shown himself to be unworthy of the brothers' fellowship.

   But in search of consolation he began to sing, and this soon eased his heart. When he discovered that it helped, his mood changed so that he sang even more and soon out of joy rather than seeking consolation. By now he sang like all the other brothers, a little better than some and a little worse than others, neither more nor less. But his singing was suddenly of more joy to him than in many years, almost like in the days when he sang soprano in the brothers' choir.

   As his mood now shifted from dark to light just as rapidly and unpredictably as the spring weather, he also began to be filled with excitement and anticipation. It was certainly true that he knew nothing of the world outside the cloister walls. He could hardly remember what Arnäs looked like, the place that had once been his home. He remembered a very tall stone tower, a courtyard behind walls where he and other children had played a game with hoops and where his father had shown him how to shoot a bow and arrow. But he had a hard time summoning up any image in his memory about how they had actually lived. He thought he recalled that they all lived together somehow, that it was dark with a big fire, but he didn't trust his memories because they seemed so foreign. Now he was finally going to see everything with his own eyes. He should be there by tomorrow. With a better horse he could have been there by evening, but he was riding an old and slow Nordic horse, one of those that according to Brother Guilbert was no use for breeding and hardly good for anything else. But lay brother Erlend was now at Arnäs to teach new children to read, as he had once taught Arn and Eskil, and so Erlend would be given a compliant horse when he had to return to Varnhem. Father Henri was of the opinion that lay brother Erlend would be of little use at Arnäs, either for reading or anything else, after Arn came home.

   A person had to learn to come to terms with the fate determined for him by God. It would do no good to grumble that one would rather be someone else or live somewhere else. Instead one had to try to make the best of the situation; that was the only way to fulfill God's plans. The last of the brothers to repeat these words to Arn before his departure was Brother Rugiero, who had also been called from Vitae Schola to Varnhem after Father Henri found the food up there wretched.

   Brother Rugiero had secretly shed a few tears at their parting, but then foisted on Arn a gigantic package of traveling provisions that would have lasted a week or more. When Arn protested, Brother Rugiero quickly closed the boy's knapsack and mentioned that it certainly couldn't hurt to bring along a bit of food to provide for his welcome ale at home. Brother Rugiero, like the other brothers from Vitae Schola, knew little about Arn, surmising that he'd come to them because his parents were poor and were having a hard time with all the mouths to feed back home.

   After a few hours Arn spied Skara in the distance; the double tower of the cathedral rose grandly over a conglomeration of low wooden houses. Soon he caught the scent of the town, since he was approaching from downwind. It smelled of smoke and putrefaction and rubbish and manure—a smell so strong that he would have had no trouble heading in the right direction for the last half hour even if it had been pitch dark.

   When Arn came closer to the town his curiosity was aroused by a large building under construction, and he made a little detour so he could watch the work at close hand. They were erecting a fortress.

   He reined in his horse and grew more and more astonished at what he saw. A whole crowd was in motion; most of the people were busy dragging stone blocks over rolling logs, but the work looked to be proceeding sluggishly. Nowhere did he see any block and tackle or hoisting mechanisms. Everything seemed to be done by brute force. Many ill-clad men were toiling hard, overseen by men with weapons who didn't seem at all kindly disposed toward the workers. And none of those who were doing the dragging and laboring seemed happy about their work.

   The walls were not very high, and they consisted mainly of earthworks that an attacker could easily ride to the top; from there a good horse could probably leap over in one jump. Khamsiin would be able to do it easily.