Текст книги "Birth of the Kingdom"

Автор книги: Ян Гийу

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

SEVEN

At Olsmas came the transition between the old and new harvests in Western Götaland. The barns normally stood empty, but the hay-making was going full speed and would be done by the feast of Saint Laurentius in twelve days’ time. But during this unusually hot summer the crops had ripened much more quickly than normal, and by now all the hay had already been taken in. A month had passed since Arn and Cecilia’s bridal ale, and it was time for the bride’s third purification. The first took place the day after the wedding night, and the second one a week later.

This bride could not be more cleansed than she was already by having some priest say a prayer over her and sprinkle her with holy water, Cecilia thought. She felt a secret shame over her involuntary chastity which she had a hard time admitting to herself even in the brief moments of solitude and contemplation that she’d had during the first month at Forsvik. It felt like a reverse sin now that she and Arn were united in the flesh, and even though Cecilia placed more of the blame on herself than on Arn, she had no idea how to improve the situation.

Arn seemed to be working like a maniac. He immersed himself in hard labour right after matins, and she saw him only briefly at breakfast and dinner; after vespers he would go down to the shore of Bottensjön and swim to remove the sweat and grime. By the time he came to her in their bedchamber it was already dark, and he didn’t say much before he fell into a heavy slumber.

True, it was a special time, as he said, a time for harder work, since there was so much to do to get ready for winter. Many new souls had to have roofs over their heads as well as heat, especially heat, because the foreigners had never experienced a Nordic winter. Smithies and glassworks had to be ready by winter so that they could begin their real efforts then, able to work through the winter instead of merely eating, sleeping, and freezing the whole time.

Life at Forsvik was not easy, and the words between them were few, dealing mostly with necessities having to do with the day’s or the next day’s work. Cecilia sought solace in the knowledge that the need for such toil would soon pass, and the days would become calmer with the winter darkness. She was also happy about everything she saw being done, and each night when she entered their bedchamber she enjoyed breathing in the smell of fresh timber and tar.

Arn had decided that he and Cecilia would live by themselves in a smaller house that stood on stony ground a short distance away from the new longhouse, at the top of the slope leading to the shore of Bottensjön. The first day at Forsvik, before he felt compelled to spend months working every single hour between matins and vespers, he had taken her around to show her what was being built. And there was much to show, since a completely new Forsvik was rising up on either side of the old.

The greatest surprise was that he had built a separate house just for the two of them. Like her, he dreaded having to follow the old custom dictating that the master and mistress of the estate would sleep among thralls and servants in the warmest spot of the longhouse. Naturally he was used to sleeping in communal dormitories with his knight-brothers, he told her. But he had also had his own cell for many years. He didn’t think either of them would be happy sleeping among all the others as if at a huge feast.

Their house was much smaller than a longhouse and divided into two big rooms; there was nothing like it in all of Western Götaland. It didn’t take Cecilia long to be convinced of that.

When he took her in through the smaller door to the clothing chamber of the house, she was amazed at first to hear water running as if in a stream. He had conducted water through the house, flowing in a channel made of brick. It came in through a hole in one wall and ran out through the other wall by the door. In two places there were holes in the brick wall so that they could reach their hand down into the flowing stream. Above one of these holes there was an opening with wooden shutters. Next to it on the wall hung white linen for drying their hands and faces, and on a wooden tray under the linen was something waxlike that he called savon, which they could use for washing themselves. At the other opening the rough brick was covered with smoothsanded wood so that one could sit down. At first Cecilia wasn’t sure that she understood correctly, but when she pointed and hesitantly asked, he laughed and nodded that it was precisely what she thought it was, a retrit.Waste from the body was taken away at once by the stream of water and vanished through the brick wall to end a good way from the house in a stream that ran down to Bottensjön.

He said he wasn’t sure that the water would flow all winter long, even though the channel had been well buried along most of its length. But at the point where the water entered the house it had to be conducted up onto a hollow wall which Arn had no Nordic word for, so he called it by its Latin name of aqueduct.The difficulty was to ensure that the winter cold did not reach the stream of water when it came up from the ground. How well this system would work they would learn in midwinter, and if it didn’t work on the first try they would have to redo it.

Cecilia was so excited by all these new things she saw in her new house that she forgot to go into their bedchamber and instead ran outside to see how the water stream was built. Arn followed her, shaking his head happily, and explained it to her.

It was like at Varnhem or Gudhem, the same idea of making use of running water and gravity. Here at Forsvik the water in Bottensjön was at a lower level than in Lake Viken, and every channel they dug from one to the other would create new streams of water.

Cecilia had many questions about this miraculous water system, but then she realized that she’d completely forgotten about the rest of the house. She ran back in with a laugh to look at the sleeping chamber.

This room had a gable built entirely of stone, and in the middle of the gable was a large open fireplace with two chimneys and a rounded vault of spiral wrought iron that held up the whole hood to catch the smoke. The floor was made of timber sealed with pitch and resin, flax and moss, just as the walls were. Although not much of the floor was visible because it was covered by large red and black rugs of tightly woven wool with foreign patterns.

Arn told her that he had brought a good many of these carpets home with him on the ship, not only for his own use but also so that his men from the Holy Land would be pleased on cold Nordic winter nights to have the floor covered as it was back home.

For the time being the space in front of the open fireplace was merely a depression cut into the timbers. Arn explained that the limestone to cover this portion of the room had not yet arrived. But they would be burning a lot of wood in the winter, and for several reasons it was best that all the flooring near the fireplace be covered with stone.

In the room stood a large bed like the bridal bed at Arnäs, as if Arn had ordered it built to match. The walls were bare except for the wall facing the east to Bottensjön. There she saw a large oblong window with shutters that could be closed from both inside and out. Arn explained that this would be improved as soon as they got their glassworks going. The advantage of having such a big window was that it let light into the room with the morning sun that would call him to his day’s work; the disadvantage was easy to see, considering the cold and draftiness in winter. But with glass panes and secure seals around the window it would be much better.

The whole house smelled strongly of fresh timber, resin, and pitch. Outside the smell of pitch was even stronger, since all the new houses were covered with a thick layer. The intention wasn’t merely to prevent rot, or to build for eternity the way the Norsemen built their churches, said Arn. It was important to stop up every little chink between the horizontal logs of the walls. They had to be especially careful when building with fresh timber, which wasn’t the smartest thing to do because the wood would shrink as it dried. But they hadn’t had much choice; it was either houses built of fresh wood or no houses at all. The thick layers of pitch would help to ensure that the walls were airtight.

They walked past the next house, which was for some of the foreigners, but the third house was surprisingly not for people, but for livestock. There more than thirty horses would spend the winter, and it seemed that each horse had its own chamber. The far end of the building was for the cows, and the entire upper floor above the low ceiling was to be used for storing winter fodder. For now the building had an earthen floor that eventually would be replaced with stone slabs since they were easier to keep clean.

All three of these new houses stood next to the grey houses arranged in a square with an inner courtyard. That was the old Forsvik. He took her into the barnyard and explained that the old longhouse would now be winter quarters for the thralls and farm hands, but that there was as yet no house to use for feasts or guests.

In one of the new houses, he had planned for Forsvik’s yconoma to have her accounting chamber. Unless she would rather keep all such things in their own house, he quickly added to show that she was indeed the mistress of the estate and would decide for herself. Cecilia threw out both hands in dismay at the thought of doing work where they slept, so it was with relief that Arn took her around to see the growing row of smaller houses where the clang of work could already be heard in the various workshops.

And here they came to the greatest change at Forsvik, he announced proudly. Next to the new row of workshops was Forsvik’s garden, which included apple trees and all sort of vegetables. Unfortunately all this would have to be dug up. The question was how someone knowledgeable about cultivation, which he understood she was, might save as many of the plants as possible and move them to another location in the spring.

Cecilia thought that now he’d gone too far in his eagerness. Whatever was to be built here would have to be built somewhere else, she insisted.

Arn sighed and said that what was to be built here could not be built anywhere else. Here they were to build a new stone-lined water canal.

Cecilia wanted to save her garden, but she was unsure whether to insist or not because she didn’t understand the importance of this canal. She asked Arn to explain in more detail.

It was going to be a stone-lined canal in which the water would always flow with the same force in the spring, summer, autumn, and large parts of the winter. The power from the water would drive bellows and hammers in many of the workshops. His men from the Holy Land possessed all sorts of skills, he went on. They could work wonders if they had access to more power, and this was where it was, unfortunately, in the middle of the garden and orchard. But the canal would be the future of Forsvik; it would bring wealth and prosperity; it was the great endeavour that would lead to peace.

Cecilia tried to resist being swept along by Arn’s eager enthusiasm. She asked him to sit down next to her on an old stone bench next to the garden to explain everything one more time, but more slowly and in detail. Because if she didn’t understand what he was saying, she wouldn’t be able to offer any help.

Her words stopped him, and he sat down obediently next to her, caressed her hand, and shook his head with a smile as if asking her forgiveness.

‘So, let’s begin again,’ she said. ‘Tell me what will be coming in to Forsvik on Eskil’s ships. Let’s start with that. What will we have to purchase?’

‘Iron bars, wool, salt, livestock fodder, grain, skins, the type of sand we need to make glass, and various types of stone,’ he said.

‘And all this we have to pay for?’ she asked sternly.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t always mean we have to pay in silver.’

‘I know that!’ she snapped. ‘One can pay in many ways, but that’s a question for later. Now tell me instead what we will be producing at Forsvik.’

‘All the things that can be made from iron and steel,’ he replied. ‘All sorts of weapons that we can certainly make better than anyone in the kingdom, but also ploughshares and steel-clad wheels. We can mill flour at any time, night or day all year round, and so much grain will be coming with Eskil’s ships that we need never lack for it. We will make anything that has to do with leather and saddle-making. If we solve the problem with the clay, which now comes from too far away, the potters can work as steadily as the millers. But it’s glass that will give us the best income.’

‘All those things together don’t sound like income at all,’ Cecilia remarked with a frown. ‘It sounds like a loss. Because we also have big expenses maintaining the estate; there are many souls living here already, and there will be more this winter if I understand your plans correctly. And we have as many horses here as there are at the king’s Näs, and we don’t have enough winter fodder from our own fields. Are you quite sure, my love, that you haven’t been overcome by pride?’

At first he was completely silenced by her words; he took her hand in both of his and raised it to his lips, kissing it many times. She grew warm inside, but was not in the least soothed when it came to their business affairs.

‘In some respects you aren’t the same woman I left outside Gudhem, my love,’ he said. ‘You are much wiser now than you were then. You see things instantly that none of your kinsmen would ever comprehend. There is certainly no better wife than you in our kingdom.’

‘And that is exactly what I would like to be, your good wife,’ she replied. ‘But then I must also try to keep track of all your ambitious plans, because you seem to be building more than you’re thinking at the moment.’

‘That’s probably true,’ he admitted without looking in the least worried. ‘I had probably thought to leave debt and loss, profit and expenses to be figured out later, even though I know it has to be done.’

‘That’s a foolish way of thinking that could cost us a great deal, and many of us may pay for your recklessness with grumbling stomachs this winter,’ she said calmly. ‘Shouldn’t you stop and think about everything a bit more?’

‘Well, I can hear that I should leave the thinking about these matters to you,’ he said, kissing her hand again. ‘You know that in the beginning we can do business at a loss, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do. I’ve done that myself, although back then it was not something I intended or even comprehended. But you’ll need a thick layer of silver at the bottom of the coffer, and you must be sure that things will get better in the future.’

‘Here at Forsvik we meet both these conditions. But what sort of losses did you experience, my dear?’

‘Cecilia Blanca, Ulvhilde, and I were the first to think of the idea of bringing in silver to Gudhem by sewing mantles, the kind that almost everyone in the kingdom wears nowadays. At first we sold them too cheaply, so we were spending more silver on buying pelts and expensive thread from Lübeck than we earned once we sold the finished mantles,’ she said.

‘But then you raised the price and soon everybody wanted to have such fine mantles, so you raised the price even higher!’ Arn suggested, throwing out his arms as though there was nothing to worry about either now or later.

‘Yes, that’s how we managed to correct our ways,’ said Cecilia, but her frown was back. ‘You said that we have silver, and you said that things will be better in the future. You’ll have to explain that to me.’

‘Gladly,’ said Arn. ‘We have plenty of silver. What we can sell first is glass, but that income will be less than what we have to pay for all the other things. As soon as we can sell weapons, it will all even out. Then there is pottery, sawed timber, and several other things that will quickly turn our loss to profit, as soon as we get going.’

‘Weapons?’ Cecilia asked suspiciously. ‘How are we going to sell something that people make for themselves on their own farms?’

‘Because we’ll make much better weapons.’

‘How are you going to make people aware of that? You can’t just ride around displaying the weapons in your hand.’

‘No, but it will take some time to make all the weapons needed at Arnäs. They must have weapons and chain mail for a hundred men. And Eskil will have to pay for all of it. Then we have Bjälbo, and after that one Folkung estate after the other.’

‘Now that’s a new way to do business,’ Cecilia admitted with a sigh. ‘But the most important thing is not the iron coming in from Svealand to Forsvik and finished weapons going out. More important is that all the wool we have from our own sheep has disappeared for your…what was the word?’

‘Felt.’

‘Felt, yes. But we normally use the wool to make clothes for everyone, high-born and low. So now we have to pay for all that wool?’

‘Yes, both for clothing and to make more felt.’

‘And we need more hides than we can get from our own slaughtered livestock,’ said Cecilia, ‘and more meat, especially lamb, than we have on hand now to get through the winter. And fodder for all the livestock, especially the horses.’

‘Yes, there you see, my love. You see everything so clearly.’

‘Well, one of us has to keep accounts so we can do the right thing at the right time, and that’s not a simple calculation!’ she declared at last when she had thought things over. She envisioned difficulties piling up like a mountain in the near future.

‘Can I ask you, my own dear wife, to take charge of this?’ asked Arn, a bit too eagerly, she thought.

‘Yes, you can. I have my abacus, but this task will be more than anyone could hold in their head. I need writing implements and parchment in order to handle this work. And I’ll have to talk to many people, so it will take some time. But if we don’t start making calculations soon, we’re going to starve this winter!’

He promised her at once that she would receive everything she needed to begin keeping the account books. He added self-confidently that here at Forsvik they would never go hungry. After that he seemed to forget about the whole matter and went back to his own frenzied work.

When King Knut told Arn that the castle church at his Näs would be the closest for residents of Forsvik, it was not entirely true. There were closer churches. But if the winds were favourable on Lake Vättern, it was still faster to get to Näs than to any other church, since King Knut still retained Norwegian oarsmen and sailors.

At Olsmas, early in the morning Arn and Cecilia went on board the ship called The Snake.Cecilia was glad when she saw the slender black ship, and she hoped that the helmsman was the same one she had met before. And it was, she soon found out, but his long hair had now turned white.

Arn was not happy to see this ship again. He had been aboard during its first journey, which had ended in the death of a king, but he said nothing of this to Cecilia or anyone else when he bowed his head, crossed himself, and climbed aboard. The Norwegian oarsmen smiled to one another, since they thought they had another West Goth passenger who had never sailed before. They still told the merry tale about the noble lady who asked Styrbjørn himself whether he wasn’t afraid that he would get lost sailing on little Lake Vättern.

They had to row only for an hour before they caught a good wind and could set the sail. Then the crossing proceeded at a furious pace, with the white foam spraying up from the bow of the ship.

After the mass and the bride’s third purification in the castle church, the two Cecilias went off by themselves, while Knut took Arn up to the battlement between the two towers. There he ordered benches and a table to be brought, along with food and drink, which he was unsuccessful in pressing on Arn on this holy day.

There was much to discuss and one day would not be enough, Knut explained sadly, stroking his almost bald head. But they might as well begin with the simplest problem, which was to arrange the wedding between Magnus Månesköld and the Sverker daughter Ingrid Ylva. Knut said that he understood that both Arn and the bride’s father Sune Sik might be reluctant to have Arn act as the groom’s spokesman and thus negotiate with the man whose brother he had helped to kill. But Birger Brosa had solved that problem as easily as cracking a nut in his hand.

Magnus Månesköld had grown up as Birger Brosa’s foster son, and now was more of a younger brother. If Birger Brosa instead of Arn spoke on behalf of the groom, they would avoid all difficulties quite elegantly and insult no one. Besides, the king’s brother Sune Sik would have the honour of meeting the jarl of the kingdom as his future son-in-law’s negotiator.

Arn merely nodded his agreement and muttered that no more time need be wasted on this question if there was something that was more urgent.

The next matter to be discussed mixed pride with wisdom, so it could not be solved with wisdom alone. Still, Arn had to reconcile as soon as possible with his uncle, Birger Brosa.

Thinking that all the difficult topics of discussion had now been dealt with, Arn began asking eagerly how the kingdom was now being governed. He had understood that a great deal had changed since they were young, when everyone gathered at the tingof all Goths with the king, jarl, and judge and perhaps two thousand men. He hadn’t heard a word about such a tingsince he came home, so that must mean that the power had shifted away from the ting.

King Knut sighed that this was indeed true. Some things had improved with the new manner of governing the kingdom, others had grown worse.

At the tingfree men decided now as before all matters amongst free men. At the tingthey could present their disputes, determine fines for manslaughter, hang one another’s thieves, and settle other petty matters.

At the king’s council, on the other hand, matters were decided that dealt with the kingdom as a whole: who would be king, or jarl or bishop; taxes due to the king or jarl; building of cloisters; trade with foreign lands; and the defence of the realm. When Finns and Russians sailed into Lake Mälaren five years before, plundering and burning the town of Sigtuna, and killing Archbishop Jon, there was much for the kingdom’s council to decide. It could never have been done at a tingwith a thousand arguing men. A new city would have to be built to obstruct the inlet to Mälaren, at Agnefit where Mälaren met the Eastern Sea. Now a start had been made; defensive towers had been built, booms and chains had been stretched across the rivers so that no plunderers from the East could come back, at least not unnoticed as they did the last time. Such things were decided at the king’s council. This was new.

Arn was well aware of where Agnefit was situated, since he had once ridden that way and past Stocksund when he was returning from Östra Aros on his way to Bjälbo. He once proposed that it was there the king ought to have his seat rather than down at Näs in the middle of Lake Vättern.

No matter how impatient King Knut was to find the discussion moving in a completely different direction from that he had intended, he couldn’t help asking Arn to tell him more about this unexpected idea. What was wrong with Näs?

‘The location,’ replied Arn with a laugh. Näs was built by Karl Sverkersson for one simple reason. The king wanted to have a castle that was so safe that no one with murder on his mind could reach him. Arn and Knut knew better than anyone how futile that thought was, since it was at Näs that they had killed King Karl, less than an arrow-shot from the place where they now sat many years later.

‘The king should ideally have his seat where the gold and silver for the kingdom flow through,’ Arn went on. ‘Considering the present trade routes and how they might look in the future, this site should be in the east of the kingdom rather than in the west. For to the west lies Denmark.’

From Linköping in Eastern Götaland they could certainly handle the affairs of the kingdom, especially trade with Lübeck, and better than from remote Näs. But Linköping had been the Sverkers’ city from olden times, and for a king from the Erik clan that would be like seeking a home in a hornets’ nest. Instead the king should build himself a new city, by the Eastern Sea, a city that belonged to no one else.

Knut argued that Näs was safer. Here they could either defend themselves or flee, and for a good part of the year it was inaccessible to any enemy. If they built a new city it could be taken by storm and burned. Arn countered that the site at Agnefit and Stocksund was suitable for building a city that could not be taken. Besides they had only one enemy, and that was Denmark; if the Danes wanted to go to war against Western Götaland they could simply take the land route north from Skåne. And sailing past the Danes from Lödöse down to Lübeck would no longer be possible if the Danes should deny them passage. Denmark was a great power. But the east coast of the realm was not as easy for them to reach. And from Agnefit it was closer to Lübeck than from Näs, if reckoned in the same way that Knut had reckoned when he said that the closest church to Forsvik was the one at Näs. It would be the same if they moved the power of the realm from Näs to the east coast.

They twisted and turned the idea of the new city by the Eastern Sea, but finally Knut wanted to get back to matters he had planned to discuss. Most difficult was the intractable Archbishop Petter, or Petrus as he called himself. Having a hostile archbishop on his neck was the worst thing that could befall a king. Archbishop Petter was a Sverker man, and he made not the slightest effort to hide his ties to the clan. And his ambition was clear. He wanted to tear the crown from his own king and hand it to Sverker Karlsson, who had lived his entire life in Denmark.

The king’s council appointed every bishop in the realm, Knut explained. A bishop received his staff and ring from the king, and no one could become bishop without the king’s will. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as simple with the archbishop, for the king could neither refuse nor appoint him. It was Rome that decided, but now Rome had assigned that power to Archbishop Absalon in Lund, which was the same as handing it to Denmark.

So the Danes decided who was going to be archbishop in the land of the Swedes and Goths. No matter how backwards that might seem, nothing could be done about it. And even if Knut did what he could to cleanse the crowd of bishops of all Sverker men, those rogues changed their loyalty as soon as they received their ring and staff. Then they obeyed the archbishop regardless of what secret promises they had made to the king before receiving power. A cleric could never be trusted.

And that wily Petter never ceased arguing that Knut had not sufficiently atoned for the killing of King Karl. As long as the deed was not atoned for, it meant that he had unjustly seized the crown, even though he had been crowned and anointed. And a crown unjustly seized could not be inherited by the eldest son, Petter claimed.

There was also much grumbling about the claim that Queen Cecilia Blanca had actually taken cloister vows, so that her sons Erik, Jon, Joar, and Knut were all illegitimate. And illegitimate sons could not inherit the crown either, according to Petter. Archbishop Petter kept pulling on these two reins, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other.

Arn argued that the Church could not defy the king’s choice of successor. If the council decided to name Erik jarl as king after Knut, the bishops could grumble about it, roll their eyes, and talk about sin. And of course they could refuse to crown Erik. But there had been uncrowned kings of the realm before.

Unless all the bishops then went off to Denmark and crowned that Sverker instead, Knut put in, sounding disconsolate.

‘Then no man in the lands of the Swedes and Goths would take the matter seriously, and such a king in foreign service would never be able to set his foot in the realm,’ Arn said calmly.

‘But what if such a king came leading a Danish army?’ asked Knut, now looking anxious.

‘Then whoever wins the war will triumph, that’s nothing new,’ said Arn. ‘It’s the same as if the Danes wanted to turn us into Danes today; who we select as king will not determine the outcome.’

‘Do you think the Danes could do that? Could they conquer us?’ Knut asked, tears visible in his eyes.

‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ said Arn. ‘If we were so foolish as to meet a Danish army on the battlefield today, they would enjoy a great victory. If I were your marshal I would advise you not to fight them.’

‘So we’d be lost, and also disgraced because we refused to fight for our honour and our freedom?’

‘No,’ said Arn. ‘Not at all. It’s a long way from Sjælland to Näs, and even further to the Swedes’ Östra Aros. If a Danish army invaded our land, they would naturally want to have a quick and decisive victory, as long as the season was favorable and their supply lines were good. Now imagine if we didn’t give them that opportunity. They would be expecting, just as you are, that we would immediately call for a campaign, that every man in the realm would put on his iron helmet and come with axe in hand to be crushed by the Danish cavalry. They would die bravely and with honour, but they would die. What if we didn’t do that?’

‘Then we’d lose our honour, and no one will follow a king without honour!’ Knut replied with a sudden flash of wrath, pounding his fist on the table.

‘No one follows a dead king,’ said Arn coldly. ‘If the Danes don’t get the big battle they’re hoping for, they won’t win. They’ll burn a city. They’ll plunder villages, and it will cost us much misery. But then winter will come. Then their supplies will melt away, and we’ll take them one by one and cut off their supply lines home to Denmark. When spring comes you’ll be the great victor. More honour than that you cannot win.’