Текст книги "Birth of the Kingdom"

Автор книги: Ян Гийу

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Gure rubbed his hands to get warm as he kept his eyes on the floor, noticing how the master and mistress and the monk were all studying him, even though no one said a word. Suddenly Fru Cecilia stood up, took a tray with smoked ham on it from the bed, and carried it over to him with a knife.

Gure understood only that what had just happened could not have happened. A mistress did not serve food to a thrall, and he had no idea what he should do with the knife and ham. But she nodded and motioned for him to cut off a piece and eat it; reluctantly he did so.

‘It was not our intention to keep you waiting outside in the cold, Gure,’ said Sir Arn at last. ‘We asked you to come here because we wish to ask you about a certain matter.’

Sir Arn fell silent, and all three again stared at Gure. The smoked ham, which he had never before tasted, turned into a lump of wax in his mouth, and he was unable to swallow it.

‘What we are about to ask you must stay with us here in this room,’ Fru Cecilia went on. ‘We want to know your opinion, but we don’t want you to repeat our words to anyone else. Do you understand?’

Gure nodded, dumbstruck by what she said. He now guessed that something valuable must have been stolen and the master wanted to ask him about it, since he was the one who had the most oversight of all the thralls at Forsvik. He could tell that he was in a bad position since he knew nothing of this matter and they might not believe him. Thieves were hanged. But what happened to the person who protected a thief with lies?

‘If we gave you your freedom, Gure, what would you do?’ asked Sir Arn without the slightest warning.

Gure had to think carefully about this unexpected question. With great difficulty he finally managed to swallow the piece of meat in his mouth. He realized that he had to come up with a sensible answer, and at once, because the master and mistress and the monk were all looking at him, as if anticipating something remarkable.

‘First I would thank the White Christ, then I would thank my master and mistress,’ he replied at last, as if the words simply spilled from his lips. Though he immediately regretted that he hadn’t named his master and mistress before the White Christ.

‘And what would you do after that?’ asked Fru Cecilia.

‘I would go to a church man to be baptized,’ he replied slyly in order to gain time. But he won only a few moments’ delay because now the monk spoke up.

‘I can baptize you tomorrow, but what would you do after that?’ asked Brother Guilbert.

At first Gure had no answer. Freedom was a dream, but a dream that ended where it began. After that, there was nothing.

‘What could a free man do?’ asked Gure, thinking hard. ‘Wouldn’t a free man have to eat? Wouldn’t a free man have to work? If I, as a free man, could do the same building work that I now do, then I would. What else would I do?’

‘Do the others think the same?’ asked Fru Cecilia.

‘Yes, we all probably think the same way,’ replied Gure, now more sure of his words. ‘People have been whispering for some time that we might be freed. Some have said they are sure of it; others have snorted at the rumour, which always spreads through farms. Freedmen can stay with their masters or work new fields; everyone knows that. If we could stay at Forsvik, then we would. If you drove us away, we would have to accept that decision; there is no other choice.’

‘We thank you for these words,’ said Sir Arn. ‘You are a man who thinks sensibly, and you have already understood what we are intending. So let me speak the truth to you. When your mistress and I come back from Christmas at Arnäs, where we will stay until dawn, we intend to free all the thralls at Forsvik. That is the truth. But we don’t want you to speak of this matter to any of your peers, nor to anyone else, not even your own mother. This may be the last order I give you as a thrall, but you must obey.’

‘A thrall’s word is of no worth, either before the law or in the view of others,’ replied Gure looking Arn straight in the eye. ‘Yet I give you my word, Sir Arn!’

Arn merely smiled without replying as he got up and motioned for Cecilia to do the same. That brought Brother Guilbert to his feet as well. Gure understood at once that this was a sign for him to go, but he didn’t know how to take his leave; he attempted to bow and he slipped out.

As soon as Gure had shut the door behind him, Arn, Cecilia, and Brother Guilbert began talking all at once about the strange scene they had just witnessed. It was Arn’s view that what they had just seen and heard with their own eyes and ears showed that the thralls were not nearly as half-witted as people said. Brother Guilbert talked about baptizing those who were freed, and that Gure should be made foreman of the freed thralls so that Arn and Cecilia wouldn’t have to run around taking charge of every little matter. They both agreed about this, but Cecilia warned that perhaps not everyone was like Gure. For she had studied him closely as he spoke and thought she noticed something odd. Gure didn’t speak like any other thrall she had ever heard; he spoke almost as well as they did. It had also occurred to her that he didn’t look like a thrall, either. If Arn and Gure exchanged clothing, many might not be able to tell who was the thrall and who was the knight.

She didn’t know what had made her say these words, but she regretted them at once when, for the first time, she saw anger flash in Arn’s eyes. It didn’t help matters that she tried to jest to banish her reckless words by saying that of course she meant that Gure looked more like Eskil, only thinner.

The Saint Lucia celebrations were held around the darkest night of the year, when the forces of evil were stronger than at any other time, and so a great commotion was deliberately stirred up at Forsvik. A procession of house thralls plodded three times around the courtyard in the frigid midwinter night. Everyone carried blazing torches and wore horned masks made from woven straw. In spite of the bitter cold, many shivering Saracens peered outside in surprise or crowded onto their porch wrapped in mantles and rugs to watch the strange goings-on. It was so cold that the snow creaked loudly under the straw shoes that the thralls wore over their summer footwear.

Once again, the forces of evil were kept away from Forsvik on that night, and soon the frosty silence of midwinter settled over the estate anew; only the hunters were awake.

Arn and Cecilia, Torgils and the three boys, Sune, Sigfrid, and Bengt, and the Christian foreigners at Forsvik had all returned by sleigh from Arnäs after the dawn church service on Christmas Day. They had also attended the Christmas ale, which had been kept unusually moderate for the sake of old Herr Magnus. When they all returned, it was time for the big change.

On the following day, before the midday meal, all of Forsvik’s thralls were summoned to the great hall in the old longhouse. They were more than thirty souls, counting a few nursing infants resting in their mothers’ arms. Many of the thralls were workers in the fields or storehouses who had never set foot inside the great hall. The house thralls teased some of their kinsmen because of their wide-eyed amazement.

When everyone had gathered in the hall, Arn and Cecilia stood at the high seat. Arn was the one to speak, since Cecilia had requested that he do so, even though these thralls were rightfully her property and not his.

He briefly explained the reason for summoning them. He and Fru Cecilia had both decided that no one should be in bondage at Forsvik, since such a state was an abomination in the eyes of God. Hence they were now all free, and after their name they were allowed to add the name of Forsvik or call themselves Forsvikers, so that everyone in the villages and at other estates would know that they came from a place that had no thralls.

As free men and women, they would work for wages. Those who chose to remain at Forsvik would receive their first annual wages the following Christmas. For those who would rather work new fields near Forsvik as tenants, that too could be arranged.

After these words, Arn and Cecilia sat down. They were both surprised and disappointed that not a single thrall shrieked and no words of gratitude came streaming toward them. Nor did anyone say a prayer. They could see the startled looks on many faces, so they had no reason to believe that Gure had broken his promise to keep their secret. A few embraced the person standing nearest, and a few tears were also visible.

Around New Year’s the north wind began blowing, ushering in an entire week of snowstorms that wrapped Forsvik in a warm blanket of snow drifts, filling in all the crevices in the floors and windows of the old thrall houses, where the cold would have otherwise killed both those who were free and those who were not.

During the storms, not even the hunters went outside. At the smithies and glassworks, everyone continued their labours as usual, but it was impossible to conduct any riding practice. And since every vent and window of the stable was kept closed, they couldn’t continue with the exercises that Brother Guilbert had started with the boys and Torgils Eskilsson. No one could shoot arrows or swing a sword in the dark.

But midwinter in the North was the time for sagas and tales. No dark night went to waste without stories or long conversations about topics that few had time for during the busier seasons of the year. In the thrall houses sagas were recounted that would have displeased the master and mistress. But most of the freed men and women thought that what they didn’t hear wouldn’t harm them.

Arn and Brother Guilbert spent three days together in Arn and Cecilia’s chambers while she stayed with Suom and some of the former thrall women in the weaving house. It stood next to the hot glassworks, which made it easier to keep out the cold.

The question that Brother Guilbert and Arn discussed at length had to do with the difficulty of imagining goodness through violence. Many faithful Christians during that time would have had trouble understanding such a conversation. But for two Templar knights, there was nothing difficult about seeing swords and fire as serving God’s cause. Indeed, that was the role of the Knights Templar, given to them by God Himself and defended by His Mother.

Instead, the question had to be asked whether the strict Rule of the Templars could be applied to an ordinary Christian life.

Brother Guilbert was going to take a greater responsibility for training the boys in the use of weapons, because Arn was unsure that he himself was the best suited for the job. But this meant that they would have to take turns supervising the construction work at Arnäs, since the Muslim builders shouldn’t be left alone in a land where the laws would not protect them. And quarrels might easily arise. Brother Guilbert had noticed a few thrall women at Arnäs hovering around the building site at night.

For Arn it would not be easy taking his turn away from Forsvik. On one of the long winter nights Arn and Cecilia lay under the covers just as they had imagined that they would, and he recounted his long stories from the Holy Land. Now and then they were disturbed by a gust of wind striking the hearth and sending ash through the bedchamber. It was on that night that she first felt something stirring inside of her, like a little fish flicking its tail.

She understood what it was at once; she had already sensed but hadn’t dared believe in such a miracle. She was over forty, after all, and she thought she was far too old for this blessing.

Arn was in the middle of a story from the Holy Land, recounting how he had just ordered that the banner be unfurled with the symbol of the Virgin Mary, the High Protectress of the Templar Knights. And he raised his hand to give the signal to attack, and in unison all the white-clad knights made the sign of the cross and took several deep breaths.

Then Cecilia quietly took Arn’s hand and told him. He fell silent at once and turned to face her. And he saw that what she said was true and neither a dream nor a jest. Gently he embraced her and whispered that Our Lady had blessed them with yet another miracle.

Around the feast of Saint Tiburtius, during the time when the ice broke up in the lakes of Western Götaland, when the pike spawned and the riverboats started up with Eskil’s trade between Linköping and Lödöse again, Arn and the stonemasons travelled to Arnäs to resume the construction work. According to what Cecilia had told him, he had a good month ahead of him before he needed to return to see his newborn son or daughter. Cecilia thought it would be a daughter. Arn thought he would have yet another son. They had promised each other that if it was a son, Cecilia would choose his name, but if it was a daughter, then Arn would decide.

The work on the wall proceeded briskly, and the builders seemed happy to get started after a winter that at first had seemed pleasantly indolent, but in the end much too long. They also claimed to be satisfied with the new tools from Forsvik’s smithies and the work clothes that each of them had received in the proper size from the saddlemaker and the weaving house. They all wore leather garb from their shoulders down to their knees, and on their feet they had wooden clogs like those worn by the smiths, although with an iron cap around the toe and heel. Many had complained that dropping a stone could cause great misery if it landed on anyone’s foot.

The winter had damaged some of the structures, but not as much as Arn had feared, and soon the summer would dry out the top joints of the walls. Then the workers would be able to seal them with melted lead, just as Brother Guilbert had suggested. What now needed to be built was the longest expanse of the wall from the harbour to the living quarters and village. It would be an easy task, because there was to be only one tower in the middle, and it was rewarding to see how the work progressed day by day.

The question of which day of rest should be honoured had not yet been successfully resolved, or at least not everyone was satisfied. After long and tedious discussions at more than one majlisat Forsvik, Arn had grown weary of the issue and decided that at Arnäs Sunday should be counted as Friday. On Sundays the faithful couldn’t work anyway, since that would offend those who lived at Arnäs and lead to quarrels about who had the true faith. And those kinds of quarrels were the worst of all.

Since God is the One who sees all and hears all, and is both merciful and beneficent, Arn thought that He would certainly forgive His faithful – who were forced into exile so far away in a foreign land but only for a short period of their lives – if they made Sunday into Friday. After a good deal of brooding and discussion with the physician Ibrahim, who had the most book-learning of any of the Saracen guests, Arn had found certain passages in the Koran to support this arrangement that had been made out of necessity.

The work was monotonous and the days empty of conversation, except when the exchange of words had to do with which of two stones should be hewn to fit best with the one next to it. Even though all the stones were nearly the same when they came from the quarry at Kinnekulle, most had to be trimmed and altered slightly in order to fit together as tightly as possible, the way both Arn and the Saracen builders required.

Arn began counting the days and the hours till he would be able to return to Forsvik. He couldn’t leave until Brother Guilbert arrived, and he came a day later than they had agreed, a very long day for Arn. But he heard that everything was well with Cecilia, and nothing untoward had happened at Forsvik while he was away. The day she would give birth was approaching, but according to the womenfolk who knew about such matters, he should have no trouble getting there in time.

He took a hasty farewell from both his kinsmen and the builders. Never had he thought that a boat could move so slowly as it did on that day, and as he stopped for the night at Askeberga, he considered borrowing a horse to continue on through the light spring night at once. But he changed his mind when he saw only dray animals and slow Gothic steeds in the stable.

After the feasts of Filippus and Jacob, when the livestock was turned out to pasture and the fences mended in Western Götaland, Cecilia Algotsdotter gave birth to a healthy little girl at Forsvik. Afterwards a celebration was held for three days, and no one did any work, not even in the smithies. All free men and women at Forsvik took part with equal joy, since this blessing upon the house was now important to them all.

Arn decided that the child should be named Alde, a foreign name from one of his sagas, but also a beautiful name, Cecilia thought when she tried it out for herself as she lulled the little one to sleep at her breast. Alde Arnsdotter, she whispered.

Now the happiest time began for Arn and Cecilia since the day they were married. That was how they would always remember it. During that summer Arn, looking like a boyishly proud father, rode with his daughter in his arms nearly as often as he rode with those who were to become knights. And at that time there was no hint of the dark clouds gathering far in the distance, where the heavens and the earth met in the southwest.

TEN

There was nothing about death that frightened Arn; he seemed to be out of the habit of even thinking about it. Or perhaps he had seen too much during his twenty years on the battlefield in the Holy Land, where he had certainly killed more than a thousand men with his own hands and had seen many thousands of others die close at hand. A bad or arrogant commander could raise his arm and in the next instant send off a squadron of sixteen brothers against a superior force pursuing them. They would ride off without hesitation with their white mantles fluttering behind them, never to be seen again. Yet there was consolation in the knowledge that they would meet these brothers in Paradise. A Templar knight never needed to fear death, because victory and Paradise were his only choices.

But it was a different matter when death came to a man as a slow, withering and stinking torment in slime and his own shit. For three long years Arn’s friend Knut had dragged himself through life, growing steadily skinnier until finally he looked like a skeleton. When Yussuf and Ibrahim looked at him they could only shake their heads and say that the tumour eating at the king’s body from inside his stomach would keep growing until it devoured his life.

Now Knut lay stretched out in his bed in his childhood home of Eriksberg, and his arms and legs were as thin as hazel twigs. Under the covers the tumour was visible as a bulge in the middle of his stomach, which in an odd way was reminiscent of a pregnant woman. He had lost all his hair, even his eyebrows and eyelashes, and in his mouth could be seen big black holes where his teeth had fallen out. The stench of him filled the entire room.

Arn had come alone to Eriksberg. Unlike all others who travelled to the king’s deathbed, he could sit there for hours without minding the stench or even noticing it.

The king was still quite lucid. The tumour was eating his body but not his mind. It wasn’t hard for Arn to understand that he was the person the king preferred to talk to during his last days, but it probably surprised many others waiting at Eriksberg. With Arn the king could talk about the Inscrutable One and the Vengeful One as well as he could with Archbishop Petrus; the difference was that Arn didn’t look both expectant and impatient at the same time. For the archbishop it was a divine blessing that Knut was finally going to die; his death was a premonition of the new order about which the archbishop had said so many sincere prayers. According to King Knut, Sverker Karlsson in Denmark had already begun packing up for the journey, so it was really not much use to lie here and resist.

For large parts of his life Knut had lived out at Näs in the middle of Lake Vättern, constantly surrounded by stone walls and guards so that he wouldn’t die the same way so many other kings had done, including the one he had killed himself. Now that death sat in the waiting room with his hourglass in which the sand would soon run out, there were almost no armed men offering protection. The estate at Eriksberg was like any other normal large estate, without any walls or even a stockade of sharpened stakes, and the church that Saint Erik once had begun to build provided little defence. Nor was it necessary, for who would come to kill a man who already had one foot in the grave?

‘It’s still not fair,’ said King Knut in a weak voice and for at least the seventh time as Arn sat by his bedside on the second day. ‘I could have lived another twenty years, and now I have to go to my ancestors having suffered an ignominious death. Why does God want to punish me so? Am I a greater wretch than all the others? Just think of Karl Sverkersson, whom that archbishop Petter claims is the reason for my suffering. But why him? He was the one who had my father Saint Erik murdered! Isn’t the murder of a saint the worst possible sin?’

‘Yes, indeed it is a grave sin,’ said Arn with an almost impudent smile. ‘But if you think about it a bit, then you’ll probably understand that you’re grumbling about the wrong thing. How long had Karl Sverkersson been king when we killed him? Six or seven years? I don’t recall, but he was young, and you’ve been king five times as long as he was. Your life could have been more miserable and much shorter. You have to accept that. You have to be reconciled with your death and thank God for the grace He has shown you.’

‘I should thank God? Now? Here I lie in my own shit, suffering worse than a dog? How can you, who are my only true friend…just look around you, there’s nobody else here. But where was I? Oh yes, how can you say that I should thank God?’

‘At this hour it would at least be wiser than to blaspheme,’ replied Arn dryly. ‘But if you really want an answer, I’ll give you one. You shall soon die, that is true. I am your friend, that is also true, and our friendship goes far back in time—’

‘But you!’ the king interrupted him, pointing with a finger so emaciated that it looked like a bird’s claw. ‘How can you sit here healthy and feeling fine? Isn’t your sin just as great as mine when it comes to the killing of my father’s murderer?’

‘That’s possible,’ said Arn. ‘When I travelled to the Holy Land I had two sins with me in my saddlebag, heavy sins for my young age. Without the blessing of marriage I had joined together in the flesh with my beloved, and before that I had lain with her sister Katarina. And I had participated in killing a king. But these sins were atoned for over twenty years wearing the white mantle. You may think it’s unfair, but that’s how it is.’

‘How gladly I would have changed places with you in that case!’ the king snarled.

‘It’s a little late to think of that now,’ said Arn, shaking his head with a smile. ‘But if you keep your mouth shut for a moment I’ll try to tell you what I think. The sin that Karl Sverkersson committed when he caused the death of your father, Saint Erik, was something he had to atone for immediately. Now we come to you. You killed and partially atoned for the sin, but not wholly. Yet you have maintained a longer peace in the realm than any king I have heard of, and that will be reckoned in your favour in Heaven. You have five sons and a daughter, a charming wife in Cecilia Blanca, more than that, for in her you won a true queen who has been a great honour to you. You strengthened the power of the Church in the kingdom, something I don’t think you are entirely happy with just now, but that too will be reckoned in your favour. If you look at all this together, you have not lived a bad life and have not been ill rewarded. However, a debt remains to be paid for your sins, and better now than in Purgatory. So don’t complain, but die like a man, dear friend!’

‘What is Purga…what you said?’ asked King Knut hopelessly.

‘Purgatory, the cleansing fire. There your sin will be burned away with white-hot irons, so it might be time to repent.’

‘Can a Templar knight give me absolution for my sins? You are a type of monk, aren’t you?’ asked the king with a sudden spark of hope in his eyes.

‘No,’ Arn said curtly. ‘When you confess for the last time and receive extreme unction from Archbishop Petrus, you will receive forgiveness for your sins. As glad as he will be about your death, it would surprise me if he didn’t show you all conceivable kindness at that moment.’

‘That Petter is nothing but a traitor; if I weren’t dying he would want to see me killed!’ snapped King Knut, coughing and drooling. ‘And if he’s in such a good mood at my deathbed he’ll refuse to give me absolution, and then I’ll lie here as powerless as a child and deceived as well. What won’t that cost me in Purgatory?’

‘Nothing,’ said Arn calmly. ‘Now think carefully about this: God is greater than everything else. He hears all and He sees all. He is with us now. Your state of mind is the important thing; if Archbishop Petrus fails you then he in turn will have to pay for it. But you must trust in God.’

‘I want to have a priest who will give me forgiveness for my sins. And I don’t trust that Petter,’ the king muttered.

‘Now you’re being as stubborn as a child, and that doesn’t become your dignity. If you believe that you can stay alive a few more days, then I’ll call Father Guillaume here from Varnhem. He can take care of the extreme unction, confession, and forgiveness of your sins. After all, you will be going to your eternal rest at Varnhem, and that will not happen without some silver coins with your father’s picture on them. If you wish, I will ride to fetch Father Guillaume, but then you must promise to stay alive for a few more days.’

‘I don’t dare promise,’ said the king.

‘Then we’re back to the only thing that can truly save your soul. You have to trust in God,’ said Arn. ‘This is your moment to turn to God the Father; you are a king on his deathbed, and He will listen to you. You don’t need to take a detour through the saints or His Mother. Trust in God, only in Him!’

King Knut lay silent for a while, pondering what Arn had said. To his astonishment he actually did find solace in his words. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands and tried to say a silent prayer directly to God Himself. Naturally he realized that this was like a drowning man grasping at the last straw, but it didn’t hurt to try. At first he felt nothing inside but his own thoughts, but after a while it was as though a warm flood of hope and solace filled him, as if God replied by briefly touching him with His Spirit.

‘I’m complaining too much about my situation!’ he said, suddenly opening his eyes and turning toward Arn. ‘I hereby consign my soul to God, and with that enough about me. Now to my sons! Do you swear that you are among those who will make Erik jarl the next king after the Dane?’

‘Yes, I am among them,’ said Arn. ‘If Birger Brosa didn’t tell you all this already, I will tell you what has been decided. We have an agreement with the one you call the Dane, Sverker Karlsson. He has no son. After him comes Erik, your eldest son. After Erik come his brothers, first Jon, then Joar, and then Knut. This must any Sverker swear before taking the crown. It’s not God Who gives him the crown, but we free men in the lands of the Goths and Svealand. If he swears the oath then the rest of us will swear him loyalty as long as he stands by his oath. That is how it will be.’

‘And is this a good solution or a bad one?’ asked the king through clenched teeth, overcome by intense pain. ‘I’m going to die, and you’re the only one who will speak honestly to me. Tell me the truth, dear Arn.’

‘If everyone stands by his oath all will be well,’ Arn replied. ‘Then Erik jarl will become king at about the same time he would have been crowned if you had lived as long a life as my father or Birger Brosa. The cost to us will be the humiliation of having to live under the red mantles for a time. What we gain is that we save the realm from a devastating war that we could win only with great difficulty, at a high price in dead warriors and burned buildings. And so this is a good solution.’

‘Will you be part of the royal council?’

‘No, Birger Brosa has sworn that I will never be allowed to be part of the council.’

‘But I thought you two had been reconciled.’

‘That we have. But I’m not suited to be a member of the Danes’ royal council.’

‘Why not? I myself missed your services in the council. No king in our land could have a better marshal than you.’

‘That’s just it,’ said Arn with a secretive smile. ‘Birger Brosa and I are indeed completely in agreement, and we have spoken more than once about the matter. If I sat in King Sverker’s council as his marshal, and also bound by my oath of fealty to him, I might do him more harm than good. Now Birger Brosa and I are pretending that our discord continues, and I am being kept at Forsvik. There I will continue to build the power which shall be that of the Eriks and Folkungs.’

King Knut thought carefully about what he had just heard, and found that it was precisely as wily as could be expected from Birger Brosa. Once more he felt a warm stream inside him, as if God were reminding him with a slight touch.

‘Will you swear to me and to Erik that you are his marshal and no one else’s?’ he asked after long contemplation.

‘Yes, but we have to be cautious with our words,’ said Arn. ‘Remember that I must first swear the oath of allegiance to the Dane as all the others do. But that oath applies only as long as he keeps his word. If he breaks it, there will be war. In such a war I will be Erik Knutsson’s marshal, that I swear, and I can swear that to both of you!’