JAN GUILLOU

The Crusades Trilogy

The Road
to Jerusalem

Translated by Steven T. Murray

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Jan Guillou

Jan Guillou asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Translation copyright © Steven T. Murray 2009 First published in Swedish as Vägen till Jerusalem

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Source ISBN: 9780007285853

Ebook edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007313952

Version 2019-02-22

Dedication

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’

Jacula Prudentum, 1651, no. 170

Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Principal Characters Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Keep Reading About the Author About the Publisher

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

THE FOLKUNG CLAN

(including the Bjälbo branch)

Magnus Folkesson, master of Arnäs

Fru Sigrid, first wife of Magnus Folkesson and mother of Eskil and Arn

Erika Joarsdotter, second wife of Magnus Folkesson

Eskil Magnusson, first son of Magnus Folkesson

Arn Magnusson, second son of Magnus Folkesson

Birger Brosa, younger brother of Magnus Folkesson

THE ERIK CLAN

King Erik Jedvardsson, king of Svealand

Joar Jedvardsson, brother of Erik Jedvardsson

Kristina Jedvardsson, wife of Erik Jedvardsson (and kinswoman to Fru Sigrid)

King Knut Eriksson, son of Erik Jedvardsson

THE SVERKER CLAN

King Sverker, king of Eastern Götaland

Queen Ulvhild, first wife of King Sverker

King Karl Sverkersson, son of King Sverker and Ulvhild

Rikissa, second wife of King Sverker

Knut Magnusson, son from Rikissa’s first marriage, later king of Denmark

Emund Ulvbane (aka ‘Emund One-Hand’)

Boleslav and Kol, half-brothers of King Karl Sverkersson

THE PÅL CLAN

Algot Pålsson, steward of Husaby

Katarina Algotsdotter, older daughter of Algot

Cecilia Algotsdotter, younger daughter of Algot

THE CLERGY (Cistercians from France)

Father Henri de Clairvaux, prior of Varnhem

Brother Guilbert de Beaune, the weapons smith

Brother Lucien de Clairvaux, the gardener

Brother Guy le Breton, the fisherman

Brother Ludwig de Bêtecourt, the music master

Brother Rugiero de Nîmes, the chef

Archbishop Stéphan

THE DANES

King Sven Grate of Denmark

Magnus Henriksen, the king-slayer

THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM

ONE

In the year of Grace 1150, when the ungodly Saracens, the scum of the earth and the vanguard of the Antichrist, inflicted many defeats on our forces in the Holy Land, the Holy Spirit descended upon Fru Sigrid of Arnäs and gave her a vision which changed her life.

Perhaps it could also be said that this vision had the effect of shortening her life. What is certain is that she was never the same again. Less certain is what the monk Thibaud wrote much later, that at the very moment the Holy Spirit revealed itself to Sigrid, a new realm was actually created up in the North, which at the end of the era would come to be known as Sweden.

It was at the Feast of St Tiburtius, the day regarded as the first day of summer, when the ice melts in Western Götaland. Never before had so many people gathered in Skara, since it was no ordinary mass that was now to be celebrated. The new cathedral was going to be consecrated.

The ceremonies were already into their second hour. The procession had made its three circuits around the church, moving with infinite slowness because Bishop Ödgrim was a very old man, shuffling along as if it were his last journey. He also seemed a bit confused, because he had read the first prayer inside the blessed church in the vernacular instead of in Latin:

God, Thou who invisibly preserveth everything

but maketh Thy power visible for the salvation of

humanity,

take Thy house and rule in this temple,

so that all who gather here to pray

might share in Thy solace and aid.

And God did indeed make His power visible, though whether for the salvation of humanity or for other reasons is unknown. It was a pageant like none ever seen before in all of Western Götaland: there were dazzling colours from the vestments of the bishops in light-blue and dark-red silk with gold thread; there were overpowering fragrances from the censers which the canons swung as they walked about, and there was a music so heavenly that no ear in Western Götaland could ever have heard its like before. And if you raised your eyes it was like looking up into Heaven itself, but under a roof. It was inconceivable that even the Burgundian and English stonemasons could have created such a high vault that would not come crashing down, if for no other reason than that God might be angry at the vanity of attempting to build an edifice that could reach up to Him.

Fru Sigrid was a practical woman. Because of this some people said that she was a hard woman. She had absolutely not wanted to set off on the difficult journey to Skara, since spring had come early and the roads had softened to a sea of mud. She was uneasy at the thought of sitting in a wagon that jolted and bounced and careened back and forth, in her blessed condition. More than anything else in this earthly life, she feared the coming birth of her second child. And she knew very well that if a cathedral was being consecrated, it would mean standing on the hard stone floor for several hours and falling to her knees repeatedly in prayer. She was well versed in the many rules of church life, surely far better than most of the noblemen and their daughters surrounding her just now, but she had not acquired this knowledge through faith or free will. When she was sixteen years old her father, with good reason, took it into his head that she was paying too much attention to a kinsman from Norway of far too low birth, which might have led to something that belonged only within the sacrament of marriage, as her father gruffly summed up the problem. So she had been sent away for five years to a convent in Norway. She probably never would have been released if she hadn’t come into an inheritance from a childless uncle in Eastern Götaland; thus she became a woman to be married off instead of languishing in a convent.

So she knew when to stand and when to kneel, when to rattle off the Pater Nosters and Ave Marias which some of the bishops at the altar were intoning, and when to say her own prayers. Each time she had to say her own prayer, she prayed for her life.

God had given her a son three years before. It had taken two days and nights to give birth to him; twice the sun had gone up and gone down again while she was bathed in sweat, anguish, and pain. She knew she was going to die, and in the end all the good women helping her knew it too. They had sent for the priest in Forshem, and he had given her extreme unction and forgiveness for her sins.

Never again, she had hoped. Never again such pain, such terror of death, she now prayed. It was a selfish thing to ask, she knew that. It was common for women to die in childbed, and a human being is born in pain. But she had made the mistake of praying to the Holy Virgin to spare her, and she had tried to fulfil her marital duties in such a way that they would not lead to another childbed. Their son, Eskil, had lived after all.

The Holy Virgin had punished her, of course. New torments now awaited her, that was certain. And yet she prayed over and over to come through it easily.

To lighten the lesser but irksome nuisance of standing and kneeling, standing up and then kneeling down again, for hours on end, she’d had her thrall woman Sot baptized so that she could come along into God’s house. She had Sot stand next to her, and she leaned on the thrall when she had to get up and down. Sot’s big black eyes were open wide like terrified horse’s eyes, staring at everything she now observed. If she wasn’t a real Christian before then she ought to have become one by now.

Three man-lengths in front of Sigrid stood King Sverker and Queen Ulvhild. The two of them, both weighed down by age, were having more and more trouble standing up and kneeling down without too much puffing. Yet it was for their sake and not for God’s that Sigrid was in the cathedral. King Sverker held neither her Norwegian and Western Götaland kinsmen nor her husband’s Norwegian and Folkung lineage in high esteem. But now, at his advanced age, the king had grown both suspicious and anxious about his life after this earthly one. Missing the king’s great and blessed church dedication might have caused a misunderstanding. If a man or woman offended God in some way, that matter might be taken up with God Himself. Sigrid considered it worse to be on the wrong side of the king.

But during the third hour Sigrid’s head began to swim, and she was having more and more trouble kneeling down and getting up again. The child inside her kicked and stirred all the more, as if in protest. She had the feeling that the pale-yellow, polished marble floor was undulating beneath her. She thought she saw it begin to crack, as if it might suddenly open up and swallow her whole. Then she did something quite outrageous. She walked resolutely, silk skirts rustling, over to a little empty bench off to the side and sat down. Everyone saw it, the king too.

Just as she sank with relief onto the stone bench next to the church wall in the middle of the side aisle, the monks from the island of Lurö came filing in. Sigrid wiped her brow and face with a small linen handkerchief and gave her son, standing next to Sot, an encouraging wave.

Then the monks began to sing. Silently and with bowed heads they walked up the entire length of the centre aisle and took their places by the altar, where the bishops and their acolytes now drew aside. At first it sounded like a muffled, soft murmur, but then the high voices of the boys joined in. Some of the Lurö monks had brown cowls, not white, and were quite clearly young boys. Their voices rose like ethereal birds up to the huge vaults of the ceiling. When their singing had risen so high that it filled the entire enormous space, the low voices of the monks themselves joined in, singing the same melody and yet not the same. Sigrid had heard psalms sung in both two and three voices, but this had at least eight different parts. It was like a miracle, something that could not happen, since even a three-part psalm was difficult to master.

Exhausted, Sigrid stared wide-eyed in the direction of the miracle, listening with her entire being, her entire body. She began to tremble with excitement. Blackness fell over her eyes, and she no longer saw but only heard, as if her eyes too had to lend their powers to her hearing. She seemed to vanish, as if she were transmuted into tones, into a part of the holy music, more beautiful than any music ever heard in this earthly life.

A while later she came to her senses, when someone took her by the hand, and when she looked up she discovered King Sverker himself.

He patted her gently on the hand and thanked her with a wry smile because he, as an old man, was in need of a woman with child who would be the first to sit down. If a blessed woman could do so, then so too could the king, he said. It would not have looked proper for him to go first.

Sigrid firmly suppressed the idea of telling him that the Holy Spirit had just spoken to her. It seemed to her that such an admission would merely seem as if she were boasting, and kings saw more than enough of that, at least until someone chopped off their heads. Instead she quickly whispered an idea that had come to her.

As the king no doubt already knew, there was a dispute over her inheritance of Varnhem. Her kinswoman Kristina, who had recently married that upstart Erik Jedvardsson, was laying claim to half the property. But the monks on the island of Lurö needed to live in a region with less severe winters. Much of their farming had been in vain out there, and everyone knew it; not to disparage King Sverker’s great generosity in donating Lurö to them. But if she, Sigrid, now donated Varnhem to the Cistercian monks, the king could bless the gift and declare it legal, and the whole problem would be resolved. Everyone would gain.

She had been speaking quickly, in a low voice, and a little breathlessly, her heart still pounding after what she had witnessed in the heavenly music after the darkness turned to light.

The king seemed a bit taken aback at first; he was hardly used to people near him speaking so directly, without courtly circumlocutions. Especially women.

‘You are a blessed woman in more than one respect, my dear Sigrid,’ he said at last, taking her hand again. ‘Tomorrow when we have slept our fill in the royal palace after today’s feast, I shall summon Father Henri, and we will take care of this entire matter. Tomorrow, not now. It’s not proper for us to sit here together for very long, whispering.’

With the wave of a hand she had now given away her inheritance, Varnhem. No man could break his word to the king, nor any woman either, just as the king may never break his word. What she had done could not be undone.

But it was also practical, she realized when she had recovered a bit. The Holy Spirit could indeed be practical, and the ways of the Lord were not always inscrutable.

Varnhem and Arnäs lay a good two days’ ride from each other. Varnhem was outside Skara, not far from the bishop’s estate near Billingen Mountain. Arnäs was up in the north of the region, on the eastern shore of Lake Vänern, where the forest Sunnanskog ended and the woods of Tiveden began, near Kinnekulle Mountain. The Varnhem estate was newer and in much better condition, which is why she wanted to spend the coldest part of the year there, especially as the dreaded childbed approached. Magnus, her husband, wanted them to take his ancestral estate Arnäs as their abode, while she preferred Varnhem, and they had not been able to agree. At times they could not even discuss the subject in a friendly, patient manner as befitted a husband and wife.

Arnäs needed to be repaired and rebuilt. But it lay in the unclaimed borderlands along the edge of the forest; there was a great deal of common land and royal land that could be acquired by trade or purchase. Much could be improved, especially if she moved all her thralls and livestock from Varnhem.

This was not precisely the way the Holy Spirit had expressed the matter when He revealed Himself to her. She had seen a vision that was not altogether clear: a herd of beautiful horses shimmering in many colours like mother-of pearl. The horses had come running toward her in a meadow covered with flowers. Their manes were white and pure, their tails were raised haughtily, and they moved as playfully and lithely as cats. They were graceful in all their movements, not wild but not free either, since these horses belonged to her. And somewhere behind the gambolling, frisky, unsaddled horses came a young man riding on a silver stallion. It too had a white mane and raised tail. She knew the young man and yet did not. He carried a shield but wore no helmet. She didn’t recognize the coat of arms from any of her own kinsmen or her husband’s; the shield was completely white with a large blood-red cross, nothing more.

The young man reined in his horse right next to her and spoke to her. She heard all the words and understood them, and yet did not grasp their import. But she knew what they meant – she should give God the gift that was now needed most of all in the country where King Sverker ruled: a good place for the monks of Lurö to live. And Varnhem was a very good place.

When she came out onto the steps of the cathedral her head cleared with the cold, fresh air. She understood with sudden insight, almost as if the Holy Spirit was still upon her, how she would tell all this to her husband, who was coming toward her in the crowd carrying their cloaks over his arm. She regarded him with a cautious smile, utterly confident. She was fond of him because he was a gentle husband and a considerate father, although not a man to be respected or admired. It was hard to believe he was actually the grandson of a man who was his direct opposite, the powerful jarl Folke the Stout. Magnus was a slender man, and if he hadn’t been wearing foreign clothes he might be taken for anyone in the crowd.

When he came up to Sigrid he bowed and asked her to hold her own cloak while he first swung his large, sky-blue cloak lined with marten fur around him and fastened it under his chin with the silver clasp from Norway. Then he helped her with her cloak and tentatively caressed her brow with his soft hands, which were not the hands of a warrior. He asked her how she had managed to stand for such a long praise-song to the Lord in her blessed state. She replied that it hadn’t been any trouble, because she had brought Sot along to serve as support, and because the Holy Spirit had granted her a revelation. She spoke in the way she did when she wasn’t being serious. He smiled, thinking it was one of her usual jokes, and then looked around for his man who was bringing his sword from the church entryway.

When Magnus swept his sword in under his cloak and began fastening its scabbard, both his elbows jutted out, making him look broad and mighty in a way that she knew he was not. Then he offered Sigrid his arm and they made their way carefully through the crowd, where the most distinguished churchgoers now mixed with the common folk and thralls. In the middle of the marketplace Frankish acrobats were performing, along with a man who spit fire; pipes and fiddles were being played, and muffled drums could be heard over by one of the large ale tents. After a while Sigrid took a deep breath and bluntly told him everything at once.

‘Magnus, my dear husband, I hope you’ll take it with manly calm and dignity when you hear what I’ve just done,’ she began, taking another deep breath and continuing quickly before he could reply. ‘I have given my word to King Sverker that I will donate Varnhem to the Cistercian monks of Lurö. I can’t take back my word to a king, it’s irreversible. We’re going to meet him tomorrow at the royal estate to have the promise written out and sealed.’

As she expected, he stopped short to give her a searching glance, looking for the smile she always wore when she was teasing him in her own special way. But he soon realized that she was completely serious, and then anger overcame him with such force that he probably would have struck her for the first time if they hadn’t been standing in the midst of kinsmen and enemies and all the common folk.

‘Have you lost your wits, woman? If you hadn’t inherited Varnhem you’d still be withering away in the convent. It was only because of Varnhem that we were married at all.’

He managed to control himself and speak in a low voice, but with his teeth firmly clenched.

‘Yes, all that is true, my dear husband,’ she replied with her eyes lowered chastely. ‘If I hadn’t inherited Varnhem, your parents would have chosen another wife for you. I would have been a nun by now in that case. But Eskil and the new life I’m carrying under my heart would not have existed without Varnhem.’

Magnus did not reply. Just then Sot approached them with Eskil, who ran to his mother at once and took her hand, chattering excitedly about everything he had seen inside the cathedral.

Magnus lifted his son in his arms and stroked his hair lovingly as he regarded his lawful wife with something other than affection. But then he put the boy down and barked at Sot to take Eskil with her to watch the players; they would join her again soon. Sot took the boy by the hand and led him off whining and protesting.

‘But as you also know, my dear husband,’ Sigrid resumed quickly, ‘I wanted Varnhem to be my bridal morning gift, and I had that gift deeded to me under seal, along with little more than the cloak on my back and some gold for my adornment.’

‘Yes, that is also true,’ replied Magnus sullenly. ‘But even so, Varnhem is one-third of our common property, a third that you have now taken from Eskil. What I can’t understand is why you would do something like this, even though it is within your right.’

‘Let’s stroll over toward the players and not stand here looking as if we might be quarreling with each other, and I’ll explain everything.’ She offered him her arm.

Magnus looked around self-consciously, forced a smile, and took her by the arm.

‘All right,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Let’s begin with earthly matters, which seem to be filling your head the most right now. I will take all the livestock and thralls with me up to Arnäs, of course. Varnhem does have better buildings, but Arnäs is something we can rebuild from the ground up, especially now that we’ll have so many more hands to put to work. This way we’ll have a better place to live, particularly in the wintertime. More livestock means more barrels of salted meat and more hides that we can send to Lödöse by boat. You want so much to trade with Lödöse, and we can easily do so from Arnäs in both summer and winter, but it would be difficult from Varnhem.’

Leaning forward, he walked silently by her side, but she could see that he had calmed down and was starting to listen with interest. She knew that they wouldn’t have to argue now. She saw everything as clearly before her as if she had spent a long time planning it all out, although the whole idea was less than an hour old.

More leather hides and barrels of salted meat for Lödöse meant more silver, and more silver meant they could buy more seed. More seed meant that more thralls could earn their freedom by breaking new ground, borrowing seed, and paying them back twofold in rye that could be sent to Lödöse and exchanged for more silver. And then they could repair the fortifications to ensure Arnäs’ safety, especially in the frost of winter. By gathering all their forces at Arnäs instead of dividing their efforts between two places, they would soon grow richer and own even more land with all the newly broken ground. They would have a warmer, safer house, and leave a larger inheritance to Eskil than they could have otherwise.

When they had made their way to the front of the crowd, Magnus stood silent and pensive for a long time. Out of breath, Sot appeared with little Eskil in her arms; she held him up in front of her so that people could see from his clothing that she had the right to push through the crowd. Then the boy jumped down and stood in front of his mother, who gently laid her hands on his shoulders, stroked his cheek, and straightened his cap.

The players in front of them were busy building a high tower composed of nothing but people, with a little boy, perhaps only a couple of years older than Eskil, climbing alone to the very top. The people shouted in fear and amazement.

Eskil pointed eagerly and said he wanted to be a performer too, which made his father break out in surprisingly hearty laughter. Sigrid glanced at him cautiously and thought that with that laughter the danger had passed.

He noticed her sneaking a glance at him and kept laughing as he bent forward and kissed her on the cheek.

‘You are truly a remarkable woman, Sigrid,’ he whispered with no anger in his voice. ‘I’ve thought over what you said, and you’re right about everything. If we gather all our forces at Arnäs we will grow richer. How could any merchant have a better, more faithful wife than you?’

With downcast eyes she replied at once, softly, that no wife could ever have a kinder, more understanding husband than she did. But then she raised her glance, gazed at him gravely, and admitted that she’d had a vision in the church; all her ideas must have come from the Holy Spirit Himself, even the clever part that had to do with business.

Magnus looked a little cross, as if he didn’t really believe her, almost as if she were making fun of the Holy Spirit. He was much more devout than she was, and they both knew it. Her years in the convent had not softened her in the least.

When the players finished their performance they went off to the ale tent to collect their free ale and the well-turned piece of roast they had earned. Magnus picked up his son and walked with Sigrid at his side, with Sot ten respectful paces behind, and headed for the town gate; on the other side of the fence their wagons and retainers were waiting. On the way Sigrid told him about the vision that she’d had. She also offered her interpretation of the holy message.

It was well known that a difficult childbirth was often followed by another difficult one, and soon it would be time again. But by donating Varnhem she was ensured many prayers of intercession, and by men who were particularly knowledgeable about such prayers. She and the new child would be allowed to live.

More important, of course, was that their united lineages would now grow stronger as the power and wealth of the Arnäs estate increased. The only thing she was unsure of was who the young man might be on the silver horse with the thick white mane, its long white tail raised boldly in the air. Probably not the Holy Bridegroom, at any rate. He wouldn’t be likely to appear riding on a frisky stallion and carrying a shield on his arm.

Magnus was intrigued by the conundrum and pondered it a while; he began interrogating her about the size of the horses and the way they moved. Then he protested that such horses probably did not exist, and he wondered what she meant by saying that the shield had a cross of blood on it. In that case it would indeed be a red cross, but how could she know it was blood and not merely red paint?

She replied that she simply knew. The cross was red, and of blood. The shield was all white. She hadn’t seen much of the young man’s clothing because his shield concealed his breast, but he was wearing white garments. White, just like the Cistercians, but he was definitely no monk because he bore the shield of a warrior.

With interest Magnus asked about the shape and size of the shield, but when he found out it was heart-shaped and only big enough to protect the chest, he shook his head in disbelief and explained that he had never seen a shield like that. Shields were either big and round, like those once used when venturing out on Viking raids, or they were long and triangular so that warriors could move easily when gathered in a phalanx. A shield as small as the one she had seen in the vision would be more trouble than protection if anyone tried to use it in battle.

But no ordinary person could expect to understand everything in a revelation. And in the evening they would pray together, grateful that the Mother of God had showed them her kindness and wisdom.

Sigrid sighed, feeling great relief and serenity. Now the worst was over, and all that was left was to cajole the old king so that he wouldn’t pass off her gift as his own. Since the king had grown old, people had begun to worry about the number of daily prayers of intercession offered on his behalf; he had already founded two cloisters to ensure this would be done for him. Everyone knew about this, his friends as well as his enemies.

King Sverker had a ferocious hangover and was in a rage when Sigrid and Magnus entered the great hall of the royal palace. The king now had to settle a good day’s worth of decisions about everything, from how the thieves caught at the market the day before were to be executed – whether they should just be hanged or tortured first – to questions regarding disputes about land and inheritance that could not be resolved at a regular ting; the assembly of noblemen.

What made him more cross than the hangover was the day’s news about his next youngest son, the scoundrel, who had deceived him in a deplorable way. His son Johan had left on a plundering raid to the province of Halland in Denmark; that in itself was probably not so dangerous. Young men were liable to do such things if they wanted to gamble with their lives instead of just playing at dice. But Johan had lied about the two women he had abducted and brought home to thralldom, claiming they were foreign women he had kidnapped at random. But now a letter had arrived from the Danish king, unfortunately claiming something quite different, which no one doubted. The two women were the wife of the Danish king’s jarl in Halland and her sister. It was an affront and an outrage, and anyone who was not the son of a king would have been executed at once for such a crime. The king had reprimanded him, of course. But it wasn’t enough to send back the women as blithely as they had been stolen. It was going to cost a great deal of silver, no matter what; in the worst case they might have a war on their hands.

King Sverker and his closest advisers had become embroiled in such a quarrel that everyone in the hall was soon aware of the whole story. The only thing that was certain was that the women had to be returned. But agreement ended there. Some thought it would be a sign of weakness to make payments in silver; it might give the Danish king, Sven Grate, the incentive to invade, plunder, and seize land. Others thought that even a great deal of silver would be less costly than being invaded and plundered, no matter who the victor might be in such a war.

After a long, exhaustive argument the king suddenly gave a weary sigh and turned to Father Henri de Clairvaux, who sat waiting at the far end of the hall for the Lurö case to be presented.

The priest’s head was bowed as if in prayer, with his white cowl drawn over his face so no one could see whether he was praying or sleeping, although the latter was more likely. In any case, Father Henri hadn’t been able to follow the heated discussion, and when he replied to the king’s summons it sounded like Latin. As there was no other clergyman present, no one understood. The king looked angrily around the hall; red in the face, he roared, ‘Bring me some devil who can understand this snooty cleric language!’

Sigrid instantly saw her opportunity. She stood up and walked forward in the hall with her head bowed, curtseying deferentially first to King Sverker and then to Father Henri.

‘My king, I am at your service,’ she said and stood waiting for his decision.

‘If there is no man here who speaks that language, then so be it,’ the king sighed wearily again. ‘By the way, how is it that you speak it, Sigrid, my dear?’ he added more kindly.

‘I’m afraid I must admit that the only thing I really learned during my banishment to the cloister was Latin,’ replied Sigrid demurely. Magnus was the only man in the hall who noticed her mocking smile; she often spoke in this manner, saying one thing but meaning another.

The king promptly asked Sigrid to sit down next to Father Henri, explain the situation to him, and then ask for his view of the matter. She obeyed at once, and while she and Father Henri began a hushed conversation in the language which they alone understood among all the people in the hall, a mood of embarrassment began to spread. The men looked querulously at one another, some shrugged their shoulders, some demonstratively folded their hands and raised their eyes to heaven. A woman in the king’s court among all these good men? But so be it. What was already done could not be undone.

After a while Sigrid stood up. To quiet the muttering in the hall, she explained in a loud voice that Father Henri had considered the matter and now believed that the wisest thing to do would be to force the blackguard to marry the sister of the jarl’s wife. But the jarl’s wife must be sent home with gifts and fine clothing, with banners and fanfare. King Sverker and his scoundrel son would thus have to refuse a dowry, so the question of silver was solved. No consideration could be given to what the knave himself thought; if he and the sister of the jarl’s wife could be married, the blood bond would prevent a war. But the rascal would have to do something to pay for his roguish behavior. War would still be the most costly solution.

When Sigrid fell silent and sat down, it was quiet at first while those assembled considered the implications of the monk’s proposal. But gradually a murmur of approval spread. Someone unsheathed his sword and slammed the broadside hard on the heavy tabletop that ran along both sides of the hall. Others followed his example and soon the hall was booming with the clamour of weapons. And so the matter was decided for the time being.

King Sverker now decided to deal with the question of Varnhem at once. He waved over a scribe, who began to read aloud the document the king had ordered drawn up to confirm the matter before the law. According to the text, however, it sounded as if the gift came from the king alone.

Sigrid asked to see the document so that she could translate it for Father Henri, but she also suggested cautiously that perhaps Herr Magnus should take part in the ensuing discussion. ‘Certainly, certainly,’ said the king with a wave of dismissal, and he gestured to Magnus to step forward in the hall and take a seat next to his wife.

Sigrid quickly translated the document for Father Henri, who leaned his head back and tried to follow along in the text as Sigrid pointed. When she was ready she added hastily, so it looked as if she were still translating, that the gift was from her and not from the king, but that according to the law she needed the king’s approval. Father Henri gave her a brief glance and a smile resembling her own, then nodded pensively.

‘Well,’ said the king impatiently, as if he wanted to dispose of the matter quickly, ‘does the Reverend Father Henri have anything to say or suggest in this matter?’

Sigrid translated the question, looking the monk straight in the eye, and he had no trouble understanding her intentions.

‘Hmm,’ he began cautiously, ‘it is a blessed deed to give to the most assiduous workers in His garden. But before God as before the law, a gift may be accepted only when one is quite certain who is the donor and who is the recipient. Is this His Majesty’s own property which we will now so generously share?’

He waved his hand in a little circle as a sign to Sigrid to translate. She reeled off the translation in a monotone.

The king was clearly embarrassed and gave Father Henri a dark look, while Father Henri gazed at the king in a friendly manner, as if he assumed everything was in order. Sigrid said not a word, waiting.

‘Yes, perhaps… perhaps,’ muttered the king self-consciously. ‘One might say that for the sake of the law the gift must come from the king, so that no one will be able to complain about the matter. But the gift also comes from Fru Sigrid who is here among us.’

While the king hesitated, Sigrid translated what he had just said, in the same formal, monotonous voice as before. Father Henri’s face brightened as if in friendly surprise when he now heard what he already knew. Then he shook his head slowly with a smile and explained, in quite simple words but with all the serpentine courtliness required when admonishing a king, that before God it would probably be more suitable to cleave to the whole truth even in formal documents. So if this letter were now drawn up again with the name of the actual donor, and with His Majesty’s approval and confirmation of the gift, then the matter would be settled and prayers of intercession could be duly vouchsafed to His Majesty as well as to the donor herself.

And so the matter was decided in just this way, precisely as Sigrid had wished. Nothing else was possible for King Sverker; he quickly made the decision, adding that the letter should be drafted in both the vernacular and Latin; he would affix his seal to it that very day. And perhaps now they could cheer themselves up a bit by returning to the question of how and when the executions were to take place.

In Father Henri and Fru Sigrid, two souls had found each other. Or two human beings on earth with quite similar outlooks and intelligence.

The question of Varnhem was thus decided, at least for now.

Around the Feast of Filippus and Jakob, the day when the grass should be green and lush enough to let out the livestock to graze and when the fences had to be inspected, Sigrid was gripped by fright as if a cold hand had seized her heart.

She felt that her time had come. But the pain vanished so quickly that it must have been her imagination.

She had been walking with little Eskil, holding his hand, heading down to the stream where the monks and their lay brothers were busy raising a huge mill-wheel into position, using block and tackle and many draft animals.

Sigrid had spent a great deal of time at the building sites. Father Henri had patiently walked her through all of the plans. And she had taken two of her best thralls with her, Svarte, who was Sot’s fecundator, and Gur, who had left his wife and brood up in Arnäs. Sigrid carefully translated into their language what Father Henri had described.

Magnus had complained that she still didn’t have any employment for the best thralls, at least not the male ones, down at Varnhem. They should have been busy on the construction work up at Arnäs. But Sigrid had stood firm, explaining that there were many useful things to be learned from the Burgundian lay brothers and the English stonemasons Father Henri had engaged. As so often before, she had pushed her will through, although it was difficult to explain to a man from Western Götaland that the foreigners were much better builders than local workers.

In only a few months Varnhem had been transformed into a huge construction site, with the echo of hammer blows, the noise of saws, and the creaking and rattling of the big sandstone grinding wheels. There was life and movement everywhere. At first glance it might look frenzied and chaotic, like looking down into an anthill in the spring, when the ants seem to be running amok. But there were precise plans behind everything that was being done. The steward was an enormous monk named Guilbert de Beaune. He was the only monk who joined in the work himself; otherwise the brown- robed lay brothers took care of all the manual labor. It might be said that Brother Lucien de Clairvaux also broke this rule. He was the cloister’s head gardener, and he refused to entrust the sensitive planting to anyone else. It was a bit late in the year to be planting and difficult to do it successfully without the right touch or the right eye for the task.

The other monks, who had taken over the longhouse for the time being as both residence and chapel, busied themselves primarily with spiritual matters or with writing.

After some time Sigrid had volunteered both Svarte and Gur to help the lay brothers; her thought was that the two should initially become apprentices rather than offer any particular help. Some of the lay brothers had come to Father Henri and complained that the boorish and untrained thralls were too clumsy at their tasks. But Father Henri waved aside such complaints because he understood full well Sigrid’s intentions for these apprentices. In fact, he had spoken in private with Brother Guilbert about the matter. To the vexation of many lay brothers, just as Svarte and Gur began to learn enough to be helpful at one work site, they would be sent on to the next, where the fumbling and foolish incompetence would begin anew. Cutting and polishing stone, shaping red-hot iron, fashioning waterwheels from oak pieces, lining a well or canal with stone, weeding garden plots, chopping down oak and beech trees and shaping the logs for various purposes: soon the two burly thralls had learned the basics of most tasks. Sigrid queried them about their progress and made plans for how they might be used in the future. She envisioned that they would both be able to work their way to freedom; only someone who knew how to do something of value could support himself as a freedman. Their faith and salvation interested her less, in fact. She had not coerced any of her thralls except Sot to be baptized, and that was only because of her special need for support on the church floor when the cathedral was being consecrated.

It had been a peaceful time. As mistress of a household Sigrid hadn’t had as much to do as she would have had as Varnhem’s owner, or if she had to be responsible for all the farm work up at Arnäs. She tried to think as little as possible about the inevitable, what would come to her as surely as death came to everyone, thralls and people alike. Since the longhouse was not consecrated as a cloister, she could participate whenever she liked in any of the five daily prayers held by the monks. The more time passed, the more assiduously she had taken part in the prayer hours. She always prayed for the same things: her life and that of her child, and that she might receive strength and courage from the Holy Virgin and be spared the pain she had endured the last time.

Now she walked with cold sweat on her brow, softly and gingerly as if she might call forth the pain with movements that were too strenuous. She was headed away from the construction noise, up toward the manor. She called Sot over to her and did not have to tell her what was wrong. Sot nodded, grunting in her laconic language, and hurried off toward the cookhouse where she and the other thrall women began preparing for dinner. They quickly carried out everything that had to do with baking bread and cooking meat, swept and mopped the floor clean, and then brought in straw beds and fur rugs from the little house where Sigrid stored all her own supplies. When all was ready and Sigrid was about to lie down inside, she felt a second wave of pain, which was so much worse than the first that she went white in the face and collapsed. She had to be led to the bed in the middle of the floor. The thrall women had blown more life into the flames, and in great haste they cleaned tripod kettles, which they filled with water and set over the fire.

When the pain subsided, Sigrid asked Sot to fetch Father Henri and then see to it that Eskil was kept with the other children a good distance away, so that he would not have to hear his mother’s screams, if it should come to that. But someone would also have to watch the children so they wouldn’t come too close to the perilous mill-wheel, which more than anything else seemed to arouse their curiosity. The children should not be left unattended.

She lay alone for a while and looked out through the smoke vent in the roof and the large open window in one wall. Outside the birds were singing – the finches that sang in the daytime before the thrushes took over and made all the other birds fall silent in shame.

Her brow was sweating, but she was shivering with cold. One of her thrall women shyly approached and stroked her forehead with a moist linen cloth but didn’t dare look her in the eye.

Magnus had admonished her to send for good women from Skara when her time was nearing, and not to give birth among thrall women. But he was just a man, after all. He wouldn’t understand that the thrall women, who were accustomed to breeding more often than others, had a good knowledge of what needed to be done. They didn’t have white skin, elegant speech, or courtly manners, like the women Magnus would have preferred, who would have filled the room with their chatter and flighty bustling. The thrall women were knowledgeable enough to suffice, if indeed mortal help alone would be enough. The Holy Virgin Mary would either help or not help, regardless of the souls that were in the room.

The thrall women did have souls like other people; Father Henri had told her as much in strong and convincing terms. And in the Kingdom of Heaven there were no freedmen or slaves, wealthy or low-born, only the souls who had proved themselves worthy through acts of goodness. Sigrid thought that this might well be true.

When Father Henri came into the room she saw that he had his prayer vestments with him. He had understood what kind of help she now sought. But at first he didn’t let on, nor did he bother to chase out the thrall women who were rushing around sweeping, or who came running in with fresh buckets of water, and linen and swaddling clothes.

‘Greetings, honorable Mistress Sigrid, I understand that now we are nearing an hour of joy here at Varnhem,’ said Father Henri, his expression calmer and more kindly than his voice.

‘Or an hour of woe, Father, we won’t know until it’s over,’ whimpered Sigrid, staring at him with eyes full of terror as she felt more pain on its way. But she was just imagining it; none came.

Father Henri pulled over a little three-legged stool to her bedside and reached out a hand to her. He held her hand and stroked it.

‘You’re a clever woman,’ he said, ‘the only one I’ve met in this temporal world who has the wit to speak Latin, and you also understand many other things, like teaching the thralls what we know how to do. So tell me, why should what awaits you be so unusual, when all other women go through it? High-born women like yourself, thralls and wretched women, thousands upon thousands of others. Just think, at this very moment you are not alone on this earth. As we speak, at this moment, you are together with ten thousand women the world over. So tell me, why should you have anything to fear, more than all the others?’

He had spoken well, using a sermon-like tone, and Sigrid thought he had probably been thinking about this for days – the first words he would say to her when the hour of dread approached. She couldn’t help smiling when she looked at him, and he saw by her smile that she had seen through him.

‘You speak well, Father Henri,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘But of those ten thousand women you speak of, almost half will be dead tomorrow, and I could be one of them.’

‘Then I would have a hard time understanding Our Saviour,’ said Father Henri calmly, still smiling with his eyes, which remained fixed on hers.

‘There is something Our Saviour does that you still don’t understand, Father?’ she whispered as she braced herself in anticipation of the next contraction.

‘That’s true, of course,’ nodded Father Henri. ‘There are even things that our founder, Holy Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, doesn’t understand. Such as the terrible defeats our knights are now suffering in the Holy Land. He wants more than anyone for us to send more men; he wants nothing more than victory for our righteous cause against the infidels. And yet we were beaten badly, despite our strong faith, despite our good cause, despite the fact that we are fighting against evil. So of course it’s true that we human beings cannot always understand Our Saviour.’

‘I want to have time to confess,’ she whispered.

Father Henri chased out the thrall women, pulled on his prayer vestments, and blessed her. Then he was ready to hear her confession.

‘Father forgive me, for I have sinned,’ she gasped with fear shining in her eyes. She had to take a few deep breaths and collect herself before continuing.

‘I’ve had ungodly thoughts, worldly thoughts. I gave Varnhem to you and yours not only because the Holy Spirit told me that it was a right and just cause. I also hoped that with this gift I would be able to appease the Mother of God because in foolishness and selfishness I had asked her to spare me from more childbeds, even though I know it’s our duty to populate the earth.’

She had been talking low and fast, waiting for the next jab of pain, which struck just as she finished speaking. Her face contorted and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

Father Henri got up and fetched a linen cloth, dipping it in cold water in a pail by the door. He went to her, raised her head, and began bathing her face and brow.

‘It is true, my child,’ he whispered, leaning forward to her cheek and feeling her fiery fear, ‘that God’s grace cannot be bought for money, that it’s a great sin both to sell and buy what only God can bestow. It’s also true that you in your mortal weakness have felt fear and have asked the Mother of God for aid and consolation. But that is no sin. And as far as the gift of Varnhem is concerned, it was prompted by the Holy Spirit descending upon you and giving you a vision which you were ready to accept. Nothing in your will can be stronger than His will, which you have obeyed. I forgive you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You are now without sin and I will leave you so, for I must go and pray.’

He carefully laid her head back down and could see that somewhere deep inside her pain she seemed relieved. Then he left quickly and brusquely ordered the women back into the house; they rushed in like a flock of black birds.

But Sot stayed where she was and tugged cautiously on his robe, saying something that he didn’t understand at first, since neither of them was fluent in the common Swedish speech. She renewed her effort, speaking very slowly, and supplementing her words with gestures. It then dawned on him that she had a secret potion made of forbidden herbs that could alleviate pain; the thralls used to give it to their own who were about to be whipped, maimed, or gelded.

He looked down at the diminutive woman’s dark face as he pondered. He knew quite well that she was baptized, so he must talk to her as if she were one of his flock. He also knew that what she told him might be true: Lucien de Clairvaux, who took care of all the garden cultivation, had many recipes that could achieve the same effect. But there was a risk that the potion the thrall women spoke of had been created using sorcery and evil powers.

‘Listen to me, woman,’ he said slowly and as clearly as he could. ‘I’m going to ask a man who knows. If I come back, then give drink. No come back, no give drink. Swear before God to obey me!’

Sot swore obediently before her new God, and Father Henri hurried off to converse with Brother Lucien first, before he gathered all the brothers to pray for their benefactress.

A short time later he spoke to Brother Lucien, who vehemently rejected the idea in fright. Such potions were very strong; they could be used for those who were wounded, dying, or for medicinal purposes when an arm or foot had to be amputated. But on pain of death one must not give such a potion to a woman giving birth, for then one would be giving it to the child as well, who might be born forever lame or confused. As soon as the child was born, of course, it would be permitted. Although by that time it was usually no longer necessary. But it could be interesting to hear what that pain-killing potion was composed of; perhaps one might gain some new ideas.

Father Henri nodded shamefully. He should have known all this, even though he specialized in writing, theology, and music, not medicine or horticulture. He hurriedly gathered the brothers to begin a very long hour of prayer.

For the time being, Sot had decided to obey the monk, even though she thought it was a shame not to lighten her mistress’s suffering. She now took charge of the other women in the room, and they pulled Sigrid out of bed, let down her hair so it flowed free: long, shiny, and almost as black as Sot’s own hair. They washed her as she shivered with cold, and then pulled a new linen shift over her head and made her walk about the room, to hasten the birth.

Through a fog of fear, Sigrid staggered around the floor between two of her thrall women. She felt ashamed, like a cow being led about at market. She heard the bell chime from the longhouse but was unsure if it was only her imagination.

The next wave of pain hit; it started deeper inside her body, and she could feel that it would last longer this time. Then she screamed, more from terror than pain, and sank down on the bed. One of the thrall women held Sigrid under the arms from behind and lifted her body upwards, while they all shrieked at once that she had to help, she had to push. But she didn’t dare push. She must have fainted.

When the twilight turned to night and the thrushes fell silent, a stillness seemed to come over Sigrid. The pains that had come so often in the last few hours seemed to have stopped.

Sot and all the others knew this was an ominous sign. Something had to be done. Sot took one of the others with her and they padded out into the night, sneaking past the longhouse where the murmuring and singing of the monks could be heard faintly through the thick walls, and on to the barn. They brought out a young ram with a leather rope around its neck and led it away in the falling darkness toward the forbidden grove. There they bound the rope around one rear hoof and slung the other end over one of the huge oak branches in the grove. As Sot pulled on the rope so that the ram hung with one hind leg in the air, the other thrall woman fell upon the animal. She grabbed it around the shoulders, and forced the animal toward the ground with all her weight, as she drew out a knife and slit its throat. They both hoisted up the struggling, screeching ram, as blood sprayed in all directions. After they tied the rope to a root of the tree, they stripped off their shifts and stood naked beneath the shower of blood and smeared it into their hair, over their breasts, and between their legs as they prayed to Frey.

When the morning dawned, Sigrid awoke from her torpor with the fires of hell burning in her anew, and she prayed desperately to the dear blessed Virgin Mary to save her from the pain, to take her now, if that was how it was to end, but at least to spare her from the pain.

The thrall women, who had been dozing around her, came quickly to life and started running their hands over her body and speaking rapidly to one another in their own unintelligible tongue. Then they began to laugh, smiling and nodding eagerly to her and to Sot, whose hair was so soaked that it hung straight down, dripping cold water as she bent over Sigrid, telling her that now was the time, now her son would soon come, but for the last time she must try to help. And the women took her under the arms and raised her halfway up in a sitting position, and Sigrid screamed wild prayers until she realized she might wake her little Eskil and frighten him. So she bit her wounded lip again and it began to bleed anew, and her mouth was filled with the taste of blood. But softly, in the midst of all that was unbearable, she found more and more hope, as if the Mother of God were now actually standing at her side, speaking gently to her and encouraging her to do as her clever and loyal thralls instructed. And Sigrid bore down and bit her lip again to keep from screaming. Now the monks’ voices could be heard out in the dawn, very loud, like a praise-song or a psalm meant to drown out the terror.

Suddenly it was over. She saw through her sweat and tears a bloody bundle down below. The women in the room bustled about with water and linen cloths. She sensed them washing and chattering, she heard some slaps and a cry, a tiny, tremulous, bright sound that could only be one thing.

‘It’s a fine healthy boy,’ said Sot, beaming with joy. ‘Mistress has borne a well-formed boy with all the fingers and toes he should have. And he was born with a caul!’

They lay him, washed and swaddled, next to her aching, distended breasts, and she gazed into his tiny wrinkled face and was amazed he was so small. She touched him gently and he got an arm free and waved it in the air until she stuck out a finger, which he instantly grabbed and held tight.

‘What will the boy be named?’ asked Sot with a flushed, excited face.

‘He shall be called Arn, after Arnäs,’ whispered Sigrid, exhausted. ‘Arnäs and not Varnhem will be his home, but he will be baptized here by Father Henri when the time comes.’

TWO

King Sverker’s son Johan died as he deserved. King Sverker had of course followed the advice he had been given by Father Henri, to see to it that the Danish jarl took his wife back to Halland at once. But both King Sven Grate and his jarl scornfully rejected the subsequent part of Father Henri’s plan, to arrange a marriage between the royal but roguish son and the other violated Danish woman, so that war could thus be avoided with a blood bond.

The fault lay perhaps not so much in Father Henri’s plan as in the fact that King Sven Grate wanted war. The more proposals for mediation came from King Sverker, the more King Sven Grate wanted war. He thought, possibly correctly, that the king of the Goths was exhibiting weakness when he offered first one thing and then another to avoid going into battle.

As a last resort, King Sverker had prevailed upon the Pope’s Cardinal Nicolaus Breakspear to pay a visit to Sven Grate on his way to Rome and speak of reason and peace.

The cardinal failed at this task, just as he had recently failed to ordain an archbishop over a unified Götaland and Svealand.

The papal commission to name an archbishop had failed because the Swedes and Goths were unable to agree on the location of the archbishop’s cathedral, and thus where the archbishop should have his see. The cardinal’s peace-making assignment failed for the simple reason that the Danish king was convinced of his coming victory. His newly conquered realms would then be subject to Archbishop Eskil in Lund, so Sven Grate could see no Christian reason for refraining from war.

King Sverker had made no preparations for the defense of the realm, since he was too wrapped up in mourning his queen, Ulvhild, and preparing for a wedding with yet another twice-widowed woman, Rikissa. Perhaps he also thought that all the intercessions he had secured for himself at the cloister would save both him and the country.

His oafish son Johan harboured no such belief in salvation by intercession. And if the Danes should emerge from the coming battle victorious, for his part all hope would be lost. So he, and not his father the king, called a ting at the royal manor in Vreta to decide how to plan the defense against the Danes.

He had no idea how hated he was as an outcast. If his father had not been both old and weak of flesh, he would have condemned his son to death for committing two heinous deeds as well as perjury. Everyone understood that except possibly Johan himself. No man of honor wanted to prolong the war and risk losing his life for the sake of an outcast – the worst sort of violator of women.

On the other hand, many men came to the ting at Vreta filled with anticipation, but for entirely different reasons than those Johan imagined.

They had come to kill him. And they did. His own retainers didn’t lift a finger to protect him. Johan’s corpse was chopped into pieces of the proper size and flung to the swine in the back yards of Skara so that no royal funeral could take place.

In the year of Grace 1154 winter came early, and when the ice had settled in, King Sven Grate led his army up from Skåne and into the Finn Woods in Småland. The army burned and pillaged wherever they went, of course, but the advance was slowed by all the snow that year. Horses and oxen had a hard time making headway.

In addition, the peasants in Värend took defensive measures. They had decided at their ting that if they had to die, it was better to die like men in accordance with their forefathers’ ancient beliefs. Dying like a servant or thrall without offering resistance was to die in vain. Besides, nothing was certain when it came to war except for one thing: He who did not fight, or who stood alone against a foreign army, would surely die if the army passed his way. Everything else was in the hands of the gods.

And King Sven Grate truly had a difficult time of it. The residents of Värend defended themselves one stretch of land at a time, from behind log jams, which they dragged onto the forest roads. It took a great deal of force and time to deal with these barricades, and victory was elusive. If the momentum seemed in their favor in the evening when the battle had to be broken off for supper, prayer, and sleep, by morning the defenders of the barricade would be gone. By then they would have regrouped in a village a bit farther on, with new people who had their own homes to defend, and then it would start all over again.

At night the soldiers in the Danish army deserted in large groups and began walking home. Those who were professional fighters knew that too much of the winter had already passed. Even though they might finally manage to get through these damned peasant defenders, they would end up mired in the spring mud on the plains of Western Götaland. Besides, the peasants of Värend had a nasty way of defending themselves. At night they would sneak up in small groups, overtake the guards, and then stab as many horses and oxen in the belly as they could before reinforcements arrived. Then they would flee into the dark forest.

A horse that has been stabbed in the belly dies quite rapidly. Oxen are a bit more resilient, but even oxen die if a pitchfork or lance point has penetrated their underbelly. Naturally, the Danish army ended up with plenty of beef to roast, but it was cold comfort, since they were forced to consume their only hope of victory.

When at last Sven Grate had to accept the fact that the war could not be won, at least not this year, he decided that the army should be divided for the retreat. He would proceed home through Skåne to the islands of Denmark. His jarl would take the other half of the remaining army home with him to Halland and his own manor. Sven Grate also had messengers sent home to announce that when they returned, the war would be over.

But in Värend there was plenty to avenge. And the story was long told of the woman Blenda, who sent out messages to the other women, and together they met the jarl and his men near the Nissa River with bread and salt pork. Quite a lot of salt pork, as it turned out. They provided an extraordinary feast, and oddly enough, there was plenty of ale to go with the salt pork.

The jarl and his men finally staggered off to a barn to sleep while the soldiers, just as drunk as the noblemen, had to make do as best they could underneath ox and sheep hides out in the snow. It was then that Blenda and the other women made their preparations. They tarred big torches and summoned their men, who were hiding in the forest.

When silence had fallen over the army’s encampment and only snoring could be heard, they carefully barred the door of the barn and then set fire to all four corners simultaneously. Then they attacked the sleeping soldiers.

The next morning, with joyous laughter, they drowned the last of the captives beneath the ice on the Nissa River, where they had chopped two big holes so that they could drag the prisoners down under the ice as if on a long fishing line.

King Sverker had won the war with the Danes without lifting a finger or sending out a single man.

No doubt he believed that this was due both to his prayers of intercession and to God’s Providence. Yet he was man enough to have Blenda and her kinsmen brought before him. And he proclaimed that the women of Värend, who had shown themselves so manly in the defense of the country, should henceforth inherit just as men did. And as an eternal emblem of war they would wear a red sash with an embroidered cross of gold, an insignia that would be granted to them alone.

If King Sverker had lived longer, his decrees would surely have had greater legal effect than they did. But King Sverker’s days were numbered. He would soon be murdered.

No fortress can be built to be impregnable. If strong enough motivation exists, any man’s home can be pillaged and burned. But the question then is whether it was worth the price. How many besiegers had been shot to death with arrows, how many had been crushed by stones, how many had lost their will and health during the siege?

Herr Magnus knew all this, and he was greatly troubled as the construction progressed. Because what he couldn’t know, what no one at that time could know, was what would happen after the death of old King Sverker. And that time was fast approaching.

Anything was possible. Sverker’s eldest son Karl might win the king’s power, and then nothing in particular would change. If nothing else, Sigrid had seen to improving her husband’s relationship to King Sverker by donating Varnhem almost as if in his name.

But it was difficult to know much about what was happening up in Svealand, and which of the Swedes was now preparing for the battle to become king. Perhaps it was some Western Goth? Perhaps someone in their own lineage or in a friendly clan or in a hostile clan. As they waited for the decision to be made, there was nothing to do but keep building.

Arnäs was located at the tip of a peninsula that jutted out into Lake Vänern, and so had a natural water defense on three sides. Next to the old longhouse a stone tower was now being erected that was as tall as seven men. The walls around the tower were still not finished, but the area was mainly protected by palisades of tightly packed, pointed oak logs. Here there was still plenty to do.

Magnus stood for a long time up in the tower on his property, trying out shots with a longbow, aiming at a bale of hay on the other side of the two wall moats. It was truly remarkable how far an arrow from a longbow could reach if he fired down from an elevated position. And after very little practice he was learning to calculate the angle so that he hit the target almost perfectly, at most an arm’s length to one side or the other. Even in its present unfinished state, Arnäs would be difficult to take, at least for a group of soldiers returning from some war or other who might need provisions on the way home. And eventually it would become even more fortified, although everything had its season, and Sigrid mostly wanted something different from Magnus.

He was well aware that she often got her way when they disagreed. By now he was even aware of how she behaved to make it look as if she weren’t actually driving him before her, but rather was obediently following the will of her husband and lord—as she had done with the matter of the high seat of his Norwegian forefathers.

In the old longhouse the high seat and the walls around the end of the hall had been decorated with oak carvings from Norway, in which the dragon ship plowed through the sea, and a great serpent whose name he had forgotten encircled the entire scene. The runic inscription was ancient and difficult to decipher.

Sigrid had first proposed that they burn all these old ungodly images now that they were building afresh. The walls should be covered instead with the tapestries of the new era, in which Christian men defended the Holy City of Jerusalem, where churches were erected and heathens baptized.

Magnus had had a hard time agreeing to the idea of burning all his forefathers’ skilfully made carvings. Such things were no longer created nowadays; in any case their like could not be found anywhere in Western Götaland. But he’d also had difficulty arguing with her words about ungodliness and heathen art. In that sense she was right. And yet the forefathers who had carved those writhing dragons and runes had known no other way of carving; now the lovely work of their hands was all that remained of them.

At the same time as they were quarrelling about the dragon patterns and the runes, they were also addressing the question of who knew how to build walls. Should the stonemasons’ talents be used first for the outer defenses, or should they build the gable of the new longhouse first?

In the old longhouse, the fireplace had stretched the whole length of the building, down the middle of the floor, so that the heat was distributed more or less evenly. In the far end of the longhouse were kept the thralls and the animals, while the master of the estate and his people and their guests lived in the part where the high seat was placed. During hard winters, heat was best conserved in this manner.

But now Sigrid had come up with new ideas, which of course she had learned from the monks down in Varnhem. Magnus still remembered his amazement and his skepticism when she drew it all in the sand before him. Everything was new, nothing was as before.

Her longhouse was divided into two halves, with a big door in the middle that led into an anteroom, and from there you entered either the master’s half or the half with the thralls and animals. In addition, the half with the thralls and animals was divided into two floors. The upper floor served as a barn for fodder, and the lower floor as stall for the livestock. In this half of the house there was no fireplace; on the contrary, fire was something that would be forbidden on pain of severe punishment.

In the other half of the longhouse, which would be their own, with a high seat as before, the far gable would be built entirely of stone. In front of it large, flat slabs would be mortared to a fireplace almost as wide as the house, and above the fireplace a huge chimney to conduct the smoke would be built into the stone.

He’d offered many objections, and she had answers to all of them. The lack of fire along the floor was not a problem; the stone walls at the end would hold the heat inside the building, keeping it warm even through the night. No, the old vents were not necessary, as the smoke would go straight up the stone chimney above the hearth. And there was no need to worry about winds blowing through the stacked logs, as the cracks would be sealed with flax and tar.

As to his concern that the thralls and animals would have no fire in their part of the house, she patiently explained that by dividing their living quarters into two floors, the heat from the animals would remain downstairs, while upstairs the thralls (and the men) could make comfortable beds of hay.

But then, in response to one of his questions, Sigrid happened to invoke the Norwegian stave churches, which certainly had no lack of dragon patterns, and she seemed to reconsider. On closer reflection she thought she could yield on the matter of the ancestral high seats and their less than Christian ornamentation. And then, quite exhilarated and relieved, Magnus agreed at once that first they had to finish the masonry work on the new longhouse. Since now he had indeed achieved what he wanted.

Of course he had seen through her, and he understood how she managed to push through her will on almost every matter. Sometimes he felt a brief wave of anger flow through his limbs and head at the thought that his wife was acting as though she and not he was the master of Arnäs.

But now, as he unstrung his longbow and shouted at one of the thralls down in the moat to gather up the arrows and return them to their place in the armoury, what he saw was not merely a beautiful sight. It was a very convincing sight.

Below him in the stronghold area, the new longhouse stood with its tarred walls gleaming and its turf roof a luxuriant green. They had converted all the thatched roofs on the buildings to turf roofs with grass, even though reeds could be easily harvested nearby. This was not only for the sake of warmth, but also because a single flaming arrow could transform thatched roofs into huge torches.

At the other end of the courtyard in the stronghold area, under protection of the high section of wall that had been completed, stood a long livestock house. Below him in the tower were stored grain and weapons. Even in its present state, he would now be able to organize the defense of Arnäs in half a day.

If he looked inland, a whole village was cropping up on the other side of the moat. There stood the tannery, stinking along the lakefront beyond the other buildings where ox-hides and skins of marten and ermine were prepared, which brought in so many silver coins in Lödöse. Up toward the fortress the other buildings stood in two rows, livestock stalls and thrall dwellings, stonecutter workshops and smithies, food storehouses, cookhouses, cooperages, and flax-houses. Now there were twice as many thralls and animals as there were only a few years ago.

The latter turn of events was like a miracle and just as hard to understand. He had learned from his father, who had learned from his forefathers as far back as anyone could remember, exactly how many thralls and animals a field could support in relation to its size, so that the estate owner would not be eaten out of house and home.

Now there was a whole swarm down there, twice as many as he should have had by his own reckoning, and yet Arnäs had grown richer and bigger with each month that passed. The forest that had once come right up to the northern moat had now been cut as far away as ten shots with the longbow, which was as far as the eye could clearly see. The forest had become timber, which had been used to construct all the new buildings down there. New fields and pastures now covered the land that had once been forest.

And no matter how many silver coins he had spent on things that could not be made at Arnäs, or those that could only be purchased for silver, such as salt or the services of the woodcarver from Bjälbo who was working on the gates, the quantity of his silver coins still kept growing, as if the coins were able to propagate like animals and thralls inside their oaken chests in the vaults and chambers of the tower.

When King Sverker had started minting coins down in Lödöse two winters ago, he was the only king who had endorsed coinage as legal tender since farther back than anyone could remember, ever since the heathen time. Most tradesmen had been skeptical of the newfangled money and preferred to stay with the old ways, bartering for salt and iron, hides, butter, and furs measured in bushels.

But Sigrid had urged Magnus to adopt the new method right from the start, and to be the first to accept silver for everything. She had argued that in this way he would be helping King Sverker establish a difficult new custom that others were reluctant to accept, and thus the king would remain favourably disposed toward Arnäs.

So at first he had received ten times as much silver for an item as he could get now that everyone else had begun to follow the new ways. By being the first, Magnus had doubled his fortune in a few short years.

When he realized this for the first time, what power now resided in his money cached in the tower – without understanding why, he had felt an urge to chastise her, let her feel the rod, make her know her place as wife. But his anger had quickly abated. Instead, when he saw a whole district teeming with all the life that had been created around Arnäs, he turned to God with a prayer of thanksgiving that God had granted him the wisest wife in the entire land of the Goths. Sigrid was a gift from God, that much was certain and true. And when he was alone under the roof of heaven where only God could hear his thoughts, Magnus acknowledged this without bitterness. After all, it was just he and God – yes, and Sigrid herself, of course – who knew. No man knew of this. They all thought that the flourishing region around Arnäs and the two villages that belonged to Arnäs down toward Forshem were his work and none other’s. They all believed that he was a great man, a man to reckon with, a man who knew how to create wealth.

Presumably, although he wasn’t sure, Sigrid too believed that he was floating along on that conceited delusion. He resolved never to let her see that he understood quite well that she was behind it all.

And besides, he consoled himself, he and Sigrid were as one, since whatsoever God has joined together, no man can put asunder. Everything that thrived around Arnäs was the result of their common efforts, in the same way that their sons Eskil and Arn were half himself and half Sigrid.

When viewed this way, which was after all the only Christian way to look at it, he was indeed a great man, through God’s providence. And in what other way except through God’s providence could it have happened?

* * *

Winter was the time of feasts in Western Götaland. But this winter, especially, when the King Sverker’s days were waning, there was an unusual number of feasts. Sleighs criss-crossed the countryside, and it was not only for the sake of the roast meat and ale. It was a cold time of uncertainty for some people, and a hot time for hammering out plans at the forge of intrigue for others.

Erik Jedvardsson had announced that he intended to visit Arnäs just before midwinter, and the reason he gave, other than the prospect of getting to know each other better since Sigrid and his wife Kristina were kin, was that there was much for them to discuss. Besides, they might be able to have done with the dispute about Varnhem.

Only one part of the message – that there was much to discuss – bothered Magnus. Everyone knew that Erik Jedvardsson was a man with high-flying plans for his own benefit. In the worst case he had his eye on the king’s throne. And that meant in turn that he now sought to establish who was his enemy and who would be his friend in this struggle.

Magnus wrestled inwardly and at length with this question. He knew what he wanted to do with his own life. That was to build Arnäs into a strong and rich estate and leave a good inheritance to Eskil and perhaps something to Arn. But anyone who allowed himself to be drawn into the struggle for the king’s crown might gain much, but just as easily could lose everything. So far the choice was not difficult for Magnus, since his means of achievement in his life had been staked out all the way until his death, which would come at an advanced age, he hoped. He would continue to build, continue his trading, and continue to break new ground. That was his sure path to profit and a good life.

On the other hand, what made the matter truly worrisome was the fact that whoever did not aid the victor in the struggle for the crown could expect trouble when the victor next came to visit and asked why he had received no support until it was no longer needed. Magnus knew enough about Erik Jedvardsson to realize that he was sure to enter the fray, and he was also known to be a man who was loath to forgive his enemies. No matter how Magnus positioned himself, he risked losing.

Secretly Magnus did not consider himself to be a man of war. Certainly he could handle a sword and shield, lance and bow; what else had he done as a young man but learn such skills? His retainers numbered a dozen men, distant kinsmen and mostly young, who had no hope of inheritance but who knew no other work than that involving weapons. Lazy ne’erdo- wells mostly, Magnus thought. Nevertheless, he would be able to provide a dozen retainers. And if necessary he could arm eight dozen of his peasants in the two villages near Forshem. This wasn’t a warrior force that could tip the balance in a struggle for the crown. Crucial to his future would be which side he had taken in the struggle, for or against the victor. And whether half of his clan, who lived as he did in Western Götaland, backed Erik Jedvardsson or not would probably depend on what position the other half of his kinsmen took, the ones from Bjälbo in Eastern Götaland.

Magnus had sent for his younger brother Birger, who although he was not the eldest or most prominent, still acted as spokesman for the Bjälbo family in many difficult matters. Birger was regarded as both shrewd and forthright in negotiations. Many had predicted that, despite the down on his cheeks, he would one day hold a high position in the realm, no matter who controlled the kingdom, for the Bjälbo lineage was very strong, as reckoned in lands and retainers.

Birger came riding up like a whirlwind in the snow one evening before the other guests had arrived. With loud shouts he drove his sleigh into the courtyard in front of the longhouse and with an abrupt skid made snow spray from the runners. He leapt down briskly from the sleigh and left it in the care of stable thralls who came rushing over. He also tossed a dead wolf onto the ground so that it could be carried away at once to the tannery to be flayed. Many of the thralls thought that it was unlucky to let a dead wolf come too close to where people lived.

Then he heaved the knapsack with his good clothes onto his back and was already on his way into the longhouse as Magnus came stumbling out to welcome him. When Birger entered the longhouse and met Sigrid, whom he greeted with caution and chivalry, he was at once full of praise for their construction. Led by Sigrid, with Magnus traipsing along behind, he walked through the hall and felt the heat radiating from the stone gable wall with the log fires, rubbing his hands in delight. He quickly selected a place to sleep, dropped off his change of clothes, and pulled the woollen blanket over his sleeping place. Then he promptly went over to the bench near the fire, and began to tell them about his journey across the ice of Lake Vättern. He recounted how he had discovered a pack of wolves and how the horse managed to catch up with them on the ice covered with a thin layer of snow and how he shot a wolf, but the fallen wolf unfortunately got caught up in the sleigh’s runners and the other wolves were able to flee.

Then he stretched out his hand in a practiced gesture and was handed a tankard of ale without so much as casting a glance at the house thrall who brought it. He drank a toast to his hosts and heaved a great sigh of satisfaction.

Magnus felt almost dumbfounded by his lively young brother, for whom nothing ever seemed difficult or impossible. Who would even think of venturing out alone on a sleigh ride across unstable ice in bad weather, travelling all the way from Bjälbo to Arnäs in a single day without the least trepidation? It made Magnus wonder how much having the same father actually meant since he and his half-brother had different mothers.

It took a long time before they had sufficiently discussed all their kinsmen at the two estates, and Magnus almost timidly was able to turn the conversation to the difficult questions awaiting them the next day.

But none of this seemed difficult for Birger, either. He disposed of the whole problem in a few sentences.

‘It is true and certain,’ he said as he reached out his arm to take another tankard of ale, ‘that this Erik Jedvardsson is a man who will either end up as king or be a head shorter, or both. We all know this. But as things now stand, he can’t get us involved in any strife. He can’t turn Eastern Götaland against Western Götaland or vice versa. He could possibly win over the Swedes to his cause, with or without a heathen sacrifice. If he does that, we’ll have to consider then what position to take. Then the game will have changed. But enough of these minor matters, when do we eat?’

The arrival of Erik Jedvardsson at Arnäs on the following day was an event not missed by anyone. He came in four sleighs and had twelve retainers with him, as though he were already king, or at least the jarl, the second in line to power. Moreover, he arrived four hours before he was expected, due to the fact that he had left his home estate of Ladås the day before, stopping halfway and staying overnight with King Sverker’s man at the king’s Husaby estate, although he was reticent about what had transpired during such a brief visit.

The meat being tended by the roast-turners was still half- raw; the turnips were still being carried into the cookhouses, and Sigrid had scarcely managed to sweep the hall and hang the tapestries; so after a brief welcome for form’s sake, when they tested the ale and shared some of the white bread that was the pride of Arnäs, they divided up the company in the most opportune way so as to make the time pass without boredom. Magnus asked his eldest retainer to take care of his warrior brothers from Ladås, get them settled in, and assuage their thirst. Sigrid took Kristina on a tour of the house and around all the new buildings on the estate, and Magnus took Erik Jedvardsson to see the work on the fortifications.

Erik Jedvardsson was not impressed. He thought that the walls were too low and too fragile, that the double moat might be an ingenious idea, but that it didn’t do much good to have deep moats if they had to defend themselves in the winter when the water turned to ice. And he went on like that, boasting the whole time about his own structures and comparing them, especially the church building in Eriksberg, which was now nearly completed. Naturally he used English stonemasons, whom he had requisitioned from his father’s clan; these Englishmen, he proposed, might be hired out to Magnus when the spring came instead of returning home.

Magnus let him talk. If the walls at Arnäs were too low and fragile, then he meant they were too low and fragile for a king. If there were a king to capture in the fortress, then the besiegers would be both more numerous and more stubborn than if there were only a tradesman inside. It wasn’t difficult to see that Erik Jedvardsson was already dreaming of being king.

But Magnus did not feel comfortable in his company. The other man was taller and heavier, which made him speak and behave as though he were the host and not the guest.

This made the surprise so much the better for Magnus when they left the fortifications and began to inspect the stables and the longhouse. This was indeed a whole new method of building – the long pine logs stacked on top of each other – and the stonework gable of the longhouse, with its three big chimneys on the roof ridge, was also entirely new to Erik Jedvardsson. At his home they were still building with vertical logs that were sealed with straw and clay.

Magnus was immediately in a better mood as he began to describe his construction ideas. And when Erik Jedvardsson was invited into the hall and the heat from the stone gable near the high seat radiated toward him, he became voluble in his praise. He ran his hand over the logs and their sealed seams to confirm that there wasn’t the slightest cold draft. As ale was brought out for the guest, Magnus modestly told him that up here where the Sunnan Forest met the Nördan Forest there was so much good timber – tall, straight pines – that it provided completely different building possibilities than, for example, down by the Lidan River, with its mostly deciduous forest.

The ale warmed them and Magnus’s mood continued to improve.

Sigrid had not been looking forward to showing her kinswoman Kristina around the grounds. The mood between them could not be other than coldly polite, given the claim Kristina had made to the priests and the king that Varnhem was at least partially hers, and that she had no intention of giving away any of her inheritance to some monks.

But that was not a suitable topic to take up now, without the presence of their husbands. If anything was to be said on this matter, it would be best to do so when all those who had a right to discuss the problem were gathered in the same room.

Kristina couldn’t help being impressed by all the various workshops that had sprung up around the estate, however. They didn’t go all the way down to the tannery because of the smell, but they visited the cookhouses, the stonecutters’ workshops, the smithies, the cooperages, and the linen-makers before they took a turn through the storehouses and one of the thrall’s huts, where they surprised a couple fornicating, which didn’t bother the two women in the least. It did prompt Kristina to joke that at home she had at least every other male thrall gelded, because those brutes otherwise had the ability to create too many new mouths to feed.

Sigrid explained that she had given up that custom. Not for the sake of the thralls, but because one could never have too many thralls.

Kristina couldn’t understand this reasoning. More thralls meant more mouths to feed, more animals to slaughter, and more grain to the mill – wasn’t that as clear as water?

Sigrid tried to explain the method of moving them out, breaking new ground, and freeing them at the same rate as the thralls propagated, and how that in turn produced income in the form of extra barrels of grain from the new plantings each year. The thralls also ate less food if they had to pay for it themselves.

Kristina merely laughed at these foolish ideas; it was like letting the cattle out onto a green pasture to milk, slaughter, and finally roast themselves. Sigrid soon gave up all attempts to explain and at last took Kristina to the bathhouse, where a group of house thralls were busy washing up for the evening.

The steam billowed out in big clouds when they opened the door and the mid-winter cold met the moist heat inside. When they closed the door behind them and their vision cleared, Kristina was so astonished that for the first time she couldn’t hide her surprise. The room was filled with naked thralls running about with pails of hot water which they dumped into big oaken tubs, while others sat in the tubs of steaming water. Sigrid went over and grabbed a female house thrall and let Kristina feel her flesh. They certainly were healthy and well-fed, weren’t they?

Yes indeed, they looked splendid. But what was the idea of letting thralls use up wood and have their own building as if they were fine folk? She couldn’t understand it.

Sigrid explained that they were house thralls, of course. They had to turn the roasts and serve them and pour the ale and carry out the scraps all night. But wasn’t it more pleasant to have clean house thralls that didn’t stink? And they would all be dressed in clean linen after the bath; at Arnäs they produced much more linen at present than they could sell.

Kristina shook her head. She couldn’t hide how absurd she found this method for treating thralls. It might give them ideas, she said. They already had ideas, Sigrid replied, with a smile that Kristina had a hard time understanding.

But when the feast commenced that evening it was a lovely sight when all the clean-scrubbed house thralls entered the hall in procession, clad in their white linen clothing, and carrying the first round of meat, turnips, white bread, and a soup made from leeks, beans, and something that Sigrid called red roots.

In the Norwegian high seat adorned with the winding dragon arabesques sat Magnus and Erik Jedvardsson. To the left of Magnus sat his brother Birger, his sons Eskil and little Arn, and beside them Erik Jedvardsson’s son Knut, who was the same age as Eskil. To the right of the high seat sat Kristina and Sigrid. Along the walls the tar torches burned in their iron sconces. At the long table where the twenty-four retainers sat arranged by age, expensive wax candles burned as though in church, and from the stone wall behind the high seat the heat radiated, although it was less warm farther down in the hall. The youngest retainers at the end soon pulled their cloaks around them.

The spit-turners had begun to serve the tenderest morsels from the roasting house, succulent piglets to awaken the palate. After that would come heavier meats – veal, lamb, and young wild boar – and also the old-fashioned coarse rye bread for those who didn’t like the newfangled white bread. Ale was brought to the table in large quantities, either unspiced strong ale or the kind that was given to women and children, spiced with honey and juniper berries.

In the beginning everyone behaved well at the feast, conversing easily about insignificant things, and Birger, smiling as ever, had another chance to tell the story about his journey the day before when he shot a wolf.

Erik Jedvardsson and his men drank a toast to their host. Magnus and his men drank to their guests, and everyone was in a good mood and without rancorous thoughts or harsh words.

Erik Jedvardsson praised the beauty of the hall once again – the new method of building with horizontal logs, the beautiful dragon designs looping around the high seat, and above all the beds, arranged in a row of compartments along one wall, stacked on top of each other with plenty of quilts and pelts so that several people could fit in the same bed without it being too crowded or too warm. This might be something to think about when he built his own new house. Magnus modestly explained that this method of arranging the beds was customary in Norway; every Norwegian knew that it was easier to escape the cold if the bed was up off the floor. But as Erik Jedvardsson quaffed more ale his tongue began to grow sharp, though at first it was hardly noticeable. He joked about King Sverker, the only king in the North who could win a war by being a coward; he joked even more about monks and how troublesome they were. He then returned to the cowardly King Sverker and made fun of the old man for marrying an old crone like Rikissa, who had been the wife of a Rus, Volodar or whatever his name was, on the other side of the Eastern Sea.

‘But my dear guest, by doing so he saved the country once again from war and devastation, haven’t you thought about that?’ Sigrid put in with a merry expression on her face, as if the ale had also gone to her head and she could therefore loosen her tongue with less responsibility than otherwise. Magnus gave her a stern look that she pretended not to see.

‘What! What do you mean? What great deeds for the country can that old man perform in bed with a woman twice widowed?’ replied Erik Jedvardsson in a loud voice, more to his own men further down the table than to Sigrid. His retainers found instant humor in his words.

‘Because Rikissa’s son is Knut Magnusson from her first marriage, and because Knut Magnusson has now become the new king of Denmark and would find it difficult to attack the country in which his mother is queen,’ Sigrid replied sharply as soon as the guffaws of the retainers had subsided. But she said it with good humor. And when Erik Jedvardsson’s expression clouded over she feigned even greater merriment, adding during the embarrassed silence that this was how an old man who could do nothing manly in bed was still able to use his bed to prevent war. So even a limp cock could do some good, and that didn’t happen every day.

The last joke about the king’s limp cock made all the retainers burst out in even louder laughter and greater applause than after Erik Jedvardsson’s joke.

Sigrid lowered her eyes as if abashed and seemed to blush at her own boldness. But Magnus suspected mischief. Nobody knew better than he what a honeyed, sharp tongue his wife possessed. And nobody knew better than he that if this feast ended up being about who won when they crossed words in the air like sword blades, then Sigrid would conquer them all, except possibly Birger. And that must not happen; it would only end in misery.

For the time being he saved the situation by launching into a long and somewhat convoluted explanation of the importance of all the knowledge that the monks had brought with them to this country. Naturally it was hard for a guest to interrupt his host, but when Magnus began to repeat himself and for the third time mentioned the importance of silver coinage in trade, Erik Jedvardsson made a show of getting up to go outside and piss. Then Magnus fell silent and shot his brother Birger an uneasy glance. But Birger smiled as usual and didn’t look the slightest bit concerned as he leaned over toward Magnus and whispered that perhaps now he would go out and piss too, because soon it would be time for what the guest had come for.

Besides, a break would be good. Half the retainers followed the honoured guest’s example, and soon almost all the men were standing outside in a row, talking together happily as they relieved themselves into the fir branches spread outside. In the wintertime a courtyard would look unclean after a good feast unless they laid out fir branches, which the thralls had to hasten to replace at regular intervals.

When Erik Jedvardsson again took his place next to Magnus in the high seat and was served fresh ale, he held up his hand to signal that he wished to speak undisturbed. With a little smile Birger gave Magnus a look and nodded in affirmation.

‘Before all this fine hospitality goes too much to our heads and we start talking about what terrific fellows we are,’ he began, smiling and waiting for the polite laughter that came mostly from his own men, ‘it is now time to discuss a serious matter. King Sverker’s days are numbered. I would not be exaggerating too much to say that soon he will no longer be with us in this earthly life. Karl Sverkersson is sitting over in Linköping thinking that the king’s crown will fall into his lap. There are many of us in Western Götaland who refuse to accept such a misfortune, and I am one of them. With God’s help I shall therefore win the king’s crown. And now I ask you all, kinsmen and friends, do I have your support, or must I leave this beautiful house as your enemy?’

There was total silence in the hall. Even the three small boys next to Birger stared with big-eyed astonishment at Erik Jedvardsson, who had now declared that he wanted to be king. And at the same time threatened them with enmity.

Magnus gave Birger a desperate glance, but his brother merely smiled and nodded that he would take responsibility for the rest.

‘Sir Erik, you speak with such power and determination that I do not for a moment doubt that you could become king of us all,’ Birger began in a loud voice so that everyone would hear that it was he, the younger brother below the high seat and not Magnus who was speaking. Then he lowered his voice.

‘Allow me to answer you first. I speak for the entire Bjälbo lineage, since I have been entrusted to do so. My brother Magnus will have his say after me, but you must know that our two clans are connected by many blood ties and can hardly go against each other. No doubt you can sense the trust. We are not your enemies, but neither are we your friends in this particular matter at this particular time. If you wish to be king, you will have to start at a different end of the country from ours. You must get the Swedes to elect you as king at Mora Stones. If you succeed in this task, then half will already be won. However, if you try to become king in Western Götaland against the will of the Eastern Goths, you will only bring war down upon yourself, and no one knows who would emerge the victor from that calamity. The same will happen if you go the other way. So you must win over the Swedes first. And when you have done that, then you can undoubtedly count on our support. Tell me, brother Magnus, am I not right?’

Magnus realized that everyone was staring at him. The silence was much like the moment when the bow is drawn taut and the arrow will momentarily be loosed at its target. All he could manage was to nod slowly and pensively as if he were a wise old man. A murmur of discontent arose from Erik Jedvardsson’s men at the far end of the hall.

‘You, Birger, are nothing but a young rascal,’ Erik Jedvardsson yelled, red in the face. ‘I could slay you here and now for your impudent words. Who are you to teach a full-grown warrior his course of action?’

Erik Jedvardsson made a move toward the place where he thought his sword should be, as if he had forgotten that it was no longer the custom for men to attend a feast with their swords at their sides. All the weapons were in the stable out in the connecting building with the spit-turners.

Birger was not about to be cowed by the feigned move toward the empty scabbard, and his smile did not flinch even for an instant when he replied.

‘You may well think that I am a rascal, Erik Jedvardsson,’ he began calmly, but now in a somewhat louder voice so that no one in the hall could avoid hearing his words. ‘This does not please me, but it still has nothing to do with the larger matter, for if you draw your sword on me, at the same moment you will draw misfortune upon yourself no matter how things may turn out.’

‘You scamp, do you think for a moment that you could stand against me with a sword?’ shrieked Erik Jedvardsson, even more red in the face, turning so that everyone in the hall now feared the worst. A female thrall rushed up and carried off the three small boys sitting next to Birger.

Birger rose slowly, but his smile did not falter as he replied.

‘Now I really must beg you as our guest to stop and think, Erik Jedvardsson,’ he said. ‘If you and I were to exchange sword blows, it would go badly for you. If you die here and now, you will never be king. If you kill me, the rest of your life will be one long journey with the whole Bjälbo clan chasing you from one ting to the next, and if that does no good they will kill you in the end. Stop and think! You have a kingdom within an arm’s length, that I don’t doubt. Don’t squander it because you think that the spokesman for the Bjälbo clan is too young and too impudent! First win over the Swedes, then us. For the second time, this is my advice.’

Birger calmly sat down and reached for a fresh tankard of ale from one of the female thralls, who was scared out of her wits. Yet he behaved as if nothing special had happened.

Erik Jedvardsson sat glumly for a long time before he answered. He had realized that young Birger from Bjälbo had spoken rightly, with words clear as water. He now had to admit that he had been rebuked and flustered by a quick- witted youth. What everyone had heard could not be unsaid.

‘So be it,’ he said at last. ‘I had already thought of going to Mora Stones to win over the Swedes, so in that matter we seem to agree. But for these words of yours I will still have a goose to pluck with you when I return as your king.’

‘I don’t doubt that at all, my future lord and king,’ said Birger with a broad and almost exaggerated smile. He paused playfully before he went on. ‘But since you do seem to accept my advice, I would suggest that you make me your jarl rather than pluck me like a goose!’

His bold manner of saying this straight to Erik Jedvardsson’s angry face had a remarkable effect. At first Erik Jedvardsson stared at him with dark eyes, but Birger merely smiled back, until Erik Jedvardsson’s face suddenly broke into a broad grin. And then he began to laugh. The next moment his retainers started laughing, and then Magnus’s men laughed, then the women, and finally the thralls and the three small boys who were now allowed to return to their seats. By then the hall was booming with laughter and the storm had passed.

Erik Jedvardsson now knew that all further discussion about his path to the king’s crown had better wait until another time. He clapped his hands and called for the Norwegian bard whom he’d brought along in the rear sleigh. He demanded stories from the time when people in the North had energy and the courage that one saw all too infrequently these days.

The bard rose from his miserable seat among the youngest retainers and began walking to the front of the hall to stand by the fire at the end, where he would tell stories and sing. In the meantime the house thralls quickly cleaned up the scraps and brought more ale, wiping up piss and vomit by the door. An expectant silence spread as the bard paused dramatically with his head bowed to let the excitement rise to the bursting point before he began.

He started in a faint but beautiful, melodious voice, telling of Sigurd Jorsalafar’s eight great victories on the road to Jerusalem, how he had plundered in Galicia, how off the coast of Särkland, where the infidels lived, he first encountered ships full of Saracen heathens who came rowing toward him with a huge fleet of galleys, but how he then attacked without hesitation and soon vanquished the heathens, who clearly had never encountered a Nordic fleet before and had no understanding of such a battle that could end in only one way:

The poor heathens

attacked the king.

The mighty prince

killed them all.

The army cleared out eight ships

in the terrible battle.

The much befriended prince

brought booty on board.

The raven flew off to fresh wounds.

Here the bard took a break and asked for more ale so he could resume his tales, and all the men pounded their fists on the long table as a sign that they wanted to hear more.

The two youngest boys, Arn and Knut, had listened with mouths agape and eyes wide during the story, but the somewhat older Eskil began to fret and yawn. Sigrid motioned to her house thralls to put the boys to bed. She had already made up beds for them in one of the cookhouses.

Eskil followed along obediently, yawning again; he believed that a warm bed would be preferable to an old man telling the ancient sagas in a language that was difficult to understand. But Arn and Knut kicked, whined, and protested, begging to hear more and promising to sit still, but it did no good.

Soon all three boys were tucked in under thick pelts in a cookhouse with three of the biggest iron pots filled with glowing charcoal. Eskil quickly turned over and fell asleep, snuffling, while Arn and Knut lay wide awake, indignant that the eldest of them was the one who had ruined their fun. Whispering, they agreed to get dressed and slip out into the dark. Like little elves they passed two men who stood puking outside the door. They sneaked nimbly into the hall and sat down near the door in the dark where no one would see them; Arn found a big pelt, which he carefully pulled over them both; revealing only their blond bangs and wide eyes. They sat there quiet as mice, with all their attention focused on Sigurd Jorsalafar’s heroic deeds.

Despite the fact that a dozen men stumbled past Arn and Knut, and some even tripped over them on their way out or in, nobody discovered the boys hiding like grouse chicks in the forest at night. They listened, rapt and wide-eyed, as the bard sang of Sigurd Jorsalafar’s triumph at Sidon, repeating the verses that the men, whose applause was growing increasingly thunderous, demanded.

Sigurd won

at Sidon, men remember this.

Weapons were wielded fiercely

in the heated battle.

With might the warriors crushed

the stubborn army’s fortress.

Beautiful swords were coloured with

blood when the prince prevailed.

The applause from the hall went on and on, followed by the buzz of voices as everyone began talking at once, about the great deeds in olden times, and the kings of their own time who were like Sverker Limp-Cock and not Sigurd Jorsalafar. Magnus attempted a witty joke that it was different with Norsemen, since he himself was of Norwegian lineage. But nobody thought it was a good joke, least of all Erik Jedvardsson, who now stood up holding the old drinking horn they had placed before him – a Norwegian drinking horn at that, although he was probably unaware of it. And he drank with manly vigor, draining it to the bottom without taking the horn from his lips. Then he explained that he had just seen before him, as if in a vision, the new coat of arms that would be his and that of the whole realm. There would be three golden crowns: one crown for Svealand, one for Eastern Götaland, and one for Western Götaland. The three crowns would be set against a field the colour of the sky. This, he now swore, would become in the future the new coat of arms for him and the entire kingdom.

The hall seethed with excited applause. But Erik Jedvardsson wanted to say more. At the same time he had to piss, and since he wanted to do both equally urgently, he announced in a loud, slurred voice on the way out the door that each and every one who followed him in the future would be assured of reaping honour during the crusade. Perhaps going only so far as to the Finns on the other side of the Eastern Sea on the first venture, but then, after the Finns were converted, perhaps our men needed to gain a foothold in the Holy Land as well.

When he reached the door he didn’t bother to go outside across the high threshold; staggering he leaned against the door jamb for support and relieved himself right where he stood.

He never noticed that he was pissing on Arn and his own son Knut. And they in turn could do nothing but huddle together and suffer in silence. Neither of the boys would ever forget it.

Especially since they had now been pissed on by a man who would become a saint as well as king.

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