Birth Of the Kingdom (2010) (19 page)

As they neared Askeberga they rode past one riverboat after another bringing cargo from Arnäs, along with some of the foreigners who did not want to ride. It seemed as though some of their cargo was so precious that they did not want to be parted from it; they sat suspiciously atop the wooden crates that were securely bound with leather thongs. Sune thought it must be gold or silver that they were guarding so carefully, but Sigfrid disagreed, since such treasures would have been stored in the tower chamber at Arnäs. They told themselves they would find out soon enough, when the whole party arrived in Forsvik.

At Askeberga all the horses were unsaddled, curried, and watered. Sir Arn then came over to Sune and Sigfrid and demonstrated the care and love they would have to show their horses from now on. Every little burr had to be removed from their tails and manes, and every inch of the horses’
bodies had to be inspected and groomed, just as each hoof had to be scraped clean and examined to make sure there was no stone or root stuck in it. And while these tasks were being done, they had to keep talking to their friend, for such a horse was a friend for life, and the greater the friendship between a horse and rider, the better they would be able to work together. The friendship was more important than any movements they made with their legs and hands to command the horses. Soon they would have to learn far more than they could imagine, because not only would they have to be faster at a full gallop than any other rider in the North, they also had to learn to ride backwards and to the side, as none of their kinsmen or friends could do. It would take time.

But during all that time they had to maintain the friendship with their horse and let that friendship grow from one day to the next; that was the foundation of all horsemanship.

Sune and Sigfrid felt at once a strong assurance that everything Sir Arn was saying was part of the great secret, even though to others’ ears it might have sounded more crazy than wise. For the sight of Sir Arn on his horse out in the barnyard in Forsvik had been incised into their memory.

An hour before prayers Arn took out his bow, strung it, and grabbed a quiver of arrows to go out and practice. He no longer lived according to the strict Rule which had been his guide for so many years that he could hardly remember his life without it. He was no longer a Templar knight; on the contrary, he would soon enter into the carnal union of man and woman blessed by God. But the Rule condemned idleness as much as pride – the indolence of not practicing the arts of war so as to be able to serve God in the hour of danger, and the pride of imagining oneself to be sufficiently skilled without practice.

He found the bale of hay that he and Harald had used as
a target the last time they were in Askeberga, and headed towards the river to find a place where he would not be disturbed. Young Sune and Sigfrid came sneaking after him in the belief that he, a Templar knight, would not discover that he was being followed. At first he was tempted to pretend not to notice them, just as he had done the time they saw him chastising the lazy guards at Forsvik. But he changed his mind and picked up his pace so that he managed to hide behind a thick oak. Then he grabbed the two boys by the scruff of their necks when they came padding after him.

He warned them sternly never to follow a knight in secret. For as they surely had heard at Arnäs, his brother Eskil would have preferred to see a retinue of at least a dozen guards on the way back to Forsvik, since it was rumoured that more than one powerful man in the kingdom would gladly send secret assassins to avert the wedding at Arnäs. So Sune and Sigfrid could not have chosen a worse time to come sneaking up from behind. The boys were ashamed and hung their heads and begged forgiveness, but this lasted only a moment. Then they were eagerly offering to help their lord by retrieving the arrows after he shot each round.

Arn gave them a solemn nod but could hardly keep from laughing. He pointed to a rotten stump where they could set up the target. They were surprised at the long distance, but quickly obeyed.

When they returned and sat down expectantly on a large, mossy rock, Arn nocked the first arrow on the bowstring, pointed at the target, and said that this was the distance at which he had first noticed them following him. Then he shot five arrows in quick succession and motioned for them to run down and fetch them.

The arrows were grouped so closely together that Sigfrid, who reached the target first, could grab them all with one hand when he yanked them out of the straw. Then he fell
to his knees and stared incredulously at the five arrows in his hand. Sune met his gaze and shook his head. No words were necessary.

Five times Arn shot, and five times Sune and Sigfrid ran down to fetch the arrows, which every time but one could be grasped in one hand. The boys’ initial excitement was slowly replaced by a dejected silence. If they had to be able to shoot like Arn to become a knight, neither of them thought they would ever pass the test.

Arn saw their gloomy expression and guessed the cause of it.

‘The two of you won’t have to shoot with my bow,’ he explained in a light tone when they returned with the arrows the fifth time. ‘My bow is suited to me but certainly not to you. When we get to Forsvik we’ll build bows that fit you, as well as swords and shields. You already have horses that suit you, and keep in mind that you’re just at the start of a long path.’

‘A very long path,’ said Sune quietly with his head bowed. ‘No one will ever be able to shoot better than you, Sir Arn.’

‘Nobody in our land can shoot like that,’ Sigfrid added.

‘There both of you are wrong. My friend Harald from Norway shoots like I do, and you will soon meet a monk who might shoot even better; at least he did once. There is no limit to what a man can learn except for the limits he creates inside his own head. When you saw me shooting, you simply moved that limit forward farther than you thought possible. And it would be ill-advised to do anything less, since I shall be your teacher.’

Arn laughed when he added this last remark, and he received hesitant smiles in return.

‘He who practices most will be the one who shoots best, it’s that simple,’ Arn continued. ‘I have practiced with weapons every day since I was much younger than the two
of you, and if there were days when I didn’t practice, then there was war and practice of another kind. No man is born a knight; he must work to become one, and I find that acceptable. Will you two work as hard as necessary?’

The boys nodded and looked down at the ground.

‘Good. And you will certainly have to work. At first when we get to Forsvik there will be more building work than weapons games. But as soon as we get settled, your long days with sword, lance, shield, horse, and forge will begin. By evening prayers your bodies will be aching with fatigue. But you will sleep well.’

Arn gave them an encouraging smile in order to make up a little for the true words he had spoken about the path to knighthood, which was a path with no short cuts. He felt an odd tenderness for them both, as if he could picture himself as a young boy in Brother Guilbert’s strict school.

‘What does a knight pray in the evening, and to whom shall we direct our prayers?’ asked Sigfrid, looking Arn straight in the eye.

‘You ask a wonderfully wise question, Sigfrid. Who of God’s saints has the most time and the best ear for the prayers from the two of you? Our Lady is the one to whom I direct my prayers, but I have been in Her service and ridden under her banner for more than twenty years. You mentioned Saint Örjan before, he who protects worldly knights, and he would probably suit both of you best. But it’s easier to say what you should pray for. It is
fortitudo
and
sapientia
, a knight’s two most important virtues.
Fortitudo
means strength and courage,
sapientia
means wisdom and humility. But none of this will be given to you; you will have to work to achieve it. When you pray for this at the end of the day after working hard, it’s like a reminder of what you are working and striving for. Now go to your beds and pray for the first time this prayer to Saint Örjan.’

They bowed and obeyed at once. Arn watched them disappear into the twilight. At journey’s end there would be a new kingdom, he thought. A mighty new kingdom where peace reigned with such great strength that it would no longer be worthwhile to wage war. And these two boys, Sune Folkesson and Sigfrid Erlingsson, might be the beginning of this new kingdom.

He gathered up his arrows in the quiver, slinging it over his shoulder. He did not unstring his bow but walked silently with it in his hand down toward the river, to the lovely spot for prayer under the alders and willows that he had found the last time he was in Askeberga.

He did not really take seriously the gossip he’d heard at Arnäs, that enemies who strove for power might now entertain the notion of sending secret assassins to kill Arn Magnusson. There was some logic to this argument, he thought, noticing at once that he had shifted to Frankish in his mind to be able to think more clearly. The assassin who could make it look as if Birger Brosa, for instance, were the instigator, would have much to gain. Internecine strife among the Folkungs would benefit the Sverkers in their ambition to seize the royal crown; it would also weaken the Eriks’ positions. But all such thoughts were mere theories sodden by ale and wine. It was one thing to think up such plans, and another to carry them out. If someone was now approaching Askeberga in the twilight to murder him, where would the murderer look first? And if the killer were really in the vicinity now that light for shooting was about to vanish, how could he silently advance to use a dagger or sword?

And if the killer approached in the dark, he couldn’t very well expect to find a sleeping and unarmed Templar knight, could he?

God’s Mother had not held her protective hands over Arn for all these years of war, and She had not denied him a
martyr’s death and Paradise only in the end to see him murdered in Western Götaland. She had given him the greatest gifts of earthly life, but not without conditions, since at the same time She had presented him with the greatest of all tasks She could give one of Her knights. First he was to build a church that would be consecrated to God’s Grave, to show humanity that God was present wherever people resided and did not have to be sought in war in foreign lands. The even bigger task She had given him was to create peace by building up a force that was so superior that war would be impossible.

Once again Arn found the place by the river where he could rest and pray. The brief hours of darkness had fallen; there were only a few weeks left until Midsummer when it would be dark for merely half an hour. There was no wind, and the sounds and smells of the night were strong. From the farms by the docks he could hear loud laughter when someone opened a door to go outside and piss. The oarsmen on the river were probably helping themselves to all the ale that the foreigners refused to drink. There seemed to be a nightingale in a thicket quite close by, and for a moment the bird’s powerful song filled his soul.

He had never felt such peace before; it was as if God’s Mother wanted to show him what heavenly bliss was still possible in earthly life. In everything that happened, big and small, he could now see Her will and endless grace. His father was well on his way to regaining all his faculties, and he would soon be ready to start walking again.

Ibrahim and Yussuf had moved Herr Magnus up to the large tower chamber as soon as it was cleaned like a mosque. With the help of some thralls they had built a bridge with two rails on which the sick man could shuffle along with the support of his arms. At first he moved slowly and laboriously, but well enough that they could see from day to day
that soon he would be able to walk without support. And he had regained much of his good humour, saying that he would be sure to be walking in time for the wedding – perhaps like an old man, but on his own two feet. Until then, since there were only a few weeks left of the season forbidden for weddings, he would keep his blessing secret so that the power of the healing arts could be seen that much better by everyone who saw him at the wedding.

He also was able to speak much better now that he was practicing every day and had left any form of hopelessness far behind. At first he had so stubbornly resisted when they began with a stone that he had to move from one hand to the other. But he now devoted himself with such zeal to the task that Ibrahim and Yussuf sometimes had to stop him so that he didn’t overdo it.

To Arn he had said that it was like seeing and feeling at the same time how life returned to both his body and soul. But what he said that gladdened Arn even more was that he understood that this was no miracle, no matter what other people would believe when they saw him healthy once more. This was his own work, his own will, and yes, his own prayers, but most of all it was due to the skills of the two foreign gentlemen. And they were ordinary men, neither saints nor sorcerers, even though they wore odd clothes and spoke an incomprehensible language.

Then Arn had finally told his father the truth, that these men, Ibrahim and Yussuf, as their names were more properly pronounced, were Saracens.

Herr Magnus had sat in silence so long when he heard this that Arn regretted his earnest veracity. But at last his father had nodded and said that good skills from near or far were what made life better. He had seen it with his own eyes and felt it in his own limbs. And if the people of the Church had bad things to say about these Saracens, their words were
worth nothing compared to what his own son had to say. For who knew better the whole truth: someone who was priest in Forshem or bishop in Östra Aros, or someone who had waged war against the Saracens for twenty years?

Arn took the opportunity to tell him that all the fortresses of the Knights Templar had employed Saracen medical men because they were the best. What was good for God’s Holy Army of Knights Templar would surely be good in Western Götaland up in the North.

The good humour brought on by this insight made his father ask Arn to accompany him out on the walls to take a look at the new construction.