Birth Of the Kingdom (2010) (23 page)

‘Yes, and that’s why I’m both happy and vexed to see the three of you, even though it’s been a long time since I saw you, Magnus, and you as well, Torgils. My two grandsons!’

‘It was truly not our intention to vex you, dear grandfather,’ said Magnus Månesköld gently.

‘Oh, you misunderstand me! I merely meant that I wanted to see all of you struck dumb with surprise at the bridal ale. Everybody will be expecting to find me crippled and lying in my own piss somewhere, shoved aside where no one would see me. Instead I intend to give the bridal toast myself, because it has been a long time since I had that pleasure. So I ask all of you to promise not to say anything of this; then I will still enjoy my surprise.’

His speech flowed freely and without slurring, perhaps a bit slower than in the past, but otherwise almost the same. Both Magnus Månesköld and young Torgils, who hadn’t seen him in over a year, and then more to bid him farewell than to encounter any joy, now thought that they were beholding a true miracle. And it was not difficult for Herr Magnus to see what they were thinking.

‘It’s not at all what you two imagine,’ he went on as he
took a little turn around the battlement to demonstrate again that he was able to walk almost as he had done previously. ‘It’s this Frankish man who is knowledgeable in healing who has shown me the way, along with Our Lord, of course!’

Arn had been carrying on a brief and quiet conversation in an incomprehensible language with the foreigner, and what he learned was apparently favourable.

‘You mustn’t exert yourself too much today, Father,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to get overtired, because it’s going to be a long night tomorrow. And we all promise not to say a word to anyone about your surprise.’

‘Agreed?’ he added, looking at the two young men, who immediately nodded solemnly.

‘Father should rest for two hours now, then practice for an hour and rest again for two,’ Arn went on after another brief discussion with the foreigner. ‘We won’t disturb you any longer right now.’

The three men bowed and took three steps back before turning around and continuing along the battlement, with Arn in the lead. He wanted to show them the construction work that was going on.

But Magnus and Torgils seemed a bit too timid in his presence, and they soon said they wished to follow Erik jarl’s example and rest before the evening’s contests.

Disappointed by their lack of interest and concerned that there was something about the young men that he didn’t understand, Arn went over to the side facing Lake Vänern where the tackle groaned and the stone hammers rang. He was genuinely surprised to see how fast the work had progressed and how evenly the stones were being fit together. He gave all the Saracen builders much praise before he explained that they would now have a three-day holiday for the wedding. They were all invited as guests, but they would need to dress accordingly. He said nothing about washing,
since it would have been insulting to mention such a thing to the Prophet’s people.

Yet he did offer a few jests about the matter to the sweaty Brother Guilbert, who had been a Templar knight for twelve years in the Holy Land, after all. Was he perhaps still obeying the Rule’s ban on unnecessary washing? Brother Guilbert had a good laugh at this assumption, explaining that of all the regulations, he found the one prescribing that a man should stink like a pig was the least comprehensible. Unless Saint Bernard, in his inscrutable wisdom when he wrote the Rule, had thought that the Saracens would be more afraid of those warriors who stank like swine.

Brother Guilbert went off to get washed and change into his white monk’s robes, because when he was toiling so hard he dressed as a lay brother. In the meantime Arn went looking for Eskil. He found his brother engaged in a palaver involving many different languages, although no one seemed to understand a single word uttered by the group of minstrels, pipers, and drummers who had arrived from Skara with four ox-carts. What needed to be negotiated was the payment and the location; in such matters people were apt to pretend that they understood less than they actually did. But when the leader of the minstrel group turned out to be from Aix-en-Provence, Arn was soon able to help his brother by clarifying the agreement regarding every silver coin, as well as the group’s right to free ale and meat. In return, they would have to set up camp with their carts a good distance away from the fortress. In the end both parties seemed satisfied with the agreement, and the minstrels immediately returned to their ox carts to head for the specified camp area.

Eskil then took his brother to the bridal chamber, which was separated from the rest of the living quarters in the western end of the loft of the longhouse, with a stairway leading up to it from each side, one for the bridegroom and
one for the bride. In the chamber hung the clothing that Arn would wear at various times during the days of the bridal ale. He would wear the garb of a warrior only when going to fetch his bride; afterwards he would change into other attire. For the evening of the bridal ale, he would wear foreign clothing in blue and silver and made from cloth that was otherwise worn only by women. But now, for the bachelors’ evening, he was to dress in a loose white surcoat with sleeves that reached only to the elbow; underneath he would wear a long blue tunic made of supple dyed deerskin, leggings of undyed leather, and soft leather boots with cross-gartering. He would wear his sword no matter what his attire.

After explaining these changes of clothing to a somewhat astonished Arn, Eskil sighed as for the thousandth time that day he remembered something that demanded his prompt attention. They were six men, but seven were needed for the evening. The group included Erik jarl, Sture Jönsson from the Pål clan, and four Folkungs: Arn, Magnus Månesköld, Folke Jonsson, and Eskil’s own son, Torgils. They needed a seventh, and he had to be unmarried and not a Folkung.

Arn said he could offer no suggestions in this matter, since he had only a vague idea what a bachelors’ evening was all about, although he assumed that an ungodly amount of ale would be consumed, as usual. Eskil explained with growing impatience that it signified youth’s farewell to the free life, one last night together before one of them would leave his youth behind forever. Such was the custom.

Although this time the bachelors were unusually mature, he admitted, parrying Arn’s mocking smile, and the bridegroom was a man who had already reached his best years, with both a son and a nephew among his kinsmen. A similar situation had doubtless never occurred before, since some of these unmarried men, in particular Erik jarl and Magnus Månesköld, were already well known in the land to be fierce
and deft at wielding weapons, many people were bound to arrive to watch the start of this bachelors’ evening.

With a sigh Arn then suggested that since Brother Guilbert was his oldest friend after Eskil himself, and he could not be said to be a Folkung, he would prefer to see the monk and no one else as the seventh man. For age apparently made no difference, and as far as being a bachelor was concerned, Brother Guilbert could certainly defend his position with greater conviction than some among these young roosters.

Eskil fretted about this decision. He thought that an old monk would be more an object of ridicule than honour to their friendship in the games that awaited them.

Even though Arn had some idea what was ahead and did not like it, he found it impossible not to comply with his kinsmen’s customs. Still, he asked with an innocent expression what young roosters might be able to accomplish that Brother Guilbert could not.

Eskil replied evasively that there were seven games, seven different tests of skill with weapons, and that eternal honour would be won by the man who bested the others on a bachelors’ evening. Hence, it would be all the worse for anyone, especially a close friend like this Brother Guilbert, who performed poorly.

When he heard this, Arn sat in silence for a moment on the featherbed, but not for the reasons that Eskil assumed. He truly had no desire to compete in weapons’ games with tenderfeet and young boys; even less desire to do them harm. It reminded him of that unpleasant day when King Richard Lionheart had urged one of his young whelps, Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe was apparently his name, to joust with lances in the lists against a Templar knight. Such sport might end badly.

Boys should be taught and fostered; it was undignified to compete against them. He realized gloomily that not even this objection would seem reasonable to his brother.

‘What sort of weapons games are we going to play and put our honour at risk?’ he asked at last.

‘As I said, there are seven different games,’ replied Eskil impatiently. ‘Three you will perform on horseback, and four on foot, involving axe, spear, bow, and quarter-staff.’

‘Three games on horseback and the quarter-staff?’ asked Arn with sudden merriment. ‘This may be more fun than you think, and don’t worry about the monk. He’ll acquit himself well and offer much entertainment for those who are watching. But I have to go and talk to him first. Then I’ll fetch bows from the tower that will suit the two of us and see to it that my mare is properly saddled, befitting a monk.’

Eskil threw out his arms, saying that he relinquished all responsibility for this decision. Then he remembered another hundred things that he had to take care of and rushed down the bridegroom’s stairs, all of a sudden in a great hurry.

Arn dropped to his knees and rested his face against the soft coverlet of the bridal bed, breathing in the scent of herbs. For a long time he prayed to God’s Mother that she might hold Her protective hands over his beloved Cecilia for as long as there was still danger, and that he might not be struck by pride or injure any of the youths, especially not his own son, in the childish games that it seemed impossible for him to avoid.

By early evening more than a hundred guests had arrived at Arnäs to drink a toast to the bachelors’ evening, but mostly to watch the youthful games. The castle courtyard was crowded with ale tents and the stages that had been set up on trestles so that the conjuror’s tricks could be witnessed by all. Pipes and drums played, and the minstrels’ children performed preposterous antics, contorting themselves to stick their heads between their legs and creeping like big lice over the boards, prompting both laughter and alarm. But the air
was filled with anticipation and few could keep from talking about what was to come: youthful games unlike any in memory, in which a jarl of the realm and one of the Lord’s knights from the Holy Land would both compete.

The drama began when the seven white-garbed men rode in from the stables on their horses, one after the other, and then circled round the courtyard with Erik jarl in the lead. A white-clad monk who aroused laughter and surprise came last. All rode magnificent stallions, except for Arn Magnusson and the monk, who rode small and lean steeds that already seemed skittish amidst all the crowds and tumult.

Erik jarl led the horsemen through the gate and down toward the pasture with the stock bower, where stable thralls held the reins of their horses as they dismounted. The guests at Arnäs gathered expectantly along the low western wall where the view of the playing field was so good that none of the spectators would miss any of the action.

Down on the field the seven youths – because according to custom that is what they were called even though at least four of them were full-grown men – chose Erik jarl to decide any dispute that might arise. Yet nobody believed that these men would squabble like real youths; each and every one of them was sure to behave with honour.

The first game involved tossing an axe, and the results would determine what came next. The man who won the axe game would be in charge of the following game and thus decide how to proceed.

A disk had been sawn from a thick oak log, and a red circle had been painted in the centre of it as the target. Each of the men would be allowed three tries wielding old double-bladed axes from a distance of ten paces.

Arn and Brother Guilbert, who were standing together, joked that if a man held such a battle-axe in his hand, it was
actually best to hold onto it. Once he let it go, he wouldn’t be much use. Neither of them had ever seen or practiced this skill.

Erik jarl was first. His axe hurtled through the air and stuck in the red circle with a dull thud. Applause and an appreciative murmur rose from the spectators, since it would be no small matter for a member of the Erik clan to beat four Folkungs.

The second axe also struck the target well, but the third landed outside the circle.

Then came Magnus Månesköld’s turn. He too landed two axes inside the circle, with the third just outside. Erik jarl and Magnus agreed that Erik’s aim had been the better, and neither of them showed any sign of disappointment or joy in victory.

Young Torgils was next, and he managed to land only one axe inside the circle, although the other two he threw struck the oak plank hard and well. Folke Jonsson did not do quite as well as Torgils, and when it was Sture Jönsson’s turn, a good deal of murmuring and laughter could be heard from the spectators up on the wall. It was hard not to jest about what would happen if a member of the Pål clan should beat both the Folkungs and Eriks.

That was exactly what he did, beating everyone who had tried so far. All three of his axes landed close together and inside the red circle. For that he received subdued applause.

When the stout monk stepped forward, there was again laughter accompanied by some scornful remarks; people yelled that there was no doubt of his bachelor status, but there wasn’t much else in his favour. And as expected, only one axe landed fairly, and outside of the red circle, at that.

Everyone then fell silent with excitement as Arn Magnusson, the last contestant, stepped forward, holding the three axes
in his hand. But the disappointment was great and many commented on his poor attempts, for two of the axes hit the target but the blades didn’t lodge firmly, and the third axe landed outside the red circle, staying there only a few moments before it fell to the ground. This was not what anyone had expected from a man of the sagas.