Birth Of the Kingdom (2010) (47 page)

Cecilia tried to object that this could not possibly be an honourable and Christian way to take a lifelong friend to the grave. Arn replied curtly and sadly that indeed it was. This was how many a Templar knight returned with a brother’s help. It could just as well have been Brother Guilbert riding this way with him. Nor was it the first time that Arn had brought home a brother in this manner. Brother Guilbert was not any ordinary monk, but a Templar knight who was travelling to the grave as many brothers had done before him and many would do after him.

Cecilia understood that it was clearly useless to object further. Instead she tried to arrange for Arn to have some food to take along on his journey, but he refused it almost with contempt and pointed at his water bag. More was not said before, with bowed head, he rode out from Forsvik, leading the horse carrying Brother Guilbert.

Losing both his father and uncle within such a short time had been as grievous for Arn as for anyone else. And Arn himself had believed that if Death immediately thereafter had sunk his claws into a lifelong friend, the pain would be greater than anyone could stand.

But Arn had not ridden very long in Brother Guilbert’s company before he realized that this grief was both greater and easier to bear. No doubt it was because Brother Guilbert was a Templar knight, one in an endless series of dear brothers
whom Arn had lost over a long span of years. In the worst case he had seen their heads stuck on lance-tips in the hands of Syrians or Egyptians howling with the intoxication of victory. The death of a Templar knight was not like that of an ordinary man, because the Knights Templar always lived in Death’s anteroom, always aware that they could be the next ones called. For those of the brothers who were granted the grace to live a long time, without fleeing or compromising their conscience, such as Brother Guilbert but also Arn himself, there was no reason to complain in the slightest. God had now considered that Brother Guilbert’s life’s work was done, so He had called one of His most humble servants home. In the midst of his good work, with his quill pen in hand and having just finished the Latin grammar he had written for children, Brother Guilbert had quietly lowered his hand, blotted the ink one last time, and then died with a peaceful smile on his face. It was a blessing in itself to die like that.

On the other hand there were much more difficult things to try and understand when it came to the path that Brother Guilbert had taken in his earthly life. For more than ten years he had been a Templar knight in the Holy Land, and few fighting brothers lived longer than that. Whatever sins the young Guilbert had behind him when he rode out to his first battle in his white mantle, he had soon atoned for them more than a hundredfold. And yet he was not granted the direct path to Paradise, which was the greatest reward for a Templar knight.

God led him instead to a backwater of the world to become the teacher of a five-year-old Folkung, to raise the lad to be a Templar knight, and then against all sense and reason to work with him again toward utterly different goals twenty years later.

As Arn understood his own path, nothing was inconceivable,
since God’s Mother Herself had told him what he should do: build for peace and build a new church that would be consecrated to God’s Grave. This he had also tried to obey as best he could.

He who sees all and hears all, as the Muslims said, must have known what was going on in the heart of the deceitful and bloodthirsty Richard Lionheart when he chose to execute several thousand captives rather than accept the last payment of fifty thousand besants in gold for his hostage. God must have known that this gold would come to Western Götaland, and what would happen to it there. In hindsight one could often follow and understand God’s will.

But now as they were riding toward Varnhem and Brother Guilbert’s grave, the future was still just as hard to discern as always. Brother Guilbert’s service in his earthly life was concluded, and Arn had no doubt that such a good man, who had also served more than ten years in God’s Own army, would have a place in the heavenly kingdom as reward.

What awaited Arn himself, he could not see. Did God really want him to vanquish the Danish king, Valdemar the Victor? Well, then he would try to do so. But he would rather see the armed force he had built prove strong enough to keep war at bay. The best thing that could happen to Arnäs would be that the castle’s strength was so great that no one ever dared besiege it, and not a drop of blood was ever spilled on its walls. The best that could happen to the cavalry he was creating was if it never had to go on the attack.

If he tried to think clearly and coldly past his own wishes, things did not look particularly bright. Right after Birger Brosa’s death, King Sverker had elevated his and Ingegerd’s newborn son Johan to the jarl of the realm before the council at Näs. That honour rightfully belonged to Erik jarl and no one else. What King Sverker’s intention was with his newborn
son was not hard for anyone to see. And Erik jarl and his younger brothers were being held at Näs more as captives than as royal foster sons.

Prayer was the only path to clarity and guidance, Arn realized dejectedly. If God willed it, Sverker would fall dead at any moment, and everything would be over without war. If God willed otherwise, the greatest war that had ever ravaged Western Götaland was on its way.

He began to pray, and he rode most of the way to Varnhem in prayer. He stopped for the night in the middle of a forest, made a fire, and placed Brother Guilbert next to him, continuing to pray for clarity.

On the road between Skövde and Varnhem where it was no longer wilderness, many people were astonished to see the white-clad knight with God’s emblem, with the lance behind him in the saddle and with his head bowed grimly. He rode past without either looking at anyone or greeting them. The fact that the body he was transporting behind him was dressed in the same foreign mantle as he was also caused astonishment. Thieves could be taken to the
ting
like this, but never an equal among nobles.

Arn stayed for three days inside Varnhem cloister before the funeral mass and the burial. Brother Guilbert was honoured with a grave site under the transept, not far from the place where Father Henri rested.

When Arn returned to Forsvik almost a week after he had set out, he had a young monk with him who suffered severe riding cramps on Brother Guilbert’s horse. This was Brother Joseph d’Anjou, who would be Alde and Birger’s new tutor.

Death did not soon loosen his grip over Forsvik in that sorrowful year of 1202. Just before All Saints’ Day, foreman Gure’s mother, the weaver Suom, lay dying. Gure and Cecilia kept watch by her bed, but she sternly turned away Brother
Joseph until her strength failed and she let herself be persuaded by Cecilia and her son to be baptized and confess her sins before she died. She did not object to the baptism, but it seemed harder for her to confess sins, since it was her opinion that anyone who had lived the greater part of her life as a thrall had not had many opportunities to commit such acts that the gentry reckoned as sins. But finally Brother Joseph spoke with her in private and heard her confession so that he could administer the forgiveness of sins and prepare her for the life after this one.

His face was pale when he emerged, and he told Cecilia that although the confession had sealed his lips, he didn’t know which would be better, if this woman was allowed to take her great secret to the grave or if Cecilia could try to coax it out of her. Such a strange statement, which according to Arn when he heard about it was a violation of the secrecy of confession, naturally left Cecilia no peace. What sort of secret did a woman carry inside who had been a thrall since birth and free only in the last years of her life?

Cecilia made an effort to persuade herself that it was not simple curiosity but the desire for clarity that drove her to start questioning Suom, who was growing steadily weaker. If something was wrong, those who survived her could possibly put it right again; Cecilia certainly owed Suom that favour, she reasoned. Suom had brought much beauty to Forsvik with the ingenuity in her hands. It had brought in silver, and already two of the young weavers were following in Suom’s footsteps. If it were possible to resolve any problems that Suom left behind, then it would be done, Cecilia decided.

But what she finally found out made her hesitant. Now she had inherited a secret that she could not simply carry silently inside her. It was not something that would be easy to tell Arn, particularly since she had been immediately convinced
by what she had learned, and she did not want to start the first quarrel with her husband. Because it might come to that, she realized.

She went first to the church and prayed alone at the altar to Our Lady for support in doing what was right and good, and not what was wrong and merely showed selfish concern for the earthly life. She believed that Our Lady showed constant kindness not only to herself but also to Arn, and for that reason she prayed that Arn would control himself and wisely accept the news he would now receive.

Then she went straight to the sword house without walls, where she knew that Arn normally was at this time of day, along with the eldest of the young noblemen. He noticed her at once out of the corner of his eye, although he seemed so intent on his swordplay. He bowed to his young opponent, sheathed his sword, and went over to greet her. It wasn’t hard to see by her expression that she had come with important news, and he took her aside into the barnyard where no one could hear them.

‘Nothing has happened to Alde, has it?’ he asked, and Cecilia shook her head. ‘Is Suom dead, do you want her buried here at Forsvik or somewhere else?’ he went on.

‘I have heard from Suom’s own lips what she confessed to Brother Joseph,’ Cecilia whispered into Arn’s shoulder as if she didn’t really dare look at him.

‘And what might that be?’ he asked, gently pushing her away so that he could look into her eyes.

‘Gure is your brother and Eskil’s; Herr Magnus was the father of all three of you,’ Cecilia hastened to reply, turning her face away as if ashamed to say the truth. For in the same moment she had heard Suom’s account she knew that it was true.

‘Do you think this is true?’ Arn asked softly, without the slightest hint of anger in his voice.

‘Yes, it is,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Consider that Gure is six years younger than you. When your father sought solace after your mother Fru Sigrid died, Suom was young and certainly the most beautiful woman at Arnäs. And the resemblance between Gure and you and Eskil is so great that only our knowledge that he was born a thrall has prevented us from seeing it.’

She took a deep breath now that she had said precisely what she knew Our Lady had advised her to say, the truth and nothing else, without evasion.

Arn did not reply. First he nodded pensively to himself, almost in confirmation, and then he turned on his heel and strode off to the church, closing the door behind him. Cecilia felt both relieved and warm inside when she saw how he took the news. She was sure that inside at the altar awaited a wise and gentle Mother of God for one of the sons on whom She had bestowed so much of Her love.

Arn was not gone long. Cecilia sat on the well lid in the centre of the courtyard and waited for him to emerge. He smiled at her and held out his hand. They went together to Suom’s bed, where Brother Joseph and Gure were kneeling and praying for her. Both of them stood up when the master and mistress came in. Without a word Arn went up to Gure and embraced him; Gure was quite embarrassed by this but not as startled as one might expect.

‘Gure!’ said Arn loudly so that Suom could hear him too. ‘From this day you are my brother and Eskil’s, with all the rights and obligations that entails! I only wish that I’d known the truth sooner, because it is not much of an honour to have held my own brother as a thrall, even if it was for a short time.’

‘If a thrall could choose his master, which thralls are seldom granted, then I didn’t choose so badly,’ said Gure shyly, looking at the floor.

They heard a groan from Suom, and Arn went at once to her bed, knelt down and said straight into her ear that she was leaving a great gift behind and that Gure would be elevated to a Folkung at the next
ting.
She did not reply but only smiled. That smile did not fade, nor did she ever regain consciousness.

Suom was wrapped in a Folkung mantle before she was laid in her grave near the new church. All the Christians at Forsvik drank to her at her funeral ale, and then Gure sat for the first time in the high seat between Arn and Cecilia.

His admission into the Folkung clan went quickly. Only a week after Suom’s death a judge’s
ting
was called at Askeberga for the northern part of Western Götaland, which meant that all free yeomen there could present their case. In recent years these
ting
meetings had come to be more esteemed and were attended by many. There was much to discuss, and even though the
ting
had lost a great deal of its import since the power had shifted to the king’s council, it had become even more important for Eriks and Folkungs, who felt themselves pushed farther and farther away from the king and his councillors at Näs.

Arn rode to the judge’s
ting
at Askeberga with Gure by his side and a squadron of the eldest young men, including Sigurd who was once called Sigge and Oddvar who was once called Orm.

To induct a man into the clan at the
ting
, an oath was required from the man who sponsored him and an oath from sixteen men in the clan. A squadron from Forsvik was precisely sixteen men, and even though they were young they were Folkungs. They all stepped forward as one man and gave their oath in a firm voice.

In the presence of the
ting
Arn then wrapped the Folkung mantle first around his brother Gure and then around Sigurd
and Oddvar, who from that day forth did not need to dress differently than the other young warriors at Forsvik.

Eskil was also at the
ting.
He did not seem as pleased as Arn was about having acquired a new brother, although he consoled himself by the fact that there would be no inheritance from their father Magnus, since it had already been legally divided between himself and Arn.