by John Gardner
Bishop Brask, when he received the secret messenger from Lübeck, smiled bitterly, showing his long yellow teeth. He went for a walk to get himself in hand, then sent the same messenger to bring him Gustav.
“My friend,” he said to Vasa when he arrived, accompanied by Lars-Goren, “it seems you’ve been made king by the Germans.” He stood grimly smiling, letting the words sink in. When Gustav showed nothing, as if the news were already old and dull to him, the bishop continued, “It’s a curious turn of events, as you must know. You’re not the person we’d have chosen, if we’d had any say in things. By ‘we’ I mean—” He turned away toward the great dark arch of the fireplace, as if embarrassed. The room they met in was comparatively small and gloomy, a mere closet if set against the great halls of Paris or Vienna. They were alone, the three of them, except for a round-backed old monk in the corner, reading a book and muttering to himself in Latin. Gustav Vasa sat on a small wooden bench, his hat over his knees, his gloved hand lying on his swordhilt. He seemed much changed by his experience as head of the rebellion. He’d hardened everywhere—every muscle turned to cable, his skin dark as leather and so tough it seemed unlikely that even a dagger could puncture it—but hardened especially around the forehead and eyes. His expression was like that of a man listening for something, listening so intently that he had nothing left over for what was happening around him, not even the strength or interest to raise an eyebrow. His eyes were serene but as hard as blue steel. He was slightly drunk, just noticeably sullen. They’d stopped at an inn on their way to their meeting with the bishop.
Bishop Brask had changed too, but in a different way. He looked older by fifteen years than he’d looked that day in Dalarna when Lars-Goren had met him, or so it seemed to Lars-Goren.
The bishop cleared his throat and continued, looking out at the night, “King Fredrik has hinted that he may release Kristina Gyllenstierna, Sten Sture’s widow.” He glanced at Gustav Vasa as if to see if he’d heard the news already. Gustav showed nothing. The bishop frowned. “Fredrik knows her claims better than yours—not to put too fine a point on it. No doubt it’s occurred to him that her presence in Sweden would rouse supporters.”
Just perceptibly, Gustav nodded.
“You, of course, would be one of the first,” Bishop Brask continued. “You’re a reasonable man, a just man. You’d hardly deny that her claim is superior to your own.”
Gustav said nothing.
The bishop stretched his neck, adjusting the sagging flesh to the high, tight collar. “Your stance, of course, would have a good deal of influence. You’re a national hero.” Again Brask threw a look at Gustav, then quickly looked away. He interlaced his fingers in a gesture curiously meek and pious, then turned once more to the window. “However,” he said, “what’s right and just is apparently not the point—as usual. The Germans prefer you to Kristina. You’ve made certain agreements with them. The point is simply this.” He sighed heavily and for an instant seemed to lose his thread. Abruptly, he continued, “It would please King Fredrik no end to see us tear ourselves apart in civil war. The Germans wouldn’t like that, of course. Who would, except Fredrik? We can’t move an inch without the Germans. We all know that. And the terrible truth is, even with the noblest intentions in the world—not that I accuse you of any such thing—” He smiled to himself. “Even with the noblest intentions in the world, you might be pushed, one way or another, into pressing your claim. These things happen. Someone might persuade you that you’re the better choice, might stir up your powerful patriotic feelings; or you might perhaps, on some sudden impulse …” Slowly, he turned back to Gustav. “The point, as I was saying is: I’m not in a position to back losers, even if I like them. So you win, it seems.” He smiled again. “It’s an interesting life.” He could hardly have spoken with more weariness and despair if he were saying, “All the world is a grave.”
Gustav Vasa was frowning with that farmerish look he was fond of putting on with those who thought of themselves as his superiors. Lars-Goren, standing at the door, stared hard at a tile halfway between the bishop and himself. His kinsman Gustav sat in the periphery of his vision, yet Lars-Goren saw his expression clearly. It was, if one saw past the peasant mask, the look of a guard-dog, a look so ferociously focused on one thing that it might have been mistaken for madness.
“I don’t ask to be king,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with your plots and schemes.”
“Of course you don’t!” said Bishop Brask, quickly and reassuringly. He gave a weary little wave. But Gustav was in no mood to be patronized. He stood up, clenching both fists. “My dear bishop,” he said, barely controlling himself, “for all your vast experience and learning, you don’t know anything. I fight your wars, I pull in the help of the Germans, I out-fox von Melen himself and bring him over, and you want some fine lady to be ruler of the Swedes. Have her! Good for you! Just don’t waste my time bringing me to hear your reasons!”
Bishop Brask sadly shook his head and rubbed his hands together. “Come, come,” he said, a kind of whine in his voice “you’re too hard on me! It’s quite true that you wouldn’t be my first choice as king, but you are my choice. Why be difficult? I’ll tell you what it is that I mind most about seeing you chosen. Shall I?” He looked over at Lars-Goren as if asking for his permission too. “What I mind most—on your account as much as mine—is that it will change you from an animal to a man.”
“The day that happens, the Devil will convert to Christianity,” said Gustav.
Abruptly, loudly, the monk in the corner of the room began to laugh. They all knew the voice; it was the Devil. Lars-Goren felt a weakness coming over him.
“I’ve gone about this very badly,” said Bishop Brask, wincing and looking hard at Gustav. His voice, to Lars-Goren’s surprise, became a pitiful old man’s. “I’ve been a good ally to you, Gustav, surely you’ll agree. I’d hoped that if I spoke with you frankly, laid my cards on the table—no tricks, no cunning manipulation—we might become friends.”
“We’ll see,” said Gustav.
“Yes, we’ll see, of course.”
As Gustav moved toward the door, the bishop caught his arm and leaned close, timid and confidential. “Make no mistake, your troubles are just beginning!” he said. “You’ll need every friend you can get! Surround yourself with men who have proved you can trust them! Remember your own!”
Gustav seemed to think about it. “I’ll do that,” he said. “Goodnight.”
“Good-night,” said the bishop, his fragile old fingers snatching at Gustav’s hand to shake it. As Lars-Goren followed, the bishop caught his hand too and shook it heartily. “Good-night, my friend,” he said to Lars-Goren, eagerly fixing him with his eyes. “Good-night and God bless you!” As they walked down the stairs he called from the landing, “Well, good-night then!”
“What do you make of it, Lars-Goren?” Gustav muttered at the door.
“I’d say he’s as good a man as any to nominate a king,” said Lars-Goren.
Gustav nodded. “And after that?”
“He’d like some high office, that’s clear,” said Lars-Goren.
Gustav waited, frowning impatiently.
“He might be a fine and Christian man,” Lars-Goren said, “if he had nothing to think about but books.”
“Appoint him to nothing whatsoever?” said Gustav.
“All I really said—” Lars-Goren began.
“Incredible suggestion!” said Gustav; suddenly smiling, he hunched forward, and lightly tapped his fingertips together near his nose.
ON THE SIXTH OF JUNE, Gustav accepted the crown. Eleven days later, the Danes in Stockholm surrendered. It turned out afterward that the messenger from the merchants of Lübeck had had the papers of surrender in his pocket when he’d come to Bishop Brask.
“Goat-farmer,” said the Devil, “you’ve done well for yourself. I’m sure Mother Sweden can look forward, now, to years and years of peace.”
“That may be,” said
Gustav, and glanced at Lars-Goren, who stood gray as ashes, carefully not looking at either of them. It crossed Gustav’s mind that sooner or later, he must drive his friend the Devil out of Sweden.
PART THREE
1.
WHILE GUSTAV BEGAN THE WORK of setting up his government—a task as exciting to him as planning and carrying out the revolution, for he had high hopes: he knew himself no fool, knew to the last detail what was wrong in Sweden and what he, as king, could do about it; knew, moreover, that he had a gift for inspiring those around him, so that surely his government must prove a masterpiece of sorts—Lars-Goren, for his part, turned his mind more and more to the question of understanding and outwitting the Devil. He was not free during the first few weeks, to leave Gustav’s side, since Gustav insisted that he needed his advice; but as soon as the new king felt he could spare him, Lars-Goren bid farewell to his friends at court and started north to his home in Hälsingland, to visit his wife and children, find out how his estate was maintaining itself, and give himself the leisure to read a little, and think.
It was the middle of summer when he started on his journey. Goats stood on the roofs outside the walls of the Stockholm fortress, nibbling grass and moss and looking down with malevolent eyes at every carriage that passed. Boats filled the harbor, mainly German, Polish, and Russian, for the Swedes were at that time passive traders; they waited for the buyers to come to them. It seemed a sensible policy, though Gustav Vasa would later change it. Sweden was relatively poor and small, and shipping was expensive, not only because of the cost of boats, equipment, and sailors, but also because of the cunning and skill of the pirates who preyed on shippers. A few great rulers of that day and age—like Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII, and the Holy Roman Emperor—could afford strong navies to defend their coasts and seaways. But for lesser mon-archs—even Fredrik of Denmark—who had to scrap with their magnates for wealth and manpower, the cost of such police work was prohibitive. For all Lars-Goren knew that morning, half a dozen of the gray, high-masted ships he looked down on now might be disguised privateers.
Imperceptibly, the city changed to farmland. No one riding Lars-Goren’s road north could have said where one left off and the other began. Even at the heart of the city there were goats and gardens; but at some point there began to be more cows than goats, and the gardens became fields. Lars-Goren, lost in thought, hardly noticed the change, merely felt a slight lifting of the heart that meant he was in a country a little more like home, though home was still provinces away. By the time he reached Uppsala, after riding for days—gangling and vague-eyed, arms and legs loose as a straw-man’s, his beard as thin and curly as brown moss—he was in the heart of the farmland, the beginning of the region that paid its taxes in butter and hides and gave the kingdom its most important exports, all that could be wrung from a cow, from the horns to the tail. Though by knightly privilege he could have slept where he pleased, he put in at a hostel in the shadow of the clumsy, towering cathedral where the archbishop Gustav Trolle had inadvertently put Sweden on the road to independence. Before dawn, he was on the road again.
He travelled through fields and forests and spent the second night in Gästrikland, bordering Dalarna. There he slept with peasants, a chicken on the bed beside him, queerly friendly though also cautious, as if the chicken possessed the soul of a cat. He had nightmares which he couldn’t quite remember in the morning. He would have thought he’d forgotten them completely except that at the mention of Dalarna, to the west of him and not on his way, he got a brief flash of imagery, possibly prophetic, he thought. Lapps with torches (somehow he saw this while lying in the snow-covered grave they attacked) were digging up his body. He saw this with his food raised halfway to his mouth, then remembered no more and finished eating.
Soon he was in the pitch-dark forests of Hälsingland, veering west of the principal city of his province, Hudiksvall, heading toward the fields and streams of his family estate. When he emerged from the darkness to the light of the fields it was like being reborn, he thought, and thought, the same instant, of Bishop Hans Brask, who would have winced at the neatness of the symbolism. The image of Bishop Brask—sitting on his horse as he’d sat that morning beside the lake in Dalarna, about to dismount and have a word with Gustav Vasa—was so sharp and real that Lars-Goren reined in his horse. It seemed to Lars-Goren that he and the bishop had made a long, hard journey. But there was no one there, just fields of new-mown hay, a small village in the distance, a crooked wooden steeple rising above the other village rooftops.
“Bishop Brask,” he said aloud, as if the man were still there.
A shudder passed through him and he tried to remember what he’d been thinking, all this way, but all that came into his mind was light and fields, a dark, dead tree somewhere in one of the forests he’d passed, beside the road, also one toothless old woman who had waved and smiled, then crushed her hat down under one hand and vanished into the weeds.
With his knees he started the horse forward again. He began to pass the huts of the people who owed their allegiance to him. Small huts, well kept, better than most, he would have said; but then, the war had never come to Hälsingland, and though the sons of these peasants had fought with Lars-Goren, they had been lucky from the beginning: all but a few hundred had come home without a scratch, as if the Devil, for some reason, had decided to leave them alone.
Toward dusk, Lars-Goren reached the village closest to his own estate, and here, unaccountably, he found himself full of dread. He tried to think of what he would say if someone hailed him, and his distress increased. But tall and erect though he was, no one noticed him. And so, long after sunset, he came to his home estate. Though summer was at its height, the air was frosty. The fields lay perfectly still, bathed in mist, nothing stirring but rabbits and a fox and what might have been a deer. On the hill overlooking the river, his castle stood unlighted, as if everyone had died. He knew, of course, that that was nonsense, an idle nightmare rising and sinking again in an instant. Nevertheless, he swallowed hard, like a man full of fear and remorse. The horse, called Drake, or Dragon, looked back at him. He patted its neck. They moved on and came to the plank road, loud under his horse’s hooves, that rose abruptly to the castle gate.
At the gate he reined up his horse and sat for a while, like a man coming back to his sanity. He knew now why the castle was dark. There were no dangers here, no passing strangers. His people had simply gone to bed. He looked at the stones of the castle wall, docile and familiar yet unearthly in the moonlight, moss-hung, mysteriously alive, as it seemed to him, not stones but something stranger, perhaps a towering stack of sleeping sheep. He looked at the planks of the huge oak lift-door, built by his grandfather, heavy not for defense against enemies but to carry the weight of carts. At last he got down from his horse to go to the door and bang the knocker.
2.
HIS WIFE, LIV, STOOD IN THE KITCHEN cooking for him—“No need to wake the servants,” she had said, but he’d known what she meant. She would rather be with him alone after all this time. Around her, except where the fireplace-glow reached, the stone walls were gloomy and dark, a world paradoxically intimate and foreign after all he’d seen in Stockholm. He sat at the heavy pine table, far away from her, where they could watch each other. The room had no windows. In winter, that region could be bitterly cold. The red light from the fireplace where she cooked flowed over her and threw a tall shadow on the wall to the left of where Lars-Goren sat. His wife’s long hair, yellow-red and translucent as cloudberries, was tied up in a bun.
At first she asked him questions, which he answered briefly and negligently, much as he’d have answered some stranger at court to whom he was obliged to be polite though neither had any great investment in the other. Then, noticing what he was doing, he tried to answer more expansively, telling her about Gustav, what life was like in Stockholm under the new regime, how the city and the people there had changed since shed seen it last. She listened as if with interest, occasionally as
king about some family they knew but they both sensed that it was not yet time for details, or sensed that he couldn’t yet give her the details most important to him, above all the stories of his encounters with the Devil himself. They let the conversation die, he by pretending to sink into thought, she by working more actively at the fireplace. When the silence grew embarrassing, she took up her part.
She told him, as she worked, who had died, who had married, which children had been ill. Her words were brief and clipped, with long pauses between them. Sometimes she would turn and look at him for a moment. Occasionally she smiled, but it was not the smile he remembered. Then, gradually, as the food smells grew thicker and sweeter in the room, both of their hearts seemed to warm a little. She filled a dish from the kettle and brought it over to the table, checked the beer-pitcher to see that it was not yet empty, then sat down across from him to watch him eat. When he bowed his head to pray, she also bowed. Afterward he said, “One of these days—”
She nodded.
He regretted that she’d nodded. He would have liked to try to put it in words. But since shed given him no choice, he began to eat, shaking his head and saying nothing.
Then, forgetting that he’d decided to say no more, Lars-Goren said, blurting it out with great urgency, like a child, “I always feel guilty, coming through the villages when I’ve been away so long.” His wife was looking down at her pale, folded hands, her eyes unusually dark under the half-lowered lids. He sipped his beer, spilling a little of it down his beard and quickly wiping himself, then leaned forward on his elbows, looking at her forehead, and continued, “I feel even guiltier coming here.”
She raised her eyebrows as if questioningly, though still she kept her eyes on her hands.