by Jan Guillou
The land for Gudhem had been donated from the royal holdings by King Karl Sverkersson. Consequently, the Abbess Rikissa belonged to the Sverker clan, as did most of the consecrated sisters and almost all the novices.
But when the pretender to the throne, Knut Eriksson, the son of Saint Erik Jedvardsson, returned from his exile in Norway to reclaim his father’s crown and avenge his murder, he himself had murdered King Karl Sverkersson out on the island of Visingsö. And among the men who abetted him in this deed was his friend and Cecilia’s lover Arn Magnusson.
So in the world outside the cloister walls war now raged anew. On one side were the Folkung clan and the Erik clan with their Norwegian allies; on the other were the Sverker clan and their Danish allies.
Cecilia thus felt like a butterfly dragged into a hornets’ nest, and she had good reason to feel this way. Since most of the sisters belonged to the Sverker faction, they hated her and they showed it. All the novices hated her as well and did nothing to hide their animosity. No one spoke to Cecilia, even when talking was permitted. They all turned their backs on her.
In the early days it was possible that Mother Rikissa had actually tried to drive her to her death. Cecilia had come to Gudhem in the months when the turnips had to be thinned. It was hard, hot work out in the fields, and none of the elegant sisters or the novices took part.
Mother Rikissa had put Cecilia on bread and water from the very first day. At mealtimes in the refectorium Cecilia was seated alone at an empty table at the far end of the hall, where she had to sit silently. As if this were not punishment enough, Mother Rikissa had decreed that Cecilia had to work with the lay sisters out in the turnip fields, crawling along bit by bit with the baby kicking in her belly.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, or perhaps because Mother Rikissa was cross that Cecilia hadn’t lost her child from the hard labor, the young woman was sent for bloodletting once a week during her first and hardest time at the convent. It was said that bloodletting was good for one’s health, and that it also had a salutary effect that suppressed carnal desires. And since Cecilia had obviously fallen prey to such desires, she should have her blood let often.
As Cecilia crawled along in the turnip fields, growing ever paler, she constantly murmured prayers to Our Lady to protect her, forgive her for her sin, and yet hold Her gracious hand over the child she bore inside her.
Cecilia almost gave birth to her son out in the cold November mud in the turnip fields. It was near the end of the harvest time when she suddenly sank to the ground with a sharp cry. The lay sisters and the two supervisors who stood nearby to monitor virtue and silence during the work understood at once what was about to happen. At first they acted as if they thought nothing needed to be done. But the lay sisters would not stand for this; without uttering a word, even to ask permission, they hurried to carry Cecilia to the hospitium, the guest house outside the walls. There they laid her in bed and sent a messenger to fetch Fru Helena, who was a wise woman and one of Gudhem’s pensioners who had given a large donation to the convent.
Fru Helena came quickly, taking pity on Cecilia, although she herself was of the Sverker clan. She ordered two of the lay sisters to stay in the hospitium and assist her; let Rikissa—she didn’t say Mother Rikissa—think or say what she would. Women had a hard enough time in this world without heaping stones on one another’s burdens, she told the two astonished lay sisters who stayed with her. At her command they heated water, fetched linens, and washed the mud and dirt from the suffering Cecilia, now almost out of her mind with pain.
Fru Helena had come to her rescue, and she must have been sent by the Holy Virgin herself. She had given birth to nine children, seven of whom had survived. Many times she had assisted other women in this difficult hour, when women are alone and only other women can help. She scoffed at the thought that this young woman was supposed to be her enemy. She told the two lay sisters that the position of friend or foe could change overnight, or even as the result of a sorry little war between the menfolk.
Cecilia did not remember much of the hours that night when she gave birth to her son Magnus, as they had decided he should be named. She remembered the moment when it was all over and, drenched in sweat and hot as if with fever, she was given the infant by Fru Helena, who pressed him to her aching breasts. And she recalled Fru Helena’s words that he was a fair boy in good health with all his limbs in the proper place. But after that a haze shrouded her mind.
Later she learned that Fru Helena had sent word to Arnäs, and a large escort came to fetch the babe and take him to safety. Birger Brosa, the mightiest of the Folkungs and the uncle of her beloved Arn, had sworn that the lad—he had never spoken of the anticipated child as other than “the lad’—would be taken into the clan and proclaimed at the ting as a true Folkung, whether he was born in whoredom or not.
Of all the trials in young Cecilia’s life, the hardest of all was that she would not see her son again until he was a man.
Mother Rikissa had a heart of stone where Cecilia was concerned. Shortly after giving birth Cecilia was once again set to hard labor, although she still had a fever. She was often bathed in sweat, she was very pale, and she had trouble with her breasts.
As Christmas approached in her first year at the cloister, Bishop Bengt came from Skara on visitation, and when he noticed Cecilia shuffling past out in the arcade, seemingly oblivious to everything, he blanched. Then he had a brief conversation with Mother Rikissa in private. That same day Cecilia was placed in the infirmatorium, and she was given daily pittances, extra helpings of food that those outside were allowed to donate to the residents of the cloister: eggs, fish, white bread, butter, and even some lamb. Gossip spread at Gudhem about these pittances that Cecilia received. Some believed that they came from Bishop Bengt, others that they came from Fru Helena or perhaps from Birger Brosa himself.
She was also excused from bloodletting, and soon the color returned to her face, and she started to regain her health. But all hope seemed to have left her. She went about mostly muttering to herself.
When winter swept into Western Götaland with cold and ice, all outside work ceased for both the lay sisters and Cecilia. This was a relief, yet at the same time the nights became an even greater torment.
Since it was against the rules to have heating in the dormitorium, it was important where in the room one’s bed stood. The farther away from the two windows the better. Naturally Cecilia was assigned the bed right next to the stone wall, beneath a window where the cold came flowing down like ice water; the other novices slept on the other side of the room, against the internal wall. Cecilia and her worldly sisters were separated by the eight lay sisters who never dared to speak to her.
The regulations permitted a straw mattress, a pillow, and two woolen blankets. Even if they all went to bed fully dressed, the nights could sometimes get so cold that it was impossible to sleep, at least for someone who always shook with cold.
It was at this most difficult time at Gudhem for Cecilia, that it seemed as though Our Lady sent her some consolation; a few words that would not have meant very much to anyone else, but here warmed her to the heart.
One of the other maidens close to the door had been found unworthy of the best bed location when someone revealed one of her secrets. On Mother Rikissa’s express order she was forced to move to the bed next to Cecilia’s. One evening she came with her bedclothes in her arms and stood with bowed head, waiting until the lay sister in the bed next to Cecilia grasped that she was supposed to toddle off to the warmer side of the room. When the lay sister had taken her bedclothes and gone, the new maiden slowly and carefully made her bed, glancing over at the sister who stood in the dark by the door to the stairs and kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. When she was done the maiden crept into bed, turned on her side, and sought out Cecilia’s gaze. Then without blinking she broke the rule of silence.
“You’re not alone, Cecilia,” she whispered, so quietly that no one else could hear.
> “Thank you, Our Lady be praised,” Cecilia signaled back in the sign language they used at Gudhem when no words could be spoken. But she no longer felt cold, and her thoughts were directed to different matters, something other than the loneliness and unhappy longing in which she’d been circling for so long that sometimes she feared for her sanity. Now she lay for a while looking with curiosity into the eyes of her unknown companion who had spoken so kindly to her, even when it was forbidden to speak. They smiled at each other until the darkness came, and that night Cecilia did not shiver from the cold and she quickly fell asleep.
When they were awakened to go down to matins, she was sleeping deeply, and the unknown maiden next to her had to give her a gentle shake. Later, down in the church, Cecilia sang along in the hymns for the first time in full voice, her clear tones rising higher than all the others’. Singing had after all been her one great joy in past years at Gudhem, back when she knew that she would be released after only a few months.
And she fell asleep easily after matins, so when it was time for lauds, the morning praise song, the stranger had to wake her again. It seemed she had a need to catch up on lost sleep.
After the first mass of the day, when it was time to gather in the chapter hall, Cecilia found that her new neighbor had to sit close to the door, just as she did, and again she contemplated the words that she was no longer alone, that now they were two.
After Mother Rikissa read the day’s Bible text, she recited a list of names of deceased brothers and sisters in the Cistercian order for whose souls they must pray. Cecilia froze briefly, for sometimes the list included a foreign name or the name of a fallen Templar knight, who was counted as equal to brothers or sisters. But today there was no such name.
The punishments were saved till last during the morning convocation. The most common infraction punished by Mother Rikissa was breach of the code of silence. Six or seven times Cecilia had been punished for this, despite the fact that no one ever spoke to Cecilia, nor did she speak to anyone else.
It so happened, explained Mother Rikissa with something that looked more like a smile than an expression of sternness, that it was now time to punish Cecilia again. The sisters then lowered their heads with a sigh, while the worldly maidens raised theirs and stared with inquisitive malice at Cecilia.
However, it was not the usual Cecilia who was to be punished; not Cecilia Algotsdotter but Cecilia Ulvsdotter. And now that there were two Cecilias who apparently displayed the same breach of conduct, the red-haired Cecilia Algotsdotter would hereafter be called Cecilia Rosa, and the blonde one would be called Cecilia Blanca.
The punishment was usually a day or two on bread and water, a common penalty meted out during the period when Mother Rikissa had seemed intent on tormenting Cecilia to death after her childbirth. But now Mother Rikissa ordered, more with scorn than with the grace of God, that Cecilia Blanca be led to the lapis culparum, the punishment stone at the far end of the room. The prioress and one of the sisters promptly went over to Cecilia Blanca and took her by both arms to lead her to the punishment stone; there they removed her woolen mantle so that she stood there in only her linen shift. They stretched her hands above her head and fastened them with two handcuffs of iron.
Then Mother Rikissa fetched a scourge and took up position next to the bound Cecilia Blanca and looked at her congregation, again showing more triumph than divine benevolence. She paused for a moment, testing the scourge by slapping it against her hand.
Then she signaled for them to say three Pater Nosters, and they all bowed their heads obediently and began reciting.
When the prayers were concluded, she summoned one of the worldly maidens, Helena Sverkersdotter, handed her the scourge, and asked her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Virgin to administer three lashes.
Helena Sverkersdotter was a clumsy, bumbling girl who seldom got the chance to stand out from the crowd. Now she looked at the other sisters with delight, and they all nodded at her in encouragement; someone signaled for her to give Cecilia Blanca a good thrashing. And so she did. She did not do it in the usual way, which was intended to mark the memory and alter the mind rather than to cause injury to the body. She struck as hard as she could, and with the last blow two lines of blood seeped through Cecilia Blanca’s white shift.
Cecilia Blanca moaned between clenched teeth during the beating, but she did not scream nor cry.
Now she turned around, difficult as it was in her bound position, so that she could look the flushed and exhilarated Helena Sverkersdotter in the eye. And then, snarling between clenched teeth and with her eyes black with hate, she said something so appalling that a gasp of horror passed through the hall.
“One day, Helena Sverkersdotter, you shall regret those lashes more than anything else in your life, I swear it by the Holy Virgin Mary!”
These words were unconscionable. Not just because they expressed threats and anger intra muros, nor because she had involved Our Lady in her sin, but primarily because these words showed that Cecilia Blanca had not accepted the justice of her punishment and thus had not obeyed Mother Rikissa.
What everyone now anticipated was three times three new lashes with the scourge, as an immediate result of the blasphemous words. But Mother Rikissa went over to take the scourge away from Helena Sverkersdotter, who had already raised her hand to begin anew.
Cecilia Rosa over by the door thought she saw Mother Rikissa’s eyes glowing red like a dragon’s or some other evil creature, and all the others bowed their heads as if in prayer, although what they really felt was horror.
“Three days in the carcer,” said Mother Rikissa at last, drawing out her words. “Three days in the carcer on bread and water, with solitude and silence and prayer, and with only one blanket—that’s where you shall seek forgiveness!”
No one had been sentenced to the carcer as long as Cecilia Rosa had been at Gudhem; that was a punishment mentioned only as a scary story. The carcer was a dark little hole beneath the cellarium, the seed storage areas. Sitting there among the rats in the wintertime was a torment that would be terrible to endure.
Over the next few days Cecilia Rosa did not feel cold, because she was occupied with praying for her new friend Cecilia Blanca. She prayed with a burning soul and tears running from her eyes, and she did all her tasks without thinking; she wove and sang and ate without thinking. She put her whole soul and all her thoughts into her prayers.
On the evening of the third day, Cecilia Blanca returned, her legs stiff and unsteady, completely white in the face. She was escorted by two sisters up to the dormitorium after the period of silence. They led her to her bed, shoved her in, and heedlessly tossed the covers over her.
Cecilia Rosa, as even she now called herself, sought out her friend’s eyes in the dark. But Cecilia Blanca’s gaze was rigid and empty. Considering how she looked, she had to be chilled to the bone.
Cecilia Rosa waited a while until it was quiet in the dormitorium before she did the unthinkable. She took her two blankets and climbed into her friend’s bed as quietly as she could, pulling the covers over both of them and lying close to her. It was like lying next to ice. But soon, as though Our Lady were holding her hand over them even in this difficult hour, the warmth slowly crept into their bodies.
After matins Cecilia Rosa did not dare repeat her sin, which was an act of charity. But she loaned one of her blankets to her friend and no longer felt cold herself, even though it was one of the last hard winter nights, with the stars sparkling with utter clarity in the black sky.
Their crime was never discovered. Or perhaps the lay sisters who slept nearby and had the best opportunity of discovering the sinful deed of sleeping together found no reason to tell tales. For those who did not have hearts of stone or, unlike the other worldly maidens among the novices, did not hate the two Cecilias, it was not hard to imagine the suffering that three nights in the carcer had caused during the coldest part of winter.
Winter at Gudhem was the time
for spinning and weaving. For the lay sisters this was monotonous work, since the important thing was that they produce as much cloth as possible for Gudhem to donate or sell.
But for the worldly maidens it was more a matter of learning a task that would keep their hands occupied. Ora et labora, pray and work, was the most important rule next to obedience at Gudhem, as in other cloisters. For this reason the maidens had to look as though they were working even during the time when the cold kept them all indoors.
If one of the younger novices was totally ignorant of this type of work, she would first have to sit next to someone more skilled, at least until she was able to manage her own loom or distaff.
Cecilia Blanca had proved completely unfamiliar with this work, while Cecilia Rosa could perform the tasks almost as well as a lay sister. This presented a problem that could be solved in only one way, since none of the six young women who belonged to the Sverker clan, or wanted to belong, would sit with the one they disdained and hated most at Gudhem, the fiancée of the regicide Knut Eriksson. That was the secret they had discovered. So the only solution was to put the two Cecilias together at the same loom.
Cecilia Rosa soon discovered that her friend Blanca had actually mastered all the arts of the loom; she furtively demonstrated as much, using a secret sign between them. Her feigned ignorance was merely a ruse so that the two friends could be near each other. Now no imposed silence could prevent them from speaking together, since during the work they constantly had to use sign language. No supervising sister was sharp-eyed enough to see what they were talking about at every moment. And when the supervisor turned her back, they could exchange a surreptitious whisper.
Soon Cecilia Blanca had told her what she knew about the hatred of the others for the two of them, and about her hopes for the future.