by Jan Guillou
When the secular Frankish army returned to celebrate its victory, which they thought they had accomplished on their own without any Templar knights, the battle of Mont Gisard was still raging.
Saladin’s army was totally broken. There were still many Mamelukes left, both alive and uninjured, enough so that Saladin could have won under entirely different circumstances on another day, in another location and in better weather. But none of the groups of soldiers in the scattered and splintered army knew where the others were.
As a result of this confusion combined with the rumor of the bloodbath at Mont Gisard, a wild and unorganized flight began to the south. This retreat would eventually claim as many lives as the battle of Mont Gisard, for it was very far from the regions of Ramle to the safety of the Sinai. And all along the way, plundering and murderous Bedouins waited. Sooner or later they would seize many prisoners and an abundance of rich spoils.
Among the many captives who were dragged behind camels to the fortress in Gaza were Saladin’s brother Fahkr and his friend the emir Moussa. They had been found next to Saladin when he was almost captured by a group of Templar knights, but they had sacrificed themselves without hesitation. Not even in the darkest hour of defeat did they doubt for a moment that Saladin was the one that God had chosen to lead them to victory.
The Knights Templar lost forty-six men who were wounded and thirteen who were killed. Among the dead that were found and brought back to Gaza was the sergeant Armand de Gascogne. He was one of those who tried to take Saladin; he had been only a lance-length from changing the course of history.
Chapter 6
The worst time of Cecilia Rosa’s long penance at Gudhem was the year after King Knut Eriksson came to collect Cecilia Blanca to make her his consort and queen of the three crowns. He did honor his promises to Cecilia Blanca, but like everything else in his plans it had taken longer than he had hoped. When he and his queen were finally crowned by Archbishop Stéphan, it was not as big an event as he had envisioned. The ceremony took place not at the cathedral in Östra Aros, but at the castle church at Näs out on the island of Visingsö in Lake Vättern. Although of course it was annoying not to be able to make the coronation as magnificent as he’d intended, it nevertheless was valid before God and man. He was now king by the grace of God.
And Cecilia Blanca, who had taken the surname Blanca as her royal name, was also queen by the grace of God.
But it had taken a year to arrange all this, and that year was the most lamentable in Cecilia Rosa’s life.
Knut’s retinue had hardly disappeared from sight before everything at Gudhem changed all at once. Mother Rikissa again decreed a vow of silence inside the cloister, and it applied especially to Cecilia Rosa. She once again had to endure being whipped with the scourge whether she had broken the vow of silence or not. Mother Rikissa summoned a cold hatred which she directed at Cecilia Rosa, and the other Sverker maidens soon adopted the same attitude—all except one.
The one who refused to hate Cecilia Rosa, the one who would not run with the flock of geese across the courtyard, and the one who never reported her for anything was Ulvhilde Emundsdotter. But none of the others took any particular notice of little Ulvhilde. Her kinsmen had been wiped out in the battle on the fields of blood outside Bjälbo, and she had inherited nothing. For that reason she would also never be invited to drink the bridal ale with any man of importance; all she had left was her clan birthright, and now, in the aftermath of so many defeats, it was worth less than water.
When the first winter storm thundered in over Gudhem, Mother Rikissa decided it was time, as she slyly explained to the malevolent Sverker daughters, to begin sentencing Cecilia Rosa to the carcer, since that whoring woman had still not stopped imagining that she bore the Folkung colors. Clearly she thought this entitled her to be insolent in both word and deed.
Early in the winter there was plenty of grain in the storage chambers above the carcer, and thus many fat black rats. Cecilia Rosa had to learn how to endure more than just the cold by offering up ardent prayers. She found that easy to do compared with being startled awake by the rats or sitting up half-sleep with exhaustion to avoid contact with them. She also learned that if she fell asleep too soundly on the second or third day, when her fatigue was stronger than the cold, then the rats might nibble at her, as if wanting to see whether she was dead and had thus become food for them.
Her only warmth during these repeated visits to the carcer came from her prayers. But she didn’t pray so much for her own sake; she spent most of the time in entreating the Holy Virgin Mary to hold Her protective hand over her beloved Arn and her son Magnus.
There was some selfishness in her prayers for Arn. She was well aware that she lacked Cecilia Blanca’s ability to think like men did, to think as one who had power. Yet she fully understood that she would only be released from this icy hell of Gudhem, and the nemesis of Mother Rikissa, if Arn Magnusson returned uninjured to Western Götaland. So she prayed for him both because she loved him more than any other human being, and also because he was her only hope of salvation.
When spring came, her lungs were still healthy; she had not begun to cough herself to death as Mother Rikissa sometimes feared and sometimes hoped. And the summer of that following year was especially warm, so the carcer became a place of solitude and cool refuge rather than a curse. When the grain stores were at their low point, the black rats also retreated.
But Cecilia Rosa felt weak after such a hard year, and she was afraid that another such winter would be more than she could endure unless the Holy Virgin Mary sent a miracle to rescue her.
She sent no miracle. But She did send a queen by the grace of God, and that soon proved to have the same welcome effect.
Queen Cecilia Blanca came to Gudhem at the beginning of the turnip harvest with a mighty entourage. She moved into the hospitium as if she owned it and was in charge of everything. She bossed everyone about and ordered great quantities of food and drink. She sent word that Rikissa, whom she now addressed as the king and the jarl did without the title of Mother, should come at once to entertain her guests. As she pointed out, at Gudhem every guest should be received as if he were Jesus Christ himself. If that applied to everyone else, then it should certainly apply to a queen.
Mother Rikissa burned inside with fury when she could no longer offer any excuses. She went down to the hospitium to censure that impudent woman who might be a worldly queen but who in no way had control over God’s kingdom on earth. An abbess was not obligated to obey either a king or a queen, crowned or not.
That was also what she pointed out as soon as she was shown to her place at the queen’s table, and it was a lowly position indeed, far from the head of the table. Queen Cecilia Blanca’s desire to meet her dear friend Cecilia Rosa was not something to which Mother Rikissa would agree. For as Mother Rikissa had decided, that wanton woman was now atoning for her sins in a suitable manner and could therefore not entertain visitors, royal or otherwise. Within Gudhem a divine order prevailed, and not the order of a queen. And that, in Mother Rikissa’s opinion, was something that Cecilia Blanca ought to know better than most other people.
Queen Cecilia Blanca listened to Mother Rikissa’s contemptuous and self-confident interpretation of the order of God and man without showing a single hint of uncertainty and without for an instant relaxing her irritating smile.
“Are you now finished with your evil prattle about God and so on? All these fine words that we—who have come to know your harsh ways in this place—do not think that you believe even for a moment. So now I command you to keep your goose-beak shut and listen to your queen,” she said, the words coming in a long, gentle stream, as if she were speaking kindly although her words were biting.
But what she said had an instant effect on Mother Rikissa, who actually pressed her lips together and waited for the queen to continue. She was sure of her case because she knew far better what belonged to God’s kingdom and God’s servants than did a queen who
had recently been a maiden in the convent. But she had grossly underestimated Cecilia Blanca, as she soon discovered.
“So, now listen here, Rikissa,” Cecilia Blanca went on in her calm, almost sleepy tone. “You are the mistress of God’s order and we are only a queen in this earthly life among men, you say. We cannot rule over Gudhem, that is what you believe. No, perhaps not. And yet perhaps we can. For now you will learn something that will cause you sorrow. Your kinsman Bengt in Skara is no longer bishop. Where the poor devil has now fled with his wife after the excommunication we do not know, nor does it particularly interest us. But excommunicated he is. So you can expect no more support in this life from him.”
Mother Rikissa received this bad news about her kinsman Bengt without changing expression, even though inside she felt both dread and sorrow. She chose not to answer but rather to wait out the queen.
“You understand, Rikissa,” Cecilia Blanca went on even more slowly, “that our dear and so highly esteemed Archbishop Stéphan is very close to the king and queen. As anyone can see, it would be utterly wrong of us to venture to say that he is eating out of our hand, that he will obey our slightest whim in his effort to keep the kingdom and its believers together in harmony. One ought not to say such a thing, for it would be the same as insulting God’s high servant on earth. But let us instead say that we understand each other well: the bishop, the king, and the queen. It would be a shame if you also, Rikissa, should need to be excommunicated. And our jarl Birger Brosa, by the way, also displays great enthusiasm in such matters as relate to the church, and he talks continually of setting up new cloisters, for which he has promised a great deal of silver. Do you understand now what I’m getting at, Rikissa?”
“If you say that you really want to see Cecilia Rosa,” replied Mother Rikissa tersely, “then I answer you that there is nothing preventing such a meeting.”
“Good, Rikissa, you aren’t quite as stupid as you look!” Cecilia Blanca burst out, looking both cheerful and friendly at the same time. “But just so that you truly understand what we mean, we think you should take special care not to stir up trouble when speaking with our good friend the archbishop. So! Now you may take your leave; just see to it that my guest is brought to me without delay.”
With these last words Cecilia Blanca clapped her hands and shooed off Mother Rikissa in exactly the same way that Mother Rikissa had behaved so many times before, showing the two Cecilias hardly any more respect than geese.
But Cecilia Rosa was in such a piteous state when she came into the hospitium that nothing needed be said to explain what she had been forced to endure since the hour when King Knut’s tour of the realm left Gudhem. The two Cecilias fell into each other’s arms at once, and tears flowed from both of them.
Queen Cecilia Blanca saw fit to stay three days and three nights in Gudhem’s hospitium, and during that time the two friends were never apart.
Afterward Cecilia Rosa was never again sent to the carcer in all her remaining years in the convent. And in the days following the queen’s visit she received many good morsels and was soon able to eat enough to bring back the color to her cheeks and the roundness to her flesh.
During the next years Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter learned the beautiful art of weaving; they sewed and dyed mantles for gentlemen and ladies, and they also embroidered the loveliest coats of arms on the backs of the mantles. It did not take long before orders were coming in to Gudhem from near and far, even from less powerful clans who had to submit a mantle as a sample, which they later received back in a much more beautiful form.
There was an aura of peace about the two young women when they were working together, and the vow of silence never applied to them, since their work now brought in more silver to Gudhem’s coffers, and without any fuss or bother, than did any other activity. The Yconomus, the old failure of a canon, took such delight in the work done by Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter that he seldom missed an opportunity to point this out to Mother Rikissa. She showed no expression but nodded thoughtfully in agreement. She had a sword of Damocles hanging over her head and she did not forget it, for although Mother Rikissa was not a good woman, neither was she stupid.
Queen Cecilia Blanca had occasion to visit Gudhem more than once a year, and if she could she always stayed several days in the hospitium. Then she would demand that both Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter should serve as her ladies in waiting, which of course never happened because the queen brought along her own roast-turners, cup-bearers, and maids. Those were delightful days for the two “captive women,” as they referred to themselves. It was clear to everyone that the queen’s friendship with Cecilia Rosa was truly of the sort that would last a lifetime. This was especially obvious to Mother Rikissa, and she bowed to the queen’s demands, although with clenched teeth.
In the third year Cecilia Blanca arrived with the most pleasant news. She had stopped by Varnhem to talk with old Father Henri about how, while continuing to meet all the rules, some of Brother Lucien’s knowledge about gardening and healing might be transferred to the sister who had the best understanding of such matters at Gudhem, Sister Leonore of Flanders.
But this was not the most important news that Father Henri had to relate. He had received word from Arn Magnusson. Until recently Arn had been one of many knights in a stronghold of the Knights Templar named Tortosa, situated in a part of the Holy Land called Tripoli. Arn had attended to his duties well; he wore a white mantle and would soon enter the service of a high knight-brother in Jerusalem itself.
It was summertime when Cecilia Blanca arrived with this news, early summer when the apple trees were in bloom between the hospitium, the smithies, and the cattle stall. Upon hearing the news, Cecilia Rosa embraced her dear friend so hard that her whole body trembled. But then she tore herself loose and went out among the blossoming trees without thinking that such behavior would have prompted Mother Rikissa in her worst period to order at least a week in the carcer as punishment. It was forbidden for a young woman to walk alone at Gudhem. But right now there were no such prohibitions in Cecilia Rosa’s mind, and for one happy moment Gudhem did not even exist.
He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive! That thought raced like a herd of gleaming horses in her head, temporarily obliterating all else.
Then she saw Jerusalem, the holiest of cities, before her. She pictured the streets of gold, the white stone churches, the gentle, God-fearing people, and the peace that was evident on their faces; she saw her beloved Arn walking toward her wearing his white mantle with the Lord’s red cross. It was a dream she would carry with her for many years.
At Gudhem time seemed to pass unnoticed. Nothing happened and everything was exactly the same as usual; the same hymns repeated from the Psalter, the same mantles that were sewn and then vanished, the seasons that changed. Nevertheless changes did occur, perhaps so slowly that they went unnoticed until they suddenly could not be ignored.
The first year when Brother Lucien began coming down from Varnhem to teach Sister Leonore all about what grew in God’s splendid garden, about what was good for healing people and what was good for the palate, no great changes occurred. Soon the fact that Brother Lucien and Sister Leonore worked together in the gardens for long hours was taken for granted, as if it had always been so. And it was soon forgotten that at first they were never left alone with each other. Brother Lucien came to the cloister so often that he seemed almost a part of Gudhem.
When the two of them in unashamed conversation disappeared together into the gardens outside the south wall, no suspicious eye noticed in the eighth month of the second year that which any eye should have seen at once during the first month.
Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde began seeking out Sister Leonore to learn from her knowledge, which she in turn had obtained from Varnhem and Brother Lucien. It was as if a new world full of opportunities had opened for them, and it was wonderful to see what people with God’s help could accomplish with their hands in a garden. The
fruit grew large and plump and lasted longer in the wintertime; the incessant soups at supper were no longer as humdrum when new flavours were added; the rules of the cloister forbade foreign spices, but what grew at Gudhem could not be regarded as foreign.
Soon Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde began to move more freely in and out of the convent walls. They were allowed to go down to the gardens to tend to the fruit trees or the flower beds without anyone questioning their whereabouts. This change had also developed so gradually that it was hardly noticed. Some years earlier the slightest attempt to go beyond the walls for any reason would have been met with the scourge and the carcer.
As the summer approached harvest time, the apples began to take on sweetness, the moon turned red in the evening, and the black earth smelled of damp ripeness. One day Cecilia Rosa had no particular errand down in the gardens, and twilight had already begun to fall, so she wouldn’t have time to do any useful work. She was simply walking by herself, looking at the moon and enjoying the strong fragrance of evening. She didn’t expect to find anyone else down there, and perhaps that was why she didn’t discover the terrible sin until she was quite close.
On the ground between some luxuriant berry bushes that had already been picked clean, lay Brother Lucien with Sister Leonore on top of him. She was riding him voluptuously and without the slightest shame, as if they were man and wife sharing a worldly life.
That was Cecilia Rosa’s second thought. Her first had been the awareness of the terrible sin. She stood there as if petrified or bewitched; she couldn’t manage to scream, or run away, or even shut her eyes.
But she quickly got over her fear and instead felt a foreign, tender feeling as if she herself were taking part in the sin. The next moment she was no longer thinking of sin but of her own longing. Instead of those two, she pictured Arn and herself, although they had never done it exactly that way, which was of course doubly sinful.