The Templar Knight

by Jan Guillou

  One of the highborn and valuable Frankish captives could expect no mercy. Saladin had sworn to God that with his own hands he would kill Reynald de Châtillon, and he did so now with his sword. He reassured the other prisoners at once that they would not be treated in the same way. He gave them all water to drink, handing it to them himself.

  Outside, many Saracen soldiers had gathered to watch the beheadings and were celebrating the occasion. A group of Sufi scholars from Cairo had been following Saladin’s army because they imagined that they would be able to convert Christians to the true faith. As a cruel joke some emirs had agreed to let the Sufis make an attempt with the fighting monks, the Hospitallers and Templars.

  So now these men of faith, not entirely happy with their task, were allowed to go from Templar to Hospitaller and ask if he was ready to renounce the false Christian beliefs and convert to Islam if his life was spared. Each time the Sufis received the same defiant answer, and then they had to perform the beheading themselves. This led to much merriment among the spectators, since they seldom managed to sever the head with one blow. Instead the learned defenders of the faith mostly had to hack away at the poor knight’s neck. Each time a beheading was finally successful, the spectators cheered. Otherwise the soldiers laughed and shouted, voicing their jocular disapproval and offering advice.

  From the water he received Arn revived enough that he understood what was about to happen. But his face was covered in blood and he could see only out of one eye, so he had a hard time knowing what exactly was happening farther down the line.

  But he was not very interested in any of that. He prayed and prepared to deliver up his soul to God. With all the strength he could muster he asked God: What can be the meaning of this? For it was July 4, 1187. On precisely this day twenty years ago he had sworn the oath to the Knights Templar. From sundown on this day he would be free. What was God’s intention in letting him live until the last hour in service and then taking his life? And why let him live until precisely this day, when Christendom was defeated in the Holy Land?

  Arn caught himself being selfish. He was not alone in dying, and the last hour of life ought to be used for better thoughts than directing accusatory questions at God. Now that he was finished with his own life he should instead be praying for Cecilia and the child who would soon be fatherless.

  When the sweating group of blood-soaked and distressed Sufi scholars reached Arn, they asked him dejectedly if he was ready to renounce his false beliefs and convert to the true faith if he might be allowed to live. Their manner of asking indicated that they had little hope for his conversion, and they had not even tried to ensure that he understood.

  Defiantly Arn then raised his bowed head and spoke to them in the language of the Prophet, peace be unto him:

  “In the name of the Most Benevolent, Ever-Merciful, hear the words from your own Holy Koran, the third sura and the fifty-fifth verse,” he began, taking a deep breath so that he could continue, as the men around him fell silent in astonishment.

  “And God said,” he continued in a voice that barely managed to form the words, “‘O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee of the falsehoods of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection: Then shall ye all return unto me, and I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute.’”

  Arn closed his eyes and leaned forward in anticipation of the sword striking his neck. But the Sufis around him had become as if paralyzed at hearing God’s own words from one of their worst enemies. At the same time a high emir stepped forward and called out that they had found Al Ghouti.

  Even though Arn’s face was so heavily battered that nobody would have recognized him, they all knew that only one foe was known for his ability to quote so purely and clearly God’s own words.

  And Saladin had given them all strict instructions that if Al Ghouti were found among the living, under no circumstances was he to be treated as a captive, but rather as an honored guest.

  Chapter 10

  When the sun went down on the last day of Cecilia Rosa’s twenty-year penance, she was sitting by one of the fish ponds at Riseberga all by herself. It was a warm evening with no breeze just after Persmas, when the summer was just about to pass its zenith, and when the hay-making would soon begin down in Western Götaland, but not yet up here in Nordanskog.

  She had been to mass twice, and she had gone to Holy Communion, filled with the thought that on this day, with the help of Our Lady, she would have completed the time that had seemed never-ending when she was first sentenced. She would finally be free.

  But not yet. For when the hour of freedom struck it was as though nothing had changed; there was not the slightest sign that anything was different. Everything was the same as usual, just like on any summer day.

  She realized that she may have had childish notions, that Arn, whose hour of freedom must have struck at the same time as hers, would immediately come riding toward her out of nowhere, although he would have a very long journey ahead of him. Those who knew about such things said that it could take a year to travel to or from Jerusalem.

  Maybe she had also pushed aside all thoughts of this singular moment of happiness because deep in her heart she knew that it would feel just like this. It was nothing special. She was now thirty-seven years old and owned nothing except the clothes on her back. As far as she knew, her father was sitting at home in Husaby paralyzed by a stroke, impoverished, and utterly dependent on the Folkungs at Arnäs for whatever income he received. She would not bring him much joy by coming home and demanding to be supported.

  She had no interest in going to Arnäs. Her sister Katarina was the mistress there, and since it was Katarina’s fault that Cecilia Rosa ended up doing twenty years of penance in the convent, a meeting between the sisters would not be welcomed by either of them.

  She could go to Näs on Visingsö to be the guest of Cecilia Blanca, and she would surely also be welcome for a time at Ulfshem with Ulvhilde. But it was one thing for friends to visit each other when they could offer the same hospitality in return. It was another matter to arrive homeless.

  As if struck by a sudden bright idea, she tore off the wimple around her head that she had grown used to wearing for twenty long years. In all that time she had been forced to ignore her hair. Now she shook out her tresses and ran her fingers through the tangles so that her hair hung free. According to the rules it was much too long, but she had managed to evade the most recent two of the six haircuts required per year.

  She leaned forward and tried to see her reflection in the surface of the pond. But twilight had already fallen and she could barely see her face and the red hair. The image she saw was probably more the way she remembered herself from her youth than the way she actually looked now. As at every other convent, there were no mirrors at Riseberga.

  She awkwardly ran her hands over her body the way a free woman had a right to do; she even attempted to run them over her breasts and hips since as of this evening that would no longer be a breach of the rules. But the touch of her hands did not tell her much. She was thirty-seven years old but not yet free; that was the only thing she could say for certain.

  Now that she thought about it, even freedom seemed enclosed by both fences and walls. Birger Brosa had decided that she could continue as yconoma at Riseberga as long as she wanted; when she heard him say that it had sounded like a mere pleasantry. But now in the first hour of her freedom, as she tried to examine what that friendly statement had implied, it seemed more likely that she would continue the same work that she had been doing in recent years.

  But not in entirely the same way. She decided that she no longer intended to cover her hair with a wimple, and that she no longer needed to sing either lauds or matins or take part in completorium. In this way she would gain a good deal of extra time to work. And starting today she would be able to go to the marketplaces and make purchases herself; that suddenly see
med to her the greatest change of all. She had the right to mix with other people, and she could speak with anyone she cared to address; she was no longer burdened with sin and punishment.

  Most of all she wanted to go to Bjälbo to see her son Magnus. But that was a meeting that she had imagined with equal parts longing and trepidation.

  In the view of many people, but above all in the eyes of the church, Magnus had been born in sin and shame. Birger Brosa had taken him in as an infant and brought him into the clan as a legitimate heir when approved by the ting. Then he had raised the boy as his own child. But all too many tongues knew how he had been admitted to the clan by the ting, and the gossip had reached Magnus himself, first as furtive hints, then from those who spoke more boldly and in anger.

  On the verge of becoming a man, Magnus had begun to realize the truth. Then he took Birger Brosa aside and demanded to be told how things stood. Birger Brosa had seen no other option than to tell him the unvarnished truth. For a time Magnus had gone about like a recluse, sullen and taciturn, as if his secure life as the jarl’s son had been smashed to bits. During that time Birger Brosa decided not to bother the boy, since he thought that things would change soon enough and curiosity would replace disappointment.

  And so it was. After a while Magnus sought out his foster father and began to ask the first questions about Arn Magnusson. As Birger Brosa recounted to Cecilia Rosa, he may have exaggerated a bit when he described Arn as the best swordsman ever seen in Western Götaland and an archer with few equals. Birger Brosa excused himself by saying that this was not entirely untrue. The memory still lived on about how young Arn, hardly more than a boy, had vanquished the huge Sverker giant Emund Ulvbane at the ting of all Goths in Axevalla. It had been like the story of David and Goliath in the Holy Scriptures, and yet not the same, because Arn proved to be so much better with a sword than Emund, who lost his hand instead of his life because young Arn chose to spare him.

  When Magnus felt himself free to ask older kinsmen about this event, he met many who had actually been present at Axevalla, or at least claimed they had. Yet they could still embellish the story with the most outrageous details.

  Since young Magnus at an early age had shown himself to be a much better shot with a bow than other boys, he now suspected that it was because his father was such an excellent archer. He began to practice far more than was necessary, neglecting other aspects of his education. He also went to Birger Brosa and told him that if his father did not come home alive from the Holy Land, then he would not take the surname Birgersson after Birger Brosa. Nor would he choose Arnsson. Instead he would call himself Magnus Månesköld, and he had painted with his own hand a little silver half-moon above the Folkung lion on his shield.

  It was Birger Brosa’s opinion that since such a long time had already passed, it would be best if mother and son did not meet until Cecilia Rosa’s penance was completed. It would be better for the boy’s soul to meet his mother as a free woman than as a cloister servant who still had years of penance left to serve. Cecilia had no objection to that proposal. But now the time had come when she was free and no longer a penitent servant. Now she feared this meeting more than she ever would have thought. She began to worry about things that she had never considered before: Was she old and ugly? Were her clothes too plain? If young Magnus had such big dreams about his father, wasn’t there a greater danger that he would be disappointed when he saw his mother?

  When the other women at Riseberga—six nuns, three novices, and eight lay-sisters—went to completorium that evening, Cecilia Rosa went instead to her bookkeeping chamber. Her first hour of freedom began with work.

  That autumn Cecilia organized an expedition down to Gudhem to purchase all sorts of useful and lovely plants that could only travel in the fall so that they wouldn’t die on the way. She also needed many things for sewing and dyeing cloth. All such matters had been worked out long ago at Gudhem, while Riseberga up in Nordanskog was only in the beginning stages of its operation. Because Cecilia Rosa would be bringing a great deal of silver along for payment, Birger Brosa had arranged for her to have armed horsemen accompany her south to Lake Vättern. Then Norwegian seafarers would take her across the water, and Folkung riders would again escort her from the lake to Gudhem.

  She too traveled on horseback. Since she had been a good rider at the age of seventeen, it didn’t take her long to regain her previous skill on horseback, although her body did ache.

  As she approached Gudhem with her retinue, she stubbornly insisted on riding in front because she was an yconoma and used to making decisions. The armed horsemen were only her escort. But she was surprised at how mixed her feelings were. Gudhem was situated in a beautiful location, and it was lovely to see even at a distance. In the middle of autumn like this, many roses were still blooming along the walls; they were the kind she would try to buy for the beautification of Riseberga, along with other flowering plants.

  There was no place on earth she had hated as much as Gudhem; that much was true without a doubt. But what a remarkable difference there was in approaching Mother Rikissa’s realm as a free woman rather than as one who had to obey her every demand.

  Cecilia Rosa told herself that she was here strictly for business and to obtain the best for Riseberga. There was no reason to seek out a quarrel with Mother Rikissa or to make a special effort to show the abbess that her power had been broken. As she rode down the last graveled lane toward Gudhem, Cecilia Rosa imagined behaving toward Rikissa as if they were now equals: the abbess from Gudhem and the yconoma from Riseberga, who were going to transact business to the best of their ability and nothing more. But she did scowl a bit when she recalled Mother Rikissa’s lack of understanding when it came to business dealings.

  But nothing came of her imagined encounter with the abbess. Mother Rikissa lay dying, and Bishop Örjan from Växjö had been called to the deathbed to hear her confession and give her extreme unction.

  Upon hearing this news, Cecilia Rosa at first considered leaving Gudhem. But the journey had been long and difficult, and life in both Gudhem and Riseberga would go on long after everyone who now lived there was dead. So she changed her mind and took lodging in the hospitium, where she and her companions were welcomed as if they were any other travelers.

  Early that evening the bishop, whom she did not know, came to see Cecilia Rosa and asked her to accompany him into the cloister to visit the abbess one last time. Mother Rikissa herself had requested this last favor from Cecilia Rosa.

  To refuse the last wish of someone who was dying when it would be so easy to comply was of course out of the question. Reluctantly Cecilia Rosa followed Bishop Örjan to Mother Rikissa’s deathbed. Her reluctance was not on account of death, as she had seen much of that in the convent, where many old women came to live out their last days and then die. Her reluctance was because of the emotions she feared she would discover in her heart when faced with Mother Rikissa’s death. To exult over her death would be a difficult sin to forgive. But what other emotions could she feel for a person who was evil incarnate?

  With the bishop lamenting and praying at her side, Cecilia Rosa entered Mother Rikissa’s innermost sanctum. The abbess lay there with the covers pulled up to her chin and with a candle burning on either side of the bed. She was very pale, as if the Grim Reaper were already squeezing her heart with his cold skeletal hand. Her eyes were half shut.

  Cecilia Rosa and the bishop fell at once to their knees beside the bed and said the obligatory prayers. When they finished praying, Mother Rikissa opened her eyes a little. Suddenly she stuck a claw-like hand out from under the covers and grabbed Cecilia Rosa by the back of the neck with a strength that was not at all like that of someone who was dying.

  “Cecilia Rosa, God has called you here in this hour so that you will forgive me,” she snarled, and her strong grip relaxed a bit around Cecilia Rosa’s neck.

  For a brief moment Cecilia Rosa felt the same icy terror that she had always associated with this e
vil woman. But then she collected herself and removed without undue firmness Mother Rikissa’s hand from her neck.

  “What is it that you want me to forgive you, Mother?” she asked, her tone betraying no emotion.

  “My sins, and mostly my sins against you,” whispered Mother Rikissa as if she had suddenly lost most of her surprising strength.

  “Like when you whipped me for sins that you knew I hadn’t committed? Have you confessed to that evil?” Cecilia Rosa asked coldly.

  “Yes, I have confessed these sins to Bishop Örjan who is at your side,” replied Mother Rikissa.

  “Like when you tried to kill me by keeping me in the carcer in the wintertime with only a blanket? Did you confess to that too?” Cecilia Rosa went on.

  “Yes, I have…confessed to that too,” said Mother Rikissa. But then Cecilia Rosa couldn’t help noticing how Bishop Örjan, still on his knees at her side, made a restless movement. She glanced at him at once and couldn’t avoid seeing his look of surprise.

  “You’re not lying to me on your own deathbed after you’ve confessed and received extreme unction, are you, Mother Rikissa?” Cecilia Rosa asked in a soft tone, though she felt as hard as iron inside. In Mother Rikissa’s red glowing eyes she again saw the slitted pupils of the goat.

  “I have confessed to all that you have asked me about. Now I want to have your forgiveness and your prayers before my long journey, for my sins are not insignificant,” Mother Rikissa whispered.