by Jan Guillou
Cecilia tried to resist being swept along by Arn’s eager enthusiasm. She asked him to sit down next to her on an old stone bench next to the garden to explain everything one more time, but more slowly and in detail. Because if she didn’t understand what he was saying, she wouldn’t be able to offer any help.
Her words stopped him, and he sat down obediently next to her, caressed her hand, and shook his head with a smile as if asking her forgiveness.
‘So, let’s begin again,’ she said. ‘Tell me what will be coming in to Forsvik on Eskil’s ships. Let’s start with that. What will we have to purchase?’
‘Iron bars, wool, salt, livestock fodder, grain, skins, the type of sand we need to make glass, and various types of stone,’ he said.
‘And all this we have to pay for?’ she asked sternly.
‘Yes, but it doesn’t always mean we have to pay in silver.’
‘I know that!’ she snapped. ‘One can pay in many ways, but that’s a question for later. Now tell me instead what we will be producing at Forsvik.’
‘All the things that can be made from iron and steel,’ he replied. ‘All sorts of weapons that we can certainly make better than anyone in the kingdom, but also ploughshares and steel-clad wheels. We can mill flour at any time, night or day all year round, and so much grain will be coming with Eskil’s ships that we need never lack for it. We will make anything that has to do with leather and saddle-making. If we solve the problem with the clay, which now comes from too far away, the potters can work as steadily as the millers. But it’s glass that will give us the best income.’
‘All those things together don’t sound like income at all,’ Cecilia remarked with a frown. ‘It sounds like a loss. Because we also have big expenses maintaining the estate; there are many souls living here already, and there will be more this winter if I understand your plans correctly. And we have as many horses here as there are at the king’s Näs, and we don’t have enough winter fodder from our own fields. Are you quite sure, my love, that you haven’t been overcome by pride?’
At first he was completely silenced by her words; he took her hand in both of his and raised it to his lips, kissing it many times. She grew warm inside, but was not in the least soothed when it came to their business affairs.
‘In some respects you aren’t the same woman I left outside Gudhem, my love,’ he said. ‘You are much wiser now than you were then. You see things instantly that none of your kinsmen would ever comprehend. There is certainly no better wife than you in our kingdom.’
‘And that is exactly what I would like to be, your good wife,’ she replied. ‘But then I must also try to keep track of all your ambitious plans, because you seem to be building more than you’re thinking at the moment.’
‘That’s probably true,’ he admitted without looking in the least worried. ‘I had probably thought to leave debt and loss, profit and expenses to be figured out later, even though I know it has to be done.’
‘That’s a foolish way of thinking that could cost us a great deal, and many of us may pay for your recklessness with grumbling stomachs this winter,’ she said calmly. ‘Shouldn’t you stop and think about everything a bit more?’
‘Well, I can hear that I should leave the thinking about these matters to you,’ he said, kissing her hand again. ‘You know that in the beginning we can do business at a loss, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. I’ve done that myself, although back then it was not something I intended or even comprehended. But you’ll need a thick layer of silver at the bottom of the coffer, and you must be sure that things will get better in the future.’
‘Here at Forsvik we meet both these conditions. But what sort of losses did you experience, my dear?’
‘Cecilia Blanca, Ulvhilde, and I were the first to think of the idea of bringing in silver to Gudhem by sewing mantles, the kind that almost everyone in the kingdom wears nowadays. At first we sold them too cheaply, so we were spending more silver on buying pelts and expensive thread from Lübeck than we earned once we sold the finished mantles,’ she said.
‘But then you raised the price and soon everybody wanted to have such fine mantles, so you raised the price even higher!’ Arn suggested, throwing out his arms as though there was nothing to worry about either now or later.
‘Yes, that’s how we managed to correct our ways,’ said Cecilia, but her frown was back. ‘You said that we have silver, and you said that things will be better in the future. You’ll have to explain that to me.’
‘Gladly,’ said Arn. ‘We have plenty of silver. What we can sell first is glass, but that income will be less than what we have to pay for all the other things. As soon as we can sell weapons, it will all even out. Then there is pottery, sawed timber, and several other things that will quickly turn our loss to profit, as soon as we get going.’
‘Weapons?’ Cecilia asked suspiciously. ‘How are we going to sell something that people make for themselves on their own farms?’
‘Because we’ll make much better weapons.’
‘How are you going to make people aware of that? You can’t just ride around displaying the weapons in your hand.’
‘No, but it will take some time to make all the weapons needed at Arnäs. They must have weapons and chain mail for a hundred men. And Eskil will have to pay for all of it. Then we have Bjälbo, and after that one Folkung estate after the other.’
‘Now that’s a new way to do business,’ Cecilia admitted with a sigh. ‘But the most important thing is not the iron coming in from Svealand to Forsvik and finished weapons going out. More important is that all the wool we have from our own sheep has disappeared for your…what was the word?’
‘Felt.’
‘Felt, yes. But we normally use the wool to make clothes for everyone, high-born and low. So now we have to pay for all that wool?’
‘Yes, both for clothing and to make more felt.’
‘And we need more hides than we can get from our own slaughtered livestock,’ said Cecilia, ‘and more meat, especially lamb, than we have on hand now to get through the winter. And fodder for all the livestock, especially the horses.’
‘Yes, there you see, my love. You see everything so clearly.’
‘Well, one of us has to keep accounts so we can do the right thing at the right time, and that’s not a simple calculation!’ she declared at last when she had thought things over. She envisioned difficulties piling up like a mountain in the near future.
‘Can I ask you, my own dear wife, to take charge of this?’ asked Arn, a bit too eagerly, she thought.
‘Yes, you can. I have my abacus, but this task will be more than anyone could hold in their head. I need writing implements and parchment in order to handle this work. And I’ll have to talk to many people, so it will take some time. But if we don’t start making calculations soon, we’re going to starve this winter!’
He promised her at once that she would receive everything she needed to begin keeping the account books. He added self-confidently that here at Forsvik they would never go hungry. After that he seemed to forget about the whole matter and went back to his own frenzied work.
When King Knut told Arn that the castle church at his Näs would be the closest for residents of Forsvik, it was not entirely true. There were closer churches. But if the winds were favourable on Lake Vättern, it was still faster to get to Näs than to any other church, since King Knut still retained Norwegian oarsmen and sailors.
At Olsmas, early in the morning Arn and Cecilia went on board the ship called The Snake. Cecilia was glad when she saw the slender black ship, and she hoped that the helmsman was the same one she had met before. And it was, she soon found out, but his long hair had now turned white.
Arn was not happy to see this ship again. He had been aboard during its first journey, which had ended in the death of a king, but he said nothing of this to Cecilia or anyone else when he bowed his head, crossed himself, and climbed aboard. The Norwegian oarsmen smiled to one another,
since they thought they had another West Goth passenger who had never sailed before. They still told the merry tale about the noble lady who asked Styrbjørn himself whether he wasn’t afraid that he would get lost sailing on little Lake Vättern.
They had to row only for an hour before they caught a good wind and could set the sail. Then the crossing proceeded at a furious pace, with the white foam spraying up from the bow of the ship.
After the mass and the bride’s third purification in the castle church, the two Cecilias went off by themselves, while Knut took Arn up to the battlement between the two towers. There he ordered benches and a table to be brought, along with food and drink, which he was unsuccessful in pressing on Arn on this holy day.
There was much to discuss and one day would not be enough, Knut explained sadly, stroking his almost bald head. But they might as well begin with the simplest problem, which was to arrange the wedding between Magnus Månesköld and the Sverker daughter Ingrid Ylva. Knut said that he understood that both Arn and the bride’s father Sune Sik might be reluctant to have Arn act as the groom’s spokesman and thus negotiate with the man whose brother he had helped to kill. But Birger Brosa had solved that problem as easily as cracking a nut in his hand.
Magnus Månesköld had grown up as Birger Brosa’s foster son, and now was more of a younger brother. If Birger Brosa instead of Arn spoke on behalf of the groom, they would avoid all difficulties quite elegantly and insult no one. Besides, the king’s brother Sune Sik would have the honour of meeting the jarl of the kingdom as his future son-in-law’s negotiator.
Arn merely nodded his agreement and muttered that no more time need be wasted on this question if there was something that was more urgent.
The next matter to be discussed mixed pride with wisdom, so it could not be solved with wisdom alone. Still, Arn had to reconcile as soon as possible with his uncle, Birger Brosa.
Thinking that all the difficult topics of discussion had now been dealt with, Arn began asking eagerly how the kingdom was now being governed. He had understood that a great deal had changed since they were young, when everyone gathered at the ting of all Goths with the king, jarl, and judge and perhaps two thousand men. He hadn’t heard a word about such a ting since he came home, so that must mean that the power had shifted away from the ting.
King Knut sighed that this was indeed true. Some things had improved with the new manner of governing the kingdom, others had grown worse.
At the ting free men decided now as before all matters amongst free men. At the ting they could present their disputes, determine fines for manslaughter, hang one another’s thieves, and settle other petty matters.
At the king’s council, on the other hand, matters were decided that dealt with the kingdom as a whole: who would be king, or jarl or bishop; taxes due to the king or jarl; building of cloisters; trade with foreign lands; and the defence of the realm. When Finns and Russians sailed into Lake Mälaren five years before, plundering and burning the town of Sigtuna, and killing Archbishop Jon, there was much for the kingdom’s council to decide. It could never have been done at a ting with a thousand arguing men. A new city would have to be built to obstruct the inlet to Mälaren, at Agnefit where Mälaren met the Eastern Sea. Now a start had been made; defensive towers had been built, booms and chains had been stretched across the rivers so that no plunderers from the East could come back, at least not unnoticed as they did the last time. Such things were decided at the king’s council. This was new.
Arn was well aware of where Agnefit was situated, since he had once ridden that way and past Stocksund when he was returning from Östra Aros on his way to Bjälbo. He once proposed that it was there the king ought to have his seat rather than down at Näs in the middle of Lake Vättern.
No matter how impatient King Knut was to find the discussion moving in a completely different direction from that he had intended, he couldn’t help asking Arn to tell him more about this unexpected idea. What was wrong with Näs?
‘The location,’ replied Arn with a laugh. Näs was built by Karl Sverkersson for one simple reason. The king wanted to have a castle that was so safe that no one with murder on his mind could reach him. Arn and Knut knew better than anyone how futile that thought was, since it was at Näs that they had killed King Karl, less than an arrow-shot from the place where they now sat many years later.
‘The king should ideally have his seat where the gold and silver for the kingdom flow through,’ Arn went on. ‘Considering the present trade routes and how they might look in the future, this site should be in the east of the kingdom rather than in the west. For to the west lies Denmark.’
From Linköping in Eastern Götaland they could certainly handle the affairs of the kingdom, especially trade with Lübeck, and better than from remote Näs. But Linköping had been the Sverkers’ city from olden times, and for a king from the Erik clan that would be like seeking a home in a hornets’ nest. Instead the king should build himself a new city, by the Eastern Sea, a city that belonged to no one else.
Knut argued that Näs was safer. Here they could either defend themselves or flee, and for a good part of the year it was inaccessible to any enemy. If they built a new city it could be taken by storm and burned. Arn countered that the site at Agnefit and Stocksund was suitable for building a city that could not be taken. Besides they had only one enemy, and that was Denmark; if the Danes wanted to go to war against Western Götaland they could simply take the land route north from Skåne. And sailing past the Danes from Lödöse down to Lübeck would no longer be possible if the Danes should deny them passage. Denmark was a great power. But the east coast of the realm was not as easy for them to reach. And from Agnefit it was closer to Lübeck than from Näs, if reckoned in the same way that Knut had reckoned when he said that the closest church to Forsvik was the one at Näs. It would be the same if they moved the power of the realm from Näs to the east coast.
They twisted and turned the idea of the new city by the Eastern Sea, but finally Knut wanted to get back to matters he had planned to discuss. Most difficult was the intractable Archbishop Petter, or Petrus as he called himself. Having a hostile archbishop on his neck was the worst thing that could befall a king. Archbishop Petter was a Sverker man, and he made not the slightest effort to hide his ties to the clan. And his ambition was clear. He wanted to tear the crown from his own king and hand it to Sverker Karlsson, who had lived his entire life in Denmark.
The king’s council appointed every bishop in the realm, Knut explained. A bishop received his staff and ring from the king, and no one could become bishop without the king’s will. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as simple with the archbishop, for the king could neither refuse nor appoint him. It was Rome that decided, but now Rome had assigned that power to Archbishop Absalon in Lund, which was the same as handing it to Denmark.
So the Danes decided who was going to be archbishop in the land of the Swedes and Goths. No matter how backwards that might seem, nothing could be done about it. And even if Knut did what he could to cleanse the crowd of bishops of all Sverker men, those rogues changed their loyalty as soon as they received their ring and staff. Then they obeyed the archbishop regardless of what secret promises they had made to the king before receiving power. A cleric could never be trusted.
And that wily Petter never ceased arguing that Knut had not sufficiently atoned for the killing of King Karl. As long as the deed was not atoned for, it meant that he had unjustly seized the crown, even though he had been crowned and anointed. And a crown unjustly seized could not be inherited by the eldest son, Petter claimed.
There was also much grumbling about the claim that Queen Cecilia Blanca had actually taken cloister vows, so that her sons Erik, Jon, Joar, and Knut were all illegitimate. And illegitimate sons could not inherit the crown either, according to Petter. Archbishop Petter kept pulling on these two reins, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other.
Arn argued that the Church could not defy the king’s choice o
f successor. If the council decided to name Erik jarl as king after Knut, the bishops could grumble about it, roll their eyes, and talk about sin. And of course they could refuse to crown Erik. But there had been uncrowned kings of the realm before.
Unless all the bishops then went off to Denmark and crowned that Sverker instead, Knut put in, sounding disconsolate.
‘Then no man in the lands of the Swedes and Goths would take the matter seriously, and such a king in foreign service would never be able to set his foot in the realm,’ Arn said calmly.
‘But what if such a king came leading a Danish army?’ asked Knut, now looking anxious.
‘Then whoever wins the war will triumph, that’s nothing new,’ said Arn. ‘It’s the same as if the Danes wanted to turn us into Danes today; who we select as king will not determine the outcome.’
‘Do you think the Danes could do that? Could they conquer us?’ Knut asked, tears visible in his eyes.
‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ said Arn. ‘If we were so foolish as to meet a Danish army on the battlefield today, they would enjoy a great victory. If I were your marshal I would advise you not to fight them.’
‘So we’d be lost, and also disgraced because we refused to fight for our honour and our freedom?’
‘No,’ said Arn. ‘Not at all. It’s a long way from Sjaelland to Näs, and even further to the Swedes’ Östra Aros. If a Danish army invaded our land, they would naturally want to have a quick and decisive victory, as long as the season was favorable and their supply lines were good. Now imagine if we didn’t give them that opportunity. They would be expecting, just as you are, that we would immediately call for a campaign, that every man in the realm would put on his iron helmet and come with axe in hand to be crushed by the Danish cavalry. They would die bravely and with honour, but they would die. What if we didn’t do that?’