Birth of the Kingdom

by Jan Guillou

  ‘Then we’d lose our honour, and no one will follow a king without honour!’ Knut replied with a sudden flash of wrath, pounding his fist on the table.

  ‘No one follows a dead king,’ said Arn coldly. ‘If the Danes don’t get the big battle they’re hoping for, they won’t win. They’ll burn a city. They’ll plunder villages, and it will cost us much misery. But then winter will come. Then their supplies will melt away, and we’ll take them one by one and cut off their supply lines home to Denmark. When spring comes you’ll be the great victor. More honour than that you cannot win.’

  ‘In truth you think like no one else when it comes to war,’ said King Knut.

  ‘There you are wrong, absolutely,’ replied Arn with a smile that was almost impudent. ‘I think like a thousand men, many of whom I knew. In the Holy Land we were no more than a thousand men against a superior force infinitely greater than that which the Danes can mount. And the Knights Templar fought with great success for half a century.’

  ‘Until you lost!’ King Knut objected.

  ‘Quite true,’ said Arn. ‘We lost when a fool of a king decided to risk our entire army against a far superior enemy in a single battle. Then we lost. If we had been allowed to continue as we were accustomed to doing, we would have possessed the Holy Land even today.’

  ‘What was that king’s name?’

  ‘Guy de Lusignan. His advisor was named Gérard de Ridefort. May their names live in eternal infamy!’

  For the brothers Jacob and Marcus Wachtian the journey to Skara was one of the strangest they had ever taken, and yet they were both well-travelled men.

  Sir Arn had first intended that the brothers should travel with only a few of his thralls as guides, but they had refused this offer in fright and disgust, saying that they would have a hard time making purchases in a language they didn’t understand. Actually it was the dark nights along the deserted riverbanks that they feared. This Nordic land was a land of demons, they were both convinced of that. And the people they encountered were often hard to distinguish from animals, and that was frightening too.

  At first Sir Arn had been unwilling to leave his construction work, but he gave in to their objections and decided that both he and his wife would come along, since she had purchases to make as well. The brothers had pointed out that it seemed unwise to travel carrying the gold and silver necessary to buy such a long list of items when they had no armed horsemen with them. But Sir Arn had only laughed, giving them an exaggerated chivalrous bow, and assuring them that a Templar knight was at their disposal. He would be travelling in battle attire, taking with him his bow and quiver in addition to the sword and battle-axe he always carried.

  As they loaded their cart with two oxen onto the ship, along with their horses and travelling accoutrements, Sir Arn realized that they needed someone to drive the ox-cart when they proceeded further on land. He called over two boys who were full of eagerness; with bow and quiver in their hands they came running just as the ship was about to cast off.

  They had engaged an empty riverboat with eight foul-smelling and sly-looking oarsmen for the journey. The Wachtian brothers thought they were risking their lives to venture out into the uninhabited and terrifying countryside with gold and silver right under the noses of such men. But they soon changed their attitude when they saw with what submissive and almost terror-stricken looks these river hooligans watched Sir Arn.

  The route took them via Askeberga, the same way they had come, and on to the lake called Östansjö. From there they did not continue northwest toward Arnäs, but south for many hours on a different river, until they came to the place where everything had to be unloaded onto horses for the rest of the journey.

  From the boat landing by the river the road to the nearest town passed through a dense forest. Because it was the only route and because those who wanted to go to the market in town had to travel this way, it wasn’t hard to reckon what dangers might await them in the depths of the forest.

  The brothers’ premonitions were confirmed, for in the midst of the forest Sir Arn, riding at the head of the column, suddenly reined in his horse, raised his right hand as a sign to halt, and put on his helmet. He examined the ground in front of him closely, then looked up into the overhanging crowns of the trees before he called out something in a language that made the forest come alive. Robbers climbed down from the trees and appeared from behind bushes and tree trunks. But instead of rushing forward in an attack that would have gained them considerable riches if they had succeeded, the robbers lined up with heads bowed and weapons lowered and allowed the small column to pass without loosing a single arrow. They had never seen less effectual robbers.

  Marcus jested happily about this when they emerged from the forest and saw a little town with a church in the distance. Robbers like these would not have been long-lived, and certainly not fat, if they had plied their trade in Outremer.

  Jacob, doubting that this could be a typical way for Nordic robbers to behave, rode up alongside Sir Arn and asked him what had just happened. When Jacob fell back and slipped in beside his brother, he was able to explain with some amusement.

  The robbers were not merely robbers, they were also tax collectors for the bishop in the town, and it seemed that the role they assumed depended on who came riding. From some people they collected taxes for their bishop; others they plundered on their own behalf, since they received no other payment for their work as tax collectors.

  But this time it was to be neither taxes nor plunder. For when Sir Arn discovered the robbers waiting in ambush, he told them how it was. First, that he was Arn Magnusson and could singlehandedly kill them all if he was provoked. Second, that he was of the Folkung clan. That meant that no robber, in service to a bishop or just out for his own benefit, would live longer than three sundowns after having loosed an arrow, even if he managed to escape from Sir Arn. The robbers had found this argument entirely convincing.

  The clan that Sir Arn belonged to must therefore be almost like a Bedouin tribe, Jacob thought. This barbarian land did indeed have a royal power and church like all others. There were worldly armed forces and ecclesiastical ones. They had seen that at the wedding feast with their own eyes. So the law was upheld in much the same way as in other Christian lands.

  But in what land could someone ride up to robbers or tax collectors and say that he belonged to a certain clan, and that statement alone would make them all lay down their arms? Only in Outremer. Anyone who attacked a member of certain Bedouin tribes could be assured that he would be hunted by avengers until the end of time if necessary. The same was apparently true here in the North. At any rate, these northern Bedouins could be considered safe company.

  They rode right past the first stinking puddle of a town, which clearly housed a greedy bishop. They didn’t even stop for food. Jacob and Marcus were both relieved and disappointed by this, since their buttocks ached from many hours’ riding, but the smell coming from the town was extremely repellent to them.

  But eventually they were rewarded for what they had endured, for a few hours later as the evening cold came sweeping in as a raw mist, they found themselves approaching a cloister. There they would stay for the night.

  For the Wachtian brothers it was as if they had suddenly come home. They were quartered in their own room with whitewashed walls and a crucifix in the hospitium of the cloister. The monks who greeted them all spoke Frankish and behaved like real human beings, and the food that was served after vespers was first-class, as was the wine. It was like coming to an oasis with ripe dates and clear, cold water in the middle of a burning desert – just as astonishing, just as blessed.

  Jacob and Marcus were not allowed inside the cloister walls, but they saw Sir Arn put on his white Templar mantle and go inside to pray. According to what his wife told them in her amusing and pure church Latin, he was visiting his mother’s grave.

  The next day they left a good deal of their clothing and travelling food at the hospitium, as they would
be returning for another night after the day’s bargaining in the town, which was called Skara.

  They had been told that Skara was the biggest and oldest town in all of Western Götaland and thus their expectations were high. But it was hardly Damascus they rode into that morning. Here was the same stench of waste and foul air as outside the smaller town whose impossible name they had already forgotten; here were the same unclean people and streets without either cobblestones or gutters. And the primitive little church with the two towers that was called the cathedral was dark and oppressive rather than inspiring any sort of blessing. But as good Christians they couldn’t refuse when Sir Arn and the rest of the party, his wife and the two boys, went inside to pray. Yet Jacob and Marcus felt that this was a church where God was not present, either because He had never arrived or because He had forgotten where it was. Inside it was damp and smelled of heathendom.

  On the outskirts of the town there was a street that was clean and swept like a Frankish town or one in Outremer. Here there was a different aroma, of cleanliness and coffee and food and spices, which seemed familiar, and here Frankish was spoken, as well as some other languages which were not Norse.

  They had come to the street of the glass masters, the coppersmiths, and the stonecutters. Samples of glass and stone and copper pots were displayed along the street, and interpreters came running from every direction to offer their services when they saw the fat money purses hanging from Sir Arn’s belt. They soon learned that their skills were for once not needed.

  They visited one booth after another, sat down and accepted cold water in beautiful glasses, politely but firmly declining the ale tankards that were also urged upon them. It was like a little Damascus; here they could converse with everyone in understandable languages, and learn about things that were impossible to discover outside this little street.

  They learned how glass sand with copper inclusions or copper sulfate could be ordered from Denmark and Lübeck if they wanted to produce glass with a yellow or blue colour. The substances for green or rose colour, or colourless glass, were available locally if one knew the right place to find them. Sir Arn soon sent the two youths to fetch the ox-cart they had left with guards outside the cathedral, and then he went out buying. Eventually the cart was heavily loaded with substances for glass production; from some booths he bought everything they had on hand. There was also lead in great quantities, since the glassmasters worked mostly on church windows. Many merry bargains were concluded that day. Sir Arn spent a great deal of money without bothering to dicker about prices, which seemed to annoy his wife as much as it did the Wachtian brothers. It was an unusual day for these mostly Frankish glassmasters, as they were used to speaking through interpreters and selling finished glass, not speaking their own language with a Northerner who was as fluent as they were. Nor had they been involved in selling tools and materials for making glass instead of the glass they made themselves. But Sir Arn did buy a few glass pieces to take along, to be used as samples, as he said.

  It was the same with the coppersmiths. Judging by the hammered and tin-plated vessels displayed outside the coppersmiths’ booths, both the Wachtian brothers and Sir Arn could easily see that they could produce much better wares with their Damascene coppersmiths at Forsvik. Sir Arn did buy one vessel, but just to be polite. He bought mostly copper rods and tin ingots.

  When their cart was already heavily loaded and they had visited every glassmaster and coppersmith along one side of the street, they returned slowly along the other side to meet the stonemasters or their servants and apprentices who were at home. Many of the masters themselves were out at church construction sites that required constant visits. Jacob and Marcus learned to their astonishment that the business of building churches was flourishing more in this small country than anywhere else in the world. Here more than a hundred churches were being built simultaneously. With so many orders for church construction, the stonemasters could charge twice as much as anywhere in France or England or Saxony.

  One of the stonemasters was more expensive than all the others, and outside his booth drawings had been set up to show his commissions from the construction of the cathedral itself. They all went from one picture to the next guessing what they were seeing, which was often easy for those familiar with the Holy Scriptures. Sir Arn’s wife in particular appeared to take a great interest in this master’s artistry. Sir Arn then took his entire party inside to meet the master, who at first seemed peevish and dismissive, complaining that he had neither the time nor the inclination to converse. But when he grasped that he could speak his own language with this buyer, his attitude quickly changed; he began eagerly explaining to them all the ideas behind his work and what he would like to do. Sir Arn mentioned that he wished to rebuild the church that belonged to his own clan, that it would be new construction from the ground up, but it would also be consecrated anew. This church would be dedicated not to the Virgin Mary, like almost all the other churches in Western Götaland, but to the Holy Sepulchre.

  The stonemaster grew even more attentive when he heard this. For many years, as he said, he had carved the Virgin Mary in every conceivable situation: gentle and good, strict and admonishing, with Her dead Son, with Her Son as a babe, at the Annunciation by the Holy Spirit, on the road to Bethlehem, before the star, in the manger, and in whatever other scenes could be imagined.

  But God’s Grave? Then he would have to rethink the whole design. It would take the right man, and it would also take time to contemplate the design. But as to time, the stonemaster, whose name was Marcellus, unfortunately had commitments all over the land which would keep him occupied for a year and a half. Before that it would be impossible to leave without breaking contracts.

  Sir Arn didn’t think that the delay would be any problem; it was more important that the work would be beautiful for all eternity, since what was carved in stone was meant to endure. So he agreed to hire the stonemaster.

  Both Marcus and Jacob felt alarmed when they heard how hastily Sir Arn allowed himself to be persuaded to put down an advance, and a shamelessly large sum at that. But they saw no opportunity to interfere in the matter. The negotiation ended with Sir Arn paying the outrageous sum of ten besants in gold as an advance on one year’s work, and he promised another ten for each additional year the work would take. Stonemaster Marcellus was not slow in accepting this proposal.

  On the return journey to Varnhem cloister in the early evening, it seemed at first that Sir Arn’s wife reproached him, although mildly, for his irresponsible way of handling silver and gold. He was not in the least fazed by this, but answered her with a happy expression and eager gestures; even for someone who did not speak Norse it was obvious that he was describing his grandiose plans.

  Finally he began to sing, and then she could not help singing along with him. It was a beautiful song, and both brothers understood that it was churchly and not worldly.

  In this way they approached the cloister of Varnhem with heavenly singers leading the way before the sun set and the raw evening cold swept in. The brothers agreed that this journey had not only presented surprises, but also more good than either of them would have expected.

  The next day their departure was delayed while Sir Arn’s wife did business buying parchment and also roses that she bought in wet leather sacks with earth inside, pruned down so that only the stalks stuck up from the packing material. They didn’t have to understand Norse to see that this woman was better than her husband at business. But they did have to wait while she and the cloister’s garden-master bargained over every little coin. Sir Arn made no move to intervene. At last his wife had in the cart the plants she wanted, and judging by the roses climbing up the walls of Varnhem in red and white, she had purchased much beauty for the adornment of Forsvik.

  Between the bustling days of Bartelsmas, when the last of the harvest was brought in, and Morsmas, the summer returned briefly to Western Götaland with a week of stubborn south winds.

  This time w
as just as busy for Cecilia as it was for Arn. Everything had to be harvested in the gardens, and then she had to try to save whatever she could. She toiled as hard as the thralls she had engaged to dig up the apple trees with their roots to replant them on the slope down toward Bottensjön. There the water would always be plentiful.

  After supervising all the gardening work, she went to the Wachtian brothers at their workshop and asked about what they intended to start with and what would come later. She also persuaded them to accompany her to the smithies and pottery workshop to translate. Besides their own language and Latin the brothers had also mastered the completely foreign tongue that many of the men from the Holy Land spoke. They showed her arrow points of various types, some long and sharp as needles to penetrate chain mail, some with broad cutting edges that were meant for hunting or the enemy’s horses, and others that served purposes she didn’t understand. She visited the sword smithy and the workshop where they made wire for chain mail. And she went to the glassworks where she asked which of the glass samples that were set up along a bench they might make at Forsvik and which were still beyond their skill. She went to the stable thralls and asked how much fodder a horse consumed, to the livestock barn and learned how much milk a cow gave, and to the slaughterhouse to ask about salt and storage barrels.

  After each such visit she returned to her abacus and writing implements. The best thing about their visit to Varnhem was not the purchase of the famous Varnhem roses, but the fact that she had laid in a good stock of parchment for making her account books. It was accounting, after all, that she knew best, even better than gardening and sewing, because for more than ten years she had kept books and taken care of all the business at two cloisters.