Birth Of the Kingdom (2010) (10 page)

His retainer Svein did as he was ordered. One night when Eskil was away visiting the king at Näs, although alone in his own lodgings and as if haunted by the nightmare, Svein and two other men strode into the cookhouse. Everyone at Arnäs knew that it was there the two sinners met.

They did not kill Katarina but instead the man she was whoring with. The bloody sheets were taken to the
ting
so that the sinner would be condemned in disgrace. Katarina was banished to Gudhem cloister, where she took the vows.

As far as silver was concerned in this matter, that had been the easiest to arrange. Eskil donated as much land as he thought necessary to Gudhem, and Katarina relinquished her property to the Folkung clan when she took her vows. That was the price for being allowed to live.

After this news was recounted, the rest of the journey was marked by gloom for a long while. Harald Øysteinsson sat alone in the stern of the boat with the helmsman; he felt that he ought not to get involved in the brothers’ conversation up in the bow. He could clearly see even from that distance that their faces were full of sorrow.

Situated below the old
ting
site at Askeberga, where the River Tidan made a sharp turn to the south, was the inn. Several boats resembling their own, long with flat bottoms but with heavier loads, had been partially drawn up onto the riverbank, and there was a great commotion among the oarsmen and the inn folk when the Folkung owner Herr Eskil arrived. Guests of lesser stature were thrown out of one longhouse, and women ran to sweep up. The man in charge of the inn, who was named Gurmund and was a freed thrall, brought ale for Herr Eskil.

Arn and Harald Øysteinsson took their bows and quivers, fetched straw from one of the barns, and made a target before they went off to practice. Harald joked that the one exercise they had been able to do during their year at sea demanded enemies at close hand, but that now once again, with God’s help, they could prepare themselves better. Arn replied curtly that practice was a duty, since it was blasphemous to believe that Our Lady would continue to help someone
who had been an idler. Only he who worked hard at his archery would deserve to shoot well.

Some of the thrall boys had crept after them to watch how the two men, neither of whom they knew, would handle a bow and arrow. But soon they came running back to the inn, breathing hard, to tell anyone who cared to listen that these archers must be the best of all. Some of the freedmen then furtively headed in the direction of the archers, and soon they saw with their own eyes that it was true. Both the Folkung and his retainer in the red Norwegian tunic handled the bow and arrow better than anyone they had ever seen.

When evening fell and the lords were about to eat supper, it soon became clear that the unknown warrior in the Folkung garb was Herr Eskil’s brother, and it wasn’t long before the rumour spread all around the Askeberga area. A man from the sagas had come back to Western Götaland. Surely the man in the Folkung mantle could be none other than Arn Magnusson, who was the subject of so many ballads. The matter was discussed back and forth in cookhouses and courtyards. But no one could be entirely sure.

Two of the innkeeper’s younger sons dashed thoughtlessly into the longhouse, stopped inside the door, and called to Arn that he should say his name. Such boldness could have cost them skin on their backs and on Gurmund’s as well. He was seated at the nobles’ table inside and got up in anger to chide the louts, at the same time offering apologies to his master Eskil.

But Arn stopped him. He went over to the boys himself, grabbed them in jest by the scruff of their necks, and took them out to the courtyard. There he knelt down on one knee, feigned a stern expression, and asked them to repeat their question if they dared.

‘Are you…Sir Arn Magnusson?’ gasped the bolder of the two, shutting his eyes as if he expected a box on the ear.

‘Yes, I am Arn Magnusson,’ said Arn, now dropping the stern expression. But the boys still looked a bit scared, their eyes flicking from the scars of war on his face to the sword which hung at his side, with the golden cross on both the scabbard and the hilt.

‘We want to enter your service!’ said the bolder one, when he finally dared believe that neither whip nor curses awaited them from the warrior.

Arn laughed and explained that this was doubtless a matter that would have to wait for some years yet. But if they both practiced diligently with their wooden swords and bows, it might just be possible someday.

The smaller of the two now plucked up his courage and asked if they might see Sir Arn’s sword. Arn got to his feet, pausing a moment before he drew the sword swiftly and soundlessly out of its sheath. The two boys gasped as the shining steel glinted in the afternoon sun. Like all boys they could see at once that this was a completely different sort of sword than those wielded by both retainers and lords. It was longer and narrower but without the slightest loop or flame festooning the blade. The dragon coils or secret symbols of glowing gold that were inlaid in the upper end of the blade were also impressive.

Arn took the hand of the older boy and cautiously placed his index finger on the edge of the blade, pressing it down with a feather’s touch. At once a drop of blood appeared on his fingertip.

He put the finger in the boy’s mouth, sheathed the magic sword in its scabbard, then patted the two of them on the head, and explained that swords just as sharp awaited
anyone who went into his service. But there would be hard work too. In five years’ time they should seek him out if they still had a mind to it.

Then he bowed to them as if they were already his retainers, turned on his heel, and strode with mantle fluttering back to the evening meal. The two boys stared as if bewitched at the Folkung lion on his back. They didn’t dare move a muscle until he had shut the door to the longhouse behind him.

Arn was in such a good mood as he returned to the longhouse that Eskil felt prompted to mutter that he didn’t understand how their conversation during the day’s boat ride could have caused him such delight. Arn instantly turned serious as he sat down across from Eskil at the table and cast a startled glance at the wooden trencher of porridge, drippings, and bacon before him. He shoved the trencher aside and placed his scarred hand over Eskil’s.

‘Eskil, my brother. You must understand one thing about me and Harald. We rode for many years with the Reaper at our side. At matins with our dear knight-brothers we never knew who might be gone by evensong. I saw many of my brothers die, also many who were better men than I. I saw the heads of the best stuck on lance-tips below the walls of Beaufort, the castle I told you about yesterday. But I leave my sorrows for the hour of prayer; believe me that I am diligent in my prayers after you are asleep. Don’t think that I took lightly what you have told me.’

‘The war in the Holy Land gave you strange habits,’ Eskil muttered, but was suddenly filled with curiosity. ‘Were there many Templar knights who were better than you, my brother?’

‘Yes,’ Arn said gravely. ‘Harald is my witness. Ask him.’

‘Well, what do you say to that, Harald?’

‘That it is true and yet it is not,’ replied Harald when he looked up from the plate of porridge swimming in fat and
bacon, to which he was devoting much more interest than Arn had done. ‘When I came to the Holy Land I thought I was a warrior, since I had done nothing but fight from the age of fourteen. I thought I was one of the strongest swordsmen of all. That false belief cost me many wounds. The Templar knights were warriors like none I had ever seen or dreamt of. The Saracens thought that a Templar knight was like five ordinary men. And I would agree with them on that. But it’s also true that there were some Templar knights who stood far above all the others, and the one who was called Arn de Gothia, your brother, was among them. In the North there is no swordsman who can compare with Arn, I swear to you by the Mother of God!’

‘Do not blaspheme Our Lady!’ said Arn sternly. ‘Remember swordsmen like Guy de Carcasonne, Sergio de Livorne, and above all Ernesto de Navarra.’

‘Yes, I remember them all,’ replied Harald. ‘And you should also remember our agreement, that as soon as we set foot on Nordic soil I would no longer be your sergeant or you my master who could command me, but your Norwegian brother. And to you, Eskil, I can say that the names Arn mentioned were those of the most superior swordsmen. But now they are all dead, and Arn is not.’

‘It’s not a matter of sword, lance, or horse,’ said Arn, his gaze fixed on the table. ‘Our Lady holds her protective and benevolent hands over me, for She has a plan.’

‘Living swordsmen are better than dead ones,’ said Eskil curtly and in a tone indicating he considered the topic finished. ‘But porridge and bacon do not seem to please our swordsman?’

Arn admitted that he was not in the habit of rejecting God’s gifts at table, but he did have a problem with liquid pig fat. Although he could also understand that such fare would warm the body well during a Nordic winter.

Eskil took an inexplicable pleasure in the fact that his brother complained about the food even on this day. At once he ordered one of the men sitting at the oarsmen’s table on the other side of the long fire in the hall to go to the stores in the riverboat. He was to bring from the rear magazine some hams from Arnäs and a bunch of smoked sausages from Lödöse.

After the meal, when all were sated, Eskil went over to the log-fire and picked up a piece of charcoal. Back at the table he swept aside with his elbow the remnants of the meal and quickly began drawing on the tabletop with the charcoal. It was the route from Lödöse up the Göta River and into Lake Vänern, past Arnäs and up to the mouth of the Tidan where their river journey had begun. Via the Tidan they were now on their way to Forsvik on the shore of Lake Vättern, and on the other side of Vättern they would head for Lake Boren and on to Linköping. From there other routes branched out, leading north into Svealand and south to Visby and Lübeck. This was the backbone of his realm of business, he explained proudly. He controlled all the waterways from Lödöse to Linköping. He owned all the boats, riverboats as well as the larger ships with rounded hulls that sailed across Lakes Vänern and Vättern, as well as the portage chests located at the Troll’s Fall on the Göta River. More than five hundred men, most of them freed thralls, sailed his ships on these waters. Only during the most severe and snowy winters was trade sometimes brought to a standstill for a few weeks at a time.

Arn and Harald had quietly and attentively studied the lines that Eskil had drawn on the table with his piece of charcoal, and they nodded in agreement. It was a great thing, they both thought, to be able to connect the North Sea and Norway with the Eastern Sea and Lübeck. In this way they could thumb their noses at Danish power.

Eskil’s face clouded over, and all the elated self-confidence drained out of him. What did they mean by that, and what did they know about the Danes?

Arn told him that when they had sailed up along the coast of Jutland they had passed the Limfjord. They had turned in there so that Arn could pray and donate some gold to the cloister of Vitskøl where he had spent almost ten years in his childhood. At Vitskøl they couldn’t avoid hearing some things and observing others. Denmark was a great power, united first under King Valdemar and now his son Knut. Danish warriors resembled Frankish and Saxon warriors rather than Nordic ones, and the power that Denmark possessed, so evident to the eye, would not go unused. It would grow, most likely at the expense of the German lands.

From Norway they could sail to Lödöse up the Göta River without being captured or paying tolls to the Danes. But to send trading ships to the south from Lödöse and sail between the Danish islands to Saxony and Lübeck could not be done without paying heavy tolls.

Yet they didn’t need to trouble themselves with the tolls, since the strongest side would use war to force through its will. War with the great Danish power was what they had to avoid above all.

Eskil objected that they could always try to marry into the Danish clans to keep them quiet, but both Harald and Arn laughed so rudely at this idea that Eskil was offended, and he moped for a while.

‘Harald and I have talked about a way to strengthen your trade that I think should cheer you up right now,’ Arn then said. ‘We heartily support your trade, and we agree that you have arranged everything for the best, so listen to our idea. Our ship is in Lödöse. Harald, being the Norwegian helmsman that he is, can sail that ship in any sea. Our proposal is that
Harald sail the ship between Lofoten and Lödöse in return for good compensation in silver. Remember that it’s a ship that could hold three horses and two dozen men with all their provisions and all the fodder required, as well as the ten ox-carts with goods that we brought from Lödöse. Now convert that into dried fish from Lofoten and you’ll find that two voyages each summer will double your income in dried fish.’

‘To think that you still remember my idea about the dried fish,’ said Eskil, somewhat encouraged.

‘I still remember that ride we made as young boys to the
ting
of all Goths, from both Western and Eastern Götaland, at Axevalla,’ replied Arn. ‘That was when you told me about how you wanted to try to bring cod from Lofoten with the help of our Norwegian kinsmen. I remember that we instantly thought of the forty days of fasting before Easter, and that was when the idea came to me. As a cloister boy I had already eaten plenty of
cabalao.
Dried fish is no less expensive now than it was then. That must be good for your business.’

‘In truth, we are both sons of mother Sigrid,’ said Eskil nostalgically with a wave towards the room for more ale. ‘She was the first who understood what we’re talking about now. Our father is an honourable man, but without her he wouldn’t have amassed much wealth.’

‘You’re definitely right about that,’ replied Arn, deflecting the ale towards Harald as it was brought in.

‘So, Harald, do you want to go into our service as first mate on the foreign ship? And will you sail around Norway for cod?’ asked Eskil gravely after he had guzzled a considerable amount of the fresh ale.