Birth Of the Kingdom (2010) (41 page)

Gure understood only that what had just happened could not have happened. A mistress did not serve food to a thrall, and he had no idea what he should do with the knife and ham. But she nodded and motioned for him to cut off a piece and eat it; reluctantly he did so.

‘It was not our intention to keep you waiting outside in the cold, Gure,’ said Sir Arn at last. ‘We asked you to come here because we wish to ask you about a certain matter.’

Sir Arn fell silent, and all three again stared at Gure. The smoked ham, which he had never before tasted, turned into a lump of wax in his mouth, and he was unable to swallow it.

‘What we are about to ask you must stay with us here in this room,’ Fru Cecilia went on. ‘We want to know your opinion, but we don’t want you to repeat our words to anyone else. Do you understand?’

Gure nodded, dumbstruck by what she said. He now guessed that something valuable must have been stolen and the master wanted to ask him about it, since he was the one who had the most oversight of all the thralls at Forsvik. He could tell that he was in a bad position since he knew nothing of this matter and they might not believe him. Thieves were hanged. But what happened to the person who protected a thief with lies?

‘If we gave you your freedom, Gure, what would you do?’ asked Sir Arn without the slightest warning.

Gure had to think carefully about this unexpected question. With great difficulty he finally managed to swallow the piece of meat in his mouth. He realized that he had to come up with a sensible answer, and at once, because the master and mistress and the monk were all looking at him, as if anticipating something remarkable.

‘First I would thank the White Christ, then I would thank my master and mistress,’ he replied at last, as if the words simply spilled from his lips. Though he immediately regretted that he hadn’t named his master and mistress before the White Christ.

‘And what would you do after that?’ asked Fru Cecilia.

‘I would go to a church man to be baptized,’ he replied slyly in order to gain time. But he won only a few moments’ delay because now the monk spoke up.

‘I can baptize you tomorrow, but what would you do after that?’ asked Brother Guilbert.

At first Gure had no answer. Freedom was a dream, but a dream that ended where it began. After that, there was nothing.

‘What could a free man do?’ asked Gure, thinking hard. ‘Wouldn’t a free man have to eat? Wouldn’t a free man have to work? If I, as a free man, could do the same building work that I now do, then I would. What else would I do?’

‘Do the others think the same?’ asked Fru Cecilia.

‘Yes, we all probably think the same way,’ replied Gure, now more sure of his words. ‘People have been whispering for some time that we might be freed. Some have said they are sure of it; others have snorted at the rumour, which always spreads through farms. Freedmen can stay with their masters or work new fields; everyone knows that. If we could stay at Forsvik, then we would. If you drove us away, we would have to accept that decision; there is no other choice.’

‘We thank you for these words,’ said Sir Arn. ‘You are a man who thinks sensibly, and you have already understood what we are intending. So let me speak the truth to you. When your mistress and I come back from Christmas at Arnäs, where we will stay until dawn, we intend to free all the thralls at Forsvik. That is the truth. But we don’t want you to speak of this matter to any of your peers, nor to anyone else, not even your own mother. This may be the last order I give you as a thrall, but you must obey.’

‘A thrall’s word is of no worth, either before the law or in the view of others,’ replied Gure looking Arn straight in the eye. ‘Yet I give you my word, Sir Arn!’

Arn merely smiled without replying as he got up and motioned for Cecilia to do the same. That brought Brother Guilbert to his feet as well. Gure understood at once that this was a sign for him to go, but he didn’t know how to take his leave; he attempted to bow and he slipped out.

As soon as Gure had shut the door behind him, Arn, Cecilia, and Brother Guilbert began talking all at once about the strange scene they had just witnessed. It was Arn’s view
that what they had just seen and heard with their own eyes and ears showed that the thralls were not nearly as half-witted as people said. Brother Guilbert talked about baptizing those who were freed, and that Gure should be made foreman of the freed thralls so that Arn and Cecilia wouldn’t have to run around taking charge of every little matter. They both agreed about this, but Cecilia warned that perhaps not everyone was like Gure. For she had studied him closely as he spoke and thought she noticed something odd. Gure didn’t speak like any other thrall she had ever heard; he spoke almost as well as they did. It had also occurred to her that he didn’t look like a thrall, either. If Arn and Gure exchanged clothing, many might not be able to tell who was the thrall and who was the knight.

She didn’t know what had made her say these words, but she regretted them at once when, for the first time, she saw anger flash in Arn’s eyes. It didn’t help matters that she tried to jest to banish her reckless words by saying that of course she meant that Gure looked more like Eskil, only thinner.

The Saint Lucia celebrations were held around the darkest night of the year, when the forces of evil were stronger than at any other time, and so a great commotion was deliberately stirred up at Forsvik. A procession of house thralls plodded three times around the courtyard in the frigid midwinter night. Everyone carried blazing torches and wore horned masks made from woven straw. In spite of the bitter cold, many shivering Saracens peered outside in surprise or crowded onto their porch wrapped in mantles and rugs to watch the strange goings-on. It was so cold that the snow creaked loudly under the straw shoes that the thralls wore over their summer footwear.

Once again, the forces of evil were kept away from Forsvik on that night, and soon the frosty silence of
midwinter settled over the estate anew; only the hunters were awake.

Arn and Cecilia, Torgils and the three boys, Sune, Sigfrid, and Bengt, and the Christian foreigners at Forsvik had all returned by sleigh from Arnäs after the dawn church service on Christmas Day. They had also attended the Christmas ale, which had been kept unusually moderate for the sake of old Herr Magnus. When they all returned, it was time for the big change.

On the following day, before the midday meal, all of Forsvik’s thralls were summoned to the great hall in the old longhouse. They were more than thirty souls, counting a few nursing infants resting in their mothers’ arms. Many of the thralls were workers in the fields or storehouses who had never set foot inside the great hall. The house thralls teased some of their kinsmen because of their wide-eyed amazement.

When everyone had gathered in the hall, Arn and Cecilia stood at the high seat. Arn was the one to speak, since Cecilia had requested that he do so, even though these thralls were rightfully her property and not his.

He briefly explained the reason for summoning them. He and Fru Cecilia had both decided that no one should be in bondage at Forsvik, since such a state was an abomination in the eyes of God. Hence they were now all free, and after their name they were allowed to add the name of Forsvik or call themselves Forsvikers, so that everyone in the villages and at other estates would know that they came from a place that had no thralls.

As free men and women, they would work for wages. Those who chose to remain at Forsvik would receive their first annual wages the following Christmas. For those who would rather work new fields near Forsvik as tenants, that too could be arranged.

After these words, Arn and Cecilia sat down. They were both surprised and disappointed that not a single thrall shrieked and no words of gratitude came streaming toward them. Nor did anyone say a prayer. They could see the startled looks on many faces, so they had no reason to believe that Gure had broken his promise to keep their secret. A few embraced the person standing nearest, and a few tears were also visible.

Around New Year’s the north wind began blowing, ushering in an entire week of snowstorms that wrapped Forsvik in a warm blanket of snow drifts, filling in all the crevices in the floors and windows of the old thrall houses, where the cold would have otherwise killed both those who were free and those who were not.

During the storms, not even the hunters went outside. At the smithies and glassworks, everyone continued their labours as usual, but it was impossible to conduct any riding practice. And since every vent and window of the stable was kept closed, they couldn’t continue with the exercises that Brother Guilbert had started with the boys and Torgils Eskilsson. No one could shoot arrows or swing a sword in the dark.

But midwinter in the North was the time for sagas and tales. No dark night went to waste without stories or long conversations about topics that few had time for during the busier seasons of the year. In the thrall houses sagas were recounted that would have displeased the master and mistress. But most of the freed men and women thought that what they didn’t hear wouldn’t harm them.

Arn and Brother Guilbert spent three days together in Arn and Cecilia’s chambers while she stayed with Suom and some of the former thrall women in the weaving house. It stood
next to the hot glassworks, which made it easier to keep out the cold.

The question that Brother Guilbert and Arn discussed at length had to do with the difficulty of imagining goodness through violence. Many faithful Christians during that time would have had trouble understanding such a conversation. But for two Templar knights, there was nothing difficult about seeing swords and fire as serving God’s cause. Indeed, that was the role of the Knights Templar, given to them by God Himself and defended by His Mother.

Instead, the question had to be asked whether the strict Rule of the Templars could be applied to an ordinary Christian life.

Brother Guilbert was going to take a greater responsibility for training the boys in the use of weapons, because Arn was unsure that he himself was the best suited for the job. But this meant that they would have to take turns supervising the construction work at Arnäs, since the Muslim builders shouldn’t be left alone in a land where the laws would not protect them. And quarrels might easily arise. Brother Guilbert had noticed a few thrall women at Arnäs hovering around the building site at night.

For Arn it would not be easy taking his turn away from Forsvik. On one of the long winter nights Arn and Cecilia lay under the covers just as they had imagined that they would, and he recounted his long stories from the Holy Land. Now and then they were disturbed by a gust of wind striking the hearth and sending ash through the bedchamber. It was on that night that she first felt something stirring inside of her, like a little fish flicking its tail.

She understood what it was at once; she had already sensed but hadn’t dared believe in such a miracle. She was over forty, after all, and she thought she was far too old for this blessing.

Arn was in the middle of a story from the Holy Land, recounting how he had just ordered that the banner be unfurled with the symbol of the Virgin Mary, the High Protectress of the Templar Knights. And he raised his hand to give the signal to attack, and in unison all the white-clad knights made the sign of the cross and took several deep breaths.

Then Cecilia quietly took Arn’s hand and told him. He fell silent at once and turned to face her. And he saw that what she said was true and neither a dream nor a jest. Gently he embraced her and whispered that Our Lady had blessed them with yet another miracle.

Around the feast of Saint Tiburtius, during the time when the ice broke up in the lakes of Western Götaland, when the pike spawned and the riverboats started up with Eskil’s trade between Linköping and Lödöse again, Arn and the stonemasons travelled to Arnäs to resume the construction work. According to what Cecilia had told him, he had a good month ahead of him before he needed to return to see his newborn son or daughter. Cecilia thought it would be a daughter. Arn thought he would have yet another son. They had promised each other that if it was a son, Cecilia would choose his name, but if it was a daughter, then Arn would decide.

The work on the wall proceeded briskly, and the builders seemed happy to get started after a winter that at first had seemed pleasantly indolent, but in the end much too long. They also claimed to be satisfied with the new tools from Forsvik’s smithies and the work clothes that each of them had received in the proper size from the saddlemaker and the weaving house. They all wore leather garb from their shoulders down to their knees, and on their feet they had wooden clogs like those worn by the smiths, although with
an iron cap around the toe and heel. Many had complained that dropping a stone could cause great misery if it landed on anyone’s foot.

The winter had damaged some of the structures, but not as much as Arn had feared, and soon the summer would dry out the top joints of the walls. Then the workers would be able to seal them with melted lead, just as Brother Guilbert had suggested. What now needed to be built was the longest expanse of the wall from the harbour to the living quarters and village. It would be an easy task, because there was to be only one tower in the middle, and it was rewarding to see how the work progressed day by day.

The question of which day of rest should be honoured had not yet been successfully resolved, or at least not everyone was satisfied. After long and tedious discussions at more than one
majlis
at Forsvik, Arn had grown weary of the issue and decided that at Arnäs Sunday should be counted as Friday. On Sundays the faithful couldn’t work anyway, since that would offend those who lived at Arnäs and lead to quarrels about who had the true faith. And those kinds of quarrels were the worst of all.

Since God is the One who sees all and hears all, and is both merciful and beneficent, Arn thought that He would certainly forgive His faithful – who were forced into exile so far away in a foreign land but only for a short period of their lives – if they made Sunday into Friday. After a good deal of brooding and discussion with the physician Ibrahim, who had the most book-learning of any of the Saracen guests, Arn had found certain passages in the Koran to support this arrangement that had been made out of necessity.