Birth of the Kingdom. Jan Guillou

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      The smaller council chamber was located on the next highest floor of the castle’s eastern tower. There stood the king’s carved wooden chair with the three crowns, the jarl’s chair with the Folkung lions, the archbishop’s chair with the cross, and a few small wooden stools upholstered in leather. Nearby stood a big oaken table with seals, wax, parchment, and writing implements. The whitewashed stone walls of the room were completely bare.

      The king sat calmly in his big chair beneath one of the open arrow loops so that the light streamed in above his head. The jarl paced around the room looking agitated. Arn and Eskil had taken seats on stools.

      The jarl was dressed in foreign clothes in shiny gray and black, and on his feet he wore long crackowes of red and gold leather, but his Folkung mantle with the ermine trim fluttered behind him as if blown by the wind as he paced back and forth to calm his wrath. The king, like the jarl, had put on a great paunch since Arn last saw them so long ago. He sat in apparent calm, waiting. He was almost completely bald now.

      ‘Love?’ yelled the jarl suddenly at a volume that indicated he had not managed to calm down at all. ‘Love is for sluggards and milksops, pipers and minstrels, maidens and thralls! But for men, love is the fruit of the devil, a dream of fools that creates more unhappiness than any other dream. It’s like a treacherous reef in the sea or trees falling across a road in the forest. It’s the mother of murder and intrigues, the father of betrayal and lies! And for this, Arn Magnusson, you come riding home after all these years? For love? When our very destiny is at stake? When your clan and your king need your support, you turn away. And you explain this shame by saying that like a minstrel you have been struck by this illness of children and fools!’

      The jarl fell silent and resumed pacing about the room, gnashing his teeth. Arn sat with his arms crossed, leaning back a bit but with an implacable expression on his face. Eskil was looking out through one of the arrow loops at the bright, peaceful summer day, and King Knut was studying his hands with interest.

      ‘You don’t even see fit to answer me, kinsman?’ shouted the jarl with renewed force. ‘Soon the archbishop will be here with his throng of bishops. He is a wily man and a member of the Sverker clan; the cowards around him don’t dare say boo or baa. He’s a man who wants to lead the Sverker clan to the king’s crown once again, and weighing heavily in his favour are letters from both the Holy Father in Rome and that schemer Absalon in Lund. We must act before the stream turns into a whole spring flood. You could help us with this, but you demur because you’re raving about love! It’s like a reproach to all of us. How much war and how many dead kinsmen, how many burned farms will there be in our land because you rave about love? Now I demand that you answer.’

      In a rage the jarl tore off his mantle and flung it over his chair before he sat down. His own words seemed to have agitated him even more, and realizing this, he tried to regain his normal composure.

      ‘I have taken a vow,’ said Arn, deliberately keeping his voice low, the way he remembered that Birger Brosa usually spoke. ‘I have sworn on my honour and I have sworn on my sword, which is the sword of a Templar knight and consecrated to Our Lady, if I should survive my time of penance, that I would return to Cecilia, and that she and I would fulfil the promise we had made to each other. Such a vow cannot be taken back, no matter how angry you become, my dear uncle, or how unsuitable you may find it for your intrigues. A vow is a vow. A holy vow is even stronger.’

      ‘A vow is not a vow!’ Birger Brosa shouted, regaining his fury in an instant. ‘A child swears to pull down the moon from the sky. What is that? Childish prattle that has nothing to do with real life. You were a youth then; now you are a man, and a warrior at that. Just as time heals all wounds, so too it grants us wisdom and turns us into men. And that is most fortunate. Would any of us here in this room answer for all the things we may have promised as foolish and naïve youths? A vow is no vow if life sets impediments in its way. And by God, there are strong impediments confronting you now!’

      ‘I was no child when I swore that oath,’ replied Arn. ‘And each day for the duration of a war that lasted so long you could hardly imagine it, I repeated that vow in my prayers to Our Lady. And She has heard my prayers, because here I am.’

      ‘And yet you bear a Folkung mantle!’ yelled the jarl, red in the face. ‘A Folkung mantle shall be borne with honour towards the clan! Now that I think of it, how can this be? With what right do you, a penitent of twenty years who lost your inheritance and your place in the clan, wear the Folkung mantle over your shoulders?’

      ‘I am the cause of that,’ interjected Eskil with some trepidation when it seemed that Arn would refuse to reply to that affront. ‘In my father’s stead I am the head of the clan in Western Götaland. I and no other exchanged Arn’s Templar mantle for ours. I took him back into our clan with full rights and privileges.’

      ‘What has been done can in any case not be undone,’ Birger Brosa muttered, getting up to resume his pacing. The others in the room exchanged a cautious glance, and the king shrugged his shoulders. Even he had never seen Birger Brosa behave in this manner.

      ‘All the better that you now bear our mantle!’ shouted the jarl, pointing an accusing finger at Arn. ‘For this mantle entails more than protection from our enemies, the right to bear a sword wherever you please, and the right to ride with a retinue. This mantle means an obligation to do what is best for our clan.’

      ‘As long as it does not go against God’s will or a holy vow,’ said Arn calmly. ‘In all else I shall do my best to honour our colours.’

      ‘Then you must obey us, otherwise you may as well put your white mantle back on!’

      ‘I most assuredly have the right to bear the mantle of a Knight Templar,’ replied Arn, pausing before he went on. ‘But it would not be advisable. As a Templar knight I answer to no jarl or king in the entire world, no bishop or patriarch, but only the Holy Father himself.’

      Birger Brosa stopped his furious pacing. He gave Arn a searching look before he went over and sat down with a sigh.

      ‘Let’s start over,’ he said in a low voice as if finally bridling his rage. ‘Let’s look at the situation calmly. Sune Sik’s daughter Ingrid Ylva will soon be ripe for the bridal bed. I have spoken with Sune, and like me he considers it wise that Ingrid Ylva become yet another link in the chain we are forging to keep future wars in check. Arn, you are the next eldest son of the chieftain, and also a man about whom songs are sung and sagas told. You are a good match. There are two ways we can prevent the Sverkers and the bishops from finding reasons for another war. One is for Cecilia Algotsdotter, who God knows owes us a great deal, to take on the high calling and become abbess of my cloister at Riseberga. Cecilia knows how things stand because of the insidious Mother Rikissa’s confession and testament claiming that Queen Blanca supposedly took the vows during her difficult time at Gudhem. Cecilia says she is prepared to swear that this is not true, and we all believe her. You understand?’

      ‘Yes, but I have objections which I will save until I’ve heard the second choice.’

      ‘The second?’ said Birger Brosa.

      ‘Yes. You said there were two ways we could entangle the Sverkers in the yarn of peace with our cunning snare. One was to make Cecilia abbess, which is more properly a matter for the Church than for us. And the second?’

      ‘That someone with a high position in the clan marry Ingrid Ylva!’

      ‘Then I shall tell you what I think,’ said Arn. ‘Here is what will happen if you make Cecilia the abbess of Riseberga, although it is properly a matter for the Church and the Cistercians. Mother Cecilia, СКАЧАТЬ