The Road To Jerusalem (10 page)

When Svarte was done, Sot bound the two splints around Arn’s arm with more linen bandages and warned him and Sigrid to keep the arm still, because it was badly sprained. Then she gave the boy a decoction of new dried leaves and the roots of meadow-sweet so that he would sleep without a fever.

Soon Arn was sleeping with a calm expression on his face, as if no misfortune had befallen him and no miracle had occurred. Sigrid and Magnus sat for a long time gazing at their slumbering son, both filled with awe that the Lord God had allowed one of his miracles to occur at their estate.

Their second son Arn had been resurrected from the dead. No one could doubt that. But the question was whether it was because the Lord wanted to show his benevolence toward those who prayed to Him with the same tears as all fathers and mothers would have shed at this most difficult of times. Or whether it was really true, as Sigrid was convinced in her soul, that the Lord had prepared a special task for Arn when he became a man.

No one could know for certain, however, since the Lord’s ways often surpass the understanding of human beings. They could only take the miracle at Arnas to heart and pray with renewed gratitude.

Lay brother Erlend had long felt compelled by his sacred task. He had to record the account of the miracle at Arnas with great care and include every small detail. Since the death of holy Saint Bernard had occurred only a few years in the past, this might be the first miracle that could be associated with him in Western Gotaland, and so it was of great importance. Erlend also thought that he would undoubtedly make Father Henri very happy with this story, and that his industriousness and exactitude in carrying out this task might also shorten his wait to be admitted as a full brother in the Cistercian order. In any case, it couldn’t hurt to be the bearer of such marvelous news.

Parchment was not made at Arnas, but there was thin calfskin which was rubbed smooth on one side and which Herr Magnus sold for the making of clothing. Erlend had been allowed to use remnants of this material for his writing practice with the boys and now there was much more writing and printing and reading going on in the study corner of the hall. Both boys were adept with a writing quill and ink. Mostly they were asked to copy onto calfskin remnants the text that Erlend wrote out in Latin. Then they had to try translating it into rune text on the line below. Herr Magnus had said sternly that if the boys had to print in church language, they might as well learn their forefathers’ script at the same time. For future merchants it was not at all a useless art.

During their first writing exercises Erlend had noticed that little Arn, whose right arm was still unusable, wrote, printed, and drew pictures just as well with his left hand. Because the boy was injured Erlend had not worried about this; otherwise it was not a good sign if someone favored using the unclean hand. But when Arn’s right hand healed, it turned out that he used it just as much as his left. It was as though it made no difference to him. It seemed to be a matter of mood that dictated which hand he used to pick up the goose quill.

Once Erlend, after much travail, rewriting, and prayers, considered his account to be finished, he was eager to make a trip to Varnhem as soon as possible. He justified his departure by saying that he had obligations at the cloister, something about certain saints requiring the presence of all the lay brothers, and that his absence might provoke a rebuke. Filled with anticipation, he was allowed to ride down to Varnhem on Annunciation Day, the day that the cranes returned to Western Gotaland.

The boys did not mourn his leaving. When spring came and

the farmyards, the courtyard of the fortress, and other large areas surrounding the buildings of Arnas were free of snow, the time of play arrived for all the children. A special game at Arnas was to swipe a thin band from the cooperage and then run along rolling the hoop and steering it, using a stick to give it more speed. The game had developed into a contest with the children trying to take the hoops from each other, using only the sticks. They would drive the hoops before them between the walls of the fortress courtyard. When someone managed to make the hoop strike the fortress wall, he won the game. This was no easy task, because all the others who didn’t have a hoop under their own stick did everything they could to interfere.

Arn, of course, was not one of the oldest boys, but he soon proved to be the one who won this game most often, small as he was. He was as quick as a ferret, and he could also do something that the others couldn’t do, and that was to switch back and forth between his hands, changing the direction of the rolling hoop so that all the other boys would suddenly run the wrong way. He could be stopped only if they tripped him or pulled on his kirtle or physically held him back. The older boys grew eager to employ such methods, but Arn’s agility also increased. Finally Eskil, who was the only one who would have dared, began stopping him by slapping him in the face if he came close.

Then Arn got tired of the game and went off to sulk by himself.

Magnus found a way to console him. He had a bow and arrows made in the proper size, and then he took Arn aside and began to teach him to shoot. It wasn’t long before Eskil came trudging over to them, wanting to shoot too. But to his dismay he found that his younger brother always shot better than he did, and soon another quarrel erupted between the brothers. Magnus of course intervened and decided that if they were going to squabble like this, the boys could shoot only when he was present. In this way their games were suddenly transformed into studies, almost like sitting and printing words or reading incomprehensible texts about the elements and categories of philosophy. And so the pleasure was lost, at least for Eskil, who was always defeated by both his father and little brother.

But what Magnus had witnessed of his sons made him think. Eskil was like all other boys in the way he moved and shot a bow and arrow, just as Magnus had been when he was a boy. But Arn had something inside him that other boys didn’t have, an ability that had to be God-given. What might come of it no one could say for sure, but the boy’s talent was remarkable.

Magnus spoke with Sigrid about this on several light spring nights, after the boys had gone to bed. It was taken for granted that Eskil would inherit Arnas; that was God’s will since Eskil was the firstborn son. Eskil would manage the estate and their trade. But what did God have in mind for Arn?

Sigrid agreed that it looked as though God intended a warrior’s training for Arn, but she was not entirely sure that she liked that explanation, no matter how obvious it might seem. And inside she felt guilt nagging at her because she had promised God—in a moment when tears were streaming down and her mind was racked with despair, to be sure—but she had still promised Him that Arn’s life would be dedicated to God’s work on earth.

She hadn’t spoken with Magnus about this matter; it seemed as though the promise was something that Magnus had wiped from his memory, although he must remember it as well as Sigrid did. And he was a man who prided himself on always keeping his word. But right now Magnus envisioned his son’s future as a mighty warrior in the foremost phalanx of the clan, and that image certainly gave him more joy than the thought of Arn as a bishop in Skara or the prior of some cloister. That’s how men thought. This did not surprise Sigrid.

But soon God sent a severe reminder of His will. It began as a slightly annoying cut on Sigrid’s hand, which as far as she could recall came from a splinter of wood in one of the livestock buildings when an unruly heifer shoved her and she had to grab hold of the wall so as not to fall into the muck. The wound would not heal; it swelled and began to grow more and more foul.

And one morning Magnus noticed something odd on her face. When she went to a tub of water and looked at her reflection, she saw a new sore like the one she had on her hand, and when she touched it she found that it was full of pus and mucus.

After that her illness quickly grew worse. The sore on her face spread, and soon she could no longer see out of the eye closest to it. The spot began to itch fiercely and she often had to rub it. She began hiding her face, and she offered up fervent prayers every dawn, midday, and evening. But nothing seemed to help. Her husband and the boys began looking at her with alarm.

When lay brother Erlend came riding back from Varnhem he was full of news both good and bad. The good news, which he related first, was that the report about the miracle at Arnas had been welcomed so heartily at Varnhem that it had now been printed on real parchment in manuscript lettering in the cloister’s diary.

The bad news concerned Erik Jedvardsson’s wife Kristina. She had been staying at one of her slaughtering farms in the vicinity with a mighty retainer provided to her by her husband, the Swedish king. Yes, it was true after all, Erik Jedvardsson was the king of Svealand.

Kristina had instigated one devilish trick after another and incited her peasants against the brothers. She had even persuaded the occasional priest to take her side. She claimed that the cloister was built on unlawfully captured land, that a large portion of the land rightfully belonged to her, and if they didn’t want to yield willingly according to her wishes, things would not be pleasant when King Erik arrived in Western Gotaland.

On one occasion in the middle of a mass, a crowd of women had forced their way into the cloister clad only in their shifts and danced and sang indecent songs in this immodest garb. Then they had sat down in the midst of the cloister, thus defiling it. It had been a hard task for the brothers to clean and bless the cloister anew.

Sigrid now understood God’s reminder. And she took her husband and Erlend aside in the hall, told all the house thralls to leave, and revealed her deformed face to Erlend, who turned pale, frightened by what he saw. Then she said what had to be said.

“Magnus, my dear lord and husband. Surely you recall just as well as I what we promised Saint Bernard and the Lord God just before the Lord recalled Arn to life. We promised to dedicate him to God’s holy work on earth if he was allowed to live. But then we never spoke of the matter again. Now God is telling us what He thinks of our neglect. We must repent and do penance, don’t you understand that?”

Magnus wrung his hands and admitted that he actually did remember the promise very well, but it was a promise made at a very difficult moment, and surely God would understand that, wouldn’t He?

Sigrid now turned to Erlend, who was much more familiar with all things holy than were she and Magnus. Erlend could do nothing but agree. It looked like leprosy, he had to say straight out. And that plague did not exist at Arnas or anywhere else in Western Gotaland, so it couldn’t have come from anywhere but from the Lord Himself. And the fact that Sigrid’s most pleasing deed before God, her donation of the land to the Varnhem cloister, was now in jeopardy, must also be viewed as a clear warning.

God demanded they make good on their promise. And He was punishing Sigrid for her ambivalence in that matter. What had happened could not be interpreted any other way.

The next day, sorrow hung heavy over Arnas. In the farmyards and the castle courtyard, no laughter or squabbling was heard from playing children. The house thralls moved like silent forest beasts in the hall, and several of them had a hard time hiding their tears.

Magnus was at a loss as to how he would present the weighty news to his youngest son. But while Sigrid was busy packing for the journey, he took Arn up to the tower where they could be alone. Arn, who still did not understand what was going to happen to him, looked more pensively curious than afraid.

Magnus lifted him up onto one of the arrow slits so he could look at his son face to face. Then it occurred to him that Arn might be afraid of this high ledge from which he had plummeted all the way into the realm of the dead.

But Arn showed no fear. Instead he leaned out over the parapet so he could look straight down at where he had fallen, since his father seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

Magnus carefully pulled Arn back and embraced him, and then began his difficult explanation. He pointed out over the district, where as far as the eye could see work was being done on the spring planting. Then he said that all this would be Eskil’s realm one day when he was no longer alive, but that Arn’s inheritance would be an even greater kingdom—the kingdom of God here on earth.

Arn didn’t seem to understand his words. Perhaps to the young boy’s ears it sounded like the usual church talk when people wanted to sound solemn and said things that meant nothing for a while before they ventured to say something that really did have meaning. Magnus had to start over.

He talked about the difficult time when Arn was not with them among the living, and how he and Sigrid in their despair had promised God to give their son to God’s work on earth if only he would be allowed to come back to life. Then they had hesitated in fulfilling their promise, but now God had punished them harshly for this disobedience, so the promise had to be honored at once.

Arn slowly began to sense that something unpleasant was coming. And his father immediately confirmed this when he revealed what was going to happen. Arn must now travel to Varnhem with his mother and Erlend. There he would enter the cloister as an oblate, which is what children were called who entered the service of God. God would assuredly watch over him, just as his patron saint, Saint Bernard, always did, for God most certainly had great plans for him.

Now Arn began to understand. His parents were going to offer him to God. Not like in the olden days, not like in the sagas from the heathen times, but they would still offer him to God. And he could do nothing at all about it, since children always had to obey their father and their mother. He started to cry, and no matter how ashamed he was to cry in front of his father, he could not stop.

Magnus took him in his arms and tried awkwardly to console him with words about God’s good will and protection, about Saint Bernard who would watch over him, and anything else he could think of. But the boy’s little body shook with sobs in his embrace, and Magnus felt that he too, God forbid, would eventually show his sorrow.