Birth of the Kingdom. Jan Guillou

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, the new abbess, will swear an oath before the archbishop, because the rules require that it be done in this manner. Then the archbishop will have a hard knot to unravel. He could do two things. He could demand trial by iron, a proof from God that her words were true, because the red-hot iron would not wound her. Or he could take up the matter in Rome. If he’s the wily intriguer you claim he is, he will choose the latter, because one never quite knows how it will go with red-hot iron. And if he takes up the matter in Rome, he will couch his words so that it looks as though the new abbess is swearing falsely. With that he will have no difficulty. The Holy Father will then excommunicate Cecilia at once. In this way we will have won something but lost much.’

      ‘You can’t be sure it will go so badly,’ said Birger Brosa.

      ‘No,’ said Arn. ‘No one can know that. I simply believe, dear uncle, that I know the paths to the Holy Father better than you do, and that my guess is therefore better than yours. But I can’t know for sure, nor can you.’

      ‘And if we don’t attempt this subterfuge, then neither of us will know.’

      ‘True. But there is great danger of making a bad situation even worse. With regard to Ingrid Ylva, I wish you success in your plans for her bridal bed. But I have given my word to go to the bridal bed with Cecilia Algotsdotter.’

      ‘Take Ingrid Ylva as your wife and consort as much as you like with your Cecilia!’ Birger Brosa shouted. ‘We all do the same. We choose one woman to live under the same roof with and to bear our children. But what we do beyond that is for pleasure only, what you with your foolish stubbornness call love, and that’s something else entirely. Do you think that Brigida and I loved each other when the agreement was concluded at our bridal ale? Brigida was older than me and ugly as sin, or so I thought then. She was no newly blossomed rose, but the widow of King Magnus. And yet our life has been good, and we have raised many sons, and what you call love comes with time. You have to do as we all do! You may be a great warrior with songs sung about you, even though you are merely one of the many who lost the Holy Land. But now you are home with us, and here you must act like a Folkung.’

      ‘And yet I would hardly yield to my uncle’s advice to sin with an abbess,’ replied Arn with a look of disgust. ‘Cecilia and I have already been punished enough for sins of the flesh, and I find it particularly poor counsel to carry on a secret love affair with an abbess.’

      Birger Brosa realized that his frivolous advice regarding the abbess was undoubtedly the most foolish thing he had said during any negotiations. He was always used to winning.

      ‘And you, my king and childhood friend Knut?’ said Arn, careful to release Birger Brosa from his own predicament. ‘Once I recall that you promised Cecilia to me if only I accompanied you on a journey that ended with King Karl Sverkersson’s death. I see that you still wear around your neck the cross that you took from the murdered king. So, what is your opinion?’

      ‘I don’t consider it proper for the king to put in his word either for or against this matter,’ replied Knut uncertainly. ‘What you and Birger are discussing with such fervour is something for your clan to decide, and it would be ill-advised for the king to interfere in matters concerning weddings of other clans.’

      ‘But you gave me your word,’ Arn replied coldly.

      ‘How so? I don’t remember that,’ said the king, surprised.

      ‘Do you remember the time when you were trying to persuade me to go to Näs, when we had to sail the little black ship/boat through ice and slush at night?’

      ‘Yes, I do, and you were my friend. You stood by my side in the hour of peril, I will never forget it.’

      ‘Then you must also remember that first we agreed to shoot with the bow, and if I vanquished you then I would win Cecilia. I have the word of a king.’

      King Knut sighed and tugged on his thin, greying beard as he pondered. ‘I was quite a young man, as were you,’ he said. ‘But that isn’t the crucial thing. For as I said, the king must take care not to interfere in the internal affairs of another clan. This is a matter for the Folkungs. But one thing you must know. Now I am your king, back then I was not. And now I tell you, go to the bridal bed with Ingrid Ylva and release Cecilia Algotsdotter from her vow and promises, so that that she may become our abbess at Riseberga.’

      ‘That’s impossible. We took a vow before Our Lady. What else can I do for you?’

      ‘Can you swear your loyalty?’ asked the king, as if changing the subject.

      ‘I already did that when we both were young. My word holds fast, even if yours does not,’ said Arn.

      Then the king smiled for the first time during this argument, nodding in acknowledgment that Arn’s arrow could still strike home.

      ‘Have my uncle and my brother sworn you their loyalty?’ Arn asked, and the other three in the room all nodded.

      Arn stood up without further ado, drew his sword, and fell to his knees before King Knut. He set the sword with the point on the stone floor, crossed himself, and grasped it with both hands.

      ‘I, Arn Magnusson, swear that as long as you are king of the Folkungs I shall be true to you, Knut Eriksson, in…auxilium et consilium,’ he said, hesitating only when he came to those last words in Latin. Then he stood up, slipped his sword back in its sheath, and went back to his seat and sat down.

      ‘What did you mean by those last foreign words?’ asked the king.

      ‘That which a knight must swear, I cannot say in our language, but it is no less worthy in church language,’ said Arn with a shrug. ‘Auxilium is one thing I swore to you, which means assistance…or support…or my sword, you might say. And consilium is the other thing a knight promises his king. It means that I have sworn always to stand by you and offer true counsel, to the best of my ability.’

      ‘Good,’ said King Knut. ‘Then give me one piece of advice. Archbishop Petrus talks a great deal about how I must atone for my sin of having killed Karl Sverkersson. I don’t know how much of his talk is genuine faith in God and how much is merely his desire to vex me. Now he wants me to send a crusade to the Holy Land as atonement. You must have an opinion on this, having fought there for more than twenty years?’

      ‘Yes, I certainly do. Build a cloister, donate gold and