The Road To Jerusalem (13 page)

So much easier to placate the monks, since it could be done with a few letters, a few pleasant words, and some land that was only a very small part of the king’s vast holdings. This was the easy task.

The difficult task had to do with washing away the widespread gossip about the ungodly king. Erik’s old idea about a crusade to Finland was reconsidered, and Bishop Henrik found it appealing. A king who was also God’s own warrior for the good faith would come to be honored by all. The path to the two remaining crowns therefore must pass through Finland.

The Swedes, who were a warlike people and who had not been able to demonstrate that quality to themselves or others for a long time, gladly joined in the new king’s plans for a plundering campaign against Finland. There were wrongs to avenge, besides everything else, since the Finns and the Estonians had conducted vicious raids along the coasts of Svealand.

The war went well for two years. The Swedes took rich booty. The raven flew to fresh wounds.

Of course the first Finns they encountered were already Christian, but making them choose between the sword and being baptized anew by a Swedish bishop could never hurt. But occasional heathens were found farther inland, in the second year of the war.

One day when Erik’s soldiers left the army’s column to find peasants they could plunder for food they encountered an old witch. The strange thing about the woman was that she spoke almost the same language as in Svealand, and she was not all afraid when she was taken captive. Instead she pluckily asked to be taken to the commander, since she had a suggestion to make which he would be hard pressed to refuse. If the soldiers did not obey her she would cast a spell that would bring them eternal misfortune.

The soldiers did as she said, more out of curiosity at what the witch might suggest to Erik Jedvardsson that he could not refuse than out of fear of her sorcery.

When Erik Jedvardsson heard about what had happened, he thought it might provide an amusing interlude that night, and so he let the witch accompany him until they made camp toward evening.

Then he had his executioner called to the royal tent, with his block and axe prepared. His closest men in the army gathered expectantly for the amusing game, and then they brought in the witch and forced her to her knees before the king.

“So, foul witch! You had a suggestion for me that I as king would not dare refuse. Let’s hear it!” shouted Erik to the filthy woman who was bound and kneeling before him. And he smiled cheerfully at his men, reaping much merriment.

“Well yes,” the woman wheezed hoarsely, because a soldier was holding her around the neck, “I have a suggestion that a wise king would not wish to refuse.”

“I’m sure everyone would like to hear it, but you understand that the executioner isn’t standing here for nothing, so what if I say no?” replied Erik, still just as cheerful.

“Release me and let me stand up so that I may speak. If you say no to my proposal I’ll go straight to your executioner,” replied the woman, strong and confident.

Erik gestured to the men to release her and then, just as cheerful as before, showed that he was prepared to listen. The men all around him were extremely amused by what was going on.

The woman straightened her hair with dignity and cleared her throat before she spoke.

“My proposal is as follows, King Erik. Let me read your palm and say who you are and what your future holds. If you find that I speak falsely about you, or if you don’t believe what I say about what is to come, then you may send me at once to your executioner. If you believe what I have to say, I need a horse and wagon to take me back to where I was abducted.”

Erik immediately turned pensive, and the men’s laughter quieted to a murmur. They all realized that a woman who was so sure of her soothsaying that she would wager her head on its truthfulness perhaps really could see into the future after all. But not everyone wanted to know their future, because it could turn bad the very next day: an arrow flying out of the woods where no one saw the archer, a lance cast in error at the end of a battle when there was no longer anything at stake. And if a pox would strike one’s family, would a man really want to know something like that in advance? It took courage to look into the future.

Erik assessed the matter in this way: he would be seen as showing cowardice if he merely sent the babbling witch off to the executioner. On the other hand, if he listened to her first and then had her beheaded, he would make a much better impression.

“Very well,” said Erik Jedvardsson. “I shall listen to your words. If I find them true, you have my word as king that you shall return home with a horse and wagon. If I think ill of your words, I shall let the executioner take care of you here and now. So let’s hear what you have to say!”

“Well.” The witch shilly-shallied. “We must go into your tent so that you and only you hear my words.”

A murmur of astonishment spread among the men. To be alone with a witch might not be wise. Erik saw their fear, and he was just as enraged by it as by the witch’s impudence.

“And if I now say no to your proposal, if I tell you to give me your prophecy here and now!” he boomed in the gruff voice he used for giving commands.

“Then you shall not know who you are or where you are bound, for your future belongs to you alone, and perhaps you would find it unwise for it to belong to everyone. Afterward you can always decide what you choose to tell of what you alone have heard,” replied the woman with confidence, as if she knew that Erik would agree to her proposal.

And he did. The woman was searched by the hands of unabashed soldiers to ensure that she had no sharp weapon on her. Erik turned and went into his tent, and the woman was shoved in roughly after him.

Inside the tent she fell at once to her knees before the king and asked to be allowed to read one of his palms. She was given the royal hand and studied it in silence.

“I see England . . .” she began hesitantly. “Someone in your lineage . . . your father came from England. I see Rome and the man called Pope . . . no, that line is broken here. You were on your way to Rome . . . barefoot . . . how can that be? Well, nothing will come of that journey . . . hmm, your future is indeed interesting.”

Erik Jedvardsson had turned quite cold inside when he heard the reference to his English origins and how he had almost traveled to see the Pope. He was now convinced.

“So, woman! I know who I am, now tell me my future without more ado!” he ordered without his voice quavering too much.

“I see . . . I see three royal crowns. A new realm with three crowns as the coat of arms, and these armorial bearings will still endure after a thousand years, everywhere in your kingdom. Generation after generation, king after king for all eternity, and your mark will remain. The three crowns mean three countries will be united into a mighty kingdom, and in a thousand years these your crowns will still be the emblem of the realm, everywhere, on all seals, on all documents.”

“And what will happen to that pope?” Erik Jedvardsson was so shaken that he almost whispered.

“I see your picture everywhere . . .” the woman muttered low. “Everywhere pictures of you . . . as a saint, your head wreathed in gold against a blue sky. You began by doing evil against your god . . . there was that interrupted path to Rome . . . then you did good and thus your name shall live forever.”

“What do you have to say about my death?” asked Erik Jedvardsson, now reverently.

“Your death . . . your death. Do you really want to know that? Few men do.”

“Yes, say something!”

“I can’t see very clearly . . .” muttered the woman, who suddenly seemed a bit afraid to say what she had seen with utter clarity. But then she mustered her courage and once again her voice sounded confident.

“Your name will live on forever. No man born of woman in Svealand or the two lands of the Goths will be able to kill or even injure you,” she said hastily, standing up.

Erik Jedvardsson, who now was filled with the certainty that all his dreams would come true, and that not one of his foreseeable enemies would ever be able to kill him, strode out of the tent and in a mighty voice gave the order for a horse and wagon to be brought forth for the woman. No one was to touch her or speak to her indecorously; she was granted the protection of the king.

Erik Jedvardsson returned home to Ostra Aros, his mind alight with the glorious future he now felt would be his. For he had nothing to fear from any man in Svealand or Western Gotaland or Eastern Gotaland.

Magnus Henriksen, however, was not a man born of woman in Svealand, Western Gotaland, or Eastern Gotaland. He was Danish.

He was one of the many great men of Denmark that the winds of war had blown like chaff out across the world after Valdemar finally won the long Danish war of succession. Fleeing Denmark, Magnus sailed up the Eastern Sea, stopped for a time in Linkoping, and had private discussions with King Karl Sverkersson. He then continued up the coast, into Lake Malaren and up the Fyris River.

He took King Erik Jedvardsson by surprise, and he was the one who personally chopped off the head that according to the witch in Finland would become the eternal symbol of the future kingdom.

Magnus had himself proclaimed the new king, since he had killed the old one. In those days that was the most common way to become king in the North, and on his mother’s side he was in a direct line of descent from King Inge the Old.

Magnus Henriksen lived for a year. Erik Jedvardsson lived forever.

Reading is the basis of all knowledge. It was Father Henri’s firm conviction that even men such as himself, whose main occupation was text, either writing or copying it, had to spend at least two hours a day reading, which was a means of cultivating the soul, a sort of permissible enjoyment.

The rules for reading text at Vitskol were therefore quite strict. The brothers who had the work of their hands as their primary duty, such as the cooks from Provence, the lay brothers who busied themselves with masonry work or stone polishing, Brother Guilbert and his smith apprentices, and Brother Lucien and his garden apprentices—they all had to learn something each day that was not related to their usual work.

But this obligation took on a different aspect when it came to the little boy Arn. The first four or five years of his studies had not been designed for any practical purpose other than to hone his linguistic instrument. For the same reason he was always required to speak Latin with Father Henri, French with Brother Guilbert, and Norse with the Nordic lay brothers. The text he worked with in the first years had been mostly the psalms, since he had to learn them anyway. He had a very passable soprano voice, and when he sang the lead his voice lent extra beauty to the early morning and evening mass, in particular.

It was now Arn’s fifth year, and the cloister church in Vitskol was finally ready. It would be consecrated by Archbishop Eskil, who was coming all the way from Lund. When the church was consecrated, the monastery would also be given its name; all Cistercian monasteries had their own name. For Vitskol’s part Father Henri had long ago decided that the name would be Vitae Schola, the School of Life.

Arn certainly had something to do with that choice of name. Even though it was still impossible to say why God had placed this child with the Cistercian brothers, it was easy to see how the name Vitae Schola applied to Arn quite literally. Everything of any importance that he would learn in life would presumably be learned here.

And now that the boy was beginning to master his linguistic instrument, Father Henri had released him into the great sea of literature. Arn had to work on his obligatory reading every day, just like everyone else.

Father Henri was convinced that worldly literature was almost as important as theological literature to the formation of a young man’s mind. But it required a certain attentiveness on Father Henri’s part, since Arn at first darted in and out of the scriptorium at will, and sometimes discovered books that were unsuitable for boys.

The purpose of reading Ovid, for example, was naturally to concentrate on the
Metamorphoses
, around two hundred tales about magical transformations, texts that taught their reader much about legends and cultures that had been part of the Roman empire. On the other hand, it was less fortunate when the boy grabbed
Ars amatoria
, Th
e Art of Love
. Father Henri had discovered Arn with that very book in a corner of the kitchen. Arn had also appeared to be unduly excited in a manner that human nature could not conceal.

Naturally Father Henri had then administered suitable punishment, cold rubdowns and a certain number of prayers and the like, but he had not taken such a stern view of the matter as he outwardly professed. On the contrary, he had merrily related the whole incident to Brother Guilbert, who had a good laugh at the boy’s naive sin.

The more unsuitable texts by Ovid, however, were taken away to Father Henri’s own sleeping cell, and thereafter the choice of literature for Arn’s elective reading was selected with more precision and caution.

Reading was the basis of all knowledge and all pure and wise thoughts. Of course everyone would agree with that; it was obvious. But Father Henri may possibly have differed slightly from many of his colleagues in his belief that even little boys should be given these texts in time, before they became mired too much in theological scholarship. On the other hand, it was not possible to neglect Arn’s theological training. At Vitae Schola there were only two copies of the guide to reading the Bible,
Glossa
Ordinaria
, which all the brothers were constantly consulting. But Father Henri saw to it that Arn was given as much access to that text as possible.

And in order to avoid new embarrassments such as the incident with the unsuitable text by Ovid, Arn was now required to fetch all his books directly from Father Henri’s possession. In addition, at least one working hour each day was devoted to teaching the boy what was easy and what was hard to understand in the Holy Scriptures.