The Road To Jerusalem (24 page)

“When I was a little boy and fell from a high wall, the Lord showed mercy toward me and perhaps toward my mother and father as well for their fervent prayers. That’s what is true, that much we can consider certain,” replied Arn, still not daring to raise his eyes.

“Certain, well, that’s not saying too much, is it?” said Archbishop Stephan with a scarcely perceptible hint of impatience in his voice. “But then don’t we come immediately to the question of why?”

“Yes,” said Arn. “We do come to the question of why, but I’ve never been able to find an answer. When it comes to the grace of the Lord, it is many times beyond what humans can conceive. I’m not exactly the only one who cannot understand everything about the grace of God.”

“Aha! Now I’m starting to recognize the little rascal who tried to strike me and called me an old codger. That’s good, young man! Just keep talking back, and I’m not being sarcastic; I like it when you talk back. So we haven’t transformed you into some sort of passive vegetable in the garden; you have your free will and your mind intact, and we both think that is splendid. Henri has made a point of describing this characteristic of yours. By the way, I haven’t spoken French in a long time, do you mind if we switch to Latin?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Good. Actually I had just intended to retaliate, because when we met the first time you chided me for not speaking very good Norse. Well, that jest fell flat, since your French is excellent. How can that be, since most of your studies are in Latin?”

“We’ve had an arrangement whereby I speak Latin about spiritual and academic matters, French when doing the other half of the work, and Norse with the lay brothers who don’t speak much French,” replied Arn, raising his head for the first time and looking the archbishop in the eye. By now he had conquered the worst of his embarrassment.

“An excellent arrangement. It’s good that you retain your Norse language, even better if things turn out the way I think,” muttered the archbishop pensively. “But let me now ask you something specific, and I really want an honest answer. Has the Lord God spoken to you? Has He revealed His intentions for you?”

“No, Your Grace. God has never spoken directly to me, and I know nothing of His intentions for me,” Arn replied, once again feeling embarrassed and at a disadvantage. It was as if through sin he had made himself unworthy of God’s original plan, whatever it may have been.

The two older men pondered Arn’s reply thoughtfully and in silence. They said nothing at all for a long time, but at last they exchanged a knowing look and nodded to each other. Father Henri made a great show of clearing his throat, the way he always did before launching into a long explanation.

“My beloved son, you must now listen to me and not be frightened,” Father Henri began with visible emotion. “My good friend Stephan and I have reached a decision which we believe is the only right one. We know as little as you do about what God has in mind for you; all we know is that it must be something special. But since none of us knows, it might be that His call has simply not been made as yet. Our task, and yours, could be to prepare you as well as possible for the call when it does come, don’t you think?”

“Yes, of course, Father,” Arn replied in a low voice. His throat was suddenly dry.

“Your education is remarkable and the work of your hands is of great joy to us here within these walls,” Father Henri went on. “But you know nothing of the world outside. That is why you must now go out into that world; you must return to your father’s estate at Arnas, which lies a day’s ride from here. Well, a Nordic day’s ride, that is . . . you know what I mean, with horses from Outremer it would probably take half a day, I would guess. This is the
command
we now give you. You must return to the place that was once your home.”

“I . . . I will naturally obey your command,” said Arn, although the words stuck in his throat. He felt as though he’d been felled by an unexpected blow, as if he’d been excommunicated, cast out from the holy community.

“I see that you are not happy with our command,” said the archbishop.

“No, Your Grace. I’ve tried to acquit myself well here at the cloister, and I don’t mean to boast in any way when I say that, but I can honestly argue that I’ve done my best,” said Arn, crushed.

“You are a Cistercian, my young friend,” said Archbishop Stephan. “Think on that. You will always be one of us, for what is done cannot be undone. Perhaps it is also intended that you shall remain one of us in
tra muros
forever, that is what we do not know. Perhaps you will come back after finding that the world out there does not suit you, fully prepared to make your vows to the cloister. But first you must learn of the things about which you have no knowledge, and you can’t learn about the outside world in here, no matter how hard you study. We want what is best for you. You should know that both Henri and I truly love you, and we will both pray for you while you are out there. But you must learn something about the other world, that is what is needed.”

“When may I come back? How long do I have to stay out there?” asked Arn with a new spark of hope.

“When God wills it, you will come back to us. If God does not will it, He will give you another purpose out there. You must ask Him in your prayers. It’s not something we can decide, since it’s a matter between you and God,” said the archbishop, starting to stand up as if the conversation were over. But then he thought of something to add and brightened up a little.

“Oh yes, one more thing, young man. When you are out there you must know that not only will your brothers within these walls be praying for you, but you also have the archbishop as your friend. You can always come to me with your troubles, remember that!”

With that Archbishop Stephan stood up and held out his hand to Arn, who fell to his knees and with his head bowed as a sign of obedience, kissed the archbishop’s hand.

When Arn rode out from Varnhem it was at first with a very heavy heart. In spite of all Father Henri’s explanations and exhortations he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was being punished, as if he had shown himself to be unworthy of the brothers’ fellowship.

But in search of consolation he began to sing, and this soon eased his heart. When he discovered that it helped, his mood changed so that he sang even more and soon out of joy rather than seeking consolation. By now he sang like all the other brothers, a little better than some and a little worse than others, neither more nor less. But his singing was suddenly of more joy to him than in many years, almost like in the days when he sang soprano in the brothers’ choir.

As his mood now shifted from dark to light just as rapidly and unpredictably as the spring weather, he also began to be filled with excitement and anticipation. It was certainly true that he knew nothing of the world outside the cloister walls. He could hardly remember what Arnas looked like, the place that had once been his home. He remembered a very tall stone tower, a courtyard behind walls where he and other children had played a game with hoops and where his father had shown him how to shoot a bow and arrow. But he had a hard time summoning up any image in his memory about how they had actually lived. He thought he recalled that they all lived together somehow, that it was dark with a big fire, but he didn’t trust his memories because they seemed so foreign. Now he was finally going to see everything with his own eyes. He should be there by tomorrow. With a better horse he could have been there by evening, but he was riding an old and slow Nordic horse, one of those that according to Brother Guilbert was no use for breeding and hardly good for anything else. But lay brother Erlend was now at Arnas to teach new children to read, as he had once taught Arn and Eskil, and so Erlend would be given a compliant horse when he had to return to Varnhem. Father Henri was of the opinion that lay brother Erlend would be of little use at Arnas, either for reading or anything else, after Arn came home.

A person had to learn to come to terms with the fate determined for him by God. It would do no good to grumble that one would rather be someone else or live somewhere else. Instead one had to try to make the best of the situation; that was the only way to fulfill God’s plans. The last of the brothers to repeat these words to Arn before his departure was Brother Rugiero, who had also been called from Vitae Schola to Varnhem after Father Henri found the food up there wretched.

Brother Rugiero had secretly shed a few tears at their parting, but then foisted on Arn a gigantic package of traveling provisions that would have lasted a week or more. When Arn protested, Brother Rugiero quickly closed the boy’s knapsack and mentioned that it certainly couldn’t hurt to bring along a bit of food to provide for his welcome ale at home. Brother Rugiero, like the other brothers from Vitae Schola, knew little about Arn, surmising that he’d come to them because his parents were poor and were having a hard time with all the mouths to feed back home.

After a few hours Arn spied Skara in the distance; the double tower of the cathedral rose grandly over a conglomeration of low wooden houses. Soon he caught the scent of the town, since he was approaching from downwind. It smelled of smoke and putrefaction and rubbish and manure—a smell so strong that he would have had no trouble heading in the right direction for the last half hour even if it had been pitch dark.

When Arn came closer to the town his curiosity was aroused by a large building under construction, and he made a little detour so he could watch the work at close hand. They were erecting a fortress.

He reined in his horse and grew more and more astonished at what he saw. A whole crowd was in motion; most of the people were busy dragging stone blocks over rolling logs, but the work looked to be proceeding sluggishly. Nowhere did he see any block and tackle or hoisting mechanisms. Everything seemed to be done by brute force. Many ill-clad men were toiling hard, overseen by men with weapons who didn’t seem at all kindly disposed toward the workers. And none of those who were doing the dragging and laboring seemed happy about their work.

The walls were not very high, and they consisted mainly of earthworks that an attacker could easily ride to the top; from there a good horse could probably leap over in one jump. Khamsiin would be able to do it easily.

Arn didn’t know very much about war and defensive works except what he had read in books, which was mostly Roman strategy and tactics. But it seemed to him that this fortress under construction would be difficult to defend if the attackers built their own covered wooden towers and rolled them up to the walls. But perhaps the Roman methods were totally antiquated.

Some of the men supervising the work noticed Arn staring, and they came over to him and let fall some harsh words which Arn didn’t fully understand, but he gathered that he should leave because he wasn’t welcome. He at once begged their pardon and turned his slow horse back toward town.

The town of Skara was also surrounded by some sort of walls that consisted of logs and piles of branches with dirt thrown on top. Outside the town gate was an area with tents and people singing foreign songs and playing instruments. When Arn drew closer he saw that many men were sitting together in one of the tents drinking ale, and they had no doubt been doing so for a good while, since some had collapsed unconscious. He saw to his surprise a woman with her clothing in disarray, staggering over to a smaller tent, and a man sitting utterly without embarrassment as he answered the call of nature.

Arn was completely bewildered by the behavior of his fellow human beings, and this was obvious from looking at him. Three small boys spotted him, pointed their fingers, and laughed, but he had no idea why. Yet he had to pass them to get through the opening in the wall, and then they whispered something amongst themselves before they approached to block his way.

“Here you have to pay toll to the poor to be allowed in, monk boy!” said the oldest and boldest of the three.

“I don’t have much to give,” replied Arn, truly sorry. “I just have a little bread and—”

“Bread would be good, because we have nothing at all. How much have you got, monk boy?”

“I have four pieces of bread baked this morning,” said Arn truthfully.

“Fine, we’ll take them. Give us the bread at once!” called all three. And it seemed to Arn that they suddenly looked happy.

Fortified by the thought that he could make his neighbor happy so easily, Arn opened his knapsack and handed over the pieces of bread. The three boys snatched them away and ran off, laughing wildly and without a word of thanks. Arn watched them go in amazement. He suspected that he’d been fooled in some way, but he didn’t understand why anyone would want to do such a thing, so he felt guilty for thinking ill of his neighbor.

When he tried to go through the gate, two sleepy men with weapons in their hands prevented him from doing so. First they wanted to know his name and what business he had there. Arn replied that he was lay brother Arn from Varnhem and that he had come to visit the cathedral, but that he would be moving on soon. They let him in with a laugh and said something mysteri ous about how he should mind he didn’t commit some act that he didn’t understand either. And because his confusion was so obvious from his expression, the two men laughed even more.

When Arn entered through the gate he wasn’t sure which way to go. The direction of the cathedral was clear from the two tall towers visible from anywhere in town. But there seemed to be nothing but compost amongst all the low and tightly packed wooden buildings. At first Arn thought he would have to find another way through all the garbage. But then he saw a man come riding down an alley that seemed to head straight for the cathedral. The hooves of his horse sank deeper with every step into sludge, manure, and rotting garbage. Very hesitantly and with the stench tickling his nostrils, Arn took the same alley in the opposite direction. It was still morning, or time that was reckoned as morning inside the town. Everywhere cocks were crowing, and at several spots along the alley he was almost struck by garbage thrown out from pots and cooking vessels. The people apparently shared living quarters with their livestock and poultry. He was filled with more astonishment than disgust.