The Road To Jerusalem (8 page)

Erik Jedvardsson now knew that all further discussion about his path to the king’s crown had better wait until another time. He clapped his hands and called for the Norwegian bard whom he’d brought along in the rear sleigh. He demanded stories from the time when people in the North had energy and the courage that one saw all too infrequently these days.

The bard rose from his miserable seat among the youngest retainers and began walking to the front of the hall to stand by the fire at the end, where he would tell stories and sing. In the meantime the house thralls quickly cleaned up the scraps and brought more ale, wiping up piss and vomit by the door. An expectant silence spread as the bard paused dramatically with his head bowed to let the excitement rise to the bursting point before he began.

He started in a faint but beautiful, melodious voice, telling of Sigurd Jorsalafar’s eight great victories on the road to Jerusalem, how he had plundered in Galicia, how off the coast of Sarkland, where the infidels lived, he first encountered ships full of Saracen heathens who came rowing toward him with a huge fleet of galleys, but how he then attacked without hesitation and soon vanquished the heathens, who clearly had never encountered a Nordic fleet before and had no understanding of such a battle that could end in only one way:

The poor heathens
attacked the king.
The mighty prince
killed them all.

The army cleared out eight ships
in the terrible battle.

The much befriended prince
brought booty on board.
The raven flew off to fresh wounds.

Here the bard took a break and asked for more ale so he could resume his tales, and all the men pounded their fists on the long table as a sign that they wanted to hear more.

The two youngest boys, Arn and Knut, had listened with mouths agape and eyes wide during the story, but the somewhat older Eskil began to fret and yawn. Sigrid motioned to her house thralls to put the boys to bed. She had already made up beds for them in one of the cookhouses.

Eskil followed along obediently, yawning again; he believed that a warm bed would be preferable to an old man telling the ancient sagas in a language that was difficult to understand. Arn and Knut kicked, whined, and protested, begging to hear more and promising to sit still, but it did no good.

Soon all three boys were tucked in under thick pelts in a cookhouse with three of the biggest iron pots filled with glowing charcoal. Eskil quickly turned over and fell asleep, snuffling, while Arn and Knut lay wide awake, indignant that the eldest of them was the one who had ruined their fun. Whispering, they agreed to get dressed and slip out into the dark. Like little elves they passed two men who stood puking outside the door. They sneaked nimbly into the hall and sat down near the door in the dark where no one would see them; Arn found a big pelt, which he carefully pulled over them both, revealing only their blond bangs and wide eyes. They sat there quiet as mice, with all their attention focused on Sigurd Jorsalafar’s heroic deeds.

Despite the fact that a dozen men stumbled past Arn and Knut, and some even tripped over them on their way out or in, nobody discovered the boys hiding like grouse chicks in the forest at night. They listened, rapt and wide-eyed, as the bard sang of Sigurd Jorsalafar’s triumph at Sidon, repeating the verses that the men, whose applause was growing increasingly thunderous, demanded.

Sigurd won

at Sidon, men remember this.
Weapons were wielded fiercely
in the heated battle.
With might the warriors crushed
the stubborn army’s fortress.
Beautiful swords were colored with
blood when the prince prevailed.

The applause from the hall went on and on, followed by the buzz of voices as everyone began talking at once, about the great deeds in olden times, and the kings of their own time who were like Sverker Limp-Cock and not Sigurd Jorsalafar. Magnus attempted a witty joke that it was different with Norsemen, since he himself was of Norwegian lineage. But nobody thought it was a good joke, least of all Erik Jedvardsson, who now stood up holding the old drinking horn they had placed before him—a Norwegian drinking horn at that, although he was probably unaware of it. And he drank with manly vigor, draining it to the bottom without taking the horn from his lips. Then he ex plained that he had just seen before him, as if in a vision, the new coat of arms that would be his and that of the whole realm. There would be three golden crowns: one crown for Svealand, one for Eastern Gotaland, and one for Western Gotaland. The three crowns would be set against a field the color of the sky. This, he now swore, would become in the future the new coat of arms for him and the entire kingdom.

The hall seethed with excited applause. But Erik Jedvardsson wanted to say more. At the same time he had to piss, and since he wanted to do both equally urgently, he announced in a loud, slurred voice on the way out the door that each and every one who followed him in the future would be assured of reaping honor during the crusade. Perhaps going only so far as to the Finns on the other side of the Eastern Sea on the first venture, but then, after the Finns were converted, perhaps our men needed to gain a foothold in the Holy Land as well.

When he reached the door he didn’t bother to go outside across the high threshold; staggering, he leaned against the doorjamb for support and relieved himself right where he stood.

He never noticed that he was pissing on Arn and his own son Knut. And they in turn could do nothing but huddle together and suffer in silence. Neither of the boys would ever forget it.

Especially since they had now been pissed on by a man who would become a saint as well as king.

The winter held Arnas in an iron grip. All roads to the south had been impassable since the eighth day of Christmas, and even though the ice on Lake Vanern was thick enough to cross, at least with wide-runnered sleighs, right now there was no great reason to take the trouble. What Magnus wanted to sell over there, toward Lodose, would bring double the price toward the end of winter when supplies began running low in many storehouses. At Arnas the work went on as usual in the cooperages, the slaughterhouses, and the salting houses, as it did in the women’s workshops where they prepared wool and linen and wove both thick cloth and tapestries to the delight of both man and God.

For the boys Eskil and Arn, the hard winter was a wonderful time. Their teacher and lay brother Erlend from Varnhem had returned to the monastery just before Christmastime, and although Paulsmas was rapidly approaching on January 25th, he had still not been able to make his way back through the snow to Arnas. The days that the boys should have spent sitting with their noses in the Latin text about the philosopher Saint Bernard had now become free, and they spent the time in lively winter games and boys’ mischief. What was most fun was to catch mice down in the grain stores and then release them among the thrall women in the cookhouses. Shrieking with laughter, the boys would run off as shrill screams and loud banging and clattering spoke of what was happening to the mice.

Once they sneaked into the armory and took two old-fashioned round shields out to the long slope in front of the barn near the longhouse where the hay was brought in late in the summer. They sat down on the shields and slid like small otters down the whole slope. Their loud, happy laughter attracted attention, and when their father came and saw what they were doing with the equipment of grown men, he flew into a rage and gave them a thrashing that made them run wailing to their mother in the weaving house. But that little trouble soon passed. The thrall Svarte, who had seen the boys’ inventiveness, went to the carpenters’ workshop, found some suitable boards, and fashioned them with dowels into a toboggan. Then he steamed one end of the board and bent it slowly upward like the front end of sleigh runners, and ran a leather cord through it as reins for the toboggan, and soon the boys were sliding full speed down the snowy slopes with shrieks and laughter once more.

At first Magnus was out of sorts at seeing his sons tumbling about in the snow in happy games with the thralls’ children. He didn’t think it was seemly. Eskil and Arn were going to grow up to be the owners of thralls, not their playmates. In Sigrid’s opinion, however, children were children, and the vagaries of adult life probably wouldn’t elude any of them when they got a little older, be they thrall or son of the lord. Besides, now the boys got out of studying Latin.

She smiled in her ambiguous way as she said that. The fact that the boys had to learn Latin was just as obvious to her as it was incomprehensible to Magnus. She believed that it was the language of the future. He thought that only monks and priests needed such knowledge; in Lodose he could trade with people from afar in everyday language, even if he had to muddle through and repeat things sometimes. Anyway, as soon as the lay brother managed to get through the snow from Varnhem to resume studying with the boys, the games with the thralls would be over.

But the winter refused to release its grip on Arnas, and Eskil and Arn had never spent a winter that was more fun, since they were able to play even more games with the thrall children. They built a fort in the snow, and took turns defending it while the others attempted to take the fort, each side with the same number of thrall children. Eskil and Arn had little wooden swords in their hands, while the others had to make do with snowballs, since they were thralls and not allowed to bear arms. The result was a few tears and some black-and-blue marks.

They also helped Kol, Svarte’s boy who was their own age, to catch live mice for Svarte to use as bait in his ermine traps. Ermine pelts were very valuable; four of them would buy a thrall. When the wolves began to come near Arnas, Svarte put scraps from the slaughterhouses by an opening in one of the most distant hay-barns, to keep watch for the wolves when the night was moonlit, calm, and quiet.

Foolishly Eskil now claimed, and Arn nodded eagerly in agreement, that their father had said they were allowed to join Svarte during the watch, as long as they kept quiet as mice. Svarte had his doubts, but he didn’t dare ask Herr Magnus if it was really true that the master’s children would have tried to trick him. When the weather was good, Eskil and Arn took to sneaking out at night with thick sheepskins under their arms to meet Svarte, who had two crossbows loaded. Since Svarte had said too much at home, Kol came out as well. Three boys with sparkling eyes and impatiently pounding hearts sat next to Svarte and waited, trying not to rustle in the hay, as they kept an eye on the white snowfield and the offal heap that was visited every night by foxes.

Finally one night when the moon had already waned to half, but the weather was clear and calm and very cold, the wolves came. Svarte and the boys could hear their cautious steps on the crust of snow long before they could spy them with their eyes. Svarte made excited gestures for the boys to keep absolutely still. In his fervor he drew a hand across his throat to emphasize the serious punishment that would befall them otherwise, and saw at once Eskil and Arn open their eyes wide in surprise. They had never in their lives been threatened by a thrall, not even in jest. But they nodded eagerly and held up their small index and middle fingers pressed together in a sign that they swore not to make the slightest sound.

Svarte moved unbearably slowly as he drew both crossbows without the least rustle, click, or creak. Then he laid one at the ready and cautiously raised the other into position, poised to shoot.

But the wolves were wary. Now they looked like black shadows out there on the snow. It took a while before they came closer, and Svarte had to lower his crossbow so his arms wouldn’t tire. Finally the first wolf came forward, nibbled a little meat, and quickly vanished out of shooting range, pursued by the other wolves. Out of sight they could be heard snarling as they fought over the food. Then they calmed down and came forward one by one, and soon they stood there eating, gulping down the meat with growls and muffled gurgling sounds. The boys found the tension almost intolerable and couldn’t understand why Svarte was taking so long.

He again motioned them to sit absolutely still, more polite in his gestures this time; then he raised one crossbow and took careful aim. The instant he loosed the shot he reached for the second crossbow, slung it into position, aimed hastily, and shot again. Down in the snow a pitiful whimpering was heard.

As soon as the boys heard Svarte move, they dared to shout with joy, and then they pushed forward, scrambling to get the best view. Below them lay a wolf kicking in the snow. Svarte gazed in silence over their heads. Then he told them that now it wasn’t safe for small boys; one of the wolves had limped off, injured. They either had to go home or else stay up here in safety while he went down to check on what had happened. They promised at once to stay where they were.

When Svarte reached the scene of the shooting, he stopped, leaning forward to examine the snow a short distance away. He wasn’t worried about the wolf that had now stopped kicking and lay dead. Then he discovered the trail of blood and began heavily trudging off through the deep snow.

The boys sat for a long time listening in silence; they were starting to feel very cold. Finally a howl that turned their marrow to ice was heard in the dark, followed by gurgling growls that sounded like when the wolves were devouring the meat. Eskil, Arn, and Kol now sat pale and quiet and scared, waiting. But then they pricked up their ears and heard, first faintly and then more clearly, Svarte’s heavy, plodding footsteps and panting.

“Father is carrying the second wolf on his back, that’s why he’s walking so heavily,” Kol explained with poorly feigned confidence. Eskil and Arn nodded in awe.

By Paulsmas, the winter was half gone, the bear had turned in its den, and just as much snow would fall afterward as before. Magnus had ordered the road cleared down to Forshem church so that he and his immediate family could attend mass for the first time in far too long.