The Templar Knight

The white shield with the evil red cross was gone, as was the Templar knight. Saladin wearily looked up at his brother, almost as if he had awakened from a dream.

‘If all our foes were like Al Ghouti, we would never win,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘On the other hand, if all our foes were like him, victory would no longer be necessary.’

Fahkr did not understand what his brother and prince meant but supposed it was mostly meaningless weary mutterings, as had happened so many times before when Yussuf stayed up too long and brooded.

‘We must head out; we have a hard ride to Al Arish,’ said Saladin, getting stiffly to his feet. ‘War awaits, we will soon be victorious.’

It was true that war awaited; that was as written. But it was also written that Saladin and Arn Magnusson de Gothia would soon meet again on the battlefield, and that only one of them would come away victorious.

TWO (#ulink_2485b710-38dc-5113-82ab-41700ff840a3)

Jerusalem was located in the middle of a world from which even Rome seemed a distant place. Farther away was the kingdom of the Franks, and almost at the ends of the earth, in the cold, dark North, lay the land of Western Götaland which was known to very few. It was said among learned men that beyond was nothing but dark forest stretching to the edge of the earth, inhabited by monsters with two heads.

Nevertheless the true faith had reached up here to the cold and the dark, mostly thanks to Saint Bernard, who in his mercy and love of humankind had found that even the barbarians up in the dark North had a right to salvation of the soul. It was he who sent the first monks to the wild, unknown lands of the Goths. Soon the light and truth had spread from more than ten cloisters among the Northmen, who were now no longer lost.

A convent located in the southern part of Western Götaland had the loveliest of all cloister names. It was called Gudhem, God’s Home, and it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The convent stood atop a hill, and from there could be seen the distant blue mountain Billingen, and if a person strained his eyes a bit, he might see the two towers of the cathedral in Skara. North of Gudhem glittered Hornborga Lake, where the cranes appeared in the spring before the pike began to play. Surrounding the cloister were farms and fields and small groves of oaks. It was a very peaceful and beautiful landscape and did not at all lead the mind to thoughts of darkness and barbarity. For the older woman who had made a substantial donation and travelled here to conclude her life in peace, the name of Gudhem sounded like a caress, and the region was the loveliest that an aging eye could see.

But for Cecilia Algotsdotter, who had been locked up at Gudhem at the age of seventeen because of her sins, the convent for a long time seemed a home without God, a place that was considered more of a hell on earth.

Cecilia was familiar with cloister life, and that was not what frightened her. She also knew Gudhem, because at various intervals in her life she had spent more than two years inside among the novices, young women who were sent to the convent by wealthy families to be disciplined and taught good manners before they were married off. She already knew how to read; she knew the Book of Psalms by heart and the words tumbled from her lips like running water, because she had sung every psalm more than a hundred times. So in this there was nothing new and nothing frightening.

But this time she had been consigned to convent life, and the sentence was harsh - twenty years. She had been sentenced together with her betrothed Arn Magnusson of the Folkung clan, because they had committed a grave sin when they united in carnal love before being married before God. It was Cecilia’s sister Katarina who had reported them, and the proof of their sin was such that no argument would avail. The day that the convent gate closed behind Cecilia, she was already in her third month. Her betrothed Arn had also been sentenced to twenty years, but he was to serve his time as a monk in God’s holy army in the far reaches of the Holy Land.

Over the portal of Gudhem convent there were two sandstone sculptures depicting Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise after the Fall, hiding their shame with fig leaves. The image was meant to be a warning, and it spoke directly to Cecilia as if it had been cut and chiselled and polished out of stone expressly for her sake.

She had been separated from her beloved Arn only a stone’s throw from this portal. He had fallen to his knees and sworn with the passion that only a seventeen-year-old youth can swear, and even upon his sword that was blessed by God. He vowed to endure all fire and war and promised to come back and fetch her when their penance was paid.

That was a long time ago now. And from Arn in the Holy Land she had heard not a word.

But what frightened Cecilia from the very start, when Abbess Rikissa dragged her in through the gate with a hard and undignified grip round her wrist, as if leading a thrall to her punishment, was that Gudhem had now become an utterly different place. It was not the same as when she had previously spent time here with the novices.

That is, on the surface Gudhem was still the place she knew, and only a few new outbuildings had been added. But inside much was changed, and she truly had good reason to feel fear.

The land for Gudhem had been donated from the royal holdings by King Karl Sverkersson. Consequently, the Abbess Rikissa belonged to the Sverker clan, as did most of the consecrated sisters and almost all the novices.

But when the pretender to the throne, Knut Eriksson, the son of Saint Erik Jedvardsson, returned from his exile in Norway to reclaim his father’s crown and avenge his murder, he himself had murdered King Karl Sverkersson out on the island of Visingö. And among the men who abetted him in this deed was his friend and Cecilia’s lover Arn Magnusson.

So in the world outside the cloister walls war now raged anew. On one side were the Folkung clan and the Erik clan with their Norwegian allies; on the other were the Sverker clan and their Danish allies.

Cecilia thus felt like a butterfly dragged into a hornets’ nest, and she had good reason to feel this way. Since most of the sisters belonged to the Sverker faction, they hated her and they showed it. All the novices hated her as well and did nothing to hide their animosity. No one spoke to Cecilia, even when talking was permitted. They all turned their backs on her.

In the early days it was possible that Mother Rikissa had actually tried to drive her to her death. Cecilia had come to Gudhem in the months when the turnips had to be thinned. It was hard, hot work out in the fields, and none of the elegant sisters or the novices took part.

Mother Rikissa had put Cecilia on bread and water from the very first day. At mealtimes in the refectorium Cecilia was seated alone at an empty table at the far end of the hall, where she had to sit silently. As if this were not punishment enough, Mother Rikissa had decreed that Cecilia had to work with the lay sisters out in the turnip fields, crawling along bit by bit with the baby kicking in her belly.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, or perhaps because Mother Rikissa was cross that Cecilia hadn’t lost her child from the hard labour, the young woman was sent for bloodletting once a week during her first and hardest time at the convent. It was said that bloodletting was good for one’s health, and that it also had a salutary effect that suppressed carnal desires. And since Cecilia had obviously fallen prey to such desires, she should have her blood let often.

As Cecilia crawled along in the turnip fields, growing ever paler, she constantly murmured prayers to Our Lady to protect her, forgive her for her sin, and yet hold Her gracious hand over the child she bore inside her.

Cecilia almost gave birth to her son out in the cold November mud in the turnip fields. It was near the end of the harvest time when she suddenly sank to the ground with a sharp cry. The lay sisters and the two supervisors who stood nearby to monitor virtue and silence during the work understood at once what was about to happen. At first they acted as if they thought nothing needed to be done. But the lay sisters would not stand for this; without uttering a word, even to ask permission, they hurried to carry Cecilia to the hospitium, the guest house outside the walls. There they laid her in bed and sent a messenger to fetch Fru Helena, who was a wise woman and one of Gudhem’s pensioners who had given a large donation to the convent.

Fru Helena came quickly, taking pity on Cecilia, although she herself was of the Sverker clan. She ordered two of the lay sisters to stay in the hospitium and assist her; let Rikissa - she didn’t say Mother Rikissa - think or say what she would. Women had a hard enough time in this world without heaping stones on one another’s burdens, she told the two astonished lay sisters who stayed with her. At her command they heated water, fetched linens, and washed the mud and dirt from the suffering Cecilia, now almost out of her mind with pain.

Fru Helena had come to her rescue, and she must have been sent by the Holy Virgin herself. She had given birth to nine children, seven of whom had survived. Many times she had assisted other women in this difficult hour, when women are alone and only other women can help. She scoffed at the thought that this young woman was supposed to be her enemy. She told the two lay sisters that the position of friend or foe could change overnight, or even as the result of a sorry little war between the menfolk.

Cecilia did not remember much of the hours that night when she gave birth to her son Magnus, as they had decided he should be named. She remembered the moment when it was all over and, drenched in sweat and hot as if with fever, she was given the infant by Fru Helena, who pressed him to her aching breasts. And she recalled Fru Helena’s words that he was a fair boy in good health with all his limbs in the proper place. But after that a haze shrouded her mind.

Later she learned that Fru Helena had sent word to Arnäs, and a large escort came to fetch the babe and take him to safety. Birger Brosa, the mightiest of the Folkungs and the uncle of her beloved Arn, had sworn that the lad - he had never spoken of the anticipated child as other than ‘the lad’ - would be taken into the clan and proclaimed at the ting as a true Folkung, whether he was born in whoredom or not.

Of all the trials in young Cecilia’s life, the hardest of all was that she would not see her son again until he was a man.

Mother Rikissa had a heart of stone where Cecilia was concerned. Shortly after giving birth Cecilia was once again set to hard labour, although she still had a fever. She was often bathed in sweat, she was very pale, and she had trouble with her breasts.

As Christmas approached in her first year at the cloister, Bishop Bengt came from Skara on visitation, and when he noticed Cecilia shuffling past out in the arcade, seemingly oblivious to everything, he blanched. Then he had a brief conversation with Mother Rikissa in private. That same day Cecilia was placed in the infirmatorium, and she was given daily pittances, extra helpings of food that those outside were allowed to donate to the residents of the cloister: eggs, fish, white bread, butter, and even some lamb. Gossip spread at Gudhem about these pittances that Cecilia received. Some believed that they came from Bishop Bengt, others that they came from Fru Helena or perhaps from Birger Brosa himself.

She was also excused from bloodletting, and soon the colour returned to her face, and she started to regain her health. But all hope seemed to have left her. She went about mostly muttering to herself.

When winter swept into Western Götaland with cold and ice, all outside work ceased for both the lay sisters and Cecilia. This was a relief, yet at the same time the nights became an even greater torment.

Since it was against the rules to have heating in the dormitorium, it was important where in the room one’s bed stood. The farther away from the two windows the better. Naturally Cecilia was assigned the bed right next to the stone wall, beneath a window where the cold came flowing down like ice water; the other novices slept on the other side of the room, against the internal wall. Cecilia and her worldly sisters were separated by the eight lay sisters who never dared to speak to her.

The regulations permitted a straw mattress, a pillow, and two woollen blankets. Even if they all went to bed fully dressed, the nights could sometimes get so cold that it was impossible to sleep, at least for someone who always shook with cold.

It was at this most difficult time at Gudhem for Cecilia, that it seemed as though Our Lady sent her some consolation; a few words that would not have meant very much to anyone else, but here warmed her to the heart.

One of the other maidens close to the door had been found unworthy of the best bed location when someone revealed one of her secrets. On Mother Rikissa’s express order she was forced to move to the bed next to Cecilia’s. One evening she came with her bedclothes in her arms and stood with bowed head, waiting until the lay sister in the bed next to Cecilia grasped that she was supposed to toddle off to the warmer side of the room. When the lay sister had taken her bedclothes and gone, the new maiden slowly and carefully made her bed, glancing over at the sister who stood in the dark by the door to the stairs and kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. When she was done the maiden crept into bed, turned on her side, and sought out Cecilia’s gaze. Then without blinking she broke the rule of silence.

‘You’re not alone, Cecilia,’ she whispered, so quietly that no one else could hear.

‘Thank you, Our Lady be praised,’ Cecilia signalled back in the sign language they used at Gudhem when no words could be spoken. But she no longer felt cold, and her thoughts were directed to different matters, something other than the loneliness and unhappy longing in which she’d been circling for so long that sometimes she feared for her sanity. Now she lay for a while looking with curiosity into the eyes of her unknown companion who had spoken so kindly to her, even when it was forbidden to speak. They smiled at each other until the darkness came, and that night Cecilia did not shiver from the cold and she quickly fell asleep.

When they were awakened to go down to matins, she was sleeping deeply, and the unknown maiden next to her had to give her a gentle shake. Later, down in the church, Cecilia sang along in the hymns for the first time in full voice, her clear tones rising higher than all the others’. Singing had after all been her one great joy in past years at Gudhem, back when she knew that she would be released after only a few months.

And she fell asleep easily after matins, so when it was time for lauds, the morning praise song, the stranger had to wake her again. It seemed she had a need to catch up on lost sleep.

After the first mass of the day, when it was time to gather in the chapter hall, Cecilia found that her new neighbour had to sit close to the door, just as she did, and again she contemplated the words that she was no longer alone, that now they were two.

After Mother Rikissa read the day’s Bible text, she recited a list of names of deceased brothers and sisters in the Cistercian order for whose souls they must pray. Cecilia froze briefly, for sometimes the list included a foreign name or the name of a fallen Templar knight, who was counted as equal to brothers or sisters. But today there was no such name.

The punishments were saved till last during the morning convocation. The most common infraction punished by Mother Rikissa was breach of the code of silence. Six or seven times Cecilia had been punished for this, despite the fact that no one ever spoke to Cecilia, nor did she speak to anyone else.

It so happened, explained Mother Rikissa with something that looked more like a smile than an expression of sternness, that it was now time to punish Cecilia again. The sisters then lowered their heads with a sigh, while the worldly maidens raised theirs and stared with inquisitive malice at Cecilia.

However, it was not the usual Cecilia who was to be punished; not Cecilia Algotsdotter but Cecilia Ulvsdotter. And now that there were two Cecilias who apparently displayed the same breach of conduct, the red-haired Cecilia Algotsdotter would hereafter be called Cecilia Rosa, and the blonde one would be called Cecilia Blanca.

The punishment was usually a day or two on bread and water, a common penalty meted out during the period when Mother Rikissa had seemed intent on tormenting Cecilia to death after her childbirth. But now Mother Rikissa ordered, more with scorn than with the grace of God, that Cecilia Blanca be led to the lapis culparum, the punishment stone at the far end of the room. The prioress and one of the sisters promptly went over to Cecilia Blanca and took her by both arms to lead her to the punishment stone; there they removed her woollen mantle so that she stood there in only her linen shift. They stretched her hands above her head and fastened them with two handcuffs of iron.

Then Mother Rikissa fetched a scourge and took up position next to the bound Cecilia Blanca and looked at her congregation, again showing more triumph than divine benevolence. She paused for a moment, testing the scourge by slapping it against her hand.