The Road To Jerusalem (4 page)

The thrall women did have souls like other people; Father Henri had told her as much in strong and convincing terms. And in the Kingdom of Heaven there were no freedmen or slaves, wealthy or lowborn, only the souls who had proved themselves worthy through acts of goodness. Sigrid thought that this might well be true.

When Father Henri came into the room she saw that he had his prayer vestments with him. He had understood what kind of help she now sought. But at first he didn’t let on, nor did he bother to chase out the thrall women who were rushing around sweeping, or who came running in with fresh buckets of water, and linen and swaddling clothes.

“Greetings, honorable Mistress Sigrid, I understand that now we are nearing an hour of joy here at Varnhem,” said Father Henri, his expression calmer and more kindly than his voice.

“Or an hour of woe, Father, we won’t know until it’s over,” whimpered Sigrid, staring at him with eyes full of terror as she felt more pain on its way. But she was just imagining it; none came.

Father Henri pulled over a little three-legged stool to her bedside and reached out a hand to her. He held her hand and stroked it.

“You’re a clever woman,” he said, “the only one I’ve met in this temporal world who has the wit to speak Latin, and you also understand many other things, like teaching the thralls what we know how to do. So tell me, why should what awaits you be so unusual, when all other women go through it? Highborn women like yourself, thralls and wretched women, thousands upon thousands of others. Just think, at this very moment you are not alone on this earth. As we speak, at this moment, you are together with ten thousand women the world over. So tell me, why should
you
have anything to fear, more than all the others?”

He had spoken well, using a sermon-like tone, and Sigrid thought he had probably been thinking about this for days-- the first words he would say to her when the hour of dread approached. She couldn’t help smiling when she looked at him, and he saw by her smile that she had seen through him.

“You speak well, Father Henri,” she said in a weak voice. “But of those ten thousand women you speak of, almost half will be dead tomorrow, and I could be one of them.”

“Then I would have a hard time understanding Our Savior,” said Father Henri calmly, still smiling with his eyes, which remained fixed on hers.

“There is something Our Savior does that you still don’t understand, Father?” she whispered as she braced herself in anticipation of the next contraction.

“That’s true, of course,” nodded Father Henri. “There are even things that our founder, Holy Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, doesn’t understand. Such as the terrible defeats our knights are now suffering in the Holy Land. He wants more than anyone for us to send more men; he wants nothing more than victory for our righteous cause against the infidels. And yet we were beaten badly, despite our strong faith, despite our good cause, despite the fact that we are fighting against evil. So of course it’s true that we human beings cannot always understand Our Savior.”

“I want to have time to confess,” she whispered.

Father Henri chased out the thrall women, pulled on his prayer vestments, and blessed her. Then he was ready to hear her confession.

“Father forgive me, for I have sinned,” she gasped with fear shining in her eyes. She had to take a few deep breaths and collect herself before continuing.

“I’ve had ungodly thoughts, worldly thoughts. I gave Varnhem to you and yours not only because the Holy Spirit told me that it was a right and just cause. I also hoped that with this gift I would be able to appease the Mother of God because in foolishness and selfishness I had asked her to spare me from more childbeds, even though I know it’s our duty to populate the earth.”

She had been talking low and fast, waiting for the next jab of pain, which struck just as she finished speaking. Her face contorted and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

Father Henri got up and fetched a linen cloth, dipping it in cold water in a pail by the door. He went to her, raised her head, and began bathing her face and brow.

“It is true, my child,” he whispered, leaning forward to her cheek and feeling her fiery fear, “that God’s grace cannot be bought for money, that it’s a great sin both to sell and buy what only God can bestow. It’s also true that you in your mortal weakness have felt fear and have asked the Mother of God for aid and consolation. But that is no sin. And as far as the gift of Varnhem is concerned, it was prompted by the Holy Spirit descending upon you and giving you a vision which you were ready to accept. Nothing in your will can be stronger than His will, which you have obeyed. I forgive you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You are now without sin and I will leave you so, for I must go and pray.”

He carefully laid her head back down and could see that somewhere deep inside her pain she seemed relieved. Then he left quickly and brusquely ordered the women back into the house; they rushed in like a flock of black birds.

But Sot stayed where she was and tugged cautiously on his robe, saying something that he didn’t understand at first, since neither of them was fluent in the common Swedish speech. She renewed her effort, speaking very slowly, and supplementing her words with gestures. It then dawned on him that she had a secret potion made of forbidden herbs that could alleviate pain; the thralls used to give it to their own who were about to be whipped, maimed, or gelded.

He looked down at the diminutive woman’s dark face as he pondered. He knew quite well that she was baptized, so he must talk to her as if she were one of his flock. He also knew that what she told him might be true: Lucien de Clairvaux, who took care of all the garden cultivation, had many recipes that could achieve the same effect. But there was a risk that the potion the thrall woman spoke of had been created using sorcery and evil powers.

“Listen to me, woman,” he said slowly and as clearly as he could. “I’m going to ask a man who knows. If I come back, then give drink. No come back, no give drink. Swear before God to obey me!”

Sot swore obediently before her new God, and Father Henri hurried off to converse with Brother Lucien first, before he gathered all the brothers to pray for their benefactress.

A short time later he spoke to Brother Lucien, who vehemently rejected the idea in fright. Such potions were very strong; they could be used for those who were wounded, dying, or for medicinal purposes when an arm or foot had to be amputated. But on pain of death one must not give such a potion to a woman giving birth, for then one would be giving it to the child as well, who might be born forever lame or confused. As soon as the child was born, of course, it would be permitted. Although by that time it was usually no longer necessary. But it could be interesting to hear what that painkilling potion was composed of; perhaps one might gain some new ideas.

Father Henri nodded shamefully. He should have known all this, even though he specialized in writing, theology, and music, not medicine or horticulture. He hurriedly gathered the brothers to begin a very long hour of prayer.

For the time being, Sot had decided to obey the monk, even though she thought it was a shame not to lighten her mistress’s suffering. She now took charge of the other women in the room, and they pulled Sigrid out of bed, let down her hair so it flowed free: long, shiny, and almost as black as Sot’s own hair. They washed her as she shivered with cold, and then pulled a new linen shift over her head and made her walk about the room, to hasten the birth.

Through a fog of fear, Sigrid staggered around the floor between two of her thrall women. She felt ashamed, like a cow being led about at market. She heard the bell chime from the longhouse but was unsure if it was only her imagination.

The next wave of pain hit; it started deeper inside her body, and she could feel that it would last longer this time. Then she screamed, more from terror than pain, and sank down on the bed. One of the thrall women held Sigrid under the arms from behind and lifted her body upward, while they all shrieked at once that she had to help, she had to push. But she didn’t dare push. She must have fainted.

When the twilight turned to night and the thrushes fell silent, a stillness seemed to come over Sigrid. The pains that had come so often in the last few hours seemed to have stopped.

Sot and all the others knew this was an ominous sign. Something had to be done. Sot took one of the others with her and they padded out into the night, sneaking past the longhouse where the murmuring and singing of the monks could be heard faintly through the thick walls, and on to the barn. They brought out a young ram with a leather rope around its neck and led it away in the falling darkness toward the forbidden grove. There they bound the rope around one rear hoof and slung the other end over one of the huge oak branches in the grove. As Sot pulled on the rope so that the ram hung with one hind leg in the air, the other thrall woman fell upon the animal. She grabbed it around the shoulders, and forced the animal toward the ground with all her weight, as she drew out a knife and slit its throat. They both hoisted up the struggling, screeching ram, as blood sprayed in all directions. After they tied the rope to a root of the tree, they stripped off their shifts and stood naked beneath the shower of blood and smeared it into their hair, over their breasts, and between their legs as they prayed to Frey.

When the morning dawned, Sigrid awoke from her torpor with the fires of hell burning in her anew, and she prayed desperately to the dear blessed Virgin Mary to save her from the pain, to take her now, if that was how it was to end, but at least to spare her from the pain.

The thrall women, who had been dozing around her, came quickly to life and started running their hands over her body and speaking rapidly to one another in their own unintelligible tongue. Then they began to laugh, smiling and nodding eagerly to her and to Sot, whose hair was so soaked that it hung straight down, dripping cold water as she bent over Sigrid, telling her that now was the time, now her son would soon come, but for the last time she must try to help. And the women took her under the arms and raised her halfway up in a sitting position, and Sigrid screamed wild prayers until she realized she might wake her little Eskil and frighten him. So she bit her wounded lip again and it began to bleed anew, and her mouth was filled with the taste of blood. But softly, in the midst of all that was unbearable, she found more and more hope, as if the Mother of God were now actually standing at her side, speaking gently to her and encouraging her to do as her clever and loyal thralls instructed. And Sigrid bore down and bit her lip again to keep from screaming. Now the monks’ voices could be heard out in the dawn, very loud, like a praise-song or a psalm meant to drown out the terror.

Suddenly it was over. She saw through her sweat and tears a bloody bundle down below. The women in the room bustled about with water and linen cloths. She sensed them washing and chattering, she heard some slaps and a cry, a tiny, tremulous, bright sound that could be only one thing.

“It’s a fine healthy boy,” said Sot, beaming with joy. “Mistress has borne a well-formed boy with all the fingers and toes he should have. And he was born with a caul!”

They lay him, washed and swaddled, next to her aching, distended breasts, and she gazed into his tiny wrinkled face and was amazed he was so small. She touched him gently and he got an arm free and waved it in the air until she stuck out a finger, which he instantly grabbed and held tight.

“What will the boy be named?” asked Sot with a flushed, excited face.

“He shall be called Arn, after Arnas,” whispered Sigrid, exhausted. “Arnas and not Varnhem will be his home, but he will be baptized here by Father Henri when the time comes.”

King Sverker’s son Johan died as he deserved. King Sverker had of course followed the advice he had been given by Father Henri, to see to it that the Danish jarl took his wife back to Halland at once. But both King Sven Grate and his jarl scornfully rejected the subsequent part of Father Henri’s plan, to arrange a marriage between the royal but roguish son and the other violated Danish woman, so that war could thus be avoided with a blood bond.

The fault lay perhaps not so much in Father Henri’s plan as in the fact that King Sven Grate wanted war. The more proposals for mediation came from King Sverker, the more King Sven Grate wanted war. He thought, possibly correctly, that the king of the Goths was exhibiting weakness when he offered first one thing and then another to avoid going into battle.

As a last resort, King Sverker had prevailed upon the Pope’s Cardinal Nicolaus Breakspear to pay a visit to Sven Grate on his way to Rome and speak of reason and peace.

The cardinal failed at this task, just as he had recently failed to ordain an archbishop over a unified Gotaland and Svealand.

The papal commission to name an archbishop had failed because the Swedes and Goths were unable to agree on the location of the archbishop’s cathedral, and thus where the archbishop should have his see. The cardinal’s peace-making assignment failed for the simple reason that the Danish king was convinced of his coming victory. His newly conquered realms would then be subject to Archbishop Eskil in Lund, so Sven Grate could see no Christian reason for refraining from war.

King Sverker had made no preparations for the defense of the realm, since he was too wrapped up in mourning his queen, Ulvhild, and preparing for a wedding with yet another twicewidowed woman, Rikissa. Perhaps he also thought that all the intercessions he had secured for himself at the cloister would save both him and the country.

His oafish son Johan harbored no such belief in salvation by intercession. And if the Danes should emerge from the coming battle victorious, for his part all hope would be lost. So he, and not his father the king, called a
ting
at the royal manor in Vreta to decide how to plan the defense against the Danes.

He had no idea how hated he was as an outcast. If his father had not been both old and weak of flesh, he would have condemned his son to death for committing two heinous deeds as well as perjury. Everyone understood that except possibly Johan himself. No man of honor wanted to prolong the war and risk losing his life for the sake of an outcast—the worst sort of violator of women.