The two Cecilias held each other tight as they sank to the floor beneath the window. They didn’t know whether to pray to the Holy Virgin Mary and give thanks for their rescue or to laugh out loud with joy. Cecilia Rosa began to pray; Cecilia Blanca let her do so while she herself used the time to think hard about what they had witnessed. Finally she leaned over, embraced Cecilia Rosa once again, even tighter, and kissed her on both cheeks, as if she had already left this stern world.
“Cecilia, my beloved friend,” she whispered excitedly, “my only friend in this evil place they so unfairly call Gudhem, the home of God. I think we just saw our salvation arrive.”
“But those were the enemy’s retainers,” Cecilia Rosa whispered uncertainly. “They came to abduct us, and we were fortunate that the bishop was here. What was so good about that? Imagine if they come back when the bishop isn’t here.”
“They won’t come back. Didn’t you see that they were defeated?”
“Yes, many of them were wounded…”
“That’s right. And what does that mean? Who do you think defeated them?”
“Our men?”
Just as she uttered the simple answer to that simple question, Cecilia Rosa felt a pain and sorrow that she couldn’t understand, since she should have been happy. If the Folkungs and the Eriks had now won, she ought to be happy, but that also meant that she would be separated from Cecilia Blanca. And she herself had many years left to serve.
That day a dark mood of fear descended over Gudhem. Not a single woman dared look them in the eye except for Sister Leonore, who was probably the one who knew least, along with the two Cecilias.
Mother Rikissa had retreated to her own rooms and did not emerge until the following day. Bishop Bengt had left in a great hurry, and then they all carelessly tended to the work, the songs, and to holding mass. At evensong the two Cecilias sang together as they had never done before, and now there were absolutely no false notes from the one called Blanca. And the one called Rosa sang louder, more boldly, almost with a worldly boldness, sometimes putting entirely new variations into her voice. No one corrected her, and there was no Mother Rikissa to frown at this song of joy.
The next morning riders came galloping from Skara to Gudhem to bring a message to Mother Rikissa. She received the messengers out in the hospitiumand then shut herself in the abbess’s quarters without meeting anyone until prime, which would be followed by the first mass of the day.
The Host had been blessed out in the sacristy by an unknown vicariusor someone else from the cathedral in Skara, and it was distributed in the usual order, first the sisters, then the lay sisters, and the worldly maidens last.
The sacred wine was brought in, the bell rang to proclaim the miracle, and the chalice was passed from one to the next by the prioress, with her other hand giving each her own fistula, a straw to use for the wine.
When it was Cecilia Rosa’s turn to drink of God’s blood, she did it demurely and with a genuine feeling of thanksgiving inside, for what was now happening confirmed her greatest hopes. But when it was Cecilia Blanca’s turn to drink there was a loud slurping, perhaps because she was the last to drink and there was little wine left. Or perhaps because she again wanted to show her contempt, not for God but for Gudhem. The two Cecilias never talked about it, or discussed which was the truth.
After that everyone was so tense when they headed out to the chapter hall that they moved as stiffly as puppets. Out there Mother Rikissa was waiting, looking exhausted with dark circles under her eyes and almost a bit shrunken in her chair, where she usually sat like an evil queen.
The prayer session was short. As was the reading of the Scripture, which this time dealt with grace and mercy, which made Cecilia Blanca give her friend an encouraging wink to signify that everything seemed to be going as they might hope. Mercy and grace were certainly not Mother Rikissa’s favorite topics during the Scripture reading.
Then there was silence and the mood was tense. Mother Rikissa began in a quiet voice, not at all like her normal one, to read aloud the names of brothers and sisters who were now wandering the fields of Paradise. Cecilia Rosa briefly listened for any name of Templar knights to be added to the list, but there was none.
Then there was silence again. Mother Rikissa wrung her hands and looked almost on the verge of tears, something that neither of the Cecilias would have believed possible from the evil witch. After sitting a while in silence and trying to collect herself, Mother Rikissa plucked up her courage and unrolled a parchment. Her hands trembled a bit as she recited in a monotone, “In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Virgin, we must pray for all those, friends or not, who have fallen on the fields of blood, as these sites are always called, outside of Bjälbo.”
Here she paused to collect herself once more, and when the two Cecilias heard the word Bjälbo, their hearts contracted in fear. Bjälbo was the mightiest fortress of the Folkungs; it was Birger Brosa’s estate and home. So the war had reached that far.
“Among those who fell, and they were many…” Mother Rikissa went on, but she had to force herself to continue. “Among the many who fell were the jarls of God’s grace Boleslav and Kol, and so many of their kinsmen that I cannot count them all. We will now pray for the souls of the dead. We will be in mourning for a week and take nothing but bread and water; we will now…suffer a great sadness.”
There Mother Rikissa fell silent and sat with the text held loosely in her hand, as if she no longer felt like reading. Sniffling was already heard in the hall.
Then Cecilia Blanca stood up and took her friend boldly by the hand; they were sitting together at the back of the hall closest to the door. And without hesitation in her voice, but also without showing contempt or malice, she now broke her vow of silence.
“Mother Rikissa, I beg your forgiveness,” she said. “But Cecilia Algotsdotter and I will be leaving you now to the sorrow in which the two of us cannot participate. We’re going out to the arcade to reflect in our own way on what has happened.”
It was an unheard-of way of speaking, but Mother Rikissa merely waved her hand weakly in acknowledgment. Cecilia Blanca then took a step closer to her friend and bowed with courtly dignity, as if she were the queen herself, before she left the hall, still holding her friend’s hand.
When they reached the arcade they quickly ran as far away as they could so as not to be heard by the mourners. Then they stopped, embraced, kissed each other in the most immodest way, and spun round and round with their arms around each other’s waists, moving along the arcade as if they were dancing. Nothing needed to be said; now they knew all that they needed to know.
If Boleslav and Kol were dead, then the battle was over. If the Sverkers had attacked Bjälbo itself, then the Folkungs, even though they had hesitated before, must have emerged with all their forces, either to conquer or die. There would have been no other choice if the battle was at Bjälbo.
And if both the pretenders to the throne on the other side had fallen, it meant that not many of their men had escaped the battle alive, since the noble lords were the last to fall in war. Birger Brosa and Knut Eriksson must have won a great and decisive victory. So that’s why the fleeing Sverkers had come to Gudhem in the belief that they would be able to purchase safe conduct for themselves by kidnapping Knut Eriksson’s betrothed.
The war was over, and their side had won. In the first moment of joy when they danced down the arcade with their arms around each other, this was the thought that filled their minds.
Only later did they realize that what had happened on the bloody fields outside Bjälbo also meant that now they would be separated from each other. Cecilia Blanca’s hour of release would soon arrive.