“Who? Knut Eriksson? Yes, though I no doubt remember him as younger and more handsome. It’s been a few years since we’ve seen each other, and even then we met only seldom. He’s still tall and looks quite strong, but his hair is starting to thin so that soon he’ll resemble a monk, even though he’s not very old. He isn’t exactly an old man from Linköping, but my choice could have been better, of course. And he isn’t as smart as Birger Brosa. Summa summarum, the betrothal could have been better, but also much worse. So I’m fairly satisfied.”
“Fairly satisfied?”
“Yes, I have to admit as much. But it’s not that important. The important thing is that he’s the king.”
“Then you don’t love him?”
“The way I love the Virgin Mary, or the way they love in the sagas? No, it’s obvious that I don’t. Why should I?”
“Haven’t you ever loved a man?”
“No. But there was once a stable boy…ah, I was only fifteen at the time. My father caught us together and there was an awful row. The stable boy was shown the gate after being whipped, but he swore that he would come back someday with many retainers. I cried for days, and then I got a new horse.”
“When I get out of here I’ll be thirty-seven years old,” Cecilia Rosa whispered although they had been talking quite loudly to be heard over the feast downstairs.
“Then you may still have a lot of your life before you,” Cecilia Blanca replied in a much louder voice. “You can come to me and the king. You and I are friends for life; that’s the one thing that Mother Rikissa can do nothing about.”
“But I’ll probably only get out of here if Arn comes back as he vowed to do. Otherwise I’ll dry up and spend the rest of my life in the convent,” said Cecilia Rosa in a somewhat louder voice.
“You must pray every night for Arn until that day comes,” said Cecilia Blanca, squeezing her friend’s hand harder. “I promise you that I’ll pray for the same thing, and maybe together, if we both keep trying, we can persuade God’s Holy Mother.”
“Yes, maybe we can. Because it’s well known that Our Lady has many times been persuaded by prayers of love if only they are persistent enough. I know a story about such a case that is very beautiful.”
“What if I ask you the same thing you asked me—do you really love Arn Magnusson? Or is he just your footbridge that will carry you across this chasm called Gudhem? Do you love him the way you love Our Lady, or the way they love in the sagas?”
“Yes, I do,” said Cecilia Rosa. “I love him so much that I’m afraid of the sin of loving a man more than God. I will love him forever, and when these cursed twenty years have passed, I will still love him.”
“You may not be able to understand this, but I envy you,” said Cecilia Blanca after a while. She turned in the bed and threw her arms around her friend.
They lay like that for a while as tears came to them both. Finally they were interrupted by the necessity that can intervene at any time after a feast. Cecilia Blanca had to get up and relieve herself in the wooden bucket that had been thoughtfully placed under their bed.
“I have to ask you two things that can only be asked of one’s dearest friend,” Cecilia Blanca resumed when she crept back in under the sheepskins. “How does it feel to have a son and yet not have a son? And is it as bad as many women say it is to give birth to a child?”
“You’re certainly asking a lot all at once,” said Cecilia Rosa with a wan smile. “Having to give up a son like mine, a boy named Magnus who is growing up with Birger Brosa and with Brigida as his mother, was so hard that I force myself to think of him only in my prayers. He was so beautiful and so little! It’s a misfortune greater than my captivity with Mother Rikissa, not to be with him. Yet in spite of this misfortune, I am happy that he will be raised by a man as good as Arn’s uncle. Does this seem a bit crazy? Is it hard to understand?”
“Not at all, I believe it’s exactly as you say. But what was it like to give birth?”
“Are you starting to worry already? Isn’t it a little early for that, now that they’ve put a guard outside your bedchamber and taken all these precautions?”
“Don’t make fun of the matter. Yes, I am worried. I’m sure that I will give birth to more than a few sons. What is it like?”
“What do I know? I’ve had only one. Do you want to know if it hurts? Yes, it hurts terribly. Do you want to know if you feel glad when it’s over? Yes, you do. Now have you found out from an experienced woman anything that you didn’t already know?”
“I wonder if it hurts less if you love the man who is father to your child,” Cecilia Blanca mused after a while, half in earnest and half in jest.
“Yes, I think that’s true,” replied Cecilia Rosa.
“Then it’s probably best if I start loving our king,” joked Cecilia Blanca with a sigh.
They both burst out laughing, and their laughter felt cleansing and liberating. They wriggled around in bed so that they lay entwined, almost like the night when a nearly frozen Cecilia Blanca was brought up from the carcer. And as they lay there they both came to think of that night.
“I believe and will always believe that you saved my life. I was frozen to the bone, and my life felt like it was the last blue flame that flickers just before the last ember dies out,” Cecilia Blanca whispered in her friend’s ear.
“Your flame is no doubt stronger than that,” said Cecilia Rosa sleepily.
They fell asleep but awoke when it was time for lauds. Both of them stumbled groggily out of bed and started to get dressed before remembering that they were in the hospitium, and bellowing could still be heard downstairs.
As they crept back underneath the sheepskins they were wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep. But the candle had burned out and it was pitch dark outside the window.
They began again where they had left off, talking of eternal friendship and eternal love.
Chapter 5
When Saladin arrived at Gaza he was not fooled by any of the defenders’ traps. He had been a warrior much too long for that; he had laid siege to too many cities, and defended too many cities from besiegers, to believe what he first saw. The city of Gaza at this moment looked easy to take, as if they could simply ride straight in, as if the city had given up and would surrender voluntarily. But from the tower above the wide-open city gate and the lowered drawbridge across the moat waved the black-and-white banner of the Knights Templar and their standard bearing the image of the mother of Jesus, whom they worshipped like a goddess. It was those banners that should be kept in mind and not what the enemy wanted the advancing troops to see. The idea that a Templar knight would surrender without a fight was almost ridiculous; it was even more of an affront that their commander thought they could succeed with such a simple trick.
Annoyed, Saladin waved off the emirs who came riding up to him with one idiotic proposal for a lightning attack after another. He held to his orders. They would do as he had planned, and not change their tactics because of an open gate and what looked like an unguarded approach.
Arn stood up on the city ramparts along with his weapons master Guido de Faramond and his confanonierArmand, tensely watching the incoming enemy army. In the city beneath and behind him the streets had been cleared of rubbish and everything flammable; all the windows were closed with wooden shutters or stretched skins soaked in vinegar. The refugees had been herded into the grain storehouses made of stone that had been emptied when they filled the storehouses inside the fortress, and the city’s inhabitants were either in their homes or with the groups that were responsible for fighting fires.