Mother Rikissa received this bad news about her kinsman Bengt without changing expression, even though inside she felt both dread and sorrow. She chose not to answer but rather to wait out the queen.
“You understand, Rikissa,” Cecilia Blanca went on even more slowly, “that our dear and so highly esteemed Archbishop Stéphan is very close to the king and queen. As anyone can see, it would be utterly wrong of us to venture to say that he is eating out of our hand, that he will obey our slightest whim in his effort to keep the kingdom and its believers together in harmony. One ought not to say such a thing, for it would be the same as insulting God’s high servant on earth. But let us instead say that we understand each other well: the bishop, the king, and the queen. It would be a shame if you also, Rikissa, should need to be excommunicated. And our jarl Birger Brosa, by the way, also displays great enthusiasm in such matters as relate to the church, and he talks continually of setting up new cloisters, for which he has promised a great deal of silver. Do you understand now what I’m getting at, Rikissa?”
“If you say that you really want to see Cecilia Rosa,” replied Mother Rikissa tersely, “then I answer you that there is nothing preventing such a meeting.”
“Good, Rikissa, you aren’t quite as stupid as you look!” Cecilia Blanca burst out, looking both cheerful and friendly at the same time. “But just so that you truly understand what we mean, we think you should take special care not to stir up trouble when speaking with our good friend the archbishop. So! Now you may take your leave; just see to it that my guest is brought to me without delay.”
With these last words Cecilia Blanca clapped her hands and shooed off Mother Rikissa in exactly the same way that Mother Rikissa had behaved so many times before, showing the two Cecilias hardly any more respect than geese.
But Cecilia Rosa was in such a piteous state when she came into the hospitiumthat nothing needed be said to explain what she had been forced to endure since the hour when King Knut’s tour of the realm left Gudhem. The two Cecilias fell into each other’s arms at once, and tears flowed from both of them.
Queen Cecilia Blanca saw fit to stay three days and three nights in Gudhem’s hospitium, and during that time the two friends were never apart.
Afterward Cecilia Rosa was never again sent to the carcerin all her remaining years in the convent. And in the days following the queen’s visit she received many good morsels and was soon able to eat enough to bring back the color to her cheeks and the roundness to her flesh.
During the next years Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter learned the beautiful art of weaving; they sewed and dyed mantles for gentlemen and ladies, and they also embroidered the loveliest coats of arms on the backs of the mantles. It did not take long before orders were coming in to Gudhem from near and far, even from less powerful clans who had to submit a mantle as a sample, which they later received back in a much more beautiful form.
There was an aura of peace about the two young women when they were working together, and the vow of silence never applied to them, since their work now brought in more silver to Gudhem’s coffers, and without any fuss or bother, than did any other activity. The Yconomus, the old failure of a canon, took such delight in the work done by Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter that he seldom missed an opportunity to point this out to Mother Rikissa. She showed no expression but nodded thoughtfully in agreement. She had a sword of Damocles hanging over her head and she did not forget it, for although Mother Rikissa was not a good woman, neither was she stupid.
Queen Cecilia Blanca had occasion to visit Gudhem more than once a year, and if she could she always stayed several days in the hospitium. Then she would demand that both Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde Emundsdotter should serve as her ladies in waiting, which of course never happened because the queen brought along her own roast-turners, cup-bearers, and maids. Those were delightful days for the two “captive women,” as they referred to themselves. It was clear to everyone that the queen’s friendship with Cecilia Rosa was truly of the sort that would last a lifetime. This was especially obvious to Mother Rikissa, and she bowed to the queen’s demands, although with clenched teeth.
In the third year Cecilia Blanca arrived with the most pleasant news. She had stopped by Varnhem to talk with old Father Henri about how, while continuing to meet all the rules, some of Brother Lucien’s knowledge about gardening and healing might be transferred to the sister who had the best understanding of such matters at Gudhem, Sister Leonore of Flanders.
But this was not the most important news that Father Henri had to relate. He had received word from Arn Magnusson. Until recently Arn had been one of many knights in a stronghold of the Knights Templar named Tortosa, situated in a part of the Holy Land called Tripoli. Arn had attended to his duties well; he wore a white mantle and would soon enter the service of a high knight-brother in Jerusalem itself.
It was summertime when Cecilia Blanca arrived with this news, early summer when the apple trees were in bloom between the hospitium, the smithies, and the cattle stall. Upon hearing the news, Cecilia Rosa embraced her dear friend so hard that her whole body trembled. But then she tore herself loose and went out among the blossoming trees without thinking that such behavior would have prompted Mother Rikissa in her worst period to order at least a week in the carceras punishment. It was forbidden for a young woman to walk alone at Gudhem. But right now there were no such prohibitions in Cecilia Rosa’s mind, and for one happy moment Gudhem did not even exist.
He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive!That thought raced like a herd of gleaming horses in her head, temporarily obliterating all else.
Then she saw Jerusalem, the holiest of cities, before her. She pictured the streets of gold, the white stone churches, the gentle, God-fearing people, and the peace that was evident on their faces; she saw her beloved Arn walking toward her wearing his white mantle with the Lord’s red cross. It was a dream she would carry with her for many years.
At Gudhem time seemed to pass unnoticed. Nothing happened and everything was exactly the same as usual; the same hymns repeated from the Psalter, the same mantles that were sewn and then vanished, the seasons that changed. Nevertheless changes did occur, perhaps so slowly that they went unnoticed until they suddenly could not be ignored.
The first year when Brother Lucien began coming down from Varnhem to teach Sister Leonore all about what grew in God’s splendid garden, about what was good for healing people and what was good for the palate, no great changes occurred. Soon the fact that Brother Lucien and Sister Leonore worked together in the gardens for long hours was taken for granted, as if it had always been so. And it was soon forgotten that at first they were never left alone with each other. Brother Lucien came to the cloister so often that he seemed almost a part of Gudhem.
When the two of them in unashamed conversation disappeared together into the gardens outside the south wall, no suspicious eye noticed in the eighth month of the second year that which any eye should have seen at once during the first month.
Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde began seeking out Sister Leonore to learn from her knowledge, which she in turn had obtained from Varnhem and Brother Lucien. It was as if a new world full of opportunities had opened for them, and it was wonderful to see what people with God’s help could accomplish with their hands in a garden. The fruit grew large and plump and lasted longer in the wintertime; the incessant soups at supper were no longer as humdrum when new flavours were added; the rules of the cloister forbade foreign spices, but what grew at Gudhem could not be regarded as foreign.