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Now Sister Leonore was struck mute. She had never imagined that Cecilia Rosa was the betrothed of this Arn, for Brother Lucien had not told her this sad part of the story. Naturally he had mentioned that the little monk boy in time became a mighty warrior in God’s army in the Holy Land. But he had viewed it only as a great and good thing, as though Our Lady had turned even this to a benevolent outcome. He had never told her what a high price love might have had to pay, although everything had ended so well for Gudrun and her Gunnar.

This first conversation, and all the others that followed later whenever they were alone, drew Cecilia Rosa and Sister Leonore closer to each other. And with Sister Leonore’s permission, after Cecilia Rosa assured her that there was no fear of betrayal, she confided everything to Ulvhilde Emundsdotter. Then there were three of them, who could sit together in the vestiariumon late winter nights working so industriously that even Mother Rikissa commended them.

They discussed the topic of love as if in a never-ending dance. Sister Leonore had once before, when she was the same age as Ulvhilde, been in love, but it had ended unhappily. The man she loved then had, for reasons that had mostly to do with money, been wed before God to an ugly widow whom he did not love at all. Sister Leonore’s father had scolded her for all her sobbing and told her not to take it to heart. Young women, he said, had no understanding in matters to do with marriage. Also, life was not over after the first youthful infatuation.

Sister Leonore was so convinced that the opposite was true that she had sought out a convent and was eager, after her first year as a novice, to take her vows.

However, now the Holy Virgin Mary had shown her that love was an act of grace that could be granted to anyone at any time. Possibly Our Lady had also shown that Sister Leonore’s stern father had been right when he spoke of the first infatuation of youth and that it did not mark the end of love.

They all giggled happily at this last remark as they imagined how astonished her old father would have been to find out that he’d been right, and in what manner he had been vindicated.

Both Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde seemed to be drawn into Sister Leonore’s sin through these conversations. When all three of them were together, they would immediately begin talking about their favorite subject. And their cheeks would grow hot and their breathing faster. Such forbidden fruit tasted heavenly, even though all they did was talk.

For Ulvhilde, what her two friends told her during these secret talks ended up changing her life. She had never believed in love. It was enjoyable to listen to these tales by firelight on cold winter nights, but they had nothing to do with real life. Just as she had never seen a wood nymph, she had never witnessed love.

She was very young when her father Emund was killed by Knut Eriksson; she was taken away in a sleigh with her mother and her little brothers. Some years later, when she no longer had any clear memory of her father, her mother took a new husband who had been given to her by a jarl in Linköping. Ulvhilde had never seen anything between her mother and this man that made her think of love.

Ulvhilde had decided that if this was all she had lost in life on the outside, then she might as well stay in the convent forever and take her vows, since a consecrated sister still lived a better life than novice. The only thing that made her doubt the wisdom of spending the rest of her life like this, was the thought of vowing eternal obedience to Mother Rikissa. But she had hoped that a new abbess might come to the convent, or that she might move to one of the cloisters that Birger Brosa was going to build. For as things now stood, Cecilia Rosa would not remain at Gudhem for the rest of her life. They would be separated, and when that day came there would be nothing left for Ulvhilde to hold on to except her love of God.

The other two were shocked at Ulvhilde’s gloomy view of life. They urged her never to take the vows; she should venerate God and God’s Mother but do it as a free person. Then Ulvhilde countered that she had no life outside the walls because all her kinsmen were dead. Cecilia Rosa refuted her, saying that this was something they could change, that nothing of that sort was impossible as long as they both had a good friend in Queen Cecilia Blanca.

In her eagerness to persuade Ulvhilde to give up all thoughts of taking the vows, Cecilia Rosa now said things aloud that she had only thought silently before. She admitted that she was probably being selfish, unable to stand the idea of being left once again without a friend at Gudhem. Now that the words had been said she would have to make good her plan and speak to Cecilia Blanca the next time she came to Gudhem.

For Cecilia Rosa herself, however, there was something else to consider during these conversations. When she was first sentenced to twenty years behind the walls, she was no more than seventeen. At the time, when she then tried to imagine herself at the age of thirty-seven, she had pictured an aged and stooped old woman with none of life’s juices remaining. But Sister Leonore had just turned thirty-seven, and she glowed with strength and youth ever since love had blessed her.

Cecilia Rosa thought that if she refused to doubt, if she refused to lose hope, then the Holy Virgin Mary might reward her and allow her to glow at the age of thirty-seven just as Sister Leonore did.

That spring at Gudhem was like no other, either before or since. With the spring Brother Lucien began visiting again. Now there was much to do in the gardens, and it seemed as though Sister Leonore’s need for instruction was inexhaustible. Since Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde also were making more use of things grown in the gardens, it seemed well and proper that they were out tending the crops at the same time as the visiting monk, so that no one would believe that a man was left alone with either a sister or maiden at Gudhem.

Yet Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde were particularly unsuited for this intended supervision, since they were actually protecting the sinners by standing guard. In this way Sister Leonore and Brother Lucien spent more hours in blissful union than they otherwise would have dared.

One vexation, however, was that everything they had sewn during the winter had already been sold long before summer arrived. It was good for Gudhem’s silver coffers, but it also forced Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde to spend more time in the vestiarium. Brother Lucien had then explained to Sister Leonore how this problem could be remedied. She in turn told her two friends, for the two maidens never spoke to Brother Lucien themselves. If the goods they fabricated vanished too quickly, that was merely because the price was too low. But if they raised the price, then the goods would stay at Gudhem longer, they could give more attention to their work, and in the long run it would produce more silver.

This plan sounded like white magic and was hard to understand. But Sister Leonore came back from Brother Lucien with written pages and text that made it clearer. At the same time she told them how he had laughed about the yconomuswho worked at Gudhem. According to Brother Lucien it was quite clear that this stray canon from Skara had very little sense of money or bookkeeping, since he couldn’t even keep proper accounts.

All this talk about bookkeeping, and altering deals with figures and ideas as much as with the work of their hands intrigued Cecilia Rosa. She harped at Sister Leonore for an explanation, and the sister in turn nagged Brother Lucien so that finally he brought the account books from Varnhem and showed them how it would work.

It was as if a whole new world of utterly different ideas had opened up to Cecilia Rosa, and soon she ventured to take up her ideas with Mother Rikissa, who scoffed at first at all thought of this new plan.