She had a feeling that the happiness she felt right now could not last, that freedom would have other aspects that would prove more difficult and challenging. But when she rode out on these first days with her back to Gudhem, knowing she would never have to return, she pushed aside everything but the joy she felt. It seemed almost too much for her heart; sometimes it even hurt when she took a deep breath. She felt intoxicated with freedom, and nothing else really mattered just now.
They stopped for the night in Skara and slept in the royal castle. The jarl had something to take care of among the grim men who were waiting for him, and Queen Cecilia Blanca arranged for the women at the castle to bring new clothes to Ulvhilde. They bathed her, combed and brushed her hair, and dressed her in the softest green gown with a silver sash.
Ending up on the floor of the chamber where they were busy with this task was a sad little heap of undyed and brown woolen clothes, the garments that Ulvhilde had worn for as long as she could remember. One of the castle women took the clothes away to be burned.
Ulvhilde would always remember that moment when she saw her cloister clothes being carried out at arm’s length, shabby and reeking and intended for the fire, not even good enough to be sold or given to the poor. Only then did she understand that she was not living in a dream, that she really was the person she saw in the highly polished mirror that one of the castle women, giggling and laughing, held up to her while another woman draped the red mantle over her shoulders in a particularly artful way.
The person she saw in the mirror had to be herself, since the mirror image did everything she did: raised an arm, straightened the silver clip in her hair, or fingered the soft mantle with the warm, bloodred color. And yet it was not herself, because like Cecilia Rosa she had been marked by the simplicity of cloister life. Ulvhilde could suddenly envision her friend back at Gudhem with the same clarity with which she could see herself in the mirror.
Then a shadow fell across her great joy for the first time. It felt unfair to be happy about so much and to be so selfish when Cecilia Rosa had been left alone with the witch at Gudhem, and she still had long years ahead of her in that place.
During the banquet that evening Ulvhilde was sometimes so happy that despite feeling out of place and shy she laughed loudly at the coarse jests of the minstrels and men of the retinue. Yet sometimes she was so sad at the thought of her dearest friend that the queen had to console her. The queen struck a deep chord with Ulvhilde when she said that the most difficult part of their journey was now at an end. Once they had been three young friends at Gudhem, and for a long time it seemed as if they had all been forsaken by everyone else. But they had stuck together, they had never betrayed their friendship, and they had endured.
Now two of them were free, and they should be happy about that rather than grieving for the third friend. Cecilia Rosa would also be free one day; that time was no longer so far off. And the feeling of friendship that Ulvhilde and Cecilia Blanca had for Cecilia Rosa would never fade, would it? The three of them still had half of their lives to enjoy their liberty.
Cecilia Blanca did not choose to mention Ulvhilde’s beauty in her words of consolation or joy. The queen wisely thought that at present such things were outside Ulvhilde’s realm of comprehension, given her cloister soul.
In time Ulvhilde would finally begin to understand that she had been transformed as if overnight from a cloister maiden about whom no one cared in the least to one of the most desired maidens in the kingdom. She was beautiful and rich and a friend of the queen. Ulfshem was no paltry estate, and Ulvhilde would soon rule over it single-handedly, without a surly father or argumentative kinsmen trying to maneuver her into one bridal bed or another. Ulvhilde was a much freer woman than she could ever imagine.
The next day they continued to the shore of Lake Vättern, where a small black boat that had been given the odd name of The Serpentawaited them. The boatswains were tall and blond, and from their language it was apparent that they were all Norwegians. They were among the king’s personal retainers because, as was well known, King Knut had mainly Norsemen guarding his life out in the castle at Näs. Some of these Norsemen were friends from the king’s long exile as a child; others had arrived in later years when the kinsmen of both the Folkungs and Eriks in Norway had found many reasons to flee their country. Norway had been severely ravaged by the war for the king’s crown, the same as had occurred in Western Götaland, Eastern Götaland, and Svealand for more than a hundred years.
It was an unusually warm summer evening with no breeze at all when the entourage arrived at the royal boat harbor on Lake Vättern. There the jarl and the queen, along with Ulvhilde, separated from the mounted retinue that would return to Skara. They climbed down into the small black boat to be rowed across the still water all the way to the castle of Näs on the island of Visingsö. It was so far away that it could not even be seen in the distance.
The jarl sat alone in the bow because he had some things to think about and said he wanted to be left in peace. The queen and Ulvhilde sat in the stern next to the helmsman, who seemed to be the chief of the Norsemen.
Ulvhilde’s heart pounded as the boat set sail, and the huge Norsemen expertly propelled their oars through the placid water. She couldn’t remember ever being in a boat as a child, although it must have occurred. She sat spellbound, following the eddies of the oars in the dark water and breathing in the smell of tar, leather, and sweat. From the shore they were leaving behind came the song of a nightingale that could be heard far out over the water; oars and leather creaked, and ripples formed at the stern of the boat with each powerful stroke of the oars as the eight Norsemen rowed, making it seem effortless.
Ulvhilde was a little scared and took Cecilia Blanca’s hand. When they were some distance out, which did not take long, she pictured herself riding in a tiny hazelnut shell over a vast black abyss.
After a while she nervously asked Cecilia Blanca if there was any chance of getting lost on such a great body of water. Cecilia Blanca had no chance to reply before the helmsman behind them, who had heard her question, repeated it loudly to his eight oarsmen. They all laughed so heartily that two of them doubled over. It was a while before their merriment subsided.
“We Norsemen have sailed on bigger seas than Lake Vättern,” an oarsman then explained to Ulvhilde. “And one thing I can promise you, we will not get lost on little Vättern, which is only a small lake. That would hardly be fitting for us Norsemen.”
In the twilight when it began to grow cool, Cecilia Blanca and Ulvhilde wrapped their mantles tighter as they approached the castle that stood at the southern tip of Visingsö. Steep slopes extended straight up toward the castle’s two ominous towers and the high wall between them. On one of the towers was a large flag with gold on it, which Ulvhilde guessed must be the three crowns.
She was frightened by the dark menace of the fortress but also by the thought that she would soon stand before her father’s killer, King Knut. She had not given that matter any thought until now, as if she wanted to cling as long as possible to what was good about her newfound freedom. She would gladly have refrained from meeting King Knut at all, but she realized that it was too late as the boat pushed up onto the shore with a mighty lurch and everyone prepared to climb out.
As if Cecilia Blanca had read her friend’s thoughts she then gave Ulvhilde’s hand a little squeeze and whispered that there was no cause to worry.