Chapter 10

When the sun went down on the last day of Cecilia Rosa’s twenty-year penance, she was sitting by one of the fish ponds at Riseberga all by herself. It was a warm evening with no breeze just after Persmas, when the summer was just about to pass its zenith, and when the hay-making would soon begin down in Western Götaland, but not yet up here in Nordanskog.

She had been to mass twice, and she had gone to Holy Communion, filled with the thought that on this day, with the help of Our Lady, she would have completed the time that had seemed never-ending when she was first sentenced. She would finally be free.

But not yet. For when the hour of freedom struck it was as though nothing had changed; there was not the slightest sign that anything was different. Everything was the same as usual, just like on any summer day.

She realized that she may have had childish notions, that Arn, whose hour of freedom must have struck at the same time as hers, would immediately come riding toward her out of nowhere, although he would have a very long journey ahead of him. Those who knew about such things said that it could take a year to travel to or from Jerusalem.

Maybe she had also pushed aside all thoughts of this singular moment of happiness because deep in her heart she knew that it would feel just like this. It was nothing special. She was now thirty-seven years old and owned nothing except the clothes on her back. As far as she knew, her father was sitting at home in Husaby paralyzed by a stroke, impoverished, and utterly dependent on the Folkungs at Arnäs for whatever income he received. She would not bring him much joy by coming home and demanding to be supported.

She had no interest in going to Arnäs. Her sister Katarina was the mistress there, and since it was Katarina’s fault that Cecilia Rosa ended up doing twenty years of penance in the convent, a meeting between the sisters would not be welcomed by either of them.

She could go to Näs on Visingsö to be the guest of Cecilia Blanca, and she would surely also be welcome for a time at Ulfshem with Ulvhilde. But it was one thing for friends to visit each other when they could offer the same hospitality in return. It was another matter to arrive homeless.

As if struck by a sudden bright idea, she tore off the wimple around her head that she had grown used to wearing for twenty long years. In all that time she had been forced to ignore her hair. Now she shook out her tresses and ran her fingers through the tangles so that her hair hung free. According to the rules it was much too long, but she had managed to evade the most recent two of the six haircuts required per year.

She leaned forward and tried to see her reflection in the surface of the pond. But twilight had already fallen and she could barely see her face and the red hair. The image she saw was probably more the way she remembered herself from her youth than the way she actually looked now. As at every other convent, there were no mirrors at Riseberga.

She awkwardly ran her hands over her body the way a free woman had a right to do; she even attempted to run them over her breasts and hips since as of this evening that would no longer be a breach of the rules. But the touch of her hands did not tell her much. She was thirty-seven years old but not yet free; that was the only thing she could say for certain.

Now that she thought about it, even freedom seemed enclosed by both fences and walls. Birger Brosa had decided that she could continue as yconomaat Riseberga as long as she wanted; when she heard him say that it had sounded like a mere pleasantry. But now in the first hour of her freedom, as she tried to examine what that friendly statement had implied, it seemed more likely that she would continue the same work that she had been doing in recent years.

But not in entirely the same way. She decided that she no longer intended to cover her hair with a wimple, and that she no longer needed to sing either lauds or matins or take part in completorium. In this way she would gain a good deal of extra time to work. And starting today she would be able to go to the marketplaces and make purchases herself; that suddenly seemed to her the greatest change of all. She had the right to mix with other people, and she could speak with anyone she cared to address; she was no longer burdened with sin and punishment.

Most of all she wanted to go to Bjälbo to see her son Magnus. But that was a meeting that she had imagined with equal parts longing and trepidation.

In the view of many people, but above all in the eyes of the church, Magnus had been born in sin and shame. Birger Brosa had taken him in as an infant and brought him into the clan as a legitimate heir when approved by the ting. Then he had raised the boy as his own child. But all too many tongues knew how he had been admitted to the clan by the ting, and the gossip had reached Magnus himself, first as furtive hints, then from those who spoke more boldly and in anger.

On the verge of becoming a man, Magnus had begun to realize the truth. Then he took Birger Brosa aside and demanded to be told how things stood. Birger Brosa had seen no other option than to tell him the unvarnished truth. For a time Magnus had gone about like a recluse, sullen and taciturn, as if his secure life as the jarl’s son had been smashed to bits. During that time Birger Brosa decided not to bother the boy, since he thought that things would change soon enough and curiosity would replace disappointment.

And so it was. After a while Magnus sought out his foster father and began to ask the first questions about Arn Magnusson. As Birger Brosa recounted to Cecilia Rosa, he may have exaggerated a bit when he described Arn as the best swordsman ever seen in Western Götaland and an archer with few equals. Birger Brosa excused himself by saying that this was not entirely untrue. The memory still lived on about how young Arn, hardly more than a boy, had vanquished the huge Sverker giant Emund Ulvbane at the tingof all Goths in Axevalla. It had been like the story of David and Goliath in the Holy Scriptures, and yet not the same, because Arn proved to be so much better with a sword than Emund, who lost his hand instead of his life because young Arn chose to spare him.

When Magnus felt himself free to ask older kinsmen about this event, he met many who had actually been present at Axevalla, or at least claimed they had. Yet they could still embellish the story with the most outrageous details.

Since young Magnus at an early age had shown himself to be a much better shot with a bow than other boys, he now suspected that it was because his father was such an excellent archer. He began to practice far more than was necessary, neglecting other aspects of his education. He also went to Birger Brosa and told him that if his father did not come home alive from the Holy Land, then he would not take the surname Birgersson after Birger Brosa. Nor would he choose Arnsson. Instead he would call himself Magnus Månesköld, and he had painted with his own hand a little silver half-moon above the Folkung lion on his shield.

It was Birger Brosa’s opinion that since such a long time had already passed, it would be best if mother and son did not meet until Cecilia Rosa’s penance was completed. It would be better for the boy’s soul to meet his mother as a free woman than as a cloister servant who still had years of penance left to serve. Cecilia had no objection to that proposal. But now the time had come when she was free and no longer a penitent servant. Now she feared this meeting more than she ever would have thought. She began to worry about things that she had never considered before: Was she old and ugly? Were her clothes too plain? If young Magnus had such big dreams about his father, wasn’t there a greater danger that he would be disappointed when he saw his mother?