At these last words Cecilia Rosa grew so pensive that for a moment she almost forgot where she was. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, her friend the queen had invited everyone to a Christmas feast. And now that she had embarked on this new life, it wasstraightforward and natural. Cecilia Rosa was free; she could even decline the invitation if she wished, but she had no intention of doing so. Yet the mere possibility of declining, she thought, growing sleepy, was one of the strangest things about her new freedom.
She fell asleep with her glass in her hand, unused as she was to this particular aspect of the free life, the right to drink as much mulled wine as she liked.
Cecilia Blanca summoned some castle maids who carried her friend off to bed.
The next day brought a great change in Cecilia Rosa. The queen’s maidservants took her to be bathed and scrubbed, but mostly they concentrated on her hair, which they untangled and brushed out, combed and clipped where it was rough and unevenly cut. Haircuts at the cloister were meant to keep the hair short, not to keep it beautiful, because it would never be displayed anyway.
Cecilia Blanca had thought a great deal about what new clothes she should give her friend. It was obvious to her that they couldn’t be the most beautiful clothes; the leap from the loose brown or undyed garments of the convent to those of a mistress of a fortress would have been too great. Besides, she had understood without having to ask that Cecilia Rosa did not want to move to Näs merely as the queen’s friend; she was much too headstrong for that. Cecilia Blanca grasped very well that her friend’s dearest wish was that Arn Magnusson would return home. Whether this hope would be answered after all these years was impossible to know, but the chances were probably not very great. So that was not a good topic of conversation either. Time would take its course, and with it would come answers, whether one wanted to hear them or not.
Cecilia Blanca decided that Cecilia Rosa should continue her journey from Näs wearing a brown mantle as worn in the cloister by lay-sisters, but made of much softer lambs’ wool. A mantle in her clan colors would have been much too sensitive an issue, because Cecilia Rosa actually belonged to the Pål clan, so she should have a green mantle. But she had always thought of herself as Arn Magnusson’s bride and thus always pictured herself wearing a blue Folkung mantle. But the truth was that Cecilia Rosa’s betrothal to Arn Magnusson, no matter how real it might be for her, was not valid in the Church. So a brown mantle in the cloister color was the best choice for the time being.
On the other hand, surely a secular yconoma, who had been hired by the convent, would have the right to wear whatever worldly clothing she liked. So Cecilia Blanca also had a green dress sewn, because she thought that the green would go particularly well with Cecilia Rosa’s red hair. Finally, as if to add a hint of her Folkung connection, she had exchanged Cecilia Rosa’s black wimple for a blue one, the precise blue color that she knew so well, which she could even make with her own hands.
It took a bit of persuasion to get Cecilia Rosa to dress in all this finery, and also to wear her red hair loose for a whole day without covering her head. It was a way of practicing for the future, according to Cecilia Blanca.
The queen realized, but perhaps too late, that this single day of practice might not be enough. For when evening approached she again took Cecilia Rosa to the maidservants’ chamber to be dressed in the much more beautiful green dress, fastening a silver sash around her waist and a silver clasp in her hair. She explained that company was coming to supper that evening.
Then she took Cecilia Rosa to her own rooms, where there was a big polished mirror in which she could see herself from head to toe. Cecilia Blanca was all aquiver to see her friend’s reaction.
When Cecilia Rosa looked at herself, at first she was struck dumb, and it was impossible to read in her face what she was thinking. But then she suddenly began to weep and had to sit down. Cecilia Blanca comforted her for a long while before she managed to find out what had caused this unexpected sadness.
She had turned old and ugly, Cecilia Rosa sobbed. This wasn’t the way she remembered herself; this was somebody else who was old and ugly.
Cecilia Blanca consoled her with a kiss but then laughed out loud. She took her friend by the hand and led her back to the mirror so that they could both look at the same time.
“Now you can see both of us,” she said with feigned sternness. “I have looked at you for many years without being able to see myself, just as you have seen me. Well, here I stand with my stomach sticking out and breasts that hang and a pudgy face, and there you stand next to me. The mirror cannot lie. It sees a beautiful woman who is only thirty-seven years old but looks younger, and it sees me, forty years old and looking my age. Time has not taken a toll on you as much as you think, dearest Cecilia Rosa.”
Cecilia Rosa stood in silence for a moment, staring at their reflections. Then she spun around, threw her arms around Cecilia Blanca, and begged her forgiveness. She was so unaccustomed to seeing herself and that was why she was shocked by her reflection. And she soon cheered up again.
But this unusual reaction on the part of her friend did not make Cecilia Blanca feel any less worried, because she now realized that she had saved one secret for far too long. And soon there would be little time left to keep silent about it.
The person who was coming to the evening banquet, riding from the north end of Visingsö and traveling from Bjälbo, was Magnus Månesköld, Cecilia Rosa’s son. The sole purpose of his visit was to meet his mother for the first time.
Cecilia Blanca realized that there were two possibilities. One was not to say anything and let mother and son get to know each other by themselves.
The other option was to tell her friend the truth right now, with all the uneasiness that might entail.
She asked Cecilia Rosa to sit down before the mirror and pretended that she was going to fix her hair. She fetched a brush and combs and began brushing her friend’s hair, and kept on for a while, because it was very soothing. Then she said as if in passing, almost as if her thoughts were elsewhere, that oh, there was one more thing. Magnus Månesköld would be coming to tonight’s supper. They could ride out to meet him if she liked.
Cecilia Rosa suddenly froze, and she stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. Tears glinted in her eyes without falling; but she said nothing. To hide her concern, Cecilia Blanca resumed brushing the lovely red hair, which was still a bit too short.
The storm had long since abated over Lake Vättern, and there were only a few clouds in the sky when the two of them, without escort, rode to the north on the island of Visingsö. They said little on the way, although Cecilia Blanca complimented her friend for how well she rode. Cecilia Rosa said something about the weather and the lovely evening.
In a clearing in the woods where the oaks had been cut down to make longboats years ago, they met three riders. All three of them wore Folkung mantles. The one riding in front was the youngest, and his hair shone red in the evening sun.
When the three men saw the queen and the woman riding next to her, they reined in their horses at once. The young red-haired man dismounted and began walking across the clearing.
Custom now demanded that Cecilia Rosa remain seated on her horse and calmly wait for the man to approach her, bow, and offer her his hand so that she could dismount safely from her saddle. Then they would greet each other.
Cecilia Rosa would undoubtedly have known this when she was seventeen years old, and she would have behaved as custom required. It was not certain that she would remember the custom after so many years in the cloister.