Arn's young colt was soon infected by the glee and began running around too, although at a jerky, more infantile gait. But soon the two of them were galloping faster and faster. In his delight Arn began mimicking Brother Guilbert's foreign language, as if intoxicated by the speed and the wind.

   With a little shame Arn felt that he was now experiencing true and pure joy, and this was something he should not forget to bring up with Father Henri at his next confession. It was as if the horse's life and power were flowing through him, even though the colt was so young and so far from being an accomplished steed. And if he hadn't been broken for riding, which he certainly could not have been since he was so young, and if he had never had a rider on his back, then this in truth was a miracle.

   "You see, my young chevalier, the horse is in truth man's best friend," said Brother Guilbert much later, when the nightingales had begun their evening song and it would soon be time for vespers, as they sat in the grass in the garden simply enjoying watching the new horses. "But these new horses are not like others, as you have already seen. They are the most noble, intelligent, fast, and tolerant horses that exist. Praise God for this gift, because they are horses from the Holy Land, Outremer."

   Brother Guilbert was red in the face with excitement, and he was still breathing hard after his wild exhibition of the stallion's great power.

   Arn had already begun to understand what distinguished these horses from others, not only in their appearance and their bearing and movements, but also in how they could be used. Yet he still asked and then received the answer he was expecting.

   These horses were horses of war. What was true of swords was also true of horses: agility, agility, and more agility.

   Since the men up here in the barbaric North had not yet adopted the art of fighting on horseback, Brother Guilbert went on, Nordic men needed strong, slow horses that could carry a heavy load to the battlefield. There the Nordic men would dismount, tether their horses, and then enter the fray on foot. If the Christians had attempted to meet the accursed Saracens in that manner, Jerusalem never would have been liberated.

   But in the rest of the world, men fought on horseback; it was only the barbaric North that had not seized upon that strategy. And that's why Brother Guilbert had a clear, simple idea for using these horses, whose bloodlines he could now spread throughout Denmark. He would introduce the techniques associated with the new horses, and thus bring in a great deal of silver to the cloister. Almost the same way they did so by forging better swords for the men of the North. The one method ought to be as logical and profitable as the other.

   Still sensing the wind in his hair and the speed on the horse, Arn now asked eagerly and without the proper courtesy to be taught the art of fighting on horseback, as the Christians did out in the great civilized world.

   Brother Guilbert laughed silently to himself, grabbed Arn playfully by the tonsure, and explained that he had been doing that all along. From the beginning. Everything that Arn had learned about horses since the day he had been put to work was directed toward that goal.

   What was of foremost importance was balance, above all balance. When Arn had practiced with his wooden swords, sometimes with one in each hand, he had stood on a pole with leather sacks full of sand swinging back and forth above him, always threatening to knock him to the ground. In the same way he had practiced riding horses from the beginning, always riding bareback without a saddle. All this was for the sake of balance, so that he would be able to sit his horse no matter which way it moved.

   Now his task was to break the colt, at first without a saddle, and get to know the horse, talk to him, stroke him, and always take care of him. And his name had to be a secret name, not secret from God but otherwise just between the two of them. The colt would be called Khamsiin, which was the name of a desert wind, a wind that could blow for fifty days and never grow weary. The two mares would be called Aisha and Khadiya, and the stallion Nasir. Brother Guilbert did not explain the names, saying only that each name came from the secret language of the horses. It was not something that concerned other monks in the cloister, but only the two who were chevaliers.

   A saddle would be made as soon as Khamsiin was grown, but until then it was the fundamentals that were important: trust, love, and balance.

   The bell rang for vespers and they had to run to the lavatorium. As they dashed off, Arn asked whether it would be possible for him to learn the secret language of the horses too. If he spoke three languages already, surely he could speak four? Brother Guilbert smiled to himself and muttered something to the effect that the day would no doubt come. But that was all he said.

   Arn had always been obedient. He loved the brothers as much as he loved books. He loved hard work as much as the easier tasks. He had set stones up in the tower of the cloister church, he had caught fish in the fjord. He loved the work with sword and bow as much as the work of following the path of faith in the Holy Scriptures, verse by verse and with the help of the Glossa Ordinaria. He may have loved Aristotle somewhat less and Ovid somewhat more, although in secret he occasionally composed imitations of the unchaste verses he had managed to read before they were taken away and locked up. Naturally he confessed afterward and took his punishment for the sin, but it was worth it. What were a few extra Pater Nosters compared with the hot rushing sensation in his body at the thought of Ovid?

   Father Henri had no difficulty tolerating Arn's flagging interest in the philosopher and his somewhat overheated interest in writings that were inappropriate for boys. As far as Ovid was concerned, more than one God-fearing man of his acquaintance had put more emphasis on these studies than was suitable, both as a youth and as a man. It was nothing to cause alarm; he be longed to that category himself, at least when he looked back on his time as a novice. These were the normal fluctuations of life, nothing more. God in his wisdom had created life so that there was constant variation. If the boy did not find the philosopher very interesting—he sometimes made little impertinent objections, especially to the logical arguments—it was no wonder that, if this was a sin, it would be a sin that the boy shared with Brother Lucien, for example. Brother Lucien was devoted to the art of better enriching the world, in God's name, with plants that could be grown for the table, or to cure the ills of humankind, or perhaps merely to bring beauty into people's lives. But he was not very interested in reading Aristotle. Yet Father Henri would never dream of thinking of Brother Lucien as any less worthy because of that, or a brother to love less than the other brothers.

   On the other hand, if someone in jest was to argue the logic the way the philosopher would have done, it might seem that the boy belonged to those who were also devoted to Brother Lucien's teaching. It was very exacting and meticulous but important work that lay behind the monastery's demonstration of the beauty that God could create on earth with the help of faithful brothers. The white snowdrops were the first flowers, pushing up through winter's still hard and inhospitable shell; then with the warmth came the Easter lilies, the white narcissus, and the tulips, all of them new to the barbaric North. Visitors who came at the right time would gasp in enchantment at the blossoms on the fruit trees, all of them unknown to the barbarians, fruits such as apples, pears, and cherries. The sales of these fruits had gone wonderfully in recent years, and Arn was also the one who helped Brother Lucien fetch the wares and translate into the Nordic tongue.