"But . . . but it . . . it can't be possible . . . murder . . .?" Arn stammered.

   "Stop interrupting me and listen," Father Henri continued firmly, yet he was relieved because Arn seemed to be much more capable of speech than he had feared. "God's good world is twofold in this case, and we have to try to look at the whole. There is a world out there, extra muros, with its sometimes very peculiar laws. According to those laws you are without guilt; so far it is very simple. But we have our own higher world intra muros, and it places considerably higher demands upon us. First, my own sin and that of Brother Guilbert is greater than yours, when it comes to these killings. I shall explain in more detail in a moment. Second, we have to try to see your deed from God's higher perspective, no matter how difficult this may appear to us poor sinful humans. And we must try to understand what God meant. It was not for this deed that He has kept watch over you, you can be assured of that. Your great task in life, whatever it is, still lies before you. But God used the most practical instrument He found available to punish men who had committed a dire sin. Because this is how it was: They had forced a young woman, Gunvor, whom you met for the first time there by the road, to marry a man for whom she felt disgust. And they forced her to do this for the sake of their own desire and their own profit. When she in desperation tried to escape her adverse fate, they were filled with wrath and wanted to kill anyone who crossed their path. Then they lied loudly that the first man they met would be a bride-robber, and according to the laws out there, they would have the pleasure of killing him. When God saw this He grew angry and set you in the path of the sinners in order to punish them as severely as only He can. That cathedral Dean Torkel was thus not entirely wrong when he spoke of how he saw an angel guiding your hand, although all that nonsense about a miracle, et cetera, et cetera, is drivel, of course. You were God's instrument and carried out His judgment, which you might not have been able to do if Brother Guilbert and I had not deceived you. That is why you are now forgiven and without sin, my son. Your fast ends today, but be careful to eat cautiously this evening; it's not good to gulp down food after such a long fast. So. That's all."

   Arn did not reply for a long time, and Father Henri left him to his thoughts. What he had said needed time to put down roots in Arn's mind before they spoke more about that matter or anything else.

   Arn had no difficulties seeing the formal logic in what Father Henri had said. But the basic assumption behind such logic was that every building block rested on absolute truthfulness and humility before God. Otherwise it would be a mere twisting of words. He was ashamed over what he had first thought when he heard those two redemptive words. He thought that Father Henri had temporized in his conviction out of a corrupt love for his son, that he had constructed a special benevolence in this case that would not have applied in other cases. It was wrong to think such things about Father Henri, and Arn realized that it proved he couldn't keep himself free of sin for very many breaths after receiving forgiveness. But this was not the time to begin confessing all over again.

   "So we have reached the question of my own and Brother Guilbert's sin and our share of the guilt for what happened," sighed Father Henri. "Out there in the other world people categorize others and evaluate them differently, as if they all did not have the same soul. It's not like it is with us, where we are worth no more nor less than our brother. People out there weigh a man not according to his soul; their neighbor is not what they see first. They see a thrall or a king, a jarl or a freed slave; they see a man or a woman who either has noble ancestry or does not, much the way you and Brother Guilbert judge horses. That's how it is out there in the other world, unfortunately."

   "But everyone has ancestors, everyone comes from somewhere, all the way back to Adam and Eve, and we're all born equally naked," Arn objected with a hint of wonder in his voice.

   "Yes, indeed we all have ancestors. But some, according to that method of judging, have ancestors who are superior to others, and others have wealthier ancestors, and they inherit property from each other out there."

   "So if someone is born rich, then he remains rich; and if he has ancestors who are superior, then he doesn't have to do anything for his own sake, since he's naturally superior? So it doesn't matter if he's good or evil, intelligent or stupid—he remains superior?" Arn pondered this, at the same time looking oddly astute as he took this first stumbling step into an awareness of the other world.

   "That's precisely how it is, and that's why some have thralls out there even today. You're aware of that, aren't you?" said Father Henri.

   "Well, yes . . ." Arn said hesitantly. "My own father had thralls. It's something I haven't thought about in a long time, as if it were something my memory didn't like. I've mostly thought about my mother at evening prayers, but not so much about my father, and never about the fact that he had thralls. But so it was. Now I recall that he beheaded a thrall once, I forget why, but I'll never forget that sight."

   "You see. And I'm afraid that your father has thralls even today. He is from a superior clan, and that means, and pay close attention to this, that means that you are as well. On your mother's gravestone there are two marks, as you have surely seen although we've never talked about it. One is a dragon head and a sword; that is your mother's mark. The other is a lion rampant, and that is your father's mark. It is the mark of the Folkung clan, and you are therefore a Folkung. And you probably don't know what that entails."

   "No . . ." said Arn hesitantly. He looked as though he couldn't even imagine the import of being somebody other than who he was.

   "Specifically it means this," said Father Henri straight off. "You have the right to ride with a sword, you have the right to carry a shield with the mark of the Folkungs. And if those rough customers had seen you thus, they would have never dreamed of attacking you. If you did not have a sword and were not carrying a shield with the mark of the Folkungs, you would only have needed to tell them your name, which is Arn Magnusson of Arnäs, and their belligerence would have instantly melted away. This is what I never told you. I never told you who you are in the eyes of the other world, and that was very wrong. If I have any excuse to offer, it is that in here we do not view our neighbors as they do out there. And I didn't want to lead you into the temptation of ever believing that you were superior to other people. I think you can understand that, and perhaps even forgive me for it."

   "But this can't make me into someone other than who I am, can it?" Arn protested, puzzled. "I am as God created me, just as everyone else is, just as you are or the thralls are out there. I bear no blame for that, nor do I benefit from it. And by the way, why would the unfortunate souls who wanted to kill me let themselves be checked by a name? I was still only a 'monk boy' who couldn't handle a sword in their eyes, so why would a name frighten them?"