‘Can’t sit…long…like that,’ said Herr Magnus with difficulty, though he tried to smile. His smile was crooked because one corner of his mouth drooped.

‘My knees are more tempered by prayer than you will ever know, Father. In the Holy Land a warrior of God also has to do a great deal of praying for help. But tell me now what you want to know about, and I will tell you.’

‘Why did we lose…Jerusalem?’ asked Herr Magnus, at the same time moving the stone halfway to his good hand before he dropped it.

Arn carefully placed the stone back in his weak hand and said that he would tell him how Jerusalem was lost. But only on the condition that his father practiced with the stone while he listened.

It was not difficult for Arn to begin his story. When it came to the Lord’s inscrutable ways there was nothing he had brooded over as much as the question of why the Christians had been punished with the loss of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre.

It was because of their sins. That answer now seemed clear to him. And then he gave a detailed account of those sins. He told the story about a patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem who had poisoned two bishops to death, about a whoring queen mother who had installed first one and then the other of her newly arrived lovers from Paris as supreme commander of the Christian army, about greedy men who were said to fight for God’s cause but merely grabbed things for themselves; they stole, murdered, and burned, only to return home as soon as their purses were stuffed, and with what they thought was forgiveness for their sins.

As Arn described the Christians’ sins, citing the worst examples he could think of, he would now and then pick up the stone and put it once again in his father’s left hand.

But when the catalogue of sins seemed to repeat itself, his father waved his good hand to put a stop to the list of miseries. Then he took a deep breath and gathered his forces for a new question.

‘Where were you…my son…when Jerusalem was lost?’

Arn was taken aback by the question, since he had grown agitated at the thought of evil men such as the patriarch Heraclius, men who sent others to their deaths at a whim or for the sake of their vanity, like the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gérard de Ridefort, or scoundrels like the whoremonger commander, Guy de Lusignan.

Then Arn replied, truth be told, that he had been in Damascus, a captive of the enemy. Jerusalem was lost not after a brave stand at the walls of the city; Jerusalem was lost in a foolish battle at Tiberias, when the entire Christian army was led to its death by fools and whoremongers who knew nothing of war. Few prisoners had survived; of the Knights Templar there were only two.

‘You…came home…rich?’ Herr Magnus put in.

‘Yes, that’s true, Father. I came home and I am rich, richer than Eskil. But it’s because I was a friend of the Saracens’ king.’ Arn had answered truthfully but soon regretted it when he saw anger flare up in his father’s eyes.

Herr Magnus lifted the stone in a single motion from his left to his right hand and then returned it to his sick hand, so that he could raise his good hand in a gesture cursing this son who was a traitor and had thereby grown rich.

‘No, no, that was not how it happened at all,’ Arn lied hastily to calm his father. ‘I just wanted to see if you could move the stone from one hand to the other. Your anger gave you unexpected strength. Forgive me this little trick!’

Herr Magnus relaxed at once. He looked down in surprise at the stone, which was already back in his sick hand. Then he smiled and nodded.

TWO

Eskil was evidently not in a very good mood, even though he was doing his best not to show it. Not only would he have to ride up to the stone quarry and back, which would take this whole hot summer day and a good bit of the evening, but he no longer felt like the lord of his own house, as he had grown accustomed to being for so many years.

The scaffolding had already been erected along the wall at Arnäs, and more lumber was being brought from the woods by people who’d been set to work without asking his permission. Arn seemed to have become a stranger in many ways. He apparently didn’t understand that a younger brother could not usurp the place of his older brother, or why a Folkung in the king’s council had to travel with a sizable armed guard even though there was peace in the kingdom.

Behind them rode ten men fully armed, wearing as Arn did unbearably hot chain mail under their surcoats. Eskil himself had dressed as if riding to hunt or to a banquet, with a short surcoat and a hat with a feather. The old monk rode in his monk’s habit of thick white wool, which must have made the journey hard to bear, though his face revealed no sign of it. But he didn’t look happy, since he’d had to roll his habit up to his knees so that his bare calves were visible. Like Arn he was riding one of the smaller, foreign horses that were so restless.

On the lower slopes of Kinnekulle they reached pleasant shade as they rode in under the tall beech trees. This put Eskil instantly into a better mood, and he thought that now was the time to start discussing the good sense or lack thereof in all the construction going on. In his many years in business he’d learned that it was unwise to dispute even trifles when one was too hot or too thirsty or in a bad mood. Things would go better in the cool shade of the trees.

He urged on his horse to come up alongside Arn, who seemed to be riding with his thoughts far away, surely farther off than any stone quarry.

‘You must have ridden during hotter summer days than this, I suppose?’ Eskil began innocently.

‘Yes,’ Arn replied, obviously tearing himself away from quite different thoughts. ‘In the Holy Land the heat in summer was sometimes so great that no man could set his bare foot on the ground without burning himself badly. Riding in the shade like this is like riding in the pastures of Paradise in comparison.’

‘Yet you insist on dressing in chain mail, as if you were still riding out to battle.’

‘It’s been my custom for more than twenty years; I might even feel cold if I rode dressed like you, my brother,’ said Arn.

‘Yes, that might be so,’ said Eskil, now that he had turned the conversation onto the desired track. ‘I suppose you’ve seen nothing but war ever since you left us as a youth.’

‘That’s true,’ said Arn pensively. ‘It’s almost like a miracle to ride in such a beautiful country, in such coolness, without refugees and burned houses along the roads, and without peering continually into the woods or glancing to the rear for enemy horsemen. It’s hard enough just to describe to you how that feels.’

‘Just as it’s hard for me to describe to you how it feels after fifteen years of peace. When Knut became king and Birger Brosa his jarl, peace came to our land, and there has been peace ever since. You ought to keep that in mind.’

‘Indeed?’ said Arn, casting a glance at his brother, because he sensed that this conversation was about more than sunshine and heat.

‘You’re imposing great expenses on us now with all your construction,’ Eskil clarified. ‘I mean, it might seem unwise to prepare for war at such cost when peace prevails.’

‘As far as the expense goes, I brought the payment with me in three coffers of gold,’ Arn retorted.

‘But we’re losing great sums on all the stone we’re now using for ourselves instead of selling. Why have war expenses when there is peace?’ Eskil said patiently.

‘You’ll have to explain yourself better,’ said Arn.

‘I mean…it’s true that we own all the quarries. So we don’t need to spend silver for the stone you want to use. But in these years of peace, many stone churches are being built all over Western Götaland. And much of the stone that’s needed comes from our quarries.’