As if nothing more need be said, the queen replied that the only sure cure for a toothache was to pull the bad tooth, and the sooner the better.

For Cecilia Rosa the following weeks passed as though they had taken from her both her freedom and her free will – as if she were floating with the current without being able to make the slightest decision for herself. She couldn’t even decide about something as simple as travelling between Näs and Riseberga cloister, as she had done so many times before.

Because she was accompanied by twelve retainers, the journey took two days longer. Normally she would have simply sailed north on Lake Vättern to Åmmeberg and continued from there in a smaller riverboat up to Åmmelangen and through the lakes to Östansjö. From there it would have been only a day’s ride to Riseberga.

But with twelve guards and their horses and all their gear, it was impossible to take the water route. They had to ride all the way from Åmmeberg.

She usually would have ridden with one or two men over whom she had authority. Now the guards from the king’s castle spoke of her like an item of cargo, although she was sitting on her horse right next to them. They called her ‘the wench,’ arguing about what was best for the wench’s safety and how best the wench could seek lodging for the night. The journey kept being delayed when the leader of the guards ordered men to ride ahead to scout a stretch of woods or check a ford before they rode over it. With all this extra trouble it took more than four days to reach Riseberga.

At first she had tried to close her ears and turn inward to her own dreams, sending prayers of thanksgiving to Our Lady every hour. By the second day she could no longer stand being referred to and treated like a load of silver instead of a human being. She rode up alongside Adalvard, the leader of the expedition, a man from the Erik clan.

She told him that she had made this journey many times, and only once had encountered highwaymen. The highwaymen had let her pass undisturbed when she explained that she came from the cloister and that her cargo was merely manuscripts and church silver. The bandits, who were young and had few weapons, had not frightened her in the least. Then how was it that a royal guard riding with the sign of the three crowns in the lead, a sight which should have scared off most highwaymen, was making such a fuss and displaying such timidity at every bend in the road?

Looking surly, Adalvard replied that it was his job to judge what was safe or not safe on this route, according to his own experience and knowledge. Naturally a woman of the convent would know all sorts of things that he did not. But now they had to make it through the woods of Tiveden alive, and that was something he knew best how to accomplish.

Cecilia Rosa was not satisfied with this answer, but she let it drop when their retinue came upon a farm that seemed large enough to house a dozen guards, their horses, and a wench.

The next morning, when they had proceeded a short distance along the road, she rode up to Adalvard and complained that it was not flattering to be treated like a prisoner being led to the tingto be hanged. Those words made more of an impression on him than her queries about their safety. He excused himself by saying that they were all responsible for her with their own lives.

It was a while before she spoke with Adalvard again. She was on her way to her wedding with Arn because Our Lady had listened to their prayers and allowed Herself to be persuaded. She had spared Arn for some other purpose besides the direct path to Paradise achieved through a martyr’s death. What sort of safety did Cecilia need on her simple journey to Riseberga, other than the gentle, protective hands of Our Lady?

Cecilia Rosa was well aware that such religious reasoning would hardly impress a man like Adalvard. He was acting under the king’s orders, and his first priority was man’s will, and then possibly God’s will. Or perhaps he considered it a man’s obligation to do his utmost and in that way fulfil God’s will.

But something wasn’t right. There must be some danger that she didn’t understand, while the men accompanying her feared for their lives because they were aware of the peril.

Once again she left her place in the column and rode up next to Adalvard.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me, Adalvard; that you are all responsible for me with your lives,’ she began. ‘I certainly should have displayed less impatience and more gratitude. I hope you will forgive me.’

‘Milady has nothing to apologize for. We have sworn to obey the king’s orders to the death, and until then we do not lead a hard life.’

‘You can see that I ride with a stirrup on each side, like a man,’ Cecilia went on. ‘Haven’t you wondered about this?’

‘Yes, I have, because it is most unusual for a wench, milady.’

‘I ride a great deal on my errands from Riseberga. I might even spend as much time on horseback as a royal guard,’ Cecilia continued innocently. ‘So I’ve sewn a woman’s outfit with two skirts, one around each leg. And over them I wear an apron. I look like a woman, but I can ride like a man. And you should know one thing. If the danger comes that you mentioned, I can flee faster than most of the guards here with their heavy horses. If you want to protect me from attack, we mustn’t stand and fight but ride off as fast as we can.’

Finally Cecilia had said something that made Adalvard regard her as a person with her own thoughts and not as a pile of silver. Excusing himself politely, he rode off and spoke animatedly to some of his men, waving his arms. Those he talked to fell back and spread the word.

When he rode back to Cecilia he seemed pleased and more amenable to conversation than during the previous part of the journey. Then Cecilia saw that the ground had been prepared for what she really wanted to ask.

‘Tell me, Adalvard, my faithful defender, and as a man at the king’s Näs who knows so much more than a simple woman from the cloister, why should I, a poor woman from the weak Pål clan, be the target of foul play?’

‘Poor?’ Adalvard laughed and gave her a searching glance, as if to see whether she was jesting. ‘That may be the case now,’ he grumbled, ‘but soon there will be a wedding and as the wife of a Folkung a third of his property will become yours. You’ll soon be rich, milady. Anyone who kidnapped such a bride would also get rich from the ransom.’

‘Well, it gives me a safe feeling to have such powerful giants by my side,’ Cecilia replied, only half satisfied with what she had learned. ‘But that can’t be the whole story, can it? To protect me from poor highwaymen and kidnappers with poor weapons it shouldn’t take this many men. Wouldn’t it be enough that they saw our banner with the three crowns?’

‘Yes, that’s true, milady,’ said Adalvard. And enlivened by their conversation he continued to explain, as Cecilia had hoped he would.

‘I am of the clan of King Knut and his father Saint Erik. But my older brothers inherited all my father’s farms, so becoming a retainer was my fate. I’m not complaining. Any man from the Erik clan knows how things stand in the kingdom when it comes to the struggle for power. Your life, milady, is in the centre of this struggle for power – as is your death.’

‘I don’t understand very much of the world of men,’ Cecilia said humbly. ‘So much the greater will be my pleasure at riding beside a member of the Erik clan if he can explain to me things that are beyond the comprehension of a cloister woman. What does my death or my life have to do with the struggle for power?’

‘Well, I can’t tell you anything that you won’t find out later anyway,’ said Adalvard, pleased to be the one who possessed the truth about life. ‘You should have become the abbess; then I could never have spoken to you as irreverently as I do now. But as abbess you would have sworn against the testament of the previous abbess, and then King Knut’s eldest son would have inherited the crown. But this is all something you already know, isn’t it?’