‘Yes, it is. But if that’s not going to happen, then why would any of the Sverkers wish me any harm?’

‘If they kill us all – you, milady, myself, and all my men – then every man in the kingdom would believe that it was the Sverkers who were responsible for the foul deed, even if it wasn’t true,’ Adalvard replied with sudden distaste. He regretted the turn the discussion had taken.

‘In that case wouldn’t the wisest thing be to kill Arn Magnusson?’ asked Cecilia without the slightest quaver in her voice.

‘Yes, it would. Everyone knows that we Eriks would gain from such a murder, because there would be no wedding between the two of you. You, milady, could become abbess even more quickly since both grief and loneliness would drive you to the cloister. But I swear that we’re thinking no such thing, because that would mean breaking our alliance with the Folkungs, which has been sealed with many oaths. If the Eriks and the Folkungs start to feud, both clans will have ceded all power to the Sverkers.’

‘So now the Sverkers would most like to kill Arn Magnusson and make it look as though you Eriks were guilty of the deed,’ Cecilia filled in his thoughts. Her voice was firm, but she felt a lightning bolt strike her heart when she spoke the words.

‘That is true,’ Adalvard said with a smile. ‘If the Sverkers could kill Arn Magnusson and put the blame on us Eriks, they would gain a great deal. But who would they send to Arnäs or Forsvik to commit such a treacherous crime? Odin, who could make himself invisible? Or Thor, whose hammer could make the whole world rumble? No, there is no killer who can sneak up on Arn Magnusson in secret, you may rest assured of that, milady.’

Adalvard had a long laugh at his suggestion of Odin and Thor. Although these jests seemed ill-placed to Cecilia, she still found great comfort in them.

When they finally arrived at Riseberga, Cecilia went straight to her chambers and stood a long while with her hand on an abacus, taking in the scent of parchment and ink. A room full of documents had a special smell that was unmistakable, and she knew that later in life she would always be able to recall it.

But she still had a hard time grasping that this was really a moment of farewell. She had lived so long among these account books that in her heart she had imagined doing so for the rest of her life. No, she had imagined it as the only life available to her in this world, while Arn Magnusson belonged in the world of dreams.

Her farewell was difficult and a bit tearful. The two Sverker maidens who had been granted asylum at Riseberga, despite the fact that Birger Brosa later disapproved of this action, wept more than the others. For they had stood closest to Cecilia and were the ones she had taught most lovingly about needlework, gardening, and bookkeeping. Now the two would be alone without the yconoma’s protection, and their hope that Cecilia would return as the new abbess had been crushed.

Cecilia consoled them both as best she could, assuring them that they could always send her messages and that she would stay informed about what was happening at Riseberga. But her words did not offer as much solace as she intended. Yet she promised to keep them in her thoughts.

Now Cecilia had to take her leave. She considered the abacus that she had made herself to be her own property, and so she took it with her. She owned a horse, saddle, and tack. She had paid out of her own salary for her winter mantle and boots lined with dog furs. Beyond this she owned only the clothing she was wearing at present and a few garments for feasts held at Näs.

When she and Cecilia Blanca were young they had worn the same size clothes. But now, with seven childbirths separating them, it was only Cecilia Rosa who could wear the same clothes as in her youth. It may not have been only the childbirths. At Näs there was a constant diet of pork, or even worse, salt pork, which required a great deal of ale. In the cloisters where Cecilia Rosa had mostly lived in recent years, anything resembling gluttony was forbidden.

She also owned one and a half marks in silver, the wages she had earned honestly during the time she had been yconoma at Riseberga as a free woman and not as a penitent. She took out the silver, weighed it, and made a note in the account book that she had now taken what belonged to her.

At that moment she realized how little she knew about her own poverty or wealth. It was as though she had long been heading toward taking the cloister vows. Because of this she knew much more about each and every örtugowed to the cloister than she knew about any wealth she herself might possess.

When her father Algot died, he had left only two daughters as his heirs, Cecilia and Katarina. So each of them should have inherited half of the estates belonging to the clan around Husaby and Kinnekulle. But Katarina had been sent to Gudhem convent for her sins and there she had renounced all earthly possessions. Had she also renounced her inheritance? If so, to whom had it gone, to Cecilia or to Gudhem? And how much, in either case, did Cecilia own of the estates around Husaby?

She had never asked herself these questions. It was as though she had never thought of herself as the owner of worldly goods, merely as the administrator of the Church’s property.

The one and a half marks in silver that she held in her hand would be enough to buy a lovely mantle. But there was a Folkung mantle she had worked on for three years, the most beautiful of all, lined with marten fur. The lion on the back was sewn with gold and silver thread from Lübeck, and red Frankish thread had been used for the lion’s mouth and tongue. No mantle in the entire kingdom had such a brilliant sheen; it was the most magnificent work she had ever sewn in all her years at the convent. And she had never been able to conceal her dream from those around her, or from herself: to see this mantle worn by Arn Magnusson.

Such a mantle, she knew very well, was worth as much as a farm with both thralls and livestock. The mantle belonged to Riseberga cloister, even though she had sewn it with her own hands.

But it had been her dream; it could never be worn by any but a Folkung, and by no Folkung other than Arn. For a long time she sat with the quill in her hand before she conquered her doubt. Then she wrote a promissory note for fifteen marks in silver, fanned the ink dry, and stuffed the note into the correct pigeonhole.

Then she went to the storeroom and found the mantle. She held it against her cheek and breathed in the strong scent that was meant to keep moths away rather than to promote sweet dreams of love. She folded it up and put it under her arm.

At the farewell mass she took Communion.

For young Sune Folkesson and his foster brother Sigfrid, the ride between Arnäs and Forsvik was like having their most fervent wish fulfilled.

Each was now riding one of the foreign horses; Sune on a roan with a black mane and tail, Sigfrid on a sorrel with mane and tail that were almost white. Sir Arn had carefully selected the two young stallions and tried them both out first, ridden them, and played with them before deciding which boy should have which horse. He had curtly but gravely explained that both horses were young, like their new owners, and that it was important for them to grow older along with their horses, that this was the beginning of a friendship that would last until death, for only death could separate them from a horse from Outremer.

Arn hadn’t spent much time explaining the difference between these horses and Nordic horses, perhaps because he could see in the eyes of his two kinsmen that they already understood. Unlike grown men in Western Götaland, the two boys realized at once that these horses were almost like fairy-tale horses compared with the Gothic horses that the retainers rode.