Magnus Månesköld had grown up as Birger Brosa’s foster son, and now was more of a younger brother. If Birger Brosa instead of Arn spoke on behalf of the groom, they would avoid all difficulties quite elegantly and insult no one. Besides, the king’s brother Sune Sik would have the honour of meeting the jarl of the kingdom as his future son-in-law’s negotiator.

Arn merely nodded his agreement and muttered that no more time need be wasted on this question if there was something that was more urgent.

The next matter to be discussed mixed pride with wisdom, so it could not be solved with wisdom alone. Still, Arn had to reconcile as soon as possible with his uncle, Birger Brosa.

Thinking that all the difficult topics of discussion had now been dealt with, Arn began asking eagerly how the kingdom was now being governed. He had understood that a great deal had changed since they were young, when everyone gathered at the tingof all Goths with the king, jarl, and judge and perhaps two thousand men. He hadn’t heard a word about such a tingsince he came home, so that must mean that the power had shifted away from the ting.

King Knut sighed that this was indeed true. Some things had improved with the new manner of governing the kingdom, others had grown worse.

At the tingfree men decided now as before all matters amongst free men. At the tingthey could present their disputes, determine fines for manslaughter, hang one another’s thieves, and settle other petty matters.

At the king’s council, on the other hand, matters were decided that dealt with the kingdom as a whole: who would be king, or jarl or bishop; taxes due to the king or jarl; building of cloisters; trade with foreign lands; and the defence of the realm. When Finns and Russians sailed into Lake Mälaren five years before, plundering and burning the town of Sigtuna, and killing Archbishop Jon, there was much for the kingdom’s council to decide. It could never have been done at a tingwith a thousand arguing men. A new city would have to be built to obstruct the inlet to Mälaren, at Agnefit where Mälaren met the Eastern Sea. Now a start had been made; defensive towers had been built, booms and chains had been stretched across the rivers so that no plunderers from the East could come back, at least not unnoticed as they did the last time. Such things were decided at the king’s council. This was new.

Arn was well aware of where Agnefit was situated, since he had once ridden that way and past Stocksund when he was returning from Östra Aros on his way to Bjälbo. He once proposed that it was there the king ought to have his seat rather than down at Näs in the middle of Lake Vättern.

No matter how impatient King Knut was to find the discussion moving in a completely different direction from that he had intended, he couldn’t help asking Arn to tell him more about this unexpected idea. What was wrong with Näs?

‘The location,’ replied Arn with a laugh. Näs was built by Karl Sverkersson for one simple reason. The king wanted to have a castle that was so safe that no one with murder on his mind could reach him. Arn and Knut knew better than anyone how futile that thought was, since it was at Näs that they had killed King Karl, less than an arrow-shot from the place where they now sat many years later.

‘The king should ideally have his seat where the gold and silver for the kingdom flow through,’ Arn went on. ‘Considering the present trade routes and how they might look in the future, this site should be in the east of the kingdom rather than in the west. For to the west lies Denmark.’

From Linköping in Eastern Götaland they could certainly handle the affairs of the kingdom, especially trade with Lübeck, and better than from remote Näs. But Linköping had been the Sverkers’ city from olden times, and for a king from the Erik clan that would be like seeking a home in a hornets’ nest. Instead the king should build himself a new city, by the Eastern Sea, a city that belonged to no one else.

Knut argued that Näs was safer. Here they could either defend themselves or flee, and for a good part of the year it was inaccessible to any enemy. If they built a new city it could be taken by storm and burned. Arn countered that the site at Agnefit and Stocksund was suitable for building a city that could not be taken. Besides they had only one enemy, and that was Denmark; if the Danes wanted to go to war against Western Götaland they could simply take the land route north from Skåne. And sailing past the Danes from Lödöse down to Lübeck would no longer be possible if the Danes should deny them passage. Denmark was a great power. But the east coast of the realm was not as easy for them to reach. And from Agnefit it was closer to Lübeck than from Näs, if reckoned in the same way that Knut had reckoned when he said that the closest church to Forsvik was the one at Näs. It would be the same if they moved the power of the realm from Näs to the east coast.

They twisted and turned the idea of the new city by the Eastern Sea, but finally Knut wanted to get back to matters he had planned to discuss. Most difficult was the intractable Archbishop Petter, or Petrus as he called himself. Having a hostile archbishop on his neck was the worst thing that could befall a king. Archbishop Petter was a Sverker man, and he made not the slightest effort to hide his ties to the clan. And his ambition was clear. He wanted to tear the crown from his own king and hand it to Sverker Karlsson, who had lived his entire life in Denmark.

The king’s council appointed every bishop in the realm, Knut explained. A bishop received his staff and ring from the king, and no one could become bishop without the king’s will. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as simple with the archbishop, for the king could neither refuse nor appoint him. It was Rome that decided, but now Rome had assigned that power to Archbishop Absalon in Lund, which was the same as handing it to Denmark.

So the Danes decided who was going to be archbishop in the land of the Swedes and Goths. No matter how backwards that might seem, nothing could be done about it. And even if Knut did what he could to cleanse the crowd of bishops of all Sverker men, those rogues changed their loyalty as soon as they received their ring and staff. Then they obeyed the archbishop regardless of what secret promises they had made to the king before receiving power. A cleric could never be trusted.

And that wily Petter never ceased arguing that Knut had not sufficiently atoned for the killing of King Karl. As long as the deed was not atoned for, it meant that he had unjustly seized the crown, even though he had been crowned and anointed. And a crown unjustly seized could not be inherited by the eldest son, Petter claimed.

There was also much grumbling about the claim that Queen Cecilia Blanca had actually taken cloister vows, so that her sons Erik, Jon, Joar, and Knut were all illegitimate. And illegitimate sons could not inherit the crown either, according to Petter. Archbishop Petter kept pulling on these two reins, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other.

Arn argued that the Church could not defy the king’s choice of successor. If the council decided to name Erik jarl as king after Knut, the bishops could grumble about it, roll their eyes, and talk about sin. And of course they could refuse to crown Erik. But there had been uncrowned kings of the realm before.

Unless all the bishops then went off to Denmark and crowned that Sverker instead, Knut put in, sounding disconsolate.

‘Then no man in the lands of the Swedes and Goths would take the matter seriously, and such a king in foreign service would never be able to set his foot in the realm,’ Arn said calmly.

‘But what if such a king came leading a Danish army?’ asked Knut, now looking anxious.