‘Then whoever wins the war will triumph, that’s nothing new,’ said Arn. ‘It’s the same as if the Danes wanted to turn us into Danes today; who we select as king will not determine the outcome.’

‘Do you think the Danes could do that? Could they conquer us?’ Knut asked, tears visible in his eyes.

‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ said Arn. ‘If we were so foolish as to meet a Danish army on the battlefield today, they would enjoy a great victory. If I were your marshal I would advise you not to fight them.’

‘So we’d be lost, and also disgraced because we refused to fight for our honour and our freedom?’

‘No,’ said Arn. ‘Not at all. It’s a long way from Sjælland to Näs, and even further to the Swedes’ Östra Aros. If a Danish army invaded our land, they would naturally want to have a quick and decisive victory, as long as the season was favorable and their supply lines were good. Now imagine if we didn’t give them that opportunity. They would be expecting, just as you are, that we would immediately call for a campaign, that every man in the realm would put on his iron helmet and come with axe in hand to be crushed by the Danish cavalry. They would die bravely and with honour, but they would die. What if we didn’t do that?’

‘Then we’d lose our honour, and no one will follow a king without honour!’ Knut replied with a sudden flash of wrath, pounding his fist on the table.

‘No one follows a dead king,’ said Arn coldly. ‘If the Danes don’t get the big battle they’re hoping for, they won’t win. They’ll burn a city. They’ll plunder villages, and it will cost us much misery. But then winter will come. Then their supplies will melt away, and we’ll take them one by one and cut off their supply lines home to Denmark. When spring comes you’ll be the great victor. More honour than that you cannot win.’

‘In truth you think like no one else when it comes to war,’ said King Knut.

‘There you are wrong, absolutely,’ replied Arn with a smile that was almost impudent. ‘I think like a thousand men, many of whom I knew. In the Holy Land we were no more than a thousand men against a superior force infinitely greater than that which the Danes can mount. And the Knights Templar fought with great success for half a century.’

‘Until you lost!’ King Knut objected.

‘Quite true,’ said Arn. ‘We lost when a fool of a king decided to risk our entire army against a far superior enemy in a single battle. Then we lost. If we had been allowed to continue as we were accustomed to doing, we would have possessed the Holy Land even today.’

‘What was that king’s name?’

‘Guy de Lusignan. His advisor was named Gérard de Ridefort. May their names live in eternal infamy!’

For the brothers Jacob and Marcus Wachtian the journey to Skara was one of the strangest they had ever taken, and yet they were both well-travelled men.

Sir Arn had first intended that the brothers should travel with only a few of his thralls as guides, but they had refused this offer in fright and disgust, saying that they would have a hard time making purchases in a language they didn’t understand. Actually it was the dark nights along the deserted riverbanks that they feared. This Nordic land was a land of demons, they were both convinced of that. And the people they encountered were often hard to distinguish from animals, and that was frightening too.

At first Sir Arn had been unwilling to leave his construction work, but he gave in to their objections and decided that both he and his wife would come along, since she had purchases to make as well. The brothers had pointed out that it seemed unwise to travel carrying the gold and silver necessary to buy such a long list of items when they had no armed horsemen with them. But Sir Arn had only laughed, giving them an exaggerated chivalrous bow, and assuring them that a Templar knight was at their disposal. He would be travelling in battle attire, taking with him his bow and quiver in addition to the sword and battle-axe he always carried.

As they loaded their cart with two oxen onto the ship, along with their horses and travelling accoutrements, Sir Arn realized that they needed someone to drive the ox-cart when they proceeded further on land. He called over two boys who were full of eagerness; with bow and quiver in their hands they came running just as the ship was about to cast off.

They had engaged an empty riverboat with eight foul-smelling and sly-looking oarsmen for the journey. The Wachtian brothers thought they were risking their lives to venture out into the uninhabited and terrifying countryside with gold and silver right under the noses of such men. But they soon changed their attitude when they saw with what submissive and almost terror-stricken looks these river hooligans watched Sir Arn.

The route took them via Askeberga, the same way they had come, and on to the lake called Östansjö. From there they did not continue northwest toward Arnäs, but south for many hours on a different river, until they came to the place where everything had to be unloaded onto horses for the rest of the journey.

From the boat landing by the river the road to the nearest town passed through a dense forest. Because it was the only route and because those who wanted to go to the market in town had to travel this way, it wasn’t hard to reckon what dangers might await them in the depths of the forest.

The brothers’ premonitions were confirmed, for in the midst of the forest Sir Arn, riding at the head of the column, suddenly reined in his horse, raised his right hand as a sign to halt, and put on his helmet. He examined the ground in front of him closely, then looked up into the overhanging crowns of the trees before he called out something in a language that made the forest come alive. Robbers climbed down from the trees and appeared from behind bushes and tree trunks. But instead of rushing forward in an attack that would have gained them considerable riches if they had succeeded, the robbers lined up with heads bowed and weapons lowered and allowed the small column to pass without loosing a single arrow. They had never seen less effectual robbers.

Marcus jested happily about this when they emerged from the forest and saw a little town with a church in the distance. Robbers like these would not have been long-lived, and certainly not fat, if they had plied their trade in Outremer.

Jacob, doubting that this could be a typical way for Nordic robbers to behave, rode up alongside Sir Arn and asked him what had just happened. When Jacob fell back and slipped in beside his brother, he was able to explain with some amusement.

The robbers were not merely robbers, they were also tax collectors for the bishop in the town, and it seemed that the role they assumed depended on who came riding. From some people they collected taxes for their bishop; others they plundered on their own behalf, since they received no other payment for their work as tax collectors.

But this time it was to be neither taxes nor plunder. For when Sir Arn discovered the robbers waiting in ambush, he told them how it was. First, that he was Arn Magnusson and could singlehandedly kill them all if he was provoked. Second, that he was of the Folkung clan. That meant that no robber, in service to a bishop or just out for his own benefit, would live longer than three sundowns after having loosed an arrow, even if he managed to escape from Sir Arn. The robbers had found this argument entirely convincing.

The clan that Sir Arn belonged to must therefore be almost like a Bedouin tribe, Jacob thought. This barbarian land did indeed have a royal power and church like all others. There were worldly armed forces and ecclesiastical ones. They had seen that at the wedding feast with their own eyes. So the law was upheld in much the same way as in other Christian lands.