But in what land could someone ride up to robbers or tax collectors and say that he belonged to a certain clan, and that statement alone would make them all lay down their arms? Only in Outremer. Anyone who attacked a member of certain Bedouin tribes could be assured that he would be hunted by avengers until the end of time if necessary. The same was apparently true here in the North. At any rate, these northern Bedouins could be considered safe company.

They rode right past the first stinking puddle of a town, which clearly housed a greedy bishop. They didn’t even stop for food. Jacob and Marcus were both relieved and disappointed by this, since their buttocks ached from many hours’ riding, but the smell coming from the town was extremely repellent to them.

But eventually they were rewarded for what they had endured, for a few hours later as the evening cold came sweeping in as a raw mist, they found themselves approaching a cloister. There they would stay for the night.

For the Wachtian brothers it was as if they had suddenly come home. They were quartered in their own room with whitewashed walls and a crucifix in the hospitiumof the cloister. The monks who greeted them all spoke Frankish and behaved like real human beings, and the food that was served after vespers was first-class, as was the wine. It was like coming to an oasis with ripe dates and clear, cold water in the middle of a burning desert – just as astonishing, just as blessed.

Jacob and Marcus were not allowed inside the cloister walls, but they saw Sir Arn put on his white Templar mantle and go inside to pray. According to what his wife told them in her amusing and pure church Latin, he was visiting his mother’s grave.

The next day they left a good deal of their clothing and travelling food at the hospitium, as they would be returning for another night after the day’s bargaining in the town, which was called Skara.

They had been told that Skara was the biggest and oldest town in all of Western Götaland and thus their expectations were high. But it was hardly Damascus they rode into that morning. Here was the same stench of waste and foul air as outside the smaller town whose impossible name they had already forgotten; here were the same unclean people and streets without either cobblestones or gutters. And the primitive little church with the two towers that was called the cathedral was dark and oppressive rather than inspiring any sort of blessing. But as good Christians they couldn’t refuse when Sir Arn and the rest of the party, his wife and the two boys, went inside to pray. Yet Jacob and Marcus felt that this was a church where God was not present, either because He had never arrived or because He had forgotten where it was. Inside it was damp and smelled of heathendom.

On the outskirts of the town there was a street that was clean and swept like a Frankish town or one in Outremer. Here there was a different aroma, of cleanliness and coffee and food and spices, which seemed familiar, and here Frankish was spoken, as well as some other languages which were not Norse.

They had come to the street of the glass masters, the coppersmiths, and the stonecutters. Samples of glass and stone and copper pots were displayed along the street, and interpreters came running from every direction to offer their services when they saw the fat money purses hanging from Sir Arn’s belt. They soon learned that their skills were for once not needed.

They visited one booth after another, sat down and accepted cold water in beautiful glasses, politely but firmly declining the ale tankards that were also urged upon them. It was like a little Damascus; here they could converse with everyone in understandable languages, and learn about things that were impossible to discover outside this little street.

They learned how glass sand with copper inclusions or copper sulfate could be ordered from Denmark and Lübeck if they wanted to produce glass with a yellow or blue colour. The substances for green or rose colour, or colourless glass, were available locally if one knew the right place to find them. Sir Arn soon sent the two youths to fetch the ox-cart they had left with guards outside the cathedral, and then he went out buying. Eventually the cart was heavily loaded with substances for glass production; from some booths he bought everything they had on hand. There was also lead in great quantities, since the glassmasters worked mostly on church windows. Many merry bargains were concluded that day. Sir Arn spent a great deal of money without bothering to dicker about prices, which seemed to annoy his wife as much as it did the Wachtian brothers. It was an unusual day for these mostly Frankish glassmasters, as they were used to speaking through interpreters and selling finished glass, not speaking their own language with a Northerner who was as fluent as they were. Nor had they been involved in selling tools and materials for making glass instead of the glass they made themselves. But Sir Arn did buy a few glass pieces to take along, to be used as samples, as he said.

It was the same with the coppersmiths. Judging by the hammered and tin-plated vessels displayed outside the coppersmiths’ booths, both the Wachtian brothers and Sir Arn could easily see that they could produce much better wares with their Damascene coppersmiths at Forsvik. Sir Arn did buy one vessel, but just to be polite. He bought mostly copper rods and tin ingots.

When their cart was already heavily loaded and they had visited every glassmaster and coppersmith along one side of the street, they returned slowly along the other side to meet the stonemasters or their servants and apprentices who were at home. Many of the masters themselves were out at church construction sites that required constant visits. Jacob and Marcus learned to their astonishment that the business of building churches was flourishing more in this small country than anywhere else in the world. Here more than a hundred churches were being built simultaneously. With so many orders for church construction, the stonemasters could charge twice as much as anywhere in France or England or Saxony.

One of the stonemasters was more expensive than all the others, and outside his booth drawings had been set up to show his commissions from the construction of the cathedral itself. They all went from one picture to the next guessing what they were seeing, which was often easy for those familiar with the Holy Scriptures. Sir Arn’s wife in particular appeared to take a great interest in this master’s artistry. Sir Arn then took his entire party inside to meet the master, who at first seemed peevish and dismissive, complaining that he had neither the time nor the inclination to converse. But when he grasped that he could speak his own language with this buyer, his attitude quickly changed; he began eagerly explaining to them all the ideas behind his work and what he would like to do. Sir Arn mentioned that he wished to rebuild the church that belonged to his own clan, that it would be new construction from the ground up, but it would also be consecrated anew. This church would be dedicated not to the Virgin Mary, like almost all the other churches in Western Götaland, but to the Holy Sepulchre.

The stonemaster grew even more attentive when he heard this. For many years, as he said, he had carved the Virgin Mary in every conceivable situation: gentle and good, strict and admonishing, with Her dead Son, with Her Son as a babe, at the Annunciation by the Holy Spirit, on the road to Bethlehem, before the star, in the manger, and in whatever other scenes could be imagined.

But God’s Grave? Then he would have to rethink the whole design. It would take the right man, and it would also take time to contemplate the design. But as to time, the stonemaster, whose name was Marcellus, unfortunately had commitments all over the land which would keep him occupied for a year and a half. Before that it would be impossible to leave without breaking contracts.