‘Well, that changes thing a great deal for the better, of course,’ Cecilia admitted. ‘You could have told me this earlier, then I wouldn’t have wasted so much ink. Because it’s also about time you told your wife how much we own, or rather how much youown, since I own Forsvik, which increases in value with each drop of sweat you spill.’

‘I own approximately one thousand marks in gold,’ Arn said in embarrassment, looking down at the wooden floor. ‘That does not include what it will cost to build Arnäs into an impregnable fortress, which shall be a salvation for us all someday. Nor do I count what I have put aside to pay for the church in Forshem.’

He squirmed when he said this last and still looked away, as if he were well aware that he had said something that no one with wit and sense would believe.

‘A thousand marks,’ Cecilia whispered as if awestruck. ‘A thousand marks in gold; that’s more than everything owned by Riseberga, Varnhem, and Gudhem combined.’

‘That may be true, my love,’ replied Arn softly, but it seemed as if he were more ashamed of his great wealth than happy about it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?’ Cecilia asked.

‘I’ve thought about telling you many times, but it never seemed to be the right moment. It’s a long story that isn’t easy to understand, about how this gold came to be mine in the Holy Land. Once I got started I would have to finish the tale, and there is so much that needs to be finished before winter. Gold isn’t everything; gold won’t protect us from the cold, especially my friends from the warm countries. I hadn’t intended to keep this from you. I imagined a long, cold winter night with the north wind howling outside, with you and me lying in the glow of our hearth without the slightest draft reaching us underneath our featherbeds. That’s when I would like to tell you the whole story.’

‘If you wait until winter you will wait in vain,’ said Cecilia with a little smile that lightened at once the gloom that had settled over them at this talk of riches.

‘No, I look forward to the winter,’ said Arn, also with a smile.

‘That won’t prevent gold from offering poor protection against cold and hunger. As you said, tomorrow you must start buying fodder over in Linköping or wherever you can find it.’

‘I promise. What else have you found in the merciless logic of your numbers?’

‘I have found that you should buy or build your own boat to transport clay.’

‘How so?’ asked Arn, surprised for the first time in this conversation.

‘For making bricks it takes so much fresh clay each time you fire them, that it isn’t worth the effort to ship the clay here first instead of moving the work to Braxenbolet,’ Cecilia went on. ‘But with the clay for making pottery it’s different. If you can get that sort of clay here, the potters can be kept busy all winter. It’s merely a matter of keeping the clay damp, yet warm enough so it won’t freeze.’

He looked at her with an astonished admiration that he couldn’t conceal, and she smiled back as if in triumph.

‘Don’t work anymore today,’ she said. ‘Stay with me. Let’s ride off together just for a while to enjoy the fruit of our labour. The evening is so mild.’

She went to change into her riding attire, but she frowned when she came out and saw him holding their woollen mantles over his arm as if to hide the long scabbard sticking out from under the cloth. But she didn’t say a word.

They went first to the stable, which was empty this time of year, since all the horses were in the pasture. A long row of saddles with foreign signs above them hung on the wall, and Arn chose two. He handed her the mantles when he hoisted the saddles onto his shoulder and led her out to the horse pasture. The sun was low in the sky, but it was still as warm as a summer day, and the breeze was like a mild caress on their faces.

A black mare and her foal stood by themselves in a smaller pasture. They went there first, climbing in through the rails. Arn called the mare. She pricked up her ears and came toward him at once, tossing her head. Her foal trotted after her. Cecilia marvelled at how affectionately her beloved and the mare greeted each other, how he rubbed his face against her muzzle, and how he stroked her glossy coat and spoke to her in a foreign language.

‘Come!’ he said, reaching out his hand to Cecilia. ‘I want you to make friends with Umm Anaza, for she shall henceforth be your horse. Come and say hello.’

Cecilia went over and tried to do as Arn had done, rubbing her face against the mare, who at first seemed a bit shy. Then Arn talked to the mare in the foreign language, and she changed at once and yielded to Cecilia’s touch.

‘What language are you speaking?’ she asked as she petted the mare and the little foal who timidly came forward.

‘The language of horses,’ said Arn with a secret smile, shaking his head happily. ‘That was what Brother Guilbert told me once when I was a boy; back then I believed that there was a language that only horses understood. It’s more correct to say that I’m speaking the language that these horses have heard from birth in Outremer. It’s Saracen.’

‘And I who can only speak my own language or Latin with her!’ Cecilia laughed. ‘At least I must know her name.’

‘Her name is Umm Anaza, which means Mother Anaza, and the little one is called Ibn Anaza, although that’s what I used to call his father. Now the stallion whom we shall meet is called Abu Anaza, and you can probably guess what Abu and Ibn mean, can’t you?’

‘Father and son Anaza,’ Cecilia said. ‘But what does Anaza mean?’

‘That’s just a name,’ said Arn, swinging a saddle with a lambskin pad onto the mare. ‘Horses named Anaza are the noblest in all the Holy Land, and when the long winter nights come I will tell you the saga of Anaza.’

Arn saddled and bridled the mare with amazing speed, and the mare didn’t object in the least, but seemed eager to go out.

Cecilia was allowed to lead Umm Anaza down to the big pasture where the stallions were kept. Arn hopped over the fence and whistled so that they all looked up from their grazing. The next moment they were all galloping toward Arn so that the ground shook. Cecilia was startled but realized she didn’t have to worry when the horses came to a halt the instant that Arn raised his arm in command. Then they all walked in a circle and crowded around Arn, who seemed to have a name for each horse and offered each a few friendly words. Finally he turned his attention to a stallion who looked much like Cecilia’s mare, with a black coat hide and silver mane. It wasn’t hard to understand that this must be Abu.

Cecilia couldn’t help being moved as she watched her husband treat these animals with such tenderness. They seemed to be much more than horses to him, almost like dear friends.

No man in the North treats his horses this way, she thought, but realized at once that there was no man in the North who could ride like Arn. That was a good thought, that loving care made better riders than arrogance and harshness.

She felt something of this love herself as they rode out from Forsvik a while later, heading north along the shore of Bottensjön. It was as though this mare enjoyed carrying her new owner, as if she spoke through her gentle movements which were not like those of other horses.

The sun had sunk below the treetops when they entered the endless conifer forest known as Tiveden. Arn led them up along a path and soon they were so high that they could see Bottensjön, and off in the distance Lake Vättern glinted in the last light of evening. The smells of horses blended enchantingly with the sweet decay of late summer inside the conifer forest.

Arn came alongside her and said that now he was too old to stand up on his horse’s back; he intended to stay in the saddle. At first Cecilia didn’t understand what he meant, but then she remembered the time up on Kinnekulle when they were riding together for the first time and he stood up on his horse at full gallop. But he had his eyes on her and not on the road when his horse rode under a mighty oak branch. Arn had been swept to the ground and lay there lifeless.