As free men and women, they would work for wages. Those who chose to remain at Forsvik would receive their first annual wages the following Christmas. For those who would rather work new fields near Forsvik as tenants, that too could be arranged.

After these words, Arn and Cecilia sat down. They were both surprised and disappointed that not a single thrall shrieked and no words of gratitude came streaming toward them. Nor did anyone say a prayer. They could see the startled looks on many faces, so they had no reason to believe that Gure had broken his promise to keep their secret. A few embraced the person standing nearest, and a few tears were also visible.

Around New Year’s the north wind began blowing, ushering in an entire week of snowstorms that wrapped Forsvik in a warm blanket of snow drifts, filling in all the crevices in the floors and windows of the old thrall houses, where the cold would have otherwise killed both those who were free and those who were not.

During the storms, not even the hunters went outside. At the smithies and glassworks, everyone continued their labours as usual, but it was impossible to conduct any riding practice. And since every vent and window of the stable was kept closed, they couldn’t continue with the exercises that Brother Guilbert had started with the boys and Torgils Eskilsson. No one could shoot arrows or swing a sword in the dark.

But midwinter in the North was the time for sagas and tales. No dark night went to waste without stories or long conversations about topics that few had time for during the busier seasons of the year. In the thrall houses sagas were recounted that would have displeased the master and mistress. But most of the freed men and women thought that what they didn’t hear wouldn’t harm them.

Arn and Brother Guilbert spent three days together in Arn and Cecilia’s chambers while she stayed with Suom and some of the former thrall women in the weaving house. It stood next to the hot glassworks, which made it easier to keep out the cold.

The question that Brother Guilbert and Arn discussed at length had to do with the difficulty of imagining goodness through violence. Many faithful Christians during that time would have had trouble understanding such a conversation. But for two Templar knights, there was nothing difficult about seeing swords and fire as serving God’s cause. Indeed, that was the role of the Knights Templar, given to them by God Himself and defended by His Mother.

Instead, the question had to be asked whether the strict Rule of the Templars could be applied to an ordinary Christian life.

Brother Guilbert was going to take a greater responsibility for training the boys in the use of weapons, because Arn was unsure that he himself was the best suited for the job. But this meant that they would have to take turns supervising the construction work at Arnäs, since the Muslim builders shouldn’t be left alone in a land where the laws would not protect them. And quarrels might easily arise. Brother Guilbert had noticed a few thrall women at Arnäs hovering around the building site at night.

For Arn it would not be easy taking his turn away from Forsvik. On one of the long winter nights Arn and Cecilia lay under the covers just as they had imagined that they would, and he recounted his long stories from the Holy Land. Now and then they were disturbed by a gust of wind striking the hearth and sending ash through the bedchamber. It was on that night that she first felt something stirring inside of her, like a little fish flicking its tail.

She understood what it was at once; she had already sensed but hadn’t dared believe in such a miracle. She was over forty, after all, and she thought she was far too old for this blessing.

Arn was in the middle of a story from the Holy Land, recounting how he had just ordered that the banner be unfurled with the symbol of the Virgin Mary, the High Protectress of the Templar Knights. And he raised his hand to give the signal to attack, and in unison all the white-clad knights made the sign of the cross and took several deep breaths.

Then Cecilia quietly took Arn’s hand and told him. He fell silent at once and turned to face her. And he saw that what she said was true and neither a dream nor a jest. Gently he embraced her and whispered that Our Lady had blessed them with yet another miracle.

Around the feast of Saint Tiburtius, during the time when the ice broke up in the lakes of Western Götaland, when the pike spawned and the riverboats started up with Eskil’s trade between Linköping and Lödöse again, Arn and the stonemasons travelled to Arnäs to resume the construction work. According to what Cecilia had told him, he had a good month ahead of him before he needed to return to see his newborn son or daughter. Cecilia thought it would be a daughter. Arn thought he would have yet another son. They had promised each other that if it was a son, Cecilia would choose his name, but if it was a daughter, then Arn would decide.

The work on the wall proceeded briskly, and the builders seemed happy to get started after a winter that at first had seemed pleasantly indolent, but in the end much too long. They also claimed to be satisfied with the new tools from Forsvik’s smithies and the work clothes that each of them had received in the proper size from the saddlemaker and the weaving house. They all wore leather garb from their shoulders down to their knees, and on their feet they had wooden clogs like those worn by the smiths, although with an iron cap around the toe and heel. Many had complained that dropping a stone could cause great misery if it landed on anyone’s foot.

The winter had damaged some of the structures, but not as much as Arn had feared, and soon the summer would dry out the top joints of the walls. Then the workers would be able to seal them with melted lead, just as Brother Guilbert had suggested. What now needed to be built was the longest expanse of the wall from the harbour to the living quarters and village. It would be an easy task, because there was to be only one tower in the middle, and it was rewarding to see how the work progressed day by day.

The question of which day of rest should be honoured had not yet been successfully resolved, or at least not everyone was satisfied. After long and tedious discussions at more than one majlisat Forsvik, Arn had grown weary of the issue and decided that at Arnäs Sunday should be counted as Friday. On Sundays the faithful couldn’t work anyway, since that would offend those who lived at Arnäs and lead to quarrels about who had the true faith. And those kinds of quarrels were the worst of all.

Since God is the One who sees all and hears all, and is both merciful and beneficent, Arn thought that He would certainly forgive His faithful – who were forced into exile so far away in a foreign land but only for a short period of their lives – if they made Sunday into Friday. After a good deal of brooding and discussion with the physician Ibrahim, who had the most book-learning of any of the Saracen guests, Arn had found certain passages in the Koran to support this arrangement that had been made out of necessity.

The work was monotonous and the days empty of conversation, except when the exchange of words had to do with which of two stones should be hewn to fit best with the one next to it. Even though all the stones were nearly the same when they came from the quarry at Kinnekulle, most had to be trimmed and altered slightly in order to fit together as tightly as possible, the way both Arn and the Saracen builders required.