The two boys who were going to show Sigge and Orm around were named Luke and Toke, and both had hair cropped as closely as Sigge did, which was a normal way to cut thrall children’s hair because of the lice. So Sigge took it for granted that the other two weren’t free, and that he was superior; he tried to order them to stop staring and instead do as they were told. The one who looked older and stronger told him at once to shut up and remember that he was new at Forsvik and should refrain from putting on airs.

So at first there was little conversation among the four boys as the two Forsvikers began showing the others what there was to see. They started at the smithies; there were three of them located next to one another, but the boys were soon admonished not to get in the way. They continued through the glassworks, where small drinking glasses in shimmering blue and bright red stood in long rows; the older masters had four or five apprentices each. Inside a thundering furnace the glass lay like a big glowing loaf of dough; the masters and apprentices stuck in long pipes, caught up a piece of the dough and began rolling the pipe round and round as they ran over to wooden forms that they wetted with water before they began to blow and turn at the same time. It looked like very hard work, but the great quantity of finished glasses that stood on shelves around the walls showed that they must be very successful in their work. The heat soon drove the boys onward to the saddlery, where men were working with both saddle tack and many other items in leather; then to the weaving rooms where there were mostly women of all ages; to the cooperage; and to two other workshops where the work seemed similar to that of making arrows, but everyone was working with crossbows under the guidance of two foreign masters whose language was impossible to understand.

Sigge and Orm’s eyes were so big that it made the other two boys more kindly disposed toward them, and when they headed over to look at the stables and practice halls for the warriors, Luke and Toke became more talkative. Luke said that he and his brother were freed as children, since they had been born as thralls at Forsvik. Now there were no thralls here any longer. Nor was the land at Forsvik used for anything other than pasture for winter fodder for horses and livestock. So a great deal in their lives had changed, more than just being given freedom. If everything had been as it was before, most would have grown up working the land. Instead all young people now were allowed to be apprentices in the workshops, which was like Heaven compared with toiling their whole lives out in the fields.

The two big stables were almost empty because most of the horses were kept outside as long as there was forage. But here and there a horse stood and stared at them suspiciously as they passed by, and saddles and weapons hung along the walls in long rows. Those were the weapons of the young noblemen, and nobody from the workshops was allowed to touch them.

The young nobles came from Folkung estates near and far and trained for five years. Each year new ones arrived, small and nervous, and in later years a number of them went home, self-confident and mortally dangerous with lance or sword. The young nobles also had their own longhouse, the largest at Forsvik. Ordinary folk were not allowed inside, but Toke said that there were more than sixty beds.

Next to the young nobles’ longhouse stood the foreigners’ house, and there it was not advisable to enter either. And beyond the foreigners’ house stood Sir Arn’s and Fru Cecilia’s own house. Outside it grew a whole little forest of white and red roses grew, and below the house on the slope toward Bottensjön stood rows of apple trees. The fruit would soon be harvested, and the gardens were full of all sorts of root vegetables and herbs.

The tour concluded where it began with the arrow-making workshop, and Sigge and Orm had to learn the first simple job, to bore holes in the arrow shafts where the points would be fastened, using tools they had never seen before. Luke told them that they had now made more than ten thousand arrows at Forsvik, and most of them had been sent to Arnäs in great casks with a hundred arrows in each. Every day at least thirty new arrows were produced at Forsvik.

With the two new apprentices in the arrow workshop the tasks were reassigned so that Sigge and Orm were occupied only with the simple work of boring holes for the points. Luke and Toke then fastened the points in place and wound them with linen thread which they dipped in tar. Then the arrows were sent on to the two foreigners who worked with the most difficult task, putting on the fletches.

This was not the way Sigge and Orm had dreamed of their new life with Sir Arn at Forsvik. But they could sense that it would not be a good idea to tell Luke and Toke that they intended to be apprenticed among the young nobles.

But when Orm, who till then had been too shy to say almost anything at all, let slip a few words about his dreams at the late supper of bread and soup, he was mocked by all the workers at the table. Only Folkungs went into apprenticeship to be warriors, not freedmen with names like Sigge, Toke, Luke, or Orm. With a name like that a boy never got beyond the workshops.

Sigge clenched his teeth and said nothing. He had received a promise from Sir Arn himself, and he intended to remind him of it as soon as he got the chance.

Arn rode for the first time with a squadron of retainers from the funeral ale at Varnhem to Arnäs. Sixteen men including Sune, Sigfrid, and Torgils Eskilsson had accompanied Cecilia on the alternate route down to Varnhem, along the shore of Lake Vättern.

The young retainers from Forsvik had drawn many curious looks at Varnhem; only the three eldest had reached the age of eighteen. Their horses were not saddled and equipped like those of others; their flanks and chests were covered with cloth in the Folkung colours. A few people had stepped forward to look at the stout black leather straps running beneath the cloth; they also pinched here and there and found that beneath a thin layer with the Folkung colours was a thick layer with chain mail sewn in as protection from arrows. The fact that only three of the retainers had reached the age of grown men also seemed odd, but even the very young in Arn Magnusson’s retinue carried their weapons with great self-confidence, and they rode like few men in Western Götaland could ride.

Arn realized that with this unavoidable display he had opened up a new reservoir in the flood of rumours about what was going on at Forsvik. But he hadn’t wanted to call Cecilia to the king’s funeral without providing her with the protection on the road that honour demanded.

In a single day they had ridden from Varnhem up to Arnäs without straining themselves or the horses very much. As usual, Cecilia was using a regular saddle with a foot in each stirrup. Riding her own Umm Anaza she had no difficulty keeping up with the group of young squires.

They did not stop in Skara because they had brought no carts to carry any purchases. All their baggage was tied up in saddlebags on two extra pack horses. Outside Skara the road was swarming with peasants on their way in and out of town with their carts since it was market day, and the blue column drew much attention and astonished glances as it thundered past. There was an ominous, secret power about these riders, and everybody could sense it. They could see that these horsemen represented a growing Folkung power. But whether it was a good or bad power, whether it was protection for the peace or a portent of war, no one could tell.

They took the road over Kinnekulle to visit stonemaster Marcellus, who was now working at the quarry on the adornments for the new church in Forshem. He already had many sculptures ready, one that roused the admiration of all, and one that made Arn blush and stammer in a way that no one had seen before.