by John Gardner
He looked down at Erik’s face, to see if he’d spoken it aloud, as he imagined. His son, in alarm, looked up at him, as if he thought his father had gone mad.
“Very well,” Lars-Goren said, and nodded.
His son met his eyes, but his face now showed nothing, as blank as the face of the knight staring straight into the sun.
8.
ON THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DAY he was scheduled to leave, Lars-Goren sat at the fireplace with his family, Andrea on his knee, Gunnar on the bench beside him. Pia sat across from him, on the bench beside her mother. Erik moved restlessly in the shadows behind them, as if the room were too small to contain his ambition and desire. Lars-Goren was talking of his visits, as a child, to Lappland.
“Strange people,” he said, “if one can really call them people.” He felt embarrassed and disloyal and quickly made an effort to explain. “They’re people, of course,” he said, “as human as any of us. They love their children, love their incredible white country and their reindeer. The Lapps work and play like the rest of us, and they’re religious, just as we are. That’s not what I meant.”
He explained, as well as he could, what he meant. His wife gazed into the fire, half smiling, her hand on Pia’s arm. Perhaps the reindeer were the secret, he said. The reindeer gave the Lapplanders everything they had—food, clothes, shelter, love-tokens, even the devices of their religion. In Lappland nothing grew but what was food for reindeer, so the Lapps ate virtually nothing but the reindeer themselves, blood and meat and the marrow of their bones. For houses and sleds they used reindeer bones, horns, and hides. Perhaps for that reason after all these years the minds of the Lapps had come to be partly reindeer minds, preternaturally alert to every change in the wind, alert to mysteries no ordinary human being could grasp.
But that too, he realized, was not exactly what he meant.
“It’s something about the simplicity,” he said, “the absolute simplicity of the landscape, the light, the inescapable concern with necessities, nothing more.”
Lars-Goren fell silent, staring into the fire. Here too, in Hälsingland, life was simple, he thought; or simple enough. His daughters would grow up and marry neighboring lords, his sons would take care of his villages and lands, oversee the planting and harvesting, building and razing.
Now his son Erik came to the glow of the fireplace and, after a moment, sat down on the floor beside Gunnar.
Pia said, “I wish you could stay with us, Pappa.”
Lars-Goren looked at her, then at his wife. “I wish I could too,” he said. “Soon, perhaps.”
Now he was thinking again of the Devil, how on the night he’d sought them out he’d told Gustav his infinitely complicated schemes, and how Gustav had listened in secret fascination, fitting his plans into the Devil’s complexity. He saw the jumble of bodies on Sodermalm’s pyres, the clutter of leaflets blown like leaves through Stockholm’s streets, after Gustav seized the Lutherans’ printing press and made it his voice.
“Are you all right, Lars-Goren?” his wife asked.
Only now did he realize that he’d covered his eyes with his hand. “I’m fine,” he said.
“We should all go to bed,” she said, but without full conviction.
“Not yet,” he said.
For another half-hour they sat staring into the fire, six glowing shapes like one. At last his wife rose and came to touch his shoulder. He nodded, took her hand, and stood up, lifting Andrea and carrying her, asleep, on one arm.
When Lars-Goren looked in on him, saying goodnight, his son Erik said, “Father?”
Lars-Goren waited, standing beside the bed.
After a moment, Erik said, “The trouble is, it’s not possible to be like the Lapps.” His head was raised slightly from the pillow.
Lars-Goren put his hand on the boy’s white shoulder. “No, I know,” he said. He leaned down and kissed the boy’s forehead. Then he went to his wife.
“I must think about this queer streak of fear,” he thought, for it was creeping up on him again, he found, now that he was going back. “If I’m not afraid of death and I’m not afraid of hell—” But he could push the thought no further. To the marrow of his bones he was a reasonable man, yet here, real as life in his mind’s eye, was this saurian being with the goatish smell, this idiot god, by all evidence, who could make him tremble where he lay.
“Suppose the world makes no sense,” he thought, “no sense whatsoever. Suppose good is evil and evil is good, or that nothing is either good or evil.” It was a thought that should have alarmed him, he told himself, but though he played with the idea, trying to feel alarm, he saw that the more he played with it, the more he felt nothing whatsoever. “Perhaps it’s this that makes a monster like Bishop Brask,” he thought. He concentrated on the idea of Bishop Brask, cut off from heaven by boredom and despair, a man who no longer had feeling for anything except, perhaps, style. He, Lars-Goren, could become a man like that. Surely, that was evil, that should make him tremble! But he felt no slightest tingle of alarm.
Beside him, lying on her back, his wife asked softly, “Lars-Goren, what are you thinking?”
“Shall I tell you the truth?” he asked.
When she said nothing, he said, “I’m afraid of the Devil.” He told her what had happened, and how he’d felt an overwhelming, senseless terror.
She rolled over in the darkness and put her bare, soft arms around him. “Perhaps it’s only rage,” she said, and kissed his cheek.
“Rage at what?” he asked, drawing back a little. “Do I seem to you a man of senseless rages? Rage at what?”
“Just rage,” she said. “Is it so terrible to feel rage for no reason?”
The thought was comforting. Instantly, he began to think of reasons for his senseless rage.
PART FOUR
1.
LONG BEFORE HE CAME to the dales of Dalarna, Lars-Goren heard rumors of the trouble there. The Devil was everywhere, gleefully whispering into the miners’ ears. Sometimes he was seen at public meetings, ranting in the torchlight in the shape of a hunchbacked country priest or a twisted old copper hauler. Sometimes he appeared in the darkness of the mines themselves, dropping insinuations about Gustav’s ways.
As soon as he arrived, Lars-Goren sought out the cheerful little German who’d done the hiring when Lars-Goren and Gustav had come here first. He was now much risen in the world, part-owner of the mine.
“Iss a sad bissness,” the German said, shaking his head, smiling brightly. “But vat you going to tell dem, dese miserable people?” He winked merrily and offered Lars-Goren a beer.
At the meeting that night, there was no trace of the careful order that had before been so conspicuous. They shouted one another down, sometimes threw things. Scuffles broke out here and there in the crowd, and gradually it came to Lars-Goren that Germans were as rare here tonight as Danes had been the last time he’d visited. No wonder, for the talk was all of foreigners, and how Gustav’s government had no Swedes in it, to speak of—only Germans, Russians, and Danes.
Suddenly his back turned to ice and he realized that the man at his side was the Devil.
“Well, well, Lars-Goren!” said the Devil, in a voice like an old woman’s. “How things change, from time to time! But have no fear, my friend, don’t be fooled by appearances! I’m as much on your side as I ever was!” Torchlight glittered on his corpse-pale skin and on his mouth, where there were droplets of blood.
“I’m sure that’s true,” said Lars-Goren, just audibly. “I’m sure you’ve never changed sides.” He began to back away.
The Devil’s head shot forward, grinning. “Don’t fool with me, Lars-Goren,” he whispered, “for the sake of your children!”
Blindly, crazily, Lars-Goren began to run. The Devil was right beside him, like a floating fire. Lars-Goren ran so hard he thought his heart would burst but still the Devil was at his elbow. “Christ save me!” Lars-Goren shouted. Suddenly it was dark. He was lying in his bed in Stockholm fortress.
2.
“AH, AH!,” SIGHED GUSTAV, pacing before the window, pulling at his knuckles. He looked fifteen years older but tougher, leaner, more leathery than ever. His beard was like a wild man’s, glittering in the sunlight his eyes, for all his troubles, seemed filled with some crazy joy. Abruptly, he came bounding toward Lars-Goren’s chair. “Anyway, now you’re back,” he said, seizing Lars-Goren’s shoulders, “you can shatter all my plans with good advice!”
Lars-Goren closed his eyes.
“Here now!” Gustav shouted. Lars-Goren opened his eves again. “Here now, my dear friend and kinsman! No napping!” He snapped his fingers. His eyes, peering into Lars-Goren’s, went suddenly unsure, then evasive, looking past Lars-Goren’s ear. “Very well!” he said, and turned away as if angrily, storming back toward the window, into the light. He clasped his hands behind his back and nodded, then laughed. “How simple it all seemed to us when we were poor young idealist fools!”
Lars-Goren for a moment put his hands over his eyes.
“Ah, ah, ah!” groaned King Gustav in sudden agony. He stretched out one arm and clenched the fist. “I meant to make Sweden magnificent,” he said. “I knew what to do, how the government should run, how it could benefit the people.” He jerked his head around and stared at Lars-Goren, sunlight behind his head so that Lars-Goren saw only the outline, like a burn. “But it hasn’t been so easy to put Sweden on her legs! Not so easy, believe me! I was called to rule a country shattered and disorganized by political uncertainty, exhausted by her war of liberation, also bankrupt. And who was to help me with the heavy work of government, from the highest ministerial positions to the work of local sheriffs? All our best people had perished in the bloodbath of Stockholm—not just people who knew the ropes, I don’t ask that; I mean people with the simplest kinds of skills, such as reading and writing! Just reading and writing! Is that so much to ask? But there was no one—anyway, no one Swedish, no one I could trust. In such a case, you take your ministers where you find them!” Again Gustav laughed. Smiling, more sour than the Devil, he raised his left hand, fingers spread, to count on them with his right index finger. “My first chancellor is none other than Erik Svensson, toady to King Kristian of Denmark—a double-dealing Swede who’s already changed sides twice! My second minister is Master Lars Andreae, one of the men who gave the verdict that led to the bloodbath. Ha! My archbishop of Uppsala, Johannes Magnus, is another of the same, even fouler than Master Lars. And then there’s that cabbage-eater Berend von Melen, Kristian’s former general, now husband to my cousin, God help me, and illegally (between you and me) made a member of the råd. There’s the cabbage-eater count John of Hoya, married to my sister—God help me again!—to whom I’ve given, again illegally, the castle and the fief of Stegeborg. I’ve even made overtures to that bitch Gustav Trolle. I say ‘bitch’ of course only because he’s dared to turn me down. My peasants—the poor devils who died for all this—and especially the peasants of Dalarna, God knows—they don’t altogether understand these things.”
King Gustav stopped, legs wide apart, before Lars-Goren’s chair, and smiled as if with satisfaction, his eyelids trembling. “But all that’s nothing,” he said. “Take the matter of taxes. Most of Sweden’s paid no taxes since long before Sten Sture’s rebellion. Poor bastards, they have little enough to give, God knows—and they’re the very same people whose sons I saw butchered in the war. Nonetheless, what am I to do about my loans from Lübeck, eh? What am I to do about piracy, or repairing the fortresses and docks we blew up? What am I to do about the crippled and the starving? Eh?
“Starvation, that’s another thing!” King Gustav clapped his hands. “Whether or not it’s the work of my old friend the Devil, ever since the day I took the crown we’ve been having the most incredible bawl of bad weather! The peasants are down to eating barkbread. They’re calling me ‘King Bark’—it’s a fact! No doubt they’re right; if I were a proper king I’d raise my hands against the snow and the snow would turn away and say ‘Excuse me, sire!’ I’d sing out for rain and the rain would come in gushes. ‘Oh, yer welcome, sire!’ But I’m the only king they’ve got, as they know, or rather as they should know. They don’t. No, they don’t, not at all. That’s another of my troubles.”
He was standing bent toward Lars-Goren’s chair, his hands on his knees, his bearded face thrust forward. “Kristina Gyllenstierna’s on the move—Sten Sture’s widow. She’s sending out letters for help in all directions—no doubt you’ve heard. She’s even written to the king of the pirates, Sören Norby. On which subject more later. Also she has her various old friends, like Bishop Brask. They’ve found plenty to work with, no lack of grievances to nurse: the dearness of the times, the lack of salt, the no-good coin—I’ve been minting pure cowshit, I readily admit it. I’ve analyzed the riches of Sweden, and that’s our best product. Where was I? Ah yes—the grievances. They say I’m plundering the True Holy Church—which I am, so I am. They also say I’ve murdered dear Kristina’s son, someone named Nils—which is an absolute lie; I think so; to the best of my knowledge pure slander.” King Gustav smiled. “So you see, beloved kinsman, I could use a little clever advice.”
Lars-Goren sat perfectly still, dizzy.
“I know,” said Gustav, wheeling away, throwing out his hands to each side, furious, “no doubt it all seems simple to a man like you! You haven’t heard the half of it.”
At that moment Berend von Melen broke in on them.
3.
“FORGIVE ME, YOUR HIGHNESS,” cried von Melen, thumping his chest with his right hand, “I was told you were alone!”
“No reason you should doubt what you’re told,” said Gustav, turning from Lars-Goren angrily. “Everyone in Sweden believes whatever stupid foolishness he’s told.”
“My dear King Gustav!” said von Melen, stiffening, pretending to be insulted beyond measure. Now his arms were at his sides, his right boot thrown forward, the toe cocked out—the stance, it seemed to Lars-Goren, of a comic dancer. He was balding, cleanshaven except for a small jut of beard like an Egyptians. His shoulders were narrow, his belly like a globe below his hollow chest. Except for the pomp of his beribboned chest and the stiffness of his posture, no one would have thought him a military man, but he was said to be an excellent fencer.
“Never mind, never mind,” said Gustav wearily. “I snarl to keep in practice. You’ve met my friend and kinsman Lars-Goren?”
Von Melen bowed deeply, like a performer. He made an effort to seem unimpressed by Lars-Goren’s great size and breadth, but even in the middle of his sweeping bow, von Melen kept his eyes on the knight. Lars-Goren half rose from his chair, nodding back, then sat down again.
“So tell me, what wonderful news have you brought me?” asked Gustav.
“Not news, exactly—” von Melen began, glancing at Lars-Goren.
“I thought not.” King Gustav waved his hand. “Go on.”
Von Melen clasped his hands behind his back and stood cocked forward, head tipped, eyes narrowed to slits. “It’s a delicate matter,” he said cautiously.
Again Gustav waved, this time impatiently. “Delicate matters are Lars-Goren’s specialty. You may speak out as freely as you like.”
“Very well,” said von Melen, and began again. “As you’re well aware, you’ve received great benefits from the remains of the party of Sten Sture.” He waited for acknowledgement from Gustav. None came. Von Melen cleared his throat, professorial, and continued: “These benefits you haven’t always been diligent to repay. I might mention, for example, Sten Sture’s chief chancellor and factotum, Bishop Sunnanväder. What have you done for this man who was once the most powerful lord in all Sweden, a prince of the Church, and a man on whom your election very heavily depended? You invite him to celebrate High Mass on your entry into Stockholm, and you toss him the bishopric of Västerås—a crumb! Or again I might mention Knut Mickilsson, dean of Västerås—another who took a prominent part in securing your election. Again and again you
’ve passed over him as if he’d died in the bloodbath.”
“That’s a pity, yes,” said Gustav ambiguously.
Abruptly, like an actor at his important moment, von Melen drew a paper from the pocket of his coat. “Let me read you what they’re saying in Dalarna these days.” He adjusted his spectacles, held up the paper, and read. “‘All those who faithfully served the lords and realm of Sweden, Gustav has hated and persecuted, while all traitors to the realm, and all who abetted the country’s cruel foe King Kristian, and who betrayed Herr Sten and all Swedish men, these he has favored.’” Crisply, he lowered the paper, then folded it and put it in his coat.
“You’re not going to leave me the paper?” Gustav asked.
“Surely, if you like.” Von Melen got it out again and handed it to Gustav. “There are thousands more just like it. As you see, they’ve copied your use of the printing press.”
“Yes, naturally. They’re slow, but they learn.” Gustav glanced at the paper, then carelessly stuffed it in his pocket. “So, von Melen, what is it precisely that you’re after, generously bringing up the names of these nincompoops who’d turn on me in an instant if Fredrik should release Kristina Gyllenstierna?”
Berend von Melen smiled with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. When he thought the expression had made its effect, he said, “I of course come to you as your friend and now cousin by marriage. Also, of course, I have some very slight concern about myself. That letter against foreigners—that filth so typical of the Dalarna mentality—has dark implications. It places Sten Sture and his party on one side, and on the other side you and all of us who have so loyally served your country though not in fact born here. If Kristina should be released, as Fredrik threatens, and the peasants and burghers should join in league with the remains of the party of Sten Sture—the ‘international magnates,’ as you call them …”
