The Templar Knight

by Jan Guillou

  The twilight descended fast as she stood there watching. Gradually the stifled sounds of desire ceased and Sister Leonore climbed off Brother Lucien and lay down beside him. As they held and caressed each other, Cecilia Rosa saw that Sister Leonore’s clothes were in such disarray that her breasts were sticking out, and she let Brother Lucien play with them and stroke them as he lay on his back, breathing hard.

  Cecilia Rosa could not bring herself to condemn these two, because what she saw looked more like love than the odious sin that all the rules described. As she crept away, careful to place her feet so that she would not be heard, she wondered if she were now part of the sin because she did not condemn it. But that night she prayed for a long time to Our Lady, who as far as Cecilia Rosa knew was the one who could help lovers more than anyone else. She prayed mostly for protection for her beloved Arn, but she also prayed a bit for the forgiveness of the sin committed by Sister Leonore and Brother Lucien.

  That entire autumn Cecilia Rosa kept her secret without betraying a word of it even to Ulvhilde Emundsdotter. And when winter came, all the gardening work was put aside and Brother Lucien could no longer come to Gudhem on business until spring was at hand.

  During the wintertime Sister Leonore worked mostly with Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde in the vestiarium, for there was much that needed to be woven, dyed, and embroidered. Cecilia Rosa often watched Sister Leonore secretly. She imagined she saw a woman who had a light inside her that was so strong that not even the black shadow of Mother Rikissa could weaken it. Sister Leonore was almost always smiling, and she hummed hymns as she worked. It was as if her sin made her both brighter in her soul and more beautiful because her eyes were so radiant.

  One day Cecilia Rosa and Sister Leonore were alone in the vestiarium at the beginning of Lent, when work was not obligatory as usual and only those who wished to do so worked late into the evening. They were dyeing red cloth together, a process that went quickly and surely with the two of them helping each other. Then Cecilia Rosa couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “Don’t be afraid, sister, because of what I now tell you,” Cecilia Rosa began without really understanding where her words came from and why she now felt the need to speak. “But I know the secret that you and Brother Lucien share, because I saw you once in the apple orchard. And if I saw you, then someone else could see you too and draw the same conclusion. Then you would both be in deep trouble.”

  Sister Leonore blanched and put aside her work, sat down and covered her face with her hands. She sat for a long while before she dared look at Cecilia Rosa, who had also sat down.

  “You’re not thinking of betraying us, are you?” whispered Sister Leonore at last, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible.

  “No, sister, I certainly am not!” replied Cecilia Rosa, offended. “I’m sure you know that I am here at Gudhem for punishment and penance, because out of love I committed a sin like yours. I will never betray you, but I want to warn you. Sooner or later you two will be discovered by someone who will tell Mother Rikissa, or in the worst case Mother Rikissa herself will see you. You know as well as I do what an evil woman she is.”

  “I believe that the Holy Virgin Mary has forgiven us and will protect us,” said Sister Leonore after a while. But she was looking down at the floor as if she were not at all sure of her words.

  “You have promised Her to remain chaste. How can you so easily believe that She will forgive your broken promise?” Cecilia Rosa wondered, more bewildered than offended by the sinful thoughts which Sister Leonore so shamelessly displayed.

  “Because She has protected us. No one but you, who wishes us well, has seen us and understood. Because love is a precious gift, and more than anything else it makes life worth living!” said Sister Leonore in a louder voice as if in defiance, as if she were no longer afraid that the wrong ears might hear her.

  Cecilia Rosa was dumbstruck. She felt as though she were suddenly up in a high tower, looking out over vast expanses that she had only imagined could exist, but at the same time she felt the terror of losing her footing and falling. The idea that a sister consecrated to the Holy Bridegroom would betray her vows was a thought she never could have entertained. Her own sin, doing exactly what Sister Leonore had done, but doing it with her own betrothed and not with a monk who had also taken the vows, was a small sin in comparison. But it was obviously still a sin. Love was a gift from God; there was proof of that in the Holy Scriptures. The difficult thing to understand was how love could at the same time be one of the worst of sins.

  Cecilia Rosa now recalled a story which she decided to tell Sister Leonore, at first a bit hesitantly, as she searched her memory.

  It was about a maiden named Gudrun who was forced to agree to a bridal ale with an old man whom she loathed. But she loved a young man named Gunnar, and these two young people who loved each other never gave up the hope that they might marry. Their prayers eventually moved Our Lady so much that She sent them a wondrous salvation, and it was reported that they were living happily together to this day.

  Sister Leonore had also heard that story, because it was well known at Varnhem, and Brother Lucien dwelled on it often. The salvation offered by Our Lady had put a little monk boy from Varnhem in the way of evil men. This monk boy had inadvertently and without blame killed the old man who was to have drunk the bridal ale with the maiden Gudrun. So in the presence of God’s love, and with a belief in this love that never failed, all sins could be diminished. Even a killing could become no sin at all if Our Lady had mercy on lovers who beseeched Her for support.

  It was a very lovely story as far as it went. But Cecilia Rosa now objected that it was still not that easy to understand. Because the monk boy whom Our Lady sent to the young lovers’ rescue was Arn Magnusson. And not long afterward, he had been sentenced harshly for the sake of his own love, just as Cecilia Rosa had suffered from that same harsh judgment. For almost ten years now she had been brooding over the meaning of Our Lady’s response, though without being any the wiser.

  Now Sister Leonore was struck mute. She had never imagined that Cecilia Rosa was the betrothed of this Arn, for Brother Lucien had not told her this sad part of the story. Naturally he had mentioned that the little monk boy in time became a mighty warrior in God’s army in the Holy Land. But he had viewed it only as a great and good thing, as though Our Lady had turned even this to a benevolent outcome. He had never told her what a high price love might have had to pay, although everything had ended so well for Gudrun and her Gunnar.

  This first conversation, and all the others that followed later whenever they were alone, drew Cecilia Rosa and Sister Leonore closer to each other. And with Sister Leonore’s permission, after Cecilia Rosa assured her that there was no fear of betrayal, she confided everything to Ulvhilde Emundsdotter. Then there were three of them, who could sit together in the vestiarium on late winter nights working so industriously that even Mother Rikissa commended them.

  They discussed the topic of love as if in a never-ending dance. Sister Leonore had once before, when she was the same age as Ulvhilde, been in love, but it had ended unhappily. The man she loved then had, for reasons that had mostly to do with money, been wed before God to an ugly widow whom he did not love at all. Sister Leonore’s father had scolded her for all her sobbing and told her not to take it to heart. Young women, he said, had no understanding in matters to do with marriage. Also, life was not over after the first youthful infatuation.

  Sister Leonore was so convinced that the opposite was true that she had sought out a convent and was eager, after her first year as a novice, to take her vows.

  However, now the Holy Virgin Mary had shown her that love was an act of grace that could be granted to anyone at any time. Possibly Our Lady had also shown that Sister Leonore’s stern father had been right when he spoke of the first infatuation of youth and that it did not mark the end of love.

  They all giggled happily at this last remark as they imagined how astonished her old father wo
uld have been to find out that he’d been right, and in what manner he had been vindicated.

  Both Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde seemed to be drawn into Sister Leonore’s sin through these conversations. When all three of them were together, they would immediately begin talking about their favorite subject. And their cheeks would grow hot and their breathing faster. Such forbidden fruit tasted heavenly, even though all they did was talk.

  For Ulvhilde, what her two friends told her during these secret talks ended up changing her life. She had never believed in love. It was enjoyable to listen to these tales by firelight on cold winter nights, but they had nothing to do with real life. Just as she had never seen a wood nymph, she had never witnessed love.

  She was very young when her father Emund was killed by Knut Eriksson; she was taken away in a sleigh with her mother and her little brothers. Some years later, when she no longer had any clear memory of her father, her mother took a new husband who had been given to her by a jarl in Linköping. Ulvhilde had never seen anything between her mother and this man that made her think of love.

  Ulvhilde had decided that if this was all she had lost in life on the outside, then she might as well stay in the convent forever and take her vows, since a consecrated sister still lived a better life than novice. The only thing that made her doubt the wisdom of spending the rest of her life like this, was the thought of vowing eternal obedience to Mother Rikissa. But she had hoped that a new abbess might come to the convent, or that she might move to one of the cloisters that Birger Brosa was going to build. For as things now stood, Cecilia Rosa would not remain at Gudhem for the rest of her life. They would be separated, and when that day came there would be nothing left for Ulvhilde to hold on to except her love of God.

  The other two were shocked at Ulvhilde’s gloomy view of life. They urged her never to take the vows; she should venerate God and God’s Mother but do it as a free person. Then Ulvhilde countered that she had no life outside the walls because all her kinsmen were dead. Cecilia Rosa refuted her, saying that this was something they could change, that nothing of that sort was impossible as long as they both had a good friend in Queen Cecilia Blanca.

  In her eagerness to persuade Ulvhilde to give up all thoughts of taking the vows, Cecilia Rosa now said things aloud that she had only thought silently before. She admitted that she was probably being selfish, unable to stand the idea of being left once again without a friend at Gudhem. Now that the words had been said she would have to make good her plan and speak to Cecilia Blanca the next time she came to Gudhem.

  For Cecilia Rosa herself, however, there was something else to consider during these conversations. When she was first sentenced to twenty years behind the walls, she was no more than seventeen. At the time, when she then tried to imagine herself at the age of thirty-seven, she had pictured an aged and stooped old woman with none of life’s juices remaining. But Sister Leonore had just turned thirty-seven, and she glowed with strength and youth ever since love had blessed her.

  Cecilia Rosa thought that if she refused to doubt, if she refused to lose hope, then the Holy Virgin Mary might reward her and allow her to glow at the age of thirty-seven just as Sister Leonore did.

  That spring at Gudhem was like no other, either before or since. With the spring Brother Lucien began visiting again. Now there was much to do in the gardens, and it seemed as though Sister Leonore’s need for instruction was inexhaustible. Since Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde also were making more use of things grown in the gardens, it seemed well and proper that they were out tending the crops at the same time as the visiting monk, so that no one would believe that a man was left alone with either a sister or maiden at Gudhem.

  Yet Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde were particularly unsuited for this intended supervision, since they were actually protecting the sinners by standing guard. In this way Sister Leonore and Brother Lucien spent more hours in blissful union than they otherwise would have dared.

  One vexation, however, was that everything they had sewn during the winter had already been sold long before summer arrived. It was good for Gudhem’s silver coffers, but it also forced Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde to spend more time in the vestiarium. Brother Lucien had then explained to Sister Leonore how this problem could be remedied. She in turn told her two friends, for the two maidens never spoke to Brother Lucien themselves. If the goods they fabricated vanished too quickly, that was merely because the price was too low. But if they raised the price, then the goods would stay at Gudhem longer, they could give more attention to their work, and in the long run it would produce more silver.

  This plan sounded like white magic and was hard to understand. But Sister Leonore came back from Brother Lucien with written pages and text that made it clearer. At the same time she told them how he had laughed about the yconomus who worked at Gudhem. According to Brother Lucien it was quite clear that this stray canon from Skara had very little sense of money or bookkeeping, since he couldn’t even keep proper accounts.

  All this talk about bookkeeping, and altering deals with figures and ideas as much as with the work of their hands intrigued Cecilia Rosa. She harped at Sister Leonore for an explanation, and the sister in turn nagged Brother Lucien so that finally he brought the account books from Varnhem and showed them how it would work.

  It was as if a whole new world of utterly different ideas had opened up to Cecilia Rosa, and soon she ventured to take up her ideas with Mother Rikissa, who scoffed at first at all thought of this new plan.

  But in the late spring after the long fast, Queen Cecilia Blanca usually came to visit, and during these visits Mother Rikissa always softened in the spine, if not in her heart. Eventually both parchment and books were ordered from Varnhem, which offered a more than willing Brother Lucien the opportunity to make extra trips. He also obtained Mother Rikissa’s permission to teach accounting to both the yconomus, the runaway canon Jöns, and Cecilia Rosa so as to help them put Gudhem’s affairs into order. The condition was that there would be no direct talking between Cecilia Rosa and Brother Lucien; all communication between them had to go via yconomus Jöns, acting as intermediary. This led to annoying moments, since Cecilia Rosa grasped everything much more quickly than did the unwilling Jöns.

  According to Brother Lucien, whose skill at keeping books was shared by every other brother at Varnhem, the state of Gudhem’s affairs was lamentable. Actually there was no lack of income; that wasn’t the problem. But there was no balance between how much of the income was in silver and how much was in outstanding invoices or in goods already received but not sold. Jöns the yconomus didn’t even know how much silver they had. He said that he usually estimated it by the number of handfuls. If there were more than ten handfuls, he knew from experience that would last a good while without any more coming in, but if there were fewer than five handfuls then they would have to bring in more.

  It also turned out that Gudhem was due rent payments that hadn’t been made in many years because they’d simply been forgotten. In everything that Brother Lucien discussed, Cecilia Rosa was as quick to learn as yconomus Jöns was stubborn and obtuse. He was sure that what had been good enough in the past would be good enough in the future. To such talk Brother Lucien could only shake his head. He said that Gudhem’s income might be almost doubled if they had orderly bookkeeping, and that it was a sin to administer God’s kingdom on earth as badly as it was being done at Gudhem. Such remarks incited Mother Rikissa’s wrath, although she still didn’t know what she would do about the matter.

  That spring, though, Brother Lucien and Sister Leonore had many hours to themselves, so many that it was soon visible in Sister Leonore’s waistline. She understood that now it was only a matter of time before her crime was revealed, and she wept in anguish. Even Brother Lucien’s visits could not console her.

  Cecilia Rosa and Ulvhilde had seen what was going on; the rapid sale of everything they had sewn during the winter, however, gave the three a reason to spend extra time together in the vestiarium. Ceci
lia Rosa then tried to be smart and think like a man without resorting to whining; at least she tried to think the way her friend Cecilia Blanca would have done.

  Soon everyone would know that Sister Leonore was with child. Then she would be excommunicated and cast out of Gudhem. Since a man had to be involved in the sin, Brother Lucien would not escape either.

  The couple ought to flee before they were forced out and excommunicated.

  They would be excommunicated anyway if they fled, Sister Leonore objected.

  Well, better to flee together before that happened. The question was only how to do it. One thing was clear: a runaway nun out on the road would soon be caught, and even sooner if she was traveling with a monk, Cecilia Rosa reasoned.

  They turned the problem over and over; then Sister Leonore talked to Brother Lucien about the matter, and he told her about cities in the south of the kingdom of the Franks where people could obtain asylum. People like themselves, who were believers and devoted to God in everything except what had to do with earthly love. But traveling to the south of France without money and in the clothing of a nun and monk would not be easy.

  The three women could make garments that looked like worldly clothes in the vestiarium. Obtaining silver for the journey was another matter. Cecilia Rosa mentioned that Gudhem’s accounts were in such a shambles that nobody would miss a couple of handfuls of silver.

  But stealing from a cloister was a sin worse than the one Sister Leonore had already committed. She begged in despair that no one should steal for her sake; she would rather go out on the road without a single penning. She thought that such a theft would be a real sin, unlike her love and the fruit that it had produced, which she no longer viewed as a sin at all. If only she could get to the south of France that sin would be dissolved into nothingness. But stealing from the house of the Holy Virgin Mary could never be forgiven.