Free The Road To Jerusalem by Jan Guillou Page A

dressed and slip out into the dark. Like little elves they passed two men who stood puking outside the door. They sneaked nimbly into the hall and sat down near the door in the dark where no one would see them; Arn found a big pelt, which he carefully pulled over them both, revealing only their blond bangs and wide eyes. They sat there quiet as mice, with all their attention focused on Sigurd Jorsalafar’s heroic deeds.

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    Despite the fact that a dozen men stumbled past Arn and Knut, and some even tripped over them on their way out or in, nobody discovered the boys hiding like grouse chicks in the forest at night. They listened, rapt and wide-eyed, as the bard sang of Sigurd Jorsalafar’s triumph at Sidon, repeating the verses that the men, whose applause was growing increasingly thunderous, demanded.

    Sigurd won

    at Sidon, men remember this.

Weapons were wielded fiercely

in the heated battle.

With might the warriors crushed

the stubborn army’s fortress.

Beautiful swords were colored with

blood when the prince prevailed.

    The applause from the hall went on and on, followed by the buzz of voices as everyone began talking at once, about the great deeds in olden times, and the kings of their own time who were like Sverker Limp-Cock and not Sigurd Jorsalafar. Magnus attempted a witty joke that it was different with Norsemen, since he himself was of Norwegian lineage. But nobody thought it was a good joke, least of all Erik Jedvardsson, who now stood up holding the old drinking horn they had placed before him—a Norwegian drinking horn at that, although he was probably unaware of it. And he drank with manly vigor, draining it to the bottom without taking the horn from his lips. Then he ex plained that he had just seen before him, as if in a vision, the new coat of arms that would be his and that of the whole realm. There would be three golden crowns: one crown for Svealand, one for Eastern Gotaland, and one for Western Gotaland. The three crowns would be set against a field the color of the sky. This, he now swore, would become in the future the new coat of arms for him and the entire kingdom.
    The hall seethed with excited applause. But Erik Jedvardsson wanted to say more. At the same time he had to piss, and since he wanted to do both equally urgently, he announced in a loud, slurred voice on the way out the door that each and every one who followed him in the future would be assured of reaping honor during the crusade. Perhaps going only so far as to the Finns on the other side of the Eastern Sea on the first venture, but then, after the Finns were converted, perhaps our men needed to gain a foothold in the Holy Land as well.

    When he reached the door he didn’t bother to go outside across the high threshold; staggering, he leaned against the doorjamb for support and relieved himself right where he stood.

    He never noticed that he was pissing on Arn and his own son Knut. And they in turn could do nothing but huddle together and suffer in silence. Neither of the boys would ever forget it.

    Especially since they had now been pissed on by a man who would become a saint as well as king.

Chapter 3

    The winter held Arnas in an iron grip. All roads to the south had been impassable since the eighth day of Christmas, and even though the ice on Lake Vanern was thick enough to cross, at least with wide-runnered sleighs, right now there was no great reason to take the trouble. What Magnus wanted to sell over there, toward Lodose, would bring double the price toward the end of winter when supplies began running low in many storehouses. At Arnas the work went on as usual in the cooperages, the slaughterhouses, and the salting houses, as it did in the women’s workshops where they prepared wool and linen and wove both thick cloth and tapestries to the delight of both man and God.

    For the boys Eskil and Arn, the hard winter was a wonderful time. Their teacher and lay brother Erlend from Varnhem had returned to the