The Road To Jerusalem by Jan Guillou

but Arn’s agility also increased. Finally Eskil, who was the only one who would have dared, began stopping him by slapping him in the face if he came close.

    Then Arn got tired of the game and went off to sulk by himself.

    Magnus found a way to console him. He had a bow and arrows made in the proper size, and then he took Arn aside and began to teach him to shoot. It wasn’t long before Eskil came trudging over to them, wanting to shoot too. But to his dismay he found that his younger brother always shot better than he did, and soon another quarrel erupted between the brothers. Magnus of course intervened and decided that if they were going to squabble like this, the boys could shoot only when he was present. In this way their games were suddenly transformed into studies, almost like sitting and printing words or reading incomprehensible texts about the elements and categories of philosophy. And so the pleasure was lost, at least for Eskil, who was always defeated by both his father and little brother.

    But what Magnus had witnessed of his sons made him think. Eskil was like all other boys in the way he moved and shot a bow and arrow, just as Magnus had been when he was a boy. But Arn had something inside him that other boys didn’t have, an ability that had to be God-given. What might come of it no one could say for sure, but the boy’s talent was remarkable.

    Magnus spoke with Sigrid about this on several light spring nights, after the boys had gone to bed. It was taken for granted that Eskil would inherit Arnas; that was God’s will since Eskil was the firstborn son. Eskil would manage the estate and their trade. But what did God have in mind for Arn?

    Sigrid agreed that it looked as though God intended a warrior’s training for Arn, but she was not entirely sure that she liked that explanation, no matter how obvious it might seem. And inside she felt guilt nagging at her because she had promised God—in a moment when tears were streaming down and her mind was racked with despair, to be sure—but she had still promised Him that Arn’s life would be dedicated to God’s work on earth.

    She hadn’t spoken with Magnus about this matter; it seemed as though the promise was something that Magnus had wiped from his memory, although he must remember it as well as Sigrid did. And he was a man who prided himself on always keeping his word. But right now Magnus envisioned his son’s future as a mighty warrior in the foremost phalanx of the clan, and that image certainly gave him more joy than the thought of Arn as a bishop in Skara or the prior of some cloister. That’s how men thought. This did not surprise Sigrid.

    But soon God sent a severe reminder of His will. It began as a slightly annoying cut on Sigrid’s hand, which as far as she could recall came from a splinter of wood in one of the livestock buildings when an unruly heifer shoved her and she had to grab hold of the wall so as not to fall into the muck. The wound would not heal; it swelled and began to grow more and more foul.

    And one morning Magnus noticed something odd on her face. When she went to a tub of water and looked at her reflection, she saw a new sore like the one she had on her hand, and when she touched it she found that it was full of pus and mucus.

    After that her illness quickly grew worse. The sore on her face spread, and soon she could no longer see out of the eye closest to it. The spot began to itch fiercely and she often had to rub it. She began hiding her face, and she offered up fervent prayers every dawn, midday, and evening. But nothing seemed to help. Her husband and the boys began looking at her with alarm.

    When lay brother Erlend came riding back from Varnhem he was full of news both good and bad. The good news, which he related first, was that the report about the miracle at Arnas had been welcomed so heartily at Varnhem that it had now been printed on real parchment in manuscript lettering in the cloister’s