Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck

hearing was under way, he changed his mind and closed it down.”
    The priest wondered about the relationship between the bishop and the former priest. One severe, the other mild-mannered. Yet when it came to Blackåsen, they both appeared to have behaved counter to nature.
    He wasn’t certain what the bishop wanted him to do. The widow changed position. The skin on her neck was a bluish white. Almost a year had passed since her husband’s death, and still she was here.
    “Anvar was an old man,” she said with a rapid smile. “His methods were sometimes … archaic. But in similar circumstances he would have worried about hysteria spreading. About people blaming the Devil, the curse, engaging in old superstitions to protect themselves.”
    “And he would have done …?”
    “He would have called for parish meetings. Or an extra sermon. He would have aimed to restore order.”
    The priest nodded. She was right. Calm was vital. God telling the subjects to fear Him, their ruler, and nothing else.
    They both lifted their cups to drink at the same time. The beverage tasted of summer blossoms.
    “I understand you were at the court?” the widow asked and sent the priest back to the battlefield at once. He put his cup down.
    “I was a priest there.”
    “Have you met the King?”
    “Of course.”
    “What is he like?”
    The priest pictured him now: the King galloping in the lead on a horse drenched with sweat, throwing himself off withoutwarning—Was he all right?—rolling around, his rapier, still in its sheath, thrust forward. The horse next after his, stumbling. Falling. Breaking its neck. Total silence. Its rider rising from the dust. The King slapping his back a few times. “Now you attack me.”
    Later that evening their King, dancing with one of the many eager women—some princess or duchess or other—coolness so palpable that watching him chilled your heart.
    Vicarius Dei.
    “God. God’s representative on earth,” he said, and ached. “He has this habit. He twists your coat button around when he speaks with you until it comes off in his hand.”
    Then walks off with it like some prize, he thought.
    “How amusing,” she said.
    The priest rose.
    “There is another matter,” the widow said and made him sit down again. “It seems like Lena Rolfsdotter, the night man’s daughter, has started a relationship with my farm hand Joel.”
    He couldn’t help but sigh. She nodded.
    “But in this region the harsher you are seen to be, the better. Order,” she reminded him, and squeezed her lips into a decisive line.
    Yes, order.
    Before he left, the widow decided to tell him. “Just before he died, my husband visited Blackåsen. When he came back, he was unlike himself. He was …”
    She shook her head. “When I asked him, he said that he had never before come across such evil as on that journey. It was as if he were shocked.”
    The light in the vicarage flickered.
    “Did it have to do with the curse?” The priest surprised himself by asking.
    “No, I think he was talking about a person. Anvar told me most things, but he was perturbed. And the next day, as he was aboutto mend the barn roof, he fell off the ladder. I didn’t get another chance to ask him.”
    The priest walked from one window to the other in the temporary vicarage and looked out at the bright squares of other windows. He realized that to anyone else who did the same, he must appear like an animal pacing in its cage. He sat down.
    The first time he met the King had been in the field. The army was preparing for the next day’s battle. In the afternoon the priest had an inspiration. Together with the other priests, they made the men stand in formations—squares of thousands—and they sang a psalm. “Wår Gudh är oss en wäldig borg. Han är wår sköld och wärja.”
    Through the corner of his eye he saw the King arrive on his horse, the skirts of his blue jacket, flailing. With him were Stenbock and the Little Prince—legends in