conduct the smoke would be built into the stone.
He’d offered many objections, and she had answers to all of them. The lack of fire along the floor was not a problem; the stone walls at the end would hold the heat inside the building, keeping it warm even through the night. No, the old vents were not necessary, as the smoke would go straight up the stone chimney above the hearth. And there was no need to worry about winds blowing through the stacked logs, as the cracks would be sealed with flax and tar.
As to his concern that the thralls and animals would have no fire in their part of the house, she patiently explained that by dividing their living quarters into two floors, the heat from the animals would remain downstairs, while upstairs the thralls (and the men) could make comfortable beds of hay.
But then, in response to one of his questions, Sigrid happened to invoke the Norwegian stave churches, which certainly had no lack of dragon patterns, and she seemed to reconsider. On closer reflection she thought she could yield on the matter of the ancestral high seats and their less than Christian ornamentation. And then, quite exhilarated and relieved, Magnus agreed at once that first they had to finish the masonry work on the new longhouse. Since now he had indeed achieved what he wanted.
Of course he had seen through her, and he understood how she managed to push through her will on almost every matter. Sometimes he felt a brief wave of anger flow through his limbs and head at the thought that his wife was acting as though she and not he was the master of Arnäs.
But now, as he unstrung his longbow and shouted at one of the thralls down in the moat to gather up the arrows and return them to their place in the armoury, what he saw was not merely a beautiful sight. It was a very convincing sight.
Below him in the stronghold area, the new longhouse stood with its tarred walls gleaming and its turf roof a luxuriant green. They had converted all the thatched roofs on the buildings to turf roofs with grass, even though reeds could be easily harvested nearby. This was not only for the sake of warmth, but also because a single flaming arrow could transform thatched roofs into huge torches.
At the other end of the courtyard in the stronghold area, under protection of the high section of wall that had been completed, stood a long livestock house. Below him in the tower were stored grain and weapons. Even in its present state, he would now be able to organize the defense of Arnäs in half a day.
If he looked inland, a whole village was cropping up on the other side of the moat. There stood the tannery, stinking along the lakefront beyond the other buildings where ox-hides and skins of marten and ermine were prepared, which brought in so many silver coins in Lödöse. Up toward the fortress the other buildings stood in two rows, livestock stalls and thrall dwellings, stonecutter workshops and smithies, food storehouses, cookhouses, cooperages, and flax-houses. Now there were twice as many thralls and animals as there were only a few years ago.
The latter turn of events was like a miracle and just as hard to understand. He had learned from his father, who had learned from his forefathers as far back as anyone could remember, exactly how many thralls and animals a field could support in relation to its size, so that the estate owner would not be eaten out of house and home.
Now there was a whole swarm down there, twice as many as he should have had by his own reckoning, and yet Arnäs had grown richer and bigger with each month that passed. The forest that had once come right up to the northern moat had now been cut as far away as ten shots with the longbow, which was as far as the eye could clearly see. The forest had become timber, which had been used to construct all the new buildings down there. New fields and pastures now covered the land that had once been forest.
And no matter how many silver coins he had spent on things that could not be made at Arnäs, or those that could only be purchased for silver, such as salt or the services of the woodcarver from Bjälbo who was working on the gates, the quantity of his silver coins still kept growing, as if the coins were able to propagate like animals and thralls inside their oaken chests in the vaults and chambers of the tower.
When King Sverker had started minting coins down in Lödöse two winters ago, he was the only king who had endorsed coinage as legal tender since farther back than anyone could remember, ever since the heathen time. Most tradesmen had been skeptical of the newfangled money and preferred to stay with the old ways, bartering for salt and iron, hides, butter, and furs measured in bushels.
But Sigrid had urged Magnus to adopt the new method right from the start, and to be the first to accept silver for everything. She had argued that in this way he would be helping King Sverker establish a difficult new custom that others were reluctant to accept, and thus the king would remain favourably disposed toward Arnäs.
So at first he had received ten times as much silver for an item as he could get now that everyone else had begun to follow the new ways. By being the first, Magnus had doubled his fortune in a few short years.
When he realized this for the first time, what power now resided in his money cached in the tower – without understanding why, he had felt an urge to chastise her, let her feel the rod, make her know her place as wife. But his anger had quickly abated. Instead, when he saw a whole district teeming with all the life that had been created around Arnäs, he turned to God with a prayer of thanksgiving that God had granted him the wisest wife in the entire land of the Goths. Sigrid was a gift from God, that much was certain and true. And when he was alone under the roof of heaven where only God could hear his thoughts, Magnus acknowledged this without bitterness. After all, it was just he and God – yes, and Sigrid herself, of course – who knew. No man knew of this. They all thought that the flourishing region around Arnäs and the two villages that belonged to Arnäs down toward Forshem were his work and none other’s. They all believed that he was a great man, a man to reckon with, a man who knew how to create wealth.
Presumably, although he wasn’t sure, Sigrid too believed that he was floating along on that conceited delusion. He resolved never to let her see that he understood quite well that she was behind it all.
And besides, he consoled himself, he and Sigrid were as one, since whatsoever God has joined together, no man can put asunder. Everything that thrived around Arnäs was the result of their common efforts, in the same way that their sons Eskil and Arn were half himself and half Sigrid.
When viewed this way, which was after all the only Christian way to look at it, he was indeed a great man, through God’s providence. And in what other way except through God’s providence could it have happened?
* * *
Winter was the time of feasts in Western Götaland. But this winter, especially, when the King Sverker’s days were waning, there was an unusual number of feasts. Sleighs criss-crossed the countryside, and it was not only for the sake of the roast meat and ale. It was a cold time of uncertainty for some people, and a hot time for hammering out plans at the forge of intrigue for others.
Erik Jedvardsson had announced that he intended to visit Arnäs just before midwinter, and the reason he gave, other than the prospect of getting to know each other better since Sigrid and his wife Kristina were kin, was that there was much for them to discuss. Besides, they might be able to have done with the dispute about Varnhem.
Only one part of the message – that there was much to discuss – bothered Magnus. Everyone knew that Erik Jedvardsson was a man with high-flying plans for his own benefit. In the worst case he had his eye on the king’s throne. And that meant in turn that he now sought to establish who was his enemy and who would be his friend in this struggle.
Magnus wrestled inwardly and at length with this question. He knew what he wanted to do with his own life. That was to build Arnäs into a strong and rich estate and leave a good inheritance to Eskil and perhaps something
