Then she signalled for them to say three Pater Nosters, and they all bowed their heads obediently and began reciting.
When the prayers were concluded, she summoned one of the worldly maidens, Helena Sverkersdotter, handed her the scourge, and asked her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Virgin to administer three lashes.
Helena Sverkersdotter was a clumsy, bumbling girl who seldom got the chance to stand out from the crowd. Now she looked at the other sisters with delight, and they all nodded at her in encouragement; someone signalled for her to give Cecilia Blanca a good thrashing. And so she did. She did not do it in the usual way, which was intended to mark the memory and alter the mind rather than to cause injury to the body. She struck as hard as she could, and with the last blow two lines of blood seeped through Cecilia Blanca’s white shift.
Cecilia Blanca moaned between clenched teeth during the beating, but she did not scream nor cry.
Now she turned around, difficult as it was in her bound position, so that she could look the flushed and exhilarated Helena Sverkersdotter in the eye. And then, snarling between clenched teeth and with her eyes black with hate, she said something so appalling that a gasp of horror passed through the hall.
‘One day, Helena Sverkersdotter, you shall regret those lashes more than anything else in your life, I swear it by the Holy Virgin Mary!’
These words were unconscionable. Not just because they expressed threats and anger intra muros, nor because she had involved Our Lady in her sin, but primarily because these words showed that Cecilia Blanca had not accepted the justice of her punishment and thus had not obeyed Mother Rikissa.
What everyone now anticipated was three times three new lashes with the scourge, as an immediate result of the blasphemous words. But Mother Rikissa went over to take the scourge away from Helena Sverkersdotter, who had already raised her hand to begin anew.
Cecilia Rosa over by the door thought she saw Mother Rikissa’s eyes glowing red like a dragon’s or some other evil creature, and all the others bowed their heads as if in prayer, although what they really felt was horror.
‘Three days in the carcer,’ said Mother Rikissa at last, drawing out her words. ‘Three days in the carcer on bread and water, with solitude and silence and prayer, and with only one blanket - that’s where you shall seek forgiveness!’
No one had been sentenced to the carcer as long as Cecilia Rosa had been at Gudhem; that was a punishment mentioned only as a scary story. The carcer was a dark little hole beneath the cellarium, the seed storage areas. Sitting there among the rats in the wintertime was a torment that would be terrible to endure.
Over the next few days Cecilia Rosa did not feel cold, because she was occupied with praying for her new friend Cecilia Blanca. She prayed with a burning soul and tears running from her eyes, and she did all her tasks without thinking; she wove and sang and ate without thinking. She put her whole soul and all her thoughts into her prayers.
On the evening of the third day, Cecilia Blanca returned, her legs stiff and unsteady, completely white in the face. She was escorted by two sisters up to the dormitorium after the period of silence. They led her to her bed, shoved her in, and heedlessly tossed the covers over her.
Cecilia Rosa, as even she now called herself, sought out her friend’s eyes in the dark. But Cecilia Blanca’s gaze was rigid and empty. Considering how she looked, she had to be chilled to the bone.
Cecilia Rosa waited a while until it was quiet in the dormitorium before she did the unthinkable. She took her two blankets and climbed into her friend’s bed as quietly as she could, pulling the covers over both of them and lying close to her. It was like lying next to ice. But soon, as though Our Lady were holding her hand over them even in this difficult hour, the warmth slowly crept into their bodies.
After matins Cecilia Rosa did not dare repeat her sin, which was an act of charity. But she loaned one of her blankets to her friend and no longer felt cold herself, even though it was one of the last hard winter nights, with the stars sparkling with utter clarity in the black sky.
Their crime was never discovered. Or perhaps the lay sisters who slept nearby and had the best opportunity of discovering the sinful deed of sleeping together found no reason to tell tales. For those who did not have hearts of stone or, unlike the other worldly maidens among the novices, did not hate the two Cecilias, it was not hard to imagine the suffering that three nights in the carcer had caused during the coldest part of winter.
Winter at Gudhem was the time for spinning and weaving. For the lay sisters this was monotonous work, since the important thing was that they produce as much cloth as possible for Gudhem to donate or sell.
But for the worldly maidens it was more a matter of learning a task that would keep their hands occupied. Ora et labora, pray and work, was the most important rule next to obedience at Gudhem, as in other cloisters. For this reason the maidens had to look as though they were working even during the time when the cold kept them all indoors.
If one of the younger novices was totally ignorant of this type of work, she would first have to sit next to someone more skilled, at least until she was able to manage her own loom or distaff.
Cecilia Blanca had proved completely unfamiliar with this work, while Cecilia Rosa could perform the tasks almost as well as a lay sister. This presented a problem that could be solved in only one way, since none of the six young women who belonged to the Sverker clan, or wanted to belong, would sit with the one they disdained and hated most at Gudhem, the fiancée of the regicide Knut Eriksson. That was the secret they had discovered. So the only solution was to put the two Cecilias together at the same loom.
Cecilia Rosa soon discovered that her friend Blanca had actually mastered all the arts of the loom; she furtively demonstrated as much, using a secret sign between them. Her feigned ignorance was merely a ruse so that the two friends could be near each other. Now no imposed silence could prevent them from speaking together, since during the work they constantly had to use sign language. No supervising sister was sharp-eyed enough to see what they were talking about at every moment. And when the supervisor turned her back, they could exchange a surreptitious whisper.
Soon Cecilia Blanca had told her what she knew about the hatred of the others for the two of them, and about her hopes for the future.
Outside in the world of men, things were no longer as simple as before; it took more than chopping off a king’s head to become king oneself. Her betrothed Knut Eriksson would manage it in time, and with the help of God and his dead father, Erik the Holy. But it would not be accomplished in the blink of an eye.
So immediately after the betrothal ale, Knut had seen to it that his betrothed Cecilia Blanca was sent to the convent, where she could find sanctuary while the men fought it out. Even in an enemy cloister her life and limb would not be endangered, although it would not be an enjoyable time. One stumbling block was that the few convents in the country were all associated with the Sverker clan; that was something that would have to be changed in the future. But that was how things now stood, with great uncertainty about what was to come. It would be bleak indeed for them both if the Sverkers were victorious; maybe they would never get out, never have children and servants to manage, never be able to stride freely across their own fields, ride horses, or sing worldly songs.
Yet the joy would be all the greater if their side won, if her beloved Knut were proclaimed king and then peace descended upon the realm. Then all the dark times would be transformed to blinding white. Then Cecilia Blanca would become the true consort of her beloved Knut and become queen. This was the threat that Mother Rikissa, the sisters, and the stupid geese among the novices, worst of all that Helena Sverkersdotter, tried to ignore.
Cecilia Blanca thought that the two of them, friends only to each other, had to pray for this every day: pray that the Folkungs and the Eriks would prevail. Their lives and their happiness depended more on this victory than on anything else.
Although they could never be sure. When peace was made, many peculiar things could happen, and the men often found that it was easier to keep peace through marriage than to win it by the sword. So if the Sverkers won, they might very well arrange a suitable bridal ale with any one of the enemy’s women. If that were to happen, the two Cecilias might be collected one miserable day and married off to some old men in Linköping - an unkind fate, but still not as unpleasant as doing the cleaning and suffering under Mother Rikissa’s scourge.
Cecilia Rosa, who was some years younger than her new and only friend, sometimes had a hard time following Blanca’s stern train of thought. She protested more than once that for her part, she hoped for nothing more than that her beloved would come back just as he had sworn to do. Blanca, on the other hand, had no time for such sentimental talk. Love might be pleasant to dream about, but they couldn’t dream themselves out of their imprisonment at Gudhem. They might be taken from there to a bridal ale, and then they would see if their husband was to be a drooling old codger from Linköping or a handsome young man. But nothing in this earthly life could be worse than being forced to show obedience each day to Mother Rikissa.
Cecilia Rosa said that nothing could be worse than betraying her vows of love, but Cecilia Blanca had no idea what she meant.
The two young women were altogether different. Cecilia, the red-haired Rosa, was quiet in both speech and thought, as if she dreamed a good deal. Cecilia, the blonde Blanca, was choleric in her speech and had many hard thoughts of revenge for the day when she would become King Knut’s queen. She often repeated what she had sworn, to make the stupid goose Helena regret the lashes she had delivered more than anything else in her life. Perhaps the two Cecilias would not have grown so close to each other if they had met out in the free world, say if they had been the mistresses of neighbouring farms. But since life had now brought them to Gudhem among all these malicious, cowardly, and hostile women, their bond of friendship had been forged as if in a glowing furnace, linking them forever.
They both wanted to rebel, but neither of them wanted to go to the carcer, the cold hole in the ground with the rats. They wanted to break as many rules as they could, but it was vexing to be discovered and punished, since what stung most about the punishment was the malicious pleasure of the other young women.
With more than a little cunning they found more ways to cause trouble as time passed. Cecilia Rosa sang perfectly on-key and more beautifully than anyone else at Gudhem, and she demonstrated her ability as often as she could. Cecilia Blanca was no slouch of a singer either, but she tried to spoil the song as often as she could, especially during the sleepy lauds and prime services, by singing loudly and a bit off-key, singing too fast or too slow. It was hard to sing falsely in that manner, but Cecilia Blanca became increasingly skilled at doing so, and it was something for which she could never be punished. In this way they took turns; Cecilia Rosa sometimes sang so that the others stopped their own singing, put to shame by the beauty of her voice. At other times, when Cecilia Rosa felt out of form or too tired, Cecilia Blanca would sing and ruin everything. She would be chided and then promise with her head bowed that she would improve and learn to sing as well as all the rest.
Over time the two friends grew quite skilled at their art of creating annoyance during the seven or eight song sessions each day.
Cecilia Rosa played the part of the weak and submissive one, and always replied in a low voice with her head bowed when spoken to by Mother Rikissa or the prioress. Cecilia Blanca did the opposite, answering in a loud voice with head held high, even though her speech was such that the words themselves were unimpeachable.
Each day, prandium was eaten at exactly twelve minutes past four in the afternoon, a repast of bread and soup. They all had to eat in silence, while the lector read texts aloud that were considered especially appropriate for young women. Cecilia Blanca would often make a point of loudly slurping up a piece of bread dipped in the soup just as the reading reached a crucial point. This would cause some of the Sverker maidens to giggle aloud, sometimes to draw Mother Rikissa’s attention to the naughtiness of Cecilia Blanca’s behaviour. But Mother Rikissa would be more strict in her reproaches to those who giggled than to the one who slurped.
After prandium all the women had to walk in a procession from the refectorium to the church for prayers of thanksgiving, singing along the way. The intent was that they were to walk with great dignity. But Cecilia Blanca often had occasion to clear her throat loudly, to clump along and act like a lout, or pretend to stumble and disturb the order of the procession. Next to her walked Cecilia Rosa, because the two of them always had to bring up the rear. She was singing with her gaze fixed on the distance and a dreamy expression that seemed almost heavenly.
It was like a game the two played, constantly talking about their little tricks and trying to think up new ones. But since they talked to each other even when it was forbidden, Mother Rikissa would often punish them, but not as hard as one might expect. And she no longer allowed any of the worldly maidens to wield the scourge. She did the whipping herself, first Cecilia Blanca, then Cecilia Rosa. The strange thing was that the longer their rebellion went on, the less Mother Rikissa countered it with sternness, which at first they couldn’t understand.
To both of them Mother Rikissa was an evil person who had no belief in the fear of God which she was always trying to drum into others. She was as ugly as a witch, with big protruding teeth and rough hands, and they were sure she would have had to hold a very powerful position in the Sverker clan to be married off with those looks. She could hardly have gained power through the marriage bed; it was much easier to do so by becoming an abbess.
And since both Cecilias were women at their loveliest age, with slender waists and eyes full of life, they believed that this was precisely what put Mother Rikissa’s back up.
When the summer came and the masses of Ascension Day were past, Mother Rikissa changed again. Now she found constant reason to punish the two hated Cecilias. Since bread and water didn’t seem to have much effect on what she called their roguishness, she employed the scourge almost daily. And now she forced the Sverker maidens, but never again Helena Sverkersdotter, to carry out the whipping. Of course none of the girls struck as hard as Helena had done when Cecilia Blanca issued her curse, but the repeated punishment still resulted in more pain in their backs.
It was Cecilia Blanca who at last figured out how they could escape this misery. She figured that Mother Rikissa would not be honest enough to follow the rule of inviolable secrecy in the confessional, and that she would worm information out of any father confessor who came to Gudhem.
The confessor who came most often was a young vicarius from the cathedral in Skara. Even the worldly maidens had to make confession to him. But they were never allowed to see him, because he sat inside the church, and the one who was confessing sat out in the arcade next to a window with a wooden grating and a cloth between them.
One mild morning in early summer Cecilia Blanca found herself at confession, overcome by a feeling of nervousness, for she knew quite well that what she intended to do was a serious sin; it was a mockery of the holy confession. On the other hand, she consoled herself, if this stratagem succeeded then it would show that it was actually Mother Rikissa and the vicarius who were mocking the confessional.
‘Father, forgive me, for I have sinned,’ she whispered so rapidly that the words stumbled over each other. Then she drew a deep breath in anticipation of what she had to do.
‘My child, my dear daughter,’ replied the vicarius with a sigh on the other side of the grating, ‘Gudhem is not a place that induces one to grave sins, but let us hear your confession.’
‘I’ve been thinking evil thoughts about my fellow sisters,’ Cecilia Blanca continued with a will, now that she had taken the leap into sin. ‘I have vindictive thoughts and I can’t forgive them.’
‘What and whom can’t you forgive?’ the vicarius asked cautiously.
‘The Sverker girls and their lot. They run around telling tales, and they wield the scourge when my friend and I are repeatedly punished because of their gossip. And forgive me, father, but I must speak the truth. I think that if I become queen, then I will never be able to forgive either them or Mother Rikissa. I think that I will have to take a lengthy and harsh revenge; I think that their kinsmen’s farms will burn and that Gudhem will be emptied of all folk, and not one stone will be left standing at this place.’
‘Who is your friend?’ asked the vicarius with a slight quaver in his voice.