When Magnus a moment later sank to his knees beside her, he already knew that all hope was gone. In despair he waved everyone out of the room except for lay brother Erlend, since he didn't want to show his tears to thralls and housefolk.
To pray any longer for Arn's life seemed meaningless; rather, Magnus admonished them to pray for forgiveness of the sins that had unquestionably drawn God's punishment upon them. Erlend did not dare venture an opinion in the matter.
With tears streaming down her face, Sigrid appealed to them both not to give up hope but to pray for a miracle. And they silently acquiesced, since miracles could happen, and nothing was certain until they had at least tried to pray for it.
Magnus suggested that they direct their prayers to Our Lady, since she had clearly had the most to do with the birth of the boys.
But Sigrid felt inside that Our Lady, the Mother of God, had probably lost patience with her by now, and she feverishly pondered for a moment before it struck her that the saint who stood closest to Arn had to be the holy Saint Bernard. He was a brandnew saint; no one really knew anything about his powers in the North.
Lay brother Erlend agreed at once with her suggestion and recited one prayer after another before the kneeling parents. When darkness fell, Arn had still shown no sign of life. But they didn't give up, even though Magnus on one occasion mumbled that all hope was gone and that now it was more a matter of accepting God's punishment with sorrow, dignity, and regret.
But Sigrid swore before Saint Bernard and God that if Arn were saved, the boy would be given to do God's holy work among human beings here on earth. And she repeated her promise and made Magnus repeat it for a third time along with her.
Just as Sigrid felt that the last spark of hope was about to be extinguished in her heart as well, the miracle occurred.
Arn raised himself up on one elbow and looked about in confusion as if he had just awakened from a night's sleep instead of returning from the realm of the dead. He whimpered something about having such a pain in his other arm that he couldn't lean on it. But the three adults did not hear him because they were immersed in prayers of thanksgiving, which were no doubt the purest and most sincere prayers they had ever offered to God.
Arn was able to walk, with his mother at his left side, into the warmth of the longhouse, where he was put to bed near the fireplaces by the gable wall. But since he still had pain in his right arm, Sot was summoned and they told her to use only her purest skills and not besmirch the Lord's miracle with any sorcery or impure healing arts. Sot carefully squeezed Arn's arm and examined the places that made him squeal the most, which was not easy because Arn wanted to show how brave he was and not admit to the pain while so many people were watching him, his father among them.
But he didn't fool Sot. She fetched dried nettles and cooked a gruel that she smeared around his arm and wrapped with linen. Then she spoke with Svarte, who went to the carpenters' shop. He worked for a while and came back with two slightly concave pieces of fir that he measured before vanishing again to finish the work as Sot had directed.
When Svarte was done, Sot bound the two splints around Arn's arm with more linen bandages and warned him and Sigrid to keep the arm still, because it was badly sprained. Then she gave the boy a decoction of new dried leaves and the roots of meadow-sweet so that he would sleep without a fever.
Soon Arn was sleeping with a calm expression on his face, as if no misfortune had befallen him and no miracle had occurred. Sigrid and Magnus sat for a long time gazing at their slumbering son, both filled with awe that the Lord God had allowed one of his miracles to occur at their estate.
Their second son Arn had been resurrected from the dead. No one could doubt that. But the question was whether it was because the Lord wanted to show his benevolence toward those who prayed to Him with the same tears as all fathers and mothers would have shed at this most difficult of times. Or whether it was really true, as Sigrid was convinced in her soul, that the Lord had prepared a special task for Arn when he became a man.
No one could know for certain, however, since the Lord's ways often surpass the understanding of human beings. They could only take the miracle at Arnäs to heart and pray with renewed gratitude.
Lay brother Erlend had long felt compelled by his sacred task. He had to record the account of the miracle at Arnäs with great care and include every small detail. Since the death of holy Saint Bernard had occurred only a few years in the past, this might be the first miracle that could be associated with him in Western Götaland, and so it was of great importance. Erlend also thought that he would undoubtedly make Father Henri very happy with this story, and that his industriousness and exactitude in carrying out this task might also shorten his wait to be admitted as a full brother in the Cistercian order. In any case, it couldn't hurt to be the bearer of such marvelous news.
Parchment was not made at Arnäs, but there was thin calfskin which was rubbed smooth on one side and which Herr Magnus sold for the making of clothing. Erlend had been allowed to use remnants of this material for his writing practice with the boys and now there was much more writing and printing and reading going on in the study corner of the hall. Both boys were adept with a writing quill and ink. Mostly they were asked to copy onto calfskin remnants the text that Erlend wrote out in Latin. Then they had to try translating it into rune text on the line below. Herr Magnus had said sternly that if the boys had to print in church language, they might as well learn their forefathers' script at the same time. For future merchants it was not at all a useless art.
During their first writing exercises Erlend had noticed that little Arn, whose right arm was still unusable, wrote, printed, and drew pictures just as well with his left hand. Because the boy was injured Erlend had not worried about this; otherwise it was not a good sign if someone favored using the unclean hand. But when Arn's right hand healed, it turned out that he used it just as much as his left. It was as though it made no difference to him. It seemed to be a matter of mood that dictated which hand he used to pick up the goose quill.
Once Erlend, after much travail, rewriting, and prayers, considered his account to be finished, he was eager to make a trip to Varnhem as soon as possible. He justified his departure by saying that he had obligations at the cloister, something about certain saints requiring the presence of all the lay brothers, and that his absence might provoke a rebuke. Filled with anticipation, he was allowed to ride down to Varnhem on Annunciation Day, the day that the cranes returned to Western Götaland.
The boys did not mourn his leaving. When spring came and
the farmyards, the courtyard of the fortress, and other large areas surrounding the buildings of Arnäs were free of snow, the time of play arrived for all the children. A special game at Arnäs was to swipe a thin band from the cooperage and then run along rolling the hoop and steering it, using a stick to give it more speed. The game had developed into a contest with the children trying to take the hoops from each other, using only the sticks. They would drive the hoops before them between the walls of the fortress courtyard. When someone managed to make the hoop strike the fortress wall, he won the game. This was no easy task, because all the others who didn't have a hoop under their own stick did everything they could to interfere.