On the other hand, the miracle at Arnäs could not be ignored, because it was definitely no small event. If the parents had promised their child to God at the most critical moment, and they did so clearly and openly, and God had then let the miracle happen, the parents' promise had to be construed as so sanctified that it would be impossible to break.
But what if they, God's servants, now made the promise impossible to fulfill by refusing to accept the boy because the custom of oblates had been abolished?
Then the parents might be released from their promise. But in that case, the monks at the same time would be placing themselves, knowingly and willingly, above the clearly manifested will of God. That could not happen. So they had to accept the boy.
And how should they respond to Fru Sigrid? It seemed that God had punished her severely for her ambivalence, and now she was here wanting to do penance. There was also the much bigger question of whether the monks might simply have to abandon Varnhem, return home to Clairvaux, and from there seek to have Kristina and even her husband excommunicated so that they could be rid of the problem and start over again. Factoring in travel time and everything else, that process might take a couple of years.
The two men sat inside in the shade of the covered arcade that connected the church to the monks' quarters. Before them out in the sunshine, Brother Lucien's garden was blazing with color. Father Henri had sent Brother Lucien, who had a knowledge of medicinal herbs, up to the guesthouse of the old farm, where Sigrid and her son were staying. Right now their grave and difficult conversation was interrupted as Brother Lucien returned with a worried look on his face.
"Well," he said with a sigh, sinking down on the stone bench next to them. "I don't know quite what to believe. I don't think it's leprosy; it's much too watery and ulcerous. I think it's some variant of swine pox, something that comes from the uncleanness of the animals. But it looks bad, I have to admit."
"If it is only some sort of swine pox, what can you do for her, dear Brother Lucien?" asked Father Henri with interest.
"Well now . . . do you really think, Father, that I should try to do something for it?" wondered Brother Lucien dubiously.
"How do you mean?" asked the other two at the same time, both equally astonished.
"I mean . . . if the Lord Himself has visited this illness upon her, who am I to revoke the Lord's will?"
"Look here, Brother Lucien, don't make a fool of yourself now!" snorted Father Henri in irritation. "You are the Lord's instrument, and if you do the best you can and He finds your work good, then it will help. Otherwise nothing at all will help and nothing will make any difference. So what had you thought to do about the matter?"
The monk explained that as far as he understood it was a question of cleaning and drying out the sores. Boiled and consecrated water for washing, then clean air and sunshine, should dry out the abscesses in about a week. Her hand looked more dire, and in the worst case it might turn out to be something other than harmless swine pox.
Father Henri nodded in agreement, showing great interest. As usual when Brother Lucien described his initial medical diagnosis, he sounded quite convincing. What Father Henri especially admired was the monk's ability to stay calm when confronting problems and not rush off at once to slap on all sorts of herbs in the hope that one of them might do some good. According to Brother Lucien, such ill-considered conduct could easily cause an illness to go from bad to worse.
When Brother Lucien had gone, Father Stéphan again took up his previous train of thought and said that it was rather obvious that the Lord God wanted something special with that boy. If he was to be just one more monk among all the other monks, then it seemed a bit extreme to resort to both a miracle and a case of leprosy, didn't it? People became monks for lesser reasons than that.
Father Henri burst out laughing at his colleague's outrageous but humorous logic. Still, there was no real counterargument. So they should take in the boy, but treat him carefully, like one of Brother Lucien's sensitive plants, and make sure that his free will was not broken. Some time in the future, perhaps, they would have a better idea of the Lord's intentions for the boy. So the boy was allowed to become an oblate. And if they had to move out of Varnhem, he would have to come along with them. But that was a matter for a later time.
The question of Fru Sigrid remained. Naturally the simplest approach would be to start by letting her confess and ask for her own opinion. Father Stéphan went into the scriptorium to reread, perhaps a bit more attentively than before, the account of the miracle from Arnäs. With a concerned expression Father Henri walked up toward the old guesthouse outside the cloister walls to hear Sigrid's confession.
He found mother and son in a pitiful state. There was only one bed in the room, and there lay Sigrid, panting with fever with her eyes closed. At her side sat a little fellow, his face red from crying, clutching her healthy hand. The house hadn't been cleaned; it was filled with all sorts of rubbish and there was a cold draft. While it hadn't been used in many years, it hadn't been torn down because there were more pressing things to do, or possibly because the wooden walls were old and rotten and the lumber couldn't be reused.
He draped the prayer stole over his shoulders and went over to Arn, cautiously stroking the boy's head. But Arn seemed not to notice, or else he was pretending he didn't.
Father Henri then gently asked the boy to leave for a moment while his mother made confession, but the boy just shook his head without looking up and squeezed his mother's hand all the harder.
Sigrid now awoke, and Arn left the room reluctantly, slamming the drafty door behind him. Sigrid seemed indignant at his behavior, but with a smile Father Henri put his right index finger to his lips and shushed her, indicating that she shouldn't worry. Then he asked if she was ready to confess.
"Yes, Father," she replied, her mouth dry. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. With the help of holy Saint Bernard, my lord and husband and I, together with lay brother Erlend, managed through sincere prayers to ask the Lord to return Arn to live among us. But just before this miracle occurred I made a solemn and sacred promise to the Lord to give the boy to God's holy work among the people here on earth if He saw fit to save my son."