John Gardner - Freddy's Book

Behind them on the cobblestones, Father Karl said, making Lars-Goren pause, “I understand you’ve become good friends with Bishop Brask.”

Lars-Goren turned, his lips slightly puckered. “I’ve met him,” he said at last.

The priest nodded, avoiding Lars-Goren’s eyes. “It’s a dilemma,” he said, and nodded. “One would have thought he’d have gotten some high office in the government, after all his help.”

Lars-Goren waited.

“But of course he’s a difficult man, that’s true too. I met him once myself. Who can say which way he’d be more dangerous to the king — as an official or as a man embittered by the king’s ingratitude.”

Lars-Goren smiled half to himself. “You hear a good deal, here at the edge of the world,” he said.

“Well, yes. He’s a churchman, of course. We have mutual concerns, although naturally—”

Lars-Goren nodded. Erik was giving his brother a leg up, Gunnar smiling grimly, as if waiting for the horse to shy or maybe rear up and strike at him.

“Thank you again,” Lars-Goren said, dismissing Father Karl with a nod and getting up on the horse. It was mid-afternoon and he had three more villages he was hoping to visit before nightfall.

As soon as he saw that his sons were ready, he set off at a canter, his horse’s hooves striking sparks from the stones. When he looked back, Father Karl was on the steps of the church, waving after him with both arms, in the style of a peasant. A few villagers had come out into the street to watch Lars-Goren ride off. They too raised their arms. Gunnar was riding with one hand clenched tight on the pommel, his head too far forward, close to the horse’s flying mane. Erik rode beside him, watching him. Lars-Goren reined in a little, surprised at himself, trying to make sense of the anger that was flaming in his chest.

5.

IT WAS DUSK WHEN THEY CAME to where the witch had been burned. They could see the smoke and bright embers from a mile away. From a half mile away they could smell the charred flesh and bone. Neither of his sons said anything. The horses became skittish, and the dog, catching the uneasiness of the horses, kept closer to Lars-Goren’s side. In the west, the clouded sky had become brighter but no redder. It glowed like the blade of a knife in a strong, clear light. Black specks — vultures — floated around the smoke. There were no longer any people, though as Lars-Goren and his sons approached nearer they found the hoofprints and ruts left by a large crowd. He slowed his horse to a walk as they went past. Drake moved carefully, with his gray ears cocked toward the embers, his muscles tensed, prepared to shy off to the left at the first sign of life from the neighborhood of the smoke. One ember fell from the beams that supported the sagging black remains; it struck lengthwise and broke, shooting sparks, but the horses only flinched a little, waiting for worse.

When they were almost past the place, Erik reined up his horse and sat looking. Gunnar rode a few steps more, then stopped his. Lars-Goren continued — stubborn as one of his own peasants, he thought — then abruptly changed his mind and stopped. He refrained from looking back. At last he heard his sons’ horses coming up behind him, and with his knees he edged Drake forward again.

As he came even with Lars-Goren, Erik said, “When I become lord here, there’ll be no more burning of witches.”

Lars-Goren said nothing.

“Did you hear me, Father?” Erik asked.

“In that case,” said Lars-Goren, “I must see that you never become lord here.”

The rest of the way home, they rode in silence.

6.

LARS-GOREN KNEW IT WAS his imagination — there had been nothing visibly human in the black remains — but he carried with him all that night, both awake and asleep, an unsettling image of the witch’s face, for some reason the face of the old peasant woman he’d seen that morning in the field of rye, though he knew it had not been the same old woman. She stared straight ahead of her, with an expression he could not fathom, as if she were looking at something no one else could see, perhaps a steel-bright light like the light he’d seen in the clouds as he rode home, but a light that came not from the clouds but from everywhere at once, as if the whole physical world had vanished, consumed by that terrible brightness. In his dreams he saw the burning they’d been too late to witness, saw how the long gray hair sparked and smoked and ignited, how the heavy black peasant clothes smoldered, then flamed like burning leaves. Sweat broke out on the face, and the flesh became puffy and dark, then burst open, dripping blood and fat. Even as he dreamed, he understood why it was that her expression never changed — showed no pain, no rage, no fear of the Lord, only that terrible, mystical blankness like indifference: he was seeing not the burning of a living witch but his memory of those burning corpses on Södermalm hill.

When he awakened in the morning he was weak and heavy-limbed, as if he hadn’t slept at all. The bed beside him was empty, and he somehow knew at once that Liv had risen hours ago and gone down to help with breakfast and start her day. From somewhere outside, beyond the windowless stone walls, came the sharp sound of iron striking iron — someone shoeing a horse, perhaps, or clumsily hammering the iron band on a cartwheel. He sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed, his flesh still numb, shivers running up and down his back as if he’d caught an ague. For a long time he sat staring at the wall, hardly knowing what he was thinking, rubbing his hands and his arms against the cold all around him, though his breath sent out no steam; then, awakening again, he got up and began to get dressed.

Downstairs only his daughters were still indoors. His elder daughter, Pia, just turned seven, fixed him breakfast, while the younger, four, sat at the table beside him, watching him with tightly folded hands.

“You slept late,” Pia said, bringing him eggs and bread, buttermilk and honey. She had her mother’s face except that her hair was dark brown and her smile was more furtive. She walked already like the over-tall girl she was becoming, her head slightly ducked, eyelids lowered, apologetic.

“Your mother should have gotten me up,” he said.

Pia nodded, nervously smiling. “She said you had bad dreams.”

Little Andrea’s eyes winced narrower, shooting him a look. Lars-Goren turned to study her. More than the others she was a stranger to him, self-sufficient and mysterious, watching like an enemy spy. He smiled as if hoping to soften her judgment of him. Her expression did not change.

Lars-Goren looked back at Pia and said, “I hope my tossing and turning didn’t keep her awake?”

Pia shrugged, drew back the chair across from him and sat down. Like Andrea, she folded her hands.

Abruptly, Andrea asked, “Are you going to take us to see the dragon?”

Chewing, Lars-Goren looked at Pia for an explanation.

“King Gustav’s sent the statue of St. George to Hudiksvall,” she said. She glanced at him, then down again, and busied herself tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s sending it to every great city in the kingdom, so they say. It’s to celebrate our victory and independence.”

Lars-Goren considered. “Do you know what that means—‘independence’?” he asked.

Again she shrugged, ducking her head. There were moments when, at seven, she seemed as wise as a woman, but just now she looked embarrassed and frightened, like the child she was. “It means everyone’s happy,” she said.

Lars-Goren nodded. “So we hope,” he said. He remembered his son Erik sullenly riding from the place where they’d burned the witch.

“Will you take us?” Andrea asked again. She tipped her head to one side, not so much pleading as scrutinizing, reserved.