The Templar Knight Read online

  The Templar Knight

  Book Two of the Crusades Trilogy

  Jan Guillou

  Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray

  Contents

  Cast of Primary Characters

  Chapter 1

  During Muharram, the holy month of mourning, which occurred when…

  Chapter 2

  Jerusalem was located in the middle of a world from…

  Chapter 3

  Armand de Gascogne, sergeant of the Order of the Knights…

  Chapter 4

  The war had finally ended, but Cecilia Rosa and Cecilia…

  Chapter 5

  When Saladin arrived at Gaza he was not fooled by…

  Chapter 6

  The worst time of Cecilia Rosa’s long penance at Gudhem…

  Chapter 7

  Autumn and winter were the time for rest and healing…

  Chapter 8

  Over the course of a few years Cecilia Rosa’s life…

  Chapter 9

  If it was really God’s will for the Christians to…

  Chapter 10

  When the sun went down on the last day of…

  Chapter 11

  Arn was kept for two weeks at the Hamediyeh Hospital…

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  In the name of God, most benevolent, ever-merciful.

  God is great in His glory, Who took His votary in the night to a wide and open land from the Sacred Mosque to the most distant Mosque whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him Our sign; Verily He is all-hearing and all-seeing.

  The Holy Koran, Sura 17, Verse 1

  Cast of Primary Characters

  KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

  Al Ghouti—Arn de Gothia (Arn Magnusson)

  Armand de Gascogne, his sergeant

  Arnoldo de Torroja, Master of Jerusalem

  Odo de Saint Armand, Grand Master

  Siegfried de Turenne

  Harald Øysteinsson

  Grand Master Roger des Moulins

  CHRISTIANS

  Count Raymond III de Tripoli

  Reynald de Châtillon

  Gérard de Ridefort

  King Baldwin IV

  Baldwin d’Ibelin, later Baldwin V

  Guy de Lusignan, later King Guy

  Agnes de Courtenay

  Father Louis

  Heraclius

  MUSLIMS

  Yussuf ibn Ayyub Salah al-Din—Saladin

  Fahkr—his brother

  al Afdal, Saladin’s son

  Ibrahim ibn Anaza

  INHABITANTS OF GUDHEM CONVENT

  Abbess Rikissa

  Cecilia Algotsdotter (Rosa), betrothed of Arn

  Cecilia Ulvsdotter (Blanca), betrothed of Knut Eriksson

  Sister Leonore

  Ulvhilde Emundsdotter

  Fru Helena Stensdotter

  FOLKUNG CLAN

  Birger Brosa, Arn’s uncle

  Magnus Månesköld, Arn and Cecilia’s son

  Eskil Magnusson, Arn’s brother

  King Knut Eriksson

  Philippe Auguste, King of France

  Richard the Lionheart, King of England

  Friedrich Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany

  Chapter 1

  During Muharram, the holy month of mourning, which occurred when the summer was at its hottest in the year 575 after Hijra, called Anno Domini 1177 by the infidels, God sent His most remarkable deliverance to those of His faithful He loved best.

  Yussuf and his brother Fahkr were riding for their lives and right behind, shielding them from the enemies’ arrows, came the Emir, Moussa. Their pursuers, who were six in number, were steadily gaining on them, and Yussuf cursed his arrogance, which had made him believe that something like this would never happen since he and his companions possessed the swiftest of horses. But the landscape here in the valley of death and drought due west of the Dead Sea was just as inhospitably arid as it was rocky. This made it dangerous to ride too fast, although their pursuers seemed completely unhampered by this. But if one of them happened to take a spill, it would be no less fateful than if any of the men being chased should fall.

  Yussuf suddenly decided to cut across to the west and head up toward the mountains, where he hoped to find cover. Before long the three pursued horsemen were following a wadi, a dry river-bed, up a steep slope. But the wadi began to narrow and deepen so that they were soon riding in a long ravine, as if God had caught them in flight and was now steering them in a specific direction. Now there was only one road, and it led upward, growing steeper and steeper, making it harder and harder to keep up their speed. And their pursuers were coming steadily closer; they would soon be within shooting range. The men being chased had already fastened their round iron-clad shields to their backs.

  Yussuf was not in the habit of praying for his life. But now, as he was forced to decrease his speed more and more among all the treacherous boulders at the bottom of the wadi, a verse came to him from God’s Word, which he breathlessly rattled off with parched lips:

  He who has created life and death in order to test you and allow you to prove who among you, by his actions, is the best. He is the Almighty. The One who always forgives.

  And God did indeed test His beloved Yussuf and showed him, first as a mirage against the light of the setting sun, and then with terrible clarity the most horrific sight that any of the faithful in such a hunted and difficult situation could see.

  From the opposite direction in the wadi came a Templar knight with lowered lance, and behind him rode his sergeant. Both of these foes were riding at such speed that their mantles billowed behind them like great dragon wings; they came like jinni out of the desert.

  Yussuf abruptly reined in his horse and fumbled with his shield, which he now had to pull around to the front to face the infidel’s lance. He felt no fear, only a cold excitement at the nearness of death, and he steered his horse over to the steep wall of the wadi to present a narrower target and increase the angle of the enemy’s lance.

  But then the Templar knight, who was only a few breaths away, raised his lance and waved his shield, as a signal to Yussuf and his brother to move aside and get out of their way. They complied at once, and the next moment the two Templar knights thundered past as they let their mantles fall, which fluttered to the dust behind them.

  Yussuf quickly issued an order to his companions. With difficulty, their horses’ hooves slipping, they clambered up the steep slope of the wadi until they reached a spot from which they had a good view. There Yussuf turned his horse around and stopped, for he wished to understand what God meant by all of this.

  The two others wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and escape while the Templar knights and bandits settled matters as they saw fit. But Yussuf rejected all such arguments with a curt gesture of annoyance because he truly wanted to see what would happen next. He had never in all his life been this close to a Templar knight, those demons of evil, and he felt strongly, as if God’s voice were advising him, that he had to see what was going to happen; mere common sense would not stop him. Common sense dictated that they should continue their ride toward Al Arish for as long as the light permitted. But what he now saw he would never forget.

  The six bandits had few choices once they discovered that instead of chasing three wealthy men they were now facing two Templar knights, lance to lance. The wadi was much too narrow for them to be able to stop, turn around, and beat a retreat before the Franks were upon them. After a brief hesitation they did the only thing they could do: They grouped themselves so they were riding two by two and spurred their horses so as not to be killed by standing still.

  The whit
e-clad Templar knight who rode in front of his sergeant first feigned an attack to the right of the first two bandits, and when they held up their shields to counter the dreaded blow of his lance—Yussuf wondered whether the bandits understood what now awaited them—the Templar knight spun his horse around with a swift movement that shouldn’t have been possible in such tight quarters. This gave him a whole new vantage point, and he thrust his lance right between the shield and body of the bandit on the left. At the same time, he released his lance so as not to be wrenched out of his saddle. Just at that moment the sergeant came in contact with the astonished bandit on the right, who was huddled behind his shield, waiting for the blow that never came, and who now looked up only to see the other foe’s lance coming toward his face from the wrong direction.

  The white-clad man with the loathsome red cross now faced the next two enemies in a passageway so narrow that there was barely room for three horses abreast. He had drawn his sword, and at first it looked as if he intended to attack head-on, which would have been unwise with a weapon on only one side. But suddenly he turned his handsome steed sideways, a roan at the height of its powers, and lashed out behind him, striking one of the bandits and toppling him out of the saddle.

  The second bandit then saw a good opportunity since the enemy was approaching him sideways, almost backward, with his sword in the wrong hand and out of reach. What he did not notice was that the Templar knight had dropped his shield and switched his sword to his left hand. When the bandit leaned forward in the saddle to strike with his saber, he exposed his whole neck and head to the blow, which now came from the opposite direction.

  “If the head can retain a thought at the moment of death, if only for a brief breath, then that was a very surprised head that fell to the ground,” said Fahkr in amazement. He too was now captivated by the drama and wanted to see more.

  The last two bandits had exploited the moment of decreased speed that had befallen the white-clad Templar knight as he dispatched the other bandit. They had turned their horses around and were now fleeing down the wadi.

  At that moment the black-clad sergeant reached the godless dog who had been knocked to the ground by the Templar knight’s horse. The sergeant dismounted, calmly grabbed the reins of the bandit’s horse with one hand and with the other used his sword to stab the dazed, reeling, and no doubt bruised bandit in the throat at the spot where his steel-plated leather coat of mail ended. But then the sergeant no longer made any attempt to follow his master, who had now put on speed to chase down the last two fleeing bandits. Instead, the sergeant hobbled the horse he had just caught with the reins and then cautiously began rounding up the other loose horses, seeming to talk to them reassuringly. He did not appear at all worried about his master, whom he had been following so closely to offer protection. Instead, he seemed to think it more important to gather up the enemies’ horses. It was truly a strange sight.

  “That man,” said Emir Moussa, pointing toward the white-clad Templar knight who was far down the wadi and about to disappear from the sight of the three faithful, “that man there, sire, is Al Ghouti.”

  “Al Ghouti?” said Yussuf, puzzled. “You say his name as if I should know him. But I do not. Who is Al Ghouti?”

  “Al Ghouti is a man you should know, sire,” replied Emir Moussa resolutely. “He is the man God sent to us for our sins, he is the one among the devils of the red cross who sometimes ride with the Turcopoles and sometimes with their heavy horsemen. Now, as you can see, he is riding an Arabian stallion as a Turcopole does, but carrying a lance and sword as if he were seated on one of the slow and heavy Frankish horses. He is also the emir of the Knights Templar in Gaza.”

  “Al Ghouti, Al Ghouti,” muttered Yussuf thoughtfully. “I would like to meet him. We will wait here!”

  The two others looked at him in horror but realized at once that he had made up his mind, so it would do no good to offer any objections, no matter how wise.

  While the three Saracen horsemen waited at the top of the wadi’s slope, they watched the Templar knight’s sergeant. Seemingly unperturbed and as though carrying out the most ordinary daily task, he had rounded up the horses of the four dead men. He then tied them together and started lugging and dragging the corpses of the bandits. With great effort, although he appeared to be a very powerful man, he hoisted them up and bound them hand and foot, each dead man slung over his own horse.

  The Templar knight and the two remaining bandits, who had been the pursuers but were now the pursued, could no longer be seen.

  “Very clever,” muttered Fahkr, as if to himself. “That is clever. He ties the right man to the right horse to keep the animals calm in spite of the blood. He is obviously thinking of taking the horses along with them.”

  “Yes, they are truly fine horses,” agreed Yussuf. “What I do not understand is how such criminals could have horses that are fit for a king. Their horses kept pace with our own.”

  “Worse than that. They were closing on us at the end,” objected Emir Moussa, who never hesitated to speak his mind to his lord. “But haven’t we seen enough? Wouldn’t it be wise to ride off now into the darkness before Al Ghouti comes back?”

  “Are you certain that he will come back?” asked Yussuf, amused.

  “Yes, sire, he will come back,” replied Emir Moussa morosely. “I am just as certain of that as the sergeant is down there; he hasn’t even troubled to follow his master when there are only two enemies to fight. Didn’t you notice that Al Ghouti had thrust his sword into its sheath and had pulled out his bow and stretched it taut just as he came around the bend down there?”

  “He pulled out a bow? A Templar knight?” asked Yussuf in surprise, raising his slender eyebrows.

  “Yes he did, sire,” replied Emir Moussa. “He is a Turcopole, as I said; sometimes he travels light and shoots from the saddle like a Turk, except his bow is bigger. Far too many of the faithful have died from his arrows. I would still dare to suggest, sire, that—”

  “No!” Yussuf cut him off. “We will wait here. I want to meet him. We have a truce with the Knights Templar right now, and I want to thank him. I owe him my gratitude, and I refuse even to consider being indebted to a Templar knight!”

  The two others could see it would do no good to argue any further. But they were uneasy, and all conversation ceased.

  They sat there in silence for a while, leaning forward with one hand resting on the pommel of their saddles as they watched the sergeant, who was now done with the bodies and horses. He had started gathering the weapons and the cloaks that both he and his master had flung off right before the attack. After a while he picked up the severed head in one hand, and for a moment it looked as if he were wondering how to pack it up. At last he pulled the headdress off one of the bandits, wrapped it around the head, and made a parcel which he tied onto the pommel of the saddle over which the body with the missing head was slung.

  Finally the sergeant was finished with all his tasks. He made sure all of the packs were fastened securely and then mounted his horse and began slowly leading his caravan of linked horses past the three Saracens.

  Yussuf then greeted the sergeant politely in Frankish, with a wave of his arm. The sergeant gave him an uncertain smile in return, but they could not hear what he said.

  Dusk began to fall, the sun had dropped behind the high mountains to the west, and the salt water of the sea far below no longer gleamed blue. The horses seemed to sense their masters’ impatience; they tossed their heads and snorted now and then, as if they too wanted to get moving before it grew too late.

  But then they saw the white-clad Templar knight returning along the wadi. In tow behind him came two horses with two dead men draped over the saddles. He was in no hurry and rode with his head lowered, making him look as if he were lost in prayer even though he was probably just keeping an eye on the rocky, uneven ground. He did not appear to have seen the three waiting horsemen, although from his vantage point they must have been visible, silhouetted a
gainst the light part of the evening sky.

  But when he reached them, he looked up and reined in his horse without saying a word.

  Yussuf felt at a loss, as if he had been struck dumb because what he now saw did not coincide with what he had witnessed only a short time ago. This spawn of the Devil, who was openly called Al Ghouti, radiated peace. He had hung his helmet by a chain over his shoulder. His short fair hair and his thick, unkempt beard of the same color framed a demon’s face with eyes that were as blue as you might expect. But here was a man who had just killed three or four other men; in the excitement Yussuf had not been able to keep track of how many, even though he usually could recall everything he saw in battle. Yussuf had seen many men after a victory, just after they had killed and won, but he had never seen anyone who looked as if he had come from a day’s work, as if he had been harvesting grain in the fields or sugarcane in the marshes, with the clear conscience that only good work can provide. His blue eyes were not the eyes of a demon.