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.