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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.