Prince Fahkr ibn Ayyub al Fahdi, which was his full name, would bring a ransom greater than anyone had ever been able to demand for a Saracen, since he was Saladin’s brother. Even emir Moussa should be worth a good price.
To the amazement of both Fahkr and Moussa, Arn had quite a different suggestion. He wanted to propose that Saladin pay a ransom for every prisoner of the same price; 500 besants in gold, equivalent to about 78 ounces. Fahkr objected that most of the prisoners were not even worth one gold besant, and that he considered it an insult to make such a proposal. Arn then explained that he actually meant 500 besants for eachprisoner, including Fahkr and Moussa themselves.
To this they were speechless. They didn’t know whether to feel offended that this Al Ghouti—infidel though he was, yet considered among the believers to be the foremost of all Franks—had set the same price on them as on their slaves. Or whether Al Ghouti’s proposal indicated that he didn’t intend to extort an unreasonable price from Saladin to release his own brother. The possibility that a Templar knight might have no head for business never entered their minds.
They discussed this question and made slow headway when they ate together once a day. Nothing that Arn served them was unclean food, and cold fresh water was the only drink at mealtime. When they were left alone in Arn’s quarters they had access to the Holy Koran.
Even though Arn treated his two prisoners with such great respect that they could have been guests, there was no doubt that they were prisoners. It made them both naturally circumspect during the conversations of the first few days.
But Arn wondered somewhat about their reluctance either to speak their opinions straight out or offer clear counter-proposals, and the fourth time they sat down together for dinner he seemed to be losing patience.
“I don’t understand you,” he said with a resigned gesture. “What is it that is unclear between us? My faith tells me to show kindness toward the vanquished. I would be able to speak a great deal on this topic, although I don’t want to force you to listen to a faith that is not yours, especially not now when you are not free men. But your own faith says the same thing. Consider the words of the Prophet, peace be with him, and his own words to you: “When you meet unbelievers in battle, let your sword fall over their heads until you have forced them to their knees; take then the survivors captive. Then will come the time when you shall set them free, in good faith or in exchange for ransom, so that the burdens of war are lightened. This is what you have to observe.” Well? If I now tell you that my belief is the same?”
“It is your generosity we cannot understand,” muttered Fahkr self-consciously. “You know very well that five hundred besants in gold for my freedom is a price that can only arouse ridicule.”
“I know that,” said Arn. “If you were my only prisoner, I might suggest to your brother to pay fifty thousand besants. But what of the other prisoners? Should I leave them to our Saracen executioners? What is a man’s life worth, Fahkr? Is your life worth so much more than that of every other man?”
“The man who claims such a thing is boasting and at the same time blaspheming against God. Before God one man’s life is the same as another man’s life. That is why the Holy Koran declares that life is inviolable,” replied Fahkr quietly.
“Perfectly true,” said Arn, sounding pleased. “And Jesus Christ says the same thing. Let us not dispute this matter anymore; we actually have other things to talk about that demand more thought. So I would like Saladin to pay me fifty thousand besants in gold for allthe prisoners, the two of you as well as all the others. Could you, Moussa, take this message to your lord?”
“You’re releasing me and sending me as a messenger?” asked Moussa, astonished.
“Yes, I can’t imagine a better messenger to take my demands to Saladin. Just as I cannot believe that you would seek only your own freedom and flee from this task. We have vessels that sail to Alexandria every other day, which you may or may not know. Or would I be sending you in the wrong direction? Should you travel to Damascus instead?”
“Damascus would be a much more difficult journey, but it doesn’t matter in the least,” said Moussa. “From any city in Saladin’s realm I can get the message to him the same day. Alexandria is closer and easier.”
“From any city at all…on the same day?” Arn wondered. “It is said that you can do that, but how is it possible?”
“Simple. We have doves that fly with the messages. Doves always find their way home. If you take doves that were born in Damascus and move them in a cage to Alexandria or Baghdad or Mecca, they will fly straight home when you release them. You only have to wrap a letter around one of their feet.”
“What an ingenious way to make use of them!” Arn exclaimed, obviously impressed. “So from here I could speak with my Grand Master in Jerusalem, where I believe he is now, in only an hour, or however long it takes for a dove to fly there?”
“Yes indeed, if you had such doves and someone to take good care of them,” muttered Moussa with an expression as if he thought the conversation was taking an irrelevant turn.
“How strange…” Arn mused, but then regained his composure. “Then let’s do it! You sail to Alexandria with one of our own ships tomorrow. Don’t worry about the men accompanying you. I grant you safe passage, and the crew is mostly Egyptian anyway. You’ll also be taking some of the injured prisoners with you. But let’s talk about something else now.”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Fahkr agreed. “For there is certainly much else to talk about. I beseeched my brother Saladin to stay here outside Gaza and lay siege to the city. But he wouldn’t listen to me. Imagine how different things would be now if we had stayed.”
“Yes, at the very least I would have been the one who was dead,” Arn agreed. “You would have had half your army left, and you would be sitting here as the rulers of Gaza. But He who sees all and He who hears all, as you would say, willed a different outcome. He wanted the Knights Templar to be victorious at Mont Gisard even though we were only two hundred against several thousand. This was proved by virtue of the fact that it happened; it was His will.”
“Were you only two hundred?” Moussa burst out. “That’s astounding! I was there myself…we thought you were at least a thousand knights. Only two hundred…?”
“Yes, that’s true. I know because I led the attack myself,” said Arn. “So instead of dying here in Gaza as I was sure I would, I won a victory that was truly a miracle of the Lord. Do you understand now why I didn’t want to boast or behave with arrogance and cruelty toward the conquered?”
It was true for both believers and unbelievers that he who was granted God’s grace so miraculously could not boast and imagine that he had done it all on his own. Such an overweening attitude was a sin which God would punish harshly, regardless of whether one understood God in the words of the Prophet or in the words of Jesus Christ.
They were in full agreement on the necessity for restraint after such a victory. On the other hand, what they could discuss even more heatedly, now that the sensitive matter of ransom of the prisoners had been clarified, was the question of God’s will or man’s sin.
Everything would have been different if Saladin had stayed in Gaza with his army and taken the city—that much was clear. But why did God then punish Saladin for showing leniency toward both Gaza and Al Ghouti himself? He had spared Al Ghouti and shortly thereafter God let Saladin suffer his greatest defeat at the hands of this very man. So what was God’s intention?
All three of them brooded a long time over this question. Finally the emir Moussa said that it might be that God was sternly reminding His most beloved servant Saladin that in jihad there was no room for any man’s personal wishes. In jihad one could not spare a city of infidels because one had a personal debt to a specific individual. For emir Moussa was, like Fahkr, convinced that Gaza would have been taken by force if its commander had not been Al Ghouti, to whom Saladin owed a personal debt. The defeat at Mont Gisard was God’s punishment for that sin.