There was only one alternative to that: continued war with Saladin until he gained complete victory and took Jerusalem by force. But as the royal court in Jerusalem now looked, with only schemers and dilettantes, there was not much hope.
Besides, the Knights Templar, whose power had to be acknowledged no matter what one thought of them otherwise, had many exceptionally incompetent and immoral friends. Worst among them was the inveterate rascal Reynald de Châtillon, who had recently insinuated himself into the court by marrying Stéphanie de Milly, the daughter of the Grand Master, and with that he had gained the two fortresses, Kerak and Montreal. This had given him the support of the Knights Templar.
The villains were gathering like hungry vultures around the court in Jerusalem. A scoundrel equally as dangerous as Reynald de Châtillon was one Gérard de Ridefort. Arn would remember that name; he was a friend of the Knights Templar and just as dangerous as the Assassins.
Gérard had arrived as an ordinary adventurer among all the others who came by ship to Tripoli. He had taken service with Count Raymond, and at first all had seemed to go well. In a moment of weakness Count Raymond had promised Gérard the first suitable heiress to be his in marriage, and a certain Lucia had been mentioned. But it so happened that a merchant from Pisa then offered Count Raymond Lucia’s weight in gold if he would be allowed to marry the heiress. And since she was a rather plump young lady, it was impossible for Count Raymond to refuse such an offer. The ungrateful Gérard was furious, claiming that his honor had been sullied, and he refused to wait for the next suitable heiress. Instead he had joined the Knights Templar and sworn to take revenge on Count Raymond.
Arn then cautiously interjected, and this was the first time he had said a word in a while, that this was the most peculiar reason he had ever heard for joining the Templar order.
Count Raymond continued to talk all night until the sun came up and dazzled their eyes. Arn’s head was spinning, as much from the wine as from Count Raymond’s vast knowledge of all the things that were wrong in the Holy Land.
Arn recalled having once drunk too much ale at a banquet when he was very young; the next day he felt ill and had a searing headache. He had managed to forget that feeling, but this morning was a harsh reminder of what it meant to drink too much.
A week later Arn and his sergeant Harald were riding alone along the coast toward Gaza. They had transferred all their wounded from Beaufort to the Templar quarters in Saint-Jean d’Acre, the city that others called Akko or merely Acre. There Arn had ordered larger and safer transport for all the surviving and more or less battered sergeants south to Gaza; he wanted to get his wounded men under Saracen care as soon as possible. He and Harald now rode together, planning to arrive in advance.
They didn’t talk much on the way. They had left Gaza in a large contingent with forty knights and a hundred sergeants. Only two knights and fifty-three sergeants were returning. Among the brothers who were now in Paradise were five of six of the best Templar knights Arn had ever known. Under such circumstances there was neither joy nor relief in having survived, merely a feeling of inconceivable injustice.
Harald Øysteinsson tried on one occasion to jest that as a Birch-Leg he was experienced in defeat, and that this experience had been put to good use in the Holy Land, although the outcome was not at all as he had hoped.
Arn neither smiled nor replied.
They stopped in Ashkelon and took lodging in the Knights Templar quarter, where they separated for the night, since knights and sergeants never slept in the same lodgings, except in the field. Arn nevertheless did not spend the night sleeping, but rather on his knees in the knights’ chapel before the image of the Virgin Mary. He did not ask Her for protection or for his own safety. Instead he asked Her to protect his beloved Cecilia and their child, whether it was a son or a daughter. And he beseeched Her for an answer, for the grace to understand, for the wisdom to distinguish between true and false. For much of what Count Raymond had told him when he was drunk and despairing and angry had stayed in his mind, and he could not free himself of such thoughts.
If it was true that the Virgin Mary gave him an answer the very next day, then Her answer was cruel. Or, as Count Raymond would have said with a thundering laugh, it was a brutally frank answer to come from God’s Mother.
Because when they had not much longer to go to reach Gaza and were approaching the Bedouin camp of the Banu Anaza, they could see from afar that something was terribly wrong.
No warriors came riding out to meet them. Among the black tents lay women, children, and elders with their foreheads pressed to the sand in prayer. Up on a hill by the camp, three worldly Frankish knights were making ready to attack.
Arn spurred Khamsiin to top speed and stormed into the camp with sand flying, leaving Harald far behind. The sound of thundering hooves made the praying Bedouins huddle even closer to the ground in fright, because they did not see who was coming.
Arn walked Khamsiin among the black-clad people, whom he could not identify from his position on horseback. Then they cautiously began to look up. Some of the Bedouin women suddenly raised their long, ululating cry of welcome and they all stood up, praising God that He had sent Al Ghouti at the last moment.
An older woman began waving her hand rhythmically and soon everyone in the camp fell into the song of welcome: Al Ghouti, Al Ghouti, Al Ghouti!
He found the elder of the tribe with the long beard, the man named Ibrahim after the forefather of all peoples, no matter how they prayed to God.
Arn was careful to dismount from Khamsiin before he took the old man’s hands in greeting.
“What has happened, Ibrahim?” he asked. “Where are all of Banu Anaza’s warriors, and what do those franjiup on the hill want?”
“God is great who sent you, Al Ghouti, therefore I thank Him more than you,” replied the old man in relief. “Our men are out on a raid in Sinai. There is war there and no truce we need to respect. We have shelter here and needed no defense, or so we thought. But these franjicame from the north, from Ashkelon, and they spoke to us and said that we should pray for the last time. They intend to kill us all, if I understood them right.”
“I can’t ask you to forgive them because they know not what they do, but I can certainly drive them away!” replied Arn, bowing to Ibrahim. Then he jumped up on Khamsiin and rode at a good clip toward the three Franks up on the hill.
As he came nearer he slowed down to study them. They were undoubtedly newly arrived tenderfeet, all three; they had a great deal of color and ornamentation on their mantles, and they wore the newest type of helmet that encased the whole head and scarcely left a small cross-shaped slit for the eyes. Reluctantly they now took off their helmets and did not seem glad to see a Christian.
“Who are you three, where do you come from, and what is this supposed to mean?” Arn shouted in his practiced tone of command.
“Who are you, Christian, who dresses like a Saracen?” asked the Frank in the middle. “You’re interrupting our holy mission, so we must ask you kindly to step aside before we turn unfriendly.”
Arn did not reply for a moment, since he was praying silently for the lives of the three fools. Then he swept aside his mantle so that his surcoat with the red cross was visible.
“I am a Templar knight,” he said in a restrained manner. “I am Arn de Gothia and I am the master of Gaza. You three are now in Gaza’s territory. What you see down there are Bedouins who belong to Gaza, our property. Fortunately for you, all the warriors in camp are out on business or at work for me, otherwise you would be dead. Now I repeat my question: who are you three Christians and where do you come from?”