“The truth is…” Arn replied hesitantly, since he had received a direct question from the king and Arnoldo de Torroja could not answer in his stead, “that the Templar knights in that battle conquered three or four thousand of Saladin’s best troops. It is also true that Jerusalem’s secular army defeated five hundred.”
“Is that your answer, Arn de Gothia?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And who led the Templar knights in that battle?”
“I did, with God’s help, Sire.”
“Good. That’s what I thought. An advantage with some Templars, and you are clearly one of them, Arn de Gothia, is that they answer truthfully. I gladly would live my final years in that manner, but that will hardly be granted me. So! Tell me briefly something about the military situation!”
“It’s a complicated situation, Sire—” Arnoldo de Torroja began but was instantly cut off by the king.
“Forgive me, dear Grand Master, but Jerusalem’s Master is at the moment the order’s highest military commander, is he not?”
“Yes, Sire, that is true,” replied Arnoldo de Torroja.
“Good!” said the king with an audible sigh. “God, if only I had such men as you around me, men who speak the truth. Then it is no doubt proper that I ask this question of Arn de Gothia, my dear Grand Master, without violating all your numerous rules and honor and glory?”
“That is fully in order, Sire,” said Arnoldo de Torroja somewhat tensely.
“Now then!” the king said, peremptorily.
“The situation can be described as follows, Sire,” Arn began uncertainly. “We have the absolute worst opponent in Christendom against us now, worse than Zenki, worse than Nur al-Din. Saladin has largely united all the Saracens against us, and he is a skilled military leader. He has lost once, when Your Majesty won at Mont Gisard. Otherwise he has won every significant battle. We have to reinforce the Christian side in all of Outremer, otherwise we are defeated, or will be locked inside fortresses and cities, and we can’t stay there indefinitely. That’s the situation.”
“Do you share this opinion, Grand Master?” the king asked harshly.
“Yes, Sire. The situation is just as Jerusalem’s Master has described it. We must have reinforcements from our home countries. Saladin is something entirely different from what we’ve had to deal with previously.”
“Well! Then so it shall be. We shall send an envoy to our homelands, to the emperor of Germany, the king of England, and the king of France. Would you be so kind as to participate in this mission, Grand Master?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Even if Grand Master Roger des Moulins from the Hospitallers is also included?”
“Yes, Sire. Roger des Moulins is an extraordinary man.”
“And with the new patriarch of Jerusalem, even if he turns out to be someone with whom you should be cautious in the night?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Well, that’s excellent. So it shall be. One more question: who is the best commander of all the secular knights in Outremer?”
“Count Raymond of Tripoli and then Baldwin d’Ibelin, Sire,” replied Arnoldo de Torroja quickly.
“And who is the worst?” the king shot back with equal speed. “Could it possibly be my sister’s dear husband Guy de Lusignan?”
“To compare Guy de Lusignan with either of the two men I mentioned would be like comparing David and Goliath, Sire,” said Arnoldo de Torroja with a slightly ironic bow. This made the king pensive and silent for a moment.
“So you think that Guy de Lusignan would beat Count Raymond, Grand Master?” he asked in amusement when he was finished thinking.
“I didn’t say that, Sire. As the Scripture says, Goliath was the greatest warrior and David merely an inexperienced boy. Without God’s intervention Goliath would win in a thousand out of a thousand battles against David. If God supports Guy de Lusignan as much as He supported David, then Guy de Lusignan would of course be invincible.”
“But if God turns His back, what then?” asked the king with a little coughing laugh.
“Then the battle would be over quicker than you could blink, Sire,” said Arnoldo de Torroja with a friendly bow.
“Grand Master and Jerusalem’s Master,” said the king, coughing again and giving a signal that made his Nubian slave hurry over to his side. “With men such as yourselves I would wish to speak longer. However, my health prevents me, so I bid you both God’s peace and good night.”
They got up from their soft leather stools, bowed, and exchanged uneasy glances as the wheezing and gurgling sounds continued behind the muslin curtain that concealed the king. They turned and retreated tactfully from the room.
To his considerable surprise Father Louis was awakened in good time before lauds by Arn de Gothia, who had come in person to fetch him and Brother Pietro for the morning song in the Temple of Solomon. The two Cistercians were led by their knight companion through a labyrinthine system of corridors and halls and up a dark staircase until they suddenly emerged in the midst of the huge church with the silver cupola. It was already filled with Templar knights and sergeants who were silently assembling around the walls of the round sanctuary. No one arrived late. When it was time almost a hundred Templar knights and more than twice as many black-clad sergeants stood along the walls.
Father Louis took great pleasure in the morning song; impressed by the gravity with which these men of war sang, and by the fact that they sang so well. This was another thing he had not anticipated.
After lauds in the Temple of Solomon, Arn de Gothia took his guests with him on the usual tour that all new visitors to Jerusalem expected. He explained in passing that it was best to take the tour early in the morning before the crowds of pilgrims grew too great.
They went back across the entire Templar area and past the Temple of the Lord with the gold cupola, which Arn thought they could leave until last since no pilgrims were allowed inside on this day, which was set aside for cleaning and repairs. They went out through the Golden Port and up on Golgotha, which was still free of both tradesmen and visitors. At the site where the Lord suffered and died on His cross for their sins, the three prayed long and fervently.
Then Arn took his visitors in through the Stefan Gate so that they emerged up on the Via Dolorosa. Reverently they followed the Lord’s last path of suffering through the gradually awakening city all the way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was still closed and guarded by four sergeants of the Templar order. The sergeants opened the church at once to make way for Jerusalem’s Master and his visiting clergymen.
The church was beautiful to see from the outside with its simple vault of the type that Father Louis and even Arn and Brother Pietro were familiar with from the cloisters where they grew up. But inside the church was littered and in disarray because so many different religious factions had to share it.
There was a corner glaring with gold and a multitude of colors and brash paintings that Father Louis recognized as the style of the heretical Byzantine church; there were other styles that he did not recognize. Arn explained, as if in passing, that it was the rule in Jerusalem that Christians of every sort should have access to the Holy Grave. For him this fact did not seem odd in the least.
When they walked down the stone steps in the dark, damp crypt of Saint Helena, however, they were all filled with such a great solemnity that they began to shiver; even Arn seemed affected as much as his visitors. They knelt down before the stone slab and prayed in silence; none of them wanted to be the first to stop. Here was the heart of Christianity, here was the very place that had cost so much blood over so many years, God’s Grave.
Father Louis was so overwhelmed by this first visit to God’s Grave that afterward he could not remember how long they were down there, what he had actually experienced, or what visions he had seen. But they seemed to have been there for a long time, because when they exited through the main door of the church into the blinding sunlight, they were met by a muttering, ill-humored crowd that had been kept at a distance by the four sergeants and not allowed inside. The muttering subsided quickly when they saw that it was Jerusalem’s Master himself coming out of the church with his ecclesiastical guests.