It is unknown whether Arnoldo de Torroja warned his high brother in the Hospitallers of the scorpion who was their traveling companion, Heraclius.
On the other hand it isknown that their journey brought in a good deal of money, especially from the king of England, who viewed it as an opportunity to make amends for the murder of the bishop Thomas Becket by donating a vast sum as an indulgence. But money was not the greatest need, particularly for the Order of the Knights Templar, which was richer than the kings of England and France put together. What they needed instead was understanding in their homelands because the situation at this time was genuinely difficult. Saladin was unlike any of his predecessors. What they needed above all were reinforcements with plenty of soldiers.
But it was as though people in the homelands had long ago gotten used to the idea that the Christian world owned the Holy Land. To take up the cross and ride off to liberate a country that had long been liberated did not seem the most urgent task in life to the faithful.
There were still those who, like the majority of crusaders in the past century, considered traveling to the Holy Land to get rich on plunder, but it was well known that few would realize such wealth. The Holy Land was now owned by local barons who had little sympathy for the wishes of newly arrived crusaders to get rich at the cost of their Christian brothers.
The envoys from the Holy Land may have managed to procure some funding, but they were unable to convince the German emperor to lead a mighty new army that could have evened out the balance with Saladin. Nor did the English or French kings come forward, since they were both competing for the same lands and considered it unwise to go off on a holy mission. If one of them did so, the other would be quick to snatch the kingdom left behind without its sovereign. It seems only natural that Arnoldo de Torroja must have been highly suspicious of the deceiver, poisoner, and patriarch of Jerusalem during this long journey. Especially since they both knew where each other stood in the larger context. Arnoldo de Torroja was among those accused of cowardice by his opponents at the court in Jerusalem, since he had many times openly admitted that negotiations and a fair compromise with Saladin would be wiser than eternal war.
Heraclius reckoned himself on the side of courage and principles; he counted as his friends Agnes de Courtenay, her brother Joscelyn de Courtenay, and to some extent also the man banished from succeeding to the throne, Guy de Lusignan, and his ambitious wife Sibylla.
No matter how wary Arnoldo de Torroja should have been to travel in the company of a poisoner, he ended up dying of poison during the journey anyway. He was buried in Rome.
At that time only three men in the whole world could suspect, or more than suspect, what had happened. The first was the new Pope Lucius III, who surely must have obtained enough information about the matter from the papal archives thanks to obliging sources. The second was Jerusalem’s Master Arn de Gothia, who in the absence of a new Grand Master was for a time the highest authority in the Order of the Knights Templar. The third was Father Louis.
Heraclius had now not only poisoned an archbishop, but also a Grand Master in God’s Holy Army.
But no matter whether the news was good or bad, it traveled slowly during those years, especially in the autumn when shipping trade was often held to a minimum. Arn heard about the murder of his Grand Master directly from Father Louis when one of his constantly traveling Cistercians arrived from Rome after a very difficult passage.
They were both crushed by the news. In his despair, Arn at first claimed loudly that now more than ever the poisoner deserved to be excommunicated. But Father Louis sadly pointed out that the matter would probably prove even more troublesome than that. If Lucius III were to excommunicate Heraclius for the earlier poisoning, about which there was great certainty, then he would at the same time reveal his predecessor Alexander III as far too fallible. It was not credible that the new Holy Father would choose such a path.
Then how many murders by poison would it take to provoke such action! asked Arn, disconsolately. He received no answer.
Should a murderer, a whoremonger, a deceiver—a pure misfortune for the entire Holy Land—be granted even greater protection the more despicable the crimes he committed?
He got no answer to that question either. But they did pray together a great deal during those days, since they shared a heavy secret.
They both had plenty of work in which to drown their sorrows. With Arn’s help Father Louis had managed to insinuate himself into the court in Jerusalem. There he could walk around looking quite unobtrusive, although he kept his ear to the ground.
Arn, as the highest authority among the Knights Templar, had taken on the double task of minding the business transactions of Jerusalem as well as the affairs of the entire order. Although the latter task consisted mostly of signing documents and attaching his seal, all this work still demanded a great deal of both time and energy.
When winter arrived the following year, King Baldwin IV summoned the entire High Council in Outremer to announce his last wishes. This meant that every baron of importance in the Holy Land as well as the county of Tripoli and the principality of Antioch had to put in an appearance. The only Christian ruler in Oultrejourdain, Reynald de Châtillon, also had to travel to Jerusalem. It took some time for all of them to gather, and while waiting Arn felt more or less relegated to the role of an innkeeper. The Order of the Knights Templar owned the most guest rooms and the largest halls in Jerusalem, so every coronation was always concluded with a grand banquet on the premises owned by the Templars. The royal palace would never have been big enough.
The day before the king was to announce his last wishes, Arn arranged for the customary large feast to be held in the knights’ hall of the Templar quarters, which was located on the same high floor as his own rooms. But there were special entrances to the knights’ hall via a broad stone staircase leading from the western wall, so that worldly guests would not disturb the peace on their way in and out. This was wisely arranged, Arn realized, when he saw the number of loud and in many instances already drunken guests proceeding up the stairs.
The knights’ hall was decorated with the flags and colors of the Knights Templar, and in the middle above the long table, where the king’s place was situated, hung the flags captured from Saladin at Mont Gisard. Otherwise the decor of the hall was austere, with white walls and black wooden tables.
At the long table the royal family sat in the seats of honor in the middle, surrounded by the landowners and barons who were closest to them. On either end of the table, two smaller tables jutted out, and at one of them sat, as usual, men from Antioch and Tripoli with Prince Bohemund and Count Raymond in the middle.
At the second table facing them sat Templars and Hospitallers. At that table a departure from tradition was visible, since Arn had arranged for exactly the same number of Hospitallers as Templars in alternating seats, with him and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, Roger des Moulins, in the middle. It was a change that drew everyone’s attention, since the Templars had previously always indicated that in their house the Hospitallers were not the most highly regarded guests.
Arn explained this break with custom to Roger des Moulins by saying that he’d never understood the feeling of unfriendly competition that existed toward the Hospitaller brothers. Besides, the one time he had been their guest at the fortress of Beaufort, he’d been treated extremely well by his hosts and received generous support when he needed to move his injured men from there. He may have presented these innocent reasons for his demonstratively friendly gesture toward the Hospitallers because he wanted their Grand Master to choose whether to take the next, larger step toward moving the two orders closer to each other. Solidarity between the Christians’ best knights had now become more important than ever.