Arn was aware of several emotions, but fear was not the strongest as he formed up with his other brothers in a straight line of attack. His strongest feeling was disappointment. He had come so close to freedom. Now he would have to die for the whim of a fool; his death would be just as meaningless as that of all the others in the Holy Land who had fallen because they were subordinate to insane or incompetent leaders. For the first time in Arn’s life his mind was filled with the thought of flight. But then he remembered his oath, which applied for another two months. His life was finite but his oath was eternal.
The Grand Master gave him the order to attack; he raised and lowered the flag three times, and then the hundred and forty knights thundered without hesitation straight down the slope toward death.
But Gérard de Ridefort rode somewhat more slowly than all the others, and since Arn had to follow beside him, he too lagged behind. Just as the first knights crashed into the sea of Mameluke cavalry, Gérard de Ridefort turned sharply to the right and Arn followed with his shield raised against the arrows that were now whizzing around them. Arn felt himself being hit by many arrows, and some of them penetrated his chain mail. Gérard de Ridefort then completed his turn and rode with Arn and the flag away from the attack he himself had instigated.
Not a single one of the Hospitallers or Templars survived the attack at Cresson’s springs. Among the fallen were Roger des Moulins and James de Mailly.
Some of the worldly knights they had scraped together up in Nazareth were taken prisoner for future ransom demands. The inhabitants of Nazareth who had come along on foot, lured by Gérard de Ridefort’s promise of rich plunder, were quickly captured; with their hands tied behind their backs they were dragged off to the nearest slave market.
That afternoon, just before sundown, Count Raymond saw from his ramparts in Tiberias how al Afdal’s forces, exactly as agreed, were making their way across the River Jordan to leave Galilee before the end of the day.
In the vanguard of the Saracen army rode the Mameluke lancers. They carried over a hundred bearded heads on their raised lances.
This sight was a stronger argument than any that a negotiating group could have presented to persuade Raymond. He could not be a traitor; he had to renounce his truce with Saladin and, no matter how much it stung, swear allegiance to King Guy de Lusignan. He had no other choice, but he had never been forced to make a more bitter decision.
When Saladin attacked in earnest later that summer, he came with the largest army he had ever assembled, over thirty thousand riders. He was now determined to resolve this war once and for all.
The news reached Arn down in Gaza, where he had retreated to obtain Saracen medical care for the arrow wounds he had suffered at Cresson’s springs. King Guy had now proclaimed arrière-ban, which meant that all men with battle experience were now called up to serve under the banners of the Holy Land.
Hospitallers and Templars emptied every fortress of knights and left behind only a few officers and sergeants to take care of maintenance and handle the defense from the walls.
Among the men that Arn left in Gaza was Harald Øysteinsson, since he believed that such a good archer was worth ten times as much on the walls when there were so few defenders.
He had no warning about what was about to happen. With the arrière-banthat was now in force, the Hospitallers and Templars alone would have a force of almost two thousand men. To that were added perhaps four thousand secular knights and between ten and twenty thousand archers and footsoldiers. In Arn’s experience no Saracens, no matter how many, could defeat such a force. He was more worried that the large army would be lured away by one of Saladin’s diversionary tactics, and that then they might lose some of the cities that they had left with only meager defenses.
He couldn’t imagine that the foolhardy Gérard de Ridefort would repeat the same mistake that he’d made at Cresson’s springs. Gérard de Ridefort could give orders to the Knights Templar, but he could not make the decisions for the entire Christian army.
When Arn reached Saint-Jean d’Acre with his sixty-four knights and barely a hundred sergeants from Gaza, he had less than a week left in the service of the Knights Templar. He dwelled very little on that fact, since he could not terminate his service in the middle of a war. But he thought that after the war, toward autumn, when the rain would drive Saladin back across the River Jordan, then he could begin his journey home. Western Götaland, he said again and again in his childhood tongue, as if savoring the unfamiliar words.
The enormous assembly of forces at Saint-Jean d’Acre became a vast army encampment in the summer heat. Inside the fortress a war council was being held, at which a bewildered King Guy as usual found himself surrounded on all sides by men who hated one another.
The Grand Master of the Hospitallers contradicted everything that Gérard de Ridefort said. Count Raymond contradicted everything that both these Grand Masters claimed. And patriarch Heraclius contradicted everyone.
Count Raymond’s ideas at first garnered the most approval among those present. It was now the hottest time of the year, he pointed out. Saladin had broken into Galilee with a larger army than ever before and badly ravaged the land. But with so many horses and riders he had to keep supplying them with water, animal fodder, and food shipments from various directions. If Saladin did not meet with resistance at once, which was clearly his hope, his army would be gradually worn down by their own impatience and the heat, as so often happened with the Saracens.
The Christian side could afford to bide its time in peace and quiet, well provisioned inside the cities, and attack just as the Saracens gave up and were on their way home. Then they would be able to prevail. The price was all the plundering they would have to endure in the meantime, but that was not too high a price if for once they were able to defeat Saladin.
It surprised no one that Gérard de Ridefort immediately offered another opinion, nor that he began calling Count Raymond a traitor, friend of the Saracens, and treaty maker with Saladin. Not even King Guy was impressed by such reckless outbursts.
On the other hand, the patriarch Heraclius won King Guy’s ear when he said that they had to attack at once. What Count Raymond had proposed would seem the wisest course, so they should surprise the enemy by acting in a way that did not seem as wise.
In addition, Heraclius now carried the True Cross. And when, he asked dramatically, had the Christians lost a battle when they were carrying the True Cross? Never, he answered himself.
It was a sin to doubt victory when in the company of the True Cross. By winning a quick victory, all those who had sinned by doubting could then purify themselves.
Therefore the best course of action and the one most pleasing to God would be if they attacked at once and won.
Unfortunately, Heraclius went on, his health did not permit him to bear the True Cross into battle himself. But he would have no qualms about assigning that task to the Bishop of Caesarea; the main thing was that the most holy of relics was brought along to guaranteed victory.
So in the last days of June in the year of grace 1187, the Christian army set off toward Galilee to meet Saladin during the hottest time of the year. They traveled for two days until they reached the springs at Sephoria, where there was plenty of water and forage. There they received word that Saladin had taken the city of Tiberias and now was besieging the fortress itself.
Tiberias was Count Raymond’s city, and his wife Escheva was in the fortress. In the Christian army at Sephoria were Escheva’s three sons, who now appealed for immediate aid to be sent to their mother. The king seemed prepared to grant their request.