Then Count Raymond took the floor. It was so quiet that even Gérard de Ridefort did not speak or interfere in any way.
“Sire,” Count Raymond began calmly, but in a loud voice so that everyone could hear. “Tiberias is my city. In the fortress is my wife Escheva and my treasure chest. I am the one who has the most to lose if the fortress falls. So you must truly take my words seriously, Sire, when I say that we should not attack Tiberias. Here at Sephoria we can defend ourselves well, and we have ample water supplies. Here our footsoldiers and archers can do great damage to attacking Saracens. But if we proceed toward Tiberias, we will be beaten. I know that on the way there we’ll find not a drop of water and no forage; that land is a desert this time of year. Even if Saladin takes my fortress and tears down the walls, in any case he cannot hold it. And I will build the walls back up. If he takes my wife then I will ransom her. That much we can afford to lose. But if we march on Tiberias now in the summer heat, we will lose the Holy Land.”
Count Raymond’s words made a great impression. For the moment they convinced one and all, and King Guy decided that they should hold their ground at Sephoria.
But that night Gérard de Ridefort visited King Guy in his tent and told him that Raymond was a traitor, in a secret pact with Saladin, and that they should therefore ignore his advice. In fact, here was an opportunity for King Guy to win a decisive victory against Saladin himself, for the Holy Land had never before brought such a large army against the Saracens. Besides, they were carrying the True Cross, so victory was promised by God. What Raymond wanted was merely to rob King Guy of the honor of defeating Saladin. Besides, he was envious because he had lost the power of regent when Guy became king. He might be conspiring to take the crown in any case, and that’s why he sought to prevent Guy from winning this war.
King Guy believed Gérard de Ridefort. If he’d at least had the wits to order the army to move against Tiberias at night, history might have turned out differently. But he wanted to get a night’s sleep first, he said.
At dawn the next day the great Christian army set off, marching on Tiberias.
First rode the Hospitallers, in the middle the secular army, and in the rear the Knights Templar, where the demands would be greatest.
Gérard de Ridefort had forbidden the Templars from bringing along the light Turkish cavalry, since he considered it ungodly to employ such soldiers. So Arn, like all the other brothers, rode as armored knights with a few footsoldiers around them to protect the horses. They had to attire both themselves and the horses in all the heavy, hot armor right from the start.
When faced with an armored Christian army on the approach, the Saracens always acted the same way. They sent out swarms of light cavalry to ride in close to the enemy columns and shoot arrows at them; then they would turn with their fast horses and vanish. After that a new wave would come. This began early in the morning.
The Templar knights had orders not to break formation for any reason. They could not shoot back because they no longer had any light cavalry on their flanks, since that had been declared ungodly by the Grand Master. Within a few hours all the Templar knights had been struck by arrows; their wounds may have been mostly minor, but they could be quite painful in the heat.
It was a very hot day with desert winds from the south. And as Count Raymond had said, there was not a drop of water along the entire route. From dawn to sunset the Christians had to plod through an unceasing gauntlet of attacking light cavalry. At first they carried their dead with them, but soon they had to start leaving the bodies where they fell.
Toward evening they neared Tiberias and saw the lake shining in the sunset. Count Raymond tried to persuade the king that they should attack at once and fight their way to the water before it grew dark. If after such a terrible day without water they waited all night without water as well, they would be defeated when the sun rose.
Gérard de Ridefort thought instead that they would fight much better if they got some sleep. And King Guy, who admitted that he felt rather tired, thought this sounded sensible, so he gave the order to pitch camp for the night.
By the slopes near the village of Hattin, where two small peaks among the low hills were called the Horns of Hattin, the Christians pitched their camp so that they could, as they believed, at least cool off and get some sleep before the next day’s decisive battle.
When the sun went down and it was the hour of prayer for the Saracen army, which was now within sight of the exhausted Christians, Saladin thanked God near the lakeshore for the gift he had been given. Up there by the Horns of Hattin was the entire Christian army in an untenable position—all the Hospitaller knights and almost all the Templar knights, the Christian king and his closest officers. God had served up the final victory on a golden platter. All that remained for Saladin to do was to thank Him and then carry out the duty required of His faithful.
That duty began with setting fire to the dry summer grasses south of the Horns of Hattin. The Christian encampment was soon enveloped in choking smoke that made impossible any thought of a night’s rest before the final battle.
In the morning at first light the Christians found themselves completely surrounded. Saladin’s army made no move to attack, for they had time on their side. The longer the Christians waited, the weaker they would become. The sun climbed mercilessly, and still King Guy could not make a decision.
Count Raymond was among the first to mount his horse. He walked it about the encampment until he came to the Templars’ section; there he found his way to Arn and proposed that Arn take some men and follow him in a breakout. Arn politely declined, saying that he was sworn by oath until the conclusion of this very day and could not break his word before God. They said farewell, and Arn wished Raymond all luck and said that he would pray for a successful assault.
And he did pray.
Count Raymond ordered his weary knights to mount their horses and gave a brief speech, exhorting them to action and explaining that they would now risk all on a single attempt. If the breakout failed they would die, that was true. But so would everyone who remained at the Horns of Hattin.
When that was said he lined up his forces in a narrow wedge-shaped phalanx instead of advancing across a broad front. Then he gave the signal to attack and stormed down toward the compact mass of enemy soldiers who were standing with their backs to all the water in the Sea of Galilee, as if they were guarding it.
In response to Raymond’s charge the Saracens opened their ranks so that a wide avenue was formed, into which Count Raymond and his knights vanished. Then the Saracens closed up ranks behind them.
Not until much later could the Christians see, from up by the Horns of Hattin, Count Raymond and his knights disappearing far in the distance, with no one pursuing them. Saladin had spared him.
Gérard de Ridefort then flew into a rage. He gave a long speech about traitors and ordered all his Templar knights to mount up.
Now there was much shouting and commotion among the Saracens when they saw the Templar knights, still at least seven hundred in number, making ready to attack. No Saracen had ever seen such a huge force of Templar knights before. And they all knew that it was now that the battle would be decided; now was the moment of truth.
Were these white demons impossible to defeat? Or were they human beings like everyone else, and like all soldiers would be suffering from a day without water?
When the Hospitallers saw that the Templars were getting ready to attack, they did the same, and then King Guy gave orders for the royal army to mount up as well.