But Gérard de Ridefort did not wait for the others; he stormed down the hills in advance with his entire force of knights. The enemy instantly drew back so that the mighty blow the Christians had intended never fell upon them. Then the knights had to try to turn around, heavy and slow. By then the water was within sight, which disturbed their horses greatly. They attempted to make their way back into the hills, but on the way up they met the Hospitallers rushing down. The Hospitaller attack was now brought to a halt, and there was a devastating chaos of Templar knights and Hospitallers facing in opposite directions.

Then the Mameluke lancers attacked from the rear with full force.

Gérard de Ridefort lost half of his knights in this foolhardy sortie. The Hospitallers’ losses were even greater.

After that they sought to gather all the Christian forces in a common attack. But by then some of the footsoldiers who had lost their wits tore off their helmets and began running toward the water with their arms outspread. They drew many others with them, and so a horde of footsoldiers ran to their deaths. They were easily struck down by the mounted Egyptian lancers.

The second attack by the knights was better than the first, but they had only covered half the distance to the water before they were forced to turn around. When they regrouped around the king’s tent, two-thirds of the Christians were gone.

Now Saladin launched his full-scale attack.

Arn had lost his horse, which was felled by an arrow through the neck, and he could no longer see clearly what was happening around him. The last thing he remembered was that he and several brothers who had also lost their horses were making a stand with their backs to each other, completely surrounded by Syrian footsoldiers. He recalled striking many of them with his sword or with his battle hammer that he held in his left hand. He had lost his shield when his horse fell.

He never knew how he was struck to the ground, or by whom.

The Templars and Hospitallers who were taken alive during the last hour at the Horns of Hattin, when the Frankish army finally collapsed, were all given water to drink. Then they were lined up on their knees before Saladin’s pavilion down by the shore.

They were given water to drink not out of mercy but so that they could speak. The beheadings began down by the shore, and the Saracens were gradually working their way up to finish by the victory pavilion in a couple of hours.

The surviving brothers numbered 246 Templar knights and about the same of Hospitallers. That meant that the two orders were now as good as wiped out in the Holy Land.

Saladin wept with joy and thanked God as he watched the beheadings begin. God had been inconceivably good to him. Both of the fearsome orders had now been defeated, because those who were one by one losing their heads were the last. Their almost empty fortresses would fall like ripe fruit. The road to Jerusalem finally lay open to him.

The secular knights who had been captured were treated as usual in a completely different way. After Saladin had enjoyed for a while the sight of Templars and Hospitallers being decapitated, he went back inside his victory pavilion. There his most notable captives had been invited in, among them the unfortunate Guy de Lusignan and Saladin’s most hated foe, Reynald de Châtillon, who sat beside the king. Next to him sat the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gérard de Ridefort, who might not prove to be a very valuable captive. But Saladin could not be sure. Faced with death, men who had previously shown themselves to be brave and honorable could change in the most pitiful way.

One of the highborn and valuable Frankish captives could expect no mercy. Saladin had sworn to God that with his own hands he would kill Reynald de Châtillon, and he did so now with his sword. He reassured the other prisoners at once that they would not be treated in the same way. He gave them all water to drink, handing it to them himself.

Outside, many Saracen soldiers had gathered to watch the beheadings and were celebrating the occasion. A group of Sufi scholars from Cairo had been following Saladin’s army because they imagined that they would be able to convert Christians to the true faith. As a cruel joke some emirs had agreed to let the Sufis make an attempt with the fighting monks, the Hospitallers and Templars.

So now these men of faith, not entirely happy with their task, were allowed to go from Templar to Hospitaller and ask if he was ready to renounce the false Christian beliefs and convert to Islam if his life was spared. Each time the Sufis received the same defiant answer, and then they had to perform the beheading themselves. This led to much merriment among the spectators, since they seldom managed to sever the head with one blow. Instead the learned defenders of the faith mostly had to hack away at the poor knight’s neck. Each time a beheading was finally successful, the spectators cheered. Otherwise the soldiers laughed and shouted, voicing their jocular disapproval and offering advice.

From the water he received Arn revived enough that he understood what was about to happen. But his face was covered in blood and he could see only out of one eye, so he had a hard time knowing what exactly was happening farther down the line.

But he was not very interested in any of that. He prayed and prepared to deliver up his soul to God. With all the strength he could muster he asked God: What can be the meaning of this? For it was July 4, 1187. On precisely this day twenty years ago he had sworn the oath to the Knights Templar. From sundown on this day he would be free. What was God’s intention in letting him live until the last hour in service and then taking his life? And why let him live until precisely this day, when Christendom was defeated in the Holy Land?

Arn caught himself being selfish. He was not alone in dying, and the last hour of life ought to be used for better thoughts than directing accusatory questions at God. Now that he was finished with his own life he should instead be praying for Cecilia and the child who would soon be fatherless.

When the sweating group of blood-soaked and distressed Sufi scholars reached Arn, they asked him dejectedly if he was ready to renounce his false beliefs and convert to the true faith if he might be allowed to live. Their manner of asking indicated that they had little hope for his conversion, and they had not even tried to ensure that he understood.

Defiantly Arn then raised his bowed head and spoke to them in the language of the Prophet, peace be unto him:

“In the name of the Most Benevolent, Ever-Merciful, hear the words from your own Holy Koran, the third sura and the fifty-fifth verse,” he began, taking a deep breath so that he could continue, as the men around him fell silent in astonishment.

“And God said,” he continued in a voice that barely managed to form the words, “‘O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee of the falsehoods of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection: Then shall ye all return unto me, and I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute.’”

Arn closed his eyes and leaned forward in anticipation of the sword striking his neck. But the Sufis around him had become as if paralyzed at hearing God’s own words from one of their worst enemies. At the same time a high emir stepped forward and called out that they had found Al Ghouti.

Even though Arn’s face was so heavily battered that nobody would have recognized him, they all knew that only one foe was known for his ability to quote so purely and clearly God’s own words.

And Saladin had given them all strict instructions that if Al Ghouti were found among the living, under no circumstances was he to be treated as a captive, but rather as an honored guest.