The Templar Knight

by Jan Guillou

  Arn had also ridden with the heavily armored knights, and then the aim was to attack at the right moment and wreak havoc on the order in the enemy’s cavalry by smashing straight through it. Sometimes he’d had to wait with reserve forces out of the fray of battle and not join the action until it was time to decide the situation and win. Or, even worse, a situation arose when a desperate counterattack from the best troops would gain time for the Frankish army to retreat in an orderly fashion instead turning it into a rout.

  Arn had also been involved in a number of sieges at the two previous fortresses where he had been stationed, first as a sergeant in the Templar fortress in Tortosa in the duchy of Tripoli and later as a full brother-knight at Acre. These sieges would sometimes last for months, but they had always ended with the besiegers giving up and pulling back their troops.

  But here in Gaza something entirely different awaited them. The important thing now was to make plans and prepare in a new way, as if no previous experience could tell them very much. The city of Gaza included about fifteen villages with Palestinian peasants and two Bedouin tribes. The master of Gaza was thus the lord of all these peasants and Bedouins; he ruled over both their lives and their property.

  Consequently the primary concern was to set the right level of taxation for the villages and the Bedouins; he had to raise the tax in years of good harvests and lower it in the meager years. This year there had been an unusually good harvest, particularly in the lands surrounding Gaza, but much worse in other places in Outremer. This led to a thorny problem, since the master of the castle in Gaza had decreed that the villages be emptied of all their harvest and almost all livestock. The intent, of course, was to save everything from being plundered by the approaching Egyptian army. But it was hard to explain to the peasants when stern-looking Templar knights arrived with columns of empty carts. It looked as if the plundering had already begun, and from the point of view of the Palestinian peasants, it didn’t matter whether they were plundered by Christians or by the faithful.

  So Arn spent a lot of time on his horse, riding from village to village to try to explain what was happening. He gave his word that it was not a matter of taxes or confiscation, and that everything would be returned when the plundering army had gone. He tried to explain that the less there was to nourish their enemies in the region, the sooner they would go away. But he found to his surprise that in many villages the people doubted his word.

  Then he had a new regulation introduced, proclaiming that every load of grain, every cow and every camel, as well as their calves, should be entered into the books with a receipt. That delayed the whole process, and if Saladin had attacked earlier than planned, all this bookkeeping would have cost both the Knights Templar and the peasants dearly. Slowly but surely the villages around Gaza were emptied of livestock and grain. Inside the city walls a great confusion reigned as grain storehouses were filled to overflowing and congestion grew from the constant transports of foodstuffs and livestock.

  But this was the most crucial part of the preparations for war. War was more about economics and supplies for an advancing army than it was about bravery on the field. That was the view of the new master of the fortress, even though he avoided communicating such profane ideas to his subordinate knights. Reinforcements began arriving from other fortresses in the country until the forty new knights promised by Jerusalem’s Master were in place inside the walls of Gaza.

  The next most important preparation was to widen the moats around Gaza and reinforce the city walls. The first line of defense would be out there, but if it collapsed the people and their animals would take refuge inside the fortress itself. The 280 sergeants and all the hired civilians, even the scribes and customs men, labored around the clock, using torchlight at night, on this construction work, and the master of the fortress himself made constant inspections of their progress.

  Saladin was delaying his attack, but no one understood why. According to the Bedouin spies that Arn sent down to the Sinai, Saladin’s army had assembled in Al Arish, a good day’s march from Gaza. Possibly the delay had to do with the way the war was going up in Syria. The Saracens did have an uncanny way of sending messages from one part of the country to the other, and no one really knew how they did it. The Bedouins in Gaza thought that the Saracen troops were using birds as messengers, but that was hard to believe. The Christians used smoke signals from one fortress to the next, but Gaza lay too far south and was thus prevented from using this system.

  The Bedouins who reported back to Arn estimated Saladin’s army at 10,000 men, and the vanguard consisted of Mameluke knights. This was terrible news; such an army would be impossible to defeat on the field. On the other hand, Arn suspected that his spies might be exaggerating, since they were given new assignments and more pay if they brought bad news rather than good.

  When almost a month had passed without an attack by Saladin, a certain calm fell over Gaza. They had largely managed to complete their task. They had even begun to distribute grain and livestock to the peasants, who now stood in long, loud queues outside the grain storehouses in the city, the ones that were to be emptied before the storehouses within the fortress walls.

  The young master of the fortress was constantly attending to these queues, listening to complaints and trying to resolve misunderstandings and dissension. It was obvious to all that he truly believed that this was not a matter of confiscation of goods but merely an attempt to save the grain from plunder and fire. His intention had been to see to it that each family in every village had enough to live on for a week at a time before they would have to go to Gaza and get more supplies. This way they could also bring along everything edible if they had to flee, leaving only empty villages to the enemy.

  Arn’s quartermaster Brother Bertrand thought that the process of writing everything down and explaining things to the peasants took up an unreasonable amount of time. But his superior refused to yield an inch; a promise from a Templar knight could not be broken.

  In the calmer work atmosphere that came about after the first month of nervous, rushed preparations, Arn finally took time for his sergeant. Armand de Gascogne may have thought he’d been transformed into a masonry worker rather than a sergeant in preparation, which he had become the moment that Jerusalem’s Master had expressed his blessing. But now he was summoned from working on the walls by the weapons master himself and ordered to report, washed and in new clothes, to the master of the castle after the midday meal. Armand’s hope flared up anew. He had not been forgotten, and his chances of being accepted as a full brother had not died with the approaching war.

  The master’s parlatorium was in the western part of the castle, high up with two large, vaulted windows looking out on the sea. When Armand arrived at the appointed time he found his lord tired and red-eyed, but still in a calm frame of mind. The beautiful room, with the afternoon sun streaming in, was simply furnished; no decorations on the walls, a large table in the center covered with maps and documents, and a row of chairs along one wall. Between the two windows facing the sea there was a doorway leading to a balcony. The master’s white mantle lay flung over one of the chairs, but when Armand entered the room and stood at attention, Arn went to fetch his mantle and tied it under his neck with practiced hands. Then he greeted Armand with a slight bow.

  “You have dug and dug, and I should think you probably feel more like a mole than a sergeant in preparation,” said Arn in a jocular tone, which instantly put Armand on his guard. The high brothers had a habit of laying traps in their words, even those that sounded most friendly.

  “Yes, we did a lot of digging. But it had to be done,” replied Armand cautiously.

  Arn gave him a long, searching look without revealing what he thought of that answer. Then he became serious and pointed to one of the chairs as if issuing an order. Armand sat down in the appointed place as his lord went over to the cluttered table and swept aside some documents. Arn sat down on the table with one leg dangling, leaning on his right
hand.

  “Let us first do what has to be done,” he said curtly. “I have summoned you so that we can go over some matters that you must answer truthfully. If this goes well for you, there are no more hindrances to your acceptance into our Order. If it goes badly, you will probably never become one of us. Have you prepared yourself for this moment with the prayers as prescribed by the Rule?”

  “Yes, lord,” replied Armand with a nervous swallow.

  “Are you married or are you engaged to any woman, and is there any woman who can make a claim on you?”

  “No, lord, I was the third son and—”

  “I understand. Please answer only yes or no. Now, the next question. Were you born legitimately of parents who were united before God?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Is your father or his brother or your father’s father a knight?”

  “My father is the baron of Gascogne.”

  “Excellent. Are you in financial debt to anyone of worldly position or to any brother or any sergeant in our Order?”

  “No, lord. How could one be in debt to a brother?”

  “Thank you!” Arn interrupted him, holding up a warning hand. “Just answer my questions, do not argue and do not question!”

  “Forgive me, lord.”

  “Are you healthy in your body, hale and hearty? Yes, I know the answer, but I must ask the question in accordance with the Rule.”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Have you paid any gold or silver to enter into our Order, and is there anyone who has promised against compensation to make you one of us? This is a serious question; it deals with the crime of simony, and if anything is later discovered, your white mantle will be taken from you. The Rule says that it is better that we know now than later. Well?”

  “No, lord.”

  “Are you prepared to live in chastity, poverty, and obedience?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Are you prepared to swear before God and Our Holy Virgin Mary that you will do your utmost in every situation to live up to the traditions and customs of the Knights Templar?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Are you prepared before God and Our Holy Virgin Mary to swear that you will never leave our Order, in its moments of weakness or its moments of strength, that you will never betray us and never leave us other than with special permission from our Grand Master?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  Arn did not seem to have any more questions; he sat silent and meditative for a while, as if he had already moved far away to other concerns. Then his face brightened suddenly. He jumped down from his half-sitting position on the table, and went over to Armand to embrace him and kiss him on both cheeks.

  “This is what our Rule prescribes from paragraph 669 on. Now you know this section that has been revealed to you, and you have my permission to go and read it again with the chaplain. Come now, we’ll go out on the balcony.”

  In a daze, Armand of course did as he was told, following his lord out to the balcony and, after some hesitation, standing just as he did with both hands resting on the stone railing, gazing down at the harbor.

  “That was the preparation,” Arn explained, a bit wearily. “You will be asked the same questions once again at the initiation itself, but then it’s more of a formality, since we already know your answers. It was this moment that counted, and I can now tell you for certain that you will be accepted as a knight as soon as we have time for it. Until then you will wear a white band around your upper right arm.”

  For a moment Armand felt a dizzy happiness inside, and he was incapable of replying to this good news.

  “Naturally, we have a war to win first,” Arn added thoughtfully. “And it doesn’t look easy, as you know. But if we die, then the matter is no longer of this world. If we survive, then you will soon be one of us. Arnoldo de Torroja and I myself will conduct the initiation ceremony. So be it. Do you feel happy about this?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “I wasn’t very happy when I was in your position. It had to do with the first question.”

  Arn had revealed this remarkable admission as if in passing, and Armand didn’t know how to reply, or whether he should say anything at all. They stood for a while looking down at the harbor, where hard work was in progress unloading two lighters that had moored that same day.

  “I have decided to make you our confanonier for the time being,” Arn said as if he’d returned from his reverie about the first question. “I don’t need to explain what a special honor it is to bear the banner of the Temple and the fortress in war; you know that already.”

  “But mustn’t a knight…can a sergeant be given that assignment?” Armand stammered, overwhelmed by the news.

  “Under normal circumstances it would be a knight, but you would have been a knight by now if the war hadn’t intervened. And I’m the one who decides, no one else. Our confanonier has not recovered from serious wounds; I visited him in the infirmary and have already spoken with him of this. Now let me hear what you think about the war we’re about to reenter.”

  They went in and sat down next to one of the big windows, and Armand tried to tell him what he thought. He presumed it would be a long siege that would be hard to endure but quite possible to win. He did not think they should ride out, 80 knights and 280 sergeants, to meet an army of Mameluke knights on the field. Scarcely 400 men against perhaps 7,000 to 8,000 knights—that would be very brave but also very stupid.

  Arn pensively nodded his agreement, but added, almost as if thinking out loud, that if that army bypassed Gaza and headed for Jerusalem itself there would no longer be any question of what was wise, stupid, or brave. Then there would be only one choice. So they would have to hope for a long and bloody siege. Because no matter how such a long battle would end, they would have saved Jerusalem. And there was no greater task for the Knights Templar.

  But if Saladin headed straight for Jerusalem, there would be only two choices for them all. Death, or salvation through a miracle of the Lord.

  So in spite of all its terrors, they would have to pray for a long siege.

  Two days later Armand de Gascogne rode for the first time as the confanonier in a squadron of knights led by the master himself. They rode south along the seacoast in the direction of Al Arish, fifteen knights and a sergeant in tight formation. According to the Bedouin spies, Saladin’s army was on the move but had split in two, with one regiment heading north along the coast and the other inland in a circular movement across the Sinai. It was not easy to grasp what the intention of such a maneuver might be, but the information would have to be verified.

  At first they rode close to the seacoast on the west, giving them full view of the beach to the southwest. But since there was a risk that they might end up behind enemy lines without realizing it, Arn soon ordered a change of course. Then they headed east, up toward the more mountainous part of the coast where the caravans passed during the seasons when storms made the coast itself impassable.

  Up by the caravan road they altered course again, so that they stayed in the heights above it and had a clear view of the road for a great distance. When they passed a curve where the view along the road was obscured by a protruding cliff, they suddenly made contact with the enemy.

  Both parties discovered each other at the same time, and both were equally surprised. Along the road below came an army of knights riding four abreast, stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Arn raised his right hand and signaled to regroup in attack position, so that all sixteen knights spread out in a row facing the enemy. He was obeyed at once, but his men also gave him some questioning, nervous looks. Below were at least two thousand Egyptian knights carrying yellow banners, and their yellow uniforms shone like gold in the sun. So they were Mamelukes, an entire army of Mamelukes, the absolutely best knights and soldiers the Saracens had.

  When the Templar knights high above them regrouped to attack, the valley soon echoed with commands and the clatter of horses’
hooves as the Egyptians hastily prepared to meet the assault. Their mounted archers were sent to the front rank.

  Arn sat silently in his saddle watching the mighty foe. He had no intention of ordering an attack, since it would result in the loss of fifteen knights and a sergeant without much gain from such a sacrifice. But neither did he want to flee.

  And the Mamelukes seemed reluctant as well. All they could see from their low vantage point was an enemy force of sixteen, which they could easily defeat. But since the enemy sat there calmly watching their opponents, there had to be more than sixteen of them, and it could be seen from far off that they were the infidels’ most terrifying knights of the red cross. The Mamelukes, who also must have seen Armand holding the commander’s banner, undoubtedly surmised that this was a trap. The sixteen may have been the only ones in sight, but the commander’s banner signified a much larger formation, perhaps 500 to 600 similar knights who were now readying themselves in case the bait of the sixteen knights was taken.

  Finding themselves on low ground before an attacking Frankish army of knights was the worst imaginable situation for the Saracens, whether they were Turks or Mamelukes. Soon new orders echoed off the cliffs from the commanders down below, and the Egyptian army began to retreat. At the same time a party of lightly armed scouts fanned out onto the surrounding slopes to locate the enemy’s main force.

  Then Arn gave the order for an about face, a new tight formation, and retreat at a walk. Slowly the sixteen knights disappeared out of the field of vision of their apprehensive foes.

  As soon as the squadron was safely out of sight, Arn ordered a brisk trot in the direction of Gaza, taking the fastest route.