by Jan Guillou
Saladin’s opinion was that the coming war would be decided more by negotiations than on the battlefield, because his experience told him that so many new Franks arriving at once would have a hard time fighting. Arn had to agree with that assessment. It was also difficult for him to contradict Saladin in his belief that no one was better as a negotiator than Arn, who spoke God’s language fluently and Frankish like a native. He also had Saladin’s trust, and he ought to have the same trust among the Franks because he had served for twenty years as a Templar knight in the Holy Land.
This was also hard to contradict. Arn wanted to go home. He was so filled with longing that it made his recent wounds ache, although they had healed well. But he could not deny that he owed a debt to Saladin that would be hard to repay, because on more than one occasion he had spared Arn’s life. Without Saladin’s mercy he would never come home at all. But he was suffering from having to participate in a war that no longer concerned him.
Yet God showed mercy on the Muslims in more than one instance. The German Emperor Barbarossa drowned in a river, before he even reached the Holy Land. His body was conveyed further in a cask of vinegar, but he rotted anyway and was buried in Antiochia. The German crusade seemed to die with him.
And it happened just as Arn had predicted: only ten thousand Christian Franks appeared after Jerusalem’s fall, not a hundred thousand.
Saladin had released King Guy de Lusignan without even demanding a ransom. Faced with the new crusade from the lands of the Franks, Saladin knew that he needed a man like King Guy released among his own people; the king could be of much greater use there than as a prisoner. And Saladin was right. King Guy’s return led instantly to endless squabbling about the succession to the throne and treason among the Christians.
But Saladin did make one mistake that he would long regret. King Guy led a Christian army from Tyrus south along the coast in an attempt to retake Acre, which had been the Christians’ most important city after Jerusalem. Saladin chose not to take this threat seriously. When King Guy began to lay siege to Acre, Saladin of course sent off an army which would in turn attack the Christians, who were now trapped between the defenders of the city and Saladin’s army. Saladin thought that time, camp illnesses, and the lack of provisions would easily defeat the less-than-terrifying King Guy. Had Saladin been prepared to sacrifice many lives, he could have won the war swiftly, but he thought it unnecessary to pay that price.
Such a long delay permitted first the Frankish King Philippe Auguste and soon thereafter the English King Richard the Lionheart to come to the aid of the Christian besiegers outside Acre. And with that Saladin had brought upon himself an unreasonably hard war, just what he had been trying to avoid.
Arn was summoned to Saladin’s service, of course, since there would soon be various matters to negotiate. Saladin eventually put together a force of what he thought was a sufficient number of the men he had sent home to a well-deserved rest after a long and victorious war. Then he attacked recklessly, counting on a quick victory.
He had reckoned wrongly in more ways than one. Certainly the newly arrived Frankish and English crusaders were just as unused to the sun and heat as Saladin had been counting on, and it was now the middle of summer. But the Englishmen were used to fighting attacking cavalry. In fact, that was what they did best.
When the first Saracen cavalry stormed across the field toward the Frankish besiegers outside Acre, the sky grew dark in front of the attackers before they even understood why. A few seconds later they found themselves riding into thousands of arrows that seemed to be falling like hail from the sky. And the few riders who avoided being hit, those who were leading the charge and hadn’t noticed that no one was following them, rode straight into a shower of crossbow bolts at close range.
It was all over in less time than it takes a horse to gallop the distance of four normal arrow-shots. The field before Acre was a sea of wounded and dying men, as well as horses that lay kicking on the ground or ran back and forth in panic, trampling the wounded, some of whom staggered around in confusion or scared out of their wits.
Then Richard the Lionheart himself attacked at the head of his knights. It was his swiftest victory ever.
Looking on with a mixture of horror and the professional interest of a warrior, Arn had seen what longbows and crossbows could do. That lesson would never fade from his mind.
And so it was time to negotiate. The first step was to agree to a cease-fire that would allow them to collect all their dead from the battlefield, to the benefit of both sides in the summer heat. Arn was asked to take charge of this himself, since he was dressed as a Templar knight and so could ride straight toward the Englishmen without the risk of being shot.
English soldiers flush with victory, and speaking a language he did not understand, took Arn without delay to King Richard himself. To Arn’s relief he turned out to be a Frank rather than an Englishman, and spoke Frankish with a Norman accent.
King Richard the Lionheart was tall with reddish-blond hair and wide shoulders; he actually looked like a king, whereas King Guy did not. From the size of the battle-axe hanging on the right side of his saddle, it was easy to see that he must also be very strong.
Their first talk was brief, since it dealt only with the simple matter of cleaning up the battlefield. Richard the Lionheart wanted to meet with Saladin in person, and he asked Arn to convey his request.
The next day, Arn returned with a message from Saladin that any meeting between the kings was out of the question until it was time for peace, but Saladin’s son al Afdal would come to parley. Upon hearing this Richard flew into a rage against both Saladin and his negotiator, and he showered Arn with scornful accusations of treason against the Christians.
Arn replied that he was unfortunately Saladin’s prisoner. He had given his word of honor to carry out this mission to act as a go-between for King Richard and Saladin.
Then King Richard calmed down, muttering crossly something about what he thought of giving one’s word of honor to an unbeliever.
When Arn returned with the message, Saladin laughed as he hadn’t done in a long time. He said that a man’s “word of honor” was only as good as the honor the man himself possessed; it was as simple as that. When Saladin released King Guy without a ransom he had made him promise to leave the Holy Land and never raise a weapon against one of the faithful again. King Guy naturally had sworn on his Bible and his honor and before God and various saints that he would comply. And just as naturally, precisely as Saladin had reckoned with and hoped, he immediately betrayed his oath and was soon proving useful to the Saracens once again as he divided the Christians.
But Saladin’s siege of the Christians outside Acre was no longer going very well, since the English fleet was able to blockade Acre from receiving any provisions by sea. The starvation that Saladin had predicted would be to his advantage soon began to strike his own people inside Acre harder than the Christian besiegers outside the city walls. And it was obviously not a good idea to launch new attacks with cavalry across open fields against the English longbowmen.
Saladin lost the race against time. To his despair the garrison in Acre surrendered and turned over the city to King Richard.
Arn and al Afdal now had the heavy duty of riding into the conquered city to acquaint themselves with the conditions which the citizens of Acre had agreed to in Saladin’s name in order to surrender without continued strife.
After this it was very difficult to ride back to Saladin, because what his people inside Acre had agreed to were very harsh conditions indeed. Besides the city and all that was in it, King Richard demanded a hundred thousand besants in gold, the release of a thousand Christian prisoners and a hundred specific knights in captivity, as well as the return of the True Cross.
Not unexpectedly, Saladin shed tears when he heard these terms. It was a high price to pay for the two thousand seven hundred souls who were now at the mercy of King Richard. But Saladin’s people had agreed to these c
onditions to save their own lives, and honor demanded that Saladin concur.
Once again Arn and al Afdal rode back to the city known to al Afdal as Akko and to Arn as Saint-Jean d’Acre, which the Romans had called Akkon. Now the negotiations would become slower and more complicated, since they dealt with many practical matters regarding times and places and how payments should be divided up, and how many of the conditions had to be satisfied before the prisoners could be released.
It would take time to sort out such matters. But King Richard let the negotiators from the other side wait even longer, as he celebrated his victory, and allowed his army to engage in games on horseback outside the walls of Acre.
When King Richard finally deigned to speak to Saladin’s two negotiators, he did so with great contempt, saying that anyone who interrupted a tournament was hardly showing courtly manners unless he intended to participate. And then he turned to al Afdal and asked whether he was a coward or did he dare ride with a lance against any of the English knights. Arn translated and al Afdal replied on Arn’s advice that he would rather ride with a bow in his hand against any two of King Richard’s knights at the same time—a reply that King Richard pretended not to hear or understand when Arn translated it.
“What about you, captured Templar knight, are you also a coward?” asked King Richard derisively.
“No, Sire, I have served as a Templar knight for twenty years,” said Arn.
“If I offer your new master to pay me fifty thousand besants first and the prisoners we spoke of, and then release my Saracens before we receive the remaining fifty thousand besants and the True Cross, will you then ride against my best knight?”
“Yes, Sire, but I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” replied Arn.
“You shall regret those words, renegade, for now I give you Sir Wilfred,” snorted the king.
“I need a shield, lance, and helmet, Sire,” said Arn.
“You may borrow those from your Templar knights here in the city, or perhaps they are your former friends. I will see to that,” said the king.
Arn explained a bit listlessly to al Afdal what sort of contest the childish English king had devised. Al Afdal objected at once that it was against the rules to use any weapons when dealing with negotiators. Arn sighed that rules were probably not what the English king cherished most, as long as they did not please him.
Arn had no trouble borrowing what he needed from obliging brothers in the Templar quarters. Soon thereafter he rode out onto the field before the city walls, holding his helmet in the same hand as he carried the Templar shield, to salute his opponent. He was a bit hesitant when he saw how young and innocent this Wilfred looked, hardly older than his early twenties, and his face completely unscarred from battle.
They rode up to each other and paced two circuits around before they stopped face to face. Arn waited because he was unfamiliar with the rules for these games. The young Englishman then addressed him in a language he didn’t understand, and he asked his opponent to please speak his king’s language.
“I am Sir Wilfred, a knight who has worn my spurs on the battlefield, and I greet my opponent with honor,” said the young Englishman cockily in a Frankish that sounded most clumsy.
“I am Arn de Gothia, and I have worn my spurs on the battle-field for twenty years, and I greet you also, young man. What do we do now?” said Arn, amused.
“Now we ride at each other until one of us lies on the ground defenseless or dead or yields. May the best man win!” said Sir Wilfred.
“Well, I don’t want to hurt you, young man. Is it enough if I knock you out of the saddle a few times?” asked Arn.
“You won’t win anything by offensive speech, Sir Arn; that will merely cost you even greater suffering,” replied Sir Wilfred with a sneer that seemed to Arn well practiced.
“Bear one thing in mind, young man,” said Arn. “You are riding against a Templar knight for the first time, and we never lose against tenderfeet in such games.”
More was not said, for Sir Wilfred turned his horse and galloped back across the field, where he wheeled about again, lifted his helmet, and jammed it onto his head. He was using a helmet of the new type that covered his whole face and made it hard to see anything except what was straight ahead.
Arn also rode back to get ready, but more slowly.
They stood facing each other for a while without anything happening. Since his opponent seemed to have turned his gaze toward King Richard’s pavilion, Arn also glanced in that direction. When silence had fallen over the crowd, King Richard stood up and stepped forward with a big red scarf that he held in his outstretched hand. Suddenly he dropped the scarf and at once the young knight set off to attack from across the field.
Arn was riding Ibn Anaza, which gave him an advantage so great that his opponent, who came thundering on a heavy Frankish stallion, would never be able to imagine it. That alone would make the battle turn in his favor, but the hard thing for Arn would be not to inflict more than bruises on his opponent.
On his way across the field, Arn at first rode at the same moderate pace as his approaching opponent, and he saw what was clearly the intention: to strike the other man’s head or shield, either to kill him or knock him from his saddle. It appeared to be a very dangerous game, and Arn did not want to strike with the tip of his lance at full speed.
Shortly before they met, Arn increased his speed so that Ibn Anaza was galloping hard, and then he leaned as he swung to the left just before impact. This brought him up on the wrong side of his opponent and enabled him to sweep the knight from his saddle with the broadside of his lance.
With some uneasiness he turned around and trotted over to the young man, who lay swearing and kicking in the sand.
“I hope I didn’t injure you too badly, because I didn’t mean to,” said Arn kindly. “Are we done now?”
“No, I do not yield,” said the tenderfoot, grabbing angrily for the reins of his horse and getting up. “I have the right to three attacks!”
Somewhat disappointed, Arn then rode back to the place where he had started before, thinking that the same simple trick would probably not work a second time.
He switched hands so that he was now holding the lance in his left hand with the shield slipped over his upper arm so that it would not be seen before they were very close to each other. By then it would be too late.
Again the king dropped his red scarf, and once more the young Englishman attacked as fast as he could make his heavy stallion run. There was obviously nothing wrong with his courage.
This time Arn did not switch sides in the attack. But just before impact he raised his left arm so that the shield came down at an angle across his opponent’s lance, as he gripped the blunt end of his lance hard with his right hand. The tip of Sir Wilfred’s lance glanced off Arn’s oblique shield. In the next instant the Englishman was struck in the middle of his chest as if by an oar, and this time it connected with twice the force as before. The result was the same, except that Sir Wilfred now flew farther through the air before he slammed into the ground.
Yet he again refused to yield.
The third time Arn flung away his shield and held his lance backward like a club and rode at his opponent with the club lowered until the very last moment. Then with both hands he raised it so that the Englishman’s lance flew up and past him while his own gigantic cudgel slid as if on a track along the other’s lance and hit him solidly in the face. The helmet saved him from being killed, but naturally he flew off his horse just as he had done twice before.
When Arn assured himself that his opponent was not badly hurt, he took off his round, open helmet, rode up toward King Richard, and gave an exaggerated bow.
“Sire, your young Wilfred deserves great respect for his courage. Never before has such a young man ridden without fear against a Templar knight.”
“Your tricks are amusing, but incorrect according to our rules,” the king replied crossly.
“My rules are from the battlefield
and not from the jousting field, Sire. Besides, I told you that I didn’t want to injure your knight. His bravery and nerve will surely be of great joy to you, Sire.”
This childish game had two consequences for Arn. The first and for the moment most important was that King Richard adjusted the conditions a bit for Saladin’s payment.
The other result was that a young knight by the name of Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who now took part in his first large-scale war, for the rest of his life would have an easy time with all opponents on both the jousting field and battlefield, except for Templar knights. He would often have nightmares about them.
When Arn went back to the Templar quarters to return the weapons he had borrowed, he was invited to dine with the new Master of Saint-Jean d’Acre, whom he had known for years, ever since they had been at the fortress of La Fève together. His brother had a good deal to complain about when it came to the English king, especially the fact that this man could not get along with his peers. He had thrown the Frankish king Philippe Auguste out of the Templar quarters. After the royal palace—which was where King Richard had moved in, of course—the Templar residence was the next most elegant in Saint-Jean d’Acre. The two sovereigns had begun to squabble so badly about this trifle that the Frankish king had now decided to take all his men and head home. King Richard had also insulted the Austrian grand duke, by taking down the Austrian standard, which hung between the English and Frankish ones up on the walls. He then broke it in pieces and cast it into the moat. Violent brawls had erupted between the English and the Austrians, and now the Austrians were going to leave too. Through these childish actions the Christians had lost half the strength of their forces, but King Richard seemed to be convinced that only he and his own men were needed to retake Jerusalem, together with the Knights Templar. It was an attitude that was as dangerous as it was rash, but this was understood better by those, like Arn and his old friend, who had been at war with Saladin much longer. The mere prospect of having to move all these archers on foot in the burning sun on the road to Jerusalem would cause great suffering when the attacks from Saladin’s Syrian mounted archers commenced.