The Road to Jerusalem - Crusades Trilogy 01
by Jan Guillou
SUMMARY: In 1150 Arn Magnusson is born to an aristocratic Swedish family and spends his childhood at the Cistercian monastery of Varnhem where he is taught the best of spiritual and worldly learning. He is also trained to become a master archer and swordsman by the giant Brother Guilbert, a former knight. At seventeen, equipped to become a monk or a warrior, Arn returns home, a young man and yet an innocent in the ways of the world. Two sisters cross his path: he is seduced by one yet falls deeply in love with the other. In loving the two sisters he has committed a serious crime and he is sentenced to serve twenty years as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land...