The Templar Knight
The Crusades Trilogy
Jan Guillou

Translated by Steven T. Murray

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ Jacula Prudentum, 1651, no. 170

In the name of God, most benevolent, ever-merciful.

‘God is great in His glory, Who took His votary in the night to a wide and open land from the Sacred Mosque to the most distant Mosque whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him Our sign; Verily He is all-hearing and all-seeing.’

The Holy Koran, Sura 17, Verse 1

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Al Ghouti - Arn de Gothia

Arman de Gascogne, his sergeant

Arnoldo de Torroja, Master of Jerusalem

Odo de Saint Armand, Grand Master

Siegfried de Turenne

Harald Øysteinsson

Grand Master Roger des Moulins

CHRISTIANS

Count Raymond III de Tripoli

Reynald de Châtillon

Gérard de Ridefort

King Baldwin IV

Baldwin d’Ibelin, later Baldwin V

Guy de Lusignan, later King Guy

Agnes de Courtenay

Father Louis

Heraclius

MUSLIMS

Yussuf ibn Ayyub Salah al-Din - Saladin

Fahkr - his brother

al Afdal, Saladin’s son

Ibrahim ibn Anaza

INHABITANTS OF GUDHEM MONASTERY

Abbess Rikissa

Cecilia Algotsdotter (Rosa), betrothed of Arn

Cecilia Ulvsdotter (Blanca), betrothed of Knut Eriksson

Sister Leonore

Ulvhilde Emundsdotter

Fru Helena Stensdotter

FOLKUNG CLAN

Birger Brosa, Arn’s uncle

Magnus; Arn and Cecilia’s son

Eskil Magnusson, Arn’s brother

King Knut Eriksson

Philippe Auguste, King of France

Richard the Lionheart, King of England

Babarossa, Emperor of Germany

ONE

During Muharram, the holy month of mourning, which occurred when the summer was at its hottest in the year 575 after Hijra, called Anno Domini 1177 by the infidels, God sent His most remarkable deliverance to those of His faithful He loved best.

Yussuf and his brother Fahkr were riding for their lives and right behind, shielding them from the enemies’ arrows, came the Emir, Moussa. Their pursuers, who were six in number, were steadily gaining on them, and Yussuf cursed his arrogance, which had made him believe that something like this would never happen since he and his companions possessed the swiftest of horses. But the landscape here in the valley of death and drought due west of the Dead Sea was just as inhospitably arid as it was rocky. This made it dangerous to ride too fast, although their pursuers seemed completely unhampered by this. But if one of them happened to take a spill, it would be no less fateful than if any of the men being chased should fall.

Yussuf suddenly decided to cut across to the west and head up toward the mountains, where he hoped to find cover. Before long the three pursued horsemen were following a wadi, a dry riverbed, up a steep slope. But the wadi began to narrow and deepen so that they were soon riding in a long ravine, as if God had caught them in flight and was now steering them in a specific direction. Now there was only one road, and it led upward, growing steeper and steeper, making it harder and harder to keep up their speed. And their pursuers were coming steadily closer; they would soon be within shooting range. The men being chased had already fastened their round iron-clad shields to their backs.

Yussuf was not in the habit of praying for his life. But now, as he was forced to decrease his speed more and more among all the treacherous boulders at the bottom of the wadi, a verse came to him from God’s Word, which he breathlessly rattled off with parched lips:

He who has created life and death in order to test you and allow you to prove who among you, by his actions, is the best. He is the Almighty. The One who always forgives.

And God did indeed test His beloved Yussuf and showed him, first as a mirage against the light of the setting sun, and then with terrible clarity the most horrific sight that any of the faithful in such a hunted and difficult situation could see.

From the opposite direction in the wadi came a Templar knight with lowered lance, and behind him rode his sergeant. Both of these foes were riding at such speed that their cloaks billowed behind them like great dragon wings; they came like jinni out of the desert.

Yussuf abruptly reined in his horse and fumbled with his shield, which he now had to pull around to the front to face the infidel’s lance. He felt no fear, only a cold excitement at the nearness of death, and he steered his horse over to the steep wall of the wadi to present a narrower target and increase the angle of the enemy’s lance.

But then the Templar knight, who was only a few breaths away, raised his lance and waved his shield, as a signal to Yussuf and his brother to move aside and get out of their way. They complied at once, and the next moment the two Templar knights thundered past as they let their cloaks fall, which fluttered to the dust behind them.

Yussuf quickly issued an order to his companions. With difficulty, their horses’ hooves slipping, they clambered up the steep slope of the wadi until they reached a spot from which they had a good view. There Yussuf turned his horse around and stopped, for he wished to understand what God meant by all of this.

The two others wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and escape while the Templar knights and bandits settled matters as they saw fit. But Yussuf rejected all such arguments with a curt gesture of annoyance because he truly wanted to see what would happen next. He had never in all his life been this close to a Templar knight, those demons of evil, and he felt strongly, as if God’s voice were advising him, that he had to see what was going to happen; mere common sense would not stop him. Common sense dictated that they should continue their ride toward Al Arish for as long as the light permitted. But what he now saw he would never forget.

The six bandits had few choices once they discovered that instead of chasing three wealthy men they were now facing two Templar knights, lance to lance. The wadi was much too narrow for them to be able to stop, turn around, and affect a retreat before the Franks were upon them. After a brief hesitation they did the only thing they could do: They grouped themselves so they were riding two by two and spurred their horses so as not to be killed by standing still.

The white-clad Templar knight who rode in front of his sergeant first feigned an attack to the right of the first two bandits, and when they held up their shields to counter the dreaded blow of his lance - Yussuf wondered whether the bandits understood what now awaited them - the Templar knight spun his horse around with a swift movement that shouldn’t have been possible in such tight quarters. This gave him a whole new vantage point, and he thrust his lance right between the shield and body of the bandit on the left. At the same time, he released his lance so as not to be wrenched out of his saddle. Just at that moment the sergeant came in contact with the astonished bandit on the right, who was huddled behind his shield, waiting for the blow that never came, and who now looked up only to see the other foe’s lance coming towards his face from the wrong direction.

The white-clad man with the loathsome red cross now faced the next two enemies in a passageway so narrow that there was barely room for three horses abreast. He had drawn his sword, and at first it looked as if he intended to attack headon, which would have been unwise with a weapon on only one side. But suddenly he turned his handsome steed sideways, a roan at the height of its powers, and lashed out behind him, striking one of the bandits and toppling him out of the saddle.

The second bandit then saw a good opportunity since the enemy was approaching him sideways, almost backwards, with his sword in the wrong hand and out of reach. What he did not notice was that the Templar knight had dropped his shield and switched his sword to his left hand. When the bandit leaned forward in the saddle to strike with his sabre, he exposed his whole neck and head to the blow, which now came from the opposite direction.

‘If the head can retain a thought at the moment of death, if only for a brief breath, then that was a very surprised head that fell to the ground,’ said Fahkr in amazement. He too was now captivated by the drama and wanted to see more.

The last two bandits had exploited the moment of decreased speed that had befallen the white-clad Templar knight as he dispatched the other bandit. They had turned their horses around and were now fleeing down the wadi.

At that moment the black-clad sergeant reached the godless dog who had been knocked to the ground by the Templar knight’s horse. The sergeant dismounted, calmly grabbed the reins of the bandit’s horse with one hand and with the other used his sword to stab the dazed, reeling, and no doubt bruised bandit in the throat at the spot where his steel-plated leather coat of mail ended. But then the sergeant no longer made any attempt to follow his master, who had now put on speed to chase down the last two fleeing bandits. Instead, the sergeant hobbled the horse he had just caught with the reins and then cautiously began rounding up the other loose horses, seeming to talk to them reassuringly. He did not appear at all worried about his master, whom he had been following so closely to offer protection. Instead, he seemed to think it more important to gather up the enemies’ horses. It was truly a strange sight.

‘That man,’ said Emir Moussa, pointing toward the whiteclad Templar knight who was far down the wadi and about to disappear from the sight of the three faithful, ‘that man there, sire, is Al Ghouti.’

‘Al Ghouti?’ said Yussuf, puzzled. ‘You say his name as if I should know him. But I do not. Who is Al Ghouti?’

‘Al Ghouti is a man you should know, sire,’ replied Emir Moussa resolutely. ‘He is the man God sent to us for our sins, he is the one among the devils of the red cross who sometimes ride with the Turcopoles and sometimes with their heavy horsemen. Now, as you can see, he is riding an Arabian stallion as a Turcopole does, but carrying a lance and sword as if he were seated on one of the slow and heavy Frankish horses. He is also the emir of the Knights Templar in Gaza.’

‘Al Ghouti, Al Ghouti,’ muttered Yussuf thoughtfully. ‘I would like to meet him. We will wait here!’

The two others looked at him in horror but realized at once that he had made up his mind, so it would do no good to offer any objections, no matter how wise.

While the three Saracen horsemen waited at the top of the wadi’s slope, they watched the Templar knight’s sergeant. Seemingly unperturbed and as though carrying out the most ordinary daily task, he had rounded up the horses of the four dead men. He then tied them together and started lugging and dragging the corpses of the bandits. With great effort, although he appeared to be a very powerful man, he hoisted them up and bound them hand and foot, each dead man slung over his own horse.

The Templar knight and the two remaining bandits, who had been the pursuers but were now the pursued, could no longer be seen.

‘Very clever,’ muttered Fahkr as if to himself. ‘That is clever. He ties the right man to the right horse to keep the animals calm in spite of the blood. He is obviously thinking of taking the horses along with them.’

‘Yes, they are truly fine horses,’ agreed Yussuf. ‘What I do not understand is how such criminals could have horses that are fit for a king. Their horses kept pace with our own.’

‘Worse than that. They were closing on us at the end,’ objected Emir Moussa, who never hesitated to speak his mind to his lord. ‘But haven’t we seen enough? Wouldn’t it be wise to ride off now into the darkness before Al Ghouti comes back?’

‘Are you certain that he will come back?’ asked Yussuf, amused.

‘Yes, sire, he will come back,’ replied Emir Moussa morosely. ‘I am just as certain of that as the sergeant is down there; he hasn’t even troubled to follow his master when there are only two enemies to fight. Didn’t you notice that Al Ghouti had thrust his sword into its sheath and had pulled out his bow and stretched it taut just as he came around the bend down there?’

‘He pulled out a bow? A Templar knight?’ asked Yussuf in surprise, raising his slender eyebrows.

‘Yes he did, sire,’ replied Emir Moussa. ‘He is a Turcopole, as I said; sometimes he travels light and shoots from the saddle like a Turk, except his bow is bigger. Far too many of the faithful have died from his arrows. I would still dare to suggest, sire, that -’

‘No!’ Yussuf cut him off. ‘We will wait here. I want to meet him. We have a truce with the Knights Templar right now, and I want to thank him. I owe him my gratitude, and I refuse even to consider being indebted to a Templar knight!’

The two others could see it would do no good to argue any further. But they were uneasy, and all conversation ceased.

They sat there in silence for a while, leaning forward with one hand resting on the pommel of their saddles as they watched the sergeant, who was now done with the bodies and horses. He had started gathering the weapons and the cloaks that both he and his master had flung off right before the attack. After a while he picked up the severed head in one hand, and for a moment it looked as if he were wondering how to pack it up. At last he pulled the headdress off one of the bandits, wrapped it around the head, and made a parcel which he tied onto the pommel of the saddle over which the body with the missing head was slung.

Finally the sergeant was finished with all his tasks. He made sure all of the packs were fastened securely and then mounted his horse and began slowly leading his caravan of linked horses past the three Saracens.

Yussuf then greeted the sergeant politely in Frankish, with a wave of his arm. The sergeant gave him an uncertain smile in return, but they could not hear what he said.

Dusk began to fall, the sun had dropped behind the high mountains to the west, and the salt water of the sea far below no longer gleamed blue. The horses seemed to sense their masters’ impatience; they tossed their heads and snorted now and then, as if they too wanted to get moving before it grew too late.

But then they saw the white-clad Templar knight returning along the wadi. In tow behind him came two horses with two dead men draped over the saddles. He was in no hurry and rode with his head lowered, making him look as if he were lost in prayer even though he was probably just keeping an eye on the rocky, uneven ground. He did not appear to have seen the three waiting horsemen, although from his vantage point they must have been visible, silhouetted against the light part of the evening sky.

But when he reached them, he looked up and reined in his horse without saying a word.

Yussuf felt at a loss, as if he had been struck dumb because what he now saw did not coincide with what he had witnessed only a short time ago. This spawn of the Devil, who was openly called Al Ghouti, radiated peace. He had hung his helmet by a chain over his shoulder. His short fair hair and his thick, unkempt beard of the same colour framed a demon’s face with eyes that were as blue as you might expect. But here was a man who had just killed three or four other men; in the excitement Yussuf had not been able to keep track of how many, even though he usually could recall everything he saw in battle. Yussuf had seen many men after a victory, just after they had killed and won, but he had never seen anyone who looked as if he had come from a day’s work, as if he had been harvesting grain in the fields or sugarcane in the marshes, with the clear conscience that only good work can provide. His blue eyes were not the eyes of a demon.

‘We were waiting for you…we wish to thank you…’ said Yussuf in a semblance of Frankish that he hoped the other man would understand.

The man who was called Al Ghouti in the language of the faithful gazed at Yussuf steadily as his face slowly lit up with a smile, as if he were searching his memory and had found what he sought. This made Emir Moussa and Fahkr, but not Yussuf, cautiously, almost unconsciously, drop their hands to their weapons beside their saddles. The Templar knight quite clearly saw their hands, which now seemed to be moving of their own accord toward their sabres. Then he raised his glance to the three on the slope, looked Yussuf straight in the eyes, and replied in God’s own language:

‘In the name of God the Merciful, we are not enemies at this time, and I seek no strife with you. Consider these words from your own scripture, the words which the Prophet himself, may peace be with him, spoke: “Take not another man’s life - God has declared it holy - except in a righteous cause.” You and I have no righteous cause, for there is now a truce between us.’

The Templar knight smiled even wider, as if he wanted to entice them to laugh; he was fully aware of the impression he must have made on the three foes when he addressed them in the language of the Holy Koran. But Yussuf, who now realized that he had to be quick-witted and swift to take command of the situation, answered the Templar knight after only a slight hesitation.

‘The ways of God the Almighty are truly unfathomable,’ and to that the Templar knight nodded, as if these words were particularly familiar to him. ‘And only He can know why He sent an enemy to save us. But I owe you my thanks, knight of the red cross, and I will give you some of the riches that these infidels wanted. In this place where I now sit, I will leave a hundred dinars in gold, and they belong by rights to you for saving our lives.’

Yussuf now thought that he had spoken like a king, and a very generous king, as kings should be. But to his surprise and that of his brother and Emir Moussa, the Templar knight replied at first with a laugh that was completely genuine and without scorn.

‘In the name of God the Merciful, you speak to me out of both goodness and ignorance,’ said the Templar knight. ‘From you I can accept nothing. What I did here I had to do, whether you were present or not. And I own no worldly possessions and cannot accept any; that is one reason. Another reason is that the way around my vow is for you to donate the hundred dinars to the Knights Templar. But if you will permit me to say so, my unknown foe and friend, I think you would have difficulty explaining that gift to your Prophet!’

With these words, the Templar knight gathered up his reins, cast a glance back at the two horses and the two bodies he had in tow, and urged his Arabian horse on, as he raised his right hand with clenched fist toward the men in the salute of the Templar knights. He looked as if he found the situation quite amusing.

‘Wait!’ said Yussuf, so quickly that his words came faster than his thoughts. ‘Then I invite you and your sergeant instead to share our evening meal!’

The Templar knight reined in his horse and looked at Yussuf with a thoughtful expression.

‘I accept your invitation, my unknown foe and friend,’ the Templar knight replied, ‘but only on the condition that I have your word none of you intends to draw a weapon against me or my sergeant as long as we are in one another’s company.’

‘You have my word on the name of the true God and His Prophet,’ replied Yussuf quickly. ‘Do I have yours?’

‘Yes, you have my word on the name of the true God, His Son, and the Holy Virgin,’ replied the Templar knight just as quickly. ‘If you ride two fingers south of the spot where the sun went down behind the mountains, you will reach a stream. Follow it to the northwest and you will find several low trees near some water. Stay there for the night. We will be farther west, up on the slope near the same water that flows toward you. But we will not sully the water. It will soon be night and you have your hour for prayers, as do we. But afterwards, when we come in the darkness to you, we will make enough noise so you hear us, and not come quietly, like someone with evil intentions.’

The Templar knight spurred his horse, again saluted in farewell, got his little caravan moving, and rode off into the twilight without looking back.

The three faithful watched him for a long time without moving or saying a word. Their horses snorted impatiently, but Yussuf was lost in thought.

‘You are my brother, and nothing you do or say should surprise me anymore after all these years,’ said Fahkr. ‘But what you just did really surprised me. A Templar knight! And the one they call Al Ghouti at that!’

‘Fahkr, my beloved brother,’ replied Yussuf as he turned his horse with an easy movement to head in the direction described by his foe. ‘You must know your enemy; we have talked a great deal about that, haven’t we? And among your enemies, isn’t it best to learn from the one who is most monstrous of all? God has given us this golden opportunity; let us not refuse His gift.’

‘But can we trust the word of such a man?’ objected Fahkr after they had been riding for a time in silence.

‘Yes, we can, as a matter of fact,’ muttered Emir Moussa. ‘The enemy has many faces, known and unknown. But that man’s word we can trust, just as he can trust your brother’s.’

They followed their foe’s instructions and soon found the little stream with fresh cold water, where they stopped to let their horses drink. Then they continued along the stream and, exactly as the Templar knight had said, came to a level area. There the stream spread out to a small pond where low trees and bushes grew, with a sparse pasture area for the horses. They unsaddled the animals and took off the packs, hobbling the horses’ forelegs so that they would stay close to the water and not go in search of grazing land farther away, where none existed. Then the men washed themselves, as prescribed by law, before prayers.

At the first appearance of the bright crescent moon in the blue summer night sky, they said their prayers of mourning for the dead and of gratitude to God for sending them, in His unfathomable mercy, the worst of their foes to rescue them.

They talked a bit about this very subject after prayers. Yussuf then said that he thought God, in an almost humourous way, had shown His omnipotence: revealing that nothing was impossible for Him, not even sending Templar knights to rescue the very ones who in the end would conquer all Templar knights.

Yussuf tried to convince himself and everyone else of this. Year after year new warlords arrived from the Frankish lands; if they won, they soon returned home with their heavy loads.

But some Franks never went back home, and they were both the best and the worst of the lot. Best because they did not pillage for pleasure and because it was possible to reason with them, making trade contracts and peace agreements. But they were also the worst because some of them were fierce adversaries in war. The worst of them all were the two cursed devout orders of competing monks, the Templars and the Hospitallers of St John. Whoever wanted to cleanse the land of the enemy, whoever wanted to take back Al Aksa and the Temple of the Rock in God’s Holy City, would have to conquer both the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers. Nothing else was possible.

Yet they seemed impossible to conquer. They fought without fear, convinced that they would enter paradise if they died in battle. They never surrendered since their laws forbade the rescue of captured brothers from imprisonment. A captured Hospitaller knight or Templar knight was a worthless prisoner that they might just as soon release or kill. Thus they always died.

It was a rule of thumb that if fifteen of the faithful met five Templar knights out on a plain, it meant that either all or none of them would live. If the fifteen faithful attacked the five infidels, none of the faithful would escape with his life. To ensure victory of such an attack, they had to be four times as many and still be prepared to pay a very high price in casualties. With ordinary Franks this was not the case; ordinary Franks could be defeated even if there were fewer men on the side of the faithful.

While Fahkr and Emir Moussa gathered wood to make a fire, Yussuf lay on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky where more and more stars were appearing. He was pondering these men who were his worst enemies. He thought about what he had seen right before sundown. The man called Al Ghouti had a horse worthy of a king, a horse that seemed to think the same thoughts as his master, that obeyed instinctively.

It was not sorcery; Yussuf was a man who ultimately rejected such explanations. The simple truth was that the man and the horse had fought and trained together for many years, in the most serious fashion, not just as a pastime to be taken up when there was nothing else to do. Among the Egyptian Mamelukes there were similar men and horses, and the Mamelukes, of course, did nothing but train until they were successful enough to obtain commissions and land, their freedom and gold granted in gratitude for many good years of service in war. This was no miracle or magic; it was man alone and not God who created these kinds of men. The only question was: What was the most crucial characteristic for attaining that goal?

Yussuf’s answer to this question was always that it was pure faith, that the one who wholeheartedly and absolutely followed the words of the Prophet, may peace be with Him, regarding the Jihad, the holy war, would become an unconquerable warrior. But the problem was that among the Mamelukes in Egypt it was impossible to find the most faithful of Muslims; usually they were Turks and more or less superstitious, believing in spirits and holy stones and giving only lip service to the pure and true faith.

In this case it was worse that even the infidels could create men like Al Ghouti. Could it be that God was demonstrating that man uses his own free will to determine his purpose in life, in this life on earth, and that only when the holy fire separates the wheat from the chaff will it be apparent who are the faithful and who are the infidels?

It was a disheartening thought. For if it was God’s intention that the faithful, if they could unite in a Jihad against the infidels, should be rewarded with victory, why then had He created enemies who were impossible to defeat, man to man? Perhaps to show that the faithful truly had to unite against the enemy? The faithful had to stop fighting among themselves because those who joined forces would be ten to a hundred times more numerous than the Franks, who would then be doomed, even if they were all Templar knights.

Yussuf again recalled the image of Al Ghouti: his stallion; his black, well-oiled, and undamaged harness; his equipment, none of which was merely for the pleasure of the eye but for the joy of the hand. Something could be learned from this. Many men had died on the battlefield because they couldn’t resist wearing their stiff, new, glittery-gold brocade over their armour, which hindered their movements at the crucial moment, and thus they died more from vanity than anything else. Everything they had seen should be remembered and learned from, otherwise how were they going to conquer the devilish enemy that now occupied God’s Holy City?

The fire had already begun to crackle. Fahkr and Emir Moussa had spread out the muslin coverlet and were starting to set out provisions and drinking vessels of water. Emir Moussa squatted down and ground up his mocha beans to prepare his black Bedouin drink. With the descending darkness a cool breeze came racing down the mountainside from Al Kahlil, the city of Abraham. But the cool air after a hot day would soon give way to cold.

The westerly direction of the wind brought Yussuf the scent of the two Franks at the same time as he heard them out in the darkness. It was the smell of slaves and battlefields; no doubt they would come unwashed to the evening meal, like the barbarians they were.

When the Templar knight stepped into the light of the fire, the faithful saw that he was carrying his white shield with the red cross before him, as no guest ever should. Emir Moussa took several hesitant steps toward his saddle where he had stacked up their weapons with the harnesses. But Yussuf quickly caught his nervous eye and quietly shook his head.

The Templar knight bowed before each of his hosts in turn, and his sergeant followed his master’s lead. Then he surprised the three faithful by lifting up his white shield with the loathsome cross and setting it as high up as he could in one of the low trees. When he then stepped forward to unfasten his sword and sit down, as Yussuf invited him to do with a gesture of his hand, the Templar knight explained that as far as he knew, there were no malicious men in the area, but you could never be certain. For that reason the shield of a Templar knight would probably have a chilling effect on their fighting spirit. He generously offered to let his shield hang there overnight and come back to get it at dawn when it would be time for all of them to move on.

When the Templar knight and his sergeant sat down near the muslin coverlet and began setting out their own bundles - dates, mutton, bread, and something unclean were visible - Yussuf could no longer hold back the laughter he had tried so hard to suppress. All the others looked up at him in surprise, since none of them had noticed anything amusing. The two Templar knights frowned, suspecting that they might be the objects of Yussuf’s merriment.

He had to explain, saying that if there was one thing in the world he had never expected to have as night-time protection, it was in truth a shield with the worst emblem of the enemy. Although on the other hand this confirmed what he had always believed, that God in His omnipotence truly was not averse to joking with His children. And at this he thought they could all laugh.

Just then the Templar knight discovered a piece of smoked meat among the items his sergeant was setting out, and he said something harsh in Frankish and pointed with his long, sharp dagger. Red-faced, the sergeant removed the meat while the Templar knight apologized, shrugging his shoulders and saying that what was impure meat for one person in this world was good meat for another.

The three faithful now understood that a piece of pork had been lying in the middle of the food, and thus the entire meal was unclean. But Yussuf quickly whispered a reminder about God’s word in those cases when a man finds himself in need, when laws are not laws in the same way as when a man is in his own house, and they all had to be content with that.

Yussuf blessed the food in the name of God the Merciful and Gracious, and the Templar knight blessed the food in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Mother of God, and none of the five men showed any disdain for the beliefs of the others.

They began offering each other food, and finally, at Yussuf’s invitation, the Templar knight accepted a piece of lamb baked in bread, slicing it in two with his grey, unadorned, extremely sharp dagger. He then handed half of it on the tip of his knife to his sergeant, who stuffed it into his mouth, hiding his distaste.

They ate in silence for a while. The faithful had placed the lamb baked in bread along with chopped green pistachios baked in spun sugar and honey on their side of the muslin coverlet. On their own side, the infidels had dried mutton, dates, and dry white bread.

‘There is something I would like to ask you, Templar knight,’ said Yussuf after a while. He spoke in a low, intent voice, the way his closest friends knew he always talked when he had been thinking for a long time and wanted to understand something important.

‘You are our host, we have accepted your invitation, and we will gladly answer your questions, but remember that our faith is the true faith, not yours,’ replied the Templar knight with an expression as if he were daring to joke about his own faith.

‘Doubtless you know what I think about that matter, Templar knight, but here is my question. You rescued us, we who are your foes. I have already acknowledged that this is true, and I have thanked you. But now I want to know why you did it.’

‘We did not rescue our foes,’ said the Templar knight thoughtfully. ‘We have been after those six bandits for a long time. We’ve been following them at a distance for a week, waiting for the right moment. Our mission was to kill them, not to rescue you. But at the same time God happened to hold a protective hand over you, and neither you nor I can explain why.’

‘But you are the real Al Ghouti himself?’ Yussuf persisted.

‘Yes, that is so,’ said the Templar knight. ‘I am the one the nonbelievers in their own language now call Al Ghouti, but my name is Arn de Gothia, and my mission was to free the world of those six unworthy men, and I completed my mission. That is the whole of it.’

‘But why should someone like you do such a thing? Aren’t you also the emir of the Knights Templar in your fortress in Gaza? A man of rank? Why should such a man take on such a lowly mission, and a dangerous one at that, setting out for these inhospitable regions just to kill bandits?’

‘Because that was how our order came into being long before I was even born,’ replied the Templar knight. ‘From the beginning, when our troops had liberated God’s Sepulchre, our people had no protection when they went on a pilgrimage down to the River Jordan and the site where Yahia, as you call him, once baptized the Lord Jesus Christ. And back then pilgrims carried all their possessions with them, instead of leaving them in safekeeping with us, as they do now. They were easy prey for bandits. Our order was created to protect them. Even today it is considered a mission of honour to offer protection to pilgrims and kill bandits. So it is not as you think, that this is a lowly mission we give to just anyone; on the contrary, it is the heart and soul of our order, a mission of honour, as I said. And God granted our prayers.’

‘You are right,’ Yussuf concluded with a sigh. ‘We should always protect pilgrims. How much easier life would be here in Palestine if we all did so. By the way, in which Frankish country is this Gothia located?’

‘Not exactly in any Frankish country,’ replied the Templar knight with an amused glint in his eye, as if all his solemnity had suddenly vanished. ‘Gothia lies far north of the land of the Franks, at the ends of the earth. But what country do you come from? You don’t speak Arabic as if you came from Mecca.’

‘I was born in Baalbek, but all three of us are Kurds,’ replied Yussuf in surprise. ‘This is my brother Fahkr, and this is my…friend Moussa. Where did you learn to speak the language of the faithful? Men like you do not usually end up in long captivity, do they?’

‘No, that is true,’ replied the Templar knight. ‘Men like me don’t end up in prison at all, and I’m sure that you know why. But I have lived in Palestine for ten years; I am not here to steal goods and then go home after half a year. Most of the men who work for the Knights Templar speak Arabic. My sergeant’s name, by the way, is Armand de Gascogne; he’s quite new here and doesn’t understand much of what we’re saying. That’s why he is so silent, not like your men, who don’t dare speak until you give them permission.’

‘Your eyes are sharp,’ murmured Yussuf, red-faced. ‘I am the eldest, you can already see grey hairs in my beard; I am the one who administers the family’s money. We are merchants on our way to an important meeting in Cairo, and…I don’t know what my brother and my friend would want to ask one of the enemy’s knights. We are all peaceful men.’

The Templar knight gave Yussuf a searching glance but said nothing for a while. He took his time eating some of the honey-drenched almonds. He paused and held up a piece of the delicacy to the firelight to examine it, concluding that these baked goods must have come from Aleppo. Then he pulled out his wine-skin and took a drink without asking permission or offering an apology, and handed the skin to his sergeant. Afterwards he leaned back comfortably and drew his big, thick white cloak around him with its terrifying red cross, looking at Yussuf as if he were assessing his opponent in a game of backgammon, not as a foe but as someone who must be evaluated.

‘My unknown friend and foe, what use do any of us have for falsehoods when we eat together in peace and both have given our word not to harm each other?’ he said at last. He spoke very easily, with no rancour in his voice. ‘You are a warrior, as I am. If God wills, we shall meet next time on the battlefield. Your clothes betray you; your horses betray you, just as your harnesses do, and your swords, which are leaning against the saddles over there. They are swords made in Damascus; none of them costs less than five hundred dinars in gold. Your peace and mine will soon be over; the truce is about to be ended, and if you don’t know this now, you will know it soon. Let us therefore enjoy this strange hour. It’s not often that a man gets to know his enemy. But let us not lie to each other.’

Yussuf was struck by an almost irresistible urge to tell the Templar knight honestly who he was. But it was true that the truce would soon be ended, although it had not yet been felt on any battlefield. And their mutual oath not to harm each other, the reason they could sit and eat together at all, was valid only for this evening.

‘You’re right, Templar knight,’ he said at last. ‘Insh’Allah, if God wills, we will someday meet on the battlefield. But I also think, as you do, that a man should get to know his enemies, and you seem to know many more of the faithful than we know of the infidels. I now give my men permission to speak to you.’

Yussuf leaned back, also drawing his cloak closer around him, and signalled to his brother and emir that they were allowed to speak. But they both hesitated, accustomed as they were to sitting an entire evening and just listening. Since none of them made any attempt to speak, the Templar knight leaned toward his sergeant and carried on a brief whispered conversation in Frankish.

‘My sergeant wonders about one thing,’ he then explained. ‘Your weapons, your horses, and your clothes alone are worth more than those unfortunate bandits could ever have dreamed of. How did it happen that you chose this perilous road west of the Dead Sea without sufficient escort?’

‘Because it is the quickest route, because an escort arouses a great deal of attention…’ replied Yussuf slowly. He did not want to embarrass himself by again saying something that wasn’t true, so he had to weigh his words. Any escort of his would certainly have attracted attention because it would have consisted of at least three thousand horsemen if it was to be considered safe.

‘And because we trusted our horses. We didn’t think a few worthless bandits or Franks would be able to catch us,’ he added swiftly.

‘Wise but not wise enough,’ the Templar knight nodded. ‘But those six bandits have been plundering these regions for almost half a year. They knew the area like the backs of their hands, they could ride faster on these stretches than any of us could. That was what made them rich. Until God punished them.’

‘I would like to know one thing,’ said Fahkr, who now spoke for the first time and had to clear his throat because he was stumbling over his own words. ‘It is said that you Templar knights who reside in Al Aksa had a minbar there, a place of prayer for the faithful. And people have also told me that you Templar knights once struck a Frank who tried to prevent one of the faithful from praying. Is this really true?’

All three of the faithful now gave their full attention to the enemy. But the Templar knight smiled and first translated the question into Frankish for the sergeant, who at once nodded and burst out laughing.

‘Yes, there is more truth to that than you know,’ said the Templar knight after thinking for a moment, or pretending to think in order to spur his listeners’ interest. ‘We do have a minbar in Templum Salomonis, as we call Al Aksa, “the most remote of prayer sites.” But that is not so unusual. In our fortress in Gaza we have a majlis every Thursday, the only day possible, and the witnesses then swear on God’s Holy Scriptures, on the Torah, or on the Koran, and in some cases on something else entirely that they regard as holy. If the three of you were Egyptian merchants as you claimed, you would also know that our order conducts a great deal of business with the Egyptians, and none of them share our beliefs. Al Aksa, if you wish to use that name, is where we Templar knights have our headquarters, and where many people come as our guests. The problem is that every September new vessels arrive from Pisa or Genoa or the southern lands of the Franks with new men filled with the spirit and the zeal, perhaps not to enter paradise at once, but to kill unbelievers or at least lay hands on them. These newcomers create great difficulties for the rest of us, and each year, shortly after September, we always have disturbances in our own quarters because the newcomers turn against people of your faith, and then of course we have to deal with them harshly.’

‘You would kill your own kind for the sake of our people?’ gasped Fahkr.

‘Of course not!’ replied the Templar knight with sudden vehemence. ‘For us it is a grave sin, just as it is in your faith, to kill any man who is a true believer. That can never come into question.’

He went on after a brief pause, his good humour restored, ‘But nothing prevents us from giving rogues like that a good thrashing if they refuse to be persuaded. I myself have had the pleasure on several occasions…’

Quickly he leaned toward his sergeant and translated. When the sergeant began nodding and laughing in agreement, a great sense of relief seemed to come over everyone, and they all joined in with hearty laughter - perhaps a bit too hearty.

A gust of air, like the last sigh of the evening wind from the mountains near Al Khalil, suddenly carried the stench of the Templar knights toward the three faithful, and they shrank back, unable to hide their feelings.

The Templar knight noticed their embarrassment and rose to his feet immediately, suggesting that they change sides and wind direction around the muslin coverlet, where Emir Moussa was now setting out small cups of mocha. The three hosts complied with his suggestion at once, without saying anything offensive.

‘We have our rules,’ explained the Templar knight apologetically as he settled into his new place. ‘You have rules about washing yourselves at all times of the day, and we have rules that forbid doing so. It is no worse than the fact that you have rules permitting hunting while we have ones forbidding it, except for lions; or that we drink wine and you do not.’

‘Wine is a different matter,’ objected Yussuf. ‘The prohibition against wine is a strict one, and it is God’s word to the Prophet, may peace be with Him. But we are not like our enemies; just consider God’s words in the seventh Sura: “Who has forbidden the beautiful things that God has granted His servants and all the good He has given them for their sustenance?”’

‘Well yes,’ said the Templar knight. ‘Your scriptures say many things. But if, for the sake of vanity, you want me to expose my modesty and make myself fair-smelling like worldly men, I might just as well ask you to stop calling me your enemy. For just listen to the words of your own scriptures, from the sixty-first Sura, words of your own Prophet, may peace be with Him: “Faithful! Be God’s disciples. Just as Jesus, the son of Mary, said to the white-clad: ‘Who will be my disciple for the sake of God?’ And they answered: ‘We will be God’s disciples!’ Among the children of Israel, some came to believe in Jesus while others rejected him. But we supported those who believed in him against their enemies, and the faithful departed with victory.” I particularly like the part about the white-clad…’

At these words Emir Moussa sprang to his feet as if he were about to reach for his sword, but halfway there he restrained himself and stopped. His face was red with anger when he stretched out his arm and pointed an accusatory finger at the Templar knight.

‘Infidel!’ he cried. ‘You speak the language of the Koran; that is one thing. But twisting God’s words with blasphemy and ridicule is another matter that you would not be allowed to survive if it weren’t for His Majes…because my friend Yussuf has given you his word!’

‘Sit down and behave yourself, Moussa!’ shouted Yussuf harshly, regaining his composure as Moussa obeyed his command. ‘What you heard were indeed the words of God, and they were from the sixty-first Sura, and they are words you ought to consider. And don’t think, by the way, that the phrase “the white-robed” refers to what our guest spoke of in jest.’

‘No, of course it does not,’ the Templar knight hurried to smooth things over. ‘It refers to those who wore white robes long before my order existed; my clothing has nothing to do with it.’

‘How do you happen to be so familiar with the Koran?’ asked Yussuf in his customary and quite calm tone of voice, as if no disruption had occurred, and his high rank had not been almost revealed.

‘It is a wise thing to study your enemy; if you like, I can help you to understand the Bible,’ replied the Templar knight, as if trying to joke his way out of the topic, seeming to regret his clumsy invasion of the faithfuls’ territory.

Yussuf was about to utter a stern reply to his lighthearted talk of entering into blasphemous studies, when he was interrupted by a long drawn-out, horrifying scream. The scream turned into something that sounded like scornful laughter, rolling down toward them and echoing off the mountainsides above. All five men froze and listened; Emir Moussa immediately began rattling off the words the faithful use to conjure up the jinni of the desert. Then the scream came again, but now it sounded as if it came from several spirits of the abyss, as if they were talking to each other, as if they had discovered the little fire below and the only people in the area.

The Templar knight leaned forward and whispered a few words in Frankish to his sergeant, who nodded at once, stood up, and buckled on his sword. He drew his black cloak tighter, bowed to his unbeliever hosts, and then, without saying a word, turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness.

‘You must excuse this rudeness,’ said the Templar knight. ‘But the fact is that we have the scent of blood and fresh meat up in our camp, and horses that must be tended to.’

He didn’t seem to think he needed to offer any further explanation, and with a bow he stretched out his mocha cup for Emir Moussa to refill it. The emir’s hand shook slightly as he poured.

‘You send your sergeant into the darkness and he obeys without blinking?’ said Fahkr in a voice that sounded slightly hoarse.

‘Yes,’ said the Templar knight. ‘A man must obey even if he feels fear. But I don’t think that Armand does. The darkness is more of a friend for the man who wears a black cloak than the one who wears white, and Armand’s sword is sharp and his hand steady. Wild dogs, those spotted beasts with their horrid barking, are also known for their cowardice, are they not?’

‘But are you certain it was only wild dogs we heard?’ asked Fahkr doubtfully.

‘No,’ replied the Templar knight. ‘There is much we do not know between heaven and hell; no one can ever be certain. But the Lord is our shepherd, and we shall not want, even though we wander through the valley of the shadow of death. That is doubtless what Armand is praying as he walks along in the dark right now. That is what I would pray, at any rate. If God has measured out our time and wishes to call us home, there is nothing we can do, of course. But until then we cleave the skulls of wild dogs as we do those of our enemies, and in that respect I know that you who believe in the Prophet, may peace be with Him, and deny the Son of God, think exactly as we do. Am I not right, Yussuf?’

‘You are right, Templar knight,’ Yussuf confirmed. ‘But then where is the borderline between reason and belief, between fear of and trust in God? If a man must obey, as your sergeant must obey, does that make his fear any less?’

‘When I was young…well, I am not yet a particularly old man,’ said the Templar knight, seeming to think deeply, ‘I was still preoccupied with that sort of question. It is good for your mind; your thoughts grow nimble from exercising your mind. But nowadays I am afraid I grow sluggish. You obey. You conquer evil. Afterwards you thank God - that is all.’

‘And if you do not conquer your enemy?’ asked Yussuf in a gentle voice, which those who knew him did not recognize as his normal voice.

‘Then you die, at least in the case of Armand and myself,’ replied the Templar knight. ‘And on Judgment Day you and I will be measured and weighed, and where you will then end up, I cannot say, even though I know what you yourself believe. But if I die here in Palestine, my place will be in paradise.’

‘You truly believe that?’ asked Yussuf in his strange, gentle voice.

‘Yes, I believe that,’ replied the Templar knight.

‘Then tell me one thing: Is that promise actually in your Bible?’

‘No, not exactly; it does not say that exactly.’

‘But you are still quite certain?’

‘Yes, the Holy Father in Rome has promised…’

‘But he is only a man! What man can promise you a place in paradise, Templar knight?’

‘But Muhammed too was merely a man! And you believe in his promise, forgive me, may peace be to his name.’

‘Muhammed, may peace be with him, was God’s messenger, and God said: “But the messenger and those who follow him in faith and strive for the sake of God, offering up their property and lives, shall be rewarded with goodness in this life and in the next, and everything they touch will prosper.” Those words are very clear, are they not? And it goes on…’

‘Yes! In the next verse of the ninth Sura,’ the Templar knight interjected brusquely. ‘“God has prepared for them gardens of pleasure, watered by streams, where they shall remain for all eternity. This is the great and glorious victory!” So, we understand each other, I presume? None of this is foreign to you, Yussuf. And by the way, the difference between us is that I have no possessions, I have put myself in God’s hands, and when He decides, I will die for His sake. Your own beliefs do not contradict what I say.’

‘Your knowledge of God’s word is truly great, Templar knight,’ said Yussuf, but at the same time he was pleased that he had caught his enemy in a trap, and his companions could see this.

‘Yes, as I said, you should know your enemy,’ said the Templar knight, for the first time a little uncertain, as if he too realized that Yussuf had backed him into a corner.

‘But if you speak in this way, you are not my enemy,’ said Yussuf. ‘You quote from the Holy Koran, which is God’s Word. What you say does apply to me, but not to you for the time being. For the faithful, all of this is as clear as water, but what is it for you? In truth, I know as much about Jesus as you know about the Prophet, may peace be with him. But what did Jesus say about the Holy War? Did Jesus speak a single word about you entering paradise if you killed me?’

‘Let us not quarrel about this,’ said the Templar knight with a confident wave of his hand, as if everything had suddenly become petty, although they could all see his uncertainty. ‘Our beliefs are not the same, even though they have many similarities. But we have to live in the same land, fighting each other in the worse case, making treaties and conducting business in the best case. Now let us speak of other matters. It is my wish, as your guest.’

They were all aware how Yussuf had driven his opponent into a corner where he had no more defences. Jesus had clearly never said anything about it being pleasing to God to kill Saracens. But when pressed harder, the Templar knight had still managed to wriggle out of the difficult situation by referring to the faithfuls’ own unwritten laws of hospitality. And so his wish had to be granted; he was the guest, after all.

‘In truth, you do know a great deal about your enemy, Templar knight,’ said Yussuf. Both his voice and expression showed that he was very pleased at having won the discussion.

‘As we agreed, it is necessary to know your enemy,’ replied the Templar knight in a low voice, his eyes downcast.

They sat in silence for a while, gazing into their mocha cups, since it seemed difficult to start up the conversation in a natural way after Yussuf’s victory. But then the silence was again shattered by the sound of beasts. This time they all knew it was animals and not some devilish creature, and it sounded as if they were attacking someone or something, and then as if they were fleeing, with howls of pain and death.

‘Armand’s sword is sharp, as I said,’ murmured the Templar knight.

‘Why in the name of peace did you take your corpses with you?’ asked Fahkr, who was thinking the same thing as his brothers of the faith.

‘Of course it would have been better to take them alive. Then they would not have smelled so foul on the way home, and they could have travelled with ease. But tomorrow it will be a hot day; we must start our journey early to get them to Jerusalem before they begin to stink too much,’ replied the Templar knight.

‘But if you had taken them prisoner, if you had taken them alive to Al Quds, what would have happened to them then?’ persisted Fahkr.

‘We would have turned them over to our emir in Jerusalem, who is one of the highest ranking in our order. He would have turned them over to the worldly powers, and they would have been disrobed, except for that which covers their modesty, and hung up on the wall by the rock,’ replied the Templar knight, as if it were quite obvious.

‘But you have already killed them. Why not disrobe them here and leave them to the fate they deserve? Why do you defend their bodies against the wild animals?’ asked Fahkr, as if he did not want to give up or did not understand.

‘We will still hang them there,’ replied the Templar knight. ‘Everyone must see that whoever robs pilgrims will end up hanging there. That is a holy promise from our order, and it must always be kept, as long as God helps us.’

‘But what will you do with their weapons and clothes?’ wondered Emir Moussa, speaking as if he wanted to bring the conversation down to a more practical level. ‘Surely they must have had quite a few valuables on them.’

‘Yes, but they are all stolen goods,’ replied the Templar knight, some of his old self-assurance back. ‘Except for their weapons and armour, for which we have no use. But their thieves’ cache is in a grotto up where Armand and I have our camp. We will take heavily laden horses home with us tomorrow; keep in mind that those beasts have been plundering here for more than half a year.’

‘But you are not allowed to own anything,’ objected Yussuf mildly, raising his right eyebrow, as if he thought that he had once again won the argument.

‘No, I am not allowed to own anything!’ exclaimed the Templar knight in surprise. ‘If you think we would take the thieves’ treasures for our own, you are greatly mistaken. We will place all the stolen goods outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre next Sunday, and if those who have been robbed can find their possessions, they can have them back.’

‘But surely most of those who were robbed are now dead,’ said Yussuf quietly.

‘They may have heirs who are alive, but whatever is not claimed will be donated to our order,’ replied the Templar knight.

‘That is a most interesting explanation for what I have heard, that you consider yourselves too good to plunder a battlefield,’ said Yussuf with a smile, seeming to think he had won another exchange of words.

‘No, we do not take plunder from battlefields,’ replied the Templar knight coldly. ‘But that should not present a problem, since there are so many others who do. If we have taken part in a victory, we turn at once toward God. If you would like to hear what your own Koran has to say about plundering a battlefield…’

‘Thank you, no!’ Yussuf interrupted him, holding up a hand in warning. ‘We would prefer not to return to a topic of conversation since it would seem that you, an infidel, know more than we do about the Word of the Prophet, may peace be with him. Let me instead ask you a very candid question.’

‘Yes. Ask me a candid question, and it shall be given the answer it deserves,’ replied the Templar knight, holding up his hands, palm out, to show, in the manner of the faithful, that he agreed to change the topic of conversation.

‘You said that the truce between us would soon be over. Is it Brins Arnat you are referring to?’

‘You know a great deal, Yussuf. Brins Arnat, whom we call Reynald de Châtillon, has begun plundering again. And by the way he is no “prince” but an evil man who is unfortunately allied with the Knights Templar. This I know, and I regret it. I would rather not be his ally, but I obey orders. But no, he is not the major problem.’

‘Then it must be something about that new prince, who came from the land of the Franks with a great army. What is it he is called: Filus something or other?’

‘No,’ said the Templar knight with a smile. ‘He is indeed Filus, meaning the son of someone. His name is Philip of Flanders, he is a duke, and yes, he came with a great army. But now I must warn you before we continue this conversation.’

‘Why is that?’ asked Yussuf, feigning nonchalance. ‘I have your word. Have you ever broken a vow you have sworn?’

‘I once made a vow that I have not yet been able to fulfil; it will take ten years before I can do so, if it is God’s will. But I have never broken a promise and, may God help me, I never will.’

‘Well then. Why should our truce be broken because of the arrival of someone named Filus from some Flamsen? Surely such things happen all the time.’

The Templar knight gave Yussuf a long, searching look, but Yussuf did not avert his eyes. This went on for some time; both refused to give in.

‘You wish to keep secret your identity,’ said the Templar knight at last, without taking his eyes off Yussuf. ‘But few men could know so much about what goes on in the world of war; certainly not someone who claims to be a merchant on his way to Cairo. If you insist on speaking more about this, I can no longer pretend that I do not know who you are; a man who has spies, a man who knows. There are not many such men.’

‘You have my word also; remember that, Templar knight.’

‘Of all the unbelievers, your word is no doubt the one most of us would trust most.’

‘You honour me with your words. So, why will our truce be broken?’

‘Ask your men to leave us if you will continue this conversation, Yussuf.’

Yussuf pondered this for a moment as he pensively tugged on his beard. If the Templar knight truly understood who he was talking to, would it then be easier for him to kill and at the same time break his word? No, that was unlikely. Considering how this man had behaved when he killed earlier in the evening, he had no need to make it easier to betray his vow; he would have drawn his sword long ago.

Yet it was difficult to understand his demand, which seemed unreasonable. At the same time, no one would particularly benefit if it were met. In the end Yussuf’s curiosity won out over his caution.

‘Leave us,’ he commanded curtly. ‘Go to sleep close by; you can clean up here in the morning. Remember that we are in the field, under camp rules.’

Fahkr and Emir Moussa hesitated. They started to get to their feet as they looked at Yussuf, but his stern glance made them obey. They bowed to the Templar knight and withdrew. Yussuf waited in silence until his brother and his closest bodyguard had moved far enough away and could be heard arranging their bedding.

‘I don’t think my brother and Moussa will have an easy time falling asleep.’

‘No,’ said the Templar knight. ‘But neither will they be able to hear what we say.’

‘Why is it so important for them not to hear what we say?’

‘It is not important,’ said the Templar knight, smiling. ‘What is important is that you know they won’t hear what you say. Then our conversation will be more candid.’

‘For a man who lives in a monastery, you know a great deal about human nature.’

‘In the monastery we learn much about human nature; more than you imagine. Now to what is more important. I will speak only of things that I am positive you already know, since anything else would be treason. But let us examine the situation. As you know, a new Frankish prince is coming. He will remain here for some time; he has everyone’s blessing back home for his holy mandate in God’s service, and so on. He has brought a great army along with him. So what will he do?’

‘Acquire riches as fast as possible since he has had great expenses.’

‘Precisely, Yussuf, precisely. But will he go against Saladin himself, and Damascus?’

‘No. Then he would risk losing everything.’

‘Precisely, Yussuf. We understand each other completely, and we can speak freely, now that your subordinates are out of earshot. So where will the new plunderer and his army go?’

‘Towards a city that is sufficiently strong and sufficiently wealthy, but I do not know which one.’

‘Precisely. Nor do I know which one. Homs? Hama? Perhaps. Aleppo? No, too far away and too strong a city. Let us say Homs or Hama, as the most obvious. What will our worldly Christian king in Jerusalem and the royal army do then?’

‘They do not have much choice. They will join in with the plundering even though they would rather use the new forces to attack Saladin.’

‘Precisely, Yussuf. You know everything, you understand everything. So now we both know what the situation is. What do we do about it?’

‘To begin with, you and I will both keep our word.’

‘Of course, that goes without saying. But what else do we do?’

‘We use this time of peace between us to understand each other better. I may never have the chance to talk to a Templar knight again. You may never have the chance to talk to…an enemy such as myself.’

‘No, you and I will probably meet only on this one occasion in our lives.’

‘The singular whim of God…But then let me ask you, Templar knight, what is needed more than God if we, the faithful, are to vanquish you?’

‘Two things. What Saladin is now doing: uniting all Saracens against us. That is already taking place. But the other thing is treason among those of us on the side of Jesus Christ, betrayal or grave sins, for which God will punish us.’

‘But if not betrayal or these grave sins?’

‘Then neither of us will ever win, Yussuf. The difference between us is that you Saracens can lose one battle after another. You mourn your dead and you soon have a new army on the march. We Christians can lose only a great battle, and we are not that foolish. If we have the advantage, we attack. If we are at a disadvantage, we seek refuge in our fortresses. It can go on in this fashion forever.’

‘So our war will last forever?’

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. Some of us…Do you know who Count Raymond de Tripoli is?’

‘Yes, I know…know of him. And?’

‘If Christians like him should win power in the kingdom of Jerusalem, and you have on your side a leader like Saladin, then there can be peace, a just peace, in any case something better than eternal war. Many of us Templar knights think as Count Raymond does. But to return to our previous topic concerning what is going to happen right now. The Hospitallers followed the royal army and the “prince” up to Syria. We Templar knights did not.’

‘I already know that.’

‘Yes, doubtless you know this; because your name is Yussuf ibn Ayyub Salah al-Din, the one we call Saladin in our language.’

‘May God be merciful to us, now that you know this.’

‘God is merciful to us by granting us this strange conversation during the last hours of peace between us.’

‘And we will both keep our word.’

‘You surprise me with your uneasiness about that point. You are the only one of our enemies who is known for always keeping his word. I am a Templar knight. We always keep our word. Enough said about that matter.’

‘Yes, enough about that matter. But now, my dear enemy, at this late hour before a dawn when we both have urgent errands, you with your foul-smelling corpses and I with something else that I will not discuss but which you certainly can imagine, what do we do now?’

‘We take advantage of this only opportunity that God may give us in life to speak sensibly with the worst of all enemies. There is one thing that you and I can agree on…forgive me if I address you so plainly now that I know you are the Sultan of both Cairo and Damascus.’

‘No one but God hears us, as you so wisely arranged. I wish for you to use the informal means of address on this one night.’

‘We agreed on one thing, I think. We are risking eternal war because neither side can win.’

‘True. But I will win, I have sworn to win.’

‘As have I. Eternal war then?’

‘That does not sound promising for the future.’

‘Then we will continue, even though I am merely a simple emir among the Knights Templar, and you are the only one of our foes in a long time that we have had reason to fear. Where should we begin now?’

They began with the question of the pilgrims’ safety. That was the most obvious. That was the reason they had met in the first place, if they sought a human explanation for it and did not look solely to God’s will in all things. But even though they both firmly believed, at least when they spoke aloud, that God’s will guided everything, neither of them was a stranger to the idea that man, with his free will, could also bring about great calamities as well as great happiness. This was a cornerstone in both of their faiths.

They talked for a long time that night. At dawn, when Fahkr found his older brother - the glorious prince, the light of religion, the commander of the faithful in the Holy War, the water in the desert, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, the hope of the faithful, the man whom the infidels for all time would call by the simple name Saladin - he was sitting with his chin resting on his knees, huddled under his cloak which was wrapped around him, and staring into the dying embers.

The white shield with the evil red cross was gone, as was the Templar knight. Saladin wearily looked up at his brother, almost as if he had awakened from a dream.

‘If all our foes were like Al Ghouti, we would never win,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘On the other hand, if all our foes were like him, victory would no longer be necessary.’

Fahkr did not understand what his brother and prince meant but supposed it was mostly meaningless weary mutterings, as had happened so many times before when Yussuf stayed up too long and brooded.

‘We must head out; we have a hard ride to Al Arish,’ said Saladin, getting stiffly to his feet. ‘War awaits, we will soon be victorious.’

It was true that war awaited; that was as written. But it was also written that Saladin and Arn Magnusson de Gothia would soon meet again on the battlefield, and that only one of them would come away victorious.

TWO

Jerusalem was located in the middle of a world from which even Rome seemed a distant place. Farther away was the kingdom of the Franks, and almost at the ends of the earth, in the cold, dark North, lay the land of Western Götaland which was known to very few. It was said among learned men that beyond was nothing but dark forest stretching to the edge of the earth, inhabited by monsters with two heads.

Nevertheless the true faith had reached up here to the cold and the dark, mostly thanks to Saint Bernard, who in his mercy and love of humankind had found that even the barbarians up in the dark North had a right to salvation of the soul. It was he who sent the first monks to the wild, unknown lands of the Goths. Soon the light and truth had spread from more than ten cloisters among the Northmen, who were now no longer lost.

A convent located in the southern part of Western Götaland had the loveliest of all cloister names. It was called Gudhem, God’s Home, and it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The convent stood atop a hill, and from there could be seen the distant blue mountain Billingen, and if a person strained his eyes a bit, he might see the two towers of the cathedral in Skara. North of Gudhem glittered Hornborga Lake, where the cranes appeared in the spring before the pike began to play. Surrounding the cloister were farms and fields and small groves of oaks. It was a very peaceful and beautiful landscape and did not at all lead the mind to thoughts of darkness and barbarity. For the older woman who had made a substantial donation and travelled here to conclude her life in peace, the name of Gudhem sounded like a caress, and the region was the loveliest that an aging eye could see.

But for Cecilia Algotsdotter, who had been locked up at Gudhem at the age of seventeen because of her sins, the convent for a long time seemed a home without God, a place that was considered more of a hell on earth.

Cecilia was familiar with cloister life, and that was not what frightened her. She also knew Gudhem, because at various intervals in her life she had spent more than two years inside among the novices, young women who were sent to the convent by wealthy families to be disciplined and taught good manners before they were married off. She already knew how to read; she knew the Book of Psalms by heart and the words tumbled from her lips like running water, because she had sung every psalm more than a hundred times. So in this there was nothing new and nothing frightening.

But this time she had been consigned to convent life, and the sentence was harsh - twenty years. She had been sentenced together with her betrothed Arn Magnusson of the Folkung clan, because they had committed a grave sin when they united in carnal love before being married before God. It was Cecilia’s sister Katarina who had reported them, and the proof of their sin was such that no argument would avail. The day that the convent gate closed behind Cecilia, she was already in her third month. Her betrothed Arn had also been sentenced to twenty years, but he was to serve his time as a monk in God’s holy army in the far reaches of the Holy Land.

Over the portal of Gudhem convent there were two sandstone sculptures depicting Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise after the Fall, hiding their shame with fig leaves. The image was meant to be a warning, and it spoke directly to Cecilia as if it had been cut and chiselled and polished out of stone expressly for her sake.

She had been separated from her beloved Arn only a stone’s throw from this portal. He had fallen to his knees and sworn with the passion that only a seventeen-year-old youth can swear, and even upon his sword that was blessed by God. He vowed to endure all fire and war and promised to come back and fetch her when their penance was paid.

That was a long time ago now. And from Arn in the Holy Land she had heard not a word.

But what frightened Cecilia from the very start, when Abbess Rikissa dragged her in through the gate with a hard and undignified grip round her wrist, as if leading a thrall to her punishment, was that Gudhem had now become an utterly different place. It was not the same as when she had previously spent time here with the novices.

That is, on the surface Gudhem was still the place she knew, and only a few new outbuildings had been added. But inside much was changed, and she truly had good reason to feel fear.

The land for Gudhem had been donated from the royal holdings by King Karl Sverkersson. Consequently, the Abbess Rikissa belonged to the Sverker clan, as did most of the consecrated sisters and almost all the novices.

But when the pretender to the throne, Knut Eriksson, the son of Saint Erik Jedvardsson, returned from his exile in Norway to reclaim his father’s crown and avenge his murder, he himself had murdered King Karl Sverkersson out on the island of Visingö. And among the men who abetted him in this deed was his friend and Cecilia’s lover Arn Magnusson.

So in the world outside the cloister walls war now raged anew. On one side were the Folkung clan and the Erik clan with their Norwegian allies; on the other were the Sverker clan and their Danish allies.

Cecilia thus felt like a butterfly dragged into a hornets’ nest, and she had good reason to feel this way. Since most of the sisters belonged to the Sverker faction, they hated her and they showed it. All the novices hated her as well and did nothing to hide their animosity. No one spoke to Cecilia, even when talking was permitted. They all turned their backs on her.

In the early days it was possible that Mother Rikissa had actually tried to drive her to her death. Cecilia had come to Gudhem in the months when the turnips had to be thinned. It was hard, hot work out in the fields, and none of the elegant sisters or the novices took part.

Mother Rikissa had put Cecilia on bread and water from the very first day. At mealtimes in the refectorium Cecilia was seated alone at an empty table at the far end of the hall, where she had to sit silently. As if this were not punishment enough, Mother Rikissa had decreed that Cecilia had to work with the lay sisters out in the turnip fields, crawling along bit by bit with the baby kicking in her belly.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, or perhaps because Mother Rikissa was cross that Cecilia hadn’t lost her child from the hard labour, the young woman was sent for bloodletting once a week during her first and hardest time at the convent. It was said that bloodletting was good for one’s health, and that it also had a salutary effect that suppressed carnal desires. And since Cecilia had obviously fallen prey to such desires, she should have her blood let often.

As Cecilia crawled along in the turnip fields, growing ever paler, she constantly murmured prayers to Our Lady to protect her, forgive her for her sin, and yet hold Her gracious hand over the child she bore inside her.

Cecilia almost gave birth to her son out in the cold November mud in the turnip fields. It was near the end of the harvest time when she suddenly sank to the ground with a sharp cry. The lay sisters and the two supervisors who stood nearby to monitor virtue and silence during the work understood at once what was about to happen. At first they acted as if they thought nothing needed to be done. But the lay sisters would not stand for this; without uttering a word, even to ask permission, they hurried to carry Cecilia to the hospitium, the guest house outside the walls. There they laid her in bed and sent a messenger to fetch Fru Helena, who was a wise woman and one of Gudhem’s pensioners who had given a large donation to the convent.

Fru Helena came quickly, taking pity on Cecilia, although she herself was of the Sverker clan. She ordered two of the lay sisters to stay in the hospitium and assist her; let Rikissa - she didn’t say Mother Rikissa - think or say what she would. Women had a hard enough time in this world without heaping stones on one another’s burdens, she told the two astonished lay sisters who stayed with her. At her command they heated water, fetched linens, and washed the mud and dirt from the suffering Cecilia, now almost out of her mind with pain.

Fru Helena had come to her rescue, and she must have been sent by the Holy Virgin herself. She had given birth to nine children, seven of whom had survived. Many times she had assisted other women in this difficult hour, when women are alone and only other women can help. She scoffed at the thought that this young woman was supposed to be her enemy. She told the two lay sisters that the position of friend or foe could change overnight, or even as the result of a sorry little war between the menfolk.

Cecilia did not remember much of the hours that night when she gave birth to her son Magnus, as they had decided he should be named. She remembered the moment when it was all over and, drenched in sweat and hot as if with fever, she was given the infant by Fru Helena, who pressed him to her aching breasts. And she recalled Fru Helena’s words that he was a fair boy in good health with all his limbs in the proper place. But after that a haze shrouded her mind.

Later she learned that Fru Helena had sent word to Arnäs, and a large escort came to fetch the babe and take him to safety. Birger Brosa, the mightiest of the Folkungs and the uncle of her beloved Arn, had sworn that the lad - he had never spoken of the anticipated child as other than ‘the lad’ - would be taken into the clan and proclaimed at the ting as a true Folkung, whether he was born in whoredom or not.

Of all the trials in young Cecilia’s life, the hardest of all was that she would not see her son again until he was a man.

Mother Rikissa had a heart of stone where Cecilia was concerned. Shortly after giving birth Cecilia was once again set to hard labour, although she still had a fever. She was often bathed in sweat, she was very pale, and she had trouble with her breasts.

As Christmas approached in her first year at the cloister, Bishop Bengt came from Skara on visitation, and when he noticed Cecilia shuffling past out in the arcade, seemingly oblivious to everything, he blanched. Then he had a brief conversation with Mother Rikissa in private. That same day Cecilia was placed in the infirmatorium, and she was given daily pittances, extra helpings of food that those outside were allowed to donate to the residents of the cloister: eggs, fish, white bread, butter, and even some lamb. Gossip spread at Gudhem about these pittances that Cecilia received. Some believed that they came from Bishop Bengt, others that they came from Fru Helena or perhaps from Birger Brosa himself.

She was also excused from bloodletting, and soon the colour returned to her face, and she started to regain her health. But all hope seemed to have left her. She went about mostly muttering to herself.

When winter swept into Western Götaland with cold and ice, all outside work ceased for both the lay sisters and Cecilia. This was a relief, yet at the same time the nights became an even greater torment.

Since it was against the rules to have heating in the dormitorium, it was important where in the room one’s bed stood. The farther away from the two windows the better. Naturally Cecilia was assigned the bed right next to the stone wall, beneath a window where the cold came flowing down like ice water; the other novices slept on the other side of the room, against the internal wall. Cecilia and her worldly sisters were separated by the eight lay sisters who never dared to speak to her.

The regulations permitted a straw mattress, a pillow, and two woollen blankets. Even if they all went to bed fully dressed, the nights could sometimes get so cold that it was impossible to sleep, at least for someone who always shook with cold.

It was at this most difficult time at Gudhem for Cecilia, that it seemed as though Our Lady sent her some consolation; a few words that would not have meant very much to anyone else, but here warmed her to the heart.

One of the other maidens close to the door had been found unworthy of the best bed location when someone revealed one of her secrets. On Mother Rikissa’s express order she was forced to move to the bed next to Cecilia’s. One evening she came with her bedclothes in her arms and stood with bowed head, waiting until the lay sister in the bed next to Cecilia grasped that she was supposed to toddle off to the warmer side of the room. When the lay sister had taken her bedclothes and gone, the new maiden slowly and carefully made her bed, glancing over at the sister who stood in the dark by the door to the stairs and kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. When she was done the maiden crept into bed, turned on her side, and sought out Cecilia’s gaze. Then without blinking she broke the rule of silence.

‘You’re not alone, Cecilia,’ she whispered, so quietly that no one else could hear.

‘Thank you, Our Lady be praised,’ Cecilia signalled back in the sign language they used at Gudhem when no words could be spoken. But she no longer felt cold, and her thoughts were directed to different matters, something other than the loneliness and unhappy longing in which she’d been circling for so long that sometimes she feared for her sanity. Now she lay for a while looking with curiosity into the eyes of her unknown companion who had spoken so kindly to her, even when it was forbidden to speak. They smiled at each other until the darkness came, and that night Cecilia did not shiver from the cold and she quickly fell asleep.

When they were awakened to go down to matins, she was sleeping deeply, and the unknown maiden next to her had to give her a gentle shake. Later, down in the church, Cecilia sang along in the hymns for the first time in full voice, her clear tones rising higher than all the others’. Singing had after all been her one great joy in past years at Gudhem, back when she knew that she would be released after only a few months.

And she fell asleep easily after matins, so when it was time for lauds, the morning praise song, the stranger had to wake her again. It seemed she had a need to catch up on lost sleep.

After the first mass of the day, when it was time to gather in the chapter hall, Cecilia found that her new neighbour had to sit close to the door, just as she did, and again she contemplated the words that she was no longer alone, that now they were two.

After Mother Rikissa read the day’s Bible text, she recited a list of names of deceased brothers and sisters in the Cistercian order for whose souls they must pray. Cecilia froze briefly, for sometimes the list included a foreign name or the name of a fallen Templar knight, who was counted as equal to brothers or sisters. But today there was no such name.

The punishments were saved till last during the morning convocation. The most common infraction punished by Mother Rikissa was breach of the code of silence. Six or seven times Cecilia had been punished for this, despite the fact that no one ever spoke to Cecilia, nor did she speak to anyone else.

It so happened, explained Mother Rikissa with something that looked more like a smile than an expression of sternness, that it was now time to punish Cecilia again. The sisters then lowered their heads with a sigh, while the worldly maidens raised theirs and stared with inquisitive malice at Cecilia.

However, it was not the usual Cecilia who was to be punished; not Cecilia Algotsdotter but Cecilia Ulvsdotter. And now that there were two Cecilias who apparently displayed the same breach of conduct, the red-haired Cecilia Algotsdotter would hereafter be called Cecilia Rosa, and the blonde one would be called Cecilia Blanca.

The punishment was usually a day or two on bread and water, a common penalty meted out during the period when Mother Rikissa had seemed intent on tormenting Cecilia to death after her childbirth. But now Mother Rikissa ordered, more with scorn than with the grace of God, that Cecilia Blanca be led to the lapis culparum, the punishment stone at the far end of the room. The prioress and one of the sisters promptly went over to Cecilia Blanca and took her by both arms to lead her to the punishment stone; there they removed her woollen mantle so that she stood there in only her linen shift. They stretched her hands above her head and fastened them with two handcuffs of iron.

Then Mother Rikissa fetched a scourge and took up position next to the bound Cecilia Blanca and looked at her congregation, again showing more triumph than divine benevolence. She paused for a moment, testing the scourge by slapping it against her hand.

Then she signalled for them to say three Pater Nosters, and they all bowed their heads obediently and began reciting.

When the prayers were concluded, she summoned one of the worldly maidens, Helena Sverkersdotter, handed her the scourge, and asked her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Virgin to administer three lashes.

Helena Sverkersdotter was a clumsy, bumbling girl who seldom got the chance to stand out from the crowd. Now she looked at the other sisters with delight, and they all nodded at her in encouragement; someone signalled for her to give Cecilia Blanca a good thrashing. And so she did. She did not do it in the usual way, which was intended to mark the memory and alter the mind rather than to cause injury to the body. She struck as hard as she could, and with the last blow two lines of blood seeped through Cecilia Blanca’s white shift.

Cecilia Blanca moaned between clenched teeth during the beating, but she did not scream nor cry.

Now she turned around, difficult as it was in her bound position, so that she could look the flushed and exhilarated Helena Sverkersdotter in the eye. And then, snarling between clenched teeth and with her eyes black with hate, she said something so appalling that a gasp of horror passed through the hall.

‘One day, Helena Sverkersdotter, you shall regret those lashes more than anything else in your life, I swear it by the Holy Virgin Mary!’

These words were unconscionable. Not just because they expressed threats and anger intra muros, nor because she had involved Our Lady in her sin, but primarily because these words showed that Cecilia Blanca had not accepted the justice of her punishment and thus had not obeyed Mother Rikissa.

What everyone now anticipated was three times three new lashes with the scourge, as an immediate result of the blasphemous words. But Mother Rikissa went over to take the scourge away from Helena Sverkersdotter, who had already raised her hand to begin anew.

Cecilia Rosa over by the door thought she saw Mother Rikissa’s eyes glowing red like a dragon’s or some other evil creature, and all the others bowed their heads as if in prayer, although what they really felt was horror.

‘Three days in the carcer,’ said Mother Rikissa at last, drawing out her words. ‘Three days in the carcer on bread and water, with solitude and silence and prayer, and with only one blanket - that’s where you shall seek forgiveness!’

No one had been sentenced to the carcer as long as Cecilia Rosa had been at Gudhem; that was a punishment mentioned only as a scary story. The carcer was a dark little hole beneath the cellarium, the seed storage areas. Sitting there among the rats in the wintertime was a torment that would be terrible to endure.

Over the next few days Cecilia Rosa did not feel cold, because she was occupied with praying for her new friend Cecilia Blanca. She prayed with a burning soul and tears running from her eyes, and she did all her tasks without thinking; she wove and sang and ate without thinking. She put her whole soul and all her thoughts into her prayers.

On the evening of the third day, Cecilia Blanca returned, her legs stiff and unsteady, completely white in the face. She was escorted by two sisters up to the dormitorium after the period of silence. They led her to her bed, shoved her in, and heedlessly tossed the covers over her.

Cecilia Rosa, as even she now called herself, sought out her friend’s eyes in the dark. But Cecilia Blanca’s gaze was rigid and empty. Considering how she looked, she had to be chilled to the bone.

Cecilia Rosa waited a while until it was quiet in the dormitorium before she did the unthinkable. She took her two blankets and climbed into her friend’s bed as quietly as she could, pulling the covers over both of them and lying close to her. It was like lying next to ice. But soon, as though Our Lady were holding her hand over them even in this difficult hour, the warmth slowly crept into their bodies.

After matins Cecilia Rosa did not dare repeat her sin, which was an act of charity. But she loaned one of her blankets to her friend and no longer felt cold herself, even though it was one of the last hard winter nights, with the stars sparkling with utter clarity in the black sky.

Their crime was never discovered. Or perhaps the lay sisters who slept nearby and had the best opportunity of discovering the sinful deed of sleeping together found no reason to tell tales. For those who did not have hearts of stone or, unlike the other worldly maidens among the novices, did not hate the two Cecilias, it was not hard to imagine the suffering that three nights in the carcer had caused during the coldest part of winter.

Winter at Gudhem was the time for spinning and weaving. For the lay sisters this was monotonous work, since the important thing was that they produce as much cloth as possible for Gudhem to donate or sell.

But for the worldly maidens it was more a matter of learning a task that would keep their hands occupied. Ora et labora, pray and work, was the most important rule next to obedience at Gudhem, as in other cloisters. For this reason the maidens had to look as though they were working even during the time when the cold kept them all indoors.

If one of the younger novices was totally ignorant of this type of work, she would first have to sit next to someone more skilled, at least until she was able to manage her own loom or distaff.

Cecilia Blanca had proved completely unfamiliar with this work, while Cecilia Rosa could perform the tasks almost as well as a lay sister. This presented a problem that could be solved in only one way, since none of the six young women who belonged to the Sverker clan, or wanted to belong, would sit with the one they disdained and hated most at Gudhem, the fiancée of the regicide Knut Eriksson. That was the secret they had discovered. So the only solution was to put the two Cecilias together at the same loom.

Cecilia Rosa soon discovered that her friend Blanca had actually mastered all the arts of the loom; she furtively demonstrated as much, using a secret sign between them. Her feigned ignorance was merely a ruse so that the two friends could be near each other. Now no imposed silence could prevent them from speaking together, since during the work they constantly had to use sign language. No supervising sister was sharp-eyed enough to see what they were talking about at every moment. And when the supervisor turned her back, they could exchange a surreptitious whisper.

Soon Cecilia Blanca had told her what she knew about the hatred of the others for the two of them, and about her hopes for the future.

Outside in the world of men, things were no longer as simple as before; it took more than chopping off a king’s head to become king oneself. Her betrothed Knut Eriksson would manage it in time, and with the help of God and his dead father, Erik the Holy. But it would not be accomplished in the blink of an eye.

So immediately after the betrothal ale, Knut had seen to it that his betrothed Cecilia Blanca was sent to the convent, where she could find sanctuary while the men fought it out. Even in an enemy cloister her life and limb would not be endangered, although it would not be an enjoyable time. One stumbling block was that the few convents in the country were all associated with the Sverker clan; that was something that would have to be changed in the future. But that was how things now stood, with great uncertainty about what was to come. It would be bleak indeed for them both if the Sverkers were victorious; maybe they would never get out, never have children and servants to manage, never be able to stride freely across their own fields, ride horses, or sing worldly songs.

Yet the joy would be all the greater if their side won, if her beloved Knut were proclaimed king and then peace descended upon the realm. Then all the dark times would be transformed to blinding white. Then Cecilia Blanca would become the true consort of her beloved Knut and become queen. This was the threat that Mother Rikissa, the sisters, and the stupid geese among the novices, worst of all that Helena Sverkersdotter, tried to ignore.

Cecilia Blanca thought that the two of them, friends only to each other, had to pray for this every day: pray that the Folkungs and the Eriks would prevail. Their lives and their happiness depended more on this victory than on anything else.

Although they could never be sure. When peace was made, many peculiar things could happen, and the men often found that it was easier to keep peace through marriage than to win it by the sword. So if the Sverkers won, they might very well arrange a suitable bridal ale with any one of the enemy’s women. If that were to happen, the two Cecilias might be collected one miserable day and married off to some old men in Linköping - an unkind fate, but still not as unpleasant as doing the cleaning and suffering under Mother Rikissa’s scourge.

Cecilia Rosa, who was some years younger than her new and only friend, sometimes had a hard time following Blanca’s stern train of thought. She protested more than once that for her part, she hoped for nothing more than that her beloved would come back just as he had sworn to do. Blanca, on the other hand, had no time for such sentimental talk. Love might be pleasant to dream about, but they couldn’t dream themselves out of their imprisonment at Gudhem. They might be taken from there to a bridal ale, and then they would see if their husband was to be a drooling old codger from Linköping or a handsome young man. But nothing in this earthly life could be worse than being forced to show obedience each day to Mother Rikissa.

Cecilia Rosa said that nothing could be worse than betraying her vows of love, but Cecilia Blanca had no idea what she meant.

The two young women were altogether different. Cecilia, the red-haired Rosa, was quiet in both speech and thought, as if she dreamed a good deal. Cecilia, the blonde Blanca, was choleric in her speech and had many hard thoughts of revenge for the day when she would become King Knut’s queen. She often repeated what she had sworn, to make the stupid goose Helena regret the lashes she had delivered more than anything else in her life. Perhaps the two Cecilias would not have grown so close to each other if they had met out in the free world, say if they had been the mistresses of neighbouring farms. But since life had now brought them to Gudhem among all these malicious, cowardly, and hostile women, their bond of friendship had been forged as if in a glowing furnace, linking them forever.

They both wanted to rebel, but neither of them wanted to go to the carcer, the cold hole in the ground with the rats. They wanted to break as many rules as they could, but it was vexing to be discovered and punished, since what stung most about the punishment was the malicious pleasure of the other young women.

With more than a little cunning they found more ways to cause trouble as time passed. Cecilia Rosa sang perfectly on-key and more beautifully than anyone else at Gudhem, and she demonstrated her ability as often as she could. Cecilia Blanca was no slouch of a singer either, but she tried to spoil the song as often as she could, especially during the sleepy lauds and prime services, by singing loudly and a bit off-key, singing too fast or too slow. It was hard to sing falsely in that manner, but Cecilia Blanca became increasingly skilled at doing so, and it was something for which she could never be punished. In this way they took turns; Cecilia Rosa sometimes sang so that the others stopped their own singing, put to shame by the beauty of her voice. At other times, when Cecilia Rosa felt out of form or too tired, Cecilia Blanca would sing and ruin everything. She would be chided and then promise with her head bowed that she would improve and learn to sing as well as all the rest.

Over time the two friends grew quite skilled at their art of creating annoyance during the seven or eight song sessions each day.

Cecilia Rosa played the part of the weak and submissive one, and always replied in a low voice with her head bowed when spoken to by Mother Rikissa or the prioress. Cecilia Blanca did the opposite, answering in a loud voice with head held high, even though her speech was such that the words themselves were unimpeachable.

Each day, prandium was eaten at exactly twelve minutes past four in the afternoon, a repast of bread and soup. They all had to eat in silence, while the lector read texts aloud that were considered especially appropriate for young women. Cecilia Blanca would often make a point of loudly slurping up a piece of bread dipped in the soup just as the reading reached a crucial point. This would cause some of the Sverker maidens to giggle aloud, sometimes to draw Mother Rikissa’s attention to the naughtiness of Cecilia Blanca’s behaviour. But Mother Rikissa would be more strict in her reproaches to those who giggled than to the one who slurped.

After prandium all the women had to walk in a procession from the refectorium to the church for prayers of thanksgiving, singing along the way. The intent was that they were to walk with great dignity. But Cecilia Blanca often had occasion to clear her throat loudly, to clump along and act like a lout, or pretend to stumble and disturb the order of the procession. Next to her walked Cecilia Rosa, because the two of them always had to bring up the rear. She was singing with her gaze fixed on the distance and a dreamy expression that seemed almost heavenly.

It was like a game the two played, constantly talking about their little tricks and trying to think up new ones. But since they talked to each other even when it was forbidden, Mother Rikissa would often punish them, but not as hard as one might expect. And she no longer allowed any of the worldly maidens to wield the scourge. She did the whipping herself, first Cecilia Blanca, then Cecilia Rosa. The strange thing was that the longer their rebellion went on, the less Mother Rikissa countered it with sternness, which at first they couldn’t understand.

To both of them Mother Rikissa was an evil person who had no belief in the fear of God which she was always trying to drum into others. She was as ugly as a witch, with big protruding teeth and rough hands, and they were sure she would have had to hold a very powerful position in the Sverker clan to be married off with those looks. She could hardly have gained power through the marriage bed; it was much easier to do so by becoming an abbess.

And since both Cecilias were women at their loveliest age, with slender waists and eyes full of life, they believed that this was precisely what put Mother Rikissa’s back up.

When the summer came and the masses of Ascension Day were past, Mother Rikissa changed again. Now she found constant reason to punish the two hated Cecilias. Since bread and water didn’t seem to have much effect on what she called their roguishness, she employed the scourge almost daily. And now she forced the Sverker maidens, but never again Helena Sverkersdotter, to carry out the whipping. Of course none of the girls struck as hard as Helena had done when Cecilia Blanca issued her curse, but the repeated punishment still resulted in more pain in their backs.

It was Cecilia Blanca who at last figured out how they could escape this misery. She figured that Mother Rikissa would not be honest enough to follow the rule of inviolable secrecy in the confessional, and that she would worm information out of any father confessor who came to Gudhem.

The confessor who came most often was a young vicarius from the cathedral in Skara. Even the worldly maidens had to make confession to him. But they were never allowed to see him, because he sat inside the church, and the one who was confessing sat out in the arcade next to a window with a wooden grating and a cloth between them.

One mild morning in early summer Cecilia Blanca found herself at confession, overcome by a feeling of nervousness, for she knew quite well that what she intended to do was a serious sin; it was a mockery of the holy confession. On the other hand, she consoled herself, if this stratagem succeeded then it would show that it was actually Mother Rikissa and the vicarius who were mocking the confessional.

‘Father, forgive me, for I have sinned,’ she whispered so rapidly that the words stumbled over each other. Then she drew a deep breath in anticipation of what she had to do.

‘My child, my dear daughter,’ replied the vicarius with a sigh on the other side of the grating, ‘Gudhem is not a place that induces one to grave sins, but let us hear your confession.’

‘I’ve been thinking evil thoughts about my fellow sisters,’ Cecilia Blanca continued with a will, now that she had taken the leap into sin. ‘I have vindictive thoughts and I can’t forgive them.’

‘What and whom can’t you forgive?’ the vicarius asked cautiously.

‘The Sverker girls and their lot. They run around telling tales, and they wield the scourge when my friend and I are repeatedly punished because of their gossip. And forgive me, father, but I must speak the truth. I think that if I become queen, then I will never be able to forgive either them or Mother Rikissa. I think that I will have to take a lengthy and harsh revenge; I think that their kinsmen’s farms will burn and that Gudhem will be emptied of all folk, and not one stone will be left standing at this place.’

‘Who is your friend?’ asked the vicarius with a slight quaver in his voice.

‘Cecilia Algotsdotter, father.’

‘The one who was betrothed in the Folkung clan to a man named Arn Magnusson?’

‘Yes, exactly, father, the one Birger Brosa holds so dear. She is my friend, and she is tormented by everyone here the same as I am, and this is why I’m filled with these unworthy and sinful thoughts of revenge.’

‘As long as you are at Gudhem, my daughter, you must follow the holy rules that apply here,’ replied the vicarius, trying to sound stern. But there was a clear note of uncertainty and fear in his voice that did not escape Cecilia Blanca’s attention.

‘I know, father, I know that this is my sin, and I seek God’s forgiveness,’ said Cecilia Blanca in a low, demure voice, but with a broad smile on her face; the vicarius could no more see her than she could see him.

It took a moment before the vicarius answered, and Cecilia Blanca considered it a good sign that her ploy was having an effect.

‘You have to seek peace in your soul, my daughter,’ he said at last in a strained voice. ‘You have to reconcile yourself with your lot in life, like all the rest here at Gudhem. I tell you now that you must meditate on your sinful thoughts, you must say twenty Pater Nosters and forty Ave Marias and you must refrain from speaking a word to anyone for twenty-four hours while you repent your sin. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, father, I understand,’ whispered Cecilia Blanca, biting her lip to keep from breaking into laughter.

‘I forgive you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Virgin Mary,’ whispered the vicarius, obviously shaken.

Cecilia Blanca hurried off along the arcade in jubilation, but with her head demurely bowed. At the other side of the cloister she found her friend Cecilia Rosa hiding by the fountain in the lavatorium. Cecilia Blanca was red in the face with excitement.

‘That ploy did some good, by God I think it helped,’ she whispered as she came in, looked around, and then embraced her friend as if they were free women in the other world, an embrace that would have cost them dearly if anyone had seen.

‘How so, how can you know that?’ asked Cecilia Rosa as she anxiously pushed her friend away and looked around.

‘Twenty Our Fathers and forty Hail Marys for confessing such hatred - that’s nothing at all! And only one day of silence. Don’t you see? He was scared, and now he’ll run and spill it all to that witch Rikissa. Now you have to do the same thing!’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know if I dare…’ said Cecilia Rosa. ‘I have nothing to use as a threat. You can threaten them with the prospect of becoming a vengeful queen, but I…with my twenty-year sentence, what can I threaten them with?’

‘With the Folkungs and with Birger Brosa!’ whispered Cecilia Blanca excitedly. ‘I think something has happened outside or is about to happen. Threaten them with the Folkungs!’

Cecilia Rosa envied her friend’s courage. It was a bold venture they had undertaken, and Cecilia Rosa could never have done it by herself. But now the first move had been made. Cecilia Blanca had taken the risks for them both, and now Cecilia Rosa had to do the same.

‘Trust me, I will do it too,’ she whispered, crossing herself and pulling her hood over her head. She walked off rubbing her hands together as if she had just washed them in the fountain. She walked along the arcade to the confessional without hesitation, and she did as friendship now demanded she do; she overcame her fear of committing the unprecedented act of mocking the confessional.

She was not quite sure what part of their plan had actually worked, but the fact that it did work was certain.

Silence still surrounded the two Cecilias at Gudhem; no one spoke to them, but neither did anyone look at them with the same hatred as before. It was as though everyone’s eyes had become frightened and furtive. And none of the other maidens gossiped about them any longer or reported that they had spoken during the periods of enforced silence, which they now began to do quite openly. Without shame they could walk and converse like free people outside, although they were walking in the arcade inside Gudhem.

It was a brief period of unexpected happiness that also brought a tantalizing feeling of uncertainty. The others obviously knew so much more and did what they could to keep their two enemies in ignorance. But something big was happening outside the walls; otherwise the scourge would have been taken out long ago.

The two Cecilias now found greater joy in their shared tasks, for no one prevented them from working together at the looms, although it was now obvious that Cecilia Blanca was certainly no beginner who needed help. They had started working with linen thread now that winter was long past. They received help from Sister Leonore, who came from southern climes and was the one responsible for the convent’s vegetable garden outside the walls as well as for the garden inside the walls and all the rosebushes that grew along the arcade. Sister Leonore taught them how to mix various colours and dye the linen, and they began to experiment with different weaving patterns. What they made could not be used inside Gudhem, of course, but it could be sold on the outside.

They turned to Sister Leonore all the more, because she had no friends in the lands of the Goths and thus had nothing to do with the feuds that were going on outside the walls. From her they learned how to take care of a garden in the summertime, how each plant had to be nurtured like a child, and how too much water was sometimes just as harmful as too little.

Mother Rikissa left them alone with Sister Leonore, and in this way a sort of equilibrium was restored at Gudhem; the enemies had been separated although they all lived under the same roof, recited the same prayers, and sang the same hymns.

But the two Cecilias were not allowed to go outside except to the garden just beyond the south wall. Mother Rikissa was hard as stone on that point. And when two sisters and all the novices were going to the midsummer market in Skara, Cecilia Rosa and Cecilia Blanca were forced to stay behind at Gudhem.

They clenched their teeth when told and once again felt a fierce hatred for Mother Rikissa. At the same time they knew that there was something going on that they didn’t understand, something the others seemed to know about but refused to discuss.

Later that summer something happened that was as frightening as it was surprising. Bishop Bengt in Skara had come rushing over to Gudhem and locked himself in with Mother Rikissa in the abbess’s own rooms. Whether it was merely a lucky coincidence or whether one thing had to do with the other, the Cecilias never found out.

But some hours after Bishop Bengt arrived at Gudhem, a group of armed riders approached. The alarm was sounded on the bell, and the gates were closed. Since the riders came from the east, the two Cecilias hurried up to the dormitorium to look out the windows up there. They were filled with hope, almost jubilant. But when they spied the colours of the riders’ mantles and shields, they felt as if death itself had seized hold of their hearts. Some of the riders were bloody, others gravely wounded and leaning forward over their saddles, and some were physically unhurt but with wildly staring eyes. All of them belonged to the enemy.

Up by the barred cloister gate the riders came to a halt, but their leader began to yell something about turning over the Folkung whores. Cecilia Rosa and Cecilia Blanca, who were now hanging halfway out the dormitorium windows so they could hear everything, didn’t know whether to start praying or stay there to hear more. Cecilia Rosa wanted to pray for her life. Cecilia Blanca absolutely wanted to hear everything that was said. She thought they had to learn why wounded enemies would attempt an act as serious as abducting women from a convent. So they both stayed in the window and pricked up their ears.

After a while Bishop Bengt came out and the gate was locked behind him. He spoke in a low voice and with dignity to the enemy riders. The two Cecilias in the window could hear very little of what was said, but the gist of the exchange was that it was an unforgivable sin to direct violence against the peace of the cloister. And that he, the bishop, would rather be struck down by the sword than allow any such thing. Then the men spoke so low that nothing could be heard from the window. It ended with the entire group slowly and reluctantly turning their horses and riding off to the south.

The two Cecilias held each other tight as they sank to the floor beneath the window. They didn’t know whether to pray to the Holy Virgin Mary and give thanks for their rescue or to laugh out loud with joy. Cecilia Rosa began to pray; Cecilia Blanca let her do so while she herself used the time to think hard about what they had witnessed. Finally she leaned over, embraced Cecilia Rosa once again, even tighter, and kissed her on both cheeks, as if she had already left this stern world.

‘Cecilia, my beloved friend,’ she whispered excitedly, ‘my only friend in this evil place they so unfairly call Gudhem, the home of God. I think we just saw our salvation arrive.’

‘But those were the enemy’s retainers,’ Cecilia Rosa whispered uncertainly. ‘They came to abduct us, and we were fortunate that the bishop was here. What was so good about that? Imagine if they come back when the bishop isn’t here.’

‘They won’t come back. Didn’t you see that they were defeated?’

‘Yes, many of them were wounded…’

‘That’s right. And what does that mean? Who do you think defeated them?’

‘Our men?’

Just as she uttered the simple answer to that simple question, Cecilia Rosa felt a pain and sorrow that she couldn’t understand, since she should have been happy. If the Folkungs and the Eriks had now won, she ought to be happy, but that also meant that she would be separated from Cecilia Blanca. And she herself had many years left to serve.

That day a dark mood of fear descended over Gudhem. Not a single woman dared look them in the eye except for Sister Leonore, who was probably the one who knew least, along with the two Cecilias.

Mother Rikissa had retreated to her own rooms and did not emerge until the following day. Bishop Bengt had left in a great hurry, and then they all carelessly tended to the work, the songs, and to holding mass. At evensong the two Cecilias sang together as they had never done before, and now there were absolutely no false notes from the one called Blanca. And the one called Rosa sang louder, more boldly, almost with a worldly boldness, sometimes putting entirely new variations into her voice. No one corrected her, and there was no Mother Rikissa to frown at this song of joy.

The next morning riders came galloping from Skara to Gudhem to bring a message to Mother Rikissa. She received the messengers out in the hospitium and then shut herself in the abbess’s quarters without meeting anyone until prime, which would be followed by the first mass of the day.

The Host had been blessed out in the sacristy by an unknown vicarius or someone else from the cathedral in Skara, and it was distributed in the usual order, first the sisters, then the lay sisters, and the worldly maidens last.

The sacred wine was brought in, the bell rang to proclaim the miracle, and the chalice was passed from one to the next by the prioress, with her other hand giving each her own fistula, a straw to use for the wine.

When it was Cecilia Rosa’s turn to drink of God’s blood, she did it demurely and with a genuine feeling of thanksgiving inside, for what was now happening confirmed her greatest hopes. But when it was Cecilia Blanca’s turn to drink there was a loud slurping, perhaps because she was the last to drink and there was little wine left. Or perhaps because she again wanted to show her contempt, not for God but for Gudhem. The two Cecilias never talked about it, or discussed which was the truth.

After that everyone was so tense when they headed out to the chapter hall that they moved as stiffly as puppets. Out there Mother Rikissa was waiting, looking exhausted with dark circles under her eyes and almost a bit shrunken in her chair, where she usually sat like an evil queen.

The prayer session was short. As was the reading of the Scripture, which this time dealt with grace and mercy, which made Cecilia Blanca give her friend an encouraging wink to signify that everything seemed to be going as they might hope. Mercy and grace were certainly not Mother Rikissa’s favourite topics during the Scripture reading.

Then there was silence and the mood was tense. Mother Rikissa began in a quiet voice, not at all like her normal one, to read aloud the names of brothers and sisters who were now wandering the fields of Paradise. Cecilia Rosa briefly listened for any name of Templar knights to be added to the list, but there was none.

Then there was silence again. Mother Rikissa wrung her hands and looked almost on the verge of tears, something that neither of the Cecilias would have believed possible from the evil witch. After sitting a while in silence and trying to collect herself, Mother Rikissa plucked up her courage and unrolled a parchment. Her hands trembled a bit as she recited in a monotone, ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Virgin, we must pray for all those, friends or not, who have fallen on the fields of blood, as these sites are always called, outside of Bjälbo.’

Here she paused to collect herself once more, and when the two Cecilias heard the word Bjälbo, their hearts contracted in fear. Bjälbo was the mightiest fortress of the Folkungs; it was Birger Brosa’s estate and home. So the war had reached that far.

‘Among those who fell, and they were many…’ Mother Rikissa went on, but she had to force herself to continue. ‘Among the many who fell were the jarls of God’s grace Boleslav and Kol, and so many of their kinsmen that I cannot count them all. We will now pray for the souls of the dead. We will be in mourning for a week and take nothing but bread and water; we will now…suffer a great sadness.’

There Mother Rikissa fell silent and sat with the text held loosely in her hand, as if she no longer felt like reading. Sniffling was already heard in the hall.

Then Cecilia Blanca stood up and took her friend boldly by the hand; they were sitting together at the back of the hall closest to the door. And without hesitation in her voice, but also without showing contempt or malice, she now broke her vow of silence.

‘Mother Rikissa, I beg your forgiveness,’ she said. ‘But Cecilia Algotsdotter and I will be leaving you now to the sorrow in which the two of us cannot participate. We’re going out to the arcade to reflect in our own way on what has happened.’

It was an unheard-of way of speaking, but Mother Rikissa merely waved her hand weakly in acknowledgment. Cecilia Blanca then took a step closer to her friend and bowed with courtly dignity, as if she were the queen herself, before she left the hall, still holding her friend’s hand.

When they reached the arcade they quickly ran as far away as they could so as not to be heard by the mourners. Then they stopped, embraced, kissed each other in the most immodest way, and spun round and round with their arms around each other’s waists, moving along the arcade as if they were dancing. Nothing needed to be said; now they knew all that they needed to know.

If Boleslav and Kol were dead, then the battle was over. If the Sverkers had attacked Bjälbo itself, then the Folkungs, even though they had hesitated before, must have emerged with all their forces, either to conquer or die. There would have been no other choice if the battle was at Bjälbo.

And if both the pretenders to the throne on the other side had fallen, it meant that not many of their men had escaped the battle alive, since the noble lords were the last to fall in war. Birger Brosa and Knut Eriksson must have won a great and decisive victory. So that’s why the fleeing Sverkers had come to Gudhem in the belief that they would be able to purchase safe conduct for themselves by kidnapping Knut Eriksson’s betrothed.

The war was over, and their side had won. In the first moment of joy when they danced down the arcade with their arms around each other, this was the thought that filled their minds.

Only later did they realize that what had happened on the bloody fields outside Bjälbo also meant that now they would be separated from each other. Cecilia Blanca’s hour of release would soon arrive.

THREE

Armand de Gascogne, sergeant of the Order of the Knights Templar, was a man who knew neither fear nor dread. Not only was it against the Rule - a Templar knight was forbidden to feel fear - it was also against his image of himself and against his most fervent wish in life, to be taken into the Order as a full-fledged brother in arms.

But when he spied the walls of Jerusalem in the setting sun, the centre of the world, looming up before them, it seemed that he did feel dread, and as if a chill went through him and the hairs on his forearms stood on end. But instantly the heat was back in his face.

Their ride had been very hard; his master Arn had allowed them only a brief rest at midday, and they had ridden in silence without any stops except to dismount now and then for a moment and rearrange the cumbersome loads on the horses. The six corpses had grown rigid in awkward positions, and as the sun climbed in the sky and the heat increased, they had gathered greater and greater clouds of flies around them. But the corpses were not the most difficult things to handle; they could be bent to fit better among the packs. On the other hand, the robbers’ loot in the little grotto had been sizable and hard to load. There was everything from Turkish weapons to Christian communion goblets of silver, silks and brocades, jewellery and Frankish arms ornaments, spurs of silver and gold, blue stones of the Egyptian sort, and gemstones that Armand had never seen before coloured violet and blue-green, small golden crucifixes affixed to leather cords or chains of hammered gold. These items alone told them that more than a score of the faithful souls, peace be upon them, must now be in Paradise after meeting a martyr’s death on their way to or from the place where John the Baptist had immersed the Lord Jesus Christ in the waters of the Jordan.

Armand’s tongue had swollen up so that it felt like a piece of thick leather in his mouth, and it was as dry as desert sand. This wasn’t because their water had run out, for with each step the horse took, Armand could hear water sloshing in the leather sack by his right thigh. But it was the Rule. A Templar knight controlled himself. A Templar knight must be able to withstand situations that other people could not endure. And above all, a sergeant could not drink without the permission of his lord, just as he could not speak without being spoken to or halt without orders.

Armand sensed that his lord Arn was tormenting him, but not without purpose, since he was also tormenting himself. It had something to do with that morning. That morning he had responded truthfully, as the Rule demanded. The question he was asked was whether he wished to be admitted as a knight and bear the white mantle. His lord Arn had merely nodded pensively at his reply without showing any emotion, and since then they had not spoken a word. They had ridden for eleven hours with only one brief stop to rest; they had halted occasionally whenever they found water to give the horses, but not themselves, and all this during one of the hottest days of the year. For the past hour Armand had seen how the horses’ quarter muscles had quivered with each step as they moved forward; for the horses too it had been a very hard day. But the Rule also seemed to apply to the horses of the Knights Templar. One never gave up. One obeyed orders. One endured what others could not.

When they finally neared the port in the city wall that was called the Lion’s Gate, a fog clouded Armand’s eyes briefly and he had to grab the pommel of the saddle so as not to fall off his horse. But then he rallied, if for no other reason than out of curiosity to see the tumult that arose at the city gate as he and his lord and their unusual cargo approached. Or perhaps it was because he thought that he would soon get something to drink, in which case he was mistaken.

By the city gate stood guards who were the king’s soldiers, but also a Templar knight and his sergeant. One of the royal soldiers came over to Arn de Gothia’s horse to take it by the bridle as he questioned the rider about his intentions and right to enter the city. The white-clad Templar knight behind him instantly drew his sword and held it in his path, ordering his sergeant to keep the curious away. And then Armand and his lord rode into the centre of the city without needing to utter a word, because they belonged to God’s holy army, and they obeyed no person on earth except the Holy Father in Rome.

The sergeant from the city gate escorted them down narrow cobblestone streets towards the temple square, shooing off street urchins and other bystanders who, if they were Christian, wanted to flock around their cargo and spit on the corpses; or if they were unbelievers, wanted to see whether they recognized any of the dead. A myriad of foreign languages buzzed around Armand’s head; he heard Aramaic, Annenian, and Greek, but many others he failed to recognize.

When they neared the temple square they rode down towards the stables located beneath the Temple of Solomon. Down there was a high vault furnished with huge wooden gates, and more guards stood there who were all sergeants in the Order of the Knights Templar.

Now Armand’s lord slowly dismounted, handed the reins to one of the sergeants waiting politely, and whispered something before he turned to Armand and in a rough voice issued the order to dismount and keep a tight rein on the horses. A white-clad Templar knight came hurrying up and bowed to Arn de Gothia, who bowed in return, and then they were allowed to enter the long colonnade of huge stables. They halted inside at a table where green-clad sub-chaplains did the bookkeeping. Sir Arn and his brother knights in white had a brief conversation which Armand couldn’t hear, and then the sergeants began to unload the horses and prepare to show object after object to the scribes, while Arn beckoned to Armand to follow him.

They passed through the endless stables. The stables were very beautiful and clean; not a horse-dropping in the corridors, not even a wisp of straw, nothing but clean cobblestones. Row after row of horses stood either lost in their own dreams or being curried, shoed, watered, and fed by an army of brownclad grooms. Here and there a black-clad sergeant was working with his horse, or a white-clad brother knight with his. Each time they passed by a sergeant, Armand bowed. Each time they passed a Templar knight, Arn did the same. What Armand saw was a power and a force he never could have imagined. He had been to Jerusalem only once before, to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a group of recruits; every recruit was required to have visited the church at least once. But he had never been inside the Templars’ own quarters in Jerusalem. Despite all the rumours he had heard, it was larger and mightier than he could have ever imagined. The value in gold of these beautiful and well-cared-for horses of Arabian or Frankish or Andalusian blood would be enough to defray the cost of a small army.

When they came to the end of the stables they saw narrow spiral staircases leading upward. Armand’s lord seemed to know his way like the back of his hand. He had no need to ask directions of anyone, and he chose the third or fourth staircase without hesitation. They walked up the stairs in the dark in silence. When they suddenly emerged in a large courtyard, Armand’s eyes were blinded by the light as the setting sun flashed off a great cupola of gold and a smaller one of silver. His lord stopped and pointed, without saying a word. Armand crossed himself before the holy sight and then was amazed, now that he stood so close, to discover that the golden dome he had previously seen from a distance was covered with rectangular plates of something that could only be solid gold. He had always imagined that it was made of tiles with a goldcoloured glaze. That the entire roof of a church could be made of pure gold was beyond comprehension.

His lord still said nothing, signalling after a while that they should move on. Armand now followed him into a separate world of gardens and fountains nestled inside a network of buildings constructed in every colour and style. Some of them looked like Saracen dwellings, others like Frankish ones; some had plain whitewashed facades, others were covered in blue, green, and white-glazed Saracen tiles in patterns that were obviously not Christian. Several houses of the type with small, round but simply whitewashed domes were attached in a row, and this was where they now entered, Armand two paces behind his lord.

They stopped outside wooden doors that all looked the same - three or four white doors with the red cross of the Knights Templar on the surface, but no larger than the palm of a hand. Arn turned and gave his sergeant a searching and slightly amused glance for a moment before he said anything. Armand’s head felt utterly empty and he hadn’t the slightest idea what was going to happen; he knew only that he would be given an order which he had to obey. And he was almost dying of thirst.

‘Now, my good sergeant, you shall do as I say, and nothing more,’ said Arn at last. ‘You will go in through this door. There you will find a room that is empty except for a wooden bench. There you shall…’

Arn paused and cleared his throat. His mouth was too dry to be able to speak without difficulty.

‘There you shall remove all your clothes. All your clothes: your surcoat, chain mail, hose, shoes, and…and even the outer lambskin girdle covering the impure parts of a man’s body, and even more, also the inner part of the lambskin girdle which you never take off. And then you will remove the shirt that you wear under the chain mail and the belt around it so that you stand there completely naked. Have you understood what I’m telling you?’

‘Yes, lord, I understand,’ whispered Armand, blushing as he bowed his head. Then he had to make an effort to get his dry mouth to squeeze out more words. ‘But you tell me, lord, that I must take off all my clothes. The Rule says that -’

Arn cut him off. ‘You are in Jerusalem; you are in the holiest of cities in the holiest of our quarters in the entire world, and here other rules apply! So, when you have done as I command, you will walk through the next door into the next room. There you will find water in which you can immerse your whole body, and oils which you shall use, and you will find things for washing yourself. You will wash, you will immerse your body completely in water, also your hair, and you will clean yourself thoroughly. Have you understood all I say?’

‘Yes, lord, I understand. But the Rule…?’

‘In the inner room you must wash yourself,’ Arn went on without concern, as if he no longer was having difficulty forcing the words out through his dry mouth, ‘and you shall do so until you see darkness fall; yes, there are windows in there. And when darkness falls and you hear the muezzin, the one who calls the unbelievers to prayer, claiming that “Allah is the greatest,” and whatever else they may shout, then you must return to the outer room. There you’ll find new clothes, although of the same type as those you now wear. You will dress in those clothes. I shall be waiting outside in the corridor here. Have you understood all this?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Good. Then I have only one more thing to say to you. You will wash yourself in water, you will immerse your whole body in water, you will have water all around you and over you and a great deal more. But you may not drink a drop. Obey!’

Armand was unable to reply, he was so shocked. His lord had already turned on his heel and with one long stride he reached the next door and was on his way in. But just as he was about to disappear from Armand’s sight, he seemed to remember something, stopped, turned around and smiled.

‘Don’t worry, Armand. Those who bring your new clothes will never see you naked, and they have no idea who you are. They simply obey commands.’

And so the Templar knight vanished from Armand’s sight behind a door which he firmly closed.

At first Armand stood utterly still. He could feel his heart pounding in his breast at the peculiar instructions he’d been given. But then he collected himself and went into the first room without hesitation. Just as his lord had said, there was nothing but a wooden bench and another door. The floor was a gleaming white, the walls were covered with sky-blue tiles with no pattern, the ceiling was of white plaster and formed a small dome with star-shaped skylights.

He first took off his stinking battle mantle which he had carried over his left arm as his lord did. He unbuckled his sword and then removed his soiled and bloody surcoat without hesitation. Nor was it so strange to remove his chain mail and the mail-clad hose, and with them the steel-covered shoes that went with the hose.

Then, as he stood in his wet inner shirt reeking with sweat, he hesitated. But orders were orders, so he pulled off his inner shirt and its belt, hesitating once more at his double lambskin girdles; he shut his eyes and stripped them both off. Then he paused for a moment before he dared open his eyes, utterly naked. He felt like he was in a dream, and he didn’t know whether it was a good or bad one, only that he had to proceed, and he had to obey. With manly resolve he pulled open the door to the next room, stepped inside, hastily shutting it behind him as he closed his eyes again.

When he forced himself to open his eyes he felt as if assaulted by beauty. The room had three rounded arched windows with wooden blinds, so that the light came in but did not escape. He could see some of Jerusalem’s towers and spires and also hear all the sounds coming from the city. Doves flapped past out in the summer evening, but no one could see into the darkness behind these wooden slats set high on the wall.

The walls of the room were decorated in blue, green, black, and white Saracen patterns that reminded him of the wall of the church with the golden dome. Thin columns of white marble supported the vault of the ceiling, and they were shaped as though they had been twisted up from floor to ceiling. The floor was made of black-glazed tile and solid gold, laid in a chessboard pattern, each plate a double hand’s-breadth square. To the left in the room was a large alcove filled with water and steps leading down into something that looked like a pond big enough for two horses, and to the right the same thing. Two tables stood between the two ponds, with inlays of mother-of-pearl forming Arabic script, and on the tables were arranged silver bowls containing oils of various bright colours, and two small oil-lamps, also of silver, were burning. On a bench of almond wood inlaid with African ebony and red rosewood there were big white lengths of cloth.

Armand hesitated. He repeated to himself in a murmur the instructions he’d been given and must obey. He went uncertainly over to one of the ponds and proceeded down the steps until the water reached up to his knees, but he regretted it at once. The water was much too hot; now he noticed the vapour rising off the surface. Then he went over to the other pond, leaving wet footprints behind him on the warm gold of the floor and tried again. The water was cool like a stream, and he stepped in up to his thighs and then stood for a moment, unsure what he should do next. He cautiously looked at his body. His hands were brown to an inch or two above his wrists, but everything else he could see was as white as the feathers of seagulls back home by the river in Gascony. Along his arms he saw stripes of salt and dirt that were crusted in layers inside small wrinkles and recesses. It occurred to him that the Rule prohibited any form of pleasure, but at the same time he knew that he must obey. So he proceeded down all the steps and immersed his whole body in the cool water as he glided out into the pond and floated as he now remembered one could do. He imagined that he was swimming in the river below the fortress at home in Gascony, back when he was a child and there were no clouds in the sky, and life was perfect. He submerged his head, got water up his nose, and stood up snorting in the middle of the pond. He took a tentative swimming stroke but came immediately to the edge decorated in blue tile. He dove under and kicked his legs across the water, but foolishly closed his eyes and hit his head hard on the tile on the other side. He yelled, swearing since it was not against the Rule, stood up, and rubbed the sore spot on his scalp. All of a sudden he felt happy in a way he couldn’t explain. He dipped his cupped hand down to the water and splashed a handful into his mouth. But he stopped himself at once and spat out the forbidden liquid in terror, trying to wipe off the last of it from his tongue with his finger; he had been prohibited from drinking, after all.

He inspected the various oils on the table between the two pools, rubbing himself carefully with them over the parts of his body that he could touch without sin, trying out the various colours in the bowls until he found the one he thought he should use for his hair. At last his entire body was smeared with oil. Then he stepped back into the cool water of the pool and washed himself, immersing himself completely. He even washed his hair and beard. He lay still for a moment, floating in the water and staring up at the Saracen patterns decorating the vault of the ceiling. It was like an atrium of Paradise, he thought.

After a while he began to feel cold, so he went over to the hot pool, which had now cooled to such a comfortable temperature that at first it felt like climbing into nothingness. He shuddered and shook his body like a dog or a cat. Then he lay still in the warm nothingness and managed to wash even the impure parts of his body that one must not touch. Without being able to stop himself he sinned. He knew that the first thing he had to do when he returned to the castle in Gaza was to confess this sin, which for so long he had been able to refrain from committing.

He lay dreaming for a long time, totally motionless in the water, as if floating in his dreams. He was here in the anteroom of Paradise but at the same time far away, back home as a child by the river in Gascony, back when the world was good.

The shrill, ungodly sound from the unbelievers screeching out their prayer over the crepuscular city woke him up as if by alarm. Horror-stricken and filled with guilt he climbed hastily out of the water and reached for the two soft white cloths to dry himself.

When he returned to the little outer room, all his old clothes were gone, even the felt layers he wore against his skin beneath his chain mail. There lay a new black mantle of precisely the same type he had worn into Jerusalem, and other new clothing that all fitted perfectly.

Soon he was ready to leave the two strange rooms and go out to the corridor with his mantle over his arm. His lord Arn was waiting, also attired in new clothes. His mantle with the black border showing his rank was fastened around his neck and his beard was combed. Both of them had hair cropped so short that they only needed to run their hands through it.

‘Well, my good sergeant,’ said Arn without expression. ‘How did you like that?’

‘I obeyed orders; I did everything as you said, lord,’ replied Armand uncertainly with his head bowed. He was suddenly apprehensive because of the blank look Arn gave him, as if he had been tested and failed.

‘Fasten your mantle and follow me, my good sergeant,’ said Arn with an amused little laugh, slapping Armand lightly on the back, then hurrying down the hall. Armand hastened after him as he struggled to don his mantle, not understanding whether he had broken some rule or whether he had missed a joke.

Arn seemed able to find his way without hesitation through these endless corridors, stairways, small courtyards with fountains and shuttered houses that seemed like private residences. He led his sergeant over to the Temple of Solomon. They descended through some sort of back entrance and suddenly stood in the huge long hall covered with Saracen rugs. There a multitude of writing-desks and tables stood in long rows. The hall was filled with men in green, the guardians of the faith, and men in brown who were apparently workers, but also knights in white who were reading or writing or had meetings with all sorts of foreigners in worldly garb. Arn led his sergeant past all this activity to the far end, where white gates separated the hall from a large rotunda with a high cupola. This was the sanctuary itself, the holy of holies of the Order of the Knights Templar.

As they entered and approached the large high altar with the cross beneath the cupola, water was still dripping from their beards onto the cold marble set in black-and-white star patterns. At the high altar they fell to their knees; Armand copied everything his lord did and was given a quick whispered instruction to say ten Pater Nosters and a personal thanks to the Mother of God for their fortunate homecoming from their mission.

When Armand knelt like that, reciting the prescribed number of prayers, he was struck anew by a burning thirst. It seemed so powerful that he briefly thought he might go crazy, and almost lost count of the number of prayers he had said.

No one took any particular notice of them; there were people praying everywhere inside the round sanctuary. Armand was a bit concerned about why they were kneeling before the large altar when nobody else had dared approach it, but he soon pushed away such thoughts. He acknowledged that he did not yet comprehend all these new rituals, and he continued to keep a precise count of his prayers.

‘Come, my good sergeant,’ said Arn when they were finished. They got up and crossed themselves one last time before God’s cross. And then they resumed their labyrinthine wanderings down long corridors, across new courtyards with fountains and flowers in sumptuous profusion, and again into dark corridors that were illuminated only by occasional torches. Suddenly they were in a huge whitewashed hall decorated solely with banners of the Order and knightly shields lining the walls. Here there were no Saracen decorations or other colours to break the whiteness and the strict lines of the setting. High vaults soared overhead and an arcade supported by pillars ran down one side of the hall as in a cloister. That was all Armand managed to notice before he caught sight of the Master of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem’s Master, Arnoldo de Torroja stood erect and stern in the middle of the hall with the white mantle bearing the two small black lines indicating his rank fastened at his neck and his sword at his side.

‘Now do as I do,’ Arn whispered to his sergeant.

They approached the Master of Jerusalem, stopped at a respectful six paces away as the rules prescribed, and instantly dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

‘Arn de Gothia and his sergeant Armand de Gascogne have returned from their mission, Jerusalem’s Master,’ said Arn in a loud voice but with his gaze fixed on the floor.

‘Then I ask you, master of the Gaza fortress, Arn de Gothia, was the task successful?’ said the mighty one in a loud voice.

‘Yes, brother knight and Jerusalem’s Master,’ replied Arn in the same formal manner. ‘We sought out six ungodly robbers and the spoils they had taken from believers and infidels. We found what we sought. The six are already hanging from our walls. All their goods can be set out before the rock tomorrow.’

Jerusalem’s Master at first did not reply, as though he wanted to draw out the silence. Armand did as his lord did, staring at the floor before him without moving, hardly daring even to breathe loudly.

‘Have you both washed as our Jerusalem rules prescribe? Have you thanked the Lord and the Lord God’s Mother, the special protectress of our Order, in the Temple of Solomon?’ asked the Master of Jerusalem after his long pause.

‘Yes, Jerusalem’s Master. I therefore beg respectfully for a bowl of water after a long day’s work, the only wages we deserve,’ replied Arn quickly, keeping his tone neutral.

‘Castle master Arn de Gothia and sergeant Armand de…de Gascogne, right? Yes! That’s what it was, de Gascogne. Rise, both of you, and embrace me!’

Armand did as his lord did, standing up quickly, and when Jerusalem’s Master embraced Arn he also embraced the sergeant Armand, though without kissing him.

‘I knew you could do it, Arn, I knew it!’ Jerusalem’s Master then exclaimed in a completely different tone of voice. Gone were the dull, thundering words; now he sounded like a man inviting two good friends to dinner. At the same moment two Templar knights hurried up, each carrying a silver bowl with ice-cold water, which they handed to Arn with a bow. He in turn handed one to Armand.

And Armand again followed Arn de Gothia’s example, swallowing the entire contents of the bowl in one gulp so that the water ran down his surcoat. Panting, he removed the empty bowl from his lips, surprised to find one of the whiteclad knight-brothers ready to take it from him with a bow. He hesitated; he had never imagined being waited on by a knight. But the man in white facing him saw his embarrassment and understood it. He gave a nod of encouragement to Armand, who handed over his bowl with a deep bow.

Jerusalem’s Master had thrown one arm around Arn’s shoulders, and they were carrying on a lively conversation, almost like worldly men, as they walked toward the far end of the hall where cook’s servants in green were setting the table for dinner. Armand followed after receiving another encouraging nod from the knight-brother assigned to serve him.

They took the seats that Jerusalem’s Master proffered, with Arn and the Master at one end of the table, then the two knight-brothers, and at the far end sergeant Armand. On the table were placed fresh bacon, smoked lamb, white bread, and olive oil, wine and vegetables and great steaming silver bowls of water. Arn said grace over the food in the language of the church as they all bowed their heads, but then they pitched in with good appetite and drank wine without hesitation. At first only Jerusalem’s Master and Arn spoke; they seemed immersed in memories of the old days and old friends, matters that the others at the table could not share. Armand stole a glance now and then at the two high brothers who seemed to know each other very well, behaving like close friends, which was not always the same thing within the Order of the Knights Templar. Armand was careful not to eat more or faster than his lord; he kept checking that he wasn’t ahead of him in either wine or bread or meat. He had to show moderation even though it was a banquet, and not gobble his food like worldly men.

And as Armand had suspected, the meal itself was brief. Suddenly Jerusalem’s Master wiped off his dagger and stuck it back in his belt, and so all the others did the same and stopped eating. The cook’s servants in green came over to the table at once and began clearing it off, but they left the bowls of water, the Syrian glass goblets, and the ceramic wine carafes.

Arn thanked the Lord for the gifts of the table while all bowed their heads.

‘So! That was surely a well-deserved wage for your efforts, brothers,’ said Jerusalem’s Master, wiping his mouth carefully with the back of his hand. ‘But now I want to hear how you acquitted yourself, young sergeant. My brother and friend Arn has given you a favourable accounting, but now I want to hear it from you.’

He regarded Armand with a look that seemed quite friendly, but Armand noticed something sly in his gaze, as if he were now going to be subjected to another of the endless tests. He thought that the most important thing was not to boast.

‘There isn’t much to say, Master of Jerusalem,’ he began uncertainly. ‘I followed my lord Arn, I obeyed his orders, and the Mother of God showed mercy on us, so we were victorious,’ he muttered with his head bowed.

‘And you feel no pride for the part you played? You simply proceed humbly along the path that your lord Arn assigns you and accept gratefully the grace that the Mother of God shows you and so on and so forth?’ the Master of Jerusalem went on, his tone barely disguising the irony of his words. But Armand did not dare understand the meaning of this irony.

‘Yes, Jerusalem’s Master, that is so,’ he replied modestly with his eyes focused on the table. At first he didn’t dare look up, but then he thought he heard some merriment from the other end of the table. He glanced up at Arn and saw him laughing broadly and almost shamelessly. For the life of him Armand couldn’t understand what was wrong with his answer, or what could be so funny when they were speaking of serious matters.

‘Oh, I see!’ said Jerusalem’s Master. ‘I see that you have an ingrained concept of the way a sergeant should speak to high brothers in the Order. Then let me put it this way. Is it true, as my dear brother Arn here has told me, that you want to be accepted as a knight in our circle?’

‘Yes, Jerusalem’s Master!’ answered Armand with sudden enthusiasm that he could not hide. ‘I would give my life to…’

‘No, no, not like that,’ Jerusalem’s Master laughed, raising his hand. ‘As a dead man we have not much use for you. But one thing you must now learn. If you want to become one of us, one of the brothers, then you have to learn never to lie to a brother. Think about that, now. Don’t you think that my beloved brother Arn and I were once young like you? Don’t you realize that we were sergeants like you? Don’t you think that we can see through your dreams, because they were our dreams too? Don’t you imagine that we understand what pride you feel for what you have accomplished, which as far as I can see was fully worthy of a knight-brother? But a brother must never lie to another brother, and you must never forget that. And if you’re ashamed of unworthy thoughts, if you’re ashamed because you’re proud of what you did, then it’s all right that you feel such shame. But it’s always worse to lie to a brother than to feel pride, or what you may think is pride. You can always confess your pride. But faithfulness to the truth before brothers is what you must never forsake. It’s that simple.’

Armand sat with his head bowed, staring at the tabletop, and could feel his cheeks aflame. He had been reprimanded, even though the words of Jerusalem’s Master were friendly and his tone brotherly.

‘Now we’ll start again,’ said the older man with a weary little sigh that didn’t sound quite genuine. ‘What happened and what did you accomplish in the battle, my good young sergeant?’

‘Jerusalem’s Master,’ Armand began, feeling his head turn to air and all his thoughts flee like birds, ‘we had been tracking the robbers for a week, we had studied their tactics, and we realized that it would be hard to catch them in the act. We had to find a position where we could meet them face to face.’

‘Yes? And then…did a good situation present itself?’

‘Yes, Jerusalem’s Master, at last it did,’ Armand went on with renewed courage, having convinced himself that he only had to present a normal account of battle. ‘We discovered them as they were pursuing three Saracens unknown to us up into a wadi which formed a trap like a sack. It was just what we were hoping for when we saw them begin pursuit from a distance, because they had used that tactic before. We took up position and attacked when the time was ripe; my lord Arn first, of course, and I on his flank behind him as the rules prescribe. The rest was easy. My lord Arn signalled to me with his lance how he would first launch a feint against the robber on the left in front, and that opened a good gap for me to aim and strike with my lance.’

‘Did you feel fear at that moment?’ asked Jerusalem’s Master in a suspiciously gentle voice.

‘Jerusalem’s Master!’ replied Armand loudly yet hesitantly. ‘I must admit that I did feel fear.’

He looked up to see how the others around the table reacted to this. But neither Jerusalem’s Master nor Arn, or the other two high knight-brothers, betrayed by their expressions what they thought about a sergeant who showed fear in battle.

‘I felt fear, but also resolve. This was the opportunity we had waited for so long, and now we could not fail! That was what I felt,’ he added so rapidly that his words stumbled over each other.

Now Arn carefully pounded his Syrian wine glass on the table and then Jerusalem’s Master did the same, followed by the two knight-brothers, and then they all burst out in laughter that was hearty but not malicious.

‘So you see, my good young sergeant,’ said Jerusalem’s Master, shaking his head and chuckling to himself, ‘what one must endure as a brother in our Order. You confess to fear, eh? But let me tell you this. Any one of us who does not feel some fear at the crucial moment is a fool. And we have no need for fools among our brothers. So, when can he be initiated as a brother in our Order?’

‘Soon,’ said Arn. ‘Very soon indeed. I shall go through the first conversations prescribed by the Rule as soon as we return to Gaza.’

‘Excellent! Then I will make a visitation in person for the initiation, and I will be the one to give you the second welcome kiss after Arn.’

The Master raised his wine glass to Armand, and the other Templar knights followed suit. With heart pounding Armand tried to keep his hand from shaking as he raised his glass and bowed in turn to his four superiors before he drank. He felt suffused by a great joy.

‘But right now the situation is critical, and it may be difficult to find the three days required for the initiation ceremony, at least in the near future,’ said Arn, just as the talk should have taken a less sombre turn. There was no comment, but they all shifted their attention to Arn to hear what he had to say.

‘Among the three Saracens whom we rescued from a tight situation was no less than Yussuf ibn Ayyub Salah al-Din,’ Arn began abruptly. ‘In the evening we broke bread and conversed, and from that talk I understood that we shall soon have war upon us.’

‘You broke bread and sat with Saladin?’ Jerusalem’s Master said harshly. ‘You ate with the greatest enemy of all Christendom and you let him escape alive?’

‘Yes, it is true,’ replied Arn. ‘And about this there is much to say, but the easiest is that he was allowed to get away alive. First of all, we have a truce, and second, I gave him my word.’

‘You gave Saladin your word?’ asked the Master in astonishment, his eyes narrowing.

‘Yes, I gave him my word before I realized who he was. But now we have more important things to discuss,’ Arn went on in the tone he used on the battlefield.

Jerusalem’s Master sat in silence for a moment, rubbing his fist on his chin. Then he pointed suddenly at Armand, who was now sitting with his gaze fixed on his lord Arn with wide, frightened eyes, as if only now did he understand what had happened, and with whom he too had broken bread.

‘My good sergeant, now you must leave us,’ commanded Jerusalem’s Master. ‘Brother Richard Longsword here will show you around our quarters and our part of the city. Then he will escort you to the sergeants’ night quarters. May God be with you. May I soon have the pleasure of giving you a welcome kiss.’

One of the Templar knights then stood up and indicated to Armand the direction they would be going. Armand stood up, bowed hesitantly to the now grim-visaged knights at the table, and left.

When the iron-clad wooden door closed after Armand and his high escort, a heavy silence settled over the room.

‘Now I’ll begin,’ said Jerusalem’s Master after a moment. ‘You know Brother Guy, who has just been made weapons master here in Jerusalem. You two hold the same rank, and the three of us have serious problems that concern us all. Shall we start with the matter of breaking bread with our enemy?’

‘By all means,’ said Arn lightly. ‘What would you have done? We have a truce, which is hanging by a thin thread, as we all know, and Saladin knew it as well. The robbers were the ones who had to be punished, not peaceful travellers of one faith or another. I gave him the word of a Templar knight. And he gave me his word. A moment later I understood to whom I had granted safe passage. So, what would you have done?’

‘If I had given my word I could have done no differently than you,’ agreed Jerusalem’s Master. ‘You worked here under Odo de Saint Armand, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s true, and it was when Philip de Milly was the Grand Master.’

‘Hmm. You and Odo became good friends, I heard?’

‘True. And we still are.’

‘But now he is Grand Master, and that’s good. That solves the problem of supping with the greatest enemy of Christendom. Some brothers may be upset by it, as you know.’

‘I do. And what do you think about this matter?’

‘I’m on your side. You kept your word as a Templar knight. And if I understood correctly you gained some information?’

‘Yes. War will be upon us in two weeks at the earliest, and no later than two months from now. That is what I believe I learned.’

‘Tell us. What more do we know? And what can we believe?’

‘Saladin knew a great deal: that Philip of Flanders and a vast host of the worldly armies and the Hospitallers are on their way up into Syria, presumably heading for Hama or Homs, not for Damascus and Saladin himself. But having learned of this, Saladin is travelling with great haste and without an escort south toward El Arish, I believe, though he told me he was on his way to Cairo. He is not making this journey because he wants to flee the Christian army in the north. So his intention is to attack us from the south now that he knows that more than half our forces are located far to the north. That is my conclusion.’

Jerusalem’s Master exchanged a glance with his brother and weapons master Guy, who gave him a curt nod of agreement to his unspoken question.

War was on its way. Saladin trusted that his forces in the north were sufficiently prepared to be able to hold the enemy in place. If at the same time he could drive an Egyptian army up through Outremer, then he could penetrate deep without meeting stiff resistance, perhaps all the way to Jerusalem. It was a terrifying thought, but they could not close their eyes to the possibility.

In that case the first battle would take place near Gaza, where Arn was in command as master of the fortress. The castle in Gaza was by no means one of the stronger ones, and it was defended by only 40 knights and 280 sergeants. It was inconceivable that Saladin would stop there and beat himself bloody against the walls. With a large enough army and good siege engines he could take Gaza. Few castles were as impregnable as Krak des Chevaliers or Beaufort. But the effort would cost him much more than it would benefit him. No one took a castle of the Knights Templar without great losses. And if they won, there would be no captives of any value to make up for all the costs; such a long and bloody siege would also mean a great loss of time.

So Saladin’s army would probably bypass Gaza, possibly leaving a small siege force outside the walls. But what would be their next objective? Ashkelon. Taking back Ashkelon after twenty-five years would not be a stupid idea. It could be a victory of significance and provide a Saracen stronghold along the coast north of Gaza. It would cut off the Knights Templar in Gaza from Jerusalem. Ashkelon was a plausible objective.

But if Saladin did not meet particularly great resistance, and it didn’t look as though he would, what would prevent him from heading straight for Jerusalem itself?

Not a thing.

The unpleasant conclusion was impossible to avoid. Saladin had first united Syria and Egypt under one commander and one sultan, just as he had said he would do. But he had also sworn to retake the holy city, which the infidels called Al Quds.

Decisions had to be made. The Grand Master, Odo de Saint Armand, who was now in Acre, had to be warned. Brothers of the Order had to be called in to reinforce both Jerusalem and Gaza. The king, that unfortunate leprous boy, and his court riddled with intrigue had to be warned. Messengers would have to ride off that very night at full speed in many directions.

Because momentous decisions are often easier to make than small, unimportant ones, the whole matter was soon settled. Weapons master Guy left the other two alone to take care of all the tasks that had to be accomplished before dawn.

Arnoldo de Torroja, Jerusalem’s Master, had remained seated at the table the whole time he was leading the discussion and issuing orders. But after the iron-clad door had closed behind the swiftly departing weapons master, he stood up with an effort and gestured to Arn to follow him. The two men then crossed the big, empty space of the Order Hall, heading for a side entrance that led out to an arcade with a view. They stood there a while with their hands propped on the stone railing, looking out over the darkened city and taking in the smells carried on the mild summer breeze: meat frying and spices, garbage and decay, perfumes, incense, and camel and horse droppings, all combined in the same sort of mixture that God had created of life itself: high and low, ugly and beautiful, delightful and loathsome.

‘What would you have done, Arn? I mean if you were Saladin, if you’ll pardon the impudent comparison,’ asked Arnoldo de Torroja at last.

‘There’s nothing to apologize for; Saladin is a magnificent foe and we all know it, even you, Arnoldo,’ replied Arn. ‘But I know what you’re thinking; both you and I would have done something altogether different in his place. We would have tried to draw the enemy into our area, extending the test of strength, harassing the enemy with constant small attacks by Turkish knights, disturbing his sleep, poisoning the fountains in his path - all the things that Saracens usually do. If we had the chance to defeat a large Christian army, then we would have seen a huge advantage before spring, when we would have moved on Jerusalem.’

‘But Saladin, who knows how much we know of him and the way he usually thinks, will instead do something completely unexpected,’ said Arnoldo. ‘He will purposely risk Homs or Hama because he has set his sights on a larger prize.’

‘You have to admit that it’s both a bold and a logical plan,’ Arn continued the thought.

‘Yes, I have to admit that it is. But thanks to your…unusual measures, or whatever we should call them, may God have mercy on you, at least now we are prepared. It could mean the difference between keeping Jerusalem in our hands and losing it.’

‘In that case I believe God does have mercy on me,’ Arn muttered in annoyance. ‘Any chaplain could set about praising the Lord and say that the Lord had sent the enemy into my arms in order to save Jerusalem for us!’

Arnoldo de Torroja, who was not used to being reprimanded by subordinates, turned in surprise and gave his young friend a searching look. But the dim light in the arcade made it hard to interpret the other’s gaze.

‘You’re my friend, Arn, but don’t abuse that friendship, for it could cost you someday,’ he said peevishly. ‘Odo is the Grand Master now, but you may not have that protection forever.’

‘If Odo falls you will probably be the next Grand Master, and you too are my friend,’ said Arn as if commenting on the weather.

This made Arnoldo completely lose all intention of showing stern leadership and instead he burst out laughing. If anyone had seen them, such behaviour would have seemed extremely out of place at this difficult hour, both for the Knights Templar and for Jerusalem.

‘You have been with us a long time, Arn, since you were very young, and you are like one of us in everything but your speech. Sometimes, my friend, one might think you were speaking with audacious candour. Is everyone of your Nordic race like this, or is it merely that we haven’t whipped the rascal out of your body yet?’

‘My body has been well whipped, don’t worry about that, Arnoldo,’ said Arn in the same unconcerned tone of voice. ‘It’s true that up there in the North, in what was once my home, we might speak with less fuss and fawning than do some Franks. But a Templar knight’s words must always be compared with his actions.’

‘Still the same impudence, the same lack of respect for your superiors. And yet you’re my friend, Arn. But watch your tongue.’

‘Right now it’s more my head that is at stake. Down there in Gaza we’ll be taking the first blow when Saladin arrives. How many knights can you spare me?’

‘Forty. I’ll put forty new knights under your command.’

‘Then we’ll be eighty knights and fewer than three hundred sergeants against an army that I suspect will be no less than 5,000 Egyptian cavalry. I hope you’ll leave it to my judgment as to how to confront such an army. I wouldn’t care to receive an order to meet them out on the open field lance to lance.’

‘Are you afraid to die for a holy cause?’ Arnoldo de Torroja wondered, with clear irritation in his voice.

‘Don’t be childish, Arnoldo,’ Arn replied. ‘I find it almost blasphemous to fall in battle for nothing. We’ve seen far too much of that here in Outremer; new recruits who want to go straight to Paradise, causing the rest of us unnecessary losses and benefiting the enemy. In my opinion such stupidity should not be rewarded with the forgiveness of any sins, because such behaviour is itself a sin.’

‘So you think that the Templar knight who knocks on the gates of Paradise, out of breath after having rushed into death, might have an unpleasant surprise awaiting him?’

‘Yes, but I wouldn’t say that to any brothers except my closest friends.’

‘I would agree with that wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, attend to your command in accordance with whatever situations arise and your own best judgment. That is my only order to you.’

‘Thank you, Arnoldo, my friend. I swear I will do my best.’

‘I don’t doubt that, Arn, I certainly don’t. And I’m glad that you were the one to be given the new command in Gaza now that the first battle of the war will take place there. We actually had not intended to put you there in such a high position; many men can handle a high position, but you are much too valuable in the field to sit and manage a fortress all day long.’

‘But?’

‘But that is how things have turned out. Odo de Saint Armand is holding a protective hand over you; I think he wants you to move up in the ranks. I’m holding my hand over you too, for what it’s worth. But God was apparently standing by us. Against all rhyme and reason it was you, our Turcopole, who won the position, even though it meant a poor allocation of fighting forces.’

‘And now it turns out that the enemy is coming to Gaza, of all places.’

‘Precisely. God has a plan for everything. May He now stand by you and all your men when the storm comes. When are you leaving?’

‘At dawn. We have much to build in Gaza, and very little time.’

The city of Gaza and its fortress represented the southernmost outpost of the Knights Templar in Outremer. Since the fortress was built, the city had never been besieged, and the armies that had passed by had always been their own, coming from the north on their way to war in Egypt. But now the roles would be reversed; the enemy was not going to be attacked, but would instead attack them. It could be regarded as a sign of the times, a warning that from now on the Christians would have to pay more attention to defence than to offence. They now had an enemy whom they had greater reason to fear than all the men who had come before - men like Zenki and Nur al-Din. But none of these Saracen leaders could measure up to the man who had now assumed leadership: Saladin.

For the new young master of Gaza it was an unusual assignment to be preparing himself for defence. For ten years Arn de Gothia had taken part in hundreds of battles out in the field, but almost always as part of the forces that attacked the enemy first. As a Turcopole he had commanded the mercenary Turkish cavalry who with light arms and light, fast horses rode against the enemy to spread turmoil and confusion. In the best case, the cavalry’s aim was to force the foe to close ranks so that the Frankish forces could attack. At the very least the cavalry would cause the enemy to suffer losses.

Arn had also ridden with the heavily armoured 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 counter-attack 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 meagre 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 book-keeping 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 defence 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, laboured 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 centre 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 harbour.

‘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 harbour, 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 honour 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 re-enter.’

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 7000 to 8000 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 manoeuvre 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 signalled 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.

When they approached the city they saw that all roads were filled with refugees seeking protection and fleeing the plundering marauders. In the distance to the east could be seen several black columns of smoke. Gaza would soon be full of refugees.

War was finally upon them.

FOUR

The war had finally ended, but Cecilia Rosa and Cecilia Blanca were now about to learn that an end to fighting was not at all the same thing as good order and peace; the effects of a war did not cease overnight. Even though a war ended when the last men fell on the battlefield, that did not mean instant happiness and serenity, even for the side that had won.

One night during the second month after the battle on the fields of blood outside Bjälbo, when the first autumn storms were lashing at the windows and shingled roof of Gudhem, a group of riders arrived. With great haste the men removed five of the maidens from the Sverker clan who were among the novices. It was whispered that they would be fleeing to relatives in Denmark. A few days later three new maidens belonging to families defeated in the war arrived to seek the serenity of the Gudhem cloister, which was beyond the reach of the victorious Folkungs and Eriks.

With them they brought tidings about what was happening in the outside world. When the last Sverker maiden arrived, everyone at Gudhem found out that King Knut Eriksson, as he was now called, had ridden into Linköping itself with his jarl Birger Brosa to accept the surrender of the town and confirm the peace that now prevailed, in accordance with his terms.

For the two Cecilias this was cause for great joy. Cecilia Blanca’s betrothed was now actually the king. And the uncle of Cecilia Rosa’s beloved Arn was now jarl. All power in the kingdom was now in their hands, at least all worldly power. However, there was still one big black cloud in this bright sky, because they’d had no word whether King Knut had any intention of bringing his betrothed, Cecilia Ulvsdotter, home from Gudhem.

In the world of the men, nothing was ever certain. A betrothal could be broken because a man had lost in war, just as it could be broken if he was victorious. In the men’s struggle for power, anything was possible. The winning clans might now want to bind themselves tighter together through marriage, but it was also possible that they would have the notion of marrying into the losing side so as to seal the peace. This uncertainty consumed Cecilia Blanca, but the situation also meant that she did not assume victory in advance. She directed no harsh words to the unfortunate sisters who belonged to the losing side, and Cecilia Rosa followed her lead.

The behaviour of the two Cecilias had a good and healing effect on the emotions prevailing inside Gudhem; Mother Rikissa, who was sometimes wiser than the two Cecilias suspected, viewed this as an opportunity to quell blood that was much too hot. She decided to relax the rules for conversing by the stone benches at the northern end of the arcade. Previously the silence rule had only been relaxed at the reading hours and when reciting the few writings at Gudhem, or during edifying discourses on sin and punishment when the worldly maidens were to be schooled there. But now Mother Rikissa invited Fru Helena Stenkilsdotter several times during the late summer to these discussions in order to learn what she knew about the struggle for power - and she knew a good deal. She knew even more about how women should react to such matters.

Fru Helena was not merely wealthy and of royal lineage. She had lived her life under five or six kings, three husbands, and many wars. What she didn’t know about a woman’s lot was not worth knowing.

Chiefly she impressed on them how important it was for women to learn to stick together to the very last. A woman who chose her adversaries and friends based on the shifting fortunes of men at war would end up alone in life with nothing but enemies. As delightful as it was to belong to the side that was victorious in war, it was equally miserable to be on the losing side. But if a woman lived long enough, as Fru Helena herself had done - and she hoped to God this would also be granted to the maidens now listening to her - then she would experience both sweet victory and the black feeling of defeat many times in her life.

And if women had only had the wit to stick together more steadfastly in this world, how many unnecessary wars could then have been prevented? And if women hated one another without having any sensible reasons for doing so, how much unnecessary death would that not promote?

‘For let us play freely with the idea that anything at all might happen, which is often the case,’ she said. ‘We shall imagine that you, Cecilia Blanca Ulvsdotter, will become King Knut’s queen. And we shall imagine that you, Helena Sverkersdotter, in the near future will drink the bridal ale with one of blessed King Sverker’s kinsmen in Denmark. So, which of you two now wants war? Which of you wants peace? What would it mean if you had hated each other ever since the brief years of your youth at Gudhem? What would it mean if instead you were friends ever since that time? I shall tell you: it means the difference between life and death for many of your kinsfolk, and it can mean the difference between war and peace.’

She paused, breathing heavily as she shifted position on her chair and fixed her little red eyes on her young listeners, who were sitting bolt upright, not showing any sign of comprehending. They neither agreed with nor opposed her words. Not even Cecilia Blanca revealed what she was thinking, even though she knew the least that Helena Sverkersdotter would suffer would be three times the number of blows with the scourge that she had dealt out.

‘You look like geese, all of you,’ Fru Helena went on after a moment. ‘You think that I’m only preaching the Gospel to you. One must act peaceably; anger and hatred are deadly sins. You must forgive your enemies, as they in turn must forgive you; you must turn the other cheek, and all the other admonitions we try to pound into your small, empty heads here at Gudhem. But it’s not that simple, my young friends and sisters. For you don’t believe that you have any power of your own - you think that all power resides in the hilt of a sword and the point of a lance, but in this you have made a fundamental mistake. That’s why you run across the courtyard like a flock of geese, first in one direction, then the other; first one maiden is your enemy, then someone else. No man in his right wits - and may the Virgin Mary hold her protective hand over you so that you all may wed such men - can refrain from listening to his wife, the mother of his children and the mistress of his home. Girls of your young age might simply believe that this applies only to trivial matters, but it is true in large matters as well as small. You must not go out into the world as silly little geese; you must go out in possession of your own free, strong will, precisely as the Scriptures prescribe, and do something good instead of something evil with that free will. Just as men do, you decide over life and death, peace and war, and it would be a great sin if you shirked that responsibility out there in life.’

Fru Helena signalled that she was tired, and because she looked very ill with her constantly running eyes, two sisters stepped forward to lead her back to her house outside the walls. But a flock of maidens with their thoughts aflame stayed behind, not saying a word and without looking at each other.

A mood of conciliation descended over Gudhem, not least thanks to Fru Helena’s many wise words to the young girls, and as the calm follows the abating storm, Mother Rikissa acted promptly and wisely.

Four maidens from Linköping had come to Gudhem, and only one of them had any previous experience of convent life. They were all mourning fallen kinsmen, and they were all terrified, crying themselves to sleep every night.

But one could make something good come from their pain, as one can make a virtue out of necessity, Mother Rikissa thought. And so she decided two things. First, that for an unspecified period the vow of silence at Gudhem would be lifted, since none of the new girls knew sign language. Second, since the sisters themselves had other more important things to do, Cecilia Blanca and Cecilia Rosa would be given special responsibility for the new girls. They would teach them to speak with signs, to obey the rules, to sing and to weave.

Cecilia Blanca and Cecilia Rosa were astonished when they were summoned to Mother Rikissa in the chapter hall and given these instructions. And they were filled with ambivalence. For one thing, it permitted them a freedom they could never have imagined inside Gudhem, to determine their own workday and also be able to talk freely without risk. And yet they would be forced to be together with four daughters of the Sverker clan. Cecilia Blanca wanted as little to do with such girls as possible; even though she suspected that her hatred had more to do with their fathers and mothers, it still didn’t feel right, she claimed. Cecilia Rosa begged her to consider how she would have felt if the battle on the field of blood outside Bjälbo had turned out differently. They had to obey; they had no choice.

All six were embarrassed when they met the first time out in the arcade after the midday rest. Singing would be the easiest, since they had no idea what to say, Cecilia Rosa thought. And because she knew exactly where they were in the continual progression through the Psalter, she knew which songs were coming up in three hours, when it was time for None, the mid-afternoon prayers. And so the lessons began, with Cecilia Rosa singing lead. They repeated each song so many times that their pupils seemed to have them memorized, at least temporarily. And when None was then to be sung inside the church, it was evident that the new girls really could join in with the singing.

When they came out to the arcade after the songs, the weather was blustery with the chill of autumn. Cecilia Blanca then went to the abbess’s residence, returning at once, clearly pleased, and told them that they’d been given permission to use the chapter hall.

They sat there for an hour or so, practicing the simplest signs in Gudhem’s silent language, and the inexperienced teachers soon noticed that this was an art that they had to teach in small portions, and that it was no use continuing for too long at a time. After half the work shift before Sext, the midday prayers, they went straight across the arcade to the weaving rooms, where surly lay-sisters reluctantly moved aside. There both Cecilias began chattering away as they explained about the weaving and began to giggle. Then they joked that they were both trying to talk at once so that all six of them for the first time had something to giggle about together.

It turned out that one of the new girls, the youngest and smallest, a maiden with coal-black hair named Ulvhilde Emundsdotter, was already very adept at the art of weaving. She had said nothing to anyone before, or perhaps no one had bothered to listen to her since she had arrived at Gudhem. Now she began with growing fervour to tell them that there was a way to blend linen and wool that would produce a cloth that was both warm and supple. This fabric was ideal for mantles for both men and women. And they all belonged to families in which there was great need of mantles for both religious and worldly occasions.

Then the conversation abruptly stopped short because they still felt embarrassed in one another’s company: two from the clans of the blue mantles and four from the clans of the red and black mantles. But a seed had been sown.

A short time later Cecilia Rosa discovered that little Ulvhilde seemed to be tagging after her, not in a hostile way as if she wanted to spy on her, but shyly, as if she had something she wanted to say. The Cecilias had now divided up their time as teachers, with Rosa taking care of the singing and Blanca the weaving, and then they were all together during the lessons in sign language. Cecilia Rosa soon found an occasion to conclude the singing a bit earlier than usual. She frankly asked Ulvhilde to sit down for a moment and tell her what it was that she so obviously wanted to discuss. The other girls stole out cautiously and closed the door to the chapter hall so quietly behind them that Cecilia Rosa had the feeling they already knew what was on Ulvhilde’s mind.

‘So, now that we’re alone,’ she began, sounding almost as authoritative as an abbess, but was instantly embarrassed and caught herself. ‘I mean…I’ve sensed that there’s something you want to talk about in private. Am I right about this?’

‘Yes, dear Cecilia Rosa, you are completely right,’ replied Ulvhilde, looking all at once as if she were making a brave attempt to hold back the tears.

‘My dear little friend, what is it?’ Cecilia Rosa asked uncertainly.

But the answer was not forthcoming. They sat together for a while, neither of them daring to be first to break the silence, although by now Cecilia Rosa had begun to have her suspicions.

‘The thing is, Emund Ulvbane was my father, blessed be his soul,’ whispered Ulvhilde at last, her gaze fixed on the limestone floor.

‘I don’t know any Emund Ulvbane,’ said Cecilia Rosa timidly, at once regretting it.

‘Yes, you do, Cecilia Rosa; your betrothed Arn Magnusson knew him, and everyone in both Western and Eastern Götaland knows the story. My father lost his hand in that duel.’

‘Yes, of course I know about the duel at Axevalla ting,’ Cecilia Rosa admitted in shame. ‘Everyone does, just as you say. But I wasn’t there and had nothing to do with that affair. Arn was not yet betrothed to me. And you weren’t there either. So what do you mean by this? Do you intend for this matter to stand like a fortress wall between us?’

‘It’s much worse than that,’ Ulvhilde went on, no longer able to hold back the tears. ‘Knut Eriksson killed my father at Forsvik, even though he had promised that father would be allowed to come for me, my mother, and my brothers. And on the fields of blood…’

Then Ulvhilde could go no farther, but bent forward sobbing as if the pain had cloven her across her tender waist. Cecilia Rosa at first felt altogether at a loss, but she put her arms around little Ulvhilde, knelt down next to her, and awkwardly stroked her cheeks.

‘There, there,’ she consoled her. ‘What you started to tell me must come out, and you may as well do it now. So tell me what happened on the fields of blood, because I know nothing about it.’

Ulvhilde struggled for a moment, trying to catch her breath between sobs before she was able to utter the words that had to come out.

‘On the fields of blood…both my brothers died…killed by the Folkungs…and then they came to our farm where mother…where mother was still in hiding. And they burned her alive with the livestock and servants!’

It was as if Ulvhilde’s wild grief spread like a coldness between their limbs so that it was now inside Cecilia Rosa as well. They clung to each other without being able to speak. Cecilia Rosa began rocking back and forth as if she were lulling the younger girl to sleep, although now there would be no sleep. And yet something more had to be said.

‘Ulvhilde, my little friend,’ Cecilia Rosa whispered hoarsely. ‘Keep in mind that it could have been you in this position and that neither of us is at all to blame. If I can console you then I will try. If you want me to be your friend and support, I will try that too. It’s not easy to live at Gudhem, and you should know that here we need friends more than anything else.’

The death throes of Fru Helena Stensdotter took a long time. For ten days she lay dying, and during most of that time her mind was utterly clear. It made the matter that much more delicate for Mother Rikissa, who now had to send various messages far and wide.

It would not do simply to bury Fru Helena as any of Gudhem’s pensioners, because she was of royal lineage, and she had married into both the Sverker and the Erik clans. At a time when the wounds of war had been better healed, a huge retinue should have come to see her to her final rest. But as things now stood, with the fields of blood outside Bjälbo fresh in everyone’s memory, only a small but very resolute group showed up. Almost all the guests arrived several days before her death; they had to spend the time waiting in both the hospitium and other buildings outside the cloister - Folkungs and Eriks in one group, and Sverkers in another.

Cecilia Blanca and Cecilia Rosa were the only novices who were allowed to go outside the walls to sing at the graveside in the churchyard. This was not because of their clan lineage, but because their singing voices were among the loveliest at Gudhem.

Bishop Bengt had come from Skara to pray over the grave. Standing slightly removed from everyone else he wore his light-blue, gold-embroidered bishop’s vestments, and he seemed able to remain upright only by clutching his staff. On one side stood men from the Sverker and Stenkil clans in red, black, and green mantles. On the other side stood the Eriks in gold and sky-blue, and Folkungs in the same blue but with silver. In two long rows outside the churchyard were all the shields fastened to lances stuck into the ground: the Folkung lion, the three Erik crowns, the black Sverker griffin, and the Stenkil wolf’s head. Some of the shields still bore clear marks of sword-edges and lance-points, while some of the guests’ mantles bore traces of both battle and blood. Peace had reigned for too short a time for the marks of war to have been washed away in the rain.

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