Текст книги "The Templar Knight"

Автор книги: Ян Гийу

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And as he had heard recently from blessed Father Henri at Varnhem, Arn Magnusson was a warrior by God’s Grace in more than one respect. In the worst case, he would soon be needed at home.

Chapter 11

Arn was kept for two weeks at the Hamediyeh Hospital in Damascus before the doctors managed to stop the fever from his wounds. They believed it was God’s providence that he recovered, because no one could live much longer with such a fever. From earlier battles he had more scars on his body than he could count, but he assumed they might be more than a hundred. Yet he had never been wounded so badly as at the Horns of Hattin.

He didn’t remember much from the early stages of the battle. They had carried him away, cut off all his chain mail, and sewn up the worst of the wounds before they took him along with the wounded Syrians and Egyptians up into the hills where it was cooler. Arn and the other wounded soldiers had suffered greatly during the move, and most of them began bleeding again. But the doctors thought it would be even worse for them to remain in the heat among the flies and stench of corpses down below near Tiberias.

How Arn later came to Damascus he did not remember; by the time they moved him out of the field infirmary in the hills, a terrible fever had set in.

In Damascus the doctors had cut open some of his wounds, tried to clean them, and then sewn them back up, although this time with greater precision than what had been done at the field hospital near Tiberias.

The worst wounds were a deep gash from a sword that had sliced through his chain mail and deep into his calf, and an axe-blow that had cracked his helmet diagonally above his left eye, ripping his eyebrow and the left side of his forehead. At first he hadn’t been able to keep any food down, but vomited up everything they tried to force into him. And he suffered from a murderous headache so that the fogs of fever that began to seep into his mind actually came as a relief.

He didn’t remember any pain to speak of, not even when they cauterized his leg wound with a red-hot iron.

When the fever finally broke, the first thing he discovered was that he could again see out of both eyes, for he remembered that he had been blind in the left eye.

His bed was on the second floor of the hospital in a lovely room with blue mosaics, looking straight out into the shadow of tall palms. Now and then the wind gently rustled the palm fronds, and down in the courtyard he could hear the sound of fountains.

The doctors treated him with cool courtesy in the beginning, doing their work as well as their professional skill permitted. Above Arn’s bed hung a little picture in black and gold with Saladin’s Arabic calligram, which clearly showed that Arn was worth more to the sultan living than dead, despite the whispers that he was one of the white demons with the red cross.

When the fever subsided and Arn could begin to speak coherently, the doctors’ joy at his recovery was ever greater when they heard to their astonishment a Templar knight speaking God’s language. As doctors in Damascus they did not know what at least half the emirs in the army knew about the man who was called Al Ghouti.

The most distinguished of all the doctors was named Moses ben Maimon; he had traveled up from Cairo where he had been Saladin’s personal physician for many years. To Arn’s ears his Arabic had a foreign sound, because he had been born in far-off Andalusia. Life in that region had been hard for the Jews, he told Arn at their first meeting. Arn was not surprised that Saladin’s personal physician was a Jew, because he knew that the Caliph of Baghdad, the supreme leader of the Muslims, had many Jews in his service. And since his experience with Saracen doctors had shown him that they were all knowledgeable in the rules of both the faith and philosophy, he took care to ask about the significance of Jerusalem for the Jews. At that Moses ben Maimon raised his eyebrows in surprise and asked Arn what could make a Christian warrior take interest in such a thing. Arn told him about his meeting with the high rabbi from Baghdad and what it had led to, at least for as long as Arn held power in Jerusalem. If the Christians viewed God’s Grave as a holy place in Jerusalem, he went on, and the Muslims had Abraham’s rock where the Prophet, peace be unto him, had ascended to Heaven, then he could understand the power that these pilgrim sites had for the believers. But King David’s temple? That was merely a building constructed by human beings and torn down by human beings; why would it be considered so holy?

Then the Jewish doctor patiently explained to Arn that Jerusalem was the only holy site of the Jews, and according to prophecy the Jews would return to reclaim their kingdom and build up the Temple anew. Arn gave a deep and sorrowful sigh, not for the sake of the Jews, he quickly pointed out when he saw his newfound friend look somewhat puzzled, but for the sake of Jerusalem. Soon Jerusalem would fall into Muslim hands, if it hadn’t already happened. Then the Christians would spare no effort to take the city back. And if the Jews also got involved in the argument over Jerusalem, the war could go on for a thousand years or more.

Moses ben Maimon then went to get a little stool and sat down next to Arn’s bed in order to continue this discussion in earnest, which suddenly seemed more important to him than anything else he had to do at the hospital.

He asked Arn to explain what he meant more clearly, and then recounted conversations he’d had with both Saladin and Count Raymond of Tripoli. Both of them—despite the fact that one was Muslim and the other Christian, each other’s most dangerous foes on the battlefield—still seemed to reason the same way on this matter. The only way to bring an end to the eternal war would be to give equal rights to all pilgrims, no matter where their pilgrimage to the holy city was headed and regardless of whether they called it Al Quds or Jerusalem.

Or Yerushalayim, Moses ben Maimon added with a smile.

I agree, Arn said at once. These were the sorts of thoughts he had touched upon when he had given the rabbi from Baghdad permission for Jews to pray at the western wall. But back then he hadn’t known the full extent of how sacred this wall was for Jews. The two men soon agreed that they ought to seek an occasion to speak with Saladin about this matter before he took the city.

Their friendship grew during the following weeks as Moses began to urge Arn to stand up and try to walk. The doctor’s opinion was that he shouldn’t wait either too short or too long a time to get back on his feet. In the first instance he risked tearing open the wound in his leg again, but if he delayed too long the leg might stiffen and grow weak.

At first they walked only a few turns around the garden among the palms and fountains and pools. It was easy to walk there, because the whole garden up to the roots of the palm trees was covered with mosaics. Soon Arn was allowed to borrow some clothes, and they could venture out on cautious promenades in the city. Since the great mosque stood only a stone’s throw or two from the hospital, that was one of their first destinations. As infidels they were not allowed to enter the mosque itself, but they could go into the surrounding courtyard, where Moses showed him all the wonderful gold mosaics in the covered arcades. They clearly stemmed from the Christian era, while the Muslim patterns in black, white, and red in the marble floor were from the time of the Umayyads. Arn was astonished that all the Christian Byzantine art was allowed to remain untouched, since it depicted both people and saints, an art that most Muslims would regard as ungodly. And the great mosque was quite clearly a church, even though a minaret had been built beside it.

Moses ben Maimon pointed out that as far as he knew, it was the opposite in Jerusalem, where the two great mosques had now been churches for some time. It was practical, after all, he said with a hint of irony, to keep all such holy sites intact. Because as soon as somebody new conquered the structures, all they had to do was tear down the cross from the cupolaand put up a crescent moon, or vice versa, depending on who won and who lost. It would be worse if they had to tear down the old holy sites every time and build new ones.

Because Arn knew nothing about the Jewish faith, this was one of their first major topics of discussion, and since he could read Arabic, Moses ben Maimon loaned him a book he had written himself entitled Guide for the Perplexed. Once Arn started to read the book, their conversations became endlessly long, for what Moses ben Maimon worked on most in his philosophy was to find the correct juncture between reason and faith, between the teachings of Aristotle and the pure faith, which many people believed to be free of reason and a revelation from God. Making these alleged opposites mesh together seamlessly was the greatest task of philosophy, in his view.

With some difficulty Arn followed along in these lengthy arguments, for as he said, his mind had gone through a drought since the time in his youth when at least the ideas of Aristotle were with him every day. But he did agree that nothing could be more important than making faith reasonable. For the war in the Holy Land had shown with the power of an earthquake what blind, unreasoning faith would lead to. That so many men could walk across the trembling ground and say that they saw nothing and heard nothing was one of the great mysteries of the intellectual world.

Arn’s scabs began to fall off, leaving angry red but healing scars; at the same time his friendship with the doctor and philosopher Moses ben Maimon grew, along with his ability to think of other things besides rules and obedience. He felt as though his body was not the only part of him undergoing the process of healing.

He may have cast himself with such hypnotic zeal into the world of the higher intellect because he wanted to push aside the gnawing knowledge of what was now happening outside in the rest of the world. But his unconscious effort to keep this knowledge at bay met with difficulties whenever others who were being cared for at the Hamediyeh Hospital had visitors. With jubilation they would announce that now Acre and Nablus had fallen, now Beirut or Jebail, now this or that fortress had been seized. It was not easy to be the only Christian when everyone around him reacted with such strong and boisterous joy at the influx of such news.

When Saladin’s brother Fahkr came to visit Arn, all these reports from the outside world were soon confirmed, even though such matters were not the first things they discussed.

They were both moved by the meeting and immediately embraced each other as if they were brothers. Everyone in the beautiful garden who observed how they greeted each other was greatly surprised, for they recognized Saladin’s brother.

The first thing that Fahkr reminded him of, which was unnecessary because Arn had thought about the matter several times already, was how they had joked when they parted in Gaza. That was back when Fahkr had been Arn’s prisoner and was about to board the ship for Alexandria, and they had laughed about how amusing it would be if the roles of captive and guard were reversed. The present situation made them both think that God had seen fit to jest with them.

Arn pretended to be worried and upset that Fahkr might have complaints about the time he had spent as a prisoner in Gaza. Fahkr replied with the same feigned concern that his only objection was that he’d been forced to eat pig meat, which Arn heartily denied. And then they fell into each other’s arms laughing again.

Then Fahkr turned serious for a moment and asked for Arn’s word of honor that he would not try to escape or raise his weapon against anyone as long as he was Saladin’s guest. If there was any rule against this, then they would unfortunately have to treat him more prudently. Arn explained that, first, there was no rule that forbade a Templar knight from keeping his sworn word, which he gave to Fahkr without protest; second, he could not be regarded as a Templar knight any longer since his time in service to the Order had expired on the evening after the battle at the Horns of Hattin.

Fahkr instantly turned serious and said that it must be seen as a sign from God that Arn’s life was spared at the very moment that his time as a Templar knight ran out. Arn countered that if that was the case, he probably believed more in Saladin’s mercy than in God’s mercy, even though he no longer remembered exactly how things had gone.

Fahkr didn’t reply, but hung a large gold medallion with Saladin’s monogram on it around Arn’s neck. Then he took him by the arm and led him out to the street. Arn still felt a bit naked in his borrowed clothes, since he missed the weight of the chain mail. He was also bareheaded, and his short blond hair gleamed, making it impossible for him and Fahkr to walk along the street unnoticed. He seemed to arouse greater curiosity in the company of Fahkr than with Moses ben Maimon; as if it was more natural for a Jew and a Christian to walk together than for a Christian to walk with the sultan’s brother.

A bit vexed by all this attention, Fahkr led Arn into the great bazaar located next to the mosque and bought a piece of fabric that Arn could wrap around his head a few times. Then Arn had to choose between some light Syrian mantles in the next stall; when he saw the blue color of the Folkungs held out to him by an eager merchant, he made up his mind at once. Shortly after making these purchases it was as if Arn and Fahkr finally melted into the crowds among the stalls.

Now Fahkr led him through the winding alleys of the bazaar until they came to an opening leading to a courtyard, where there were piles of Christian weapons and shields and helmets. Fahkr explained that it was Saladin’s express order that Arn should now select a new sword, preferably the most beautiful one he could find. As Saladin said, he owed Arn a costly sword. The merchant had separated all the Christian swords into two small piles and one giant one. In one of the two small piles lay all the articles of great value, swords that could have belonged to Christians of royal lineage, decorated with gold and precious stones. In the little pile next to it lay the swords that were considered the next finest, and in the large pile all those that were of lesser value.

Arn went straight over to the large pile and pulled out one Templar knight’s sword after another and looked at the number marks. When he had found three swords with the proper size numbers, he compared them hastily and then handed one of them to Fahkr without hesitation.

Fahkr gazed with disappointment at the plain, unembellished sword and emphasized that Arn was passing up a fortune out of sheer stubbornness. Arn said that a sword was considered a treasure only by men who could not use it. A Templar knight’s sword of the proper weight and size, such as the one he had just handed to him, was the only thing he would ever want to hang at his side. Fahkr tried to persuade him otherwise. Arn could choose the most expensive sword, sell it, and then buy the inexpensive one, which he could probably get for one or two dinars, and keep the difference. Arn snorted at this suggestion and said that it would hardly be honoring Saladin’s gift to behave in such a manner.

But Fahkr wouldn’t let him take the sword at once; instead he handed it to the merchant and whispered something that Arn didn’t hear. Then they left the bazaar without the sword and made their way to Saladin’s palace, where they would spend the evening and night. Perhaps Saladin himself would come home to Damascus tonight, and in that case Al Ghouti was one of the men he would want to see immediately; it was important to stay nearby, Fahkr explained.

Saladin’s palace was located far from any of the larger buildings around the great mosque. It was a simple two-story house with few decorations, and if it hadn’t been for the forbidding Mameluke guards outside the gate, nobody would have guessed that this was the sultan’s residence. The rooms that they walked through were sparely furnished with rugs and cushions, while the walls were adorned only with beautifully painted quotations from the Koran, which Arn amused himself by reading and reciting as they walked past.

When they finally came to one of the rooms facing a long balcony covered by an arcade, Fahkr served cold water and pomegranates and then sat down with an expression that was easy to understand. Now he wanted to turn to more serious matters.

What remained of the Christian reign in Palestine were Tyrus, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jerusalem, and a few fortresses, Fahkr told Arn with restrained triumph in his voice. First they would take Ashkelon and Gaza, and then it was Saladin’s desire that Arn should accompany him. After that they would take Jerusalem itself, and Saladin also wanted to have Arn on hand as advisor when that time came. Saladin himself would convey this wish to Arn as soon as they met, so it would be wise for Arn to prepare his mind for what attitude he would take.

Arn replied sadly that of course he had known for a long time that things would go this way, and that the Christians had only themselves and, above all, their own sins to blame for this great misfortune. And indeed he was no longer bound by his oath to the Knights Templar. But it would be too much to ask that he join the side of his former enemy.

Fahkr tugged at his thin beard and replied pensively that Arn had probably misunderstood the sultan’s wish. It was not a question of asking Arn to draw his sword against his own, but rather the opposite. A sufficient number of Christians had already been killed or driven from their homes in flight; that was not the issue any longer. But it would probably be best to allow Saladin to explain all this himself. Arn would, as he no doubt already had divined, still be released when the time was ripe, for Saladin had not spared Arn at the Horns of Hattin only to kill him later. Nor was Arn a prisoner for whom they could demand a ransom. But it would also be best if Arn spoke with Saladin in person about this. In the meantime they could discuss what Arn should do with his freedom.

Arn said that as far as he was concerned his twenty years of service in the Holy Land were at an end. If possible, he wanted to journey home to his own country as soon as that could be arranged. Yet he was concerned because even though he had indeed served the time bound by his oath, the Rule required that he be relieved of his duty by the Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templar; otherwise he would be counted a deserter. And he had no idea how that could now be arranged.

Fahkr was apparently mightily amused by Arn’s musings, and he explained that if Arn rubbed his thumb twice on the oil lamp in front of him, this wish could easily be granted.

Arn gave his Kurdish friend a dubious look and searched for an explanation for the jest in his eyes. But when Fahkr merely nodded stubbornly toward the oil lamp, Arn reached out and rubbed it with his thumb.

“See now, Aladdin, your wish is fulfilled!” shouted Fahkr happily. “You shall have any document you want, signed and sealed by the Grand Master’s own hand. For he is also our guest here in Damascus, although in somewhat less friendly circumstances than those rightfully vouchsafed to you. Simply write out your document, and the matter will be arranged at once!”

Arn didn’t find it hard to believe that Gérard de Ridefort was a prisoner in Damascus, because he had never believed that the man would fight for God’s Mother to his last drop of blood. But would he sign anything at all?

Smiling, Fahkr just shook his head and assured him that it would be so. And the sooner the better! He called a servant and ordered the proper writing implements to be brought from down in the bazaar. Then he promised Arn that he would be able to watch as the Grand Master signed his name.

A little while later a servant trudged upstairs with parchment and writing tools, and Fahkr left Arn alone to compose the document after having a small writing desk brought in. Then he went to spend some time in prayer and in preparation for the evening meal.

Arn sat for a while with the blank parchment in front of him and the quill pen in his hand, trying to see clearly both himself and the world’s order at this extraordinary moment in time. He was to write his own document of release. And this was happening in the sultan’s palace in Damascus, where he sat on soft cushions before a Syrian writing desk with his legs crossed and with a turban wrapped around his head.

Many times in recent years he had tried to imagine the end of his time as a Templar. But even in his wildest speculations he had never come close to the situation in which he now found himself.

Then he collected himself and with a steady hand quickly printed the text he knew well, since during his time as Jerusalem’s Master he had composed numerous similar letters. He also added a sentence that occasionally appeared in such documents: that this knight, who was now leaving with great honor his service in God’s Holy Army, the Order of the Knights Templar, was free to return to his previous life, yet whenever he found it suitable, he had the right to wear his Knights Templar garments displaying the rank he held at the time he left the Order.

He read through the text and recalled that Gérard de Ridefort did not know Latin, so he wrote down a translation into Frankish.

There was still room left on the page, and he couldn’t resist the small pleasure of writing out the text a third time for the Grand Master, who was barely literate, this time in Arabic.

He sat for a moment, waving the document to dry the ink. He cast a glance outside at the sun, and saw that there were at least two hours left until the evening prayers for both Muslims and Christians. Just then Fahkr returned, glanced at the document, and picked it up with a laugh when he saw that there was an Arabic translation; he swiftly read through it and then picked up the quill pen to write in the vowel marks more clearly. It was really not a bad joke on His Holiness the Grand Master, he said with a smile as he took Arn by the arm and led him outside to the city once again. They had to walk only a few blocks before they came to the building where the most valuable Christian prisoners were held. It was larger and more expensively decorated than Saladin’s own palace.

But there were guards here, of course, and an occasional locked door, even though it was difficult to see what an escaping Grand Master would do once he was on the streets of Damascus. Fahkr explained all the precautions as no more than an empty gesture, occasioned by the fact that the Grand Master and King Guy had both explained that an oath to unbelievers was not valid.

King Guy and Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort were locked up together in two magnificently furnished halls with furniture in the Christian style. They were sitting at a little carved Arabic table playing chess when Fahkr and Arn came in and the doors were demonstratively locked behind them.

Arn greeted them both without exaggerated courtliness and pointed out that it was against the Rule for Templar knights to play chess, but that he didn’t intend to bother them for long. There was just a document he needed signed, and he handed it over with a bow and flourish to Gérard de Ridefort. Unexpectedly, the Grand Master seemed more abashed than angered by Arn’s less than submissive manner of speech.

The Grand Master pretended to read the document and tried to frown as if he were pondering the contents. Then, as expected, he asked Arn what was the intention of this, and formulated the question so that the answer might explain the text, which he could not read at all. Arn carefully retrieved the parchment page, read the text aloud in Frankish, and then quickly explained that everything was in order since he had been sworn for only a specified time into the Order of the Knights Templar, which was not a rare occurrence.

Gérard de Ridefort now turned angry at last, muttering that he had absolutely no intention of signing such a document, and if the former Jerusalem’s Master had plans to desert, then it was a matter between him and his conscience. He waved his hand as if to remove Arn from his sight and stared hard at the chessboard, pretending to contemplate his next move. King Guy said nothing, and merely looked in astonishment from the Grand Master in his Templar attire to Arn in his Saracen clothing.

Fahkr, who understood enough of the situation, went over to the door and knocked lightly on it. It was opened at once, and he merely whispered a few words before the door was again locked.

Then he went over to Arn and said in a low voice, as if he unconsciously believed that the other two men in the room might understand, that this would only take a few moments, but that it would go more smoothly with a different interpreter than Arn.

On his way out Arn met a Syrian, who judging by his clothing was a merchant, not a military man.

He didn’t have to wait long outside the doors before Fahkr came out holding up the document, signed and stamped with the Grand Master’s seal. He handed over Arn’s release document with outstretched hand and a deep bow.

“What did you say to make him change his mind so fast?” Arn wondered as they made their way back toward the sultan’s palace, where the crush had now increased with all the throngs on their way to evening prayers.

“Oh, nothing very serious,” replied Fahkr, as if discussing a mere trifle. “Only that Saladin would appreciate a favor to a Templar knight whom he esteemed greatly. And that Saladin might perhaps be upset if this small favor could not be done for him, something like that.”

Arn could imagine a great number of ways to formulate such a request, but he had a feeling that Fahkr may have expressed himself a bit more harshly than he wanted to admit.

Just before evening prayers Saladin returned to Damascus at the head of one of his armies. He was cheered by people in the streets all the way to the great mosque, for now more than ever he deserved his title: al-Malik al-Nasir, the victorious king.

Ten thousand men and women prayed with him as the sun went down; there were so many that they filled the gigantic mosque as well as large parts of the courtyard outside.

After the prayers Saladin rode slowly and all alone through the crowds of people to his palace. To all his emirs and others who were waiting for him with a thousand missives, he had said that on this first evening in Damascus he wanted to be alone with his son and his brother; he had been in the field for two months now and had never had a moment to himself. No one found it hard to submit to those orders.

As Saladin, in a radiant mood, made his way through the palace, greeting and embracing all his friends and relatives, he seemed set on leaving all the affairs of state behind on this evening. And so he was all the more surprised, and for a moment even seemed a bit disturbed, to find himself suddenly eye to eye with Arn.

“The vanquished salutes you, victorious king,” Arn greeted him solemnly, and the happy murmur around them subsided at once. Saladin paused before he suddenly seemed to change his mind. He took two quick steps forward and embraced Arn and kissed him on both cheeks, which sent a ripple of whispers through the gathering.

“I greet you, Templar knight. It is perhaps you more than anyone else who has afforded me the victory,” Saladin replied, motioning for Arn to walk beside him to the banquet table.

Soon big platters were brought in with roast pigeons and quail, and tall carafes of gold and silver misted with ice-cold water.

Next to Saladin and Arn sat Saladin’s son al Afdal, a slender young man with an intense gaze and sparse beard. He waited a long time before he bade leave to ask Arn about something.

He’d had the command of seven thousand horsemen at Cresson’s springs the year before, and some of his emirs had said that Al Ghouti was the one who carried the flag of the Knights Templar. Was that true?

Arn was now reminded of the doomed attack which Gérard de Ridefort had forced them to make, a hundred forty knights against seven thousand, and of the ignominious flight in which he was forced to take part. He looked clearly embarrassed when he confirmed that he had indeed been there, and that it was he who carried the flag away in flight.

The young prince didn’t seem very surprised to hear this, and he mentioned that he had given orders to all the emirs that Al Ghouti had to be taken alive. But what he could not understand, either at the time or later on, was how Christian knights could so deliberately ride to their deaths.

There was silence around the table as they all waited for Arn to reply; he flushed because he had no answer. He shrugged his shoulders and said that for his part it seemed just as foolhardy as it must have looked to al Afdal himself and his men down below. There was no logic in such an attack. At such an instance, faith and reason parted ways. Such things happened sometimes; he had seen Muslims do similar things, but perhaps never as extreme as this. He went on to say with an unmistakable expression of disapproval that it was Gérard de Ridefort who ordered the attack and then decided to flee as soon as he had sent all his subordinates to their death. Arn, as the confanonier, was then compelled to follow his highest leader, he added shamefaced.

In the embarrassed silence that now arose, Saladin pointed out that God had still guided the events to the best outcome. It was better for Arn and for himself that the Templar knight was captured at the Horns of Hattin and not before. Arn didn’t understand just then what Saladin meant, but he had no desire to prolong this topic of conversation by asking.