The Templar Knight. Jan Guillou

      

       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