by Jan Guillou
Siegfried had strict objections to this lighthearted way of thinking. The beard of a Templar knight had nothing to do with the matter; it was simply that Templar knights were justifiably the most feared enemies of the Saracens.
Arn dropped this discussion at once. But he did insist that they ride without an escort.
It took them only an hour to ride at a leisurely pace to the place north of Gaza where the Banu Anaza tribe had its camp of black tents. When they were within view, a force of about twenty men jumped into the saddle and rode toward them at full speed, wildly shouting, with their lances and swords drawn to attack.
Siegfried blanched a bit but drew his sword when he saw that Arn did so.
“Can you ride at full speed, at least for a short distance?” Arn asked with an expression on his face that seemed unreasonably cheerful in the face of storming Saracen riders of such superior numbers. Siegfried nodded grimly.
“Then follow me, brother, but for God’s sake don’t strike at any of them!” ordered Arn, spurring his horse to a full gallop and heading straight toward the Bedouin camp as if in counterattack. After hesitating briefly, Siegfried followed him, swinging his sword above his head the same way as Arn.
When they met the Bedouin warriors they wheeled around on both sides of them so that it looked as though both the Templar knights and the Bedouin defenders were now attacking the camp together. They rode up toward the biggest tent, where an elderly man with a long gray beard and black clothing awaited them. Arn pulled up his horse right in front of the old man, hopped off his mount, and greeted everyone around him with his sword, whispering to Siegfried to do the same. The Bedouin riders walked their horses around them in a big circle and greeted them with their weapons.
Then Arn slipped his sword into its scabbard, Siegfried did the same, and the Bedouin riders turned off toward the camp.
Arn now greeted the old man heartily and introduced his brother. They were invited into the tent, where they were immediately served cold water before sitting down on piles of multicolored mats and pillows.
Siegfried didn’t understand a word of the conversation that took place between Arn and the old man, who he guessed was the chief of the Bedouins. But he saw that they both spoke to each other with the greatest respect; they kept repeating each other’s words as if every polite phrase had to be turned inside out a few times before they could continue. But soon the old man grew agitated and angry, and Arn seemed almost humbly to retreat and start coaxing him to calm down. After a while the old man seemed to grow pensive, muttering and sighing as he pulled on his beard.
Suddenly Arn got up and began taking his leave; he seemed to be met with friendly but insistent protests. Siegfried got up as well in support of Arn, and the friendly protests, which seemed to be about eating before they left, gradually faded. They said farewell by taking the old man by both hands and bowing, something that Siegfried did with some reluctance. But he found it wisest when on foreign ground to do as his brother Arn did.
When they rode off almost the same ceremonies were conducted as when they arrived; the Bedouin warriors rode some distance at their sides with weapons drawn, but suddenly they all turned and raced back to their camp.
Arn and Siegfried then slowed their horses to a leisurely walk, and Arn began telling him what it had all been about.
First, they couldn’t come to a Bedouin camp unannounced escorted by a squadron, because that would be showing either cowardice or hostile intent. However, a man who rode into the camp without protection was both courageous and a man with honest intentions. That’s why they had been met by the warlike yet friendly show of welcome.
These Bedouins did indeed belong to Gaza, at least as far as the bookkeepers of the Christians and Knights Templar viewed the matter. But in the Bedouins’ own world it was inconceivable that a Bedouin could be the slave of anyone, and it was also said that Bedouins could never be kept imprisoned like other men, but would die if robbed of their freedom. Viewing them as slaves of Gaza was an almost childish conceit; if they even suspected such an attitude, their camp would have vanished into the desert. In the Saracen world the Bedouins themselves were the epitome of a people who were unconquerable and eternally free.
It was really all a question of a mutual pact of security and business. As long as the Bedouins had their camps within the borders of Gaza, they were protected from all enemies among the Saracens. In return the Bedouins protected the caravan traffic to and from Tiberias transporting sugar and building materials, as well as to and from Mecca carrying spices, aromatic oils, and bluestone.
The tribe they had just visited was that of the bride-robber’s, the young man named Ali. Bride-robbery sometimes occurred if young Bedouins were in disagreement with their parents. But those couples that ran away, because it was more a case of running away rather than actual abduction of the bride, had to submit to being banished from both their tribes; if they lived with the man they would be attacked by the woman’s tribe, and vice versa. It was a matter of honor.
Unfortunately the two Bedouin tribes had been enemies since ancient times—no one any longer remembered why—and their truce applied only as long as they remained within the borders of Gaza.
What Arn had proposed to the old chieftain was to let the two runaways be married according to the rules, and that this marriage would signify the same as peace among all of Gaza’s Bedouins. The old man, who was Ali’s uncle, had said that he didn’t believe that would be possible, since the enmity was far too deeply entrenched. Yet he would not oppose such a peace arrangement if the other side agreed to it, which he doubted. The small hope that did exist was due to the fact that both tribes had profited a great deal by pitching their camps within the borders of Gaza and concluding an agreement with the Knights Templar.
For a long time Siegfried was made quiet and thoughtful by what he had heard. The benefits for the business of the Knights Templar that came from the caravan traffic was easy to understand; all transport through the deserts would be impossible without the Bedouin caravans.
And as far as the economy of these savages was concerned, it was easy to see the number of Mameluke weapons and artfully decorated saddles that were to be found in the camp they had just visited. The tribe had probably never had such rich plunder as they found after the battle of Mont Gisard.
No, sighed Arn. They probably had not, and they no doubt wished for the victory of the Knights Templar against the Mamelukes more than the reverse, simply for that reason. Defeated Templar knights were worthless as prisoners and never carried any valuables on their person.
Siegfried was amazed that his brother Arn, who was younger than him, hadn’t spent many more years in the Holy Land than he had, and yet he’d been able to learn all these foreign ways: the animal-like sounds that comprised the language of the Saracens, as well as their barbaric customs.
Arn replied that he had always been interested in new knowledge, ever since he was a little boy at the monastery. In the cloister as a child he had mostly sought out knowledge from philosophy and books, but there wasn’t much of that in the Holy Land. Here he had instead sought practical knowledge, all the things that might be useful to know in war and business, which was often the same thing. And as for his complaints about the barbarians, Arn joked shamelessly, surely the Saracen doctors weren’t so bad, were they? Siegfried would be as good a warrior after his injuries at Mont Gisard as he had been before.
Siegfried opened his mouth to object, but he changed his mind. He had heard so much that he wanted to work things out for himself before he got into any new discussions with his younger brother, who was far too well informed.
The next day Arn rode out to the Bedouins of the Banu Qays tribe south of Gaza. Their camp was pitched where the hills met the huge beach near the road to Al Arish. He was gone for a whole day, but returned in time for completorium. During the evening wine afterward he reported the good news. Gaza’s Bedouins were going to make peace.
As springtime approache
d, the infirmatorium in Gaza’s fortress was gradually emptied until only two knights remained. One of them would be lame for the rest of his life, and Arn gave him a position with the weapons master as a smith.
A couple of weeks earlier Siegfried de Turenne had returned to his fortress, Castel Arnald, completely recovered, as evidenced by his latest practice ride and rounds with the sword in Gaza.
Spring was a time to make preparations before a more hectic period began, since trade by sea was always cut back in the wintertime, because of possible danger to the ships from storms.
Arn divided his time between bookkeeping for the customs master, Koran studies conducted with the Arabian doctors, riding practice, and taking care of his horses. Since Siegfried had left, Arn spent the most time with his beloved Arabian horse Khamsiin. Other brothers probably thought that he was overdoing things in that respect, because he talked to his horse in Arabic, using intonation and gestures as if the horse could understand his every word.
The unusual thing was not the expression of love for a good horse; every Templar knight could understand that. But horses were the most susceptible to the enemy’s arrows, and yet the fortress master’s steed had managed to survive as long as it had. That was with the horse he rode closest to the enemy’s archers, when he led the Templars’ light cavalry, the Turcopoles, against the enemy mounted archers. He rode the Frankish stallion Ardent, for whom he clearly did not feel the same personal affection, in the heavy armored attacks.
With the arrival of spring more ships came to Gaza, now and then with a load of newly recruited riders and sergeants. It was always the same pitiable scene when the pale men hobbled ashore, their legs wobbly after their many weeks at sea. These loads of troops usually came all the way from Marseille or Montpellier.
Arn and his weapons master took turns holding welcome ceremonies for sergeants and brand-new knights, for now almost any newcomer could be dubbed a knight over in the preceptories of France without any preceding probationary year as a sergeant. This meant that they received a number of tenderfeet, who were allowed to wear the white mantle and then had to be treated as fully accepted brothers. This required a good deal of conciliatory mediation, for the tenderfeet often had an exaggerated notion of themselves, their courage and ability. Even worse, their idea of what these more or less imaginary characteristics could be used for seldom corresponded to reality.
Easier to handle in this regard were the new sergeants, who were often older and rawer types with greater experience in war, but lacking the nobility required to become a knight.
In the first shipload of seasick sergeants, who had clearly had an especially nasty last week at sea, there were two men who during the formation for the welcome ceremony in the courtyard of the fortress showed not the slightest sign that the journey had done them any harm. They were both very tall, one with flaming red hair, the other very blond with a beard that would have looked good on any Templar knight. The Saracens often felt greater fear of knights with blond beards than of those with black ones.
The two men stood side by side, conversing merrily in the midst of the crowd of more or less stooping comrades with green faces. These two immediately aroused Arn’s curiosity. When he perused the list of names he was given by the ship’s captain, he could only guess at a name that might be fitting for one of the two, a name that awakened vague memories of the cloister in him.
“Sergeants in our order, which of you is Tanguy de Bréton?” he yelled, and the red-haired man at once raised his hand in confirmation.
“And you next to him, what’s your name?” Arn asked, pointing at the red-haired man’s comrade, who had to be something other than a Breton.
“My name now Aral d’Austin,” replied the blond man with the long hair, in heavily accented Frankish.
“And where is Austin?” Arn asked, puzzled.
“It not where, it is my other name cannot say Frankish,” said the blond in broken Frankish.
“Well, what is your name in your own language then?” Arn went on, amused.
“My name in my own language is Harald Øysteinsson,” said the blond in Norse, which seemed to render the high Templar knight speechless.
Arn searched his memory for the Nordic words to say that this was the first time in the Holy Land that he had met a kinsman from the North, but the words did not come to him, because when he wasn’t thinking in Frankish it was in Latin or Arabic.
He gave up the attempt and instead gave his usual stern welcome speech to the newcomers and introduced the sergeant of the fortress, who would now see to arranging their quarters and registering the new men. But on the way from there he hastily whispered to the fortress sergeant to send that Aral d’Austin to the parlatorium when everything else was finished.
After sext was sung the Norwegian, who like other Norwegians had suffered no ill effects from a little jaunt across the sea, came in to Arn, looking abashed and with his hair now cropped short. It was evident how much he hated losing his beautiful thick hair. Arn pointed to a chair and the man sat down, but not with the usual speed of those who had lived long among the Knights Templar.
“Tell me now, my kinsman…,” he began, having trouble with the Nordic words that he was trying to think/work out in advance. “Who are you, who is your father, and to which clan in Norway do you belong?”
The other stared at him, at first not understanding him; it took a few moments before he realized that Arn was speaking Norse. Then he burst into a long, sad tale about who he was. At first Arn had a hard time following along, but soon his old language seemed to seep back into his head and slowly filled it with understanding.
Young Harald was the son of Øystein Møyla, who in turn was the son of King Øystein Haraldsson. But more than a year ago the Birch-Legs, as his clan and their kinsmen were called, had lost a decisive battle at Re-i-Ramnes outside Tønsberg in southern Norway. King Øystein, Harald’s father, had been killed, and things had looked bleak for all the Birch-Legs. Many had moved to Western Götaland where they had friends. But as King Øystein’s son, Harald had found that he could not escape the seekers of vengeance unless he traveled very far away. And if he had to flee death anyway, why not seek death somewhere else and die for a greater cause than just being his father’s son?
“Who is the king of Western Götaland now, do you know?” asked Arn, full of excitement that he struggled hard not to show.
“The king there has been Knut Eriksson for a long time, and he is close to us Birch-Legs, as is his jarl, the Folkung Birger Brosa. These two good men are our closest kinsmen in Western Götaland. But tell me, knight, who are you and what is your great interest in me?”
“My name is Arn Magnusson and I am from the Folkung clan; my father’s brother is the jarl Birger Brosa. My dear friend since we were children is Knut Eriksson,” said Arn feeling a sudden strong emotion that he had a hard time concealing. “When God led your path to our austere brotherhood he led you in any case to a kinsman.”
“You sound more like a Dane when you speak rather than someone from Western Götaland,” Harald noted dubiously.
“That’s true. For many years as a child I lived with the Danes in the Vitae Schola cloister; I’ve forgotten what it’s called in the vernacular. But you can be assured that what I said was true. I am a Templar knight, as you see, and we do not lie. But why did they give you a black rather than a white mantle?”
“There was something about having to have a father who was a knight. A great deal of discussion about that. My explanation that my father was not a knight but a king did not seem to make much of an impression.”
“In that case, you were done an injustice, kinsman. But let’s look at the good side of this error, for I need a sergeant and you need a kinsman in a world that is very far from Norway. Wearing a black mantle you will learn more and live longer than if you’d been given a white one. There’s only one thing you have to keep in mind. Even though we Folkungs and you Birch-Legs are kinsmen in the North, you are a sergeant and I
a fortress master here in the Holy Land. I am like a jarl, and you are like a retainer; you must never imagine or pretend otherwise, even though you and I speak the same language.”
“Such is the lot of someone who is forced to flee his own country,” said Harald sadly. “But it could have been worse. And if I had to choose between serving a man of Frankish lineage and a man of the Folkung clan, the choice would not be hard.”
“Well spoken, kinsman,” said Arn, standing up as a sign that the meeting was over.
When the summer approached and with it the time for war, much effort was spent organizing the new sergeants and knights in Gaza. As far as the knights were concerned, they worked most on getting the newcomers to adapt to the tactics of the cavalry and the command signs. They also needed to drill discipline into them, which was very strict. A knight who on his own authority left a formation risked being divested of his white mantle in disgrace. The only case in which the Rule permitted such a digression was if it were done to save a Christian’s life. And that would have to be proven afterward.
Most of the new men, who had become knights largely because of their lineage more than anything else, were quite used to riding horses, so that part of the exercise was the easiest and the most pleasant.
Worse was having to stand and sweat through all the practice with weapons in hand. On that point almost all the new tenderfeet were so awkward that they would soon needlessly die if they did not quickly realize that the belief they had previously entertained—that they were better than others with a sword, battle-axe, lance, and shield—was of no merit whatsoever here among the Templar knights. The newcomers had to learn this honest truth before they could start to learn their skills anew. Out of necessity, all the older teachers were harsh on the tenderfeet at first. The bodies of the new recruits were soon covered with black-and-blue marks and hurt so badly when they tried to sleep at night that they truly deserved their nickname of tenderfeet.
