The Templar Knight

by Jan Guillou

  The Grand Master gave him the order to attack; he raised and lowered the flag three times, and then the hundred and forty knights thundered without hesitation straight down the slope toward death.

  But Gérard de Ridefort rode somewhat more slowly than all the others, and since Arn had to follow beside him, he too lagged behind. Just as the first knights crashed into the sea of Mameluke cavalry, Gérard de Ridefort turned sharply to the right and Arn followed with his shield raised against the arrows that were now whizzing around them. Arn felt himself being hit by many arrows, and some of them penetrated his chain mail. Gérard de Ridefort then completed his turn and rode with Arn and the flag away from the attack he himself had instigated.

  Not a single one of the Hospitallers or Templars survived the attack at Cresson’s springs. Among the fallen were Roger des Moulins and James de Mailly.

  Some of the worldly knights they had scraped together up in Nazareth were taken prisoner for future ransom demands. The inhabitants of Nazareth who had come along on foot, lured by Gérard de Ridefort’s promise of rich plunder, were quickly captured; with their hands tied behind their backs they were dragged off to the nearest slave market.

  That afternoon, just before sundown, Count Raymond saw from his ramparts in Tiberias how al Afdal’s forces, exactly as agreed, were making their way across the River Jordan to leave Galilee before the end of the day.

  In the vanguard of the Saracen army rode the Mameluke lancers. They carried over a hundred bearded heads on their raised lances.

  This sight was a stronger argument than any that a negotiating group could have presented to persuade Raymond. He could not be a traitor; he had to renounce his truce with Saladin and, no matter how much it stung, swear allegiance to King Guy de Lusignan. He had no other choice, but he had never been forced to make a more bitter decision.

  When Saladin attacked in earnest later that summer, he came with the largest army he had ever assembled, over thirty thousand riders. He was now determined to resolve this war once and for all.

  The news reached Arn down in Gaza, where he had retreated to obtain Saracen medical care for the arrow wounds he had suffered at Cresson’s springs. King Guy had now proclaimed arrière-ban, which meant that all men with battle experience were now called up to serve under the banners of the Holy Land.

  Hospitallers and Templars emptied every fortress of knights and left behind only a few officers and sergeants to take care of maintenance and handle the defense from the walls.

  Among the men that Arn left in Gaza was Harald Øysteinsson, since he believed that such a good archer was worth ten times as much on the walls when there were so few defenders.

  He had no warning about what was about to happen. With the arrière-ban that was now in force, the Hospitallers and Templars alone would have a force of almost two thousand men. To that were added perhaps four thousand secular knights and between ten and twenty thousand archers and footsoldiers. In Arn’s experience no Saracens, no matter how many, could defeat such a force. He was more worried that the large army would be lured away by one of Saladin’s diversionary tactics, and that then they might lose some of the cities that they had left with only meager defenses.

  He couldn’t imagine that the foolhardy Gérard de Ridefort would repeat the same mistake that he’d made at Cresson’s springs. Gérard de Ridefort could give orders to the Knights Templar, but he could not make the decisions for the entire Christian army.

  When Arn reached Saint-Jean d’Acre with his sixty-four knights and barely a hundred sergeants from Gaza, he had less than a week left in the service of the Knights Templar. He dwelled very little on that fact, since he could not terminate his service in the middle of a war. But he thought that after the war, toward autumn, when the rain would drive Saladin back across the River Jordan, then he could begin his journey home. Western Götaland, he said again and again in his childhood tongue, as if savoring the unfamiliar words.

  The enormous assembly of forces at Saint-Jean d’Acre became a vast army encampment in the summer heat. Inside the fortress a war council was being held, at which a bewildered King Guy as usual found himself surrounded on all sides by men who hated one another.

  The Grand Master of the Hospitallers contradicted everything that Gérard de Ridefort said. Count Raymond contradicted everything that both these Grand Masters claimed. And patriarch Heraclius contradicted everyone.

  Count Raymond’s ideas at first garnered the most approval among those present. It was now the hottest time of the year, he pointed out. Saladin had broken into Galilee with a larger army than ever before and badly ravaged the land. But with so many horses and riders he had to keep supplying them with water, animal fodder, and food shipments from various directions. If Saladin did not meet with resistance at once, which was clearly his hope, his army would be gradually worn down by their own impatience and the heat, as so often happened with the Saracens.

  The Christian side could afford to bide its time in peace and quiet, well provisioned inside the cities, and attack just as the Saracens gave up and were on their way home. Then they would be able to prevail. The price was all the plundering they would have to endure in the meantime, but that was not too high a price if for once they were able to defeat Saladin.

  It surprised no one that Gérard de Ridefort immediately offered another opinion, nor that he began calling Count Raymond a traitor, friend of the Saracens, and treaty maker with Saladin. Not even King Guy was impressed by such reckless outbursts.

  On the other hand, the patriarch Heraclius won King Guy’s ear when he said that they had to attack at once. What Count Raymond had proposed would seem the wisest course, so they should surprise the enemy by acting in a way that did not seem as wise.

  In addition, Heraclius now carried the True Cross. And when, he asked dramatically, had the Christians lost a battle when they were carrying the True Cross? Never, he answered himself.

  It was a sin to doubt victory when in the company of the True Cross. By winning a quick victory, all those who had sinned by doubting could then purify themselves.

  Therefore the best course of action and the one most pleasing to God would be if they attacked at once and won.

  Unfortunately, Heraclius went on, his health did not permit him to bear the True Cross into battle himself. But he would have no qualms about assigning that task to the Bishop of Caesarea; the main thing was that the most holy of relics was brought along to guaranteed victory.

  So in the last days of June in the year of grace 1187, the Christian army set off toward Galilee to meet Saladin during the hottest time of the year. They traveled for two days until they reached the springs at Sephoria, where there was plenty of water and forage. There they received word that Saladin had taken the city of Tiberias and now was besieging the fortress itself.

  Tiberias was Count Raymond’s city, and his wife Escheva was in the fortress. In the Christian army at Sephoria were Escheva’s three sons, who now appealed for immediate aid to be sent to their mother. The king seemed prepared to grant their request.

  Then Count Raymond took the floor. It was so quiet that even Gérard de Ridefort did not speak or interfere in any way.

  “Sire,” Count Raymond began calmly, but in a loud voice so that everyone could hear. “Tiberias is my city. In the fortress is my wife Escheva and my treasure chest. I am the one who has the most to lose if the fortress falls. So you must truly take my words seriously, Sire, when I say that we should not attack Tiberias. Here at Sephoria we can defend ourselves well, and we have ample water supplies. Here our footsoldiers and archers can do great damage to attacking Saracens. But if we proceed toward Tiberias, we will be beaten. I know that on the way there we’ll find not a drop of water and no forage; that land is a desert this time of year. Even if Saladin takes my fortress and tears down the walls, in any case he cannot hold it. And I will build the walls back up. If he takes my wife then I will ransom her. That much we can afford to lose. But if we march on Tiberias now in the summ
er heat, we will lose the Holy Land.”

  Count Raymond’s words made a great impression. For the moment they convinced one and all, and King Guy decided that they should hold their ground at Sephoria.

  But that night Gérard de Ridefort visited King Guy in his tent and told him that Raymond was a traitor, in a secret pact with Saladin, and that they should therefore ignore his advice. In fact, here was an opportunity for King Guy to win a decisive victory against Saladin himself, for the Holy Land had never before brought such a large army against the Saracens. Besides, they were carrying the True Cross, so victory was promised by God. What Raymond wanted was merely to rob King Guy of the honor of defeating Saladin. Besides, he was envious because he had lost the power of regent when Guy became king. He might be conspiring to take the crown in any case, and that’s why he sought to prevent Guy from winning this war.

  King Guy believed Gérard de Ridefort. If he’d at least had the wits to order the army to move against Tiberias at night, history might have turned out differently. But he wanted to get a night’s sleep first, he said.

  At dawn the next day the great Christian army set off, marching on Tiberias.

  First rode the Hospitallers, in the middle the secular army, and in the rear the Knights Templar, where the demands would be greatest.

  Gérard de Ridefort had forbidden the Templars from bringing along the light Turkish cavalry, since he considered it ungodly to employ such soldiers. So Arn, like all the other brothers, rode as armored knights with a few footsoldiers around them to protect the horses. They had to attire both themselves and the horses in all the heavy, hot armor right from the start.

  When faced with an armored Christian army on the approach, the Saracens always acted the same way. They sent out swarms of light cavalry to ride in close to the enemy columns and shoot arrows at them; then they would turn with their fast horses and vanish. After that a new wave would come. This began early in the morning.

  The Templar knights had orders not to break formation for any reason. They could not shoot back because they no longer had any light cavalry on their flanks, since that had been declared ungodly by the Grand Master. Within a few hours all the Templar knights had been struck by arrows; their wounds may have been mostly minor, but they could be quite painful in the heat.

  It was a very hot day with desert winds from the south. And as Count Raymond had said, there was not a drop of water along the entire route. From dawn to sunset the Christians had to plod through an unceasing gauntlet of attacking light cavalry. At first they carried their dead with them, but soon they had to start leaving the bodies where they fell.

  Toward evening they neared Tiberias and saw the lake shining in the sunset. Count Raymond tried to persuade the king that they should attack at once and fight their way to the water before it grew dark. If after such a terrible day without water they waited all night without water as well, they would be defeated when the sun rose.

  Gérard de Ridefort thought instead that they would fight much better if they got some sleep. And King Guy, who admitted that he felt rather tired, thought this sounded sensible, so he gave the order to pitch camp for the night.

  By the slopes near the village of Hattin, where two small peaks among the low hills were called the Horns of Hattin, the Christians pitched their camp so that they could, as they believed, at least cool off and get some sleep before the next day’s decisive battle.

  When the sun went down and it was the hour of prayer for the Saracen army, which was now within sight of the exhausted Christians, Saladin thanked God near the lakeshore for the gift he had been given. Up there by the Horns of Hattin was the entire Christian army in an untenable position—all the Hospitaller knights and almost all the Templar knights, the Christian king and his closest officers. God had served up the final victory on a golden platter. All that remained for Saladin to do was to thank Him and then carry out the duty required of His faithful.

  That duty began with setting fire to the dry summer grasses south of the Horns of Hattin. The Christian encampment was soon enveloped in choking smoke that made impossible any thought of a night’s rest before the final battle.

  In the morning at first light the Christians found themselves completely surrounded. Saladin’s army made no move to attack, for they had time on their side. The longer the Christians waited, the weaker they would become. The sun climbed mercilessly, and still King Guy could not make a decision.

  Count Raymond was among the first to mount his horse. He walked it about the encampment until he came to the Templars’ section; there he found his way to Arn and proposed that Arn take some men and follow him in a breakout. Arn politely declined, saying that he was sworn by oath until the conclusion of this very day and could not break his word before God. They said farewell, and Arn wished Raymond all luck and said that he would pray for a successful assault.

  And he did pray.

  Count Raymond ordered his weary knights to mount their horses and gave a brief speech, exhorting them to action and explaining that they would now risk all on a single attempt. If the breakout failed they would die, that was true. But so would everyone who remained at the Horns of Hattin.

  When that was said he lined up his forces in a narrow wedge-shaped phalanx instead of advancing across a broad front. Then he gave the signal to attack and stormed down toward the compact mass of enemy soldiers who were standing with their backs to all the water in the Sea of Galilee, as if they were guarding it.

  In response to Raymond’s charge the Saracens opened their ranks so that a wide avenue was formed, into which Count Raymond and his knights vanished. Then the Saracens closed up ranks behind them.

  Not until much later could the Christians see, from up by the Horns of Hattin, Count Raymond and his knights disappearing far in the distance, with no one pursuing them. Saladin had spared him.

  Gérard de Ridefort then flew into a rage. He gave a long speech about traitors and ordered all his Templar knights to mount up.

  Now there was much shouting and commotion among the Saracens when they saw the Templar knights, still at least seven hundred in number, making ready to attack. No Saracen had ever seen such a huge force of Templar knights before. And they all knew that it was now that the battle would be decided; now was the moment of truth.

  Were these white demons impossible to defeat? Or were they human beings like everyone else, and like all soldiers would be suffering from a day without water?

  When the Hospitallers saw that the Templars were getting ready to attack, they did the same, and then King Guy gave orders for the royal army to mount up as well.

  But Gérard de Ridefort did not wait for the others; he stormed down the hills in advance with his entire force of knights. The enemy instantly drew back so that the mighty blow the Christians had intended never fell upon them. Then the knights had to try to turn around, heavy and slow. By then the water was within sight, which disturbed their horses greatly. They attempted to make their way back into the hills, but on the way up they met the Hospitallers rushing down. The Hospitaller attack was now brought to a halt, and there was a devastating chaos of Templar knights and Hospitallers facing in opposite directions.

  Then the Mameluke lancers attacked from the rear with full force.

  Gérard de Ridefort lost half of his knights in this foolhardy sortie. The Hospitallers’ losses were even greater.

  After that they sought to gather all the Christian forces in a common attack. But by then some of the footsoldiers who had lost their wits tore off their helmets and began running toward the water with their arms outspread. They drew many others with them, and so a horde of footsoldiers ran to their deaths. They were easily struck down by the mounted Egyptian lancers.

  The second attack by the knights was better than the first, but they had only covered half the distance to the water before they were forced to turn around. When they regrouped around the king’s tent, two-thirds of the Christians were gone.

  Now Saladin launched his fu
ll-scale attack.

  Arn had lost his horse, which was felled by an arrow through the neck, and he could no longer see clearly what was happening around him. The last thing he remembered was that he and several brothers who had also lost their horses were making a stand with their backs to each other, completely surrounded by Syrian footsoldiers. He recalled striking many of them with his sword or with his battle hammer that he held in his left hand. He had lost his shield when his horse fell.

  He never knew how he was struck to the ground, or by whom.

  The Templars and Hospitallers who were taken alive during the last hour at the Horns of Hattin, when the Frankish army finally collapsed, were all given water to drink. Then they were lined up on their knees before Saladin’s pavilion down by the shore.

  They were given water to drink not out of mercy but so that they could speak. The beheadings began down by the shore, and the Saracens were gradually working their way up to finish by the victory pavilion in a couple of hours.

  The surviving brothers numbered 246 Templar knights and about the same of Hospitallers. That meant that the two orders were now as good as wiped out in the Holy Land.

  Saladin wept with joy and thanked God as he watched the beheadings begin. God had been inconceivably good to him. Both of the fearsome orders had now been defeated, because those who were one by one losing their heads were the last. Their almost empty fortresses would fall like ripe fruit. The road to Jerusalem finally lay open to him.

  The secular knights who had been captured were treated as usual in a completely different way. After Saladin had enjoyed for a while the sight of Templars and Hospitallers being decapitated, he went back inside his victory pavilion. There his most notable captives had been invited in, among them the unfortunate Guy de Lusignan and Saladin’s most hated foe, Reynald de Châtillon, who sat beside the king. Next to him sat the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gérard de Ridefort, who might not prove to be a very valuable captive. But Saladin could not be sure. Faced with death, men who had previously shown themselves to be brave and honorable could change in the most pitiful way.