Czytaj książkę: «The Templar Knight»

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.