Birth of the Kingdom. Jan Guillou

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СКАЧАТЬ Eskil agreed to everything. It seemed that he needed more ale, but he changed his mind when he looked out through the arrow loop to the west and saw the fading light.

      ‘It probably wouldn’t be much of a banquet without us,’ he muttered.

      Arn nodded and said that he would like some time in the bath-house first, and that he ought to fetch one of his men who was best at handling a razor. A man who wore a Folkung mantle was not allowed to stink as he might in the garb of a Templar knight. Because now a new life had begun, and it had certainly not begun badly.

      For the brothers Marcus and Jacob Wachtian the arrival at Arnäs was distressing. A more wretched fortress they had never seen. Marcus, who was the more jovial of the two, said that a man like Count Raymond of Tripoli would have taken a fortress like that in less time than it took to rest soldiers and horses during a hard march. Without a smile Jacob said that a man like Saladin would probably have ridden straight past it, since he wouldn’t even have noticed that it was a fortress. If the big, important task Sir Arn had talked about was to make a decent fortress out of this nest for crows, it would surely be harder work for the body than for the mind.

      It was true, of course, that they hadn’t had many choices when Sir Arn rescued them from trouble after the fall of Jerusalem. A wave of euphoria following the victory had swept over Damascus, but it had soon made the city intolerable for Christians, no matter how skilled they were as craftsmen or businessmen. And during the flight towards Saint Jean d’Acre the brothers had too often encountered Christians who knew that they had been in the service of the unbelievers. Marcus and Jacob had also been robbed of all the belongings they carried with them. Even if they had managed to reach the last Christian city in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, it would not have been long before someone recognized them again. In the worst case they might have ended up on the gallows or burned at the stake. And in those days their homeland of Armenia had been laid waste by savage Turks, so that the journey there would have been even riskier than the one to Saint Jean d’Acre.

      When they had stopped in despair by the wayside to say their last prayers to the Mother of God and Saint Sebastian, begging for a miraculous salvation, they had sincerely believed that none would come.

      In their hour of despair Sir Arn had found them. He came riding with a small band from Damascus, strangely unafraid despite the fact that the region was teeming with Saracen brigands, as if the white mantle of the Knights Templar would guard against any sort of evil. Sir Arn had instantly recognized them from their businesses and workshops in Damascus. At the time it seemed beyond belief, since no Templar knight should have escaped Damascus alive. But he had at once offered the brothers his protection if they would enter his service for a period of no less than five years and would also accompany him to his homeland in the North.

      The brothers hadn’t had much choice. And Sir Arn had promised nothing more than a hard and dangerous journey, and hard work upon their arrival – in the beginning, even filthy work. And yet what they had now managed to see of the misery in this godforsaken land in the North was worse than they could have imagined even in their darkest and most seasick hour.

      At the moment, however, they had no possibility of breaking their agreement. A hard, dark, and filthy four years awaited them, if the year the journey had already taken was to be subtracted. In that respect their contract was unclear.

      They had put things somewhat in order in their tent encampment outside the low, crumbling wall. To make things simpler, the camp had been divided into two parts so that the Muslims had one section to themselves and the Christians the other. Naturally they had all managed to get along on a cramped ship for more than a year, but since their hours of prayer were different there had been much stumbling about at night when the Muslims had to get up to pray and the Christians were sleeping, and vice versa.

      From the fortress young girls had come down carrying huge piles of sheepskins, which the foreign guests at first received with great joy, since they had already learned that in the North the nights were cold. But some of them soon discovered that the warm, inviting sheepskins were infested with lice. Laughing at one another’s ungodly language and ungrateful jokes, both believers and infidels had stood for a long time side by side, beating the lice out of the skin rugs.

      It was strange how the young women, some of whom were quite pretty, thought nothing of approaching strange men unabashed, with their hair uncovered and their arms bare. One of the English archers had half in jest pinched the bottom of a young woman with red hair, and she was not frightened at all. She merely turned and nimbly as a gazelle darted away from the rough hands that were again reaching for her.

      After that the two infidel physicians had scolded the archer in a language that he did not understand. The Wachtian brothers gladly translated and concurred with what was said, and everyone in the camp soon agreed that in such a foreign and peculiar land they ought to proceed cautiously at first, especially with womenfolk, until they learned what was good and bad or lawful and unlawful. If there actually were any laws here among these savage folk.

      In the evening just before prayer hour Sir Arn came alone to the tent camp. At first no one recognized him, since he seemed so much smaller. He had taken off his Templar mantle and surcoat and now wore instead some faded blue garments that hung loosely around his body. He had also shaved off his beard so that his face was now leather-brown in the middle and pale around the edges. He looked like both a man and a boy, although the scars of war on his face could now be seen more distinctly than when he wore a beard.

      But Sir Arn gathered all the men with the same self-confidence he had displayed during the entire journey, and they soon stood in silence around him. As usual he spoke first in the language of the Saracens, and most of the Christians understood very little.

      ‘In the name of the Merciful One, dear brothers,’ he began, ‘you are all my guests, both believer and infidel, and you have travelled a long way with me to build peace and happiness, that which did not exist in Outremer. You are now in a foreign land with many customs that might offend your honour. For this reason we will have this evening after the hour of prayer two welcome feasts, one here among the tents and one up at the house. Up there many things will be served of which the Prophet, peace be unto him, expressed his condemnation. Down here in the tents you have my word as an emir that nothing unclean will be placed on a plate. When the food is brought out to you, you must bless it in His name Who sees all and hears all, and you shall enjoy it in good faith.’

      As he was wont to do, Sir Arn repeated almost the same thing in Frankish, but with the proper words for God and without naming any prophet. Marcus and Jacob, who spoke Arabic as well as four or five other languages, exchanged meaningful smiles when they heard a somewhat different version, as usual, in Frankish.

      Then Sir Arn asked to have a wine cask rolled out. He called over the Christians, and then everyone bowed to one another before they separated, and each and every one went to the proper feast.

      The Christian guests walked in procession up toward the big longhouse. Halfway there they were met by a group of six armed men who closed ranks in an honour guard around them.

      By the portal of the dark, imposing blockhouse with the grass-covered roof waited a woman in a shiny red dress who could easily have come from Outremer. She wore a thick gold sash adorned with blue stones and a blue cloak over her shoulders of the same type that Arn had now draped around himself. On her head she wore a small cap, but it in no way hid her long hair, which hung in a heavy braid down her back.

      Now she raised a loaf of bread in her hands and called forth a serving woman with a bowl, the contents of which no one could see. Then she pronounced a blessing.

      Sir Arn turned around and translated that they were all welcome in God’s name, and that anyone entering had to touch the bread first with his right hand and then dip a right-hand СКАЧАТЬ