Arn: The Knight Templar

Arn Magnusson remembers, as a fearful crusading templar, his youth in fractured Swedens West Gotland. He and his brother Erskin were friends with king Eriks son Knut, until a neighboring warlord killed the king to seize the crown during the local churchs solemn consecration. After Arns seemingly fatal fall and miraculous survival, his mother insisted on keeping a promise to God to offer the boy as oblate to the regional abbey. There abbot Henri allowed father Guilbert, a former templar, to add warrior skills to his monastic education. After an incident in which he was forced to kill a bride-robber in a duel, Arn tries to prevent his familys feud with a haughty neighbors getting bloodily out of hand.

Arn is now a seasoned Templar, enjoying trust and respect of the grand master. His chivalrous behavior towards Muslim passersby wins him the respect of sultan Saladin, who was anonymously among them. When Saladins army marches to besiege Jerusalem, he sends a retainer to offer Arn safe passage, which is declined. Arn correctly analyzes the enemys best route and sets a masterly trap, which forces Saladin to retreat for the time being. Back home, Arns beloved Cecilia gave birth to their son, which was taken away, and suffers a horror regime under the Sverker abbess. She befriends another Cecilia, who turns out the fiancée of Knut. When he comes collect her, the abbess must promise a decent treatment.

The haughty grandmasters expedition ends as disastrously as Arn warned: the crusader army is annihilated by Saladins at the battle of Hattin. The sultans brother however rescues badly wounded Arn from the battlefield, nurses him to health and accompanies him home to Sweden. They arrive just in time to prevent Cecioa, who was told all Templars were dead, accepting to becoming abbess for the familys political sake. Their patriarchs objections result in the bishop forbidding a wedding, but the archbishop undoes that after an intervention from the brides friend, Knuds queen. The happy couple is now united with their strapping son Magnus, squire to the Folkung patriarch.