The Road to Jerusalem

Blurb

The Road to Jerusalem is the first book in Jan Guillou's The Knight Templar book series. The book follows the fictional character of Arn Magnusson from his birth and until he sets off to Jerusalem.
Arn is born in Arnäs, Sweden in the year 1150. At the age of 5, he has an accident while climbing a scaffold and is saved due to his mother's prayers to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. The conditions stated in the prayer for their sons salvation is that he will be donated to God's work on earth. He is to be sent to Varnhem Abbey, to which his mother has donated the land and is so counted as its founder. Because of a dispute of the validity of the donation the Queen of the Swedes harasses the Cistercian monks into flight. The abbot and his subjects relocate to Denmark awaiting the excommunication of the Swedish royals.
One of the brothers of Varnhem and Danish Vitae Scholae is brother Guilbert, a former Knight Templar, who instructs him in the use of the sword and the art of medieval warfare in the Holy Lands.