Crusaders

France, 1095. Raised in a monastery, sixteen-year-old Robert is not sure if he wants to commit his life to God, or to be a knight. At the Council, Robert meets Count Edgar of Sarvaux, and his lovely daughter, Eleanor. Robert vows to liberate Jerusalem, joins with Count Edgard's group and trains for war with them. Fernand, a hot-tempered knight is Robert's rival for Eleanor, but it is Robert who saves her from a wild boar and then from the drunken Fernand. Four months later, Edgard's party journeys to Cologne to join thousands of warriors and pilgrims under Peter the Hermit, who will lead them to the Holy Land. Battles and killings along the way prompt Robert and Eleanor to question their feelings about God and about each other. After reaching Constantinople, they sail across the Bosporus to Anatolia. In the Dracon Valley, their army is destroyed, but not before Edgard orders Robert to retreat and save Eleanor, who is back at the Christian camp. In their retreat, Robert and Eleanor come upon an attack on a merchant named Solomon ben Sahl. His caravan has been destroyed. Robert saves him. Thankful, and realizing Robert's abilities in French and Greek are compatible with his plans to expand business into the West, Solomon insists that Robert and Eleanor stay with him and his daughter, Ruth, in Constantinople. Wrestling with her guilt about being alive, Eleanor now believes she has lost Robert to Ruth and vows that she will return to France alone. Robert knows he will now keep his vow to free Jerusalem, but he must first make sure that Eleanor has departed for France. He finds her waiting for him in Constantinople, and they both determine to rejoin the crusade and survive through the final battle for Jerusalem.