Balian…what man is a man who does not make the world better?
Godfrey Of Ibelin…what made it your place is now dead
Godfrey Of Ibelin…(to Balian) have you come to kill me? Even these days is not easy.
Priest…I’m your priest Balian. I tell you God has abandoned you. I swear to you, you will have no peace so long as you stay here, no man ever needed a new world more.
I you take the crusade you may relieve your wife’s position in hell. She was a suicide. She is in hell
Balian….Is it true that in Jerusalem I can erase my sins and those of my wife?
Is it true?
Godfrey …We can find it out together
Godfrey…whoever dies here today, you will certainly be among them
Godfrey…thank the bishop for his love
Balian …they had the right to take me.
Godfrey…so do I
Pilgrim priest…to kill an infidel is not murder is the path to heaven.
Godfrey…Do you know what lies in the Holy Land? A new world. The man who in France had not a house is, in the Holy Land the master of a city. He who was the master of a city begs in the gutter. There at the end of the world you are not what you were born but what you have within yourself to be.
Balian….what could a king ask of a man like me?
Godfrey… a better world that has ever been seen. A kingdom of conscience, a kingdom of heaven. There is peace between Christian and Muslim. We live together or between Saladin and the king we try. Did you think that lay at the end of the crusade? It does
Crusade …(translating a Muslim pray to Balian) praise be to God it is proper to praise him.
Balian…sounds like our prayers
Knight Hospitaler … are you sorry for all your sins?
Godfrey…For all but one
Knight Hospitaler …This journey can be perilous. If God has porpouse for you there, He will keep you safe in his hands. If not God bless you.
Mummad Al fais…Now finish this.
Mummad Al Fais … I am your prisioner, your slave, should you wish it.
Balian…I have been a slave or very near to one. I will never keep one nor suffer any to be kept. Go
Balian… How can you be in hell, when you are in my heart?
Knight Hospitaler …By the word religion, I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the “Will of God”
Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves and Goodness, what God desires Is here (pointing to Balians head) and here (pointing to Balians heart)
Knight Hospitaler …The king has made a peace with Saladin these past six years. He holds Jerusalem as a place of prayer for all faiths, as the muslims did before we came.
Knight Hospitaler …They kill arabs
Balian… so they are dying for what the pope command them to do?
Knight Hospitaler …Yes but not Christ I think, nor these king.
Tiberias …There will come a day, Reynald de Chatillon when you are not protected by your title.
Reynald de Chatillon…Oh, when will that be? Alert me Tiberias when men are equal and the kingdom of heaven has arrived.
Tiberias…Saladin he is daily given cause for war by fanatics newly from Europe. By templars bastards like Reynald.
Tiberias…Saladin and the king between them would make a better world.
Hospitaler …If it leaves only for a while, Tiberias, it still has lived.
Sibylla…A woman in my place has two faces one for the world and one which she wears in private.
King Baldwin the leper…The saracens say that this disease is God’s vengeance against the vanity of our kingdom. As wretched as I am there Arabs believe that the chastisement that waits me in hell is far more severe and lasting. If that’s true I call it unfair.
When I was 16, I won a great victory I felt in that moment Iwould live to be 100 now I know I shall not see 30.
You see, none of us choose our end really. A king may move a man, a father may claim a son but remember that even when those who move you be kings or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. When you stand before God, you cannot say, “but I was told by others to do thus” or “that virtue was not convenient at the time” this will not suffice. Remember that.
Protect the helpless. And then, perhaps one day when I am helpless, you will come and protect me.
Sibylla…I’m on my way to Cana. Where Jesus changed water to wine. A better trick would be to change you to a nobleman.
Balian…That should be easy. In France a few yards of silk can make a nobleman.
Tiberias…That I would rather live with men than kill them is certainly why you are alive.
Guy of Lusignan…That sort of Christianity has its uses, I suppose.
Someone on Baldwin’s court… An army of Jesus Christ which bears his holy cross cannot be beaten.There must be war. God wills it.
Balian…What becomes of us?
Sibylla…The world will decide, the world always decides.
What becomes of us?
Mummad Al Fais …As you deserve. You reap what you sow. You have heard of this, no?
Muslim Cavalier…Why did you retire? Why?
God did not favour him. God alone determines the results of battles.
Muslim King Saladin…The results of battles are determined by God. But also by preparation, numbers, the absence of disease and the availability of water. One cannot maintain a siege with the enemy behind. How many battles did God win for the Muslim before I came? That is, before God determined that I should come.
The Muslim cavalier…Few enough. That’s because we were sinful.
Saladin…It is because we were unprepared.
M C…If you think that way, you shall not be king for long.
Saladin…When I’m not king, I quake for Islam.
Balian…A king may move a man, you said. But the soul belongs to the man. You have my love and my answer.
Baldwin…So be it.
Tiberias…Why do you protect him? He’s a man who insults you, hates you?.
Sibylla…I am what I am. I offer you that.
There will be a day when you will whish you had done a little evil to do a greater good.
The same man who was in Baldwin’s court … we should meet the enemies of God.
Guy of Lusignan…then I will have the glory Tiberias. You had yours years and years ago. Its time for mine.
Balian…You go to a certain death.
Knight Hospitaler …All death is certain.
Tiberias…First, I though we were fighting for God. Then I realized we were fighting for wealth and land.
God be with you.
He is no longer with me.
The patriarch …We must leave the city.
Balian…How exactly, my Lord Bishop?
The patriarch …The fastest horses from a lesser gate.
Balian…And the people?
The patriarch …It is unfortunate about the people, but it is God’s will.
Balian…It has fallen to us to defend Jerusalem and we made our preparation as well as they can be made. None of us took this city from Muslims. No muslim of the Great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost. We fight over an offence we did not give. Against those who were not alive to be offended.
What is Jerusalem? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours.
Which is more holy? The wall? The mosque? The sepulcher?
Who has claim? No one has claim. All have claim.
We defend this city not to protect these stones, but the people living within these walls.
Lord Bishop or Patriarch …Who do you think you are? Will you alter the world? Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?
Balian…Yes
Lord Bishop …When a body is burnt, it cannot be resurrected until Judgement Day.
Balian…If we don’t burn these bodies we will all be dead of disease in three days.
God will understand, my lord. And if he doesn’t then he is not God, and we need not worry.
The Muslim cavalier…God has sent you this day. You will take no prisioners. As they did, so shall it be done.
Balian….If you throw down your arms, your families will die.
The patriarch …Convert to Islam repent later.
Balian…You have taught me a lot about religion, your Eminence.
King Saladin…Will you yield the city?
Balian….Before I lose it. I will burn it to the ground. Your holy places-ours. Every last thing in Jerusalem that drives men mad.
Saladin…I wonder if it would not be better if you did
Saladin… no one will be harmed. I swear to God.
Balian… the Christians butchered every Muslim within the walls when they took this city
Saladin… I am not those man. I am Saladin. Saladin.
Balian… what is Jerusalem worth?
Saladin…nothing, (after a pause) EVERYTHING.
Balian…if this is the kingdom of heaven, let God do with it as he wills.
Balian … (to Sibylla ) your brothers kingdom was here (pointing to his head)
And here (his heart) . That kingdom can never be surrendered.
Mummad Al Fais… Peace be upon you
Balian… Aleicom Salam
Epilogue: Nearly a thousand years later, peace in the kingdom of heaven remains elusive.