Pagan in Exile Read Free Page B

pestle. Never in my life have I ever heard such a chilling voice.
    ‘Yes, my lord, in a sense.’ Even Roland seems subdued. ‘I am here to request your hospitality. For myself and my squire. According to your will.’
    Galhard grunts. He lowers himself carefully onto a wooden bench (saddle sores?), and sticks out his right leg. ‘Boots, Joris,’ he mutters. The little man with one ear comes scurrying over to haul his boots off.
    ‘So, you’re here to request my hospitality.’ A pause. ‘Wearing what, may I ask?’
    God preserve us. Here it comes. Roland straightens his shoulders and sticks out his chest.
    ‘My lord, this is the cross of the holy order of the Knights Templar.’ His voice is clear and firm. ‘I am a Templar, now.’
    ‘Is that so?’ (Ominously.) ‘Then let me tell you that as a Templar, you’re not welcome on these lands.’
    ‘My lord –’
    ‘ Don’t interrupt me !’
    (Gulp.)
    ‘Your friends the Templars seem to think they have some God-given right to poke their collective noses into my affairs,’ Galhard continues. ‘They call it ‘the Peace of God’, or some such rubbish. But I suppose you know all about that.’
    ‘No, my lord, I –’
    ‘Then you can ask your friends about it. Meanwhile, if you want my hospitality, you can take that shroud off and keep it off until you leave. As my son, you’re welcome. As a Templar, you’re not. Is that clear?’
    ‘Yes, my lord.’
    ‘And if you don’t have anything else to wear, you can ask Jordan. He’s got enough damn clothes to fill a moat.’
    No comment from Jordan. No comment from anyone. Roland lowers his gaze, and studies the dust on his riding boots.
    I wish we hadn’t come, now. If you ask me, this was a mistake. A big, big mistake.

Chapter 3
    ‘I t’s a monster, I tell you. Enormous. Isarn saw the pellets. Long and fat, with rounded ends. You don’t see a juvenile leaving traces like that.’
    ‘You don’t see any stags leaving traces like that, so early in the year. They must be old.’
    ‘Up your arse, Jordan! Do you think Isarn doesn’t know a fresh turd when he sees one? There were flies all over it!’
    ‘Then it must have been left by something else.’
    ‘Jordan’s right, son. I never saw a stag’s droppings that weren’t as flat as a cow-pat, before Saint John’s Day.’
    This is too much. I mean, I’ve digested my dinner in some pretty rough places, but never during a conversation about excrement. Can’t these people talk about anything else?
    ‘What colour were the pellets?’
    ‘Brown, my lord, dark brown.’
    ‘Should be black, by that stage. Jordan’s right. They must have been left by another animal.’
    Unless the whole discussion is some sort of trick. Perhaps it’s designed to put other people off their food. Provided, of course, they’ve actually managed to get any food. You’d have to be built like the Temple of Solomon if you wanted your fair share of salted herring at this table. It’s a fight to the death for every last scrap.
    ‘What’s the matter, Pagan? Why aren’t you eating?’ Roland, beside me. He looks so strange in that outfit. I don’t think I’ve ever . . . no. It’s true. I’ve never seen him in anything but white: either one of the order’s ankle-length winter robes, or his white campaign tunic with the red cross. And now he’s sitting there in a blood-coloured woollen surcoat trimmed with jade green silk, worn over a tunic of embroidered purple linen that’s just a little too long, and a little too tight across the shoulders. It makes him look different, somehow. It makes him look younger. Less responsible.
    ‘I’d eat if I had anything to eat, my lord.’ Softly, so that no one else can hear. ‘You didn’t tell me I had to come to supper fully armed.’
    Roland knits his brow, and casts a look around the table. It’s a pretty disgusting sight. Berengar, muzzle down, gobbling like a pig at a trough. Galhard, with chewed-up bits of food spilling from