Read Online The Leopard Sword by Michael Cadnum - Free Book Online Page B

question with my lips.
    â€œI won a golden fibula brooch from a Norman squire,” said Osbert, “and a blue jacinth-stone ring from his knight. The rest of the wager winnings were gold and silver.” He offered me a piece of apple, from a fruit he was carving with a short blade. “A Norman apple,” he said. “Beyond price—almost.”
    I thanked him for the piece of fruit, which, although mealy with age, was sweet enough. “Do knights agree,” I asked, “that Sir Nigel was the victor?” In my judgment, neither knight had won a clear triumph.
    â€œCan you doubt it, my lord? Besides, I wagered that Sir Nigel would be standing at the end of the joust, nothing more. Only Norman fighting men would take the bet, although they made up for their numbers in foolishness.”
    â€œThis is good fortune for you,” I said, nearly mistaking the sound of my voice for that of a very old man.“But it brings no coin into my purse.”
    â€œOh, I borrowed from what remained of your silver, my lord, both you and Edmund. I placed a wager here and there, with honest men.You are as rich as ever you were.” He made his eyes wide with enthusiasm, and put a hand on my bedding. “And I won back your excellent thimble from a servant of Sir Jean’s, and that noble drinking cup of Edmund’s, too.”
    I felt drowsy, but I could hear him say,“Only don’t tell Sir Nigel, good Hubert. I fear he dislikes a gambler.”
    I stirred, and sat up to call after him, but my head throbbed as Osbert faded out of the lamplight.
    Â 
    Â 
    I was carried by Edmund onto the Santa Croce, bound for Genoa. Edmund placed me gently into a sling, a hanging sailcloth bed in the freshly scrubbed, vinegar-scented hull of this vessel.
    From above drifted the thuds and curses of someone being beaten. I have always disliked beatings, whether of man or brute, and I was heartsick at the sound of this captain or ranking mate belaboring a sailor with what sounded like a rope end.
    The beating stopped at last. Sir Jean and Nicholas were aboard another galley, one that had already left, bound for Malta or Crete—Edmund was not sure which. It was fairly certain that the Frankish knight and his English squire would find swift transportation to Paris or London. “Sir Nigel would rather sail with a load of lepers than with Sir Jean and Nicholas,” Edmund said. It was expected that Nicholas would reach London before us.
    â€œBesides,” I said, “if you see Nicholas, you’ll have to kill him.”
    â€œI will have his life,” said Edmund, “as I have sworn.” He spoke as one who would not be moved, and using a diction a little foreign to both of us, law-bound and formal.
    â€œWas that, do you think, Edmund, the wisest oath to make?”
    The vibration of my own voice caused me pain.Although suffering is a gift from Heaven, as the English priest had reminded me—allowing us to experience a tiny portion of Our Lord’s suffering—I did not consider myself particularly blessed.
    â€œI have made the oath,” said Edmund.“I cannot unsay it.”
    My mother and my father were prayerful, and paid Father Giles good coin to teach me Latin verbs, but my mother once said,“Strong piety is for the priest, Hubert, and not for folk like us, who sup on white bread and the best peas.” My parents gave alms, and treated every soul with courtesy, but felt that God and the saints were not closely connected with a well-spoken woolman’s life.
    Many fighting men were both far more brutal and more devout than I. But even I recognized that a sacred oath, made while touching a holy relic—a saint’s bone or a reliquary of saint’s hair—was a contract with God. So was an oath invoking a holy name or divine entity, like Heaven.And an oath upon one’s honor placed one’s reputation, future and past, at stake.
    I said,