‘Jakes. Search.’
Hal slithered away, clutching his stomach and those that bothered to see him at all jeered. Kirkpatrick watched him go, then capered further, picking up plate, eating knife and, finally, the priest’s wooden spoon, juggled them briefly, then bowed again as people thumped the table.
The priest took back his spoon, staring at the imagined grime on it with distaste; Kirkpatrick bowed like a pretty courtier and apologized.
‘You should think before you act, my son,’ the friar sniffed piously.
‘As to that, Father, I have to say that it is God’s fault,’ Kirkpatrick answered. ‘For he gave Adam the means to think and a stout pizzle – but the ability only to work one at a time.’
The laughter was loud and long, inflamed by the rash of the friar’s outraged face.
‘Good,’ declared the knight of St John in French. ‘Do you perform other magicks? You are as black as any saracin.’
‘Not as skilled as any of those you have just called “robber” in their own tongue,’ Kirkpatrick replied in good English and saw the eyes of the Fitzwalter narrow. Good, he thought bitterly, let him know I understand French and the paynim tongue and am not the cheapjack I seem – well planned, Kirkpatrick.
In the same moment, he had heeled round on to the new road and spurred up it with a fresh plan.
‘I can, however, reveal where you have lately come from,’ he went on and the Hospitaller frowned a little at that, then shrugged.
‘Well – speak on.’
‘Let me know when I am wrang-wise,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘From … Carlisle.’
Folk jeered, for that was hardly a feat given that anyone passing through Closeburn was either coming from or headed to that place.
‘Before that – York,’ Kirkpatrick added and had a murmur when the Hospitaller stayed silent. ‘Before that …’
He paused and folk strained expectantly.
‘London.’
Folk laughed. If York had been correct then London was less of a struggle for anyone to work out.
‘Afore that,’ Kirkpatrick went on. ‘Bruges.’
The knight’s forearms, straight on either side of his trencher, flexed under the tunic and his knuckles went white; folk murmured at it, but most – who could not see that far – applauded this feat.
‘Before that … Genoa,’ Kirkpatrick went on smoothly and now the knight was leaning forward, snarling like a dog on a leash.
‘Before that,’ Kirkpatrick declared with a flourish, ‘Cyprus.’
The knight rose with a scrape of chair, his face thunderous. He crossed himself.
‘Heathen magicks,’ he bellowed. ‘Heresy …’
‘Christ’s bones, Sir Oristin – sit.’
It was the Fitzwalter, waving a languid hand and shaking his head. The Hospitaller sat, glowering into the easy smile of Fitzwalter, who turned appreciatively to Kirkpatrick, narrowing his eyes.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Now explain the trick of it. I hope you do it well, for this brother in Christ has burning faggots in his eyes.’
There was silence now at how this had transpired and even the drunks were dry-mouthed – though Kirkpatrick would have wagered all his day’s profits that one or two would count a burning heretic as fair entertainment to end with.
‘No magic,’ he said easily, spreading his hands. ‘Carlisle is simple enough – no great spell needed to thasm up that. A one in two chance that the lord was coming and not going.’
His confidence unlatched the tension a little; a soldier, drunker than the rest, sniggered and was then cut off by a neighbour.
‘Once Carlisle was sure, it is easy to pin York, because there is a commanderie of St John there,’ Kirkpatrick went on and nodded deferentially to the knight. ‘A good and pious knight of the Order would wish to have himself excused for spending too many nights away from any commanderie, to commend his soul to God before travelling onward.’
Now the knight was mollified and eased, Kirkpatrick saw; Fitzwalter was nodding and stroking his thinly razored beard.
‘London is obvious, because it is where all travellers come from the ports of the south,’ Kirkpatrick went on and paused, which was partly the showman in him, partly because this was the tricky part.
‘Bruges,’ he said slowly, knowing this was the tricky part, ‘because it avoids Paris and a deal of France, which is an unhappy place thanks to King Philip the Fair. Or unfair, if you are a Templar or a Jew.’
Folk laughed at this – the Italies wool dealers mostly, who knew of the French king’s plots against the Templars and of his banning all Jews so that he could seize their holdings and goods. No-one made much comment on the latter, all the same, since the king of France was simply copying the king of England and for the same reason.
‘Indeed,’ Fitzwalter mused. ‘So far, so reasoned – Sir Oristin wishes to avoid the … awkwardness … of association with the Poor Knights in a country already fired with crusading fervour for proscribing heathen Jews.’