He turned to the Hospitaller.’
‘Does he have the right of it so far?’
The Hospitaller, who was not proud of his avoidances, admitted it with a grudging nod.
‘How did he know I have come from abroad at all,’ he said in a sepulchral voice, ‘let alone Genoa.’
Kirkpatrick shrugged.
‘You were never born as dark,’ he said with a laugh to take the sting from it, ‘so acquired such a slap from a sun you do not find in these lands.’
‘And Genoa is first and most common port for anyone coming from Cyprus,’ he added with a lofty flourish, ‘where the Knights of St John have had their largest commanderies since they left the Holy Land.’
Now there was laughter, from relief Kirkpatrick thought. The young Ross of Wark shifted in his seat as though cocking a buttock to fart and scowled at Kirkpatrick.
‘You are well informed for a cheapjack,’ he pointed out suspiciously and Kirkpatrick beamed back at him.
‘I make as much from news and the reasoning of it as from ribbons and needles,’ he answered and those who knew business well enough nodded agreement and grinned. Kirkpatrick, buying time for Hal, nudged the stallion of this up into a canter.
‘It is such reasoning that lets me reveal, if the bold knight of St John allows, why he is here in Closeburn.’
Fitzwalter’s eyebrows went up and the Hospitaller shifted uneasily.
‘Well,’ Fitzwalter declared slyly, ‘this is better entertainment – what say you, Sir Oristin? Can he magick out your secrets?’
‘Reason, not magic,’ Kirkpatrick corrected hastily and Fitzwalter acknowledged it with a mocking bow while the heads of all the others swung to and fro between them; some had even worked out the danger of the game being played.
The Hospitaller was clearly unhappy at the prospect, but he could not admit it under Fitzwalter’s eye and eventually nodded. Silence fell and people waited eagerly.
‘Your commanderie in this kingdom is Torphichen,’ Kirkpatrick declared, ‘which is far from here – yet you would be there now if you had travelled from the one in York. You did not and will pay penance for it – so your reason for being here is pressing.’
The Hospitaller stiffened.
‘A lady?’ the drunken soldier called out and the celibate knight was halfway out of his seat seeking the culprit with glaring eyes; young Ross wisely soothed him sitting again.
‘Not lady, nor pursuit of personal gain,’ Kirkpatrick went on, as if thinking it out – though he had done that long since. ‘So a quest then. The Holy Grail perhaps.’
The Hospitaller relaxed in his seat a little and some of the audience applauded, thinking he had got it right. One or two called out ‘God be praised’ and the rote reply sibilated round the table.
‘Yet,’ Kirkpatrick declared like a knell and let it hang there for a moment.
‘The Grail has remained hidden for many hundreds of years,’ he went on. ‘They say the Templars have it and that Order does not deny it, so knights seldom quest for it these days – and knights of St John are forbidden to do it, out of the sin of pride.’
‘True enough,’ Fitzwalter confirmed. ‘So – no Grail discovered in Closeburn then.’
Kirkpatrick held up one grimy, wrapped hand and brought the laughter to a halt.
‘There are other reasons for a knight of St John to be abroad from his commanderie,’ he continued, ‘but almost all of them are because he is on the business of the Order.’
‘Which should remain the business of the Order,’ the knight growled warningly.
‘As it will,’ Kirkpatrick answered smoothly. ‘Though this is not the business of the Order.’
‘You dare …’
‘Let him speak,’ Fitzwalter declared and there was enough steel in his voice for the Hospitaller to glance at him with a threat of his own.
‘The business you have with the Order is at Torphichen,’ Kirkpatrick went on while the two knights locked glances; he saw it was the Hospitaller who looked away, ‘and you are a confirmed and pious and loyal knight of St John.’
‘I am,’ growled the knight. ‘You would do well to remember that.’
‘You are also Sir Oristin Del Ard,’ Kirkpatrick went on, ‘and have retained the arms of your house on the hilt of that fine eating knife. Not permitted by your Order, of course, for the sin of pride and avarice and a few others no doubt. But excusable – you are not alone in it.’
The knight was all coil now, like a snake waiting to pounce.
‘The Del Ards are in the retinue of the Earl of Ross in the north,’ Kirkpatrick went on and then waved one hand to the young scowl on the other side of the Hospitaller.
‘And here is your liege lord’s kin, from Wark. No doubt he will be pleased with the news you bring to him first, before you take it to Torphichen.’