Read Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims for Free Online

priory perhaps – while the Prior looks haunted, as if he has not slept, and his owlishness, which Thomas had once taken as a sign of learning, now looks like weakness. The old man turns back to Athelstan, who is waiting for an answer to some question he has asked.
    The Dean leaves them and crosses the garth to intercept Thomas, taking responsibility where the Prior is too ashamed to do so.
    ‘Your accuser has chosen the weapon with which you are to fight,’ he says.
    Riven interrupts.
    ‘The quarterstaff,’ he says, motioning to the giant to pass one of the staffs to Thomas. ‘You’re broadly familiar with it, I believe, Brother Monk? An uncomplicated sort of weapon. Two ends. A middle.’
    The giant tosses Thomas one of the quarterstaffs. Thomas catches it and places its end on the ground and waits. He is familiar with the quarterstaff from long hours fighting with his brother when they were children, then adolescents. He knows the tricks, he thinks, and, looking at Riven’s swollen eye, he permits himself to wonder. Without thinking he removes his cowl and hitches the skirts of his cassock as the men working in the fields do.
    ‘Begin then, shall we?’ Riven says, passing his sword to the giant and taking the other staff in return.
    ‘A prayer first, sir, surely?’ the Prior pleads, finally finding the strength to divert if not resist Riven’s will.
    Riven sighs.
    ‘Very well, Prior. But make it quick.’
    All kneel in the mud as the Prior begins the prayers with a paternoster. When it is over Riven stands, just as the Prior is drawing in breath to continue with an Ave.
    ‘Thank you, Prior,’ he says, ‘that will be all. Now, let’s get to it, shall we? In the absence of any formal arrangements, I suggest we clear this area and assume no quarter. Before I kill you, though, I shall permit the Prior here to administer the viaticum, so you’re provided for on your final journey. Agreed? Anything to add, Brother Monk?’
    ‘Only that this is not justice,’ Thomas tells him.
    Riven pretends to be shocked.
    ‘Not justice, Brother Monk? Not justice? Yet here we are, quite equal before the Lord.’
    ‘You are a trained knight.’
    This is what the Dean had called him. Riven is sidling towards him across the grass, weighing and measuring the staff, testing its properties.
    ‘Perhaps the good Lord knew I’d be called on to face this sort of thing, hey? Perhaps He instructed my father to instil in me a skill at arms? Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps He knew you’d turn out to be a miserable sinner and so made your father a cowardly little runt who would rather teach his son to fuck a pig than fight a man?’
    ‘My father died in France, facing the French, at Formigny.’
    Riven straightens.
    ‘Did he? Well, I am sorry to hear it, but you are not alone in losing a father in battle. My own died at St Albans.’
    As Riven mentions St Albans he flicks his wrist and the tip of his quarterstaff flashes past Thomas’s nose. Thomas remains motionless.
    ‘I am a canon of the Order of Gilbert of Sempringham,’ he says. ‘If I am to be tried for a crime that I did not commit then it should be done in Court Ecclesiastical, not this mockery.’
    Riven lowers his quarterstaff and looks comically disappointed. The giant laughs again.
    ‘I cannot fight you, Brother Monk,’ Riven says. ‘Unless you strike me first. Now what will it take to get you to fight? I have impugned you and your father already, so now what about your mother? What can I say about her? A whore whelping in a ditch? No, no. I sense I am on the wrong track here.’
    Thomas shakes his head, not in denial but in pity, and the gesture instantly brings the tip of Riven’s staff within a finger’s breadth of his right eye. Thomas blinks. Riven lowers the staff.
    ‘Still nothing,’ he says, and he turns his back and walks away. Then he clicks his fingers.
    ‘Of course,’ he says, turning back. ‘I know! I have it! Louther!’
    ‘Aye?’ one of the