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manured the earth with bright, steaming turds.
    Alan straightened in his saddle, and the Exchequer’s men drew together into a cluster.
    â€œSave your steel for the Pagan,” Alan said with a thin laugh, pronouncing it Paynim. “All of you—when you fight side by side with this counterfeiter’s apprentice.”

chapter SEVEN
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    The wind blew cold, white clouds casting shadows over wood and field. Cows turned their backsides to it. The breeze brought tears to my eyes.
    The ride back was not long enough—I wished I could forestall my return for many hours. As I rode behind Hubert I could feel the tense strength of his small frame. The horse tossed and pranced, turning his head to gaze at the two of us, showing the white of his eye.
    Hubert struggled, scolding the mount in a quiet voice, and this caused the animal to kick his hind hooves so that I had to hang on to Hubert to keep from tumbling into the road. “Three days I’ve been riding Winter Star,” said Hubert. “Look how he tries to turn his head around and bite me!”
    It was true that Winter Star was trying to snake his muzzle around, baring his strong yellow teeth. What I feared more than the warhorse was the glance of the knight who rode with us, the bearded fighting man with the scarred mouth.
    â€œWho is he?” I asked, softly, directly into Hubert’s ear.
    â€œHe is Rannulf,” said Hubert.
    I knew the name.
    When we reached the courtyard of the hall, Wenstan watched while Hubert tended Winter Star. Rannulf remained on horseback and watched for a while, and then when I glanced back he had vanished.
    With Rannulf’s disappearance, Wenstan whistled a minstrel tune under his breath, a pretty tale, the story of a man who felt love for a woman he could never see, who lived behind a wall. “The white thread and the red thread,” sang Wenstan. He did not stutter when he sang.
    Winter Star grew calm under the stroke of Hubert’s comb. I tried to make my question sound casual. “I thought Christians were forbidden to speak to a man like Rannulf.”
    Hubert jumped back as the horse swung its head around to eye the two of us. The air rang with the sound of chain mail under the fettler’s hammer, blacksmith’s smoke drifting over the courtyard. “No one talks to him. And Wenstan says we should not speak of him,” said Hubert.
    â€œHe killed five men in the famous tourney of Josselin, didn’t he?” I persisted. Tournaments had been condemned by the church. Father Joseph, who preferred homilies on Mary feeling the Babe leap within her womb, had said that such mock battles were an offense to Heaven.
    â€œWenstan says six knights were killed that day,” said Hubert. “A game-fight that became a battle. Rannulf has been ordered on Crusade by the priests, but he has not yet decided to go. Wenstan says he cares nothing for his soul.”
    To have no regard for one’s soul was like caring nothing for one’s mother—it was impossible to imagine a man so callous or wicked. But some knights had a reputation for beating women senseless, stabbing drunks, running down eyeless beggars, all to expend their idle energy. My master Otto had said this was why the Crusade was required, not merely to free Jerusalem from the Saladin’s armies, but to send fighting men far from the marketplace.
    â€œSir Nigel lets him share the roof with us—” Hubert fell silent as Wenstan approached, singing softly about the red lily and the white.
    Wenstan wrapped my foot in yellow linen, cross-binding it so I could stand and stride with ease, but all the while I wanted to ask about this knight who defied the power of the Church. The sword Wenstan brought out from the dark interior of a side room was long and tarnished, with a grip of cured cowhide. He extended the pommel in my direction, and I hesitated.
    Wenstan nodded impatiently.
    Still, my hand