The Leopard Sword Read Online Free Page B

such an accusation is voiced, your man will bleed,” said Nigel. The loss of a hand, or an entire limb, was common punishment for stealing, often followed by public hanging. “Guilty or innocent, it will not matter.”
    â€œYou will not force a confession?” asked Edmund.
    It was a surprise to me to hear Rannulf chuckle, a low, almost silent laugh.
    Sir Nigel would have laughed, too, I believe, but did not want to offend his two earnest squires. “Surely, Hubert, you and Edmund don’t think that I pay any heed to a Chartrian too stubborn to put on clean clothes?”
    â€œOf course you’re equal to the name,” I insisted.
    I wondered if Heaven would forgive me for the sin of envy. It was true that I had been a loyal squire to Nigel long before Edmund had stepped across our threshold, and I knew that I was much quicker with a sword. And yet Edmund was the sort of fighting man people follow with their eyes. I believed that while in future battles I would be brave enough, and quick to parry, slice, and cut, piles of dead enemies would heap up around Edmund.
    We stood high in the stern castle, gazing into the stiff salt wind. One enemy ship followed us, a loyal shadow.
    â€œSomeday,” he said, “I’ll become equal to the name, with God’s grace.”
    I swelled myself up, swelling out my chest. “Let mee heer heem con-fess,” I said, sounding, I must confess, every bit exactly like Sir Jean.
    â€œThere were flies on his blouse,” said Edmund, as though confiding a secret. Knights were generally discussed with respect, even in private.
    I laughed.
    I had Edmund laughing with my further imitation of Sir Jean, big with pride as I gazed about.
    And then the dogged enemy craft drew my full attention. “Do you think she will catch us?” I asked.
    Edmund considered. He looked up at the blue sky, judging the weather.
    I wanted her to run us down, just then. I wanted another enemy to attack us so that I, too, might win a name. Hubert Quicksword. “Why do they keep rowing and rowing after us—why not turn back?”
    â€œFaith,” he said.
    He even spoke more like a knight than I did. He was often solemn and used few words, while I chattered, tried to make people laugh, and was in every way a more feather-weight squire.
    â€œI’ll wager,” I said, “the silver thimble I found that we’ll be fighting again by sunset.”
    Gambling had been forbidden in the Crusader camp, and now that we were aboard ship the deck was alive with the rattle of dice. I had discovered the silver thimble on the battlefield, long after the fighting was over, among the wreckage of horseflesh and weaponry. Both Saracens and Crusaders used thimbles and thread to repair everything from clothing to saddle work, but a silver thimble decorated with stars and crescent moons was a treasure.
    â€œI’ll not accept your wager, Hubert.”
    â€œMy thimble against the silver cup Osbert found under the dead—” To speak of dead horses was to remind Edmund of the noble Winter Star, a mount I knew he still mourned.
    â€œThe cup is made of trade silver,” he protested,“half brass. Three bent old cups like that would equal one of your thimbles.” A moneyer’s apprentice knows alloy from ore, and amber from glass.
    Edmund was honest, too, the way knights were expected to be and rarely were. No wonder Rannulf admired him, and Nigel, too. “Take the bet, Edmund,” I said, with too much feeling.
    â€œIf it pleases you,” he said hesitantly.
    â€œâ€˜If it pleases me!’” I said, exasperated, imitating him quite well—capturing his note of manly caution, that solid, clear-minded common sense that I had come to love and depend on, but which at the moment I could not tolerate.
    â€œDo you think Osbert is a thief?” asked Edmund in a soft voice.
    â€œOf course he is,” I responded, with little regard for