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.’
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
