Green Jasper by K. M. Grant

Author:K. M. Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2006-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

As the sun rose the following morning he twisted a thin length of hide to make a bitless bridle and fashioned a saddle from an old sheepskin and a leather strip. “I can’t use my colored cord and ride with no saddle at all,” he said to Hosanna. “From what I can see, it is not a very English way to go about things.” He was anxious to move on, for he did not want to bump into de Scabious or the mercenaries. Packing away anything that marked him as a Saracen, he made sure that when he and Hosanna set off, nothing, except perhaps the color of his own skin and the very distinctive red of the horse’s coat, looked out of the ordinary.

They walked in companionable silence, covering only a few miles to begin with. However, after a day or two, his wounds markedly improving and the spring sun warm on his back, Hosanna began to lose the terrible shrunken look that pain brings with it. Only then did Kamil vault lightly on and begin the long climb to the top of the moors.

It was a glorious journey. Up in the clear air Hosanna recovered his strength almost by the hour, and his spirits rose. With no audience except the curlews and the hawks, Kamil pretended that they were back in the desert, he a powerful emir and Hosanna his noble charger. And surely this is not a pipe dream, Kamil thought. He would deliver the letter, and after that the de Granvilles would feel obliged to help him get home. He would make a new life for himself in Palestine. He watched a buzzard circle on broad, motionless wings, its plaintive cry and heavy flight reminding him of Richard. Yes. Hosanna had been right to refuse the ship’s gangplank. Now he could claim Hosanna, not just by bargaining right, but with honor.

As they covered the miles, for the first time Kamil was able to think of his dead adoptive father without bitterness. That evening at sunset, he asked Hosanna to perform an old trick he had taught him just before the last battle of the crusade. At the appropriate command Hosanna reared, striking out as if at an enemy. As he plunged back to earth Kamil was filled with gratitude, and that night when he heard once again the distant toll of an abbey bell he bowed his head and lifted his own heart and mind to Allah.

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