Brother Pietro uneasily, squirming with displeasure at the thought of waking Father Guillaume for a matter that might not be of sufficient urgency.
‘I understand. Go instead and wake Brother Guilbert and tell him that his apprentice Arn de Gothia is waiting in the receptorium,’ the knight said kindly, although it was still an order.
‘Brother Guilbert might also be cross…I cannot leave my post in the receptorium in the middle of this evil night,’ said Brother Pietro, attempting to wriggle out of obeying the command.
‘Ah!’ said the knight with a laugh. ‘First of all, you may confidently leave the watch to a Templar knight of the Lord; you could have no stronger replacement. Second, I swear that you will be waking that old bear Guilbert with good news. So, go now. I’ll wait here and assume your watch as best I can, I promise you.’
The Templar knight had stated his command in a way that could not be refuted. Brother Pietro nodded and scurried down the arcade towards the little courtyard that was the last open space before entering the monastery proper through another oaken door.
It was not long before the door from the monastery to the receptorium courtyard was thrown open with a bang and a familiar voice echoed down the white arcade. Brother Guilbert came striding down the hallway, holding a tar torch in his hand. He did not seem as huge as before; no longer a giant. When he spied the stranger by the door, he raised his torch to see better. Then he handed the torch to Brother Pietro and went over to embrace the stranger. Neither of them uttered a word for a long time.
‘I thought you had fallen at the battle of Tiberias, my dear Arn,’ Brother Guilbert finally said in Frankish. ‘Father Henri thought so too, and we’ve said many unnecessary prayers for your soul.’
‘Those prayers were not unnecessary, seeing as I can now thank you for them in this life, brother,’ Arn de Gothia said.
Then neither of them seemed able to say anything more, and they both had to wrestle for control so as not to express unseemly emotions. It occurred to Brother Pietro that the two men must have been very close.
‘Have you come to pray at the grave of your mother, Fru Sigrid?’ Brother Guilbert asked at last, in a tone he would use with an ordinary traveller.
‘Yes, of course I want to do that,’ replied the knight in the same tone of voice. ‘But I also have a great many other things to do here at home in Varnhem, and I must first ask your help with a number of small matters that are best done before taking on the larger tasks.’
‘You know that I’ll help you with anything. Just say the word and we’ll get started.’
‘I have twenty men and ten wagons out there in the rain. Many of the men are of an ilk that cannot so easily set foot within these walls. I also have ten heavily loaded wagons, and the first three of them would be best brought into the courtyard.’ The knight spoke rapidly, as if he were talking of commonplace things, although the wagons must be very important if they had to be protected within the cloister walls.
Without a word Brother Guilbert grabbed the torch from the younger monk’s hand and stepped into the rain outside the door of the receptorium. There was indeed a line of ten muddy wagons out there, and they must have had a difficult journey. Hunched over the reins of the oxen sat surly men who did not look to have the heart for any more travelling.
Brother Guilbert laughed when he saw them, shaking his head with a smile. Then he called to Brother Pietro and began barking orders as though he himself were a Templar knight and not a Cistercian monk.
It took less than an hour to arrange accommodations for the visitors. One of the many rules at Varnhem said that anyone who came travelling by night should be accorded the same hospitality as the Lord Himself. It was a rule that Brother Guilbert kept repeating to himself, first half in jest but with ever greater amusement when he heard from the Templar knight that perhaps smoked hams were not the best sort of delicacy to serve the men in welcome. The joke about the unsuitability of smoked hams, however, went straight over Brother Pietro’s head.
But Varnhem’s entire hospitium outside the walls was empty and dark, since few