“You can ride?” asked Sir Nigel, looking at the youth with puckered eyes.
“Yes, I have ridden much at the abbey.”
“Yet there is a difference betwixt a friar's hack and a warrior's destrier. You can sing and play?”
“On citole, flute and rebeck.”
“Good! You can read blazonry?”
“Indifferent well.”
“Then read this,” quoth Sir Nigel, pointing upwards to one of the many quarterings which adorned the wall over the fireplace.
“Argent,” Alleyne answered, “a fess azure charged with three lozenges dividing three mullets sable. Over all, on an escutcheon of the first, a jambe gules.”
“A jambe gules erased,” said Sir Nigel, shaking his head solemnly. “Yet it is not amiss for a monk-bred man. I trust that you are lowly and serviceable?”
“I have served all my life, my lord.”