Saladin's army has taken Jerusalem, and the Knights Templar are seeking warriors to mount a new Crusade to reclaim Christianity's holiest city, which is why Lord Roland Roucy de Bram and his squire Pagan Kidrouk have made their way to the south of France and Lord Roland's home.
Though Pagan hasn't a clear picture of what to expect, and Lord Roland speaks seldom of things personal, he assumes that his near-perfect master has sprung from similar majesty. He is appalled and distressed to discover the squalid and depraved existence of the Bram household. The patriarch is an angry, violent, petty man, the elder brother is an unlearned lout, and the other is manipulative (and almost certainly homosexual). To Pagan's shock his master, rather than being the honourable and courageous Lord Roland Roucy de Bam he's come to admire and worship, reverts to his family role, and it seems only an emergency will bring the real Roland back.
Once again Jinks combines strong characterisation, subtle humour, a gripping plot and magnificently-integrated historical detail into a thoroughly satisfying whole. The fate of heretics (loosely defined and essentially comprising anyone who thinks differently than the received orthodoxy) in the time of the One True Church is grippingly portrayed. Just an accusation is enough, and I thought the scene where Roland attributed the reading of a gospel he was unfamiliar with as proof of her hereticism, along with his fumbling attempts to define a heretic to an incredulous Pagan, particularly effective of the incoherent religious fervour of the period.
The subsumation of Roland into his family's dynamic was interesting, and Pagan never fails to delight with his droll internal monologue and outsiders' insights. His horror at both participating in a hunt, and killing a man, are realistic and distressing, and many aspects of his personality are made clear by his distaste and disdain for the squalor and crude cruelty of Roland's family and childhood home. After a couple of unsatisfactory books encountered of late, Pagan in Exile was particularly rewarding. - Alex
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