The first book in the highly amusing, award-winning Pagan Chronicles. Entertaining historical fiction, set in twelfth century Jerusalem -- the time of the crusades. Wham! So here I am, standing in a sea of dirt, with a big mad Templar lobbing rocks at my head. Wham! Like some kind of martyr. Wham! He throws like a catapult. 'All right, Pagan, that's enough.' (I should damn well think so.) 'Do you see what your problem is?' Wait - don't tell me. You are. Pursued by some rather unsavoury (and unwashed) characters from the Jerusalem slums, sixteen-year-old Pagan Kidrouk has a cunning idea to avoid paying his debts - he'll join the order of the Templars. But it's out of the frying pan and into the fire, when he's assigned as squire to Lord Roland. Providing Templar escort to naive pilgrims is one thing, defending Jerusalem against the Infidels, led by Saladin, is definitely not what he signed up for! An action-packed, fast-moving story enlivened by the narrator's wry reflections and warm wit.