THE LEOPARD SWORD

Two squires and their knights struggle to make their way back to England from the Holy Land after the bloody Siege of Acre. In this sequel to Cadnum’s The Book of the Lion (2000), Hubert, squire to Sir Nigel and best friend to fellow squire Edmund, takes up the narrative. His description of their fitful travels demonstrates that 12th-century Europe was a lawless place in the extreme, and the characters find that they are little safer in their journey than they were on the battlefield as they move from pursuit by a Saracen ship to a brief respite in Greece to a Rome beset by gangs. This makes for an episodic story with little cohesion beyond the characters’ desire to return home and their feud with a rival knight and his page, the resolution of which contains the heart of the text’s argument: how much is one willing to fight, and for what cause is a fight justified? Hubert himself makes for an appealing character; he enjoys both a sense of humor and a clear-eyed understanding of himself, flaws and all. As he describes the action, he observes it, weighing his faith in God and his desire to be a knight against the squalor of actual combat. There is the tendency to wonder how much Hubert’s attitude is informed by 21st-century values; certainly his mentor, who has seen much more combat than he has, appears to have no such qualms. Cadnum writes in an author’s note that he wanted to explore the “terrible paradox—that caring responsible individuals can engage in acts of brutality.” The narrative itself is caught on this paradox, moving from exciting skirmishes and jousts to Hubert’s moments of doubt, with imperfect success at finding an answer. The details of medieval Europe are vividly realized, the characters and their relationships are sympathetic, the action can be thrilling—but somehow it all adds up to less than the sum of its parts. (Fiction. 12+)