Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks

A book review

Pagan's Crusade, the first in a series, is narrated by a smart-alecky, street-wise sixteen-year-old boy. Fatherless Pagan Kidrouk grew up on the streets of twelfth-century Jerusalem. He got his unusual name from a mother who died too soon to give him a slightly more secure life. Jerusalem has been Christian since it was captured by Crusaders almost a century before, so Pagan is Christian too - though irrepressibly irreverent.

Fending for himself can be dangerous, so Pagan looks for a safer haven as a squire for a Templar Knight. He's in luck: "All right, Kidrouk. Let's settle this once and for all. You're rubbish. You wouldn't have gotten as far as that door if the Order weren't desperate. In April we lost four score knights to a Muslim raiding party sent from Damascus. Then the King called his vassal knights to Acre for the spring campaign.... Meanwhile, the pilgrims are pouring in, and we have to man the road forts.... You're a last resort, understand?"

More luck, the knight to whom Pagan is assigned is a hot-shot: "He looks like something off a stained-glass window. Tall as a tree, golden hair, wide shoulders, long nose, eyes as blue as the Virgin's mantle.... If he's as good as he looks, I'm in big trouble."

The Crusades were not exactly a showpiece for Christian virtue, and despite his scrappy survival instincts, Pagan has too much integrity to mouth pieties when the adults around him are busy making fools of themselves. He's perpetually one snarky comment away from disaster, making Pagan's Crusade a fast-moving, suspenseful, funny story that adults will enjoy as much as teens will. (1992; 246 pages; recommended for ages 12 and up)