 Whole Story Quest audiobooks presents El Campiador by Griff Hosker, narrated by Fraser Blacksland, prologue. I am neither a great lord nor even a noble, yet I count great lords and nobles as my friends, and I have been at the heart of great and momentous events. I was born to a sword for hire, and a camp follower, but I moved in the highest of circles both Christian and Muslim. Despite that, I never changed. Now I am in my twilight years. I wish to record the events of the past. I still have two of the servants who followed me when I served Elsid in those glorious days after Grouse, and they are able to jog my memory when something slips from my grasp. This tower in which I write down my fading memories is comforting with its solid walls in the centuries who patrolled the fighting platform. I had built well. When I served Rodrigo de Vivana, El Campiador, we did not always have such comforting protection. The good quill with which I make my spidery scratchings is loaded with ink, and I am ready to write once more. Who would have thought that the son of a mercenary who grew up illiterate would be able to write down the story of Elsid? I had much to be grateful to the greatest knight in Christendom. When Prince Sancho and El Campiador, the man the Moors came to call Elsid, won the battle of Grouse and killed King Romero of Aragon, then the future of Spain changed irrevocably, and there would be no going back. Of course we did not know so at the time. We were warriors, and just happy that we had won and were alive. The retribution we extracted meant that all, even Iago, Juan, and Pedro, the swords for hire who followed my banner, were rich, and I headed back to the manor I had recently bought, satisfied and in good spirits. Breviesca did not make me a knight, but it gave me a home, and it gave my foster mother Maria and my shield brothers a home, and I loved it. I had been wounded at Grouse. My collarbone had been broken. Such a wound was not incapacitating, but it hurt, and that made me bad tempered. I had to ride home with my arm bandaged, and I felt it, and the grating pain each time the healing bone was jolted on the road. It was more than just the pain, for in those days warriors bore pain and did not complain. It was the fact that my arm was in a sling, and men constantly asked me what was wrong. I hated that. I wanted to be alone with my wound, and to think of a battle we had just fought. Sample complete. Ready to continue?