He’s a knight.
He is a knight.
And he’s done nothing to deserve it.
Baron Montagu winks at him as he sits back down. ‘Welcome to the family, Sir Harry. We put in a good word for you.’
Harry stutters out a thanks as someone – a finely dressed man at the tent’s entrance – calls out towards the King, ‘And when for France, milord?’
The King laughs again and raises his hands. ‘I have no intentions towards my cousin of France, as long as he has no intentions towards Gascony.’ He raises his cup in toast. ‘Besides, my claim is through my mother, and France is not so keen on that.’
‘Then we’ll make ’em keen, like our Henry did!’ another voice cries out.
Montagu smiles. Though he speaks softly, his voice carries across the entire tent. ‘And what of the French forces in Scotland, Your Majesty?’
The King waves his hand in dismissal. ‘Let us enjoy this victory, before planning more.’ He places his hand on the arm of a weak-chinned, sandy-haired man sitting to his right. ‘We must first attend to tomorrow’s business, and restore our cousin of Balliol to his lands across the border.’
When Harry turns his gaze back to their table, he realises the man who had called out to the King about France has taken a seat next to Baron Montagu, and they are in whispered discussion. The man is older, and pinched-looking, something cruel about his tanned features. His hair is bristle-short, and the same colour as his skin. Harry can only hear bits and pieces of their discussion: an intercepted letter, and French spies, and the King.
His stare must be obvious, for Rabbie whispers in his ear, ‘Baron de Percy. The new Constable of Berwick.’
Baron Montagu’s gaze flicks up across the table to them, at that moment. His face is serious, now, compared with its previous open ease. ‘So, Sir Harry, do you want to kill some Scots?’
Harry nods. More than anything, he does. To avenge his father. To avenge Sir Simon. To prove he’s worthy of the knight’s belt given to him out of charity.
Montagu smiles, and it’s a nasty smile, but war is a nasty business. ‘Good. Tomorrow we ride north with Balliol. There’s something potentially troublesome we must retrieve.’
They leave at dawn, in light mail and plain surcoats, unmarked by heraldic insignia, choosing their palfreys for speed over their war-horses. Eleven of the brightest, most dashing knights in England, and Harry – Sir Harry, though the honorific feels false on his tongue, as if he is still playing crusaders and dragons with a wooden sword in the manor gardens. Montagu has promised that Harry’s war-horse and belongings, along with Sir Simon’s, will be packed up by Montagu’s household servants and delivered back to Dartington.
Harry keeps reaching down to touch the heavy leather belt that sits just above his hips, the symbol of his knighthood. It had been Sir Simon’s, and it’s soft with age, moulding to him as if it were made for him. Its weight, and the sword on his left that it supports, is a constant reminder of what he has not yet earned.
Montagu’s small party of knights is barely noticeable in the mob of exultant nobles flowing north, the disinherited English who had been given lands in Scotland by Edward Longshanks just to be thrown out again by Robert Bruce and Black Douglas. Percy stays behind at Berwick, his place in the group taken by the weak-chinned man who had dined next to the King: Edward Balliol, awarded land in Galloway for his loyalty to England. The man spends the entire first day trying to make conversation with Montagu, but thankfully Balliol soon falls behind, his progress hampered by the slow ox-carts of his household.
Over the next two days, they follow the lowland course of the river Tweed. The group grows smaller as the Disinherited break off to their various lands. Soon it’s just the dozen of them, Montagu’s raiders: Harry, Rabbie, a crass Yorkshire knight named Odo Waldegrave, Rabbie’s best friend Colin Crocker, Guy d’Audley with the scar across his face, Thomas Howland, the two Billies (Shayler and Lang), Sebastian Sharp from Kent, Brendan le Rous and Roderick Griffith. And of course Montagu himself.
In another situation, the trip would be beautiful, but they are surrounded constantly by tiny flies and midges which are small enough to sneak through mail and bite the flesh beneath. They settle into a sort of grim determination, talking little, pressing forwards as fast as they can. The midges that flit senseless into their mouths when they talk are a reminder of the constant presence of the Scottish. This is a hostile land. Not a thing in it wishes them welcome. The glares of the peasants they pass on the road are enough for each knight to keep a hand near his weapons at all times.
By the fourth day, they are cutting north through Galloway Forest. Montagu still hasn’t told them why they’re here, what they’re retrieving. Harry burns to ask, but his place in the group is too tenuous for such bold questioning. Instead he marvels at the forest, deep and dark.
They’ve hired a couple of Scots to guide them. The men are much as Rabbie described: stunted, twisted creatures, red of leg and bare of foot, in nothing but a leine and a cloak. They growl at each other in their incomprehensible, savage tongue. Harry wonders what sort of man can be so bought by gold to betray his own country, and he despises them for it even as he is thankful for their skill in navigating this endless ocean of trees.
Montagu stops them early in the afternoon, most of the way up a formidable hill. They make camp. The air is fresher here, the biting flies less prevalent. Harry can smell water nearby. He has absolutely no idea where they are – Galloway, Balliol had said, but the name means nothing to
