They both collapse onto the ground afterwards, finding each other’s lips with lazy kisses that are barely more than sharing breath.
‘I love you,’ Harry says, once he can think again. ‘I want to help you, with whatever it is you’re planning.’ And Harry has a pretty damn good idea what Iain is doing, but he’s not going to say it until Iain does.
Iain shakes his head. ‘It’s too dangerous, Harry. If I lose right now, all that is lost is an inconvenient boy who was never fated to live to adulthood anyway. If you fall, you take down all of Dartington with you. Alys, too, now.’
Harry sinks his fingers into the short hairs around Iain’s cock and twists. Over Iain’s gasp of surprise and pain, he says, ‘You are not alone, you stubborn fool. I love you. Everyone at Dartington loves you. You should have seen their faces when I came back from Smithfield without you. They all assumed you’d be coming home, even for a visit. You’re not alone, and you need to be careful because if you are lost you will break so many hearts beyond repair. First among them being mine.’
Iain stares at him for a long moment, then nods, and kisses Harry on his forehead. ‘I guess I should get dressed and we should go home to Dartington, yes?’
Harry snorts and punches him in the shoulder. ‘Yes, we should.’
Iain goes back into the pond and washes himself off, then crosses to the other bank and ducks behind a tree. His things must be there, Harry thinks, as he too eases himself into the pond and rinses off the evidence of their tryst.
Harry grabs his discarded shirt and breeches from the rock and slips them on, then follows the low whistle towards Iain. He climbs up the bank, expecting to find Iain pulling on his old Scottish shirt, or some other simple travelling outfit.
When he gets to the top, he nearly chokes.
Iain is poured into dark, tight riding breeches, and a cote-hardie, also dark, but with ragged, tipped sleeves faced in scarlet. A bright saffron fabric lines the seams and hems of the slim, laced tunic, and a knight’s belt in scarlet leather rides low on his hips.
Harry gestures in surprise at Iain’s fashionable clothes, and the light coating of road dust on them. ‘You sneaked away in that?’ he says.
Iain smirks. ‘I wanted to look good for you.’
‘Well,’ Harry breathes, ‘you succeeded.’ He wraps his fingers around Iain’s belt. Iain still wears Harry’s dagger on his right hip, and that causes a swell of fierce pride in Harry’s chest. It’s like a favour, a secret admission to the world that he belongs to Harry and no other. ‘You were knighted?’
Iain shrugs. ‘I think it was more a courtesy, really.’
‘It suits you,’ Harry says. ‘And it’s awfully convenient for doing this.’ He pulls Iain into him by the belt, parting his lips for a kiss.
Iain smile-kisses him back. ‘You have no idea how many times I wanted to do that to you,’ he says.
‘I think I do,’ Harry murmurs back.
It’s midday by the time they collect their horses and head back towards Dartington Manor. The lanes are still oddly quiet, nobody in the fields. Figures, Harry thinks, just when he wants to show off to the entire estate that Iain is back, and more beautiful than ever.
He assumes it’s just because it’s November, and days are short, and the farming year is all but done.
But then he rounds a corner and realises how wrong he is.
A dozen men-at-arms spring from behind hedges to block their way, and more behind to cut off their retreat. Most are foreign-looking, short rough men with dark hair and olive skin. Each has a crossbow at the ready. Harry doesn’t recognise their leaders, six knights with painted-over shields and cloaks covering their surcoats. They’re not Rabbie’s men, he’s sure they’re not Montagu’s—
Then the lead knight throws back his cloak to reveal his surcoat.
The lily of France.
‘Shit,’ Iain hisses.
‘Iain, run, I’ve got them,’ Harry says, reaching for his sword—
—which he hadn’t put on that morning.
‘You are the Capet pretender?’ the knight in the disguised surcoat asks, pointing his mace at Iain.
‘I am no pretender,’ Iain growls, drawing his own blade. ‘But I am curious what scum at Windsor dares to have me followed.’
‘I’m not of your court. I am a chevalier of France, here at the request of Philip of Valois,’ says the knight. Then, to his crossbowmen, ‘Kill him.’
‘Liar!’ Iain yells, raising his sword.
Harry lurches, yanking the reins of his horse to put his body between Iain and the crossbow bolts zinging towards him, but then the French knight’s mace is connecting with his shoulder and he’s tumbling down, grabbing at the fabric of the knight’s surcoat to at least pull him down too, but it tears, and then he’s falling, watching in horror as bolts embed in Iain’s shield arm, raised to protect his chest.
As a bolt buries itself in his neck, the blood bubbling out pink with the hiss of air from his windpipe.
As Iain’s sword falls from his hand as he scrabbles at the arrow in his throat.
As those pale eyes go dim.
Harry hits
