‘Both of them,’ sighs Arundel.
‘Jesus’ bones,’ Peter says, covering his mouth in horror as he switches to his more familiar English. ‘If I had recognised Iain we would have known something was wrong, we would have gone down there. I owe Wat’s life to him and you.’
‘Peter,’ Harry says as calmly as he can, ‘was he alive?’
‘He was mostly wrapped in a cloak. Two people were carrying him. I couldn’t tell. I don’t know,’ Peter says. Then, more haltingly, ‘Why would you bother carrying a dead body anywhere?’
‘Well, if you want to start a war, killing a prince and telling the English that the French did it, and then shipping the body to France to prove English culpability …’ Arundel begins, gesturing.
Harry switches back to French. ‘We have no proof,’ he says. He almost doesn’t care any more. If Iain is dead, then the world can burn itself to the ground for all he cares.
‘A man came, to look at the body as they were loading it,’ Peter adds. ‘He paid off the captain and the men who brought the body. He looked at the face, then nodded, and pulled out his purse.’
‘Can you describe this man?’ Arundel asks, and there’s a razor edge to his voice, under the politeness.
Peter shrugs. ‘Not well. He was in a hooded cloak. Medium height. Taller than me but shorter than Sir Harry.’
Arundel turns to Harry. ‘There’s your proof,’ he says. ‘Montagu.’
‘And nobody will believe us,’ Harry says, forcing down the lump in his throat, gritting his teeth against the voice that says this is his fault, for forcing Iain out into the open. For making him into a target.
Arundel introduces himself to Captain Wekesa, and asks him to speak to the French captain next time the two of them are in port. A casual enquiry from a fellow ship’s captain, they both reckon, will go down better than a landlubber coming in with an interrogation. ‘See if you can find out what happened to the lad, if he was really dead,’ Arundel asks. ‘And if there is any cost involved … ?’
He reaches towards his purse but Captain Wekesa shakes his head. ‘Harry’s friend was a good man,’ Wekesa says. ‘And I will look out for news of him.’
Everyone falls silent for a moment, listening to the incoming tide slop against the wharf pilings, at gulls cawing and the wet smack of halyards against masts in the light breeze. The air stinks of seaweed and tar. Harry’s mother used to say that when a conversation falls quiet, it’s because an angel is passing overhead. All Harry can think is please don’t let it be Iain.
Arundel shifts nervously. ‘There is another thing,’ he says.
Captain Wekesa raises an eyebrow.
‘The King has asked me to raise a fleet. Possibly build one, too. I know nothing about boats. This is a boat, yes?’ Arundel says, pointing towards the Halygast as it bobs at anchor in the bay.
Captain Wekesa laughs, long and rich. ‘It is indeed a boat, my lord. Specifically, it’s a cog. We must unload our cargo before the tide goes out, but if you come back in a fortnight and you can stand my men their meals, we will teach you everything you need to know, and introduce you to all the wrong people.’
‘Sounds like a deal,’ Arundel smiles.
‘You haven’t seen how much a sailor can eat. And drink,’ Jed warns. ‘You may regret this.’
‘It’s fine,’ Arundel says. Then he turns to Harry. ‘I’ll look in on Alys, too.’
On the ride back to Dartington, Harry and Arundel agree that they should say nothing to the King, nor should they move against Montagu, not yet.
Harry is miserable that night. Montagu played them all, and got exactly the result he wanted. The boy he brought home in a cage to use as a pawn had been let loose on the chessboard, made it all the way to the end where he was promoted into a prince, and then had been knocked over, dramatically, at the very climax of the game. It had all gone perfectly to plan.
All this time they thought they were escaping Montagu, fighting back, maybe even winning, and instead they were dancing the steps he wanted, to music orchestrated solely by him.
Harry is glad he is riding to war. He badly wants to harm a lot of things.
They cross into Scotland at Roxburgh. Edward’s army is not as large as Harry had expected, certainly smaller than the huge force of Halidon Hill eighteen months and a lifetime ago. They face bitter opposition the entire way, from December through to February. There are no winners, no decisive victories. Just a grinding, exhausting attempt at survival. Knights die one by one, picked off by bowmen hidden in the high heather of Scotland’s dramatic terrain. There had been hope of driving north to relieve Henry de Beaumont up in Aberdeenshire, but by Christmas that hope has flown. De Beaumont is captured by the Scots and the King is forced to ransom him.
Come the hardest part of winter, most of the men-at-arms decide not to renew their contracts, and slip back across the border to England, and safety.
Edward and his household knights are forced to follow.
The great Scottish campaign of winter 1334/1335 ends with lives lost on both sides for nothing. A truce is declared, and Montagu begins to whisper in Edward’s ear, of the great army he will raise, of how they can go back in the summer and burn their way across the Highlands, torch these Scots out once and for all, and then they can cast their eyes to the real prize: France.
Harry is invited to stay in York with the King’s household but he begs off, riding back to Devon. Iain is right. Court is terrible.
At Dartington, the new hall is almost done, and thanks to Arundel’s money and Alys’s oversight, it’s far more luxurious than the old one. Harry marvels at the glass in the windows; the
