Montagu hesitates, until the mist clears and they all see the massive dark form of the Black Knight on his war-horse. The sight of that silent, terrible silhouette advancing would send shivers down the back of the bravest of men on a good day. And it’s far from a good day. Two other knights in plain armour ride on his quarter, the trio blocking the bridge.
Harry draws his sword. ‘Fight me, O Death,’ he says.
The knight shakes his head. Harry notices he’s not holding a sword, but a small recurved hunting bow. His shield is slung across his back.
Harry hears more than he sees old Conrad and the other men-at-arms move to support him. Welsh John is out of arrows, but he’s fought alongside these men, and he knows they could bring down a mounted knight together. But three mounted knights … that will take a miracle.
Montagu turns his horse to escape, swearing at Sir Thomas and the others to give him room. The bridge is narrow, though, and Montagu isn’t the only one who wants to turn tail.
‘Go,’ hisses Harry to Conrad and his men. Conrad glances up at him, clearly uncomfortable with the order, so Harry repeats it. ‘Guard the Earl,’ he says.
Then he looks again to the French knight. ‘Why won’t you fight?’ Harry yells.
The Black Knight shifts, and before Harry can react, a pair of arrows fly from his bow, one after the other. They pass terrifyingly close to his left; he feels the wind of their passage and then there’s the slick wet tap of them hitting a body. Someone screams; Nomad half-rears at the sound, striking sparks on the stones of the bridge with his front hooves.
Harry risks a glance over his shoulder. Sir Thomas is leaning strangely on his horse, his weight too far to the rear. Two arrows stick out of his back. The horse itself is trotting in a confused serpentine at the entrance to the bridge, effectively covering the retreat of the Earl’s group with its body.
Harry turns back to the Black Knight. He doesn’t understand any of this: the knight’s strange stillness; his choice of targets—
Harry’s eyes widen and his skin prickles with goosebumps.
His choice of targets.
Sharp and Howland. Two more of the Galloway Dozen.
But not him. The knight has not lifted a hand in battle to Harry, and neither have the rest of the raiders.
‘Who are you?’ Harry says. His voice shakes.
And in front of him Harry doesn’t see a knight, but a starving little ball of Scottish fury in a cage, hissing that his name is Lord Death. Threatening to kill every one of his captors, despite being too weak to stand.
But the Black Knight only raises his hand to his helmet in salute, and spins his big destrier around in a showy pirouette before riding away. His two vassal knights follow him.
A lump rises in Harry’s throat. He wants to ride after him. He wants to shout the name that’s never left his heart, but he’s too aware how voices carry in the morning stillness.
Montagu would hear.
Harry sheaths his sword. He turns back, wearily collecting Sir Thomas’s horse and binding the dead man over his saddle. They walk up the river to the next crossing, and over, as dawn paints Flanders’ farmlands in hues of rose and gold. All is peaceful, all is calm. As if the terror and death of the night before had never happened.
A rabbit flashes across the road. Nomad, usually rock-solid, shies, and Harry feels his heart beat faster. He hates this deadly inaction, this strange halfway existence between waiting and war.
He hates not knowing who his enemies are.
Harry catches up with Montagu and the rest of their once-proud force outside Ghent. He’s glad to discover that most of the men-at-arms and young knights made it out of the forest, with nearly all the horses.
Montagu’s proud army of three hundred limps back into the Antwerp camp only fifty strong. They never made it into France.
Harry spends the next month going out for long rides alone, each time angling Nomad southwards towards France. It’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even go beyond Ghent. There’s no way French knights would be this far into Flanders. But he hopes. His eyes bore into the shadows of barns, looking for blackened armour, dark hooves.
But there is nothing. Just bored, fly-bitten cows and wary milkmaids.
After the rides, deep into sleepless nights, Harry’s mind fills with plans, each of them more ridiculous than the last. He’ll find the King, alone. Tell him that he thinks Iain is still alive. He’ll ride to France and surrender himself and ask for the Black Knight. In the strict light of morning, all these fantasies wither away, their mad nature exposed. But he feels he must do something. If only to prove to himself that he hasn’t gone insane.
Harry is summoned by Montagu on a brilliant sunny day in late May.
He steps into Montagu’s tent to find the usual crew of bully boys, plus one extra: a priest, ferret-faced and richly robed.
Montagu smiles at Harry without any warmth at all and indicates he should take a seat. ‘We are here to solve a mystery,’ Montagu says to the assembled group. ‘My friend Père Auguste has come to help. He is a regular at the French court.’
The priest fidgets, clearly displeased to be in the English camp. Harry wonders idly if the man is being bribed or blackmailed. Or perhaps a little of each, knowing Montagu.
‘Now, let’s begin,’ Montagu says, leaning back in his chair and gesturing lazily at the priest. ‘This Black Knight. Tell me about him. I want to know everything.’
‘He appeared a couple of years ago,’ the priest says, his Parisian French shaded with an unpleasant, nasal twang. ‘Nobody knows anything. His men are mercenaries: redshanks, Genoese, Germans. Desperate sorts of men,
