‘Have you—’ Rabbie says, before the priest interrupts.
‘Both with gold and with threats.’ The priest looks down his large, hooked nose at Ufford. ‘The ones that will speak don’t know, and the ones that know won’t speak.’
‘Who commands him?’ Harry asks.
‘We think he takes his orders directly from the King, but he has never been seen at court,’ says the priest.
‘Dammit. There must be a man behind that helmet, who has a life, who has friends,’ Montagu snarls. ‘Family. Weaknesses.’ He runs his hands over the arms of his chair, to the eagle heads carved at their ends. Only Montagu, Harry thinks, would bring a throne to an army camp. Well, Montagu and the King. Montagu steeples his fingers and continues. ‘Who arrived at court around the time the Black Knight first appeared?’
The priest sighs and gives a great shrug. ‘You don’t understand. Philip has been consolidating his barons and planning for war since your king murdered the Capet boy. We have had so many country knights joining the court, it could be any of them.’
‘We did not mur—’ one of the younger knights, Billy Shayler, begins, but swallows his words at a gesture from Montagu. Montagu never looks at him, just makes a sharp, palm-down cutting motion: silence.
Montagu’s smile grows strained. ‘Well, which of them are not at court right now?’ Montagu asks, as if talking to a child. He indicates Harry. ‘It would be someone his size, good with a sword and a bow. There cannot be many.’
The poor, hapless courtier gestures. ‘We are invading Gascony, milord. Half of them are there. How can we know if one knight rides north instead of south?’
‘You will know.’ Montagu’s eyes narrow. ‘Because I pay you to know. Unless you no longer wish to be paid?’
The priest frowns, and shifts uncomfortably. He indicates Harry with his chin. ‘The only man at court his size is the Comte de Marche, but the Comte is a fop. I don’t even think he owns armour. He throws parties and drinks, that is all. I saw him, passed out drunk in the royal stables, as I was leaving. You must understand—’
‘I understand you are failing me,’ Montagu cuts in, barely above a whisper. ‘That is not a recipe for a long life.’
Harry looks around as the assembled knights cackle at Montagu’s threat. There are seven knights from the Galloway raid left, and all are in the tent at that moment: Montagu, Rabbie, Brendan le Rous, the two Billies (Sir William Shayler and Sir William Lang), Sir Roderick Griffith. And him. They are all enjoying the priest’s discomfort, whispering back and forth what likely punishment Montagu will find for the man if he disappoints. All but Harry.
Harry decides then and there who his enemies are. He is standing in the presence of the man who ordered Iain’s murder. Who gave the order to burn Dartington. A man who bent the fortunes of an entire country towards war because he wanted the lands and profit that come from fighting it. A man so powerful that Harry will never be able to raise his hand openly against him and survive.
But he can mess with Montagu’s mind.
He half-sits, half-falls onto a bench, and puts his head in his hands.
Montagu glares at him. ‘What’s wrong, Lyon?’
‘What if he is Death?’ Harry whispers. He doesn’t even have to fake looking pale. He’s barely eaten or slept since the attack in the forest. ‘What if there is nothing under that armour?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Rabbie.
‘No. We were cursed,’ Harry says, tugging at his own hair. ‘She cursed us, you know.’
‘Who?’ says Sir Roderick.
Harry glances up, his eyes red with exhaustion. ‘Marguerite. When we killed her.’ His lips twitch into something that could be a smile, but isn’t. ‘I wonder … with the Templars’ Curse so heavy on the Capets … perhaps she was able to throw some of it on us.’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s just … we’re dying, one by one. We of Galloway. Once we were twelve, and now we are seven.’
‘Nonsense,’ grumps Brendan le Rous, a stocky, no-nonsense lord from Chester. ‘That was five years ago. A few of us dying off here and there is to be expected.’
But some of the others look shaken.
Harry stands. ‘I’m going to church to ask forgiveness of my sins. The Devil himself rides after us for the evil we have done.’ He sighs as he goes out the door. ‘Thank God the Capet boy’s murder isn’t also on our souls.’
Then he exits, his little play-act finished, his lines delivered.
The King secures his allies and over the summer their camp swells from a thousand men to nearly twelve times that. Harry can’t help but wonder which ones are French spies. He supposes they’ll find out soon enough.
They ride out in September and lay siege to the bishopric of Cambrai on the Flanders border, hoping to force the French king to come to the aid of his ally. But Philip does not. There is no sign of the French army, even as the English surround the town. No challenge, even as for a fortnight they burn everything within a ten-mile radius. No relief.
Yet also no English victory. The town holds fast behind its walls.
On the morning of the tenth day, Brendan le Rous is found dead in his tent, his throat cut. In his hand are six white feathers. The redheaded camp-follower he had taken to his bed that night has vanished into thin air.
Six feathers. Six knights left.
Even Rabbie looks shaken now. He pulls Harry aside the next night at supper in the King’s tent and says, ‘Look, Harry, you need to stop talking about this. Curses don’t exist. It’s co-incidence. Just coincidence.’
Harry says, ‘Sure, Rabbie,’ and pours both of them another drink.
King Edward crosses into France on the Feast of Saint Denis. It’s a deliberate provocation, invading a country on its patron saint’s feast day,
