The King and Queen sit down. A flute sounds, and musicians file out as servants unroll a large tapestry of the hunt along one wall.
Twelve men step in front of it, costumed as rare birds in feathered tunics and elaborate masks that cover their entire heads. As the music begins, they flow into an elaborate dance, posing at certain intervals into clever and picturesque tableaux.
‘Who are they?’ whispers Harry to the Chevalier de Rochefort.
‘The young quality,’ Rochefort whispers back. ‘Mostly the sons of France’s great dukes and counts, plus some relatives of the King.’
It’s hard to see anything specific about the dancers. The feather tunics are split down the sides, but reach at the front to each dancer’s knees. The headdresses cleverly obscure the actual height and physique of the wearer.
Harry points to what appears to be the tallest dancer, who wears the mask of the black swan and dances with an easy elegance. ‘And who is that one?’
‘Ssh,’ Rochefort says, pulling away. ‘They introduce all the participants when the game is over.’
Harry finds his eyes can’t leave the black-clad dancer. Something in the way he moves is achingly familiar. He wonders, if after all these years, it will really be this easy. That Iain is here, at the French court, warm and safe and alive, participating in the ludi like any proper young nobleman of his class.
The dance ends and, after the applause, the dancers reveal themselves. The black swan takes off his headdress to reveal dark, Moorish skin and brown eyes.
Harry briefly lets his heart grieve for its little fantasy, before turning to Rochefort and asking for more wine.
At that moment, Harry hears the great hall door opening. The King looks up, a broad smile crossing his face. ‘Cousin, you are late as usual,’ King Philip calls out fondly. There’s the answering laughter and calls of a group of bright people, high on their own youth and the possibilities before them.
Rochefort whispers in his ear, ‘The Comte de Marche, and sober for once, it appears.’
Harry turns in his seat to look at the group, but in the end he doesn’t notice them, the young lords and fashionable ladies preening their way down the main aisle like a muster of peacocks.
Because there, in the middle of them all, is Iain.
Iain is in brown and scarlet, his jacket belted low and a little longer and looser than the skintight styles of his friends. His hose are scarlet silk, so fine they are almost transparent, and his long hair falls in waves to his shoulders.
Harry starts shaking, his breath too shallow, not enough.
He watches Iain as he struts towards the King, that rolling limp-strut he’s had since Ufford broke his leg so many years ago, when Harry was innocent but thought himself wise.
Iain has lost the fullness of youth in his face and it’s now all angles and shadows, framed by his jacket’s high neck. He is so beautiful it’s painful. Harry watches him kiss King Philip’s cheek, watches how Iain’s scarlet hood slips as he bends over. His body is not the body of an idle, drunken court fop, Harry thinks to himself, despite the clever drape of his clothes to hide the breadth and strength in his shoulders, the slight fullness in the sleeves to disguise the thickness of arms used to wielding a broadsword. His knight’s belt accentuates the slimness of his hips, and his long jacket disguises the power in his thighs.
Harry presses a hand to his chest, willing his heart to slow its gallop. He is drawn like a magnet to Iain. Everything in him tells him to stand up, to go to his love, but he can’t. They are separated by a gulf of a hundred yards and five social classes. Harry deliberately looks down, fixing his gaze on his splayed hands on the table, trying to calm himself.
‘Harry?’ says Geoffrey, quietly.
‘Uh,’ Harry replies, glancing up at the lawyer and switching to English. ‘That’s him, in the brown and scarlet. With the King.’
Geoffrey merely smiles at him, his gaze travelling slightly above Harry’s eyes.
And Harry suddenly knows that Iain is right behind him. He can feel the warmth of another person at his back, and it could be anyone. But he knows it isn’t. When a gentle hand falls on his shoulder it’s all he can do not to jump right out of his skin. Instead he turns and looks up, his eyes meeting pale-silver ones. There are lines at the corners of them that weren’t there before, Harry thinks.
They both stare at each other for a long moment, speechless. Iain’s friends call to him, ‘Jean, come here, leave the Roastbeefs alone.’ They’re eager to bring him back to their little party, and Iain acknowledges them with a wave. As he reaches over Harry for their wine jug, he whispers, ‘Later.’
Iain snags the wine jug, then struts back to his group, calling out in a rough, low rasp, ‘I wanted to see the English.’
‘And steal their wine,’ calls back one of the girls.
Iain shrugs and smiles. ‘It’s wasted on them. I hear they only love beer.’
Iain’s voice disturbs Harry. It’s not the same; he should have a beautiful, soft baritone, not this sandpaper, this scrape of rusty hinges.
Harry couldn’t say how the rest of the dinner passes. He makes appropriate noises at appropriate times, and tries not to stare at the young, fashionable group surrounding Iain. Though, at one point, the Bishop has to rap him over the knuckles with his eating knife, after Harry’s mind (and eye) wanders too long.
The Chevalier de Rochefort, to his right, seems amused by all of it, and steadfastly dodges Harry’s questions about the Comte de Marche. ‘Oh, we see him at court. He’s very popular. No,
