‘Where have you been?’ the Bishop gasps.
‘Finding the boy,’ Harry says, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, and not like a man who’s just been reunited with the love of his life and then ploughed him senseless several times during the night.
He obviously fails, because the Bishop raises his eyebrows, lets off a prim little, ‘I see,’ and returns to his eggs.
Geoffrey opens his mouth to say something, but Harry interrupts. ‘He’s meeting us, outside Fontainebleau, and he’s willing to come back to Paris with us.’
‘Marvellous,’ says Geoffrey, pushing his plate away. ‘We should get going anyhow. If we stop at the prison on the way back and get Montagu to confess, then there is no recourse. We agree to the ransom and return them to Flanders in time for the King’s arrival.’
Harry smiles as he grabs his things. ‘If you let me take the lead today, I think we’ll be able to surprise Montagu quite a bit,’ he says.
At first, the surprise is on Geoffrey, the Bishop, and their English men-at-arms, as they reach the Fontainebleau gatehouse.
As they pass outside the gates, a mass of darkness, huge and terrifying, silently detaches itself from the shadow of the outside wall. It’s the Black Knight, on his ebony war-horse, shield with its bend sinister slung over his back, sword and dagger at his hips. And Harry remembers Iain’s words: I’ll meet you in my own clothes. Harry shifts in his saddle to quell the low spark in his groin and he thinks, yes, this is his Iain. Not the Comte de Marche with his showy fashions. This is what the Scottish boy was meant to become.
The Black Knight approaches them. Harry notes absently that the horse’s tack is also black, and has been padded so it barely makes a sound. The men-at-arms who saw action on the Flanders border draw their weapons, crying out about an ambush. Even the French courtiers glance uneasily at each other, unsettled by the warlike apparition riding silently towards them.
Harry holds up a hand, and spurs his palfrey between the Black Knight and the jittery, panicking men-at-arms. ‘Stop,’ he says. ‘The Chevalier de la Mort comes in peace, to help us with the negotiations to ransom our two earls.’
The men aren’t mollified, or happy about the situation, but they do sheath their arms. The French aides peek out the corners of their eyes at their war hero, so out of place against the delicate façade of the pleasure palace.
The ride to Paris passes in relative quiet, with the Bishop’s few attempts to speak to the Black Knight met with silence or simple nods or shakes of the head. Harry rides next to Geoffrey, working out a plan as they approach the city.
They reach the prison in mid-afternoon, the sun already low in the sky. The warden begrudges letting them in this late, but a handful of gold gains them an hour with the prisoners.
As the earls are escorted into the meeting room, Harry notes that Montagu and Ufford look almost good. Their clothes are clean, their wounds more healed (though Montagu’s left eye remains milky and sunken), and their bodies show the result of the English contingent’s daily food deliveries.
Montagu’s good eye sweeps over the English men-at-arms lining the sides of the room, then go to the French guards outside the doorway. ‘Did you make progress at Fontainebleau?’ the Earl asks.
‘Eh,’ Geoffrey grimaces. ‘Not as much as we’d hoped.’
‘Why is everything taking so long?’ Rabbie snarls at the little, rumpled lawyer.
‘France,’ Geoffrey sighs. ‘Everything is taking so long because of France.’ He pulls up a bench and sits down. ‘We hoped to petition the King directly last night at Fontainebleau, but we were without luck. My lord, they won’t budge on this accusation that you killed both Marguerite and her son.’
Montagu’s face wrinkles in disgust. ‘It’s lies. They’re just trying to extort money from us, Geoffrey. I didn’t kill Marguerite—’
Technically true, Harry thinks. It wasn’t Montagu’s sword, but it was his orders.
‘—and I have no idea who killed the Scottish boy,’ Montagu declares.
Also technically true, Harry admits. But still. For a moment, he allows himself to admire Geoffrey and Montagu facing off against each other, neither man lying, but each of them occluding the truth to their own advantage.
Montagu looks at Harry. ‘You saw who killed the boy, didn’t you? Haven’t you given your testimony? I thought you told us they were French.’
‘They were wearing fleur-de-lis surcoats,’ Harry says. ‘But alas, they spoke French as Englishmen do. So I have not, in fact, given my testimony.’
Montagu slaps his hands on the wooden table; the manacles round his wrists rattle. ‘Dammit, then, make them show their proof! Because they can’t have any. There is no proof.’
‘How do you know?’ asks Geoffrey, his tone mild, curious.
But Montagu’s response is cut off by a strange, rasping, spectral laugh from the doorway. The room falls silent, all eyes turning to the Black Knight as he steps into the room.
‘And what the hell is he doing here?’ Ufford says.
Montagu glares at Rabbie and shushes him, making a sharp, dismissive gesture with his hands.
‘You want proof?’ the Black Knight rasps, removing his helmet and mail hood in one go. ‘I am your proof.’
Montagu turns white. Words tumble out of him before he can stop them. ‘You’re dead! I had you killed! I saw your body,’ he shouts. ‘You are dead!’
Ufford immediately flushes with terror and covers his face, looking at Montagu through his fingers. ‘Shut up! Shut up, shut up,’ he whimpers.
‘Please identify yourself,’ says Geoffrey, turning to the knight.
‘I am Iain mac Maíl Coluim, Prince of Galloway, son of Marguerite of France, cousin to King Edward of England and King Philip of France. The French charges against Montagu and Ufford are true; I say so as witness to one murder and intended victim of the other.’
‘Well, milord,’ Geoffrey says to Montagu, drily, ‘this is
