‘It’s not regicide! He’s not a king,’ Ufford complains.
‘Considering the very reason we’re all in this Godforsaken country – other than allowing me the chance to take a side trip down to Avignon and visit His Holiness – is because our king is claiming the French throne via descent down the female line, and Iain here has the senior claim, it very much is regicide, I’m afraid,’ says the Bishop.
Montagu pushes himself to his feet. His face is contorted in fury. ‘I did what I had to, to preserve England. Everything I have done is for the good of King Edward. He understands that. He knows that this is also politics. So you can take your morals and your fair play and you can go to hell, because you certainly won’t last very long in this world with them.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Geoffrey says, dusting off his tunic as he stands, ‘I’m afraid we must go and speak to our French opposite numbers.’
But then Montagu glares at the chief of the English men-at-arms, a broad fellow with cauliflower ears, a scarred scalp and a big mace, and says, ‘Slay them. Slay them all and I’ll knight you and give you an estate in Devon, and I’ll set the rest of you up with gold for life.’ The Earl then grins at Geoffrey. ‘Better luck with the next negotiators.’
There’s a moment where everyone glances at each other – Montagu can’t really be doing this, can he? And Harry thinks, of course he can. These men-at-arms have been visiting the prisoner earls daily. They’ve had every chance for Montagu to drip his poison in their ears.
Harry’s right. The nearest man-at-arms to the door kicks it shut and bars it, then they all slide their swords out of their scabbards. Other than the dozen soldiers Montagu has turned, only he and Iain carry weapons. Twelve on two.
Just like old times.
Iain and Harry draw their swords together, and the first man-at-arms hasn’t even started moving forwards before he’s got Iain’s steel in his throat. Iain kicks the man’s body off his sword, sending the dying soldier reeling into two of his compatriots.
Harry ducks under another soldier’s thrust and stabs him in the forearm, nearly severing his hand. He doesn’t have time to think before he has to block a wild slash from another man and then there is nothing but parry and cut and thrust, shoulder to shoulder with Iain, who is fighting with a dagger in one hand and his sword in the other.
The French guards are hammering on the door. Montagu, the coward, has backed against the far wall, but Rabbie flips over the table they were sitting at, kicking it at Iain, trying to knock him off balance. He succeeds, briefly enough that Iain takes a bad hit in the shoulder from the chief’s mace and staggers. Harry manages to dispatch the man with the mace, with a sword through his mangled ear, you’ll get Dartington over my cold dead body, but he can’t stop Rabbie from throwing the chain of his wrist manacles around Iain. Rabbie tightens the chain around Iain’s throat, trying to choke him.
There are too many men-at-arms, and Harry has Geoffrey and the Bishop of Lincoln behind him, unarmed. He can’t leave them open to attack. Harry thrusts and parries and swears as a blade gets him in the thigh and something else punches him in the gut and knocks the air out of him. Then out of the corner of his eye he sees Rabbie fly over Iain’s head and land on his back on the floor with a sickening krak.
Iain is across the room in a matter of moments, his dagger-point pressing into the sagging flesh under Montagu’s chin. ‘Stop!’ Iain hisses in his rough whisper. ‘Put down your weapons.’
‘He’ll kill Montagu, you fools! Stop fighting! You’ve lost!’ Geoffrey calls out.
Harry sidesteps in the confusion and unbars the door, letting in the French guards and a very furious warden.
‘What’s gone on here?’ screams the warden.
‘Minor inter-English disagreement, my apologies,’ Geoffrey says, gently righting the table that Rabbie had kicked over. ‘All sorted now.’
‘Yes, we’ll just be going,’ huffs the Bishop.
Iain merely smiles down at Montagu and, very gently, traces the point of his dagger along Montagu’s throat, up his cheek and over his bad eye. It leaves a long red thread of welling blood. ‘Something to remember me by,’ Harry thinks he hears Iain whisper. Then he sheaths his weapons and strides to where his discarded helmet lies on the floor.
‘My work has brought England from desolation to near greatness,’ Montagu hisses. ‘Without me, the country will fall to pieces again. You are all fools.’
‘Perhaps,’ Harry says as they leave Montagu and Ufford and the traitorous men-at-arms in the hands of the warden. ‘But I’d rather be a fool than a felon.’
They reach terms with the French the very next day. Crippling, bankrupting terms, but terms nonetheless.
News comes that Edward has returned to Antwerp, defeating the French fleet en route. The Bishop heads south, to Avignon, but Harry’s party swells by four as they travel northeast to Flanders: Iain joins them. He rides as the Black Knight, and brings with him three of his loyal knights. (The fourth, the Chevalier Louis Ney, is spending time with his newborn son.)
They reach Antwerp after a lazy four-day ride across France and then another three days through Flanders. Iain rides in a daze, confessing to Harry one night that he’s lived so long for vengeance, he’s finding it strange to figure out what’s next, what there is other than the hunt. ‘It will take me a while to believe it’s really over,’ Iain whispers, in the darkness.
‘It is,’ Harry says, stroking his fingers along Iain’s back. ‘You won.’
‘Mm,’ Iain mumbles. ‘Just … I feel odd. I don’t know what to do, now that I’m not angry
