‘Hmph,’ Annie grunts, poking Harry in his stomach. ‘There’s good in that boy. You know I have the sense for these things and I can tell just by looking at him, Harry Lyon. He’ll surprise you.’
‘And the thought of that keeps me awake at night,’ Harry says wearily. ‘In the meantime, make sure he can’t get his hands on any sharp objects, please?’
Harry sits down on the chest and tucks into the cooling mutton and bread. Iain is, as usual, all but inhaling his portion. The meat and loaf is already gone, and he’s making short work of the pie, damson juice and clotted cream trickling down his fingers.
And he’s staring at Harry.
Harry feels his cheeks redden, and ducks his eyes down to his tray.
He’s just finished his own meal when Iain asks, ‘Where are your parents?’ His voice is carefully neutral.
Harry sighs. ‘My father died just before I was born, at Bannockburn. My mother died last month, of the wasting sickness.’ And it’s still— there’s still a hollow ache in his chest when he thinks of her, as if it’s some sort of error that she’s gone. That something’s gone amiss with the world because she won’t be striding through the door, needlework tucked under her arm, a bouquet of flowers in her other hand. Some small part of his mind still thinks that soon he’ll wake up and she’ll be there like always, on the other side of the family bed, embroidery frame propped on her knee, and everything will be right again.
Iain looks down at his empty tray, swabbing up a few pastry crumbs with a finger. ‘My father died of that three winters ago.’
Harry crosses to the bed and strips out of his dusty travelling clothes, tossing the breeches and the tunic to be cleaned later, until he’s down to his braies. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, sitting heavily on the bed. His headache is still throbbing in the front of his head, and he shuts his eyes. ‘I’m sorry about everything.’
Iain shrugs.
‘I’m …’ Harry gestures around the solar. ‘This is us. It’s not very much. I was apprenticed at ten to a Wiltshire knight who had retired from service to the King and I always wondered why he would leave.’ Harry sighs. ‘And now I know. There’s no honour in fighting, is there?’
Iain won’t meet his eyes. He’s looking at Harry, but not at his face.
‘I don’t know why I thought war would be like a tournament … but what we did with you, that wasn’t even war. That was just … slaughter. I don’t understand why. Do you know?’ Harry asks. His voice has stretched to a reedy, desperate thinness by the end, out of energy.
Iain nods, but says nothing. He crawls onto the pallet made up for him, the straw rustling under his weight, and arranges his tattered wool cloak over himself. ‘That makes you nineteen, doesn’t it? If you were born the year of Bannockburn.’
‘It does,’ Harry says, snuffing out the candles near the bed. ‘How old are you?’
‘Seventeen,’ Iain mumbles.
‘Who were they, your people?’ Harry presses, his voice soft in the darkness. ‘Why …’
He doesn’t have the courage, in the end, to say why did it happen? Help me understand. Give me a reason for the evil we did. He just lets his voice trail off into a whisper in the night. ‘Why?’
‘It’s better you don’t know, Harry,’ Iain replies, his voice a tired rasp.
There’s more rustling as Iain gets comfortable in his pallet, about ten feet away from the end of Harry’s bed. Then Iain’s hoarse whisper comes through the darkness again. ‘I remember you standing there, in the hall of my castle. You were taller than the others. I don’t remember much from that night, not much I want to recall, but I remember you. Your sword was clean.’
Harry shuts his eyes and buries his face into his pillow, tries to stem the flood of tears threatening to burst out of him. He doesn’t understand why it means so much to him that Iain knows, that Iain realises he didn’t participate in the slaughter, but it does. It does.
Johann leaves the next morning for Salisbury. He’s hungover again, flushed with it, bleary from too much of Annie’s frankly lethal cider. But he remembers to ask Harry if there’s any message for Baron Montagu.
Harry freezes.
He looks out at the hall, at his people, who he’s sworn to protect. His eyes travel up to the windows of the solar. Iain’s still up there, still chained. Harry had left him with a washbasin and a cloth, and the chamber pot, and told Annie to send up a tray of breakfast for him.
He closes his eyes.
‘No. No message,’ Harry says at last. ‘Not at the moment.’
‘You sure?’ Johann says, clumsily mounting his palfrey. ‘The Baron’ll send Rabbie round to check, otherwise. He probably will anyway, an’ all.’
Harry wipes a hand down his face. The ghost of yesterday’s headache still haunts him, and he’s suddenly aware he needs to phrase his message just right. ‘Tell the Baron that the Scottish boy is being appropriately contained and isn’t causing any trouble.’
Johann snorts. ‘Appropriate containment for that little savage is a wooden box, six feet under a priest.’ He flicks the horse’s reins and she perks to life, twitching her flank and beginning to turn. ‘Dunno why the Baron wants him around,’ the man mutters. ‘Only good Scot’s a dead ’un.’
Harry opens his hands in a gesture of powerlessness. ‘And yet, we both have our orders.’
‘That we do,’ Johann sighs.
Harry slaps the palfrey’s rump. ‘Safe travels, Johann. Thanks for your help on the trip.’
Johann raises an arm in farewell and kicks his horse into a trot. The groan he gives once she hits her stride
