But he has no choice, so he presses on.
He doesn’t know if it’s his imagination or not, but Iain does seem less combative over the next few weeks. He behaves at the feast on Saturday, and even parrots back a few words of English that various villagers try to teach him.
Harry drags him to Mass on Sunday and is forced to endure Iain sitting in the front pew with him and eye-rolling his way through Father Gilbert’s Latin. (It’s one of the few times Harry has been grateful for Father Gilbert’s poor vision.) ‘It’s not that bad,’ Harry whispers to Iain.
‘It bloody well is,’ he hisses back.
‘Because you’re a Latin scholar on top of everything else,’ Harry replies.
Iain crosses his arms and slumps in the pew. ‘Of course I understand Latin, Harry. Do I look like I was raised in a barn?’
Harry raises a judgemental eyebrow at the threadbare Scottish leine Iain still wears, and his messy long hair. Iain has steadfastly refused to don English clothing, beyond borrowing Harry’s old pair of chausses for riding. (Harry notices they’re not quite so loose as before; Iain’s ribs and hip points are no longer standing out so sharply, and when he prays he asks God to bless Annie and her family.)
The days fill up with the estate’s business for Harry, as a newly minted lord at nineteen. The first sign is a vassal from the upper bean fields, clutching his hat one morning in the hall and accusing his neighbour of stealing turnips out of his garden. That opens the floodgates of a summer’s worth of unresolved disputes and simmering feuds around the manor, all of which Harry must settle by Michaelmas. He wonders how his mother did it all, how she managed to be so sure and confident in her decisions. For him, it feels most of the time that the judgement he metes out is arbitrary, a blind guess as to which vassal is telling the truth and which is lying. If, indeed, either of them is telling any truth at all.
Iain starts spending mornings in the kitchen while Harry is out mending fences both physical and metaphorical. He charms Annie and Katie into teaching him English phrases, and eats everything within reach. They become used to his presence, and turn their backs on him.
He steals a knife.
Harry doesn’t find out about it until the blade is pressed to his stomach, Iain plastered against his back and grabbing for the key to his leg irons that hangs on a cord around Harry’s neck.
Hot rage blazes in Harry’s chest, a fury born of betrayal, and he twists, getting inside Iain’s reach and throwing the boy over his shoulder onto the stone floor. Harry is much broader and stronger than Iain and he uses every bit of the power in his massive frame when he takes Iain down. He doesn’t even feel bad when the leg chain snaps tight, yanking cruelly at Iain’s ankle.
Iain hits the flagstones hard, cracking an elbow, splitting a lip. The knife clatters out of his grip across the floor.
Harry picks up the knife and looks over at Iain, still sprawled on the floor. Iain glares up through his hair at Harry, insolently licking the blood off his lip. And Harry thinks about what Iain said that morning they first went riding: in my family, murder and betrayal are commonplace.
Harry realises how little he really knows about the boy. And how masterfully Iain is manipulating him and everyone else at Dartington. He was a fool to think he could befriend someone like Iain. Harry grinds his teeth and walks out of the solar without a word.
He leaves Iain there for the rest of the day.
Piers waves at him cheerfully as he stalks across the hall towards the kitchens and calls out, ‘You and Iain going to spar today?’
Harry whirls at him, muscles tensed and a string of curses on the tip of his tongue. Piers blanches, eyes widening. He is slight and so fair as to seem under-cooked, a good eight inches shorter than Harry. Harry realises he’s looming over the boy, fists balled. He backs off, ducking his head in apology and raising his hand. The hand that still has the knife in it. ‘I’m sorry, Piers. It’s nothing. Not today. Iain’s not feeling well.’
‘Oh. You want me to go and keep him company?’ Piers asks.
‘No. It. Uh,’ Harry stutters. ‘It might be catching.’
He turns tail and stalks towards the kitchen, avoiding everyone else’s gaze. Then he slaps the knife down on the kitchen table and tells Katie and Annie in no uncertain terms how close their lapse in attention came to fetching him a blade between the ribs.
That night, Harry is pretty sure Iain is only faking sleep, his eyes shut and his body still. Well after midnight, he’s proved correct. From the pallet come quiet sounds of exertion, and the muffled chink of a chain wrapped in a ratty old cloak so it won’t make a noise.
Harry squints into the gloom. Iain is trying to move the weight at the end of his chain. Harry’s lip twitches. He can barely lift that weight. There’s no chance of Iain, skinny and small as he is, shifting it.
In the coming days, Harry continues to spar with Iain, more for his own sake than the boy’s. His life seems to be an endless grind of frustration at the moment, full of squabbling vassals, mounting debts and a Scottish serpent in his home. It feels good to hit things.
He doesn’t force Iain to fight. Every morning he offers Iain a choice, and Iain never refuses. The boy is getting better, too. He’s a fast learner, and turns out to have a patience and tactical cunning that matches his ferocity. He’s still nowhere near an even match for Harry, and still doesn’t understand the concept of retreat, but Harry finds himself having to work for
