He also has Ralf forge a set of manacles with a longer chain that Iain can wear on horseback, the chain looped behind him on the saddle. Harry had originally hoped he could unchain Iain while riding. Star can easily outpace both Numbles and Iain, but Harry is growing to respect the Scottish boy as an opponent and decides not to hand him an easy opportunity for escape.
Numbles and Iain come to a grudging understanding, and Iain stops insulting Numbles to his face after the horse ‘accidentally’ steps on Iain’s foot. (Harry thinks that perhaps Numbles understands Gaelic.) Harry still can’t tell if Iain enjoys their rides but, like the sparring, he’s always offered a choice, and he never says no.
Harry also notices the carrots and apples that Iain sneaks Numbles when the boy thinks nobody is watching.
A week later, the afternoon before the start of harvest, while the kitchen is overloaded preparing bread and pies to eat in the fields the next day, Iain steals another knife.
Harry isn’t so easily fooled this time. He notices the shifty way Iain acts that evening, his right hand lurking near his back as he watches Harry.
Harry makes him give the knife back.
‘Go to sleep,’ Harry growls, placing the knife under his own pillow. ‘You’re going to spend the next week working sun-up to sun-down in the fields like everyone else, and if you stay up half the night trying to lift that hunk of iron, you’ll have only yourself to blame when you drop dead on your feet by afternoon.’
Iain mutters darkly in Gaelic but, for once, does what he’s told.
At Lauds, the sun just breaking over the horizon, Harry drags a half-asleep Iain to the home fields and shoves a scythe into his arms. Iain’s eyes take in the nimble, wickedly hooked sickle tucked into Harry’s belt, and travel along the crowd of similarly equipped vassals at the edge of the field. He frowns, hefting the heavy, clumsy implement in his hands. ‘Why do I get this?’ he grumbles.
Harry shakes his head. ‘You know why, Iain.’ Then he notices that Iain is still looking at the scythe in confusion. ‘You have harvested before, haven’t you?’ Harry asks.
Iain blushes, and bites his lip.
Harry sighs, and hands his sickle to Annie’s cousin Kit to hold. He takes the scythe back from Iain. ‘Watch and learn, Your Majesty.’
Kit snorts with laughter. Iain crosses his arms and pouts disdainfully.
Harry steps forwards and swings the scythe in a low arc. It’s the official beginning of the harvest, the lord of the manor taking first cut, and a cheer rings out across the fields as everyone else begins. The wheat falls with a whush-shush sound that’s like a lullaby to Harry’s soul, a song of the turning seasons that he’s known as long as he can remember.
‘You want to aim as close to the ground as you can,’ he explains, breathless with effort. ‘After we thresh the wheat, we’ll use the stalks as winter straw. Keep going straight and even to the end of the field; I’ll be working to your left, and the women will follow behind and gather.’ He hands the scythe back to Iain. ‘Try to use your hips and legs and shoulders, not your lower back, or you’ll regret it tomorrow.’
He indicates for Iain to begin. Iain narrows his eyes at him and shuffles forwards. Harry’s left him in the longer leg irons, the riding ones, since he’ll need more mobility for swinging the scythe.
The sun is barely up and it’s already hot. As Harry unlaces his shirt and pushes it down to his waist, he feels mildly guilty that he’s given Iain the heaviest harvest tool they have, when he already has to walk in leg irons. But an exhausted Iain is an Iain less likely to murder anyone. Given what a hectic time the harvest is, Harry has no qualms about playing dirty if it helps them all survive the week.
It takes eight days in the end, just for the wheat, and they’re all nut-brown and bone-sore by the end of it. Iain turns out to be the sort who gets freckles in the sun, and Harry watches them bloom over his shoulders and back as he works, first constellations of them, then galaxies, his skin getting not so much tanned as all his freckles merging together. Copper highlights appear in his dark hair, which Annie ties back for him in a twist so it stays out of his eyes as he works.
Iain never complains, never refuses, even though the work is back-breakingly hard. Every night they return to the hall at sunset, asleep on their feet. Iain is out as soon as his head touches the pallet, and Harry is never far behind.
They sleep through the Sabbath, and then the following day everyone who didn’t cut wheat moves on to the bean fields and the threshing. On Tuesday afternoon there’s a feast to celebrate the successful harvest. They’re a week shy of Michaelmas and everything is in safely. There will be food for the winter and extra for the market, and the villages and manor breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Annie brings out a new batch of cloudy cider and they roast mutton over pits and there’s special bread, made with the very wheat they’ve just harvested, the first ears to fall, gathered specially and threshed first and ground.
Harry explains this to Iain as he breaks the braided loaf that Annie had put in front of them. ‘This is made from the wheat of the home field, the wheat that you and I cut on the first day. It’s good luck.’
Iain looks at the ragged-edged half-loaf that Harry extends to him, and then takes it in his hands, examining it. The boy’s eyes are curiously bright, and Harry can’t tell what he is feeling. ‘It’s, uh, good,’ Iain mumbles at last, tearing off a piece and cramming it into his
