‘Thank you, Father,’ Harry says.
‘And perhaps it’s time for you to start looking for a wife,’ Father Gilbert smiles. ‘How old are you now? Twenty?’
‘Nineteen, Father,’ Harry says.
He rides out to his forest pond afterwards and confesses fully to God, kneeling on the rock, begging for forgiveness.
And as he looks over the still, quiet waters of the pond, he thinks perhaps Father Gilbert is right. Perhaps the companion his heart cries out for is a wife, not a brother.
Then he lies back on the rock in the sunshine and does the other thing he comes to the pond for. The second reason he needs a private place, beyond the solar he shared with his mother and a rotating bevy of female servants. Because, he thinks, as he unlaces the front of his breeches, Ave Marias are all very well, but they don’t ease the frustration that’s been simmering under his skin since he got back from Scotland.
He pulls out his cock and begins to stroke himself, closing his eyes and imagining the curvy, coiffed women of the King’s court slipping out of their dresses, beckoning to him. His cock fattens into hardness surprisingly quickly, and it’s not long until he is arched off the rock, sucking his breath in through gritted teeth and trying to stifle his moans as he fucks up into his own hand. The fantasy of courtly beauties in his mind shatters into confused fragments: his hands fisted in dark hair; wet, ferocious open-mouthed kisses; and strong legs wrapped around his waist. Harry comes hard, grunting his release, the orgasm almost painful in its intensity. He keeps his eyes shut until the waves of pleasure shudder to a stop and he lies panting on the mossy rock, his head feeling clearer than it has in weeks.
Iain tries again a few days later.
They’re on their horses. Iain wears the longer manacles on his legs, the chain tucked over Numbles’ back behind the saddle. Harry unconsciously leads them north through dale and lane, until he realises they’re heading towards the pond, to the secret place he’s never even considered showing another person. He pulls up, surprised at himself, and waves for Iain to stop too so he can decide whether he’s truly ready to share with Iain something so … private.
But Iain doesn’t stop. Instead he digs his heels in and Numbles lurches into a canter. Harry is momentarily amazed that Iain managed to coax Numbles out of a trot, when Iain kicks the big horse into a gallop and reins him sharply east towards the Exeter road.
Harry swears, spurring Star to follow. Star flattens her ears and neck and darts forwards into her fast, ground-eating gallop and then both of them are racing down a narrow, hedge-lined lane, the big lumbering roan and the quicksilver bay palfrey.
Harry is gaining on Iain and yells at him to stop, that he’ll never outrun them. Iain glares briefly back at Harry, his face a mask of savage determination. But Harry isn’t a fool; he gave Numbles to Iain for a reason, and the reason is that Numbles is possibly the laziest horse in the county. Numbles is galloping, after a fashion, but it’s slower than Star can canter, and Star is rapidly catching up.
Harry’s already planning how he’s going to lean out and grab Numbles’ reins (and possibly smack Iain on the back of the head on the way past) when Iain pulls an eating knife out of his clothes and stabs Star in her shoulder. The palfrey shies hard, skittering sideways into the hedgerow. Harry stays in the saddle but reins her up so she doesn’t injure herself further. He looks down. The knife is embedded in Star’s shoulder a couple of inches, blood sluggishly welling around the blade. Harry has never been so furious.
And Iain has a brief, glorious few moments of freedom, grinning back at Harry, fiercely proud of his own cleverness, before Numbles decides to investigate a tasty-looking tuft of grass he’s glimpsed. The horse plants his big hooves, and Iain goes flying over his head into a drainage ditch.
Harry dismounts, shaking with anger. He straddles the ditch and pulls Iain out by his hair until they’re face to face. Iain visibly blanches at Harry’s expression of fury.
‘Do. Not. Ever. Stab. My. Horse. Again,’ Harry growls, glaring at the wet, muddy boy. ‘I don’t mind you trying to escape, but think up better plans.’ Then he hauls Iain by the upper arm over to Numbles, throws him over the roan’s back like a sack of oats, and they limp back to Dartington Manor. They make swift progress, if only because Numbles always moves faster towards his stall than away from it. Star hobbles along as best she can, each painful step causing Harry’s stomach to churn in rage.
Halfway back, Harry stops Numbles.
‘What,’ Iain says, his voice flat.
‘I just want you to know that I’m giving up on you,’ Harry hisses. ‘I’m tired of trying to get somewhere with you. You just use us. You use me and you use Annie, and we’re not even people to you, are we? We’re just things to manipulate so you get what you want.’
Iain squirms uncomfortably, trying to avert his face, but Harry grabs his chin and forces the boy to look at him. ‘I’m done,’ Harry says. ‘Congratulations. I hope that’s what you wanted.’
When they arrive back at Dartington, Harry doesn’t even chain Iain up to the weight in the solar himself. He has Kit and Piers do it while he and Brown Peter clean Star’s wound. It’s a straight cut into the muscle, neither long nor deep, the sort of thing he’s seen destriers come back from perfectly all the time. But Star isn’t a destrier, and hasn’t been trained to the noise or pain of
