Annie gives Harry a questioning look in the hall at supper, her eyes going to the empty place at his left where Iain normally sits. When he visibly sags under her gaze she grabs him and pulls him towards the kitchen to talk. Harry assumes she’ll stop there, but she keeps going, tugging him past the ovens and out the back door.
Once they’re outside, Harry shoots her a puzzled look.
‘I’m not too sure about some of the new kitchen help,’ Annie sighs. ‘Best they don’t know your business.’ She puts a hand on Harry’s arm. ‘Peter told me what happened.’
Harry leans against the stone wall of the manor and shakes his head. Tears are trying to force their way out of him, and he presses his lips together. He won’t cry. Not over this.
He mulls over what to say to Annie for a long time. ‘I thought he could be my friend,’ is all he manages in the end.
Annie doesn’t reply; there’s really not much to say. Iain isn’t their friend. Rabbie was right. He’s the kind of stray dog that will bite you as soon as you’re done feeding it. Instead she just opens her arms and Harry steps in for a hug. ‘Some people you can’t fix,’ she whispers to him, ‘no matter how much you want to.’
Behind them, the kitchen door creaks. Harry looks up, but not in time to see who had been listening in on them.
The silence is mutual now.
Harry leaves Iain chained to the weight in the solar through the Michaelmas celebrations. He handles the affairs of Dartington, goes to church, and has the servants take food up to their Scottish prisoner.
And when Rabbie Ufford’s new squire, a boy called Mark, rides up with an invitation for some sparring at Ordlington Hall, Harry grabs his practice kit and Numbles and rides off across the moor to Ufford’s. When Harry arrives by himself, Rabbie asks, ‘Where’s your dog?’
‘On his chain,’ Harry replies, which gets a big smile from Rabbie and an arm slung around his shoulder. He manages to bear it for about three breaths before stepping away with an apologetic smile.
Harry comes back to Dartington a few days later, tired, sore, and content in the way that only a good, hard fight can provide. He still doesn’t like Rabbie or his cronies, but you don’t have to like a man to swing a blunted sword at him.
Peter waits at the gate with news. Star’s wound became infected from the rusty knife, and she has sickened. They don’t expect her to survive.
Harry goes into her stall. She’s lying down on her good side. She can barely lift her head to greet him, offering only a weak whicker when she sees him. Her bad shoulder is inflamed, oozing a stinking green pus which runs in crusted rivulets down her leg. They’ve lanced it, and bled her, but the pus keeps coming.
Harry stays with her, putting her head on his lap and stroking her cheek, until she falls asleep. Then, finally, he returns to the hall, his mood as black as Hell’s paving stones.
He goes up to the solar to change. He doesn’t even look at Iain as he walks past. Just goes to the bed and starts to strip off his travelling clothes. His knight’s belt comes off first; leather, sword and scabbard hitting the mattress with a dull thunk. Then, as he’s about to pull his shirt over his head, he hears Iain muttering something behind him.
‘What?’ he says, not bothering to turn around.
‘I’m sorry,’ Iain repeats, a little louder. It seems like there is genuine regret in his voice, but Harry is finished with having his own decency used as a weapon against him.
He whirls around, fists balled, and yells at Iain. ‘No! No you’re not. You’re just saying that to get in my good graces so I’ll let you go again.’
Iain’s eyes are wide with shock, but then they narrow and a hollow, nasty grin spreads across his face. ‘You got me,’ he hisses.
‘You killed Star, Iain. She’s going to die, probably by tomorrow night.’ Harry takes a step forwards. ‘Who are you going to hurt next? Annie? Peter? You going to finish off poor stupid Numbles like the knackers wanted to do when he was a colt? Club him on his blind side? You’re only here because the other choice was for you to go to Ufford and he was the sort of boy who’d pull the legs off kittens just to watch them die. But apparently you two deserve each other. Because all you do is hurt people.’
Iain tries to speak, his lips shaping the beginnings of words, but no sound comes out.
Harry waves a hand at Iain in dismissal, strips off the rest of his clothes slightly more violently than necessary, and crawls into bed. ‘Go to hell, Iain,’ he says as he blows out the bedside candle.
Harry’s belongings finally arrive back from the North the next morning. It’s Johann who brings them. Harry is strangely happy to see the man, but not as happy as he is to see Nomad, his big blue roan destrier. Nomad looks more like a pack-horse now, and Harry raises a quizzical eyebrow at Johann. He’s sure that Nomad is carrying more things south than he’d brought north. Especially as he’d only packed a change of clothes, spare hauberk and sword, and his tent.
‘Sir Simon ’parently left you some things in his will,’ Johann explains. ‘It’s what’s taken so long. We’ve been stuck in Salisbury waiting for the lawyers.’
‘Do you know what?’ Harry asks.
‘His armour and swords, and his books.’ Johann shrugs. ‘Nothing important.’
Harry tries to quiet the racing in his chest. He owns books. Books. He thanks Johann profusely, presses some coins into the man’s
