Harry unsheaths his sword, but lets his arm hang by his side. ‘This man belongs to Dartington. Release him.’
The crowd boos, and a rotten cabbage flies near Harry’s head. He hears the low, steely hiss of Iain’s sword leaving its scabbard; out of the corner of his eye he can see the flames begin to catch in the heap of brush. The boy, Wat, is skinny and small like Peter, but with huge eyes, and ears that stick out like jug handles through indifferent, sandy-coloured curls. He looks like he’s been crying for a long time, and his eyes now are fixed not upon Harry, but past him, to Peter. The dry hawthorn and ash branches lay around him in a pyramid, almost to his shoulders. The fire is spreading fast.
Father Francis cocks his head. ‘On whose authority are you here? Dartington ends at yon stream, as you well know, Sir Harry.’
‘This man is ours and his crimes will be tried by us,’ Harry says, his voice firm with command. ‘On whose authority are you here?’
‘On God’s,’ yells Father Francis. He points accusingly at Wat, who is sweating, wincing at the heat around him. A hawthorn branch crackles and pops in the sudden silence. Wat flinches hard. ‘This boy is a sodomite, who refuses to marry his betrothed, and instead lies with men!’
The crowd jeers and hisses at this, and pelts Wat with stones and clods of earth. One sharp rock hits his cheek, opening up a gash almost to the bone.
‘All the same, he is our vassal and he will be tried by us,’ Harry says.
Father Francis stalks towards him, arms wide in theatrical disbelief, his robes flapping like the wings of a carrion crow. ‘And you would stand in the way of the Bible? Because you are a better judge than the Word of God?’
There’s more jeering now, this time directed at Harry. The priest is a weasel, but he knows his audience – and the seething crowd loves nothing more than seeing nobility laid low.
‘Answer me!’ Father Francis shouts. ‘Are you above God?’
‘Fuck this,’ Iain mutters.
And that’s all the warning Harry has before pandemonium breaks loose.
Numbles, for all that Dartington knows he is a lazy, mischievous beast, is still a giant of a horse, huge and intimidating with his scarred-over right eye. And Iain in a coat of slightly too small mail, with the same murderous feral look on his face he’d had in the cage in Scotland, is damn near terrifying. When the crowd doesn’t part for him, he just rides through them, swatting a few across the head with the flat of his sword for good measure. Someone tries to grab Numbles’ reins and the horse bites them, hard. The resulting howl of pain causes the crowd, finally, to skitter back.
‘Stop him!’ screams Father Francis as Iain approaches the fire, Numbles tossing his head in unhappiness at the flames’ proximity.
Harry sheaths his sword and folds his arms. ‘Why don’t you stop him? Seeing as my authority ends at the stream,’ he counters. ‘Or maybe you could ask God to do it.’
Kit and Peter follow Iain, Kit’s bow trained on anyone who tries to get close. The crowd backs off, their anger blanched by their fear. Harry feels more than he sees Piers ride up next to him, fingering his spear.
Iain swings his broadsword and Harry can hear the blade hacking into the post, cutting the ropes binding Wat.
Too weak to stand, the boy falls face-first into the fire.
Peter shouts and slips off his pony, running to his friend. He drags Wat out and Wat is on fire, hair alight, pigshit-covered clothes burning.
‘Roll him!’ yells Kit, but Peter is frozen in terror, staring at the flames dancing around his friend’s head.
Harry dismounts, shouldering Peter aside and all but throwing himself on Wat. He pats out the flames, pressing wet dirt to his head, and then turns him over to make sure no part of him remains alight. Wat’s skin in patches is black and red, burned like overcooked meat. But his fingers close weakly over Peter’s, and a hint of his former irrepressible smile pulls at the corner of his cracked lips.
‘We need to get him out of here,’ Iain says, in French, so only Harry can understand. ‘Both of them need to leave and never come back.’ He’s still on his horse, keeping guard in front of them, glaring at the remaining crowd and Father Francis as if daring them to step forwards.
The crowd doesn’t.
They’re angry, and they’re beyond poor, but they’re not stupid.
Father Francis has his foot in the stirrup of a fat chestnut pony. He glares at them as he mounts up. ‘I know the Sheriff. Soon it will be you tied to that post, Sir Harry,’ Father Francis sneers, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘You will feel the fire of God’s judgement. You and your Scottish savage.’
The Scottish savage spurs his huge horse forwards a few steps, curls his lips into a snarl, and barks at the priest.
Father Francis’s eyes go wide, and he kicks his chubby horse until she’s skittering down the path. He turns back every so often to glare at them.
Harry is riven with terror. He is aware, logically, that Father Francis can’t possibly know about what he and Iain have done, what they were doing that very morning, but part of him is sure that the priest has stared into his soul and seen the black stain of mortal sin spreading across it.
Peter’s snuffle and a low moan of pain from Wat shake him from his thoughts. There are, thankfully, more important things to focus on right now.
Harry picks Wat up in his arms like a child and sets him on Nomad’s
