Harry raises an eyebrow.
Captain Wekesa sighs. ‘Not all men adjust to life on a sailing ship. I have a cousin, Jed, crewing with me at the moment. The sea and his stomach refuse to come to an understanding. He was a herdsman, in his past life.’
‘What did he do?’ Harry asks.
‘Murdered a man,’ Captain Wekesa replies, evenly.
‘Did he deserve it? The man?’ Iain says.
‘Yes,’ the captain says, firmly and without hesitation. ‘But the man had powerful friends, and our home, Zanzibar, is a small island.’ Then he turns. ‘Jed,’ he calls out.
A large black man, his skin several shades darker than Wekesa’s, climbs up the ladder from the rowing boat. ‘Yes, Captain,’ he says.
‘Does he speak English?’ Harry asks.
‘No,’ Jed replies directly. ‘French and Arabic and our own language. There’s not much use for English at sea. And the cows don’t care what language a man speaks.’
Iain suppresses a laugh. Harry glares at him, then steps forwards, extending his hand to Jed. ‘Harry Lyon, lord of Dartington Manor. We have sheep, pigs, cows, goats and various fowl. The crops are mostly wheat and beans, though we’ve an apple orchard too.’
The man’s hand is strong and firm in Harry’s as he shakes it. ‘Jelani Wekesa. They call me Jed on the boat. Sheep are new to me, but I grew up looking after the rest.’
‘You’ll have to learn English. The only other French speaker on the estate is this one,’ Harry says, indicating Iain.
‘I apologise in advance. English is a cursed and confusing tongue,’ Iain says to Jed. ‘Its only use is swearing.’
‘Well, to a speaker of High Court French, of course everything else sounds terrible,’ grins Captain Wekesa. ‘Don’t they strip away your title if you admit otherwise, milord … ?’
Iain salutes. ‘Iain mac Maíl Coluim. His squire.’
Captain Wekesa catches the wry twist to Iain’s words and makes a face that rests somewhere between amusement and shock. ‘Whoa, there’s some history there, and would you look at the tide. We must be off. Jed? Would you stay?’
Jed’s brown eyes sweep over their small group, lingering on Harry and Iain. He nods, slowly. ‘If they’ll have me.’
‘Grab your things,’ Harry says.
Wat’s rescue is the gossip of the surrounding area for the next few days. As Harry gets Jed settled in with the livestock, he begins to hope the event will pass without recriminations.
It does not.
Three days after the Halygast slips out to sea, a harbinger arrives at Dartington at mid-morning, announcing the impending arrival of the Bishop of Exeter, the High Sheriff of Devon and Father Francis Osgood for an overnight visit.
The terrors return. Harry is convinced, in his heart, that they have come to arrest him, and punish him for the very crime that Wat had committed. Someone in the hall has seen them, and told Rabbie for a pocketful of silver.
Iain takes one look at the way Harry is avoiding him, and quietly moves his pallet into the stables’ hayloft.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry mumbles later at dinner.
Iain inclines his head and goes to sit with Kit and Jed, who have become fast friends despite having only a few shards of English in common.
The guests arrive as Annie is placing big pots of mutton frumenty on the table, thick with carrots and parsnips. The Bishop is a rough-hewn bantam of a man in his late twenties, richly dressed, and he looks down his sharp nose on their humble hall as if it’s soiled his shoes. The bishopric is often a political appointment, though it must be approved by the Pope in Avignon, and Harry guesses by the man’s youth that he probably hasn’t risen up through the Church by holy merit.
The political bishops go one of two ways. Some are content with their status as a figurehead, enjoying their temporal rewards while they leave the Church’s extensive administration to attend to sacred matters in peace. Others are plagued by a certain inadequacy, and resolve to show the lumbering, gilded leviathan of the Church that they deserve their position, and its respect. The Church, which in its thousand years has seen men like this come and go, slumbers on, no more bothered than an elephant by a flea. Yet the common people of the parish, with their three score years or less, they suffer.
Harry knows immediately what sort of man this bishop will be.
Rabbie strides in behind the Bishop, and Harry notices a certain resemblance in the sharp angles of their faces. He remembers then that the Bishop is a cousin of Rabbie’s. Father Francis stalks in too, grinning in triumph.
Harry slips into his role as lord of the manor easily, smiling a welcome he doesn’t feel and bringing the noble visitors up to his table at the top of the hall.
He doesn’t miss how Rabbie’s eyes widen when they alight on Iain, rising up from his place at that top table, or how Iain glares at the man in tightly controlled fury as he stalks past them to see to their horses.
‘You sure it’s such a good idea to keep your monsters that well fed?’ Rabbie murmurs to Harry, under his breath.
‘I do indeed,’ Harry smiles mildly, waiting as the Bishop arranges his gold-embroidered robes in preparation for sitting. ‘Makes them all the more effective when I let them off their chains.’
‘What?’ the Bishop says, his brow furrowing at the exchange.
‘My squire is Scottish,’ Harry says, taking his own seat and gesturing between Rabbie and himself. ‘Both Sir Robert and I have lost fathers and friends to the Scottish campaigns. They are … savage fighters.’
‘And yet you let this wolf in your house?’ the Bishop says, his voice climbing in surprise.
‘Fate makes fools of us all,’ says Harry. He switches to English at Father Francis’s angry stare. ‘And to what does our modest hall owe the honour of your visit, Your Excellency?’
‘Your standing in the way of God’s judgement,’
