Iain throws his head back as Harry bites into the muscles at the back of his neck. His eyes are shut and his mouth hangs open in a sort of erotic disbelief, and he whispers, ‘Harry—’ as his body begins to shake and clench. Harry thrusts into him as far as he can, and holds him, against everything, against all the people coming for them, wraps him in his arms and drags his lips up his neck and thrusts shallowly into him, trying to stave off his own orgasm so he can watch the beauty of Iain falling over the edge, until Iain’s body contracts just right around him and Harry falls too, without a sound.
Iain comes back to his senses first, and eases himself around so he can sling his arms about Harry’s waist and stand, kissing him gently, stroking his face, as if marvelling in his very existence. He smiles against Harry’s cheek. ‘Making extra work for me, cleaning tack,’ he murmurs playfully.
Harry pinches his hip. Then he frames Iain’s face with his hands. ‘Come back to the solar,’ Harry begs. ‘Stay with me.’
‘On the pallet, like a good squire?’ Iain says, and Harry can hear the sarcasm in his voice.
‘Yes,’ Harry says, kissing the tender spot under Iain’s ear in apology. ‘For now. I can’t shake the feeling we’re being watched. That there are spies in the hall.’
Nobody notices, or nobody comments, when Harry comes in midway through dinner, saying that Iain still isn’t done putting away the new hay and wants to finish before he eats.
Iain is back with Harry at supper that evening, and again in the solar afterwards, on his pallet, the two of them quietly talking about everything and nothing late into the night.
There’s snow the next morning, stealing across the moor silently in the low hours before dawn and cloaking the rolling fields of Dartington in white. The estate explodes into holiday spirit. Everyone is in a cheerful bustle of decorating and cooking and making last-minute gifts.
Harry checks at least once a day that his present for Iain is still where he hid it. The perfume-seller wasn’t the only merchant to get his coin at Windsor.
He hasn’t touched Iain since the day in the stables, not as lovers touch, barely as friends do. It’s difficult, not to press in closer, to reach towards Iain’s warmth. Even at night they remain chaste. Iain hasn’t said anything. Harry knows he owes him an explanation and he’s going to give one, as soon as he can formulate anything beyond I’m scared.
A little part of Harry thought that because what they had between them blazed so hot and sudden, if they just indulged it a little bit, it would gutter out by itself. Yet the flame only increases as the days pass, and Harry fears it will burn him up until nothing is left.
He’s profoundly thankful that it’s Christmas, when there’s more than enough seasonal distractions to ignore the problem until the New Year. And then there’s the list of royal tournaments in January, starting in Dunstable on the 16th and then carrying on solidly through March. He needs to practise, and he needs to finish training Iain up as his squire.
They start sparring again. It helps.
They drink too much at supper on Christmas Eve when the whole estate staggers tipsy down the lanes to Dartington Church, bellowing carols in English and other languages, to listen to Father Gilbert give Midnight Mass.
They drink too much again at Christmas Dinner and Harry hands out the gifts. For most of the estate, warm tunics and cloaks, courtesy of the King’s largesse. For Annie, a new dress, and the bottle of perfume. Annie in return gives Iain a shirt she’s made him, a dead copy of his Scottish one, but in the King’s pale blue linen with red embroidery, and a cloak in the Scottish style made from the dark purple wool that Kit had so admired.
Iain puts on the shirt and cloak and, before he can react, Annie snatches up his old tattered shirt and throws it in the fire. He cries out his dismay, though falls quiet when Harry hands him a package bound in soft leather.
Iain unwraps it, and his eyes widen.
Harry has given him a long dagger, of finest quality steel. It’s plain, a working weapon, not a showpiece, with a simple metal guard and a cord-wrapped handle.
Iain snorts with laughter, shaking his head. ‘Well, that’s one way to get me to leave the kitchen knives alone.’
Harry puts his hand on Iain’s shoulder and says, ‘We trust you, Iain. And I want you to be able to defend yourself if anything happens.’
Iain’s face grows sad. ‘I have nothing for you,’ he says, looking down at the fine clothes on his body, the wicked dagger in his hands, then back up at Harry.
‘You don’t have to give me anything,’ Harry smiles, unbearably fond of him in that moment.
‘I do,’ Iain says, serious.
Harry has a moment to think about how mulishly stubborn Iain is, when he—
When Iain—
—He gets down on one knee.
He is down on one knee and bowing his head before Harry like the graven image of a crusader knight swearing fealty to the cross, and softly he says, ‘I give you myself. I have never knelt for any man, nor did I ever think I would.’ He looks up. ‘This is all I have to give. Please accept it.’
There’s silence in the hall. Harry doesn’t know what to say. He reaches down and tugs on Iain’s hand to make him stand up, and says, ‘I don’t think I’m worth it. I’m just—’
Iain rises to his feet with a catlike grace, and says, ‘That is my decision, not yours.’
Harry’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. ‘I, I will try to be worthy of this honour,’ he
