Iain just smiles at him, fondly.
They buy two new shields and put an order in for lances, and then get huge plates of roast beef and bread and gravy, and tankards of ale, at an open-air tavern set up right in the middle of the market field. They’re both happy and exhausted and a little drunk, and Harry thinks, gazing at Iain across the table from him, that everything might just turn out well.
Then he hears his name called, from the edge of the tavern enclosure.
It’s Lady Alys de Morton, elegant in a long lavender overtunic with the teal-blue sleeves of her dress underneath showing. She’s walking with two other courtly ladies.
Harry stands up immediately and strides over. The two ladies, a blonde and a redhead, giggle to each other behind their hands.
‘Alys,’ he says. ‘I’d hoped you’d be here.’
‘Harry,’ she admonishes. ‘Everyone is here.’
‘And you manage to look more elegant in the middle of a field than most ladies do at court,’ Harry says, then hastily corrects himself. ‘You all look elegant.’
This causes more giggling from Alys’s friends.
‘We’re late to supper, but I’d love to catch up,’ Alys says. ‘When are you competing?’
Harry smiles, bashful. ‘I’m in the opening mêlée. Fighting against the King, but one can’t have everything.’
‘Ooh,’ Alys says, placing a small, pale hand to her chest. ‘Are you very good?’
‘Just look at him,’ Alys’s blonde friend simpers.
Harry shrugs. ‘I try.’
‘I think I shall place the most enormous bet on you. Don’t lose,’ Alys grins, waving as she and her friends depart with perfect, unhurried footsteps.
Harry turns around to go back to his seat, but Iain and the two new shields are gone.
When Harry gets back to the pavilion and can’t find Iain there either, he begins to panic.
But then he sees the new shields resting against the cart. He looks in the cart, and Iain’s curled up on its rough wood boards, snuggled under his cloak.
He pokes his squire. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Iain.’
Iain glares at him. ‘Leave me alone.’
Harry rolls his eyes. ‘It’s cold out here, there’s a pallet in the tent, and I’m getting you up at Lauds to spar so I suggest you pick the option that allows you decent sleep, rather than spending a miserable night playing martyr in the bottom of a cart. Besides, imagine your devotional pictures. A palm leaf in one hand and the splinter that pierced your bottom in the other.’
Iain sits up, still cocooned in his cloak. ‘I hate you,’ he says.
‘Well,’ Harry mutters, holding open the flap of the pavilion, ‘we’re not here to be nice. We’re here to win. Also, it looks like rain.’
Iain stalks in and throws himself on the small pallet, putting himself as far over to one edge as he possibly can.
Harry sighs and settles down on the other edge.
The rain begins sometime in the middle of the night.
By early dawn, it’s a downpour, the steady drumbeat of rain on the tent canvas; puddles of water encroaching under the edges. And Iain and Harry are tangled up together in the middle of the pallet.
Harry doesn’t know when they both admit to being awake but he’s pretty sure Iain’s been faking sleep for the past half-hour. Of course Harry only knows that because he’s been faking sleep too. He’s spooning Iain, arms around him, leg thrown over him, morning erection slotted against his bottom.
‘Well, then,’ Harry says, rolling away from Iain and sitting up. ‘Let’s get out there and hit each other.’
‘You have got to be fucking kidding,’ Iain says.
‘It’s England,’ Harry replies. ‘Fighting in the rain is an important skill.’
‘So is hiding the dead bodies of Sassenach idiots,’ Iain growls.
Harry flicks the back of Iain’s head with his hand. ‘Come on. Practice swords and the new shields, and the horses. Helmets only. We’ll go bareback and without mail because mud’s a bitch to clean out of the armour.’
Iain looks at him and shakes his head. ‘Only a crazy person makes friends with a boy in a cage,’ he says, as if realising something profound. ‘I should have seen it. Only a crazy person.’
Harry grins. He’s become aware over the past two weeks just how silent Iain is with everyone else. Everyone except him. And it feels like a gift, to have that intelligence, that quiet, sly wit, as his and only his.
He still kicks Iain out into the rain, though.
They strip their shirts down to the waist and grab weapons from where they hang in the tent before riding the horses over to the practice areas. Iain sees that they’re the only ones out there practising and glares at Harry, muttering crazy person.
Harry laughs and knocks him off his horse into a puddle.
Iain clambers back up onto Numbles, muddy and furious, and is about to ride hellbent at Harry when Harry shakes his head. Iain, to his credit, calms himself, and circles Harry, looking for an opening. Then the sparring really starts.
They keep at it until well after the bells toll Prime. The downpour never lets up, but somewhere around halfway through their session both of them forget about the rain and reach the zone where there’s nothing else but the weapon in your hand and the opponent in front of you. By the end of it, they’re both soaked to the bone, Iain’s mêlée skills are passable, and Harry’s ground down on mistakes in his own form until they’re almost gone.
Harry calls things to a halt, sheathing his sword, when a bolt of lightning cracks through the sky. He reaches over, pulls Iain’s helmet off, and ruffles his hair. Iain grins at him, then grabs his wrist and yanks him off Nomad and into the mud.
Harry laughs, and they walk back to the pavilion, their mud-splattered bodies getting not a few stares from squires and knights huddled at the entrances
