‘I would never do anything to besmirch your honour,’ Harry says, his stomach churning at Rabbie’s display.
Alys smiles a private little smile and takes his hands for another dance.
The next tournament is at Woodstock, with barely enough time to travel the fifty miles west from Dunstable. Harry is again with the Outsiders against the King, but this time Morley fights on the King’s side and they have Waldegrave. It’s a bad trade, and the mêlée is a brutal, uphill fight.
Iain climbs the enclosure fence and leaps from it onto Rabbie’s back.
Harry swears, too engaged with Morley and Montagu to save his squire from the inevitable pummelling into the dirt he’ll receive.
Rabbie howls in fury, but Iain is silent, fighting hard and dirty, twisting Rabbie’s right arm behind him until he is forced to drop his mace. It clatters to the ground. Rabbie fights dirty too, bashing his shield against Iain’s left leg, trying to re-break it, but Iain just keeps hitting him, nasty low punches in the kidneys and head with a mailed fist, until Rabbie is unhorsed, slipping to the ground in a daze.
Iain gathers up the destrier’s reins and cries something in Gaelic, whirling the horse and riding straight for Montagu.
Shit, Harry thinks. He breaks off from his fight and rides at Iain, using Nomad to barge Iain’s horse and turn him.
‘Now you leave,’ Harry growls at Iain.
‘No,’ Iain says. ‘I want to—’
‘Now you leave,’ Harry repeats, his tone hard and final. ‘You unhorse someone, you capture the horse, you leave with it. Rules. Now get out of here while we can still profit from your distraction.’
‘I could have taken Montagu,’ Iain hisses as he reins the skittish horse.
‘No you couldn’t,’ Harry hisses back.
When the trumpets sound, it’s judged a tie between the two teams. Morley smiles warmly at Harry, nodding to him in appreciation of his fighting. The King claps him on the back, and tells him with a grin that his squire’s flying attack is the best thing he’s seen in ages.
‘God’s teeth, don’t encourage him, Your Majesty,’ Harry sighs, and the King roars with laughter.
Rabbie ransoms his horse back that afternoon via his squire, Mark. Iain presses the money into Harry’s hands, mumbling about Star’s death.
That evening, Iain stays behind at the open-air tavern to pay their bill, and on the way back to the pavilion he’s jumped by Mark and some of the other squires.
When Iain doesn’t join Harry at the pavilion in good time, Harry comes looking for him.
When he hears the sounds of a beating being administered behind Montagu’s marquee, Harry guesses exactly what is going on.
‘Hey!’ he cries, striding up to them, rattling his sword in its scabbard. There are six squires, four of them holding Iain down while Mark kicks the daylights out of him. Harry recognises Montagu’s two squires, and Waldegrave’s, and he thinks the red-haired boy might belong to Colin Crocker. They leap off Iain at the sound of Harry’s sword, and he sits up, unsteady, blood dripping from his mouth.
‘Coming to rescue your dog?’ Mark spits.
‘No,’ Harry smiles. He clasps Iain’s forearm and helps his squire up. ‘Just bringing him his dagger. He left it in the pavilion.’ Harry pulls the weapon from his belt and presses its hilt into Iain’s hand.
Iain draws the dagger. A few of the squires step back, hearing the metal rasp of the blade leaving its sheath.
Harry turns to leave. ‘After all,’ he calls back, ‘what’s one dead Sassenach?’
‘A good start,’ Iain hisses, and leaps on Mark.
Iain limps back to the pavilion not long after, bloody but triumphant.
‘Please tell me you didn’t actually kill any of them?’ Harry says, as Iain wipes the blade of his dagger.
‘Nah,’ Iain says. ‘But Mark won’t be walking much for a few months.’ He grins, wild and free. ‘Fucked up his left leg but good.’
Harry leans back against the central tent pole. ‘Let’s pretend I’ve given you a stern lecture about the morality of maiming other squires in back alleys.’
Iain salutes him, then flops back on the pallet. ‘Let’s pretend I’m very contrite.’
Harry snorts, and nudges him with his foot.
He thinks that’s it for the night, but an hour later, Iain’s voice cuts through the darkness. ‘Harry?’ he whispers.
‘Mm?’
‘Mark said Rabbie gets Dartington if I die.’
Harry exhales. ‘That’s not entirely true. Dartington has a lot of debts, and Montagu bought them up after you were captured, as a surety that I’d keep you prisoner. Montagu wants you alive, and both Rabbie and Mark know that.’
‘Of course Montagu bloody does,’ Iain mutters.
‘You know you’re with me in spite of Montagu, right?’ Harry whispers. ‘I’ll do anything to keep Dartington together, but … if Montagu didn’t have me under threat, there’s not a single thing I would have done differently. Not one thing.’
‘I know,’ Iain says, reaching over to squeeze Harry’s hand. ‘I know.’
Harry’s relentless practice jousting with Iain pays off, and he wins at Woodstock. Iain’s injuries from Mark’s beating slow him down in the bohort, and he places fifth, furious with himself. Rabbie appears at the joust with one of Montagu’s squires, and Harry hears that Rabbie dismissed Mark because he has no use for a squire on crutches.
Arundel hosts the celebratory supper. Montagu scowls when he sees Harry seated on Arundel’s left, between the Earl and Alys, but he can’t reasonably object. Arundel senses the tension in the air, and keeps his voice big and his talk small.
At the end of the evening, Arundel passes a purse filled with coin under the table to Harry, whispering, ‘Alys convinced me to make a sizeable wager on you. Thought you should have a share in it.’
Harry blinks at him in shock, at the weight of the purse, and tries to push it back.
Arundel shakes his head minutely in refusal and says, ‘Keep winning, lad, it pisses the bastards off.’ His eyes flick to Montagu and Ufford as he says it.
The next day, as they pack
