He’s still in his pavilion, though. And his chest wound has been carefully bandaged.
Iain isn’t there.
It’s … very strange.
Then it gets stranger.
Harry sees himself walk into the tent. His armour, his shield, his helmet, his sword.
He wonders briefly if this is what death is.
And then he thinks, not of his family, or of Dartington, but that he didn’t do a very good job painting the star on his shield. It’s lopsided. He’s going to greet Saint Peter with a badly painted shield. That’s embarrassing.
The shield is dumped unceremoniously on the ground.
The knight that’s him but not him takes his helmet off.
Dark hair falls over pale eyes.
Iain.
‘Please, Harry, tell me you can stand up,’ he says.
Harry grumbles against his gag.
‘Shit, that, yes,’ Iain says, shedding armour and crouching down to untie Harry’s gag. ‘Look, I hate to say this, but you have to get all this nonsense on right now and present yourself in front of the King.’
Harry frowns. ‘Iain,’ he says, a feeling of dread rising in his stomach. ‘What did you do?’
‘Um,’ Iain grins, sitting back on his haunches and blushing. ‘I won you the tournament, Harry. Knocked Rabbie clean off his mount. He landed in a pile of horseshit, too. It was glorious. Morley got me, but you were enough lances ahead that we still won.’
‘Oh, Iain, no,’ Harry groans, shaking his hands free of the ropes. ‘Do you have any idea how against the rules that is?’
‘Quite,’ growls Iain, opening his hand. ‘As is this.’
In his palm is a bloody lance-point of sharpened iron. There are bits of the plaster used to disguise it still stuck around the join between it and the splintered wood of the lance-shaft.
The sight of it makes Harry furious. All the fear and pain of the past three days is replaced by pure, burning anger. ‘Well, come on,’ Harry says. ‘Get my armour on me. The King’s waiting.’
Iain grins his savage grin.
The crowd erupts when Harry is led out on Nomad by Iain. The herald makes much of him, overcoming grave injury to ride to victory, and so forth. They don’t notice that he can barely stay on his horse, or perhaps they do, and it sells the heroic legend a little bit more. So does the surcoat Iain is wearing, its white stained red with Harry’s blood.
Harry looks over the benches, at all the people on their feet applauding and shouting his name, and feels nothing. At the other knights, some cheering him, some sullen and envious. Nothing. He bows as best he can to the Queen, wincing in pain, and shifts his helmet to his shield arm so he can accept the King’s kiss on his cheeks.
When the King puts his arm out to steady him, Harry tucks the broken lance-point into Edward’s hand. The King feels it, and his eyes widen minutely in shock, his jaw tightening in anger.
He returns it to Harry’s hand, under the guise of a friendly clasp of arms.
Harry inclines his head in deference, and then signals to Iain to lead him back to the pavilion.
The King and Queen leave Newmarket unexpectedly, before Montagu’s celebratory supper. It’s passed off as important state business, so sorry, but Harry knows it for what it is: a deliberate slight.
If it gets back to Montagu how and why that slight occurred, Harry will be in a worse situation than he already is. He needs allies. So in the scrum at the beginning of the meal, as each knight and noble looks for their table, he brushes past the Earl of Arundel and whispers, ‘I have developed an interest in French politics.’
He doesn’t look at the Earl, or turn around, as he walks by. He has learned the hard way that there are spies everywhere.
When Alys dances with him later, she mentions how she has heard that the bridle paths in Newmarket are delightful.
Second only, apparently, to the ones outside Paris.
Harry proposes a picnic.
She accepts, then suggests he dance with some of the other ladies of court, as it’s not fair of her to monopolise the attentions of their handsome young champion.
Eventually, the men of Montagu’s retinue retire to the Baron’s bedchamber to drink. Harry wants to refuse, but knows he cannot. He must continue his act as the simple provincial knight a little longer: their pawn; their fool.
Openly opposing Montagu at this time would mean death for him and ruin for Dartington. And God only knows what would happen to Iain. He would be free, something within Harry whispers, even as another part of him pictures Iain starving to death in some grim tower of Montagu’s, subject to the beatings at will of men like Rabbie Ufford and Colin Crocker.
Speaking of Rabbie: he’s drunk.
He is deep in his cups and furious, and Harry overhears him whining like a spoilt child to Montagu out by the privies about how it was his birthday and he should have won the tournament.
There’s the unmistakeable sound of a slap, and Montagu’s voice, low: ‘The King, unfortunately, has decided he likes Lyon, so we’re stuck with him. Focus on the goal, Rabbie. What is one inconsequential tournament when we can have France? The dukedoms of Burgundy. Normandy. Untold wealth. The French barons hate Philip of Valois. They’ll side with us, and we have the pivot point to drive Edward across the Channel. Don’t cause trouble now, Rabbie.’
Rabbie mutters again about fairness, and Harry hears another slap. Harry wonders idly if it was Rabbie’s other cheek this time, or the same one.
‘And don’t drink so much. Go home,’ Montagu says.
Harry ducks behind a buttress as the two of them pass back into the hall.
When Harry returns to Montagu’s bedchamber, the crowd of knights and nobles is even more raucous than when he left. There are no more tournaments until May, so tonight they can
