Harry feels something dark and nasty twist in him. He’s suddenly, irrationally furious at Rolly, a kind boy and a conscientious squire, because he’s walking off the grounds with Iain, arms slung round each other’s shoulders in simple, brotherly affection.
‘Hm,’ Arundel says by his side. ‘Is he always that dramatic?’
‘You have no idea,’ says Harry.
‘Well,’ the Earl says quietly, ‘thank the good Lord and all His angels and saints that fate kept that boy off his grandfather’s throne. I’d fear for England, I truly would.’ He pushes away from the fence. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some winnings to collect.’
Iain ambles over then, his helmet off, his hair sweaty and a grin spreading across his handsome face.
Harry looks down at his own hands, knuckles white against the fence. ‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’ he hisses.
Harry watches the happy, exhausted twinkle in Iain’s eyes harden, and suddenly he feels like the worst person on earth. ‘What you wanted,’ Iain growls back. ‘Winning.’ He bashes his shoulder into Harry as he passes him, stomping back towards their pavilion.
Harry trudges back more slowly, rehearsing the apology he knows Iain deserves. The journey is made worse by the various knights along the way congratulating Harry for his squire’s victory, saying they’d heard it was one hell of a final bout. And Harry had to admit it had been a stunning bit of tactics by Iain, getting the normally cautious, controlled Rolly to become overconfident.
It just wasn’t one of Harry’s tactics.
And there’s the problem, laid bare: Iain no longer needs Harry. Harry was used to Iain being completely dependent on him. Iain in chains. Then Iain with a broken leg. Then Harry teaching him to ride, to fight, to squire. To speak English.
But now Iain strides tall and proud through the tournament grounds, his own man. A lord of Scotland and a prince of France, a formidable opponent, a witty and charming friend. A man who, somewhere over the past year, Harry has come to need desperately. Iain has filled the lonely void of Harry’s life with more warmth than he ever thought possible. He can’t lose him. He can’t.
Iain is rinsing the sweat off himself next to the horses when Harry reaches their pavilion. He stands there, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, as Iain finishes cleaning. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles, gesturing towards the field where the bohort had taken place. ‘That was uncalled-for.’
Iain glares at Harry as he pulls his dark hair back, and then heads into their pavilion.
Harry stumbles in after him. ‘Please,’ he says.
Iain turns, slow and savage. ‘Can you, for once, just say I did something well?’
Harry stops. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. For Harry, his life is duty. No praise is needed or expected. You just do what is required. But Iain stays with him by choice, not duty. A ridiculous, unbelievable choice for someone as highborn as him, hiding out as a squire on a declining West Country estate.
‘I’m never good enough,’ Iain says. ‘It hurts.’
Harry reaches out to him, the words on the tip of his tongue, but Iain pulls away.
The boy grabs his cloak and tosses it around his shoulders. ‘I’ll be back for supper,’ he says, his tone sour. ‘Unless you need me?’
Harry shakes his head.
He watches the tent flap until it has stopped swinging from the breeze of Iain’s passage. Then he sinks to the ground, not daring to touch anything but the earth, as all he loves falls to pieces in his clumsy grasp.
The final day of jousting is overcast, the skies pregnant with rain. The knights Harry faces now aren’t the familiar circuit of the King’s close confidantes. They’re tough border knights of the North, keen to teach the soft Southerners a hard lesson at lance-point. And they’re all gunning for Harry, the nineteen-year-old golden boy of the previous season.
Harry doesn’t go down easy.
His lead is chipped away, slowly, but by halfway through the contest he’s still ahead by a few lances. He allows himself the hope that he will win nonetheless. That Dartington can be saved.
Then some big Northern knight named Cradoc comes and knocks him off his horse so hard he doesn’t wake up for half an hour. When he comes to, it’s over, and another knight has won the tournament. Harry stares up at the grey clouds, his head throbbing, the cheers and shouts of someone else’s name echoing around him where he lies on the grass. Iain is kneeling next to him, brushing his forehead with a wet cloth.
He feels more than sees Iain stiffen as footsteps approach.
‘Is he broken?’ says a voice. Harry thinks it’s Arundel.
Iain shakes his head. ‘Bad fall. He’ll survive.’
Then Arundel squats down, to where Harry can see him. He sees a hint of a lady’s dress as well. Alys. ‘Hard luck, old thing,’ Arundel says.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry mumbles.
Arundel sighs. He reaches out to pat Harry’s shoulder but stops when Iain narrows his eyes and makes a low noise in his throat. ‘Fine, no touching, got it,’ Arundel says, his face registering mild surprise at Iain’s behaviour.
‘Iain, no,’ Harry slurs, flapping one of his hands to smack him in the leg. ‘D’be rude.’ But in his heart, Harry is glad of this display of protectiveness. It means things are mendable between them. They haven’t talked about yesterday, and supper was full of sharp silences, but Iain is here and protecting him and that means he hasn’t broken them irrevocably.
Iain grunts in a vaguely apologetic manner at the Earl.
‘It’s fine,’ Arundel says, standing up and digging around in a pouch at his belt. ‘This is yours,’ he continues, placing a small bag of coins on the ground. ‘I bet on
