The Scottish Boy

by Alex de Campi

Now, finally, the country is reaching a sort of springtime, under the hand of the young Edward of Windsor, and Harry is nineteen years old, the perfect age for a squire to prove himself in battle. Except, the battle was yesterday.

‘They got ’im, they did. I’m … I’m sorry, lad.’ He shifts his weight from foot to foot, as he stutters out the story: Simon de Attwood has been slain on Halidon Hill. His old coat of mail was no match for a Scottish spear.

And Harry fidgeted restlessly by her sickbed for five long days, praying to a God that had no answers for him. He broke, finally, when his mother grabbed his hand in her trembling, birdlike fingers, looked at him with glassy blue eyes, and called him by his father’s name. ‘He’s not here,’ Harry whispered, kissing the sun-freckles that dotted the back of her hand. ‘Try to rest,’ he said. He’ll see you soon, he didn’t say.

It was the first time he allowed himself to fall apart. To show weakness, even if it was to nobody else than a little bay mare. Lady de Lyon, polite to the last, chose that moment to slip quietly from the bonds of this earth. Mustn’t cause a fuss.

When a man has had great wounds done to him, the urge to wound in return is an unbearable thing. Harry knew that blood and steel might not soothe the empty place in his heart, but he was sure as hell going to give it a try.

And the manor’s problems left for another day. He couldn’t have missed the taut expressions of the household servants when he announced he’d be leaving straight after the funeral. Harry knew that riding off to war wasn’t a form of cowardice, but it certainly felt like one.

Attwood was a man of great education and honour, but of little social cachet, and Harry at first resented the knight’s small stone hall and meagre trappings on the unfashionable side of Salisbury. But the knight had three books, which was more than Harry thought even the King might have,

Attwood the Intellectual

He swallows down the bile that rises in his throat. This isn’t valour. It doesn’t sound like his daydreams, stabbing retreating knights in the back, even if they were Scottish.

Correct homie

Harry realises he’s as tall as the King, maybe even a little taller, so he hunches his big shoulders slightly. The King notices and laughs, a ringing, beautiful sound. He shakes his head as he turns. ‘You are the West Country personified, aren’t you? We’ve seen haystacks smaller than you. Good thing you have to kneel for what’s coming.’

Mr King, please

Soon it’s just the dozen of them, Montagu’s raiders: Harry, Rabbie, a crass Yorkshire knight named Odo Waldegrave, Rabbie’s best friend Colin Crocker, Guy d’Audley with the scar across his face, Thomas Howland, the two Billies (Shayler and Lang), Sebastian Sharp from Kent, Brendan le Rous and Roderick Griffith. And of course Montagu himself.

The midges that flit senseless into their mouths when they talk are a reminder of the constant presence of the Scottish. This is a hostile land. Not a thing in it wishes them welcome. The glares of the peasants they pass on the road are enough for each knight to keep a hand near his weapons at all times.

Rabbie smirks. ‘Not what. Who.’ Then he rolls over. Harry stares up at the forest canopy, his mind restless. Montagu had been the man trusted to capture Lord Mortimer. Of course he’d be the one sent to capture a dangerous Scotsman. But who is it? What mighty lord wasn’t present at Halidon Hill, but could threaten English supremacy?

Harry is seized with the realisation that this is it. He’s not an outsider any more. He is with the right people, at the right time, about to do something important.

Finally, Harry thinks as sleep overtakes him, finally he’s going to be where the action is. The action is horrible.

The lake and the steep hills it nestles among are bathed in silver, silent and surreal. As they round a small headland, no sound but the clank and splish of oars, Harry startles. For, suddenly revealed, is their target: a small stone castle on an island, its foundations wrapped with evening mist like something out of legend. As if soon the boats would spirit them through some invisible barrier, into the land of the fae, to a hand coming out of the water with a sword.

The landscape is alien, savage, and more beautiful than his heart can hold. Then they kick down the rotting door of the castle and slay every living thing inside.

‘You know our targets. No witnesses, no survivors,’ Montagu hisses as they rush up the bank, weapons drawn. Except Harry doesn’t know. Nobody has told him.

In the flickering light of their torches and the glow of the hearth’s embers, Harry has only impressions of the chaos in the hall, of women, their bodies thin and their clothes threadbare. A few very elderly men, their bones breaking like twigs under the boots and blades of the English.

Thomas Howland smashes his shield into the back of a thin redhead as she tries to flee past. She falls onto her face, cracking her head on the stone floor. Sir Thomas kicks her onto her back and sinks his sword into her heart. And above it all, Lord Waldegrave is giggling.

Where are the men? Harry thinks, panicking. Where are their men? Nobody is armed. This isn’t fair. He realises the men must be away at war, as are the men of his own hall, and his stomach twists as he thinks of knights kicking down Dartington Manor’s old door at night, wetting their swords with the blood of his dependants.

Harry stands and holds his sword in trembling hands and prays they don’t notice he hasn’t killed anyone yet. The cries of the dying, their terror and the piss and shit that flows out of them, the stink of their intestines, it crashes against the hard stone walls of the castle’s hall and over Harry like a suffocating blanket of evil.

There’s a boy, and he’s jumped on Rabbie’s back and he’s got his teeth locked on Rabbie’s ear as he tries to shove a dull eating knife through Rabbie’s mail coat. Montagu grabs the boy and pulls him off, and half Rabbie’s right ear comes too and the boy spits it into Montagu’s face and nobody knows what to do and Montagu is yelling ‘Stay back! Stay back!’ and the boy is thin and small and maybe sixteen years old but he is fighting like a hellcat, screaming at them in Gaelic and trying to rip Montagu’s throat out with his bare hands and Montagu is punching him in the side of the head with a mailed fist, shunk, shunk, shunk, and finally the boy is still, his long dark hair falling over his face, soaking into a pool of Rabbie’s blood and cartilage on the floor.

Montagu turns towards Harry, and in the faltering torchlight Harry can see dark, bloody scratches down Montagu’s cheek and neck from the boy. And something small and nasty in Harry thinks good for you to the Scottish boy. Good for you.

The boy had been near the bars; he scuttles away on his elbows and knees, his hands and ankles still bound, and turns to glare at him from the far side of the cage. All Harry can see in the dim shadows is a curtain of dark hair and pale wolf’s eyes glinting in the dark.

‘I swear it’s not poisoned,’ Harry says, waggling the skin. The boy snorts, as if disappointed that Harry’s offering won’t finish the job. But the boy inches closer.

‘Who is he?’ Harry asks again. Because none of it adds up. A rural, poverty-stricken hall. A Scottish boy who looks like an urchin but speaks French as well as Gaelic. And who is so important to English politics that the great Baron Montagu himself crosses seventy miles of enemy territory to capture him.

‘Harvest looks good this year.’ The lie rolls smoothly off his lips. Dartington needs more than a good harvest. It needs Harry to come back from war laden with glory, with gifts from the King of land and jewels. Except Harry missed the war, and his excursion with Montagu into Galloway has brought neither glory nor reward, just a hollow sense of shame.

‘Be careful of the path you tread, Harry. You walk it well, but it is narrow, and the rocks below it are deadly.’

His face looks so young, relaxed into unconsciousness. His lips are raw and cracked from the gag, but when his mouth isn’t forced into the rictus caused by the tight fabric it’s revealed to be strangely delicate. Everything about his features is refined, more an expensive, pedigreed hunting dog than a feral wolf.

‘The Earl of Arundel lies in wait for us at Carlisle, with questions,’

Oh no nit questions

But as they sway in single file down the dirt track leading westwards, past dramatic hills dotted with curious sheep and wary peasants, Harry can’t get his mind off the boy. He’s still bound and gagged, his cage still covered by a sailcloth sheet. But he’s awake.

He looks exhausted but his eyes still burn with a pale, fevered fury, a determination Harry has never encountered before. Harry can’t find it in his heart to hate him, whatever Rabbie says about the Scots.

The boy obviously had some upbringing, given that he could understand French.

The noble language

Then, in the most beautiful French Harry has ever heard, the boy whispers, ‘Of course I can fucking swim, you great Sassenach idiot. I grew up in a tower in the middle of a loch.’ Harry laughs, despite himself. ‘Well, I’ll have to leave your arms tied then.’

Iconic

Harry helps the boy up. They walk towards the ocean, the boy shaky as a newborn foal, his thin legs barely holding him. The boy stumbles, and Harry should expect what happens next but he’s still caught by surprise when the stumble becomes a sweep of leg that knocks Harry square on his arse. The boy runs.

that isn’t gripping the boy’s bicep against his next escape attempt – to wipe the saliva from his face. He sighs, and changes tack. ‘I’m Harry. What’s your name?’ The boy laughs, sharp and hollow. ‘You killed them all and you don’t even know my name. Fuck you. Death. That’s my name.’

The boy remains silent, even when asked direct questions. He eats enough for two men. Harry teasingly calls the boy Lord Death, or Your Majesty. He gets no response.

He’s almost asleep again when he hears a soft, rough whisper. ‘Harry. Why did you do that for me?’ Harry rolls onto his side. ‘Because I gave my word I’d take care of you.’ He snickers, because for some reason it’s funny. ‘Even if you are an absolute plague.’ The boy snorts, and then there’s silence. Harry thinks it’s the end of the discussion. But then, quietly, the boy says, ‘I’m still going to kill you one of these days.’ ‘Well, until that day comes, sleep well, Lord Death,’ Harry whispers.

He got murder on his mind

Johann shows up shortly after the bells of Prime looking like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. Harry gives him a very stern talking-to, the effect of which is moderated by the man-at-arms not remembering much of the previous night. The next day’s travel is in unrelenting sunshine and by midday, Johann resembles nothing more than a very hungover beetroot.

Feels kinda mean towards beetroots

Iain (and it’s strange and thrilling for Harry to think of him as Iain rather than the Scottish boy) is reluctantly convinced to surrender the stolen knife in exchange for a half-dozen honey cakes, a few early apples and a flask of small beer.

Annie has managed the day-to-day business of Dartington Manor for almost a decade. She’s a dumpling of a woman, rosy and broad, country beautiful with her freckled cheeks and easy smile.

I love her

Then the cart comes through the gates, and sound stops coming out of Annie’s mouth. Her brows furrow, and she looks at Harry. ‘A cage?’ she mouths. Harry rolls his eyes, a gesture that he realises he’s picked up from Iain. ‘It’s a long story, Annie, but he’s … he’s a Scottish prisoner. And my new squire.’

You know you have to feed them, right?’ Harry shakes his head. ‘Annie, he has eaten every damn bit of food England can provide, from the border to here. I swear he puts away more than Ralf does.’ A delighted, if somewhat manic, glint appears in Annie’s eye. Harry turns to Iain, his expression forbearing. ‘Annie’s a feeder. She’s eyeing you up like a Christmas goose, Iain. You and your appetite are about to become her favourite people.’

Thankfully, Iain has been on best behaviour since arriving at Dartington. Harry can’t help but worry that he’s planning something.

Annie catches something in Harry’s tone, a hesitation, and she narrows her eyes at him. ‘You want me to make up a pallet?’ she asks. ‘That might be best,’ Harry sighs. ‘He threatens to kill me on a regular basis.’

I probs would too Harry

All of them looking to him, to him, who accidentally wished a man dead, for wisdom and guidance. Except for the one person who wants to kill him, of course.

Harry squints against the late-afternoon sun. Iain is lying on his back in his cage, hands folded under his head, one ankle thrown over a knee, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He lazily rolls into a sitting position when he hears Harry fumbling at the lock.

When he speaks, it’s barbed, deliberately so. ‘My people are concerned about me. But then again, I make sure they have plenty of food and clothing. You may not remember what that’s like, but I can assure you that a well-run manor—’ —And then ten stone of concentrated Scottish rage slams into him.

Ball of rage p1

Both the Peters come running out of the hall at the noise, and they sit on more of Iain, and after a frantic few moments of wrestling they manage to tie his arms and hobble his legs. Iain gets a split lip and opens one of the cuts on his head again. Peter gets a nasty scratch on his face, Piers is bitten on his leg, and Harry gets kneed in the balls, but the job’s done.

Ball of rage p2

Iain’s sitting on the floor, half turned away from Harry. His fingers absentmindedly trail over the iron cuff around his bony ankle as he stares off into space. Harry follows the direction of Iain’s gaze: he’s staring at the bed, and the desk next to it with Lady Joan’s mirror and comb. And he’s crying, completely silently.