The Scottish Boy

by Alex de Campi

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.