SIX

THE YEAR THAT followed was filled with weapons and movement. Markeley, who had previously been little more than a man who occasionally appeared to draw his wife into a side room, became a constant presence, teaching, pointing, hefting weapons into Henry’s hands and goading, goading, goading him on, forcing his tired muscles to greater efforts, his webbed fingers to grasp the heavy hilts of swords almost as long as he was.

Allard watched the practice daily, but not continually. As Henry struggled to subdue a reeking, plunging horse unused to having a deepsman on its back, there was something in Allard’s steady stance and folded arms that reminded him of his mother, waiting with her back to him all those years ago.

Once he had the feel of it, Henry wielded a sword without trouble. The heaviness of his body in the air was never again such a burden once he realised how the wind would part for him, and the speed at which he fell was compensated for by the speed with which a blade sliced through the air as he swung it. Markeley was bigger than him and knew tricks with the blade, but he was also slow. Though barely up to Markeley’s waist, Henry could already wrestle a weapon from an adult hand. Spears and arrows interested him more than toiling to manage a heavy shield, until Allard took away his horse and insisted he fight on the ground.

Henry’s legs were strong when they gripped his mount or churned the water, but they were not designed to hold him upright. A long shield acted as a prop while he struck with his sword over the top of it. After six months of daily training, Henry was introduced to the manor’s armoury, and on the wall he saw something that suited him perfectly: two heavy blades mounted on either side of a thick pole, a staff that could prop him up until he needed to lift it and swing, standing alone for the duration of the blow.

“What is the name of that?” he pointed.

“Axe,” said Allard. “Not the weapon of a lord, usually.”

“It will be mine, give it to me. It must have a longer handle.” Even though Henry was learning English rapidly, Allard was accustomed to Henry’s lack of interest in such words as “please;” but with the boy standing soldierly and deciding for himself, he made no suggestion of manners, only taking the axe off the wall and handing it to his promising young pupil.

Winter set in, and the grass covered over with frost. Henry still insisted on going out to practice, lying in the frost as often as he could. Markeley, who was a sturdy man of few words with one eye half-closed by an old scar, would shake his head at the sight of the small figure rolling over and over, supple legs twining in the snow and heaping up drifts of white, but would say nothing, clapping his arms against the cold, and occasionally grinning to himself. The snow felt no colder to Henry than a winter sea; a sharp sensation, but not unbearable. As water melted on his skin, he felt it loosen a little; the dry flakes that formed under his clothes would soften, and his flesh would wake up, stimulated and alive. The sight of his breath pluming in the air was an endless fascination—though it was more fun to watch the breath of landsmen. They breathed so often. Markeley had shaken him the first time they had gone out in such cold, apparently worried at the long pauses between exhalations: he had looked into Henry’s black eyes with his white ones, felt for a pulse under the boy’s ear, examined his hands. Henry’s skin was still fairer by far than the pink tint of the landsmen’s, especially as Markeley’s cheeks turned scarlet in the winter air, but he felt quite well. He never got sick at all.

The only trial that winter brought him was the fires. Great logs, smelling of the clean outdoors, were piled and set alight; the tattered, dazzling flames were a sight that horrified Henry the first time he saw them. Their motion was too quick, the heat they gave singeing; the sight of their bright, flickering forks in an indoor hearth was one that blinded him to all else around him, his eyes unable to adjust to so much light and darkness at once. The landsmen clustered to them, but Henry hung back, alone, as the others reached out their webless hands. The flutter and rush of the air around them, the crack of logs as they broke in the heat, was enough to drive him back, right to the edge of a room. Even a corner was more comfortable than a blaze.

When summer returned, everything changed once again. Allard announced to Henry that he was going to see another man. This man was a friend, he said; Henry had not heard of him before, but according to Allard, he would be there before the day was out.

“You said no one should see me,” Henry said.

“This man will tell no one.” Allard twisted his hands together. Then stopped as he saw Henry watching.

“Why will he come?”

“He will help us.”

“Does he have soldiers?” Henry still wanted to see a soldier. Even if they were just landsmen who could do the things he was learning to do, he had the notion that there would be something unusual about them, something worth seeing. They were always spoken of as a group, like a shoal of fish; Henry imagined they might move together like one, or all look alike.

“He could raise them, yes. And he has a son.”

Henry frowned. “Is that not bad?” The fact that the king had children and would object to Henry as a result was something he understood; as deepsmen were not generally friendly to children not their own, he supposed that a son would make this man less inclined to like him, not more.

Allard frowned in his turn. “No, Henry. Good. He will bring his son with him.”

Henry could think of reasons why this was not necessarily good, but curiosity to see the son overcame his objections. The son might be near his own age. He felt some caution towards this person—deepsmen children had always been quicker with a pinch or an insult than the adults—but he had learned from sparring with Markeley, as well as grappling Allard on that strange day, that landsmen adults could be overcome. The son must be smaller, and no threat to him. Perhaps he could even threaten the son. It would be good to dominate someone else for a change.

So when Allard rode in with another mounted man by his side, Henry, who had been practising with his axe, was intrigued to see a brown-haired, blue-eyed boy riding on the saddle before him. The boy scrambled off the horse, but the man stayed mounted. Allard got off his horse and walked over to Henry.

“Here is the child,” he said.

Henry did not like being talked about as if he could not hear, but there was something curious about the situation: while Allard was clasping his hands, moving from foot to foot, a little more restless than usual, the man on the horse was rigid-backed, looking down on Allard. Henry had seen others act this way towards Allard, but never before had he seen Allard so submissive.

The boy trotted over to Henry, neat legs flashing to and fro faster than an adult’s. “Let us see you fight,” Allard told them.

Henry was too absorbed studying this pink-cheeked creature to pay much attention. The boy stared at Henry’s bent legs and webbed fingers. Henry didn’t move.

“Can I see your hands?” the boy said.

“Can I see yours?” Henry said back.

The boy grinned and approached him. “I am John,” he said, studying the pale skin that bound Henry’s fingers together. “John Claybrook.” The grin was not something Henry was quite comfortable with, having won few smiles at his home, most of them close-lipped. A memory of bared fangs troubled him for a second before he gathered himself.

“Your teeth are blunt,” he said. Landsmen’s generally were, but Henry felt it important to state at the outset that he wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“Can I see yours?” The smile didn’t fade. Henry shook off the memory and obliged with a grimace, his interest in the white squares in the other boy’s mouth taking over.

“Come, let us see you fight,” Allard said again.

Henry hefted his axe.

John’s eyes widened. “Not with that, you will cut my head off,” he said. “Here.” Two wooden swords were in his belt; he proffered one.

“These are no use,” Henry said.

John didn’t answer. Instead, he gave Henry a poke with his own sword, then another, before falling into the formal en garde position. He leaned in and prodded Henry again, pushing the other toy weapon into Henry’s grip.

Henry reared up on his legs, smashing the sword aside. John fell back and started to parry in earnest, but Henry, with the frantic haste of a boy who knew his legs would only bear him up so long, chased John furiously, slashing and swiping until the wooden sword fell from John’s hand. John jumped as it fell, and Henry pounced, taking the weight off his legs and sitting astride John, who struggled to get up until Henry pressed both hands over his face, covering his eyes.

“Enough!” came the voice of Allard. He turned to John’s father, who was looking at Henry with an expression the boy had seen once in his early childhood, when a man of his tribe had touched a rock that turned out to be a moray eel.

Henry turned back to John, who was spluttering under his hands. He released the boy’s head, but stayed sitting on him while he thought of the word he wanted, trying to phrase the sentence correctly. “Would you like to be my friend?”