In The Master's Bed. Blythe Gifford

‘No, no, you stay and finish.’ Reckless, she drained the rest and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She must leave before she confessed she was sleeping with the horses. ‘I must go now. She’ll be expecting me. For evening tasks.’

      ‘Well, if you get into trouble, come to Solar Hostel and ask for me.’

      She fought the girlish smile threatening her lips. ‘Oh, I don’t think I will.’ She would not see him again. It was a promise she made to herself. ‘I’ll be busy. With my studies. And helping the widow.’ She forced the words out. Words to push him away. If she insulted him again, an easy task, she had learned, he would let her leave.

      ‘I won’t have much time myself,’ he answered, dropping her arm and sitting back. She heard the pique in his voice and longed for the laughter. ‘I have better things to do than to worry about a boy who has no sense.’

      Good. He was angry. So angry he did not tell her to fare well.

      She was out of the door quickly, but hid in a shadow across the street, hoping to see him again. She did not have to wait long. Duncan came out and lingered, looking up and down the street, as if for her.

      And as she saw him turn towards a warm, dry bed, she bit her cheek to keep the tears from slipping.

      You’re gonna need some friends, he had said.

      Fifteen days. She had ten more. But five Colleges had refused her. If the other four did the same, she would start visiting the hostels.

      The one called Solar would not be on her list.

      ‘What word?’ Duncan asked, without preamble, a few days later. He knew from the look on Pickering’s face that the news was not good. He had no patience to wait while the man washed off the road dust. ‘Tell me.’

      Sir James Pickering slumped against the table, the lines on his face deeply shadowed by the morning sun streaming into Solar Hostel’s empty gathering room. ‘All the talk’s of Otterburn, but it’s in the west they hurt us worst. Carlisle’s still standing, but Appleby—’ He shook his head. ‘Appleby is gone.’

      Sweet, defenceless city. It would have had no hope. ‘Damn the Council. I begged…’ The remembrance of his entreaties, and the Council’s refusal, seared his heart like the mark of a hot iron.

      ‘They told you no?’

      ‘They told me next year.’ He had almost, almost succeeded. ‘The King was ready, I vow. He told the Council he was going to mount a horse and go off riding in all directions.’

      ‘But the Council’s not his to command.’

      He knew that, but it made no difference. ‘I should have said something different, something else. Something that would have convinced them to send help now!’

      ‘You swayed the King.’

      ‘No victory at all.’

      Pickering sighed. ‘Well, the Council’s cautious these days.’ At February’s Parliament—Merciless, they’d called that one—the King’s closest advisers had been condemned to death at the Council’s behest. Now, the Council’s Lords Appellant themselves were wondering whether Parliament would turn on them.

      ‘Tell that to those facing the Scots alone.’

      ‘Winter’s coming. The Scots won’t be back until next year.’

      Ah, you’re sure of that, are you? What if you’re wrong?’ Are ya still breathin’? ‘If I’d persuaded them, if they’d ridden that day—’

      ‘Don’t punish yourself. Before you even reached the King, the Scots had crossed the border for home.’ The man paused, as if holding worse news.

      ‘What else?’

      ‘Your father.’

      Duncan gripped the rough wood of the table, then sat, feeling the world shift. ‘What about him?’

      ‘The Scots. They took him.’

      The words hit him like one of his fadder’s punches.

      He could see the old man, scarred from countless battles, many of them waged against his own sons. All of home that he had tried to escape was tied up in the old man.

      And all that he couldn’t.

      ‘Me madder? Michael?’ The words of childhood were all he could speak.

      ‘Unharmed, by God’s mercy. Your brother has taken over as he was born to do. The tower held, but the village, the fields…’ He shuddered. ‘Burned.’

      Duncan stared at the Common Room’s blackened hearth, seeing charred huts and homeless serfs. There’d be nothing to harvest.

      They must pray for thick wool on the flock or there’d be nothing to sell.

      Nothing to eat.

      You left, Little John had said. He should have stayed. Much as he hated it, he should have stayed. His strong arm would have done more good there than his useless tongue had here.

      He let Pickering describe the battle and his fadder’s bravery, only half-listening. He knew what the end would be.

      ‘They’re holding him for ransom,’ Pickering said, finally.

      ‘Then they’ll be sore disappointed.’ There was no joy in his laugh. ‘We’ve barely a pot to piss in.’ The funds it took to send him here were hard won. Now, at last, he was ready to take on students who would pay him, but it would be no knight’s ransom. He rose. ‘I must return.’

      Pickering’s hand on his shoulder was gentler than his fadder’s had ever been. ‘You’ve given your oath here, son. To teach. And what little there was at home is less now.’

      Waves of The Death had rolled over the countryside every few years, over and over until it seemed the land was trying to purge itself of people. Between the Scots and The Death, the ground, once lush with oats and wheat, had turned bleak.

      ‘I’ve got one mouth to feed, but two good hands.’ He held them up, proud of their strength. He could swing a spade better than some of the serfs. ‘I can help rebuild, replant—’

      ‘You can help here, persuading Parliament to send money north. They’re in no mood to vote more taxes.’

      He shrugged off Pickering’s hand and paced the room, his rage too strong to let him sit. ‘They’ll never listen to me.’ All of them, even the boy, thinking they were cleverer and better because of where they were born and how they talked.

      ‘If they don’t, there will be no ransom money.’

      He stopped in mid-stride and stared at Pickering. Helpless fury lodged in his gut. ‘But my fadder, the rest, they defended the border while these southerners listened to poetry readings.’

      ‘Between the battles in the west and the east, the Scots took more than three hundred knights, including young Hotspur and his brother.’

      Duncan smacked the wall, welcoming the sting on his palm. The Percies and their knights would be redeemed long before his father. ‘That’s how it is, then? The lords who already have money are worth saving, but those of us who live in dirty stone towers and guard the borders year in and year out are not?’

      ‘Parliament convenes in five days,’ Pickering said. ‘We’ll have to entreat every single member for his vote.’

      Duncan sighed, relief glossing over his guilt. The time had come to put on his southland demeanour. The accent first. Then he would shave the beard, and, finally, don the master’s costume he’d earned.

      Finally, he would be ready to do his work here. The work he could do instead of going home again.

      ‘The University has two votes,’ he began. ‘I’ll make sure they go our way.’

      Chapter