Chapter Text
He only needs to sneak past. To merge with the deep shadows of the moonless night, silent and invisible. He has done it before, knows how to plant his foot against the ground so that even the driest twigs don’t snap under his weight. How to move through the thick bushes without stirring the branches. It would be easy to sneak his way around the camp until he finds a horse, and be gone before he is noticed.
But finally outside the walls where he has been trapped along with death, despair and hunger for so many days, the hatred pools inside his empty stomach, and clouds his mind that has not been given enough energy to make a better judgement for far too long. He should find Sam, find a horse and leave.
But hatred burns behind his eyes and it pulsates in the fingers that are wrapped tightly around his dagger.
And so he blends with the shadows not to escape but to kill.
The first soldier whose throat Henry slices has a sweetbread in his belt pouch. It is not fresh, too dry and hard. But Henry shoves the whole thing in his mouth and nearly chokes on the dry crumbs. The second one has a bruised apple. And it is as sweet as the wet gurgling in the soldier’s throat when Henry’s dagger cuts it open. Henry drags the body into the bushes and he sits there until he has finished the apple, stem and seeds, tasting the metal on his fingers from the blood he spilled along with the sweet juice.
He kills a few more. He catches the patrols one by one, and then arranges them in the bushes or behind the sheds in some morbid offering for this blind urge for revenge that is scorching him from inside out.
He watches them bleed to death as he eats whatever scraps of food he can find on them, and he hates them even more for carrying provisions around so carelessly. Yesterday Hans passed out from days-long hunger as he was walking up the stairs to the keep, and Henry had to catch him lest he broke his neck toppling down. Henry sneaks up to a soldier sitting near a fire, sucking the remains of meat off a bone, and he kills him for Hans.
He should remember his task, he should remember the stakes, but the more he kills, the harder it is to stop. His hatred is not sated with each prague’s life taken ― it feeds on them and grows brighter.
There is a voice with the french accents coming out of one of the barns, and in the spaces in between the phrases there is a silence bearing Sam’s unsaid words.
Hatred burns hotter until it is not a red veil around Henry’s eyes anymore, but white scalding heat in his veins. He lost his family once. And with God’s grace he found people who have become his new one. And now they are on the verge of being taken from him too. Henry can’t bring food to Hans, not now, can’t risk sneaking him past the enemy camp. But he can rip the heart out of the one torturing Henry’s brother.
It is deceptively easy to get deeper into the camp. One by one Henry lays down the dead soldiers that were too careless to turn their backs on him.
In the barn he listens to Brabant’s pleas and feels nothing. The hatred and deep bone exhaustion is an impenetrable wall before him, through which the French's words can’t reach. Henry watches him plead on his knees, he lets him speak, and then he runs his sword through him.
He ignores Sam’s pleading too, as he hoists him up over his shoulder. In the end it is not carelessness that dooms him, but luck that turns her back to Henry just as an enemy soldier decides to stretch his neck mid piss, turning his head just enough to notice them.
Henry stands over Sam and he fights as hard as his starved body allows him. He doesn’t know how many of them are circling him, but they are all well fed and are wearing armor, and he, with his empty stomach and in only a black shirt over his torso, takes three of them down before the others can even land the first strike.
It cuts at his shoulder and he is forced to fight one-armed. He kills one more, and then another slices across his back.
Like his father all those months ago that feel like a lifetime, Henry falls to his knees under the weight of a deep gashing wound on his back, and as he looks up another sword pierces his stomach.
In his final moments his eyes find the towering shadow of Suchdol. The small window of Hans’ room, where Henry spent the hours before he had to leave, is a little speck of light against the dark castle wall — the fireplace that was cold when Henry left quietly just an hour ago has been lit up once again.
Hans is already awake when Henry dies.
*
Henry opens his eyes to a nightmare that is too familiar. And yet, the colors of it are wrong. Where he is used to seeing red, and darkness, and fire, there is light of the day streaming through the small windows. And his mother’s face is not contorted with fear and pain, but is relaxed in a gentle smile as she greets him.
Henry floats through this strange dream like through a fog, and when it reaches its culmination, he stays rooted to a spot instead of running. He watches his parents die, in such bright accurate details this time unlike all his past dreams, and he watches the Cumans walk to him with their curved swords raised.
When the pain from a broad slash across his chest comes, Henry is surprised. His nightmares have endlessly haunted his mind but never have they brought pain to his body.
He closes his eyes and waits for his arrival to Hell as he deserves.
*
His Hell is to wake up to the sun shining through his parent’s windows and his mother smiling at him. His Hell is to go through the same motions leading to the inevitability of their death, again, again and again.
He is unable to speak of anything that has no place in this memory he is for some reason reliving, words stuck in his throat when he attempts to say the warning. But he can act in the ways he did not before. And so he launches himself at the Cumans, something he should have done the first time instead of running. Whatever this is, whatever reason he is here again, he will protect his parents with his life.
The sword is a comforting familiar weight in hand, but it pulls him down to the ground like it weighs double of what it does. Henry swings it at one Cuman, but the swing goes too far, and he is too late in redirecting the hit, and the muscles in his shoulders, unused to such treatment, scream in protest.
He dies. He wakes up. He tries again.
He might know where to strike. He might know how to move his body. But it is the body that betrays him. Too weak, it doesn’t understand what Henry wants from it. Where before he didn’t have to think in the fight, his body just moved on its own, now he has to command it for every single swing of his sword. His blocks are too late, his strikes are too slow and weak, he runs out of breath too soon. His body refuses to match the knowledge and experience of his mind. Henry doesn’t fit into his own skin.
Trying to stir away from the path he once took, he dies, and he dies again.
He loses count, and eventually he is able to kill three enemies before he is striked down. It is more than they expected from him, he can see surprise mixed with fear in their eyes, when they have to lose three of their own to a village boy who shouldn’t know how to wield a sword. Whose eyes are ones of a wild cornered animal protecting his own until his last breath.
Henry kills three, but it is never enough. His parents die, he dies, he wakes up. Again, again and again in an endless circle.
Perhaps this is what Hell really is like, Henry thinks as he turns his back to Skalitz as the first Cumans descend on it from the hill on the horizon. He swore to his Pa so long ago to never run, and he kept his word. But now he runs again.
Because Hell is not endless flames, but the fires of his childhood home burning down. It is not the home of the Devil, but of Henry’s worst memory and the biggest guilt that he can do nothing about no matter how many times he tries. It is a place where all his memories and his experience do not serve to make a difference but to taunt him with impossibility to change anything.
His Hell is to resign himself to helplessness.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Thanks so much for all the kudos and comments, really appreciate it!
Chapter Text
He is out of breath before he reaches Theresa’s house. He almost forgot about this, after the endless attempts to save his parents it slipped his mind that there was someone else he failed.
These Cumans are easier. They have their backs to him, and he runs his father’s sword through one of them, and as the other turns, he slices his throat with the edge of the sword as he pulls it out of the first body. This is different. He failed to make a difference for his parents but perhaps here he can finally stir away from the path he once walked.
Henry fights the remaining Cuman with everything he can pull out of his body. His muscles and joints scream in pain when he tries to push them over their limit. Weak, so weak.
He is struck from behind, and before he dies he sees three more Cumans advancing on him. Six men against one boy. He accepts this loss much faster. He only tries two more times before he runs again.
*
They feed him in Talmberg. A bowl of thick gruel, bread, two chicken legs, an apple… Henry gobbles it all down without tasting, barely chewing. A kitchen maid shakes her head with a sympathetic sigh — poor lad, lost his home and barely escaped by the skin of his teeth, perhaps a hearty meal will make him feel slightly better…
Henry eats until he can’t anymore, until his stomach is so full it hurts him, but the hunger lingers. This body doesn’t know how to fight even when his mind is convinced that it should. But the hunger that Henry remembers, that bone deep craving, that constant feel of emptiness, it settled so deep in him over the weeks of the siege that his mind tricks this body that has never starved like that before.
He wonders if he will ever get rid of this hunger now after it had enough time to become a part of his existence.
They give him a bed to sleep in, and Henry is scared to close his eyes, unsure of where and when he will find himself when he awakes. His full belly lures him to sleep eventually, and blissfully he doesn’t dream. As he is ushered out to keep watch on the battlements later, he says a prayer in his mind for his nights to remain as dreamless as this one. And then thinks, if this is Hell, there is no one to hear his prayers anyway.
*
He walks back to Skalitz. He can take the horse he arrived on, but the journey then will be cut too short.
Henry left this part of his life in the past. Piece by piece he let go of it, and if not fully but he made himself turn around and look into his future more often than into his past. In his future was being accepted by his father. In his future was getting to know his brother. In his future was staying by Hans’ side through whatever life would throw at them.
In his future was to love and to be loved.
But he died, and his future is gone, and he is here again, in the worst days of his life. And he has seen his parents be killed more times than anyone deserves, and he is going to try to bury them again, and he will fail, again, because he is too weak and he can’t change anything, he can only live through this again, again, and again.
*
When he saw the dead bodies in Rovna last time, he retched. For the first time exposed to so much death, he couldn't understand how anyone was capable of such brutality.
But the red has been the color of his dreams for way too long now and cruelty of man has long stopped surprising him. And like hunger, the smell of death is something he has learned to live with.
Where he recoiled in horror and disgust just months ago, now he painstakingly checks the corpses’ pouches. For food and for groshen, something he would never think of before. But his soul is already dirty enough, his hands bloodied. It is but a minor sin on top of the ones that he has already committed. He knows he will burn. When he can die properly. But he knows war too: the dead don’t need the silver, but it can save the living.
He lets Zbyschek run after Runt — Henry knows he won’t be able to take the huge man down, not while his body doesn’t understand how it needs to move with the sword in his hands. But he must at least try.
Henry takes the spade and feeds Mutt a piece of dried meat he found on one of the corpses earlier. The dog doesn’t recognise him, of course he doesn’t, but he accepts the treat and lets Henry scratch behind his ears. His tail wiggles slightly and Henry feels less of a stranger here in this past where he no longer belongs.
He digs the graves under the linden tree and then waits for Runt on the main road.
Last time he went down without even landing a scratch on the bastard. This time he nicks his side and lands a wide slash across his brow.
When the heavy club collides with Henry’s temple and his vision fades, he wishes Runt killed him instead so he could try again, again and again.
*
Henry talks the miller into lending him some money and swears to pay his debt three-fold. He knows he will, given time.
He navigates all too familiar streets of Rattay and instead of going straight to Pirkstein as the last time, he finds himself at a tailor instead. He spends all the borrowed groshen on a pair of clean trousers and a new shirt, and as he walks back to the lower castle wearing his new clothes, he contemplates the reasons behind this delay.
They are the hint of approval in his father’s eyes as he watches Henry straighten up from the bow that he holds just for a breath longer than before. They are the lack of recognition and indignation in Hans’.
Henry’s posture is the one of his father’s son, not of a village boy who has never stood in the presence of nobility. His replies are of someone who has spoken with lords before, and has read dozens of books, spending any chance he had on reading, often hunched in his saddle over a book during longer rides between the settlements.
It earns him the sharpness in Sir Radzig’s eyes when he looks at him, the hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth ― he is relieved to see his son fairing well after the injury he sustained. He is pleased that Henry’s attitude doesn’t put a shame on him.
Henry thought he would be torn between choosing who to pay more attention to: Hans or his father. But in the end it is easy. There is no conflict after Henry throws a look at Hans and sees a reflection of a stranger in his eyes. Somehow it hurts more than everything Henry has been through, more than being cut by a sword or dying under the hooves of a horse.
Capon’s eyes look through Henry instead of at him. His face doesn’t light up with a smile when he sees him.
The last time Henry saw Hans he had the sickly paleness behind the sunburns of his skin and the sharpness of his face above the gaunt cheeks that screamed of the many days without proper meals louder than Hans could ever complain himself. He had a crease between his eyebrows from the weight of sudden responsibilities and trials the life had thrown at him. He had shadows under his eyes, and shadows within that settled there when he stood with the noose around his neck, certain of his death. These shadows never really brightened. He was a man this Hans would not recognize and would not want to become. But he was stronger and better for all the challenges he had to overcome.
And he had a smile curling his lips and lighting up his eyes with something Henry only saw there when Hans was looking at him. Henry hoped to see it again. He died before he could.
The Hans before him now has the skin of his face and his hands looking as soft as a babe’s from all the flowery oils Henry knows he used to rub into his skin. His shoulders are relaxed and his gaze is careless and uncaring. He looks exactly as who he is now ― a lord-to-be, who never had to partake in a battle, or dig graves for his friends, or starve for days to come.
And he is also so, so young. It had not even been a year and yet they both aged years… Did Hans really look this way when Henry first met him?
Blacksmith boy, Hans calls him. Not even of age himself, he does his best to look at Henry down his nose, and not for that finger’s width of height difference Hans has on him, but to remind Henry of his place.
Henry had to rise slightly on his toes when he kissed Hans. That sliver of a difference didn’t matter anymore when they laid together…
Henry looks at this boy, this lordling, and wonders if he himself appears just as young now as well. Or if perhaps the pain of the last several months has made its way into the eyes of this body as well. He wonders if others can look at him and see the death in his eyes and all the blood on his hands and the weight of guilt, regrets and mortal sins he carries on his shoulders.
Henry forgot that he too was so young just several months ago. Each month feels like a year. His old self feels like a different person.
*
There are two churches in Rattay. One of them is a short walk from the archery range. Henry doesn’t provoke Hans this time when the lordling comments on the way Henry ran away. He has long learned to control his anger.
“I ran because I couldn’t save them,” Henry tells him calmly. “I have a gift of time now to become stronger to avenge them.”
Henry can tell it is not the answer Hans expected to get to his provocation from a village boy. While he is searching his mind for a retort Henry offers a friendly competition himself.
Hans has always been better with a bow than Henry, yet Henry tries anyway. If only for the sake of the memory of them hunting together or the way they will reminisce about this duel months later.
But there is a church just a stone's throw away from the range. Henry lands two bulls eyes, and then the bell starts counting the midday.
The bell tolls, in his ears and in his memory. It always tolls in his nightmares too. He is always late there, but just on time for the hanging, and for some reason the bell doesn’t stop ringing even after Hans’ body stops twitching.
Hans doesn’t notice. He sends his seven arrows into the target and sing-songs about his victory all the way to the training area after offering Henry a chance to get even in a sword fight.
Henry weighs the sword he was given for the duel and thinks absentmindedly: I can kill him. He knows how Hans fights. He knows how he moves, knows all his weak spots. Henry doesn’t need a perfectly trained body to beat Hans in this duel — they are equal now in the spread of their shoulders, in the lack of any real solid muscle in their limbs. Henry’s body doesn’t know what to do, but Henry still remembers.
He can kill him so easily now. The thought scares him. It scares him that Hans so carelessly challenges a stranger to a fight with real swords, it scares him to think how weak Hans actually is, and Henry is not yet strong enough to protect him like he swore… Like he will swear?
Henry does a faint and disarms Hans with one carefully executed strike. He will pierce his own heart before he causes even a single scratch on Hans’ skin.
The expression in Capon’s eyes when he looks at Henry after that changes. Hans is still a stranger, but from now on Henry is seen.
*
Henry goes through the same motions, and in the dark yard of the tavern he can’t resist the same words he said before.
“He is in charge only until I grow up,” Hans says.
“Which clearly hasn’t happened yet.”
And it rings more true than it did the first time. They are both of roughly the same age, and the several months of memories Henry has on Hans are just a drop in comparison to the years he lived and hopefully the years he will live. But those months feel like ages. Henry feels so much older. This Hans feels so much younger.
Henry doesn’t let Hans beat him and neither does he retaliate with his own hooks and jabs. He grabs him in a chokehold instead and waits for Sir Hanush to arrive.
Hans is hurt less but he is humiliated more, and their trot to the hunting place the next morning is much less pleasant than the one Henry remembers.
Where Henry failed to make a difference where it truly matters, where it would save dozens of lives, including ones of his parents, his attempts to make things better if only a little turn on him in mockery. Perhaps he is not here to make changes, perhaps there is a lesson here that he missed the first time he lived through these days. He doesn’t know what this lesson might be.
But Henry is stubborn and restless, and instead of hunting the hares he scouts the Cuman camp only to find it empty, and the day passes as he fruitlessly searches the forest for the Cumans not finding any.
Perhaps the lesson is that things go the way they mean to, according to God’s plan, and he is here simply to witness the futility of his attempts to alter the course of things.
The first time he felt helpless was when he had to run away from his home burning behind his back. The second, albeit briefer moment, was at the gates of Talmberg, when he watched the only remaining member of his family who he only just learnt he had, being taken hostage.
The third was when the bell counted hours over his head, when the executioner’s boot touched the wood log under Hans’ feet, and then the forth one, that stretched to days, was when Henry watched paleness seep into Hans’ features and his eyes get foggy with bone deep hunger.
These moments are forever with him, feeding his anger that sometimes finds release when Henry allows it, when there are wretched souls before him that don’t deserve anything more than his rage. But in between there are long stretches of time where his actions matter, where his words make a difference, when he can move forward and shape the world around him to match his will.
But now it is gone, and all that’s left is to go through the motions. And the rage inside him boils as he runs through the forest back to the Cuman camp that now he knows will not be empty.
He is earlier now, no time lost on attempting to find where Hans rode away.
Henry is earlier and just on time to see one of the Cumans striking Hans with the back of his gloved hand.
Henry doesn’t try to be quiet. He doesn’t register what he is doing either. And Cumans’ gasps of pain mix with his snarls.
It is over before it really started.
One of the Cumans is still breathing, crawling to his sword lying on the ground. Henry pierces the outstretched hand nailing it to the earth below and slams the heel of his boot into the cuman windpipe, finishing him off with a wet crunch.
His vision is red. There is ringing in his ears that sounds like a bell tolling. But they are deep in a forest, and there is no church nearby, and Hans is not standing with a noose over his neck but only tied to a tree.
Henry lifts his head and meets Hans’ eyes, and the look in them is the one Henry has seen before but has never expected to see in the eyes of someone who once opened his heart to him.
Henry wonders if that is the first time Hans sees a sword bloodied, a man’s life taken without any consideration. It is not the death he has witnessed that scares him though, Hans has always been smarter than the first impression of him, more adaptable than everyone expects from a lordling that spends his idle time drinking and whoring.
Henry killed these Cumans the first time as well, and the look in Hans’ eyes was one of thankfulness, not fear, not disgust. He is watching Henry warily like one would a dog that has been harmless and faithful and licked the hands that fed it, and then suddenly sank its teeth into the throat of a man passing by leaving a bloody mess behind.
Something shatters in Henry at the look of these eyes, something that has been acquiring cracks with every corpse he left behind without looking back.
He unties Hans wordlessly and pretends that him flinching when Henry approached him didn’t uncoil something dark and ugly inside him.
His vision is red, and the bell tolls in his ears. In his dreams there is disappointment in his Pa’s eyes, in his wake hours there is wariness in Hans’.
His hands are covered in so much blood he sees it even after he wastes half a soap to scrub them.
His Ma taught him to care, his Pa taught him respect and honor. Henry learned to hate all by himself. The lessons lied in ashes of his childhood home, in the dead eyes of his parents, in the smell of blood and decaying flesh, in Toth’s laughter as he rode past Henry with his hand on the stolen sword and the anguish in Hans’ eyes as he stood with a noose around his neck. The hatred flourished with every injustice and suffering witnessed, and it has gotten so big that it started to replace something important deep in Henry’s heart.
He is not ready to put another sin on his soul, and so he finds a bandit camp he remembers and doesn’t put up much of a fight.
He wakes up to the sun streaming through a small window of the Rattay mill and Theresa’s concerned face.
If he even had a chance to save his parents, now it is gone.
Chapter Text
Henry stands before his father again, meets Hans Capon for the first time again, and feels lonely like never before. He is a stranger to his best friend and lover-to-be, the friends he grew up with are either dead or scattered around like seeds on the wind, and the new ones have not been met yet. He knows more than he can talk of, carries more weight than he can share. He feels more lost than after losing his parents and his home the first time, a leaf torn off its tree, with nothing to belong to and nowhere to go.
Back then he found something to hold on to in serving Sir Radzig. Even before knowing of being his son, this gave Henry a pillar he could lean at. He had the task his Lord relied on him to perform, and each one done successfully steadied him if only a little.
It is not enough now. There is warmth in his father’s eyes when he looks at Henry, that Henry can only recognise now, but he can only call him by his title, despite the word father being on his tongue. Can not share the burdens he carries, can not ask for fatherly advice or a kind word.
Henry doesn’t belong here even more now than when he stood here the first time, a blacksmith boy in his tattered clothes, with his sloppy bows and the words that tripped over one another on the way out of his mouth.
It is not unlike mourning for the dead, he thinks. It is not only our loved ones' existence that we mourn when it ends, but our ties to them that are cut off with them gone.
He lets Hans win both duels this time. Henry will carry the cuts and bruises Hans’ sword gave him and the sound of his victorious laugher with the same devotion he carried the lingering feeling of Hans’ hands on his body and the sounds of his satisfied gasps.
He has to go through the hunt with Hans again and this time he just follows his friend when he tries to hunt hares and annoys him and hares in equal proportions until Hans gives up and they return to the camp empty handed. Henry laughs at Hans’ sour face the whole evening, and Hans does his best to stay in his indignation, but the corners of his lips are twitching in a held back smile he is too proud to show.
Henry watches this almost smile and he loves, and he lets the feeling spread wide inside him, to fill all the places in him. Perhaps he can hold on to it later, when he needs to kill again. Perhaps it will keep the pain away the next time he is killed. Perhaps, if he lets it consume him, it will drive his nightmares away.
He can’t prevent Hans riding off after the wounded boar this time either, but Henry allows the Cumans to fight him, instead of butchering them as he did last time. The look in Hans’ eyes when Henry allowed his rage to get the best of him last time already haunts him. It is but a small addition to his nightmares that never let him rest through a night, and like he once swore to his Pa to never run again, he swears to Hans in his dreams to never let himself reflect in his eyes like this.
Your own mistakes are the best teachers, and Henry has always been a quick learner.
As Henry is fighting, Hans is cursing the whole time in between the pained groans, and the price of Henry’s distraction is a cut on his temple. A surface wound, but it bleeds so much it covers half of Henry's face in sticky red, and Hans’ eyes are wide with panic when Henry approaches him after the Cumans are dealt with. It is not the fear of him but for him, and Henry manages a smile to ease his friend’s nerves.
“I’m alright, don’t look at me like I’m halfway to the grave,” he says. Hans has a gushing wound on his side and a swollen ankle that likely hides a broken bone. The skin on his chin is split open, and the blood has seeped into the edge of his brigandine and then caked there and on the skin of his neck. “You should see yourself, you don’t look that much better than me.”
Hans can’t walk, and Henry can’t carry him over his shoulder for that wound on his side. He lets him climb on his back, Henry’s hands supporting his weight under his thighs.
“Haven’t traveled like this since I was a child,” Hans jokes in his ear, but his voice is tense and he holds onto Henry for dear life. It is only the first time that Hans was being held captive, fearing for his life. He will get used to it later, will learn how to teeter on the invisible line between life and death. He will grow up soon, just like Henry did, through spilling blood and digging graves and wondering if the next one will be his own.
But he is just a boy now, scared like this for the first time, and brave and proud enough to hide it so well that the first time Henry didn’t even notice.
They stumble this way slowly until Neuhof, and Henry is grateful for the slow pace, for the opportunity to be so close to Hans, to hear his breath against his ear and feel his heartbeat against his back.
In Suchdol before Henry had to leave in the night, he couldn’t sleep, and he laid there listening to Hans’ steady breathing as he slept, his skin soft and warm against Henry’s. Hans smelled of sweat and spent seed and of something faint behind those scents that Henry thought must have been just him.
He can’t sense it now, even with Hans being so close, only the metallic smell of blood and the musk of sweat. Hans’ thighs are warm and solid in Henry’s hands. In his mind Henry begins to say a prayer for forgiveness but cuts himself short ― there will be no forgiveness no matter how much he repents. And he will never repent for accepting Hans into his heart.
Hans is chattering the whole way, his voice trembling at the edges of the words and he rushes to hide it with more words spilling out of him, only halting into abrupt pauses when Henry needs to hoist him higher when his weight becomes too much and Henry fears of his hands slipping off. It is all nonsense, but Henry listens to every word, and hums in agreement at the appropriate places ― his input is not needed more than that.
In Neuhof Henry uses all his charm and eloquence to convince the horse trader to lend them a horse.
He helps Hans into the saddle and climbs to sit behind him. Hans trails off on half a phrase he was saying and turns quiet when Henry sneaks an arm around him mindful of his injury. They don’t speak until Rattay.
How man's feelings can be strange sometimes. Hans is here in his arms and yet Henry misses him so terribly.
As they trot toward Rattay Henry thinks that if no one else, at least he was able to save this horse from the incoming slaughter.
*
After the Neuhof slaughter, Henry rides straight to Pribyslavitz. He waits for the night time and changes into the shirt and trousers so dark blue they look black in the darkness. One by one he stalks the patrols and hides their corpses in the tall bushes in the mirror of his doings in the praguers camp back in the time where he belonged.
He knows how many to expect, knows where their tents are. It will not be a small task, but if he can sneak inside now, cut their number just a little and perhaps find Runt as well, more soldiers' lives will be saved later when they launch an attack on the camp.
And the worst that can happen, he thinks morbidly, as he makes his way deeper into the camp, is they catch and kill him, and then he will just return again, learned from his mistake, and will do it better next time.
And when it eventually happens he only clicks his tongue in disappointment. Death is familiar now and pain is only temporary and he has almost gotten used to it, that he barely makes a sound when he is slashed with the curved Cuman sword.
It’s like closing his eyes to a sleep with no dreams in it. In a way it is much better than the nightmares he endures each night.
Henry wakes up at the mill.
And after the Neuhof slaughter he heads to Pribyslavitz again.
He makes it deeper this time, kills more bandits too, even catches the sight of Runt sleeping under one of the tents.
And just like all the last times he tried to change the course of his own past, he fails.
He is killed again, and then he tries again, only to be killed this time as well.
Runt is just in an arm’s reach each time. As Henry is bleeding out on the ground he wonders if he should go straight to Vranik next time. Get the die, get into the camp. Find Toth and kill him.
Cumans don’t finish him this time. Runt is standing over him with a mocking grimace on his face, as Henry’s vision fades.
It will all be pointless as well, won’t it? Henry failed to change anything in Skalitz, he failed to change anything here, why would Vranik be any different? What’s the purpose of it all? Why is he brought back if he is unable to do anything?
He wakes up at the mill again and he counts the dead. The men whose lives he has taken. He counts his own deaths. The latter number always falls short before the former. He thinks perhaps if he evens them out, if he pays with his own deaths for each one that he has caused, he will be released.
But he only kills more and more. And the first number grows much faster than the second, taking them even further apart from each other.
Eventually he accepts. There is no higher plan for this. It is no punishment nor is it a penance. And there is no hope for him to repay for what he has taken, because one can’t pay for one death with another, and his own life will always be lesser than all of the ones that he has cut short.
In his dreams, there is fire, and disappointment in his father’s eyes. There is thundering of hooves and a burning castle on the horizon, bright in the night, never getting closer no matter how much he spurs the horse under him.
There is a bell tolling, counting the twelfth hour, and the sound of the noose squealing under the weight of the body in it.
There is a laughter of the man he once sent toppling over the broken window of a high tower. There is the stench of rotting corpses and the feeling of hunger, so deep inside his stomach, it feels like a hole carved in his middle, never to be filled.
There is an explosion, and rubble and a man trapped under it. There is screaming and silence. The call for help and the empty dead eyes.
There is fire, blood and death. And in his dreams Henry is always too late.
He wakes up never rested, with stinging behind his eyes and a mournful downturn on his lips that now feels permanent.
Before each night he prays to see the good. The warm gentle memories that he made in the narrow crevices between the sorrow and despair. Of his mother’s kind smile, and his father's approving gaze. Of the first time he kissed a girl, all jittery nerves and excitement. Of the last time he kissed a boy, consumed with the feeling of love, and how he counted the golden specks in his blues eyes as they lay in each other’s embrace only hours before Henry’s first death.
He shouldn’t pray for the last. He should burn for this sin. But instead he keeps living on only to die again.
If Henry remembered how to cry he would. Instead his heart bleeds in his chest, but his eyes are dry.
Notes:
It should get a little better after this even if it doesn't seem this way. More hurt/comfort and less angst
Chapter 4
Notes:
I'm not kidding - I had to rewrite this chapter 6 times. I have no idea why it gave me such a hard time. Hopefully the next ones will go smoother although I'm starting to doubt.
Replaying KCD2 after replaying KCD1 for inspiration, fingers crossed
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Only a fool keeps hitting a stone wall with his bare fists hoping to crumble it. And there is a limit to Henry’s foolishness.
To the hunt Henry brings a crossbow.
Henry is not sure what prompts him to do this. Perhaps the simple fatigue of failing to convince Hans time and time again that the beast such as this won’t go down from a simple arrow. Perhaps it is because the image of Hans being tortured by Cumans has finally wormed into Henry’s dreams, finding itself a place in between the disappointment in his Pa’s dead eyes, and a bell tolling over a hung figure in the distance.
Henry stands over the finally dead animal listening to Hans complain about a crossbow on a hunt, and thinks, I don’t ever want to do this again . Not the hunt, not the duels, not being introduced to Hans for the first time again , not saving him from Cumans, not sneaking into Pribyaslavitz… If he had to die to get back here, what does he have to do to return to where he belongs? Where he doesn’t have to follow his own footprints, where he can say ‘father’, where Hans knows the price of a human life, and they both know the weight of loving someone they are not allowed to.
He wants a life where he doesn’t have to count back his own deaths to know which life it is.
The boar lies there dead, a fork on the road that didn’t have one before, and all Henry can think of is Pebbles. How he had to save Hans to get his horse, trade the lordling’s broken ankle and a few scratches to the mount that Henry has long thought of as a friend, just as valuable as Mutt.
The well-trodden road finds him itself. An alarm in Hans’ voice finally brings Henry’s attention to his surroundings just in time for him to see one of the Cumans drawing an arrow that all the previous times was meant for Hans’ horse, but now is pointing at Hans’ chest.
Hans’ loud bickering must have gotten the Cumans’ attention.
There is a brief moment, no longer than a breath, when Henry thinks, If he dies, I will follow . As many times as needed, he will return. Forget the fatigue of following his own steps, he will do that again and again with no hesitation, if that means fixing the mistake he made by trying to steer away from his path. Hans would not pay for Henry’s mistakes.
The Cuman looses the arrow, and Henry jumps in front of Hans.
“That…” Hans starts saying later, when both Cumans lie dead and Henry is bandaging the bleeding hole in his left shoulder.
“Just a scratch,” Henry interrupts. He has lived and died through much worse. Half of those wounds left scars only on his memory.
“Was meant for me, I was about to say.”
Henry points with his chin at the blooded arrow he has thrown on the ground.
“It’s over there if you still want it.”
“No, thank you,” Hans replies. Then catches himself and tilts his head in what would be a bow if he was of lower standing. Or if Henry was of higher. “Thank you. For possibly saving my life.”
“That’s what I’m here for, my lord.”
In their camp Hans kindly, albeit begrudgingly, offers Henry his horse. Henry knows Hans well enough not to push too far so he refuses. He pretends he doesn’t notice a small sigh of relief.
“You let me win,” Hans speaks up once they are out of the woods.
“What?”
“In our duel yesterday,” Hans clarifies. “I thought you were sloppy with a sword, quite expected honestly from a blacksmith boy. But I saw you fight those Cumans. And with one arm indisposed, at that. You let me win.”
Henry begins to shrug, but the movement pulls at his wound and he stops before he makes it bleed again.
“Maybe,” he says.
Hans scoffs.
“ Maybe ,” he mocks. “I know what you must think of me and I know what people say about me. But I’m not that arrogant or ignorant not to admit that if you fought me like you did those Cumans, it would be me who lost that duel.”
“It was clear you wanted to win,” Henry replies.
“So you let me?! I wanted to win, but in a fair fight! To test my skill, to possibly learn something from a new opponent…”
“Perhaps next time then, when we use training swords.”
“I train with Bernard with real swords all the time,” Hans says. “The trick is to not hit with full force. It is a practice after all, not a real fight.”
“That’s a wrong trick to teach your body, my lord,” Henry replies. “Swords are meant to kill.”
Hans scoffs again.
“Nonsense. I’ll show you how. And don’t be so grim, Henry.”
Henry only shakes his head and doesn't answer. He learned swordfight from many teachers, but the best ones were real fights where his life hung on the line. It can’t be taught or explained. Hans will learn it somewhat, albeit not to the extent that Henry was forced to. It is a blessing really not to have to.
“And Henry,” Hans adds, looking down at him. “Do not lie to me like this again, blacksmith boy.”
Henry can’t promise him that. If it was possible he wouldn’t keep anything from Hans. He yearns to tell, to share the burden if only a little. To let Hans into his world that got so confusing when Henry lost the ability to stay dead — something that he always thought was a given. It changed him, in the ways he doesn’t yet fully understand. Instead of fearing death he now fears the chore of repeating the same steps he has already taken. It makes him feel unpleasantly cynical.
His life is barely worth anything now that it can’t properly end. He fears that people he meets, experiences he goes through will begin to lose their value as well, once he encounters them one too many times. It is a terrifying and lonely existence.
“I apologise, my lord,” he says in lieu of a promise he knows he wouldn’t be able to keep.
“Accepted.” Hans nods and returns his gaze to the road. “And you should show me that counter-cut you did. When your shoulder gets better of course.”
Henry smiles.
“Anything for you, my lord,” he says quietly. He doesn’t think Hans hears him.
*
The price of not half the men’s lives in Pribyaslvitz but only one boar is what was needed to lay a new path before Henry. Or, perhaps, the path is all the same, but now he doesn’t have to travel it alone.
After the news of the Neuhof slaughter, seeing that Hans is in perfect health, Hanush sends him there to investigate, and Henry has to put double the effort to convince his father to permit him to go along. Sir Radzig is not at all pleased that his son risked his life to protect Capon’s, albeit he hides it very well. But Henry, being aware of their family relation, can see that in the way his father’s eyes linger on the bandage on Henry’s shoulder. Only a little to the right and the arrow would have pierced his heart. Henry feels equal parts elated by his father’s concern for him and annoyed at the implication that his life is of higher value than Hans’.
Henry knows that he won’t be back soon, so he walks down to the mill with a fresh pork sausage in one hand that he just purchased from the butcher, and a small bouquet of roses he collected in the Rattay’s sorry excuse for the garden.
He gifts the flowers to Theresa, and bows as low as he would in front of a nobel. He can’t repay the debt of failing to save her from Cumans and then of her rescuing him from Runt, but at least he can express how grateful he is in more than a couple of words thrown in passing. He used to be selfish in his grief, and later in his anger. He thinks he still is, but he feels something important inside him slowly dying each time he lets his anger and pain guide him.
His parents would be disappointed if he allowed that part of him to disappear. He knows Hans would — Henry saw it in his eyes. Never again…
He feeds Mutt the sausage and tries not to feel offended when it takes him nearly half an hour to convince the dog to follow him up to the town. Mutt doesn’t see him as his owner, not yet, and it will take time and training, but they both lost their families and their homes. It took Henry too long the first time to understand that misery does love company.
Tasks half-abandoned, promises forgotten. People in need treated with ignorance instead of compassion. Not out of ill intent, but for selfishness of his misery. Misery loves company, but not when one perceives their misery as greater than others’. It is easy to overlook others’ misfortune when you just experienced your whole world going down in literal flames.
The wound is still there, it will never fully heal. But with the grace of time it has scabbed over, and the pain is not so sharp that it makes it hard to breathe, but a distant ache. It pulls at him and makes him feel heavy and tired, but it allows the space to breathe and to look at it with the knowledge of the months he spent building himself a new life.
There are other, fresher aches now that he still hasn’t had the time to come to terms with, to accept as a part of his existence and his nightmares. Perhaps when the time comes to experience them again, he will be a better man.
*
Henry wasn’t even of age when life pulled the rug from under his feet. It is strange to think of that now, stranger even being in those moments again but looking at them from the height of the experience he has. He sees mistakes that he made, words spoken out of order, things overlooked. How scared and lost he was, being alone among these people he didn’t know, navigating through the forests he had never walked to the places he had only heard of before.
The paths are familiar now, ridden many times. He recognises the conciliation crosses sitting in the shades of the trees slightly off the roads, and the faces of the villagers he is passing. He feels more comfortable in the saddle than his first time around, still remembers how tired he was getting at first if he had to ride for more than an hour, his arse falling numb. Pebbles flicks her ear, and Henry knows to scratch her neck and promise her an apple once they get to their destination, lest she gets annoyed with his inattentiveness and slows her gait to a walk.
Once in a while he whistles to get Mutt’s attention ― one time the dog, distracted by all the interesting smells on the road, almost got under the hooves, scaring Henry almost to death.
He knows the roads, and he knows the places, and the people are all familiar too. But only now Henry actually sees. He doesn’t need to rush, didn’t really need to before either ― can’t squeeze blood from a stone and can’t jump higher than your own head. He knows, he has tried, and died for it.
Hans is chirping like a bird that was allowed to leave its cage. Even his displeasure with Henry’s horse is half-hearted.
“Is my life not worth more than this mare?” He exclaims in disbelief, but his lips are pulled in a relaxed smile. “Look at this creature, why did uncle even have it in the stable?”
Henry only chuckles and rubs Pebbles’ neck murmuring apologies for the insensitive lord.
Through Hans, Henry slows down. Through Hans he sees himself, walking these steps for the first time, seeing the unexpected, unsure how to proceed.
In Hans he sees something that he has irrevocably lost.
The young lord’s mouth pulls into a sad downturn at the sight of the slaughtered horses. The sadness shifts into anger, the same way it did for Henry.
It is hard to feel something when one has seen it so many times it doesn’t seem real anymore. So Henry watches Hans for emotions he is supposed to be feeling. Emotions of the soul yet undamaged, not hardened by the cruelty of man just yet, not numbed by death and life losing all the meaning.
It’s never good to accept death as a permanent part of your life, Godwin once told him. For Henry it is too late.
When they find Limpy Lubosh, Hans pales so quickly Henry fears he might pass out. Hans has enough willpower to leave the house with his head raised and get farther away from the onlookers before he throws up all over someone’s beets garden.
As he waits for Hans to catch his breath, Henry tries to remember his former self, but the image is distant and covered with red fog.
Later in the night Henry stares into the dark roof of the tavern they found lodgings in, listens to Hans’ soft breaths and thinks that he is no longer the man that once became Hans’ Lancelot.
And for the first time in the endless lives he has died for he realizes that perhaps the only thing he has been looking forward to reliving again might never happen.
Notes:
I'm not too happy with this chapter either so pls bear with me.
In the next chapter: getting drunk in Sasau baths
Chapter 5
Notes:
I believe I promised drunken bath shenanigans? I lied xD Get some more pain instead xD
Thanks so crazy much for all the comments! I looove reading those! So happy you guys are enjoying being hurt by this fic ahaha
Chapter Text
Henry can’t think of anything believable to tell Hans to avoid the drunken night with Father Godwin and Hans seems all too eager to do anything to forget what he saw in Lubosh’s house. Henry can’t blame him ― it was the main reason he so easily agreed to drink with Godwin the first time as well.
Henry empties his mugs like he hopes to find the exit from the spiral of endless lives he has stuck in on their bottoms, but the truth is ― he doesn’t want to be present for whatever comes next. Doesn’t want to see where this night takes them, doesn’t want to risk telling Hans something that would push him away. Henry drinks to pass out. Let him lie in the ditch the whole night. He will come up with a way not to think what Hans was up to drunk without him once he awakes. He can lie to himself, can bury the unwelcome thoughts under the infinite layers of interlocking memories, fears and regrets. As long as he is not there…
But fate is merciless. Through the haze, Henry watches a half naked wench guide Hans’ hands to her bare tits as she is lifting up her skirt. Another girl is sitting astride Henry’s hips trying to undo the lacings on his trousers.
He is lucid just enough to be able to push her off, mumbling an excuse of being too drunk to get his dick hard for her, and to keep himself from saying anything else when the girl on Hans’ lap lowers herself on his cock with a lewd moan.
Henry is not sober enough to realize that he shouldn’t watch, should turn away, close his eyes and pray for a drunken oblivion. For his own sake more than for Hans’ modesty that the other man doesn’t seem to care about at that moment anyway.
But his head is empty of lucid thoughts, and so he watches.
With a morbid satisfaction that hurts him more than it pleases him, Henry notes every stutter in Hans’ breath and how they barely contain the sounds of pleasure Henry is familiar with from that one night he spent in Hans’ bed. Or perhaps Hans is just too drunk to properly enjoy it, a little voice whispers in Henry’s ear. And whatever he might have felt for Henry has nothing to do with this.
The wench that was trying to get Henry out of his trousers has climbed off and disappeared. He hears Godwin’s grunts and a woman’s moans somewhere behind him.
Henry watches as the girl on Hans’ lap rides him until he comes with a quiet gasp, head thrown back and eyelashes flattering over his half closed eyes.
The angry feeling that can only be jealousy balls up all the ale in Henry’s stomach into a tight lump and pushes it up his throat. He almost falls off a ladder climbing down from the barn loft. He vomits in between two haystacks and wishes the jealousy spilled out of him along with the booze, but it digs its claws in his heart and stays.
*
“You are even less fun today than watching grass grow,” Hans complains the next day as they ride out of Uzhitz. “You certainly were more fun last night. I shall get you drunk more often.”
Henry remembers enough to know that he wasn’t. But Hans drank so much he found even Henry’s grim expression amusing. Not today though. Aside from a curt greeting, Henry hasn’t spoken a word. Last night was torturous and he woke up in a foul mood and with a headache as an addition to the ache in his heart. For the first time since they rode out of Rattay he wishes Hans stayed there.
“Although,” Hans continues without waiting for his reply, “if this is how you become after a night of drinking, perhaps I shall keep the ale out of your reach from now on.”
It is not hangover but jealousy that has made Henry a not so pleasant company today though. The feeling is entirely new, and in the river of has seen, has felt, has been through he is slowly drowning in, he clings to this novelty like not his life, but death depends on it. Something that makes his chest feel so tight and his breathing so hard and that leaves him feeling angry and bitter will not help him keep himself afloat, will not pull him to a bank. But it might drag him in, deeper even, to never resurface again.
A blissful oblivion.
Out of a feeling of spite against something he doesn’t bother to place, Henry turns his horse toward the northern road. He couldn't give a rat’s arse about the likes of Reeky and Tommy. Or was it Timmy? He can’t remember now. And if Hans insists on following the trail properly he might as well do it on his own. Henry can accidentally stumble across Pribyslavitz without him.
“God above, you are positively fuming, Hal,” Hans chuckles from his saddle. “You should’ve fucked that wench last night, she was practically on your lap. Did the ale prove too much for your loins?” He asks with a laugh. “You know, good fucking always raises man’s spirits.”
Henry grinds his teeth and spurs Pebbles to a canter.
“I can see that.”
“Or is it perhaps…” Hans draws cheerfully, ignoring his comment. “You’ve never fucked a girl before, Henry?!” He says it and starts laughing. It is not a mocking laughter — despite his often haughty attitude Hans is never intentionally cruel. Henry knows he is not laughing at him, but his cheerful mood only serves to remind Henry of the reason for it.
He doesn’t react in the way he knows he would have if he heard Hans say this after Henry had known him for just a few days. But Henry has known him for much longer.
“I have,” he replies dryly, keeping his eyes on the road. “And I much prefer not to bed anyone I’m not sweet on,” he admits. Something that he was granted only a single occasion to realize.
“Bah, different ribbons on the same wench,” Hans says dismissively. “Such nonsense is only good for stories maids tell each other.”
“Oh really?” Henry asks, glancing at him. There is blood in his mouth from where he has chewed on the inside of his lip. He swallows it. “Tell me, my lord, have you ever loved someone to speak of this so dismissively?”
Hans lets go of the reins and spreads his arms like he wants to embrace the world.
“I’m too young for love!” He declares. “How can I give myself to just one lass when there are so many beautiful women that require my attention.” He drops his arms with a satisfied sigh. “But you say it so as if you have. Who’s the lucky one, Henry?” Hans asks teasingly.
He spurs his horse to catch up with Henry, who has been digging his heels into Pebbles’ sizes for some time now. Not as to make her go faster but almost unintentionally so. Henry forces himself to relax his stance as he notices the tension in his body and Pebbles’ large eye glancing at him in accusation.
“Aye, I have,” he says, and he is almost surprised that he can. This fact belongs to the memories of the life he brought here after his death. But perhaps he is allowed to speak of it since he can’t use it to change the path drawn before him by God.
Or perhaps he can say it because it is true, here and now. He has and he does. It is only when he felt it in his heart, sometime between assisting Hans with winning the butcher’s daughter and trying to find his way inside Trosky without being seen, and the bell counting hours over his head, that he realized what love really was. Not the affection that he felt for Bianca once, no. Real love was a scary thing, and bigger than anything Henry could ever find words for.
He doesn’t want to hear what Hans might ask next. There is nothing that Henry can tell him that will not be a lie, simply because he can’t tell the truth. He is spared such questions however as Hans finally notices the direction in which they are going.
“Wait, Henry, we are riding the wrong way!” Hans exclaims. He looks up at the sun and turns in his saddle, pointing at the road they took from Uzhitz. “Isn’t Ledetchko to the south from here?”
Hans slows down his horse, but Henry rides past him.
“And you are suddenly an expert in these lands?!” he bites out.
“Don’t forget who you are speaking to, blacksmith’s boy!”
The retort is immediate as Hans’ horse pulls up beside Henry’s. The amusement and joyful albeit one-sided camaraderie is completely gone from Hans’ tone as he says this. It is Lord Capon that is speaking to Henry now, and this part of him has always been easy for Henry to be confrontational with.
He pulls at the reins to slow Pebbles down to a walk, and turns in his saddle, for the first time today meeting Hans’ eyes.
“Oh, so I’m Hal when you drag me drinking and whoring with you, but I’m blacksmith’s boy once I say something not to your lord’s ears liking?!”
“I didn’t drag you anywhere, you agreed to Godwin’s invitation yourself!” Hans’ voice almost breaks in his indignation. “And just because I find your company usually pleasant doesn’t make us equals! You have no right to speak to me this way. Apologize, now.”
Hans’ chin is raised high and the way he says this is not unlike he spoke in Troskowitz’s tavern to the man he didn’t even know. It is the first time that Henry is on the receiving end of this, perhaps excluding their first conflict in Rattay tavern. They barely knew each other back then. It is different now, at least different for Henry. The tone bruises. Henry wants to press on the bruise.
He knows he shouldn’t speak like this. He knows he wouldn’t normally even feel like that. The days when he felt he needed to be contradictory to every word out of Capon’s mouth were long gone. Henry should know better really than to partake in pointless spats with that lordling part of him that Hans wears like a surcoat. It hides the real Hans underneath and neither Henry likes this part of him, nor, he suspects, Hans himself is too fond of this act.
Thanks to the joke God played on Henry he is the older one. He has lived through more, has learned more. He knows how and when to compromise and that apologizing before a friend for the words said in the heat of the moment can not damage one’s pride as much as not doing this would damage the friendship.
But Henry has lived through too much, has learned too much… He knows many a man with more battle experience, whose hands are so bloodied it reaches all the way up their arms, who have buried more friends than Henry has. But none of them had to live through their own deaths or watch their loved ones die time and time again.
Henry should know better, but his body aches in the places of the deadly blows that have left his skin unmarked, and his dreams are red and his heart is full of ache and grief. And all that he has left in his life (lives?) is a father who is too hesitant to speak of their relation, and a beloved who sees Henry as a servant, and just hours ago fucked a wench in front of Henry’s eyes unaware of the pain it caused Henry’s heart.
Henry should be a better man, but he is just a man. And there is a limit to how much he can carry before it begins to spill out.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my lord, I forgot that you are only capable of becoming friends with your equals !” Henry practically spats the last word.
“God above, what has gotten into you today?! And stop that fucking nag of yours, we should turn back to the south.”
To Hans' credit he seems to be more taken aback by Henry’s sudden change of attitude rather than an offensive tone he has taken toward the noble. A part of Henry that after endless conversations with people of different standings has learned to observe and has especially learnt the quirks of Hans’ expressions during the mostly idle time of Suchdol’s siege, is taking note of this impassively. It is a silent observer, incapable of interfering with Henry’s words or actions. It watches Hans and sees the surprised arch of his brows that replaced the angry crease between them.
And through the veil of undirected anger Henry sees the privilege granted him in the tone of surprise rather than genuine fury that Hans’ words have. Even before Hans knows of Henry’s half-noble origin he is more kind to him than he would toward any other peasant. Hans will speak of the disparity between them for the months to come, such things were taught to him with the first words that he learned. But he has always forgiven Henry more, has let him closer than anyone else even in the first days of their acquaintance. Henry didn’t realize it back then, but he sees it now, suddenly with such clarity that it even soothes the sharp ache on his heart from the claws of jealousy that he knows he shouldn’t have welcomed into him so easily and without a fight.
Mutt, who has been quietly following after them sniffing the grass by the road, barks.
Hans’ horse neighs and rises on the hind legs in a jerky movement that throws surprised Hans off. He is nearly stomped by it when it bolts away, an arrow sticking out of its side.
They have ridden too far.
Henry missed the turn of the road after which he knew they should have been quiet. He has been in this woods so many times, died in it so many times… He should know every tree by now, every curve of the path. But he allowed his feelings, his jealousy to cloud his mind and get in the way of his better judgement.
They have ridden too far and they have talked too loud.
Henry is off the horse before two Cumans can approach Hans who is rising from the ground. His right arm is limp by his side, broken or dislocated.
An arrow swishes past Henry’s ear, Mutt growls and barks at someone farther in the woods, a sound of a horn reaches from Pribyslavitz that is already visible further down the road.
Foolish boy…
There are only two enemies in front of Henry when he draws his sword, but he knows there will be more.
He knows exactly how many of them there will be. Too many.
He glances back at Hans who is holding his sword awkwardly in his left hand.
Too many…
Henry steps in front of Hans.
You’ll have to take him first…
He could have won that fight, but he will not win this one. And he knows he will die trying.
“Henry, my arm, I think… I can’t fight…”
“Run,” Henry growls through the clenched teeth, and grips his sword tighter. The first Cuman approaches him and swings his sabre from an angle that used to surprise Henry before, but now he blocks it without thinking. He remembers this one. He has never once lost to this one before.
“I’m not going to fucking run and leave y—“
Henry parries another hit, side steps and thrusts his sword in the narrow slit between two pieces of armor the Cuman is wearing. The sword comes out red, the Cuman clutches at the wound and falls heavily on the ground. Henry looks over his shoulder at Hans, meets his eyes and barks,
“ Run! ”
Hans looks past Henry, his eyes widening as he undoubtedly sees the reinforcements rushing from the town toward them. His lips are pressed in a tight line, he meets Henry’s eyes and shakes his head. Henry feels his breath halt somewhere in his throat and his skin suddenly feels uncomfortably cold.
He turns back toward approaching enemies, grips his sword until his fingers begin to hurt. Hans is quiet behind him, aside from the measured inhales he is sucking through his clenched teeth. Henry feels his fear. He takes a wider stance and meets the next bandit with his sword before he can swing his.
Hans doesn’t run. Henry kills more enemies than he has ever managed to kill here before. When he loses the grip on his sword that has gotten too heavy, he pulls out his dagger and manages to stab two more bandits, before he hears a cry of pain behind him.
He turns to see Hans’s knees buckle as he falls on the ground after a Cuman sabre sliced through the thick fabric of the pourpoint on his back. As he falls, another bandit pierces him with his sword.
Sword and the dagger forgotten, Henry finds himself on his knees before Hans. He finds his hand, takes it between his own, and watches his nightmare come to life, and he knows he will be seeing this scene many times again every time he closes his eyes and sleep takes him.
Hans’ breaths come fast and shallow, and blood is spilling out of his mouth on each shaky exhale.
“H— Henry…” is barely audible. His eyes dart behind Henry’s shoulder with a warning but Henry only grips his hand harder.
When Henry is struck from behind, before his vision turns dark he thinks that Hans’ eyes have never looked so bright blue before.
They probably die at the same moment, hand in hand. Like his parents did, Henry thinks.
The comparison doesn’t bring him any comfort.
Chapter 6
Summary:
Henry prays. And he says too much.
Notes:
You are all legends! I'm so happy every time I get a comment to this fic, thank you all so very much!
Hope you'll like this one, a little different this time, with a slower pace, but there is some development, and a cliffhanger, and mb more things will be different this time for Henry
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Henry wakes with a start and with an ache lodged behind his eyes. He wakes on a haystack in the same barn in Uzhitz he woke up in just a couple of hours ago. Hans is sprawled under another haystack, shirtless, only in half-laced trousers that he pulled on last night when he couldn't find his braies. The late morning sun coming through the opened doors gilds Hans’ messy hair, bathes his pale skin in a warm light and makes the soft hairs coming down from his navel look almost golden. He is drooling on the hay, and his slow steady breaths make a straw sticking out of it swing gently. Henry watches the movement until the burning in his eyes makes him unable to see.
There is a trough just outside, and Henry splashes the cold water onto his face with shaky hands, but the stinging in his eyes doesn’t ease up. With one hand gripping the edge of the troth, he slides down to his knees and covers his squeezed shut eyes with the other. The skin of his palm is cool from the water, and the hot droplets of tears landing on it feel like burns. The hand on the edge of the troth is trembling and he grips the wood harder until the shakes stop.
As quiet as he can, he cries. For the first time in months, and it doesn’t make him feel better, doesn’t ease up the pain, doesn’t wipe away the image of Hans’ bright blue eyes and the blood on his lips, and the wet unstable breaths.
Henry cries silently, hiding his tears in his hand and swallowing the ache. After his parents died, it took him at least a week to learn how to breathe around the gashing wound in his heart.
He wonders if mourning someone who is still alive will dull the pain faster.
*
The possibility of Hans’ death scares Henry even more now that he has seen it. Knows how Hans’ eyes look before he dies, how Henry’s name sounds whispered on his lips with his last breath.
A thought of swaying from the laid out path now is not the fear of possible inconvenience of experiencing death again and then reliving the past couple of days anymore, but something that truly terrifies Henry. He has been ready to pay with his deaths for his attempts to cut corners. But nothing in this world can possibly worth Hans’ life, even if Henry can go back to where he is still alive by following him into death.
He follows Hans as they ride first to Ledetchko and then after Timmy to Merhojed. Hans enjoys this little game that he sees in this investigation, joyful every time they stumble upon a bandit camp when they cut through the woods, unaware of Henry's gaze constantly following him, his heart trembling in a missed beat when they have to fight someone.
The bandits are hardly a danger to any of them, but Henry is terrified, and Hans insists on checking Pribyslavitz right away before going back to Rattay.
“It’s only a few-hour ride from here Henry!”
Henry agrees, because Henry can’t deny Hans anything, and the night they spend in a roadside camp before riding north to scout the bandits’ camp, sleep doesn’t come to him. It is a blessing in disguise, horrible nightmares avoided, and Henry spends the time watching Hans sleep. The lordling sleeps peacefully, dreams unmarred yet by dreadful experiences war can bring, the fright he got seeing the way Limpy Lubosh was butchered likely already forgotten.
Henry is watching him and doesn’t envy, and he is thinking of what he can do to keep Hans from bathing his hands in so much blood that it never washes off and from seeing so many people he knows be laid down into graves that their dead eyes make their way into his dreams. And he can’t come up with anything.
*
Hans calls him a mother hen when Henry warns him for the umpteenth time to be as quiet as possible near Pribyaslabitz, but he doesn’t wave him off. Hans might not treat this too seriously, but unlike Henry he has never been reckless.
Henry hates the place by now, but he knows the lay of the camp and the patrol routes, and where they keep the arrows and knows which tent is the farthest they can sneak to before being seen. He pours poison he prepared back in Rattay into one of the cauldrons with food, and then has to answer Hans’ question on the way back of where he has gotten it.
They are back in Rattay by the end of the day, and Hans is delighted to be able to bring information of the enemy camp. He preens before his uncle when the man praises his work ( “Finally useful for the first time in your life.” ), and Henry is happy to hand Hans all the credit.
He leaves the upper castle and heads to Pirkstein to report to Sir Radzig. The smithy is empty and quiet now, and the tavern down from the gates is on the contrary full of life. The sun hangs low, the light of it dimmed and tinted orange, and townsfolk have already finished their day’s work now free to take a breather and share a mug or two with their mates.
Henry passes the small square with the market stands that are now barren and stops to watch the sun roll behind the tall roof of St. Matthew’s church. He has walked past it countless times, but now something guide his feet to it, and he crosses the yard to the doors that are still open.
The church is empty, and as he walks inside, the quiet sounds of the town unwinding after a busy day disappear, leaving him alone with the shuffle of his feet against the floor. For a moment, he stands in the middle of it, watching the flickers of light from the candle flames upon the frescoes on the walls.
There was a time when Henry only just found himself in this circle of lives and deaths, when he thought it surely was Hell. A product of the Devil himself, a punishment for his sins. Place where his prayers shall he say them will not be heard.
It still might be such, but there is hope in his heart that this is not the Devil’s but God’s plan. Not a punishment but a lesson, the purpose of which he hasn’t figured out yet.
His gaze slides against the faces of the saints, stopping at Holy Mary with infant Christ in her arms. He walks to the altar, the steps loud in the silence of the church, and kneels on the hard stone floor.
He used to stop by the chapels on the crossroads, to say a prayer for the souls taken by God and for the health of the living. It has been a while and the words feel clumsy on his tongue at first, as he brings his hands together and bends his head, closing his eyes.
“ Holy Mother, you who see all hearts and carry every sorrow, have mercy on your child, weary and worn”, Henry starts quietly. He crosses himself without opening his eyes, the added guilt of not addressing Heaven for so long heavy on his chest. Is he still worthy of a prayer being heard? He doesn’t know. “I kneel with no words fit for Heaven, only the ones left behind by grief.”
He pauses for a moment, as if waiting for something. He is not sure what it might be ― an answer that he knows he will never hear, or perhaps a realization that his words are unwelcomed. Neither comes, the church is quiet, and Rattay is living its life outside, unaware and unbothered by his heart’s unrest.
“I weep for the souls you have welcomed — my mother and father, my dearest friends — those I loved and could not protect,” Henry continues. His voice trembles, and he takes a long breath, attempting to calm his heart. “Their names rest heavy on my chest, and I am left wandering, like a branch torn from the tree. I confess my failings, Blessed Mother. I was weak when I should have stood firm, blind when I needed to see. Forgive me, for the pain and guilt I carry is deep.”
He broke the word he had given his dead parents, he ran again, and then once more. Given unlimited chances, he gave up anyway. And even if it was God’s plan, it doesn’t excuse the breaking of the promise. There is no one else to blame, but himself.
Even still, he is too weak. If not for The Lord’s mercy that granted Henry another life once more, Hans would be dead as well. And the world would just carry on, without realizing what it lost.
“The guilt…” Henry’s chest is tight from the pain of his soul, and he unlocks his hands, and presses a palm against his heart. “The guilt not for what I did, but for what I could not do. They looked to me, and I…” He takes a breath, and then another, when the first one doesn’t quite manage to fill his lungs. “I failed them. Now I look to you, not as a soldier, not as a man, but as a son lost in the world.
“Forgive me, O Holy Mother, for the things I have done to endure. For the blood I have spilled — though I did not choose war. For what I have taken — though I hungered and had no other way. For…” His voice falters. He opens his eyes and stares unseeingly at the stone floor before him. His heart is beating like a trapped bird against his palm, and his fingers tighten around the fabric of his shirt. There is a feeling not unlike a fright that washes over him despite that he knows full well that he is safe here. “Forgive me, for…” The words come raspy, and he swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “...for the love I’ve held in secret, the love the world would not bless.”
His words carry around in the large empty space of the church. They hit the walls and come back to him, almost louder than he whispered them, and he feels blood drain from his face, his mind telling him to run from an unseen danger just from hearing himself admit to his sin out loud. But there is no one here to hear him, and even if they were, the words are empty now, and all they carry is Henry’s memories of something that once was and might not come to be again.
“You know what lies beneath my silence, even when I cannot speak it. Please… watch over him, I beg you,” he dares to plead. “Let no harm touch him. He is dearer to me than breath itself, and I dread the day grief finds me once more.” The vision of Hans bleeding on the ground before him rises from his memory again, and Henry shuts his eyes as if trying to banish it, but it is still there, in the darkness behind his eyelids.
An unwelcome tear slides down his cheek, and he rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. Allowing himself to cry the other day shifted something inside of him that he had kept locked up. It makes him feel full with the ache, and instead of staying in a tight fist around his heart some of it now spills too easily from his eyes. Another weakness he has to accept now, but he knows he is only a human.
“And… I pray for my father,” Henry says, interlocking his hands in a prayer again. “Please wrap him in your mantle of care and grant him strength and health. Let peace dwell in his heart and light in his days.”
Only after he speaks the words that it downs at him that he has been able to say this out loud. It can’t be the same as admitting to Hans that he has been in love. Henry is not supposed to know of his and Lord Radzig relation just yet, and one time the word father was practically on his tongue when Henry talked to him ― out of habit more than the intent to do it ― it got stuck in his throat just like every time Henry attempted to warn his parents of what was to come.
As quick as the surprise comes it fades ― it is Holy Mary that Henry is speaking to right now. She already knows all there is in his heart and in his mind.
And this opportunity to finally speak of the weight that he has been carrying eases up the tight fist around his chest, if only a little, and his breaths come slightly easier.
“I’ve tried to change what cannot be changed,” Henry says. “I’ve died again and again... And if there is meaning in this path, I cannot see it. If there is a purpose to this return, I don’t understand it. But if this path must go on… then please… don’t let it be for nothing . ”
Henry crosses himself and lifts his eyes at the altar.
“Have mercy on me, Mother of compassion, and shelter me in your grace. Though I walk among many, I feel alone. I am tired, but I will keep walking. Let none of it be in vain. Amen.”
Henry drops his hands and lets out a long breath. It is peaceful here but he doesn’t feel at peace, perhaps he never fully will. The stone floor is merciful to his knees, and with a heavy sigh he begins to rise to his feet. As he does so he hears footsteps behind him, coming not from the far entrance but from the middle of the floor. Whoever it is, Henry missed the sound of them entering the church. He says a final silent prayer in his mind, that this person has only come in a moment ago, perhaps overhearing his final words and not more.
But as Henry stands up and turns, the hope dies in his heart. His father stands before him, watching Henry carefully, as if weighing what he has undoubtedly overheard. A flicker of concern crosses his face, quickly smoothed over, though the tightness at the corners of his mouth lingers.
“Hal?..”
Notes:
There is a high chance I shot myself in the foot with this cliffhanger coz it was a very spontaneous idea and I haven't thought yet where I wanna take it, but hopefully I won't get stuck, coz I have such awesome ideas for Vranik, so it would suck to never get there lol Wish me luck xD
Chapter 7
Summary:
He has thought himself grown ― and yet here he is, heart rattling like a boy who came home covered in mud.
Notes:
First of all, I'm sorry for the long wait, but I warned you that I shot myself in the foot with the previous chapter, so it took me some time to figure out what to do with that.
Secondly, thank you so so so so much for all your lovely comments, you've no idea how happy each and single one of them make me!
The longest chapter so far, but still on the short side
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There was a time, not that long ago, when Henry felt small. Not in an insignificant sort of way, but as an ant perhaps would ― still an essential part of its family and the world, yet unable to conceive the full vastness of it.
A mere peasant, living in a small village, which he never stepped outside of, his whole world was small. His only encounters with the people more important than him were occasional visits of Lord Radzig to his Pa’s smithy.
Sir Radzig was from the world that lay beyond, the world that Henry had no real understanding of and that he knew he would never be able to even get a proper glimpse of, let alone to become a part of.
But then the war forced its way into Henry’s home, destroying it, and violently thrusting him out of the boundaries of his small limited existence.
He didn’t have the luxury of time back then, forced to learn and adapt quickly.
Henry ran from Skalitz and discovered Talmberg. Then Rattay, and Sasau, and further down the line Trosky and Kuttenberg. He spoke to nobles and helped and defied them; he learned to read and learned to wield a sword from the masters. He learned how to lie, and how to smile to get his way and to recognize when a hard word could get him more than a smile. He learned how to be quiet and when to make his presence take more room than he could ever dreamt of just months ago.
And with every book consumed hungrily, with every noble greeting him respectfully, every conversation overheard, every favor earned and granted, Henry grew, and his world grew with him.
No longer just a son of a blacksmith, illiterate peasant from a village the size of Kuttenberg’s district, he didn’t feel small anymore, and never bowed out of fear again but only out of respect, the price of which he learnt to recognise as well.
Nobles no longer belonged to some world where Henry could not step in. He was the part of this world alongside them, and it was not his status as Radzig's bastard that granted him that, but his own merit.
But yet still one person remains that makes Henry feel small, perhaps the only one who can make him feel this way, when not even the King of Hungary managed to put deference into Henry’s heart too full of hate toward him.
“Hal,” Henry’s father says quietly, and sounds almost uncertain. And this uncertainty speaks for how long he has been standing there ― likely out of courtesy, allowing Henry to finish his prayer uninterrupted.
“My lord,” falling out of Henry’s lips and his immediate bow are done without thinking. He straightens up, catches a thoughtful expression on his father’s face, and immediately averts his eyes. He fears what he might see there if he keeps looking. He holds no shame for what he has said, what he is , but he already dreams of disappointment in his Pa’s eyes ― he can’t bear to see it in his father’s.
“I was informed by Svetoslav, I believe his name is, that you and young Capon have returned,” Radzig says. “You were seen entering the church.” He pauses there, and Henry doesn’t dare lifting his eyes, his chin only dipping lower. His fingers tremble, and he hides his hands behind his back. Radzig lets out a quiet sigh that sounds almost resigned, “I did not mean to overhear, lad. I thought it wrong to disturb your prayer.”
Henry nods and shifts uneasily, moving his weight to the other foot. He hears his father take a few steps closer, and glances up. Radzig is tilting his head, trying to catch Henry’s gaze, nods slightly when he succeeds.
“I heard more than I ought, perhaps,” he says softly, almost asking. He falls silent after that, watching Henry expectedly. It is an offer granted generously, Henry realizes. A prayer is sacred, and even if it raised questions, he sees now that his father will not try to pry the answers out of him if Henry is not willing to give them.
Henry might take the offer, deny his words, and he has no doubt that his father will be tactful enough to accept it. They will walk out of the church, Henry will tell him about Pribyaslavits, he will be asked to go to Talmberg to request aid in the attack… Then in Vranik he will “learn” of their relation properly, and Henry will confess, and everything will go as it has been laid down before him. And perhaps his father will forget eventually that one day he overhead Henry praying for his male lover, and this will not forever taint their relationship, will not put a doubt in Radzig’s heart and disappointment in his eyes. But Henry will not forget, and he will watch himself more around Hans when his father might see.
Or perhaps Henry will die in Pribyaslavits, and will be returned back to life before today, and it wouldn’t matter what he does now.
Radzig is giving him a choice, but he can’t know that Henry doesn’t have any. Because he promised his Pa to never run, and he broke this promise so many times, he is not going to break it again.
“No less than I deserve, my lord,” Henry replies. He is clasping his hands behind his back like a boy about to be scolded. He is no longer the young man who has overcome impossible odds and earned respect of those higher than him, but a boy seeking acknowledgement and approval. Perhaps it is his memory of Radzig being the first and only noble he knew for most of his life. Perhaps it is simply the eagerness of a son to prove himself worthy to his father.
“Don’t say that, Hal. No man deserves to be laid bare without his choosing.”
If asked before, Henry would say that no man deserves the ability to die to be taken away from him, and yet here he is reliving his mistakes, making new ones, dying and coming back to life, not immortal, but not properly living either.
Perhaps this is how the sins are atoned for. Perhaps if he prays often enough and doesn’t sin anymore he will be able to live one final life, like a good christian should.
Perhaps if he doesn’t kill anymore, if he doesn’t steal, if he walks out of the door when (if?) Hans decides to tell him a tale about Galehaut and Lancelot…
Henry’s breath catches. He unclasps his hands to wipe them against the sides of his coat. His father follows the movement with his eyes, his brows pulling together in a concerned thrown.
“You owe me no confessions, Hal. My status gives me many things, but not th―”
“It wasn’t meant to be heard, but I’ve no wish to lie about it either,” Henry interrupts. His voice wavers slightly near the end once he realizes that he spoke over his father. His eyes widen, he opens his mouth to apologize, but Radzig raises a hand stopping him.
“Alright. I suppose we are due a conversation then,” Radzig says. He looks around. “Perhaps not here though, I suppose the saints here have had their share of secrets already.” He smiles faintly. “Let us go outside, this church has a marvelously empty yard, I’m sure the dead won’t mind.” He turns around at these words, and heads to the church doors, adding after a moment. “Better than the castle where as you may have heard even walls have ears.”
While Henry was praying the sun had settled behind the horizon. The small yard is dark with only the moon and a couple of torches to cast long shadows from the trees and crosses above the graves. In the distance Henry can hear muffled voices and laughter, but they come from so far, that the rustle of the ground under their steps seems louder even.
“A father’s health is a noble thing to pray for,” Radzig says. His voice is calm and quiet, matching the peaceful silence of the secluded garden. There is a subtle question in the way he speaks this, undoubtedly waiting for the final confirmation from Henry.
Henry wishes he could make his own voice match his father’s calmness, but he knows it is one thing he has never truly learned ― to look and sound unshaken when he is rattled inside.
He feels separated from his body, only with thin strings tying his mind to it, Henry moves his limbs like a loutkář moves his puppets. He only ever felt this way before when he stood inside Trosky looking up at Hans with the noose over his neck, praying silently for a miracle. It is incomparable, and there is no human life at stake this time, but the fright he feels is somehow similar.
It makes him feel more guilty even, this selfish terror in him. He will get what he deserves, no more, no less.
“I already lost the father who raised me,” Henry replies. “I would not see the one who begot me taken from me too.”
His throat is dry and his heart refuses to settle down. He hears his voice as if it doesn’t belong to him, but someone else. Henry barely had time to talk to his father when he lived through these days the first time. Here he is given the time and place for a conversation unrushed by any urgent duties ― the night is long if nothing else ― but he has ruined the chance for affirmation, and he knows he is going to get condemnation instead. No one is going to accept a son like him.
There is barely any reaction from Radzig at the words. Like the first time when he discovered that Henry knows the truth, he only tilts his head in a small nod, his face composed.
“You know then.”
“Yes,” Henry replies. And adds, finally, “father.”
It is a relief to finally speak it outloud, a relief he would certainly appreciate more if he wasn’t terrified of the potential turn this conversation might take once they have talked about this.
“You understand if I ask you of the source of your knowledge, as this is, as you may guess, has not been a widespread information,” Radzig says. “Was it your mother who told you?”
The question is like a slap of winter wind, bringing Henry into a sharp focus, and he raises his chin defiantly and sets his spine straight, ready to fight for his parents’ honor even if it requires him to spit falsehood into his father’s eyes.
“They told me nothing!” Henry protests. “I overheard once. A conversation not meant for me.” It is but a small lie, insignificant compared to the sins Henry has only recently admitted for God and Holy Mary to hear.
Radzig raises a hand at his words, the gesture placating.
“I didn’t mean t―” he cuts himself short, averting his eyes for a second. “It was wrong of me to think they would break the word they had given me,” he says, and for a brief moment an emotion breaks through his composure, and Henry is surprised to see that his father looks ashamed of even suspecting Henry’s parents.
He collects himself quickly, looking completely unaffected again, and it should bring Henry comfort, not to see disappointment, doubt or even disgust on his father’s face. But being presented with the mask that doesn’t show Radzig’s actual thoughts only terrifies Henry more. The bravery from defending his parents is gone as fast as it emerged.
He has thought himself grown ― and yet here he is, heart rattling like a boy who came home covered in mud.
“I told myself it was better this way,” his father continues. “That you’d be safer. Perhaps I lied to myself more than I…” He trails off, and in the dim light Henry sees him frowning slightly. Radzig crosses the distance between them, and Henry, awaiting judgement, hangs his head when a warm hand settles on his shoulder, fingers tightening briefly. Almost like their first conversation on the matter in Pirkstein when Henry returned from Vranik. But this time the hand doesn’t bring comfort, but feels like a heavy weight pushing him down. It is none of his father’s fault, Henry knows, but his own thoughts.
“No need to be nervous, lad,” Radzig says, not unkindly. “I can’t legitimize you, not with the king being absent, but I meant to tell you, I promise you, Hal. The timing however left something to be wished.” He tightens his hand on Henry’s shoulder one more time and lets go.
Henry shakes his hung head.
“I’m not―” His voice catches and he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, father, I was not… That’s not…” He can’t finish. He doesn’t know what can be said that will not draw his father’s attention to the truth of his unrest.
But for better or for worse, Radzig has always been perceptive.
“I see,” he says, taking a short step back, and Henry’s heart sinks. “Well, if it is another matter that you spoke of that gives you such a fright now…” Radzig trails off and Henry risks a glance at him. No longer an unreadable unaffected mask, he is still composed enough that Henry fails to place the expression that crosses his face. There is a slight frown between his eyebrows, his jaw clenched.
Henry’s fingers find a thread sticking out of the seam of his coat, and he begins to wrap it around his finger. He wraps and pulls, and the thin thread digs into his skin painfully, but doesn’t give.
“I didn’t want you to hear that,” he says numbly, his voice bare of emotions that he knows are all showing on his face. His heart is beating like a trapped bird somewhere in his stomach, and his hands are clammy, and there is noise in his ears like after the God’s Finger shot at Nebakov’s tower.
His father doesn’t speak at once. He looks at him measuring, face unreadable, and then turns away. He walks a few paces between the gravestones, and when his back is to Henry, sighs heavily.
“Then I’m glad I did,” he says finally, turning around. “If only to warn you.” The thread around Henry’s finger finally gives way when he tugs at it in a jerky movement of his wrist. His finger tingles slightly where the thread cuts the skin, and he balls this hand into a fist. Radzig glances at it, then looks up again, and Henry lowers his eyes to the ground. “I wish I could forget what I have overheard if only to spare you the evident embarrassment. And God can be my witness, this is no simple thing to put into words. But it is not a matter of my wishes or your shame―” There is a hand on Henry’s shoulder again, and he doesn’t even know when his father came closer. He lifts his head, and the corner of Radzig’s mouth tilts, but only briefly. Then it is gone again, swallowed by something heavier. “―but of your safety,” he finishes, dropping his hand.
Henry has stood beneath burning walls, bloodied and bone-tired, and never felt this exposed. He has shouted down nobles with swords in their belts and garrisons behind their backs, but here, now, he can barely speak up louder than a whisper.
“My safety?”
“There are those who would see in such prayers only cause for punishment, not mercy. The world out there ― it doesn’t forgive what it doesn’t understand.”
Henry barely recognises himself, standing here hands trembling like a child’s at the thought of being cast aside by a man who was never there until now. He grasps at the sides of his coat until his fingertips feel numb. A good son, a good christian, would drop to his knees before his father, begging for forgiveness. But Henry is neither, no matter how much he wishes that life allowed him to be.
He is not ashamed of what he feels. He is not afraid of God’s punishment, quite suspects he is already living through it. And he will not swear off Hans even if his father threatens to cast him aside. But his opinion matters. Perhaps the only one that truly does. If Radzig condemns him it will not change the path Henry chose, but it will carve something open in him he won’t know how to close.
Henry doesn’t need his father’s approval. But God help him, he wants it.
“If it’s wrong, then I’m wrong,” Henry speaks up, willing his voice to carry more strength than he feels. “But I…” The words falter, slipping through his grasp. He draws in a breath, ragged and thin. “I can’t change this.”
Radzig’s eyebrows twitch, he steps closer. There is tension in his face, but it is the kind Henry has seen before — before battle, not before disgrace. The jaw tightens not in revulsion, but in the effort of holding something back.
“I don’t care if it’s wrong, I care if it gets you killed, Hal!” he says in a fierce whisper. He looks around the empty yard, then fixes his gaze back at Henry. “You said things that men have died for saying!”
Henry knows, and perhaps was he afraid of his life ending, he would have been more careful, would not have spoken of such matters out loud, be it even in the place where he didn’t expect to be overheard.
But preserving himself from death has long stopped being of any importance to him. Selfishly maybe, he wanted to speak the words out loud if only for Heaven to hear. To let them spill out in the open, lest the weight of them broke something inside of him. Survival used to be the hardest task that he carried. Now that death has lost all meaning, it is the burden of unspoken words that weighs on him heavier than any challenge he has ever overcome.
When his parents died, there were people asking Henry about them. Speaking of them hurt. Like a sharp sword cutting into his skin, admitting of his failure hurt him every time he told somebody of their death. But every time he talked about it, he felt that his burden, little by little, was being shared with people who cared. And with time, with gentle words of others supporting him in his grief, it has gotten lighter somehow, and Henry learnt again how to breathe.
But he carried the truth about his resurrections alone. The knowledge of the future, the memories of each and every one of his death, the blooming love in his heart ― he can’t share any of this, it is all only his to carry, and with every day passing the weight of it grows, heavy on his shoulders and on his heart.
He is ready to die and come back for the words spoken carelessly, but speaking them loosened the tight fist around his heart if only a little.
“I can’t change this,” Henry repeats stubbornly, but he sounds resigned.
Radzig exhales through his nose, sharp and quiet.
“Then at least have the sense not to speak of it where anyone might hear.” His voice lowers, tense. “Even I shouldn't have. Not here. Not like that.” He looks away again, jaw working. “There are ears in walls, Hal. Stones that speak when the right coin is pressed into a palm. What I heard was between you and God — but another man might have heard it, and gone to fetch rope!”
At first, Henry only hears the sharpness — the warning, the tension coiled in his father's voice. He braces for more: for condemnation, disgust, the cold severing of a bond that has barely begun to take shape.
But it doesn’t come.
Henry steadies his hands that are balling the sides of his coat in fists, looks at his father closer. He has expected that look — the one that turns away, that says you are less than what I hoped for. But Radzig’s gaze holds steady, fixed on him not with scorn, but with worry.
It takes Henry a moment to understand. A beat too long, maybe. His father isn’t spitting him out like bitter wine. He isn’t angry at what Henry is — he is furious that Henry might get himself killed for it.
And Henry blinks, as if the whole conversation has shifted under his feet without him noticing. He has been prepared to be cast out. Instead, he realizes — slowly, stupidly — that this man isn’t trying to break him. He is trying to shield him.
It startles Henry more than any punishment would have.
Something uncoils inside him and the tension that held his body frozen slips away all at once. The relief makes his knees falter and he sways, catching himself, unwilling even now to lose himself like this before his father, even after being seen at what must be his most exposed.
He exhales, shakily, wet, like something breaking. It feels as if he has been pushed under water, held there, forced to hold his breath, helpless, while the weight pressed in from all sides. And now he has surfaced, has been pulled ashore and the horrible weight is gone and he doesn't have to hold his breath anymore.
“I thought you would…” The words catch in his throat, his voice trembles.
Radzig doesn’t answer right away. The quiet settles heavy, and doubt rushes back in. But then he speaks, low and firm,
“Do you think a few words — even words like that — can undo what you are to me?” His jaw shifts slightly, as if he’s holding back more than he is ready to say. Then he draws in a breath through his nose and lets it out slow. “I won’t pretend you are anything less than you are.”
Henry lets out a short, bitter laugh, feels something inside of him let go, and what he has held in for too long begins to spill past his lips before he can think better of it.
“They are not just words,” he says hoarsely. “Not when they’d see me hung for them. Not when they are a sin black enough to damn me.” He sways again, shifts his feet to steady himself. The fabric of his coat in his fists has long gone damp, and he unwraps his fingers that have almost gone numb. His hands are too cold, as if they no longer belong to him. “I’ll burn for it, I know that,” he mumbles almost to himself. Then looks up at Radzig. “ You know that. I’ll burn and come back and burn again.” Radzig’s brow tenses — just slightly — at the odd turn of phrase, but he doesn’t interrupt. “That’s the only justice the world allows.”
The churchyard around him feels dim and too far away, like Henry has slipped sideways from the world. Only his father’s presence keeps him tethered, and even that feels tenuous.
“Is that what you believe?” Radzig’s quiet voice cuts through. “That love earns you damnation?”
Henry doesn’t answer at first. He looks down at his hands like they belong to someone else.
“It’s what priests would say.”
His father takes a moment to answer. Henry hears a distant laughter, reaching far in the stillness of the night. It doesn’t feel real, Rattay doesn’t feel real. A stage for him perhaps, to arrange his punishment, a purgatory, really. Die, and come back, keep dying, nothing matters…
His breaths come shallow, and he closes his eyes, taking in a long breath, willing the broken scattered pieces of himself to draw back together, lest he feels even more detached from this life.
Small stones and sand rustle under his father’s feet, and Henry opens his eyes, meeting his gaze.
“If He punishes love,” Radzig murmurs, “then what hope is there for any of us?..”
Notes:
This chapter was a real challenge, lemme tell you that. I hope it met your expectations <3
Chapter 8
Notes:
holy hell, a whole month, wow.
I'm terribly sorry, I got distracted by Luke Dale's streams and then Persona 5 lolGood news: I have even more ideas for this fic now and I'm almost done with Persona, so hooooopefully updates won't be taking this long.
Also I can't believe it took me 8 chapter only to get to Pribyslavitz. And to think I wanted to make this a oneshot at first lol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hans insists on riding with Henry to Talmberg, and he is merry the whole way there. Henry and him are closer now than the first time around, having traveled together for some days, and Hans admits openly that learning that Henry is not a mere peasant lifted a weight off his shoulders. Henry only smiles at the way Hans clings to the significance of his status like it is the most precious thing in the world to him.
Before leaving Rattay Henry is given new armor. At Hans’ insistence more than anything, as apparently the armguards and gambeson Henry has been relying on until now look unbefitting of Hans’ noble presence, and he only agreed to tolerate it when he thought Henry was a lowborn.
With Henry’s father fully supporting the idea, Henry dons the armor dutifully, and then stops Pebbles the moment they are out of Rattay and shimmers out of the hauberk. It falls heavily on the ground pooling at his feet and he straightens up with a relieved sigh.
“That thing is meant to protect you from getting killed, my friend,” Hans calls out from his horse, watching Henry with a mix of amusement and mild concern. He has come to call Henry this more often and more genuine than the first times he did that in the detached mockery.
“It weighs me down,” Henry replies, picking up the heavy mail and dragging it to his horse.
He hasn’t gained his full strength yet. His body listens to him better now that he got to train his muscles and reflexes in the past couple of weeks, but he is still a long way from what he was capable of before his first death. And he avoided wearing hauberks even then. Often thrust into situations where he had to fight with no armor on after sneaking attempts gone wrong, in perhaps only a gambeson to keep him a breath safer, he learned to use this to his advantage, lighter on his feet as opposed to his enemies clad in heavy metal. And out of all the armor hauberk is restricting the movements he is used to relying on more than any other protection he can wear.
“Don’t be daft, you’ll thank it when it stops a sword from going into your guts.”
With some effort Henry manages to place the hauberk into one of the saddlebags. Pebbles attempts to side-step away from him, giving him a displeased glance with her large brown eye.
“Then I won’t get hit. I’m quicker on my feet without it.”
Hans squints down at him against the rising sun. His hair looks like a golden halo around his head, and Henry lets his eyes linger.
“We are going to a war, Henry,” Hans tells him slowly, like he thinks Henry might be touched in the head. He waves his hand pointing at Pebbles’ other side, where a new shiny cuirass is attached to the saddle. “Put at least the cuirass on.”
“It clangs against my couters.” Henry has spent too much time learning to be as quiet as a mouse, sneaking through the places where any noise was a sure death for him. Announcing his presence by a loud clanking makes him feel unsafe and unsettled. It is madness, he knows, to go into battle barely protected, but he still has an advantage of knowing the enemies he will be fighting. And that his death, should it befall him, will only be a temporary obstacle on his path.
Besides, if gets to fight Runt this time as well, the heavy armor will only hinder him. Henry remembers how it slowed him down last time, all the strikes he missed. Runt was relentless, and in the end even armor couldn’t save Henry from being beaten down and bloodied almost to death. Henry won that time, but he barely survived the fight himself.
Hans folds his hands on the saddle’s pommel and leans forward, as if he wants to hammer his next words into Henry’s head.
“A war , Henry!”
Henry smiles to himself at the way Hans’ voice sounds all too serious but with the tinge of an almost boyish excitement of finally getting to show his skills in something more than the petty skirmishes with a handful of bandits hiding in the bushes.
“I’ll get a brigandine once I’ve saved enough groshen.” Henry climbs into the saddle, clicks his tongue and spurs his horse. “And it is hardly a war, just once assault on a small village. It doesn’t even have walls.”
He leads Pebbles to fall into step alongside Hans’ horse and lowers his eyelids against the bright sun. Possibly for the first time since this whole thing started he woke up rested and in good spirits. Exhausted after a long conversation he had with his father, he slept without dreams. The mild embarrassment that he still feels for almost falling apart with nerves in front of his father, is overpowered by the feeling of finally belonging again. Not just a peasant, an orphan, given a privilege to serve his lord, but a son. Small as it is, but with that Henry has a family again, and it grounds him, if only slightly.
And his father accepting him despite the forbidden nature of Henry’s affections, makes him feel for the first time in a long while like there’s a place in the world where he truly fits.
“You should take it more seriously,” Hans says. “You saw it yourself, they have quite a lot of people. Archers too.”
“We set fire to their arrows,” Henry reminds him.
“Not all of them!” Hans protests. He pauses, and Henry feels him watching him intently. “Learning that Radzig is your father certainly affected your mood, I see,” he says thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen you that joyful in….” Hans trails off, hums to himself. “Well, never actually,” he finishes quietly with a tinge of surprise in his tone.
Henry glances at him, ready to argue, but swallows his retort before he can say something strange. Or before it gets stuck in his throat like any words about the events that have not happened yet.
Because Hans has seen him being joyful, happy even on multiple occasions. All of them however happened in another life and with another Hans present.
The memories Henry made with Hans now belong to him only.
The thought sours Henry’s rare good mood. He almost felt like he used to long ago. Before the cumans’ attack, before the war, before his own death. It makes him sadder even, in some absurd way, to be that sad, to realize for how long he has been sad. He gives himself a moment to feel pity for himself, and it settles in him with a bitter aftertaste that he wants to wash down with something that will let him forget.
“We shall fix it then,” Hans continues joyfully. His eyes are on the road and he doesn’t see the change his words brought in Henry. “After Pribyslavitz we are going to celebrate, not only our victory but your half-noble status as well!”
Henry lets him ride slightly ahead, watches his short blond hair sway in the wind and with the rocking motion of his horse, suppresses the urge to reach out.
The sun is warm and gentle on Henry’s skin, and he breathes in slowly, deeply, swallows the bitter taste of self-pity and makes his lips pull in a smile. If not for himself but for the one that he once was.
*
They gather just outside the Pribyslavitz, and Henry recognizes the faces of the soldiers that survived last time and doesn’t remember the ones that didn’t. There are too many of them, these faceless men. He didn’t pay attention before, carried his grief-sharpened rage through all of that, and it obscured so much in front of his eyes. Never unkind, never to disregard a human’s life, back then, in the beginning of it all, he didn’t care. He was young and selfish, and Henry might not be that much older now, but life has taught him that there are things that matter more than his own pain.
The attack is at an earlier day than the first time around, and Henry knows this little change means that there will be different faces of the living that he will see after they take the village back.
It can also mean life or death for someone he cares about, and when the battle begins, he struggles to keep his eyes on the enemy in front of him, when it is his father and Hans his gaze keeps drifting toward, as if watching them can somehow keep them safe.
Henry wears the cuirass into the battle, and Hans voices his displeasure with Henry yanking his pizzle earlier about the heavy and clunky armor he claimed to avoid wearing.
Henry is used to it: both to the armor and to finding himself in a sword fight without wearing any. But battles such as this are always messy. As nimble as he has learned to be on his feet he cannot rely on his skill alone.
The swords clash and ring around him, his breath is almost as loud as the metal hitting against metal. There are cries of pain, and moans of the dying, and the battle cries of the ones still standing.
He has already been hit, more than once. His armor is holding, but the blades and stray arrows have found their way to the unprotected parts of him. Henry focuses on his own sword finding the openings in the enemies’ armor in lieu of the blocks, and his body is aching with sharp pain that fills his mouth with sweet spit and iron. In the rush of the battle he doesn’t know how serious it is, can’t bring himself to care. He is still standing, still slashing through enemies, and it is all that matters.
He kills more than he did the first time, all faces familiar after the many attempts to take down this camp on his own. He sacrifices his left arm to protect a Talmberg soldier from a deadly blow. A sword cuts deeply into Henry’s elbow, his arm hangs, limp, but the man that should have died, lives. Another falls in his stead, and fate, unchanged, laughs at Henry in a familiar voice.
The sky has been heavy all morning, a bruise of grey gathering above the treetops. When the rain finally comes, it is sudden, as if the heavens have broken open with a cry of their own. Cold needles of water drumming against steel and drowning out the whimpers of dying men.
The earth beneath Henry’s boots turns to sludge, thick and treacherous. Each step is a battle on its own, footing uncertain, weight dragging with every shift of his stance. He can feel the mud tugging at his ankles like hands trying to pull him down, his grip on his sword growing slick with blood and rainwater. The hilt nearly slips once. He clenches harder, the bones in his hand aching.
And then among the sounds, a muffled cry of his name, it rips through the storm, raw and panicked.
Henry’s head snaps toward the sound. For a heartbeat, he sees nothing, just the blur of bodies in chaos and swords flashing. And then through the smashed doors to the churchyard he sees him.
Hans, farther than he should have been, backing away from a towering figure in black armor. Runt.
Hans is holding on — just — but Henry can see it: the strength behind Runt’s sword pushes through every parry. Henry sees the tremor in Hans’ hands, sees him reel, barely staying upright under the weight of each blow. The blows echo in Henry’s memory, his own fight with Runt, long forgotten, swims to the surface.
He barely survived back then. The overwhelming force and speed with which Runt fought was almost too much for him to handle. The armor saved him then ― caught several strikes that Henry had no skill for to dodge or parry. Only now he realizes how lucky he was, like someone above was watching over him. A mere peasant, who only took a sword in his hand some weeks ago, so cocksure that he was ready to take on such an opponent all on his own.
Henry remembers every cut of Runt’s sword that smashed through his defences, every mistake that he made back then, and then ― never again. Remembers how his teeth rattled with each blow, the ache in his bones on each successful block.
Hans is weaker. He has learned more in the couple of weeks that they have travelled, but his build is slighter than Henry's, his muscles less defined. And Runt is a mountain of a man.
Henry hasn’t searched for Runt this time. He is no one. Henry already knows that he doesn’t have his Pa’s sword, and the satisfaction of killing him the first time still lingers. And so he has been hoping for someone else to take him ― that duel in the church was pure madness and he didn’t plan to repeat it. Henry chose not to pursue this kill, and the mistake of it unveils before his eyes like another nightmare in the making. He already has too many.
Runt’s blade catches Hans’ with a vicious force, staggering him. Hans recoveres, barely, but his footing is bad, the muddy ground too slick, and his sword is wrenched from his grasp as he tries to parry the next blow. It flies from his hand, falling on the ground far beyond his reach.
Henry moves just as Runt’s hand slams into Hans’s chest, shoving him back against the church wall. Hans tries to rise, but Runt is already on him, grabbing him by the throat, pressing him up the wall, and Hans’ boots scrape for purchase. His mouth opens, gasping.
The men between Henry and Hans blur into obstacles, not people. One lunges at him — Henry’s sword finds his gut under the edge of the cuirass. Another blocks his path — Henry ducks low, rams his shoulder into the man’s side, cuts behind the knee and keeps going. Someone’s blade nicks his already injured shoulder — he barely feels it.
Steel rings against steel. A man screams somewhere to his left — short, sharp, cut off by a sound more final. Henry presses forward, teeth gritted, soaked through to the bone, rain trickling down his spine like cold fingers.
Mud flies with every stride. His legs ache. His hand throbs. Blood mixed with rain in his eyes ― he has lost the kettle hat he had been wearing to one of the blows and only notices it when he has to wipe the pink water from his eyes.
The rage and fear spills from him in a roar that cuts through the thunder of the battle and the downpour.
“Get your fucking hands off him!”
Runt turns his head, and there is immediate recognition in his eyes, and his mouth curls. There is an angry red scar cutting one of his brows where Henry managed to reach him with his sword all those days and deaths ago.
“You!”
He releases Hans, and Hans falls heavily to the ground, coughing violently, clutching his throat.
Henry allows himself a single brief glance at him, and turns back to Runt, who is watching Henry with hatred in his eyes that looks as personal as the one that now once again burns in Henry’s heart. Runt is no one. He doesn’t have Henry’s sword. Henry almost allowed himself to forget about him this time. But Hans is on the ground rubbing his neck and sucking in rattling breaths, and Henry has already seen him die once…
Henry keeps his eyes on Runt as he circles him, and he stops only when he has the doors to the churchyard in his view ― if he loses here it is not going to be to a backstab from one of the cumans avenging their fallen friends.
The pause allows him to catch his breath, and the rain takes his time to wash away the blood off his face, spilled by the nameless enemies Henry cut through to get here.
“You little fucker, I remember you!” Runt growls angrily. “What, came for your sword?”
Henry spits out the remaining iron taste on his tongue and raises his sword, preparing. He is one capable arm short, and his head is unprotected. But he knows the way Runt fights.
Runt falls silent, his eyes narrow recognizing a dangerous opponent.
Without announcing his intent, Henry lounges at him with a wide strike of his sword. Runt side steps, but not fast enough, and the sword draws a wide slash across his forehead. The wound is just a graze, but it opens up immediately, and in a second Runt’s face is covered with blood.
Unwilling to lose this advantage, Henry steps forward, does another swing, aiming again for Runt’s unprotected head. Unable to see, but likely hearing the attack, Runt ducks, and Henry’s blade whistles past, catching nothing but air and rain.
The larger man slams into him like a wall in motion. Henry staggers, boots sliding sideways in the churned mud, and barely manages to keep his footing. Runt’s sword comes fast and heavy — not graceful, not skilled, but brutal in its weight. Henry blocks the first strike, but it jars his shoulder hard enough to make his grip slip. The second nearly knocks the sword from his hand.
And it is all so familiar.
His mind remembers even if his body is learning it for the first time — the sheer power, the hopeless weight of trying to stand against it. Pain sings along his ribs, sharp and cold. He doesn’t know if it is a cut ripped through his armor, or just the shock of the impact. It hardly matters.
His left arm is limp on his side, his right one is nearly numb from blocking that vicious strike.
Runt presses forward, his blade hacks down, again and again, and Henry gives ground, not by choice but by force — every parry rattling his right arm, pushing him back toward the church wall.
He gasps in a breath between blows and waits. Runt swings wide and Henry takes the opening it gives him. A desperate step in, a slash low across the thigh — not deep enough to stop a man like this, but enough to make him grunt, enough to stagger him a little.
Henry pivots hard in the mud, feet nearly slipping again, and swings upward, only to feel the pommel of Runt’s sword crash into the side of his face. White heat bursts behind his eyes. The sword almost slips. The ground tilts.
His knees hit the ground, and he digs the tip of his sword into the mud desperately trying to stop the fall. An offense to the weapon, he will need to sharpen it carefully after this if he survives…
He blinks the blur from his vision just in time to see Runt raise his sword high for the killing blow. Henry has forgotten how to fear death and he only grits his teeth in disappointment.
His life is a commodity. He will sell it for a chance of another that will be just as heedlessly discarded by him now that he only pays with time for his carelessness. And time he has aplenty.
Or perhaps time has him , now.
Henry feels his lips curl in the beginning of a laughter — a humorless one, that twists itself around his guts, and his lungs, and his heart. It doesn’t bubble warmly, it shreds its way up like broken glass, and he sees Runt recoil as the first sound of it cuts through the noise of rain and battle.
I must look like a madman now , Henry thinks.
Has something cracked in him after what once was an end has become another passage, a door that refuses to stay shut? How many times can a man die without losing a sight of what he is or what he is living for?…
His head rings, splitting with pain from Runt’s heavy blow, each raindrop feels like a hit of a blacksmith’s hammer.
There is a kind of jest in this, dying to Runt’s sword now, after beating him once, after beating much stronger enemies than him, too. Just a blacksmith boy, so cocksure, with a sword in his hand that has only known the weight of it for scarcely more than a few months…
It seems that after learning so much there is something important that Henry has forgotten.
He is leaning heavily on his sword, and he feels the ground under it give, the blade sliding deeper into the earth. His vision is hazy and his eyes refuse to focus, so when Runt’s chest suddenly colors red from a wound that opens in his throat he only acknowledges it for a deadly wound, when the blood from it rains down on him, the salt hitting his tongue, as he is taking heavy breaths.
Henry gasps, spits. A blade is pulled sharply from Runt’s neck, and the large man falls heavily on the ground before Henry, and Radzig Kobyla offers his hand to Henry, the other clutching the bloodied sword that just saved Henry the inconvenience of another death.
Henry’s legs shake, as he stands up slowly, leaning at the hand offered to him. His body feels heavy and sore, his skull on fire, but he doesn’t spare neither his father nor the body on the ground another glance, his eyes searching for Hans instead.
Hans is there — pushing himself up from the mud, one hand clutching his sword he has finally found, the other bracing against the earth. His neck is bruised, where Runt’s large hand pressed around his windpipe, and as he stands up, he raises his free hand to rub at the marks.
After nearly being hanged in Trosky, Hans would grip his throat sometimes in the moments when he felt distraught, and would take too large breaths like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Henry never asked him of this, never let it appear that he noticed.
Trosky is still months in the future, and yet here Hans is, gulping in shuddering breaths, his fingers digging too deep into the bruises on his neck.
Henry stumbles toward him through the fog in his vision that begins to tinge red at the edges.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!” It comes out hoarse and uncaring, the worry Henry felt when he saw Hans there lost behind the sharp headache and disappointment in himself. It is the same as their quarrel in the Troskovitz stocks ― all good intent that stemmed from the place of care, but warped by pain, fear and uncertainty.
“Excuse me?!”
Hans’ annoyed high pitch pierces Henry’s aching head like a needle. His hand finds the churchwall and he props himself, the wood slick from the rain under his palm.
“I told you he was dangerous and you thought you could take him on by yourself?!”
“When the fuck did you tell me that? I have no clue who this fucker is!” Hans drops the hand that has been rubbing his throat and waves it at the Runt’s dead body. “Was.”
The red creeps from the corners of Henry’s vision, and he shakes his head. It makes the world tilt again but it doesn’t shake off the color. He digs his nails into the sodden wood and closes his eyes.
“I can’t keep coming to save your noble arse in the last possible moment every time,” he greets through his teeth. How many times has that been? He is nearly late every single one of them…
“What the devil are you talking about?! When did you ever have to save me aside from now? And besides, it is your job anyway as my squire and guard. And fine job you did of it — we’d both be dead if not for Radzig!”
Rage overcomes simple annoyance, rises up from within him, and Henry opens his eyes, pushes himself from the wall, barely steady on his feet. He is so quick to anger now. It always comes to him so eager, like it tries to hide something else behind it that Henry is too afraid to see.
“You don’t get it, do you? You never do. You think this is just some game you play until someone comes to clean up after you. And every time you pull this shit, it’s me who has to crawl out of the muck to stop you from getting yourself killed!”
“How dare you!” Hans is nearly trembling with anger of his own, or perhaps it is Henry’s vision that is shaking. Hans straightens up, chin high and proud, in his armor that is no longer shiny, all covered in dirt and blood that the rain doesn’t wash away but only smears. His hair is plastered to his head, he is blinking off water from his eyelashes, but he defends his ill-timed noble honour, like if he stands tall enough it will drown Henry’s words. “You are in danger of crossing the line here, Henry! You better think what you say next!”
For a moment the words make Henry’s reel. They sway him in between the now and then , and with some distant horror he realizes that he can’t remember anymore where and when he is, only how deeply Hans’ words cut him, then, how lonely he was, in the unfamiliar forests, again, how worried, and hurt, and guilty, and then terrified when only the moments after they had finally reunited, the bell tolled over his head, counting hours.
His vision is red and blurry. There are sounds and voices just beyond the edge of his comprehension that bleed through the noise of clashing swords and cries.
“Or what?! You’re going to sod off devil knows where all on your own again? Didn’t have enough last time?!” Henry asks, roars. He steps in, his hand sliding across the wooden wall. They are of the nearly same height, just sometimes the boots Hans’ fancies make him stand a sliver taller than Henry, but now Henry feels that he is towering over him.
“Last t—“
“Because I’m just a stupid peasant, aren’t I?! Don’t know how the world works, right?!”
“What the fuck are you going on about? How hard did that bastard rattle your head?”
There is a pressure against Henry’s shoulder, firm, but not hurting. Henry turns his head and does his damndest to focus his eyes on the person next to him.
“Young Capon here has a point, Hal,” Radzig says. “About your head, that is.” He looks between the two of them, concerned or angry, Henry can’t tell. “The battle is over. You should rest now, and let the healer look at your wounds.” His voice drops, quieter and more serious now, that even if Henry wanted to argue, he would find himself unable to. “And perhaps it would be wise to stay away from any conversations you might regret later.”
Hans is saying something, but Henry can’t hear him. The battle is over, his father said. But why are the swords and the cries of dying men still ring in Henry’s ears?..
He looks around the churchyard, and Runt’s corpse smiles at him with Istvan’s mocking smile, like he knows something Henry will never be able to truly grasp.
The muddy ground meets Henry softly, as his vision darkens.
Notes:
I hope you liked this update. Lmk what you think!
Rough plan for next chapters:
9. making up with Hans, Rattay's baths. I'll sprinkle some comfort and feelz over all this hurt and angst
10. I'll try to cram Sasau and visit to Skalitz and helping Merhojed into one chapter. Don't want to go into too much detail there
11. Vranik with a plot twist (I'm so excited for this one, oh man)
12. Talmberg siege transitioning into KCD2Knowing myself these 4 chapters will likely end up being 5 or 6. And I have some drafts for the first chapter in the KCD2. I'll probably just continue this fic here, don't wanna make it a series in 2 parts
Chapter 9
Notes:
super sorry for the super long wait - I got distracted first by Expedition 33 and then by The Alters.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Henry wakes up to the murky sun above his head, fighting to reach through the heavy clouds, and to the wet sounds of horse hooves around him, stepping through the sodden road. A wagon he is lying on is swaying under him, the wheels squeaking. Something golden flickers on the edge of his vision but when he turns his head there is nothing there, only a receding sound of a horse trotting away.
He didn’t die this time, but he is injured all over, and the concussion makes him dizzy and nauseous when he tries to move. Once they reach Rattay, he is forced to stay bedridden for several days per physician’s orders, and through the pain in his head he struggles to count days until it would be too late to bring treatment to Merhojed people. Perhaps his father will send someone else there, now that Henry is busy doing nothing and only taking up space. Perhaps this other person will be sympathetic to the suffering of the poisoned villagers. Perhaps he will even bring the remedy on time, unlike Henry, who took too long last time, overwhelmed by keeping track of the tasks asked of him, and all the people he had to speak to.
Perhaps it is for the better that someone else handles it. And in the mornings he thinks there should still be enough time to save the poor people. But then nightmares come at night, stranger now that he is drunk on the poppy milk he is given against the pain, and he wakes up nauseous and sweaty and for a long time unable to remember what month it is even and where he is.
He is given a few changes of clothes, and a room in Pirkstein, the same one as before, down the curvy corridor from Hans’ one. No longer an errand boy but the Royal Hetman’s son, he doesn’t have to prove himself anymore, and is allowed to have this time to fully recover. Nobody bothers him, save for the maids. No one expects him to ride off to and fro for another task to fulfil. And he should be glad, but he only feels like there is no purpose for him to serve anymore. Like a dog no one whistles for.
He is not used to staying idle. It makes him feel uneasy, and now there is more to it even, a distant feeling of something not being right, like there is danger lurking behind the door. It takes him two sleepless nights, but there is nothing else to do but to entertain his own thoughts until a clear one finally resurfaces: it is Suchdol he has to blame for this. Weeks of restless nights and sudden attacks and not even a single book in the whole fortress that Henry didn’t read in the first days of it.
Maids bring him tasteless meals, help him change his bandages, and allow him to lean on them when he needs to cross the corridor to use a privy.
There are whispered gossips about a treasure brought from Pribyslavitz, and Henry knows they speak of the chest with counterfeit groschen. Henry wasn’t the one to find it this time, and it seems he is not the one who is sent to investigate the matter either.
“Oh, did you hear about the young lord?” A maid that has brought him a bowl of pottage chatters. She is a couple of years younger than him, only recently a child; she seems to find Henry rising from a commoner to an almost-noble in a matter of days wondrous, and she visits him more often than others and always sits down on a small stool and shares all the Pirkstein gossip with him as he eats. She has a face full of freckles and a head of messy red curls, and she brings with her the innocent joy that Henry hasn’t seen in so long, he has forgotten the feel of it.
Henry swallows the mouthful of pottage and leans back on a pillow, wincing when his head spins.
“What about him?” he asks.
“He rode off to Sasau, just after that lord of Talmberg came by. Heard Lord Hanush was pleased, said the young one found the bandits quick enough, so he could help with more now.” She takes the empty bowl from Henry and sets it in her lap, in no hurry to leave. Henry knows she will later claim that the new lord Henry needed help if she is scolded from being away for too long. He tells her not to call him lord. She only giggles into her palm, and he thinks the title is her way of making innocent fun of him. Henry doesn’t mind. “The other girls are glad he’s gone for a while — he’s always stirrin’ up trouble when he’s got nothin’ to do.” She scratches her nose, and then laughs, sudden and sharp. “So that’s near always, ain’t it?”
It is hard to disagree with her, and Henry smiles as she laughs, although she would certainly be sent to clean latrines if anyone else heard her say this.
“Have you heard any news from Merhojed?” Henry asks.
“Mm?” She looks at him, surprised. “Ain’t heard nothin’. Why d’you ask, lord Henry?”
Henry sighs. “Just Henry,” he reminds her again. She only grins at him in answer.
His head gets better in a few more days, although the other injuries will take a longer time, and he finally walks down to the yard, to play with Mutt and brush Pebbles.
He asks again about Merhojed, but no one has heard anything, and Henry worries that perhaps this time the bandits razed the village, and there is simply no one left alive to deliver the news.
He rests another day and then waits till dusk, and like a thief almost, walks down to the yard with his saddle bags over his shoulder while Rattay sleeps. Saddling up Pebbles makes him dizzy again, and he prays in his mind that the road to Sasau will be free of bandits. He is unsure why he feels this need to leave unnoticed by anyone who cares ― perhaps for the fear of the questions he won’t be able to give answers to .
Yesterday he spent nearly all the groschen he had left at the herbalist’s, saving just a few coins to buy a small pouch of dried meat from the butcher’s stall. It is drier than what he used to make himself. He never had the patience to wait long — or was simply always in a hurry — and would pull the meat from the smoker just a little too soon. He learned the hard way that doing so made it spoil faster.
Salt was something he rarely bothered to make space for either. There was never enough room for what he needed, and it seemed a luxury when he was always moving. The meat he bought is as dry as wood, but the butcher had added something to it — not just salt, but a faint blend of herbs or smoke that leaves a lingering taste on Henry’s tongue after he finally manages to chew through a slice.
He tears off a large piece and tosses it to Mutt, who finds him after Henry fixes the last bag to Pebbles’ saddle. Mutt swallows it way too fast and wiggles his tail excitedly hoping for another treat. He follows Henry silently as he rides out of Rattay, and Henry is grateful that the dog has not yet discovered the joy of barking on every tree he sees, like when after Henry saved him from the wolves in Trosky.
He takes the familiar road to Sasau, almost dozing off in the saddle to Pebbles slow even trot. He would be an easy target now for any bandits hiding in the bushes, but he is lucky, and he reaches Sasau unharmed as the first light cuts off through the night.
Henry catches sight of Hans’s retinue as he rides up to the inn at Sasau. He doesn’t remember the names of the two men at the table, but he has seen them often enough around Rattay — both the first time through and again since. They are playing dice at one of the tables, half-laughing, half-swearing, tankards already half-empty. Hans’s horse is tied nearby, still saddled.
Henry slows, hesitates.
He watches for a moment longer, then pulls the reins and turns toward the monastery.
He knows he can’t avoid Hans forever and they will surely cross paths here as they both tend to their matters but something in Henry wants to delay their meeting. Fear or shame, he is not sure, but he tells himself there are simply more important things to take care of now, than mending the ego of a prideful lordling.
The lousy excuse swells the feeling of guilt in his chest even more. Henry knows he must apologise. It is him who spoke out of line first this time. But what sticks in his throat isn’t the apology itself — he has given worse. It is the way Hans looked at him then. Cold. Formal. A lord speaking to someone beneath him. And Henry knows that he is. Has always been, will always be. It is something Henry had long made peace with until Hans slowly started blurring this line between them drawn by birth and title. With his apology in Trosky’s prison first, and then faster even with every day spent in the besieged Suchdol, until it disappeared completely by that night when he spoke to Henry about the tale he once heard. Instead of a chin held high ― eyes downcast, too nervous to look at Henry, scared ― of a rejection and perhaps the sin he was speaking into words. And perhaps of what it might do to the friendship between them. The friendship of people equal to each other by then. There were no titles then, not anymore.
And it is all the more hurtful to be experiencing Hans acting as lord to him once again.
And what makes matters worse, hard as he tries, Henry struggles to remember the words that he said to Hans in Pribyslavits, only that they were clearly out of line. And with his father bearing witness at that. He remembers how loud and angry he sounded. The hurt pride in Hans’s narrowed eyes, the way his father stopped him, perhaps before Henry could say too much.
Henry was blaming Hans for something the young lord didn’t do, not yet at least. But the exact words escape Henry. Perhaps when they inevitably run into each other on the monastery grounds, Hans will be the one to remind him.
~
Johanka is as bitter and unwelcoming as Henry remembers. He is an easy target to put a blame on. You weren’t there, she keeps saying. It used to hurt him, gnaw at an open wound he carried, and the first time here it made him turn his back to her and the people she was caring for. He walked away, as bitter as her, pretended that he didn’t see that the injured people there were once his neighbors. He had a greater task at hand, he thought. But perhaps he was just in no better shape than they were, if not in body but in mind.
He stays now. Talks to each and every one of them, even those who can’t respond. His compassion now is of someone who has dug too many graves, who has seen how quick a life can end. Who counted the dead until he lost count.
They haven’t heard anything from Merhojed here either, and Henry doesn’t know whether he should feel relieved or worried. He promises himself to go there as soon as he helps as many people as he can here, and not with empty hands, but with the remedy for the poison, which felled the poor folk of Merhojed last time, prepared in advance.
Henry spends the day brewing potions, tending to the wounds and feeding those who are too ill to move on their own with spoons of watery gruel. Johanka, who scowled at him at first, ordering him around curtly, softens up slowly and even gives him a small short-lived smile as she sees more and more of her patients being taken care of.
As Henry is talking quietly to the man with the broken leg, someone walks into the door, briefly blocking the warm light of the evening. Henry lifts his head in time to see Hans spotting him there and visibly cutting himself short from whatever he planned to say. In a stubborn pride that was hurt by Henry’s words, Hans’ chin rises higher and he turns away without a word of greeting.
Henry turns back to the patient before him and offers him a painkiller brew. He is not sure what to expect from Hans but he feels the lordling’s gaze on the back of his head as Hans is standing silently, quite likely taken aback by Johanka completely ignoring the presence of the nobleman.
Hans once learned to be a bigger man and breach the distance made between them by his careless words. It is Henry’s turn now, if not for apology just yet, but for something to at least break the silence between them.
Henry inspects the broken leg once again ― he has a good idea how to set it straight after he once helped Katherine to treat a similar injury of one of the Suchdol soldiers ― and turns his head to look at Hans over his shoulder.
“Would you help me with this man, my lord?”
He expects Hans to protest in his usual arrogant manner, but Henry gets no reply. Hans chews on the inside of his cheek, hesitating for a short moment, and then crosses the room silently. Henry knows these silences — Hans is going through something in his head, has likely not yet decided how to treat this new distance between them. But that he doesn’t turn and walk out is a good sign.
Henry nods to himself, directs Hans to hold the man down and sets his hands on the broken leg.
The bell in the monastery starts ringing when Henry is about to move the bone, and he has to pause. He grinds his teeths and waits for the bell to fall silent. Hans is asking something, there is a tone of annoyance in his voice, but Henry can’t focus on the words. The bell stops and Henry presses on the leg under his hands slotting the bone in its place. The poor man screams in pain and Hans startles by his side. Henry doesn’t flinch.
He hoped to get used to the sounds of church bells. It is impossible to avoid them, and so he thought he would learn to ignore them, just like he did before Trosky. He is almost used to it. Doesn't freeze for that long anymore, his heart is not jumping up to his throat. But the feeling of dread that comes with the sound, the way his hands begin to sweat ― it is still there, every time he hears it.
The treated man is cursing quietly under his breath, and Henry straightens up. He gives the man a smile that he hopes is reassuring and walks outside to clean himself slightly in a trough. He hears Hans’ muffled voice from inside, asking Johanka something, likely investigating Sir Davish’s stone problem. Absent-mindedly Henry wonders if Hans has already found the skull in the river.
“Was the bell tolling in Skalitz?”
Henry splashes his face with one more handful of water and straightens up. The cold droplets slide down his neck under his gambeson making him shiver.
“What?”
Hans is not looking at him. He is leaning at the building wall and squinting at the scaffolding above.
“You do that thing, when the bells ring,” Hans says. “I’ve seen it before. There is a man in Rattay, goes still just like that each time a dog barks. His father died when he was a child, dropped dead in the middle of the house. Their dog didn’t let the boy leave for three days, barking at him each time he tried to go fetch help. Poor fellow was stuck with a corpse.” Hans shrugs. “Or so he claims, at least.” He turns to look at Henry. There is a frown between his eyebrows, expression guarded. But they are talking, at least. Hans, the arrogant one of the two of them, once again proves Henry to be a bigger man. The shame and guilt swells even more. “I saw you freeze like you did back there before too, you know. The first day we met. You missed your shots when the bell in Rattay started ringing.”
It is more observant than Henry would have given this Hans credit for. Not because he is not capable of observations, but because he didn’t think Hans paid him that much attention from the start.
“There was no church in Skalitz,” he answers simply. He wipes his wet hands on his sides and takes a waterskin off his belt.
“Why such a reaction then?”
Henry takes a few sips of water while searching his mind for a possible answer that Hans might believe in.
“I had a dream,” he says.
Hans turns to him fully with a quirk of his brow. He folds his arms on his chest, looking at Henry sceptically.
“A dream? How terrible a dream can be to make you go all pale like that?”
Looking at Hans is suddenly difficult. Henry leans at the trough and lets his gaze fall to the ground.
“In the dream someone I held dear was about to be hung on the twelfth hour. The bell was counting the hours.”
He is almost surprised he is able to say that. But whatever force is keeping him from speaking up of the events that belong to days that have not yet come, it seems to be tolerant to the little twists Henry adds to the story, essentially making it a lie.
“And what did this person do?”
“Poaching.”
Hans scoffs. “Well deserved punishment then. Although I’m sorry to hear it was someone you cherished. But they are alive though? Outside your dream I mean.”
“Aye, he is. Although I’m afraid if he decides to poach, my dream might come to reality.”
“Nonsense, there is no such thing as prophetic dreams. Although in this case if he indeed starts poaching this might happen. If he is a friend, you should share your dream with him. Might serve as a warning, if simply knowing the law is not enough.”
Henry lifts his eyes, glances at Hans as an unexpected smile creeps onto his face.
“I have.”
“Good. You should stop worrying yourself for nothing then.”
The conversation is almost normal — almost — and for a moment Henry allows himself to breathe a little easier.
He shifts where he stands and speaks again, more solemn this time.
“I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“What?”
Henry takes a slow step forward, heart beating just a little too fast, then meets Hans’ gaze.
“That brute hit my head pretty hard, believe me when I say that I don’t remember a single word I said to you in Pribyslavits. But if there was something hurtful, I apologise sincerely, my lord.”
Henry ends his words with a shallow but respectful bow, the possibility of Hans never forgiving him for something Henry can’t even remember ― and very likely had no control over given the injury such as that ― gnaws at the pit of his stomach like a dull blade twisting.
There is a pause, just long enough to tighten the knot in Henry’s chest, before Hans answers.
“Apology accepted,” Hans says finally, his voice even. “Besides, most of the things you said made absolutely no sense, Henry. It was pure nonsense. I thought even that perhaps you imagined someone else in my stead.” The corner of his mouth twitches faintly, not quite a smile but not far from it. “And… I’m glad you are better. You looked like a corpse in that cart on the way to Rattay.”
“Were you worried, lord Hans?” Henry asks playfully, cocking his head. But Hans has never been ashamed of caring.
“Of course I was,” he says simply. “I might have been angry at you for the things you said, but I’ve grown attached to you over the last weeks.”
It is hardly any better than admitting to cherishing a loyal dog, but Henry is not greedy ― he will accept from Hans whatever he is willing to give.
“What are you doing here anyway?” Hans asks, eyebrows raised. “Don’t tell me Hanush sent you to watch over me so that I don’t fuck things up. I can well handle a few conversations without a chaperone, you know.” His tone is lighter now, and Henry thinks he hears relief between the words. It is reassuring to see that Hans was just as troubled by the possibility of never mending things up between them as Henry was.
“I have no doubt,” Henry replies, the tension in his shoulders finally beginning to unwind. “How is your investigation going? Found anything interesting?”
“Oh yes, you wouldn’t believe it! There was a Devil’s skull!”
“Devil’s skull? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Henry, who do you take me for, what else could that thing be? It had horns and all.”
“And what did you do to it?”
“Threw it away, what else do you think?” Hans scoffs. “I’m not going to walk around with that cursed thing.”
Despite himself, Henry laughs. The tension between them, so thick just minutes ago, dissolves in the sound of it. Hans grins back, crooked and smug, like he has just won something without even trying.
Notes:
keep those comments coming - it is really refreshing and satisfying to read through your feedback and thoughts, thanks a lot!
the next chapter is about 70% done and it is finally gonna be the baths xD I know i promised it like twice before but it's for sure this time, we gonna have some Hansry bath time finally xD
Chapter Text
There are no empty rooms left in Sasau inn and Henry resigns to sleeping in the corner alongside the sick people of Skalitz, but Hans insists on sharing his room. Henry ends up sleeping on a floor anyway, but at least his only company is a companion to whose quiet breaths he has long gotten used to. Hans sleeps quietly on his side, mouth slightly opened and a small frown between his eyebrows slowly building up to eventually grow into a permanent line. Last time, Henry first noticed it in Trosky, but it probably was already there after the slaughter of their first day in the region.
This time the frown appeared already after Uzhitz. Hans didn’t make it show that seeing Lubosh’ body affected him more than the initial upset to his stomach, but Henry heard him shift restlessly in the night afterwards, saw the way his eyes grew distant for a moment when they were having breakfast in the tavern. He winced at his own thoughts and pushed the plate with the remains of his meal toward Henry, claiming not to be hungry.
After Skalitz and Rovna, Henry couldn’t eat for two days. Lubosh was just one man compared to two villages torched and slaughtered, but the smell was the same. It was a testament to Hans’ willpower that he got through half of his meal before the unwelcomed vision ruined his appetite.
Henry wonders how his own face looks when he sleeps. Does he frown deeply, curl his mouth in a disturbed grimace? Does he mutter anything when nightmares come to visit? If he does, Hans has never mentioned it.
Their stay in Sasau drags on, Henry spending time with the people under Johanka's care while Hans is taking his time with his investigation. Henry allows him to do his thing without interfering, despite knowing how to resolve it quickly.
The proximity of the monastery is unnerving, with its bells larger and louder than the ones in Rattay’s churches, their sound seems to reach to even the farthest corner of Sasau and Henry’s restless soul.
Seeking reprieve from the bells, from his persistent worry, and the way Hans always glances at him each time the monastery rings a new hour, Henry rides to Merjohed. He returns by the end of the day, relieved but confused, as he didn’t find either any sick nor a captured bandit in the village.
Perhaps the bandits had no chance to attack, since the battle in Pribyslavitz came earlier this time. It is a significant change in the already trotted path, and Henry wavers between hopeful and anxious — he did want to change things, but now that a change comes, he realizes that it might affect the events he is prepared for, twisting them into something he is not ready for. It worries him in an unexpected way ― has he already gotten used to knowing what the next day, week brings?..
The day has been especially hot, the sun has been burning into Henry’s skull the whole way to Merhojed and back. He is used to the heat of a smithy, but this feels like being thrown right into the forge. Even Pebbles seems to be melting under him, her trot slowing down to a lazy walk, her mane clinging miserably to her damp neck. Henry pats her comfortingly as he throws a worried look at Mutt, who has been walking with his tongue hanging down almost to the ground, the poor dog.
Henry returns to Sasau soaking through his shirt with sweat and stinking so bad even he himself is not unaffected by that.
He dismounts Pebble near the inn, and the poor horse immediately careens toward the nearest trough. She drinks and then drops down on the ground with her muzzle half in the water as she eyes him from there with a promise of a murder by mighty kick if he even hints of riding her anywhere again in such weather. He will need to unsaddle and clean her later, but he lets her be for now and heads to the river bank. There he finds Hans, sprouted on the grass in the shade of a tree looking like a fish thrown out of water.
He smiles when he sees Henry, and then wrinkles his nose as Henry walks closer. Hans orders him to stay as far as at least ten paces from him and insists that Henry must have a bath this very moment or Hans will never speak to him again. Henry would find a quick soak in a river enough for him, but Hans is already on his feet beaconing him to follow, and who Henry is to deny his lord anything?
In the baths Hans ruffles his feathers before a bathmaid in the way that is so familiar, Henry is having a hard time reminding himself that they are not in Rattay and chances are slim that Hans will send him to sneak into the monastery basement for better wine as he did in Rattay.
They manage to get drunk on whatever the maid is serving them just as well, and Hans sprouts himself along the edge of the tub, all loose limbs and face pink from the cheap wine floating through his veins.
“What are you staring at so intently?” Hans asks suddenly, and Henry realizes he has been watching Hans from the moment they got into the tub.
Henry doesn’t know when it started for Hans, doesn’t know if he is inclined towards other men as well, or it was only Henry he took fancy in. Henry didn’t even notice this in Hans before Hans was suddenly kissing him in Suchdol.
Perhaps because Henry refused to acknowledge his own feelings, just carried that silent affection and fierce I’d die for you protectiveness for so long, he doesn’t even know when it has shifted from loving a friend to something deeper. And when it did, he ignored it, shoved it away and hid it under layers of duty, shame, and guilt. Lest it was dragged into light to bury him under the weight of it.
He was too young when his life changed. He is barely much older now, but he has seen and has been through enough to learn to understand himself. Henry didn’t know himself back then, but he knows now. Knows that he watches the soft curves and gentle lines of the wenches with the same appreciation as he looks at men’s rough edges and broad shoulders. Knows that the want that stirs in him at the sight of low cut of a dress hugging ample bosom of a pretty lass is of the same nature as at the sight of a shirt drawn tight across a strong chest and the cut of muscle along a man’s arms.
The realisation of it only reached him here, back in his past, undoubtedly awakened by his first and only time he took comfort in another man’s company. Henry hasn’t had time to ponder it, only enough to accept the fact, and an amusing and slightly embarrassing recognition of what exactly Bartosh was offering back then in Trosky.
Henry learns not to look. Learns not to react and slowly he gets used to it. To having men around, half naked when they chop wood or go for a quick dip in a river. It helps sometimes that some of them are not much handsomer than a boar.
But with Hans, it is different. It is not only the physique that Henry cherishes, but the feeling of content in his soul every time Hans is near, the happiness that stirs in his heart when Hans is smiling joyfully at him, or making him laugh at something.
And with all his carefree, almost thoughtless at times spirit, Hans was the one that figured his own feelings before Henry did. Too scared to find himself in an underground tunnel, he was brave enough to admit to something that men have hanged for, and to challenge and risk their friendship for a small chance that perhaps Henry felt the same. And up until the unexpected press of lips, brief but so strange, all stubble and the scent of a man, Henry hadn’t known that he did.
They didn’t have the time to talk about any of this, and it is a risk to say anything so early, but Henry is drunk and bone deep tired, and his body hurts in the places of the invisible scars from all the death blows he has taken. And the man who Henry learned to love more than to fear God’s wrath is smiling at him in a way that is almost familiar.
Will Henry be fortunate enough to earn Hans’ love again this time? I’ll die trying, Henry thinks and some part of him laughs morbidly in his mind.
“What’s one more stare?” Henry says, and he doesn’t stop looking. “’m sure you’re getting plenty of those every day.”
It is a testament to how drunk Hans is that the implication only amuses him, and the possible deeper meaning is completely lost.
“From the wenches!” he exclaims with a laugh.
“And ‘m trying to figure why they all trip over their skirts ‘round you.”
Hans grins, loose from drink. “Yeah? And what d’you see?”
“Enough to trip, I suppose.” The words slip off his tongue before he can catch them, and he feels his lips stretch in a smirk.
“Can’t help it if I’m charming, can I?” Hans grins at the praise and leans back like he is accepting tribute. His eyes don’t quite meet Henry’s, unfocused somewhere in the general vicinity of his face instead. He is unlikely to remember this in the morning, Henry thinks. “It’s the hair, isn’t it.” Hans runs a hand through it like he is making fun of himself, but he clearly enjoys the idea.
They drink more, the bathmaid adds more hot water to their tub, the light coming from outside changes first to red and then dims completely.
Their legs are tangled inside the tab, through barely warm water the contact burns. Henry’s head is filled with noise. It is not the noise of the bells or the screams of the dying. It is a soft buzzing that fills in the crevices in between his unwelcome thoughts and memories he wants to forget. Past weeks seem like a dream. He tries to remember when the dream started and he can’t. Perhaps he passed out from hunger, he thinks. He will wake up tomorrow in his room in Suchdol to the empty ache in his stomach and no hope for the future.
His head spins.
“I need to practise m’ sword,” Henry draws drunkenly. He doesn’t know where the words come from, and why they are suddenly important to say. “Practise sword with me, Hans.”
“That’s lord Hans for you,” Hans corrects him with a giggle. “Why’d you even need t’practise. You’re fine already.”
“Naaah,” Henry protests and waves his finger at Hans. “That was bad, you see…” He leans closer to whisper the next part in Hans’ ear, his hand on the edge of the tub slips and he lands with his chin against Hans’s bony shoulder. His teeth clank and he decides to just stay there in order to avoid further accidents. “I r’member it ‘ere,” Henry says pointing at his own head. “Still need to train this body. ‘Tis too weak and doesn’t listen ‘metimes,” he tells Hans’ clavicle, staring at it intently. He wonders if Hans will have him hung if he leans even further in and bites it. Henry almost tries it, but then remembers that he will have to repeat the last few days again if he dies, and it just feels dreadful.
“Bollocks!” Hans laughs and throws an arm over Henry’s shoulders.
And Henry waits for the order to bring the bathmaid flowers but it never comes.
*
In the early morning Henry stumbles back into the small room that got available after Hans sent his retinue back now that he had Henry to protect him. And when he falls back into the bed he realizes that if he can’t win battles that are meant to be fought alongside others alone, he is still able to bring little changes into the hearts of individual people.
Perhaps, he thinks as he is dozing off, he is back here not for the deaths ― his, and his enemies that he has been trying to kill in larger numbers than before ― but for love.
He chuckles to himself as the thought comes, all the wine he has drunk still warming up his mind and making all his thoughts seem ridiculous and inconsequential.
“My lord Capon, for each time that I was killed you owe me one kiss,” Henry mumbles sleepily and huffs out a laugh. “But,” he yawns, “I think I lost count already…”
What a shame.
*
The alcohol leaves his system, but the thought settles. It shifts slightly now that Henry is sober, but the spirit of it remains. Not for deaths, perhaps not for Hans’ love either ― Henry is not foolish enough to think that God would send him back so that he can commit one of the gravest sins sooner. Unless it was the Devil’s work that Henry is going through this. But it might be that there are more things that he can change, small ones to him but perhaps something that would improve the others’ lives if only a little.
He knows of such lives, like the sick here in Sasau that Henry has already started helping ― the people he walked past the first time. People like himself who also left their regular lives behind in Skalitz ashes. People in other villages, who have also suffered, from one thing or the other, because there are always things and men in the world that are eager to take something from others, be it possessions, health or very lives.
Henry has treated being here as Hell first and then as his second chance. But perhaps this is not his second chance, but Henry is theirs.
Time is a good teacher and there is time aplenty under siege. And not much else to do but to look inside oneself and at the people that stand by your side.
In Suchdol when he had nothing to do but wait, Henry learned more about himself and the people around him than in all the years leading to that month.
He learned that there are many sides to each person, each coming up in different circumstances, and when those circumstances are dire, it is always either the best or the worst side that shows itself at that time.
He learned that people can be selfish when it comes to a piece of a stale bread and they would rip the last crumb of it from the hands of a friend, but then would push this friend from the path of an enemy arrow only to take this arrow themselves.
He learned that some friendships need distance, and some can grow into something more when there is no distance at all.
He learned that there are no titles when everyone’s lives cost the same, and blue blood bleeds red too.
And most of all he learned to wait.
Back here where the lives of his parents hung only on one single warning Henry was unable to speak, he had forgotten how to wait. But rushing ahead, even more eagerly this time compared to his first, has only led to him dying over and over again.
And how many people died last time, not from Henry’s hand, but simply because he chose to rush past them without stopping to hear their pleas?
Hans is dead to the world in his bed, and Henry takes a selfish moment to just watch him. It is not a very enticing sight ― Hans is dishevelled and he drools slightly on his pillow, but Henry’s chest fills with warmth anyway and he almost can’t believe how foolish his love to Hans is making him.
“Hans.” Henry shakes the sleeping man by a shoulder until he groans and opens his eyes. “I’m leaving for Skalitz.”
“Good for you, Hal, safe travels,” Hans mumbles without opening his eyes and turns away.
“Come with me,” Henry says.
“What the fuck would I do in Skalitz,” Hans grumbles and lifts himself on an elbow turning to Henry. “It’s burned, ‘member? Are you still drunk?”
There is a lot that Henry wants to do, not just in Skalitz, but on his way there. He knows some folk who survived Rovna and Skalitz are still scattered in woods, some probably returning to their ruined homes there. There are looters, and bandits, in the forests and crawling through his father’s mines.
And a place that he has avoided visiting for too long.
“I haven’t even seen my parents grave yet,” he says. Hans’ eyes clear and he sits up straighter. “I… It would mean a lot to me, if you accompany me there.”
Hans regards him for a long moment and then nods.
Chapter 11
Notes:
I didn't expect to finish the next chapter so soon but it is a dark one and boy do I love writing such stuff.
I hope you'll enjoy it despite it being a bit sad
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They take a road through Merhojed and as if not fully ready to believe his own eyes when he was here just a day ago, Henry makes them stop here for a day. If not the poison in the water, there surely are some small grievances that villagers have that Henry perhaps can be of help with.
Henry walks through the settlement, speaks to everyone who is willing to talk to him. He brews a digestive potion for an old man that seems to have eaten something spoiled, helps a wench in the next house to find a hen that decided to run off.
Hans grumbles half-heartedly but they both know this is more entertaining for the young lord than sitting in Rattay.
A child runs up to Henry, and tugs at his trousers. The kid looks to be a girl, with long messy hair and a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
Henry crouches before her, mustering a gentle smile.
“What is it, little one?”
In lieu of an answer, the girl opens her mouth and points at a crooked tooth. Henry has spoken to some of the villagers about being a blacksmith and it seems that one of them sent this child to him.
Pulling a small milk tooth is not like pulling a damaged one from an adult mouth, and it only takes a short moment. The child flinches briefly but her spirits are easily lifted when Henry offers her a kolach he purchased back in Sasau.
A man in ragged clothes and empty eyes stops them when they ride out of Merhojed. He lives in Rovna, he says. Lived. His hands shake in the way that Henry’s did the whole first day after he left the burning Skalitz behind.
Henry offers him the few groschen he can spare, but the man shakes his head. He wants to go back, he explains. But too scared to go on his own. Are good sirs riding through Rovna by chance?..
Seeing as the man favors his left leg Henry helps him to climb up his horse to ride behind him, like once his father showed him.
Hans’ eyes are wide, and his nose is scrunched in a mild disgust ― the man’s clothes are dusty and he smells of old sweat. Henry throws a glance at Hans and whatever shows on his face makes the lordling hold back the displeasure he surely wanted to give voice to.
On the way the man tells Henry of the family he had in Rovna, a wife, infant son and an old mother. All perished in attack, while he was away collecting wood in the forest for the new barn he wanted to build. He hasn’t buried them yet, hasn’t had the chance.
Henry comforts him with the words he is only capable of finding now, when his own loss and tragedy has long started to scab over.
Hans is silent. Only mumbles something angrily under his breath when they ride up to Rovna’s scorched remains. The bodies are still there, almost everywhere an eye can see, and they have to tie a cloth over their noses and mouths to stop some of the smell. A couple of bandits have settled in the abandoned church, and Henry kills them mercilessly and then drags their bodies into the woods.
He is no stranger to touching corpses and digging graves and he helps the man find his dead family and bury them in the place of his choosing. They then sort through the rubble of his burned home, and by the end of the day Henry’s clothes are blackened with ash, and the smell of death seems to have made it deep into his lungs. Henry shares his food with the man who has nothing to his name but charred remains of what once was a peaceful life, and gives him a few groschen.
Henry shouldn’t care anymore. He has seen too much death, has killed too many. But through it all he has nourished what little is left of his compassion like a precious seed that given time and good soil would bloom into something healing. He has carried it through each battle, and each corpse of an enemy or friend that he stripped of valuable armor pieces with calloused uncaring hands.
It is easy to lose humanity in everything Henry has been through, but he takes care of his own. Waters it like a tree, cages it from elements. It is the only thing that still makes him his parents' son.
He hears the please of strangers and he makes himself care, because he knows he needs to. Not only for their sake but for his own. And with every person saved, be it from death or from a minor worry, he feels a piece of himself slotting into place.
*
Henry doesn’t bother going into the mines tunnels — the counterfeited groschen is truly the lesser evil among all that Henry knows is coming, and besides he knows his father and Hans’s uncle have already sent someone to investigate the matter. If Henry was able to find the workshop the first time around, surely anyone can. And he really only needs to ride up to Vranik "accidentally" to be able to speak of the camp to others.
But there is still time.
Besides, he suspects, Hans will not appreciate dragging him into a dark tunnel anyway — he has not yet developed the fear of confined spaces but he hadn’t been that comfortable with them even before the Nebakov.
There are bandits crawling above. Last time Henry had a hard time fighting them all, still barely experienced in a battle, still scared of taking injuries, unused to the sting of them, unused to the wet sound of his sword meeting the flesh of his enemies. He managed by a miracle, he thinks. Someone must have been watching over him.
It is easier now, almost routinely so. He warns Hans of the potential danger as they ride up to the processing yard ― the invisible power keeping him from speaking of things he shouldn’t yet know allows that much. There might be bandits, Henry says. Nature abhors a vacuum after all. One would surely be surprised if somebody with ill intentions wouldn’t immediately slot themselves into the place that can be used. Or destroyed.
The bandits are no match for the two of them. When last time the fight took nearly an hour, an hour of simple strikes, half of which were blocked, and strategic retreats to catch his breath, this time it ends in barely minutes. Henry makes one bandit block, and then slides his sword alongside the bandit’s and pierces his unprotected eyes. He feints a strike and moves his sword in the last possible moment slicing against the enemy’s neck.
His body is listening to him better now, better even than in Prybislavits, as if taking his time to recover after the battle has allowed his memory to somehow reach the farthest parts of his body. His stamina is not ideal yet and he needs to build more strength, but he finally reacts almost as fast as he is used to.
Henry goes through the bandits’ pockets after they are dealt with, and releases them of the most valuable and less damaged armor pieces. Pebbles won’t appreciate an extra load, and Hans is wrinkling his nose when Henry pulls off perfectly fine boots off one of the corpses, but beggars can’t be choosers ― the first time around looting was easily the only reason why Henry survived. Especially in Trosky region, where he didn’t even have a pair of undamaged hose to his name.
The first time Hans saw him taking the valuables off just killed bandits that had been camping in the woods, he lectured him on the immorality of such an action. Not to mention an honest man should not even touch a dead body, let alone… this. Henry wiped the blood off a helmet he just pulled off a dead bandit and put it on himself in lieu of the one that was damaged in this very fight.
“The honest man died in Skalitz,” Henry replied. The helmet he stole from the dead saved his life the next day when they stumbled upon another bandit camp. While still disapproving, Hans, however, never commented on Henry’s looting again.
*
The main gates into Skalitz are blocked off by rubble and they have to ride around to find an opening in the fence. The place looks like Henry remembers ― black earth and black skeletons of the houses, and bodies that no one has bothered to bury yet. Exactly like Rovna but larger and through this even more devastating to look at.
It is strange how the tragedy of this place exists in his memory both many months and only some weeks ago. How the acceptance of his parents’ deaths that Henry had barely managed to achieve back in Kuttenberg only to be crushed again when he had to relive it once more, exists together with a fresh denial born from many attempts to prevent this, and from his own deaths in this place.
It is strange to have Hans walk through these streets.
Hans is following him quietly. Not ahead of him as he always is, as it is proper, for the noble to lead, for the peasant to follow humbly. But at his shoulder and slightly behind it even.
His face is solemn and the crease between his brows is deeper than usual.
It is the respect that he is giving to Henry and the lost souls of Skalits that Henry didn’t think him capable of the first time he met the pompous arrogant lordling. But he knows Hans now, the sincerity and kindness in his heart, tucked in safely for only the closest people to discover when they are fortunate enough to deserve the trust.
Henry is grateful he is shown this now already, so early into their strange friendship — for Hans at least — that Hans would undoubtedly deny to be such.
Henry’s heart weeps at the sight of his home churned. And warms from within still at not being alone here with his grief.
They didn’t risk leaving the horses too far behind ― two horses, one clearly loaded with things to sell, would be hard to resist stealing if more bandits show up. So they lead them through the small town, mindful of not letting them step onto the corpses. Hans looks sickened when he has to step over or walk around dead bodies. Henry feels sickened at his own almost-indifference. These are his people, those he grew alongside with. His heart bleeds for their deaths. But when his eyes see a dead body his mind feels nothing of the fact that he is walking past them.
He has gotten used to death, gotten used to the war. This cost him something important that he thinks made him his parents’ son. The shame of it bitter on his tongue.
Pebbles surely has ash clogging the dips under her horseshoes, and Mutt’s coat has turned black all the way to his neck.
It is not a good place to be, not a good place to bring someone who otherwise would have had months until that concerned line finally settles in the middle of his forehead. It is there now to stay, just as the change in his blue eyes, seeing the world for what it really is for the first time in his young life. A part of Henry regrets exposing Hans to these horrors. No one deserves to see this, to walk alongside a friend through the ashes of the souls that once were his family, friends, his home.
And another part is morbidly relieved that this will make them equal in a way, will improve the understanding between them that was there in Suchdol and that Henry has missed so much here. It is a selfish, cruel joy, and he promises himself that one day he will admit it to Hans and will plead forgiveness from him.
His parents grave is the only place in the whole of Skalitz untouched by the ash and dried blood. A fresh spot on the ground in the place that froze in time after its death.
The guilt of never visiting the grave, never daring to, sits heavily in his stomach. From there it raises up the tendril of shame that weasels up to his throat making him feel sick of his own wretchedness. A worthless son, avoiding to say his final goodbyes, embarrassed to show his face before his parents who never wanted him to be what he has become.
The guild presses him down and he lets it, falling to his knees before his parents’ grave. His fingers touch the upended earth adding another layer to the burden of guilt that he carries — he wasn’t the one to bury them. Not the first time, not even after being given endless chances to. He failed even this simple task.
He came here to speak a prayer. To plead for forgiveness. To, foolishly, introduce Hans to them — as his lord, as a friend, perhaps. They wouldn’t suspect a thing. Hans wouldn’t suspect a thing. But it would matter to Henry.
But all he is capable of now is silence. He gathers a handful of the loose soil, rubs it between his fingers. He looks at the simple wooden cross Theresa or whoever helped her put at the head of the grave.
He tries to speak, opens his mouth, but nothing comes out but a quiet wet sound that trembles at the edges.
A hand rests on his shoulder, squeezes lightly. Hans lowers himself silently on the ground beside Henry, knees into the earth, like he won’t complain later that his hose will need an urgent washing. Perhaps he won’t — he is nearly as dirtied by ash and dried blood as Henry is anyway.
The hand lifts from Henry’s shoulder but Hans’ presence stays by his side. He doesn’t mention that Henry needs to wipe his face later once he finds enough strength to get up again.
*
The forge is churned and ransacked, but as little as it is, Henry wants to give his Pa’s forge one last work even if there are no coils to burn to breathe life back into it. The sharpening wheel is tilted over and resting under a fallen wooden pole that used to hold the little roof. Henry moves the pole and sets the wheel back up. It is thankfully undamaged and Henry takes his time sharpening his and Hans’ swords.
“They need to be buried.” It is the first words any of them said since they stepped into the ruined town. “I know there are a lot, but I can’t leave them like this.” Henry stops the wheel and looks up at Hans. Hans is pale, his eyes are sad and he is working his jaw like he is fighting with something within him. “You don’t have to help, I know you―” Henry sighs and shakes his head. “Just wait until I’m done, please, Hans.”
Hans regards him for a moment and turns away sharply. His jaw clenches harder. Mutt bumps his nose against Hans’ hand, and Hans scratches his head without looking down.
“You think you can find two whole shovels in this place?”
In Suchdol, Hans dug graves and carried dead bodies alongside all of them.
In Troskowitz, he read Henry a lecture on the differences between them that spared Hans the indignity of hauling sacks of flour. No amount of argument could sway him then.
But now they are in Skalitz, the place where it all began, and only a handful of months — perhaps less — separate now from then, if the days unfold as they once did. Henry didn’t ask for help. Wouldn’t have dared. Yet Hans is already at the crumbling shed near Henry’s old home, kicking through debris in search of a shovel.
Henry wonders what has changed, and the only thing he can think of is him. He is the one new thread spun into this familiar pattern.
He rises up from the sharpening wheel and heads to help Hans with his search.
He has read in books and has heard wise people say that every person leaves an imprint on the lives they touch — just by being there.
And as they sink their shovels into the blackened, broken earth, Henry wonders whether drawing someone as full of life as Hans into the grave-bound work of his first life is the kind of mark he has ever meant to leave on someone he loves.
Notes:
thanks so much for all the comments to the previous chapters and all the kudos! really super appreciate it!
keep em comments coming - they really motivate me to keep writing this, srsly <3
Chapter 12
Notes:
Sorry for the long wait. I was struggling with bringing the somewhat boring first part of this chapter with the cliffhanger moment I have been excited about for a very long time. I'm still not sure the transition does it justice, but still I hope you'll like it!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hans helps Henry dig the graves but he doesn’t touch the corpses. Henry doesn’t expect him to anyway.
As Henry makes his way through this grim work, Hans stands as far away as he can without having to shout for Henry to hear him. He watches Henry with a thoughtful expression, as if he can’t quite decide what to make of the fact that his half-noble companion is doing the job reserved for those ready to be ostracised by the people.
Hans hasn’t been at war yet. He hasn’t learned yet that the people are hypocrites, and that so many rules he takes as fundamentals are forgotten when there is no space left for them.
“I lost my parents too, you know,” Hans speaks up when Henry climbs out of a fresh grave he has dug and pauses, contemplating who to lay in it first: the old grocer he spotted lying on the main street, stricken by a cuman sword, or a young girl whose name he can’t remember, who was discarded in the bushes farther away, her clothes ripped. “I know it’s not the same. I was so little, I don’t even remember them…”
Henry glances absentmindedly at Hans, reacting to the sound of his voice more than hearing the words. He doesn’t know what answer Hans is expecting, so Henry only nods and heads in the direction of the bushes.
He has no cloth to wrap the bodies in, so he has to haul them as they are. The gloves and coat he had on him he throws away after — the smell and possible disease has definitely made it too deep into the material. He changes into the clothes he looted from the bandits they killed earlier.
They spend the night in a barn in the processing yard that they cleared. And in the morning Henry’s back aches from all the work that he did.
The ride back is quiet until they pass Rovna. Leaving the horrors of the war behind makes Hans cheer up.
It is a fake cheer. He is trying to restore the way he is used to see the world and people ― a pleasant place to be in, full of life, wine and beautiful wenches. That’s how he always sleeps at night, unlike Henry, no matter how many atrocities he has seen ― by shoving them away and pretending they didn’t happen. Just for himself, like children play pretend, only instead of imagining himself a mighty knight saving a beautiful noble lady, Hans imagines that he didn’t have to wash away the blood off his hands just moments ago.
Henry knows Hans does this, and he doesn’t know how. He wishes he could understand, learn this and master this skill like many others he has learned, often just from explanation alone. Henry carries the horrors he has witnessed embroidered on the underside of his eyelids ― they are a sting on the edge of his vision during the day, and his only focus during the night.
He thinks, perhaps, it is the loss and the hard choices that keep them there. The constant doubt: should he have killed that one or tried to keep him alive? How many children has he left without their fathers? What would his parents say?..
The burden is heavy, and he carries it while watching Hans shrug it off like a leaf fallen on his shoulder, and he envies.
And says a quiet prayer in his mind to thank the Lord in Heaven for giving Hans this skill that keeps a smile on his face and his dreams unmarred even in the darkest of times.
“…Have you heard a single word of what I just said?”
Henry flinches and looks up from where he has been staring unseeingly at Pebbles' dark mane.
“I’m sorry, my lord, I must’ve been lost in thought.”
“What thought in that peasant skull of yours can be more important than listening to what your lord is saying?” Hans’ tone is spoiled and whiny. It sounds entirely him and entirely real, only that Henry knows that Hans draws the syllables a tad longer like that when he tries to be deliberately annoying. “You are a lousy aide, Henry. Should I replace you with someone more capable?”
It is a provocation if Henry has ever heard one. Hans’ mouth is crooked slightly at the corners in mischief that Henry sees clear as day because he has watched that mouth almost uninterrupted every day for long weeks of them being trapped in Suchdol, and later then, already here, graced with Hans’ presence by his side more times that he was the first time around.
Henry has noticed long ago that Hans somehow tends to be especially demanding and irritating when Henry’s thoughts are the darkest. Like the lordling has no regard for Henry’s feelings, like he refuses to notice them at all, perhaps. It has always made Henry quickly irritable. Some bizarre question, or an absolutely silly idea that Hans always demands an immediate reply to, ignoring that Henry is too busy wrestling with the shadows in his mind.
And now, suddenly, a mad thought occurs to him: Hans notices, he doesn’t ignore but does this on purpose. Henry is not that mad to think that Hans does this out of selfless reason to cheer him up, to distract him from wallowing in his own misery by changing his focus. Not yet anyway, they are not that close. It is more likely that Henry’s sour face offends the noble’s refined taste and he finds no pleasure in having such a boring companion by his side. So he does to Henry what he does to his own thoughts ― makes him shove the horrors away if only temporary. To pretend they didn’t happen.
But even if his intentions are selfish, the trick does its job. Henry focuses his eyes on Hans and smiles.
*
A torch in his hand casts a trembling warm light at the thick door in front of him, and cards the rest of the world in deep impenetrable darkness. The monastery grounds are quiet. Even the drunken draws of the men of Sasau resting in the tavern after a long day have gone silent. The wolf’s hour, Henry’s long good friend, the best hour for the deeds that lack any honor ― no one would bear a witness.
Henry looks around and squints into the dark, searching for the little fires in the distance that could be his only warning of a guard approaching in his night rounds. There is nothing, and Henry steps closer to the door and squats before the lock. The first time here he broke the only lockpick he was able to find in the monastery after only a few seconds attempting to unlock this door from the other side. This alone made him spend more days living as a monk than he was comfortable with until he managed to obtain the key for the main entrance.
Henry has opened many difficult locks since then, and he has more than just one lockpick on him this time around.
He puts the torch on the ground and steps on it with his boot until the flames die. After being exposed to the warm light of fire the darkness feels overwhelming at first, but Henry doesn’t need his eyes for this. He finds the lock with his fingers and inserts the tensioner and a thin lockpick with a hook. The metal tools rustle quietly in the lock as he searches for the pins. The lock is of more complicated ones and feels a little rusty, but in a few moments Henry is able to rotate it. If that didn’t work the other way would be to jump off the scaffolding hovering over the roof of the cloister. A sure way in and a surer even to break his leg or neck navigating the monastery roof in total darkness.
The door is unlocked, the path inside is known. On soft feet that barely make a sound, Henry slithers inside and pulls the door closed behind him. There are no lights here, but he remembers the layout well enough to make his way through the dark rooms and into the lit corridor and then up the stairs to where the monks sleep during the night.
A few of them are snoring, at odds with others, which creates the constant noise that muffles any that Henry makes moving through the spacious room to where he remembers Brother Gregor is sleeping. He is risking a lot sneaking in here like this, and perhaps it would be easier to find one of the crimps in Sasau and pick up the die he needs off their corpses, but he doesn’t want to risk alerting people in Vranik ― if they learn some of their people were killed and then a new face shows up with the die in hand, they would definitely suspect a foul play. Pious, however, won’t be leaving the monastery or warning anyone outside of it after discovering that his die is missing.
Silent feet, deft fingers, eyes that don’t need to see the place he knows by heart to navigate it flawlessly. Just a few minutes on the monastery grounds, and Henry slips out, unnoticed, the die safely tucked into his pouch.
There is a short letter on a table in the room where Hans sleeps in Sasau inn. Henry left it there this morning, when the sun only barely showed up above the trees, and Hans was sleeping so deeply he didn’t stir from Henry's soft steps and the rustle of paper.
Just a few words about following a lead he found that he believes may lead him to the bandits leaders. Vranik is not mentioned in the letter ― Henry was not able to, not without seeing the place first. So he conjured a truthful lie, as he often does here.
The letter is written in the same shaky shrift as when Henry first attempted to bring a quill to paper.
He learned the written skill only slightly later than he learned how to wield a sword. But in the time that he’s had he has only honed one of them to mastery. War demanded a soldier, not a scholar.
The sun is still below the horizon. Henry stands before Vranik’s locked gate and he knows he is going to die in there. More than once, perhaps, if needed. Whatever it takes to kill both Toth and Erik.
It is not revenge that brings him here. He has abandoned this urge somewhere in between watching Hans die on the ground before him because of the mistake he made, and the sound of a shovel in his hands, digging into a scorched earth of what was once his home. Perhaps even earlier.
Perhaps it was that flicker of exhausted resignation in his mind when he was fighting fruitlessly for his life — his only life then — in the Suchdol night, surrounded by the endless waves of soldiers in red waffencoats.
Henry looks at the Vranik walls and he feels no fire left in him for revenge.
But some kills must be done to avoid even more deaths in the future. If he kills Toth now, before he can ride off to Trosky with all his vicious plans, if he kills Erik along with him, before he can lead an attack on the innocent people in the Kuttenberg jewish quarter, perhaps this war will not be as bloody as Henry remembers.
Perhaps, just perhaps, there doesn’t even have to be a war.
Perhaps, he thinks suddenly, fearfully, and then immediately chastises himself for the thought — they don’t have to do anything against Sigismund.
It is a thought of a coward. A traitor, turning his back to the innocent people slaughtered in Skalitz, Rovna, Opatowitz, and who knows how many more villages.
But the dead of the Suchdol siege stand before his eyes. He thinks back to the look in Jaroslav eyes that settled there after he walked through that gate alone, leaving his best friend’s body to rot on the other side.
How many died to drive Sigismund away? Was each of their lives worth it? And was it worth less than the ones slaughtered by the Hungarian king’s armies?
Henry doesn’t know. But he knows that revenge left him with nothing but emptiness inside in place of something that will never be restored.
So he knocks on the gate without revenge clouding his mind, but with a clarity of the plan he has and a resignation to die as many times as it is needed to achieve his goal. Better he pays with his endless lives to improve their odds in this inevitable war than those who only have one.
He shows the soldier at the gate the die he stole and tells his name — Henry. Not from Skalitz, just Henry.
The gate opens before him and he walks inside.
*
One time his mother told him that he shouldn’t set his plans in stone ― after all, it is not him who decides what is to be, and God would laugh at him perhaps, if Henry told him of his plans.
Someone is certainly laughing now, be it God or Devil himself. The laughter is nauseatingly familiar, and Henry fights through the sticky fog of the already familiar feeling of a hit to his head.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little rat,” Henry hears. He knows this voice, knows the deliberately sweet arrogant notes in it.
His vision clears finally, he lifts his head, and sure it is him ― Istvan Toth before him, looking at him like a noble would look at a spot of dirt on their new gambeson.
Henry came here on his own, without crimps learning of him ― was that it? Was the die not enough?
His hands are bound above his head, his clothes are missing. It is like the first time, only he ended up here faster now, not even a chance to speak to anyone, to figure out where Erik and Toth were, until someone creeped up behind him and hit him with something heavy enough that it made him black out on the spot.
Well, one of the two he was searching for is here, surprisingly with no one else to do his dirty work ― surely Toth is not going to beat and torture Henry himself?..
Belated, Henry realizes that for the sake of not raising more questions and possibly making his task here easier, he must at least show surprise at seeing the noble among the camp full of bandits. Just like last time. Something that earned him the short journey to this shed in the first place. It might be too late for this now anyway, but Henry makes his eyebrows fly up as he widens his eyes for a moment.
Toth hums to himself, satisfied or not, Henry doesn’t know.
“I should keep you alive,” was what Toth said last time. It made sense back then, surely Radzig would have paid the ransom, if Henry didn’t manage to escape on his own.
Henry expects these words.
Instead, Toth glances at him and says,
“I should just kill you now to spare myself the trouble you will bring.”
It is said carelessly, with a tinge of annoyance ― no usual smile on his face ― and with much less interest in his persona than Henry earned the first time around. As if talking about an apple core after consuming the rest of the fruit ― throw it away now or keep it for a little while to feed it to the pigs later.
No talk of his father, no gloating that Istvan, the foreigner, is privy to such information, when the very son of the said Radzig is none the wiser.
No questions about Henry’s reason to be here, either.
Only slow pacing, back and forth, and a frown between his eyebrows, like he is seriously contemplating whether it is worth it for him to kill Henry now.
Henry’s head is throbbing with the pain from the hit it sustained, and only this alone is the reason he can’t bring himself to find Toth’s behavior unusual. It will all be clear in time. Or it won’t, but it will not matter anyway. Henry only needs the bastard to leave, and then he will escape, and then die as many times as needed to find Istvan here and kill him.
“Hm,” Istvan hums as he glances at Henry again. Not really looking at him, but almost through him, appearing to be lost in thought. “How is it that you escaped last time?” He mumbles quietly under his breath, and Henry only hears him because the camp outside the shed is silent in the night.
Toth stops on his track and focuses his eyes on Henry, shock mixed with amusement on his face. Like he is as surprised by the words that came out of his mouth as Henry is.
“Oh,” he draws and then starts laughing, not in mockery but as if to a joke only he can hear.
Grinning, mean and gleeful, he approaches Henry slowly, his gaze unwavering tearing into Henry.
“I can’t know what it was you did after throwing me out of that tower, but it looks like it didn’t quite work out for you, did it?” He says this slowly, as if each word is something that he wants to savor, and it sends a chill down Henry’s spine.
And the grimace of surprise that Henry now feels on his face is not fake anymore.
Toth leans in, his eyes jumping between Henry’s, searching for something with amusement and wicked curiosity.
“Was it Erik that killed you after he learned of my death?” He leans even closer and whispers right into Henry’s ear, poisonous laughter in his voice. “Tell me, dear boy, who was it that ended your life? After all,” he draws, “I might be the only one to whom you can.”
Notes:
I plan to write one more chapter for KCD1, and then the one after should be a transition into KCD2 territory (literally).
Updates will slow down even more from here, I have very few drafts and even less ideas, sorry about that, I'm bad at planning.I hope you at least enjoyed the cliffhanger ahaha
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