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“Henry, you have to tell me which one of these phials will help you. You’re always messing with potions, but I—I can’t tell one from another.”
Hans was talking very fast and Henry wasn’t really following. He felt drunk. He felt worse than drunk. His head throbbed and his tongue felt huge in his mouth. He stretched his jaw experimentally. He couldn’t remember how he got here, on the… ground. There was sky above him and some trees. He’d have to sit up to get more information than that, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to listen to Hans, either.
If he was on the ground, best he stayed there.
He shut out the bright, glaring sun.
“Don’t fall asleep on me now. Keep those eyes open.”
Hans was too loud, ringing in Henry’s ears, and maybe that was why he felt a surge of fury at him and the sky and everything. “I fucking hate sleeping.” It came out as a slurred growl, but if Hans was surprised by his sudden anger, his voice didn’t show it.
“I know. It’s a very weird quality for anyone to have, but just focus on that right now, how much you hate it. And then tell me which of these potions will make you feel better.”
Other than his head hurting, Henry didn’t even know what was wrong with him. They’d been… riding?
“Why?” he asked.
“What do you mean ‘why?’ Why what?”
He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to talk at all. He tried to touch the center of his pain, his forehead, but Hans smacked his hand away.
“A potion will help your head.” Hans said each word slowly and loudly as if Henry was an idiot.
“Merryweather,” Henry said, but that wasn’t quite right. He tried again. “May… Mayflower.”
Was that what it was called? He didn’t really want a potion, anyway. He just wanted Hans to shut up.
“Henry, look at me,” Hans demanded.
Henry opened his eyes to two blurry Hanses revolving around each other. They made him want to throw up a little.
“You’re speaking gibberish.”
That was fine. Henry didn’t care.
“Fuck,” Hans said. He threw all four of his arms into the air. “You’re always fiddling with these fucking potions and I should have paid attention. You should label them.”
“Lea’m’alone,” Henry slurred. Hans would get the gist, he was sure.
Hans did not get the gist. He clapped really loudly and Henry’s eyes snapped open, his head buzzing in pain. If he could sit up right now, he would hit him. Both of him.
“Why can’t anything ever just go right?” Hans lamented. “Just one ride. One ride with my dear friend, Henry, in the charming countryside and no Cumans or Hungarians or sieges or fucking tree branches trying to kill us.”
“Cumans?” That caught Henry’s attention. Were they attacked? Was that why he was on the ground? They were going for a ride. He remembered that. He opened his eyes again and tried to focus on Hans, but he just couldn’t get them to work right. He blinked and squinted. Was there blood on him? By his neck? “Are you… are you okay?”
Hans huffed. “Yes, I’m…” Hans didn’t finish that thought, and Henry tried to sit up a little. He needed his… his thing. He needed something if there were Cumans. He needed…
“No,” Hans said suddenly. “No, I’m not okay. Henry, listen to me. I’ve hit my head really hard.”
That was bad. His hands scrabbled over the dirt looking for… something. He needed something. “Are there… more?”
Hans grabbed his searching hand. Held it with both of his. “No, listen, I hit my head so hard that I can’t remember which of these potions will make me feel better. I need your help. I need you to heal me.”
Henry nodded, then instantly regretted that as the world tilted over. He was pretty sure he couldn’t actually fall over if he was already on the ground, and yet it seemed like he was trying. He felt certain he was going to tumble over and over until the world sorted itself out, but Hans caught his shoulder and held him steady.
“You still with me?”
He didn’t nod again. “I don’t know.”
Hans held up potions, two in each hand. Henry tried to point at the right one, his finger trying to match its trajectory, but the damned thing kept moving.
“Hold them steady,” Henry grumbled. Hans must have gotten hit hard if he couldn’t even do that.
“I am. Fuck.” He put them all down and held only one up. “Is it this one?”
“No.”
“This one?”
Henry peered at it, willing it to stay still for a second.
“No.”
“This one?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
He thought he was sure, but the more he looked at the phial, the less he could make out any of the markings on it.
“Let me, um. Let me.” He tapped his nose.
Hans uncorked it, and Henry’s brain may not have been able to come up with the name of the potion, but his nose was still able to recognize the scent of brewed marigold.
“Yes,” Henry said. “This one.”
“It’s not some horrible poison that will kill you—me in some horrible way?” Hans demanded. “Bleeding out your—my ears or… other places.”
“Not poison. Wouldn’t hurt you.”
Hans stared at the phial like he did not trust Henry at all, then straightened himself up on his knees, bent his head, and crossed himself.
“Oh, holy God and the merciful mother, please don’t let me poison him.”
Before Henry could ask what he meant by “him”—who else was even there?—Hans had his hand at the back of Henry’s neck and was pouring potion in his mouth.
“That was meant to be for you,” was what Henry would have said if his mouth was not full of potion and he was having an easier time getting words out. He almost choked on it, but marigold decoction went down easy, at least. He tried to shove Hans’s hand away, but Hans shoved back, and Henry had swallowed most of the phial already anyway.
“Just swallow it, Henry,” Hans commanded softly. Then it was gone.
“What about you?”
Hans didn’t answer. He peered at Henry with furrowed brows, studying him, his hand still supporting Henry’s neck. Everything was blurry but those blue eyes, all four of them, searching Henry for something.
“You really meant it, didn’t you?” Hans asked.
“I don’t know,” Henry replied.
“No, of course you wouldn’t. I don’t think you can even count to five right now. But you did. You’ll fight me the whole time I try to treat you, but as soon as it’s my life on the line, you’re as cool as a cucumber. As focused as a brain-damaged little bee on your favorite task—keep Hans alive. If it had been a tree branch coming for my head, you might have actually stopped it. You might have actually seen it. What were you looking at, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
Hans nodded.
“A month ago, I might have called you a shit-shoveling yokel who had no business on a horse for a fuck up this hard. But now… You’re a good horseman. Maybe you really did see a Cuman out there or something. I don’t know what could have distracted you so badly. And I…” He sighed. “What do you remember?”
Henry blinked at him and felt exceptionally stupid. “I don’t know.”
“Good, I guess. I may never be able to forget the sound of that branch cracking your head, but may my panicking afterward be lost to all history.”
He sighed again, and Henry, starting to feel like he had the smallest understanding of the situation, reached up to his forehead again.
Like before, Hans swatted his hand away. “I don’t know that that potion did you any good,” he said glumly. He gently lowered Henry’s head to the ground and turned his attention to the other potions Henry didn’t drink.
This, at least, Henry felt he had some authority on. “No, it helped,” Henry said. “My head feels a lot better. It still aches, but everything’s stopped spinning and there’s only one of you in front of me now, which is a real blessing because I don’t know if I could handle there being two Sir Hanses in the world causing me trouble.”
Hans’s mouth dropped open while Henry was speaking, his surprise turning into a smile at the end. He pressed his lips together, then held up his hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two.”
Hans barked a surprised laugh, then collapsed backward to sit on the ground and laugh more, clasping his knees with his hands chin thrust up toward the sky as he cackled.
“A painkiller brew wouldn’t go amiss right now either,” Henry grumbled to himself. Then he did remember one thing. “Hang on, what about you? You said you were badly injured.”
“I know,” Hans laughed. “I can’t believe that worked!”
“What worked?” Henry tentatively sat up, and the earth stayed blessedly level for him and his stomach made no protest at all. “Are you alright?”
“Me? Me? I’m fine. I’m not the one who rode head first into a low hanging tree branch and almost beamed myself right off my horse and straight into an early afterlife.”
Their horses were a little bit away munching on grass. The contents of Henry’s saddlebag had been dumped next to him, bandages and potions and herbs in a mess. Henry touched the bandage on his forehead, and this time was not prevented from doing so. He did not remember that being placed there. He did remember going for a ride with Hans. He remembered they were going to race. He remembered Hans being in the lead. There was nothing after that.
“Oh,” he said stupidly. “No Cumans then?”
“Hah.” Hans only laughed some more, a great, big, relieved smile on his face. “Henry the Hero, felled by his greatest foe, a tree branch. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it would have been to have to go back to Hanush and Radzig and explain that yes, you survived Trosky and Nebakov and getting me out of Maleshov and then Raborsch, only for you to die on a morning ride through peaceful country?”
“Only slightly less embarrassing than actually dying that way, I’ll wager.”
“You wouldn’t have had to deal with them. And you are a terrible patient, you know. Absolutely belligerent. I had to pin you down to get that bandage on.”
Henry frowned at him, but Hans seemed completely pleased with all of this. “Well, it worked out in the end, didn’t it? I think you did a good job.”
“Pfft. You did a good job. I had to trick you into doing it, too.”
The marigold decoction had helped Henry’s condition, but not enough for this. He looked at his potions littering the ground, then shoved the bane a bit farther away from him. Maybe he should start labeling them a bit better. That could have been a real disaster.
Henry got to his feet with a grunt, and Hans followed quickly enough to catch his arm when Henry started to tilt. Henry braced himself on Hans’s shoulder and then steadied. He was good. He was probably good enough to head out on his own. Another marigold and maybe a bath and he’d be good as new.
“In all seriousness, are you alright?” Hans asked. “Do you think you can make it back to the Den?”
For a moment, Henry wondered what Hans would do if he said no. Would he carry him? Share his horse?
It was nice seeing Hans look so sincere. The Lord of Pirkstein wasn’t used to caring for others. This must all be very new for him, but he was doing a good job. He couldn’t be blamed for Henry being difficult. And as angry as Henry had felt earlier at him when he was still on the ground, and he couldn’t remember why now, looking at him now, he felt a sort of warm fondness building up.
He felt like he could just look at Hans forever.
“Henry?”
“Sorry, I, um… what was the question? I was a bit distracted.”
“You’d better ride with me,” Hans decided.
They shared a horse, Henry in front, and made their slow way back to the Devil’s Den.
“One day we’ll have an excursion that doesn’t end in bloodshed,” Hans promised.
This one didn’t end so bad, Henry decided. He couldn’t even remember the bloodshed, but he’d remember Hans carefully picking up each of Henry’s potions and bandages and herbs and carefully placing them back in his saddlebag without Henry even having to ask. And he’d remember this, Hans at his back, steadying arms around Henry on their peaceful ride home.