Chapter 1: For you...
Chapter Text
The first chill of autumn had settled over the Devil’s Den like a quiet warning. Golden birch leaves drifted across the yard, catching on the roof and skittering over the flagstones. Inside the common room, the hearth crackled low, throwing long shadows that danced across scarred tables and the faces of men who had become more than comrades.
Hans sat on a bench near the hearth, a tankard untouched in his hand. Every time the door opened he felt his stomach tighten. He told himself it was only the wind, only another traveler seeking warmth, but dread had taken root in his belly days ago. When a messenger finally stepped inside, mud-spattered, bearing the red wax seal of the Lords of Leipa. Hans felt the world tilt.
Godwin was already speaking to the man, voice low, words lost beneath the murmur of the Pack. Henry stood a little apart, arms folded, watching Hans instead of the newcomer. Their eyes met across the smoky room and held. In that single look lay every stolen night, every whispered promise beneath coarse blankets, every dawn spent pretending the world beyond the inn did not exist.
It was time to go home.
Outside, the stable yard smelled of damp straw and horse. Pebbles nickered softly as Henry tightened the girth, Caballus pawed the ground, sensing the mood. Henry worked in silence, rolling blankets, checking saddlebags, movements precise the way they always were when his heart was loudest.
In the little room under the eaves that had been theirs for weeks, Hans sat on the edge of the narrow bed. His fingers worried the worn linen where Henry’s head had lain only hours ago. The sheets still carried the warmth of them both. He stared at nothing then his hand, throat tight, picturing Rattay’s stone walls, Lady Jitka’s polite smile, the ring that would bind him forever to a life that suddenly felt like a tomb.
Henry shut the door softly behind him. He took one look at Hans, shoulders bowed, beautiful mouth trembling and crossed the floor in three strides.
« Hans. » A single word, gentle. « Are you all right? »
Hans laughed, a cracked sound. « I don’t know… »
Henry dropped to his knees between Hans’s thighs, calloused hands settling over delicate ones. « We knew this would happen. We'll figure it out. »
« You can’t know that. » Hans’s voice broke. « Once we ride through those gates… I’ll lose you. »
Henry’s thumbs brushed across Hans’s knuckles, steady as a heartbeat. « You will not lose me. I’ll be there. In the yard, in the stables, in every shadow you pass. Always. »
He hesitated, just a breath, then reached to his belt and drew the dagger he’d carried since Suchdol. The blade caught the firelight, familiar, worn, his. Henry took Hans’s hand and pressed the blade into his palm, curling Hans’s fingers around the hilt.
« Take this, » he whispered. « For protection. And so you’ll always have a piece of me with you. »
Hans’s breath hitched, something sharp and aching passing through his eyes as he clutched the weapon to his chest as though feeling the shape of Henry’s devotion in the worn grip. With a slow, steady breath, he slid it into his belt at his hip, securing it close to him, as if anchoring Henry there. Their eyes locked, blue on blue, fierce and terrified and helplessly in love. Hans slid from the bed to the floor, hands rising to cup Henry’s face. The kiss came sudden and deep, tasting of desperation and the sweetness they had guarded so carefully. Tongues met, slow, deliberate, memorizing. They parted, foreheads still touching.
Henry whispered again, « Everything will be all right. »
Down in the yard the Devil’s Pack had gathered to see them off.
Zizka clasped Henry’s forearm hard. « Safe roads, lads. Something tells me our paths will cross again. »
Katherine’s smile was soft but her eyes sharp. « Careful, all of you. The world isn’t kind to hearts like yours. »
Dry Devil snorted. « Try not to die like idiots. The realm’s short enough on decent men. »
Janosh pressed a cloth-wrapped bundle into Henry’s hand. « Bread and sausage. You need strength for road. »
Musa slipped a small potion into Hans’s palm. « Marigold decoction. Roads are long, and we never know. »
Even Godwin lingered, unusually quiet. He looked around at the rough faces he’d drunk and diced and bled with, then cleared his throat. « I’ll miss you sorry bastards, » he muttered, and swung up onto his horse.
The messenger was already mounted, impatient. Godwin followed. Henry took the middle, Mutt trotting at Pebbles’ heels. Hans brought up the rear on Caballus, head low, reins loose in numb fingers.
Henry glanced back. Their eyes met again, wild, desperate. Run, the look said. We could still run. But the moment passed. Hooves clopped onto the muddy track. The Devil’s Den shrank behind them, windows glowing like watchful eyes. Autumn leaves, blood-red and gold, swirled in their wake. Hans lifted his gaze to Henry’s straight back, to the set of those beloved shoulders under worn leather.
« I love you, » he said, too softly for anyone but the wind to hear.
—————
The gates of Rattay rose before them like the jaws of a trap. Grey stone, iron portcullis, banners snapping in the cold wind. The messenger rode first, then Godwin, then Henry, with Hans last of all. Each clatter of hooves on the drawbridge struck Hans like a toll of a bell. When they passed beneath the archway the sky seemed to shrink, the weight of decades of stone and duty settling on his shoulders until he could scarcely breathe.
At the upper castle, Lord Hanush waited on the steps with Sir Radzig and a half-circle of guards, arms flung wide in welcome. Sunlight glinted off mail and velvet.
« My boy! » Hanush boomed, clasping Hans in a rough embrace that smelled of wine and old wool.
« Safe at last. » He clapped Hans on the shoulder and steered him toward the castle gates.
« Now, on to the important matter. Your wedding. Everything is prepared: Lady Jitka is eager, the banns are read, the priest is waiting. Two days, Hans. Two days, and you’ll be a married man. »
Two days
Hans felt the words sink into him. He managed a nod, a smile that never reached his eyes, and all the while his gaze sought Henry’s across the courtyard. Henry stood beside Pebbles, reins looped over one arm, face unreadable, but his eyes held Hans steady, a silent promise.
I am here
Sir Radzig laid a hand on Henry’s shoulder. « You look pale, lad. All well? »
Henry’s answer was barely a breath. « Aye, just feeling tired, that is all. »
Henry and Hans made their way up toward Pirkstein. They scattered to wash away the road, buckets of cold water, coarse towels, the scrape of combs through tangled hair. Servants took the saddlebags. At the stables, Henry remained with the horses while Hans continued on alone. He climbed the familiar stairs of Pirkstein Keep as though each step carried him farther from life itself. His chamber smelled of lavender and wax, too clean, too grand, the very opposite of Devil’s Den, where earth, smoke, and wild air had clung to his skin like a second self. He shut the door and stood in the middle of the room, lost.
The latch clicked again. Henry slipped inside, turned the key in the lock, and the world narrowed to just the two of them. Hans’s composure shattered. He folded forward as Henry caught him, arms strong around his shaking body. Silent tears soaked Henry’s tunic, Henry only held tighter, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other stroking down his spine again and again. When the storm eased, Henry drew back just enough to cup Hans’s wet face between scarred palms. Thumbs brushed tears away, slow, reverent. Their eyes locked. Henry leaned in and kissed him, soft, lingering, tasting salt and sorrow and unbreakable love.
Morning came too soon.
Hans spent the day at his uncle’s side, fittings for the wedding doublet of crimson and gold, reciting vows, the order of the procession, the placement of hands during the ring exchange. Hanush’s voice droned on, proud and oblivious. Henry was never far, leaning against a pillar during the tailor’s measurements, standing silent guard outside, watching over Hans like a quiet angel with a sword strapped to his side.
While Hans sat in a private council with his uncle, Henry quietly slipped away. He found Theresa at the mill by the river, sleeves rolled, flour on her cheek, laughing at something her uncle said. When she saw Henry her smile faltered, then widened again, genuine and warm. They walked the riverbank as they had a hundred times, boots crunching through frost-brittle reeds. The water ran dark and quick beneath alder trees stripped bare. Halfway along the path Henry stopped. The words came out rushed, like he couldn’t hold them back.
« I’m in love with Hans Capon. »
Theresa turned, eyes wide. A long silence, broken only by the river. Then her face softened.
« I wondered what had changed, » she said quietly. « I’ve never seen you shine like this, Henry. Not once. He’s your soul, isn’t he? »
Henry could only nod.
Theresa stepped close, pressed a sisterly kiss to his cheek. « Then hold on to him however you can. The world be damned. »
He walked back lighter, as though confession had burned some of the dread away. Night had fallen when he reached Hans’s chamber. Candles guttered low, Hans sat on the window seat, staring out at the torches along the walls. Tomorrow the Kunstadt banners would ride in at dawn. Tomorrow afternoon the bells would ring for a wedding. Henry crossed the room, knelt, took both of Hans’s cold hands in his.
« Listen to me, » he said, voice steady as stone. « Whatever happens, whatever words you speak in that church, nothing changes this. »
He pressed Hans’s palm over his own heart. « We will find each other. Every day. Every night. I am yours and you are mine until the stars burn out. »
Hans’s eyes filled again, but this time he smiled through the tears. Henry rose, drew him to the bed. They undressed each other slowly, reverently, mapping every inch of skin they might not touch freely again for weeks, months, perhaps years. Belts fell away first, then shirts and braies, until only candlelight and desperate want remained between them. Henry pressed Hans gently down among the pillows, kissing him deep and slow, tasting the salt of earlier tears and the promise of tomorrow’s pain. Then the tenderness cracked open into something fiercer.
Henry eased Hans onto his back, hands sliding down the elegant line of his torso, parting his thighs with reverent hunger. Oil from the bedside vial slicked his fingers, he opened Hans carefully at first, crooking and scissoring until Hans was arching up with broken whimpers, begging without words. When Henry finally rose over him, pressing the blunt head of his cock against that trembling entrance, Hans shuddered and turned his face into the crook of his arm.
Henry drove into Hans with slow, punishing depth at first, then faster, hips slamming hard enough to jolt the bed, every thrust dragging a broken moan from Hans’s open mouth while his face dissolved into pure, wrecked bliss, eyes squeezed shut, brows pinched tight, lips slack and glistening with spit, a thin silver thread dripping down his chin as his flushed cheeks burned hotter with every brutal stroke. His back arched helplessly off the mattress, thighs trembling around Henry’s waist, fingers clawing the sheets like he was drowning in it. He was lost and beautifully ruined, mouth still open on a silent scream while Henry claimed him completely.
Hans came first with a choked cry, and Henry followed moments later, buried to the hilt, spilling deep inside the man he would love long after vows and rings and titles tried to tear them apart. Two hearts beat as one, hoarding the last hours of freedom before the world claimed them again.
Hans’s eyes fluttered open in the hazy afterglow, lashes still wet. A faint draught stirred the candle-flame and carried the soft creak of the door. He turned his head. Hanush stood frozen on the threshold, hand still on the latch, face drained of colour. His gaze raked over the tangle of bare limbs, the rumpled sheets, the unmistakable intimacy that filled the room like smoke. The world stopped.
« Uncle…? » The word left Hans’s throat as a cracked whisper.
Hanush’s mouth worked soundlessly for a heartbeat. Then he spun on his heel and was gone, boots hammering down the corridor. Hans scrambled from the bed, heart exploding in terror. He snatched the only thing within reach, a wool blanket, and clutched it around his waist as he stumbled after him, bare feet slapping cold stone.
« Uncle, wait! » He lunged, fingers brushing velvet.
Hanush whirled. The slap cracked across Hans’s face like a whip, sending him sprawling. The blanket slipped, pooling around his hips, leaving him naked and shivering on the flagstones.
« After everything I’ve done for you, » Hanush snarled, voice shaking with disgust.
Henry appeared in the doorway behind them, braies hastily laced, chest still heaving. He dropped to one knee beside Hans, instinctively shielding him with his body.
Hanush’s eyes flicked to Henry, black with loathing. « And you, » he spat, « you filthy abomination. Tempting, corrupting demon. »
He turned away. The heavy door at the end of the corridor slammed shut with a sound like a coffin lid. Silence fell, broken only by Hans’s ragged breathing and the distant echo of boots fading down the stairwell. Henry reached out, fingers trembling as they brushed the fresh red mark blooming across Hans’s cheek. Hans lifted his gaze, wide, stunned, already brimming with tears. Their eyes met in the dim torchlight, both stripped bare in a way no nakedness could ever match. Neither spoke. There was nothing left to say that the world had not just shattered for them.
—————
Henry pulled Hans back into the chamber and shut the door with his heel. The room still smelled of them, of sweat and candle-wax and ruin. Hans stood frozen in the middle of the floor, blanket clutched loosely around his hips, eyes wide and unseeing, a thin, high ringing in his ears like the aftermath of a cannon.
Henry found his shirt, dragged it over his head, and braies, fingers fumbling with laces that refused to close.
« Think, » he muttered, more to himself than to Hans. « There has to be- »
« You need to leave. » Hans’s voice came out flat, dead. « Now. Ride out before dawn. Take Pebbles and go. »
Henry spun. « No. »
« Hal- »
« I’m not leaving you. »
« Hanush will not let this go unpunished, » Hans said, the words cracking like thin ice.
« He’ll have you flogged, or worse. He’ll hang you. Please- »
« We’ll face him together. We’ll make him understand- »
« Understand? » Hans laughed, a broken, incredulous sound. « Understand?! »
The door slammed open. Hanush filled the frame, face marked with rage, four armed guards at his back.
Henry stepped forward, palms raised. « Sir Hanush, please- let us explain- »
« Seize that man. » Hanush’s finger stabbed toward Henry like a blade.
Two guards lunged.
Hans threw himself between them, arms spread. « No! »
« Hans, move, » Hanush barked.
« No, Uncle. If you want him, you’ll have to go through me first. »
Hanush’s eyes flashed. « Push my nephew aside. »
A mailed hand shoved Hans hard in the chest. He stumbled, recovered, and struck back, his fist slamming into the guard’s jaw with all the fury he had. But another blow crashed into his ribs, then one to his face, pain bursting white across his vision. Rough hands closed around his arms, twisting them behind his back and forcing him to his knees before he could swing again.
« I’ll fix this, » Hans gasped, blood gathering at the corner of his mouth. « I swear I’ll fix this- »
« You will do nothing, » Hanush said coldly. « Guards, see that my nephew does not leave this room. »
Henry was dragged into the corridor. Their eyes locked one last time, Henry’s fierce and steady, Hans’s wild with terror.
The door shut. The key turned.
Hans hurled himself against the heavy oak, fists pounding until the skin split. The walls seemed to press in on him, the air thinning, every breath scraping his throat.
« Henry! » His voice cracked raw, swallowed by stone and silence.
Henry…
Only the echo of marching boots answered, growing fainter, carrying the other half of his soul down the stone throat of the keep and into the dark.
—————
Dawn never truly came, only a grey, merciless light that seeped through the shutters. Hans sat on the cold floor, back against the wall, knees drawn to his chest. He had not moved since the door locked. Sleep was impossible. Every heartbeat asked the same questions: Where is Henry? Is he cold? Is he hurt?
Boots in the corridor. The key scraped. Four guards entered first, then servants with basins of steaming water, fine linen, the crimson-and-gold wedding doublet laid out like a shroud. Hanush followed last.
Hans surged to his feet. « Where’s Henry? »
His uncle’s face was stone. He stared at Hans as though he were a stranger, then turned to the servants. « Prepare him. »
They descended on Hans like crows, pulling off his nightshirt, washing him with rough cloths, forcing arms into stiff sleeves, lacing, buckling, combing. He fought at first until a guard twisted his arm and he stopped, breathing hard, letting them dress him like a corpse for burial. An hour later the bells began to ring.
Lady Jitka waited in the chapel antechamber, pale and exquisite in silver brocade, a circlet of white roses in her strawberry blond hair. When she saw Hans she smiled shyly, then faltered at the bruises on his face and the hollow terror in his eyes.
« My lord… are you unwell? » Her voice was soft, kind. « If the match displeases you- »
He could barely hear her. Guards took his arms and marched him down the nave. Rattay’s church was packed, nobles in velvet, merchants in their holiday best, peasants crowding the doors. Flower petals carpeted the aisle. The scent of incense choked him. They placed him before the altar. The priest opened his book. Hans’s gaze raked the crowd.
Then a whisper drifted from the back, carried by a guard to his comrade, « …shame about that Henry lad. Hanged today, they say. Sodomite. »
The world tilted. Hans’s knees almost gave out. He saw Sir Radzig then, standing to the left of the altar in full armor, face grim.
« Sir Radzig! » The shout tore out of Hans, raw and desperate, echoing under the vaulted roof. « Help me! They’re going to hang Henry! »
The church fell silent. Every head turned.
Radzig stepped forward. « What are you saying? »
Hanush’s voice cracked like a whip. « Silence! »
Lady Jitka’s hands flew to her mouth. Her father, Lord Kunstadt, rose in confusion.
Radzig, eyes fixed on Hanush. « What is the boy talking about? »
Hanush’s lip curled. « Your bastard son is a filthy sodomite who seduced my nephew and shamed this house. »
Radzig turned slowly to Hans. « Is this true? »
Hans met his gaze, tears burning. « Yes. »
Hanush laughed, bitter and triumphant. « He is likely dead already. »
Something snapped in Radzig’s eyes. In one fluid motion he drew his sword, the steel singing free, and stepped between Hans and the guards.
« Back, » Radzig ordered, voice low and lethal. He seized Hans by the arm and began retreating down the aisle, blade levelled at the advancing guards.
Hanush roared. « Shame on you, Radzig! Treason! Blasphemy in the house of God! »
They reached the great doors. Sunlight blinded Hans for an instant. A courser stood tethered just outside, reins dangling.
Radzig shoved his own sword into Hans’s hand. « Ride! Go! »
A quick pause.
« Go, Hans! Save my son! »
Hans vaulted into the saddle, boots barely finding stirrups. He dug in his heels and the horse shot forward, thundering down the hill past startled townsfolk, past market stalls, past the life he was leaving behind forever. The wind tore the wedding circlet from his hair. Crimson velvet streamed behind him like blood. Sword in hand, heart hammering against his ribs, Sir Hans Capon galloped toward the gallows and prayed to every saint he had ever cursed that he was not already too late.
—————
Hans thundered into the clearing beneath the gallows, horse skidding on wet leaves. He flung himself from the saddle before the beast had stopped. The executioner and four guards turned as one. Henry was there. Bound, barefoot on the frost-hard ground, shirt ripped half off his back. Bruises bloomed purple across his ribs, blood crusted at his mouth, his temple, the corner of one swollen eye. The night had beaten him nearly to death already. Yet when he lifted his head and saw Hans, something fierce and fragile flared in the one eye that could still open.
Hans…
« Get away from him! » Hans’s voice cracked like a war-horn.
« My lord- » a guard began, uncertain.
« I AM THE LORD OF RATTAY AND PIRKSTEIN! » Hans roared, stepping forward, blade levelled. « And you will obey me or die where you stand! »
Hooves pounded behind him. Hanush and a dozen more men burst into the clearing, horses snorting steam.
« Arrest Lord Capon! » Hanush bellowed. « He is possessed, corrupted by demons! »
Steel rang free. Hans met the first rush, parried, riposted, sent one man sprawling with a pommel to the temple, another clutching a bleeding arm. A third blade slipped past his guard and scored his side, hot and bright. He snarled, spun, slashed, fighting like a man with nothing left to lose. Then rough arms closed around him from behind, wrenching him off balance. Another pair seized his sword arm, twisting hard. Hans bucked against them, teeth bared, but the grip only tightened as his blade clattered to the ground.
Hanush dismounted, face twisted in triumph. « Proceed, » he told the executioner.
« No! » Hans screamed. « You cannot! »
« Watch me. »
Hans broke free for one heartbeat. He reached Henry, cupped his battered face with a blood-slick hand, and kissed him, hard, desperate, tasting iron and tears and goodbye.
Henry’s cracked lips moved against his. « In another life, » he breathed. « I love you, Hans. »
« I love you- » The rest was lost as guards tore them apart.
They dragged Henry up onto the log. The rope settled around his neck, coarse fibers biting into broken skin. Sir Radzig burst into the clearing at full gallop, armor flashing, sword drawn, a dozen of his own men hard behind him. He threw himself from the saddle before the horse stopped and strode forward like judgment itself.
« STOP! » His roar cracked across the gallows.
Hanush turned, startled.
Radzig planted himself between the scaffold and his son, blade levelled at the executioner. « In the name of King Wenceslas and the laws of Bohemia, I declare this day that Henry of Skalitz is hereby legitimised as Henry Kobyla, my true and lawful son, noble-born and under my protection! »
For one heartbeat the world held its breath. Henry’s swollen eye widened. Hans, pinned between two guards, felt something flare inside his chest, wild, impossible hope.
Henry stared at his father. Radzig’s voice rang again. « By right of blood and honor, no man here may touch him! »
Hanush’s face twisted into something ugly and ancient. He took one step forward, « No, my friend, » he said, soft and venomous. « This is beyond saving. »
He turned to the hooded executioner. « Do your duty. »
The man’s foot moved to the log.
« NO! » Hans screamed, lunging against the arms that held him.
Radzig’s sword flashed up. « No! »
Steel rang as Radzig’s men clashed with Hanush’s guards, but it was already too late. Henry’s breath came in wet, rattling gasps. His good eye found Hans across the clearing and held. Time slowed to a crawl. Hans thrashed in iron grips, screaming Henry’s name until his voice shredded. Henry’s lips shaped two silent words.
I’m sorry
The executioner kicked the log away. The rope snapped taut. Henry dropped. His body jerked once, twice, legs kicking for purchase that wasn’t there. An awful gurgling rose from his throat. Blood vessels burst in his eyes, turning the white burgundy. His face darkened, swollen tongue pushing between teeth. His fingers clawed at the noose, nails splitting. Hans saw everything. Every twitch, every spasm, every second that stretched into eternity.
At last the kicking slowed and stopped.
Henry hung still, head lolling at a sickening angle, toes pointed toward the frozen earth like a broken dancer. Hans’s legs gave out. He sank to his knees in the mud, staring at nothing. Sound vanished, the world went white and ringing. A hand settled on his shoulder from behind.
« It is done, my boy, » Hanush said, almost gently. « Come. »
Hans turned. The look he gave his uncle was not human. It was void of everything except hatred so pure it burned cold.
« Don’t touch me, » he whispered, voice raw. « If you ever touch me again, I will fucking kill you. »
Hanush stepped back as though burned. Rain began to fall, thin needles of ice that stung the skin and turned the ground to blood-dark mud. It soaked Henry’s hair, ran in pink rivulets down his bruised neck, dripped from his bare, lifeless foot. Hans stayed on his knees in the downpour, staring at the swaying body of the man he loved more than salvation, and felt the last piece of himself die with him.
—————
Days bled into weeks, and the world kept turning as though nothing had been torn from it. The wedding had been pronounced in a church that still smelled of rain and iron. Hans had stood like a statue while vows were spoken over his head, Jitka’s small hand trembling in his cold one. Radzig had vanished the same day, rumor said he would make Hanush pay, but Hans no longer cared.
They buried Henry beneath the linden tree in Skalitz, beside his parents. Theresa had stood at the graveside in the sleeting rain, her tears mixing with the earth. Mutt pressed against her leg, whining softly, the loyal hound grieving alongside them. Hans had not wept, he had nothing left inside to give. After that, he simply stopped.
He never left his chamber in Pirkstein. Servants brought trays and took them away untouched. Candles burned down to stubs and were replaced by hands that never dared meet his eyes. The room became a ruin, shattered goblets, torn tapestries, feathers from a pillow he had ripped open one screaming night. Blood crusted beneath his fingernails from punching walls until the bones showed white.
He drank until the world blurred, then drank more to keep it blurred. Nights he woke choking on Henry’s name, fists clenched so tight the scabs reopened. Sometimes he pressed the jagged edge of a broken cup to his hand just to feel something sharp and clean.
« Henry, you lied, » he would whisper to the empty air. « You said you’d always be there. »
His face grew gaunt, cheekbones sharp as blades, eyes sunken into violet shadows. He was becoming a ghost while still breathing. Hanush watched from doorways, guilt and fury warring behind his eyes. He told the priest it was the devil’s lingering poison, that the corruption had eaten Hans hollow. He never said he was sorry.
One night, fevered and half-mad with drink, Hans saw Henry standing at the foot of the bed, whole and smiling, arms open. Hans stumbled into them, buried his face in the warm crook of Henry’s neck, felt the kiss pressed to his temple and the murmured promise
I will always be there for you
He woke alone, sheets soaked with tears and sweat. His searching fingers found the small dagger Henry had once given him, hidden inside the carved bedframe. He turned it over in the grey morning light, testing the edge against his thumb until a bead of blood welled.
It would be quick.
He drained the last cup of wine, set the dagger against his heart, and wept because his hand shook too hard to press home. The blade clattered to the floor. Coward, he thought, not even brave enough to follow. The thought gnawed at him for days more. Then, on a morning when frost silvered the window and the sky was the colour of Henry’s eyes, three words drifted back to him.
Audentes Fortuna Iuvat - Fortune favors the brave
Hans laughed once, a cracked, wondering sound. He dragged a chair to the centre of the room, sat straight-backed as a lord giving judgment, and took up the dagger again. This time his hand did not shake. He drew the blade across each wrist in one clean, deliberate motion. The pain was bright and perfect, a white fire that burned everything else away. Blood poured warm over his palms, pooling crimson on the stone. He watched it with distant wonder, feeling lighter with every heartbeat. Outside, a flock of birds rose from the battlements, black against the pale sky, wheeling south. Hans smiled, small and peaceful.
« In another life, » he whispered to the empty room.
His head dipped forward. Gold hair fell across his face like a banner laid to rest. Hans Capon, heir of Rattay and Pirkstein, slipped quietly from the world he had never truly belonged to, following the only road left that still led to Henry. Somewhere beyond the frost and the pain, two souls who had loved too fiercely for their time turned toward each other across the dark river, hands reaching, and found the far bank together at last.
Love, forbidden by men, had simply outrun the world
Chapter 2: ...until the end
Notes:
Here we go again...
Warning: very graphic torture scene, but a happy ending? I guess?
I'm sorry, good luck! 🫂
To read after this scene from Part 1:
Henry was dragged into the corridor. Their eyes locked one last time, Henry’s fierce and steady, Hans’s wild with terror.
The door shut. The key turned.
Hans hurled himself against the heavy oak, fists pounding until the skin split. The walls seemed to press in on him, the air thinning, every breath scraping his throat.
« Henry! » His voice cracked raw, swallowed by stone and silence.
Henry…
Only the echo of marching boots answered, growing fainter, carrying the other half of his soul down the stone throat of the keep and into the dark.
Chapter Text
The corridor outside Hans’s chamber was colder than a grave. Henry’s bare feet scraped raw against the stone as the guards hauled him forward, one clamped on each arm, the third shoving hard between his shoulder blades, forcing him to stumble and lurch ahead. His sweat-soaked braies sagged low on his hips, sliding lower with every jolt, while the night air sank its teeth into his exposed skin.
Sir Hanush strode ahead. When Henry tried to speak « Sir Hanush, please listen- » the old lord whirled, finger stabbing into Henry’s bare chest, stopping the whole procession dead.
« Another word, you vile sodomite, » Hanush hissed, voice trembling with disgust, « and I will cut your tongue out myself. »
The lord stared at his fingertip that had touched Henry’s skin as though it had been dipped in filth, then wiped it deliberately on the nearest guard’s pourpoint. The man flushed but said nothing. The guards dragged Henry down the stairs, out into the night. Rattay was silent, windows shuttered, the town holding its breath as if it already knew a corpse was walking its streets. Frost glittered on the cobbles and the dirt. Henry’s bare feet left raw, smeared prints that steamed faintly before the cold drank them.
Rattay's prison yawned like a sore throat. Empty, save for dripping water and the green moss clinging to the walls. They chained him spread-eagled against the damp stone, arms wrenched high, wrists in iron, ankles locked wide, his body forming a living cross, a martyr waiting for nails.
A torturer waited in the shadows, tools laid out on a stained cloth: knives, pincers, hammers, a brazier already glowing orange with branding irons.
Hanush dismissed the guards with a flick of two fingers. « Leave us. »
The door boomed shut.
« You may begin. »
Henry’s stomach lurched. His breath came short and panicked, he tested the chains, felt iron bite, and then forced himself still. If this was the price, he would pay it. For Hans. The torturer was methodical. First the knives, thin, precise cuts across chest and belly, shallow enough not to kill, deep enough to open skin like wet parchment. Blood ran warm, then cooled instantly in the dank air. Henry bit back the first scream, but the second tore free when the hammer came down on his left hand, shattering two fingers. The third came when the pliers closed on a nipple and twisted until it tore.
Time dissolved. Pain became the only land he inhabited. With what little will he had left, he latched onto Hans’s name, the single, fragile tether keeping him from slipping into the dark.Then came the salt. A fistful flung without ceremony onto the open wound, eating into raw flesh like molten glass. Henry’s hips bucked wildly, iron biting into his wrists. The torturer cupped the scrotum, squeezed until the skin went white, then brought the flat of an iron mallet down, once, twice. A wet, sickening crunch, followed by a scream that scraped Henry’s throat raw.
At some point the torturer stepped back, wiping his hands. « He’ll faint soon, my lord. »
Hanush’s eyes glittered. « Wake him. »
A clay cup was forced between Henry’s teeth. Bitter green liquid flooded his tongue, he gagged, tried to spit, but strong fingers clamped his jaw shut until he swallowed. The mixture hit like sour wine and burning nettles, pain sharpened, senses swam, consciousness dragged cruelly back.
Hanush leaned close enough that Henry smelled wine on his breath.
« Why? » the old man whispered. « Why did you do this to him? »
Henry lifted his head. Blood and spit dripped from his chin. He smiled, small and terrible.
« I didn’t do anything, » he rasped. « It just… happened. »
Hanush struck him across the face with a wooden cudgel. Bone cracked.
« No! Why? »
Henry spat a tooth, met the lord’s eyes, and laughed once, wet, broken, defiant.
« Because I love him, » he said clearly. « I would give the world for one of his smiles. Even my life. Something you, my lord, will never understand. »
Hanush recoiled as though burned. Then rage took him. He snatched the hammer himself and brought it down again and again, ribs splintering like dry kindling, cheekbone caving, blood spraying in fine red mist. When the hammer finally fell from his trembling fingers he was panting, spattered to the elbows.
He turned to the torturer, voice shaking. « Don’t kill him. Make him suffer every possible agony until the hanging. »
Hanush watched with cold disgust as a glowing branding iron sank into Henry’s flank. The hiss of flesh was followed by a raw, animal scream that splintered into frantic howls, echoing off the stone like some filthy beast caught in a snare. Hanush’s lip curled. The stench of scorched skin and the pathetic, wet sounds Henry made turned his stomach. He looked away, revolted, and strode out without a word, leaving the prisoner’s cries to rot in the dark behind him. Henry hung in the chains and prayed only to remain conscious long enough to see Hans one more time.
—————
Dawn was still only a rumour behind the walls. Henry woke to pain so complete it felt like another skin. Every joint cracked, every breath tasted of iron and smoke. He was a broken thing hanging in its own ruin, balanced on the thin, trembling edge of death. He had no sense of time, only the distant clatter rising through the stones, bells, hammers, shouting, laughter. The city preparing for a wedding. He tried to think. Plans, escape routes, names, anything that would give him back a shred of control. But his mind slipped and skidded like a lame horse on ice, the fever and the burns kept dragging him under. Nothing held. Only one thought returned, again and again, stubborn as a heartbeat.
Hans
Not long after, guards arrived. They freed him from his shackles, but his legs wouldn’t hold, they collapsed beneath him as if they no longer belonged to him. Rough hands pulled a torn shirt back over his ruined torso, shoved a filthy hood over his head, and dragged him barefoot across the frost-covered courtyard, the ground stabbing into his raw soles like a field of shattered glass. For a brief moment, the cold felt like mercy after the fire of the torture chamber. A cart was waiting. They threw him into the back like a carcass. He drifted in and out, the rattling of the wheels the only clock he had left.
Henry tried to understand where he was. He was the only prisoner. Three, no, four guards around him. A hood to hide his face, a quick, anonymous hanging, no one would come for him, the whole town was too busy with the wedding. But he couldn’t stay awake, the exhaustion of torture pulled at him, heavy and relentless, until he finally slipped under.
« Move! »
A boot to the ribs jolted him fully awake. Guards hauled Henry up a set of wooden steps, the scent of pine tar, and old blood telling him exactly where he was. He knew the gallows by the groan of new rope in cold air. He recognized a voice.
« Hermann, » he rasped through swollen lips. « Please… »
A beat of confusion in the executioner’s tone. « Who’s under the hood? »
« Just a filthy sodomite, » a guard spat.
Hermann wasn’t convinced. He grabbed the edge of the hood and lifted it, and froze. Henry. His friend. The man who had helped him court the woman now waiting for him at home, heavy with their first child.
« Henry? » Hermann breathed. Then, louder, to the guards, « What is the meaning of this? I know this man, there must be a mistake! »
« The order came from Lord Hanush himself. »
« I will not carry it out, » Hermann growled. Henry met his eyes through the haze of pain.
« Oh, really? » a guard sneered, stepping forward with his sword half-drawn. « Do as we say. »
« No. »
A guard leaned close to Hermann, voice low and poisonous. « Think of your wife, executioner. Pretty thing. Heavy with child. Shame if she… fell down the stairs. »
« You bastard, » Hermann snarled. « Don’t you dare threaten my wife. »
The guard glanced at the others. « Go fetch her. »
« No! » Hermann’s voice cracked. « Please- no! »
The guards started down the steps, then hesitated at a sound behind them.
« Stop… » Henry gasped, the effort burning like fire through his lungs.
« Oh, so you still have some breath left, » the guard hissed, and struck Henry across the face.
Hermann watched, powerless.
« Do. Your. Job, » the guard barked. « Now! »
Hermann looked at Henry, anguish twisting his features. « I’m sorry, Henry… »
« It’s all right, » Henry whispered. « It’s all right, Hermann… »
Hermann turned to the rope. His hands trembled. He worked slowly, deliberately, taking as long as he could, because rushing this would feel like abandoning Henry twice. Henry drifted inward, lost in a quiet, heavy certainty. No miracle was coming. He thought of Hans first. Then Radzig. Theresa. Mutt. Pebbles. Everyone he would not see again.
Moments later, Henry caught the blur of a rider bursting through the clearing, Hans, charging full gallop. Relief so sharp it bordered on pain flooded his chest. His one open eye locked on him, refusing to lose sight even as tears blurred the edges. Then Hanush and Radzig arrived close behind, but Henry only truly saw Hans. The young lord cupped Henry’s face. He kissed him with desperation, as if the act alone could drag him back from death’s edge.
« In another life, » Henry breathed against his lips. « I love you, Hans. »
The guards seized him again and hauled him to the execution log. The rope dropped around his neck, heavy and cold, the coarse fibers scraping over torn flesh. His father’s voice rose in anger, a sharp discord, a struggle. It stirred a faint smile on Henry’s ruined mouth. A final fragment of hope. Then Hanush’s order cracked through the tension.
« Do your duty. »
Hermann hesitated, grief carved deep into his features. Henry saw it, understood it. He was condemned. No last reprieve. He felt everything with painful clarity, the bite of the rope, the burn in his lungs, the cold air on his skin. His body memorizing the world one last time.
Henry turned his head, searching until he found Hans.
I’m sorry
A shove. The log shifted beneath him. Then the drop.
Too short. Too short for a clean neck-snap. The rope snapped him upward by the throat. Breath stopped. His vision erupted in white light, then spilled into red. He felt cartilage crush, tongue swell, blood thundered inside his skull.
A slow, merciless agony.
Even as instinct clawed for breath that would not come, Henry’s final thought was not of himself.
—————
Henry opened his eyes to golden light and the scent of linden blossoms. He lay in deep grass beneath the great tree at Skalitz. Sunlight filtered through new green leaves, warm. His mother and father stood a few paces away, smiling the way they had looked the morning of the raid, whole, young, smiling with tears in their eyes. He rose. Every wound was gone. He touched his ribs, his throat, smooth skin, no pain. He understood, he knew, and peace settled over him like a blanket.
Martin opened his arms. Anna laughed through tears and ran into them. They held him so tightly he felt like a child again, lighter, and unburdened. The place around Henry felt weightless. The air moved with a soft, almost curious breeze that brushed his skin, neither warm nor cold, simply right. The light had no source he could name, yet it fell gently over everything, revealing the quiet colors of grass and distant trees with a clarity that felt honest rather than perfect. There was no grandeur, no spectacle, just a world stripped back to what mattered, breath, touch, the steady rhythm of someone you love against your chest. For the first time in a long while, Henry felt… grounded. Present. Whole.
But something tugged at the edge of hearing, far off, thin, a sound like tearing silk. A scream.
He pulled away gently. « I’ll be back, » he promised.
He walked alone through waist-high meadow flowers toward a darker path that led down to a river. The water ran black and swift between banks of white stone. On the far side, mist and shadow. The scream came again, raw, childlike, hopeless.
Henry
His own name, carried on the wind. Then Henry remembered. He knew that voice. His parents appeared beside him, faces troubled now. « Come home, son. »
« I can’t, » he said. « Not yet. »
They pleaded, but he could not move from the river’s edge. Time passed, he stood vigil while light and season wheeled overhead, never sleeping, never hungry, only waiting. Hours slipped past him like a stampede, yet clung to him with the stillness of frost, each moment stretching and collapsing all at once. And in that strange suspension, a single thought rose, Hans, the warmth of him, the impossible ache of love that tethered Henry to a world he could no longer touch. It was that memory, bright and wounding, that finally stirred him.
At last he stepped into the water. It was deeper than it looked, colder, dragging at his legs like grieving hands. He could not swim even in life, here the current was cruel. Halfway across something seized his ankle, black, formless, and pulled. Water closed over his head. His lungs burned even though he no longer needed breath. For a moment, Henry let himself sink, surrendering to the pull of the current, until something inside him snapped.
No…
He kicked upward with sudden fury, thrashing toward the faint echo of that voice calling him back. His hands broke the surface first, then his face, gasping though air no longer mattered. He dragged himself onto slick rocks, water streaming off him in sheets. He staggered to the riverbank then listened, searching the landscape, eyes tracing every shape, every shadow. And then he saw him.
There, behind a boulder, sat a boy of maybe ten, knees drawn tight to his chest, face hidden as he rocked gently back and forth. Pale scars crossed his thin arms like pale threads, and a fall of gold hair half-veiled his eyes.
Henry knelt. « It’s all right. I’m here now. I told you, I always would be. »
He extended his hand. Small fingers closed around his, trembling. The child raised his head, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next he grew, stretched, became the man Henry had died for. Hans’s eyes, storm-blue, aching with sorrow, met his. Tears carved clean paths down bloodless cheeks.
« I found my way to you, » Hans whispered, voice breaking. « In another life. »
Henry pulled him close, felt the familiar weight settle against his heart exactly where it belonged.
« Nothing will separate us now, » he said into Hans’s hair.
They stood forehead to forehead, breathing each other in, grass and steel and summer lightning, the scent that was only theirs.
« I love you, » Hans said, like a vow renewed.
« I love you, » Henry answered, like a vow kept.
Hand in hand they turned from the dark river and walked its pale shore together, through eternal dusk that was somehow also dawn, following the long road that belongs only to those who loved too fiercely for one lifetime. Behind them the water closed, smooth and silent. No current would ever part them again.
Together. At last. Forever