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The sloping fluid arc of the scribe’s hand, dip-pen sweeping over the vellum, was met measure by measure with a smooth low tenor which traced over each word and pulled meaning from them. Each word sat comfortably on the tongue of that voice, easy and confident in the mouth, not so much falling from the mouth as sliding seamlessly into the air.
Primeret noure dit Soveraigne le Roy remembrant comet per delealx maintenances…
Oh. That was his voice. He was saying those words—again? Perhaps? Had he been responsible for reading them out before? Somewhere beyond the scribe and the vellum and his voice lay a rapt crowd. The halls of a version of Westminster that he hasn’t seen in centuries.
Per delealx maintenances donacions dez liverez signes et tokyns et reteindrez per endentures permises sermentes escriptez ou autrement, embrasiariez de cez…
Sounds from far away. “Pardon? Arthur?”
De cez subgettes desloiall demeasner dez Viscountz en faisure dez panels et autres deloials…
Something was wrong. The words doubled over between his mind’s eye, mind’s voice, and something that was beyond him. The same place he’d heard his name. His tongue still moved, deloials retournez per pruise, but the weight of each word pushed up from his throat like rock heaved through heavy earth, pruise dargent per jurrez, and he was drowning beneath the weight in his throat. Jurrez, per graunds riottes et deleals assemblez, la polacie et bon governaile de cest realme est bien pres subdue et pur noun punicion de cestez enconveniencez... On and on, the same sentence, pouring itself into him, molding him from the inside out and the outside in, tasting of clear reason and control. A firm hand as it passed from the many to the one and from there into the governance of his being. He gasped for air.
A sharp thin elbow dug into the soft flesh under his ribs and Arthur bolted awake.
“Fuck!”
“We can, if you’d like, Angleterre, but I am far more interested in what lovely dream had such a bastardized form of my lovely language spilling from your lips.”
Since the midpoint of the twentieth century, Arthur Kirkland had spent far more time with a companion sharing his bed than without. Granted, it has been difficult given that they are creatures meant to be within themselves, most at home within their respective borders, and being outside of them for too long has always felt like having a nasty itch in a place you can’t scratch. But between the advancements in modern communication and plenty of experience within one another’s borders, friendly and unfriendly alike, both Arthur and Francis managed to find a sort of comfort in the discomfort.
In the privacy of his own mind, Arthur could acknowledge that the only other nations that he would ever be able to spend time with like this were either his former colonies, or his brothers. And neither his colonies nor his brothers really wanted his company these days, nor did he want to admit that he might like to see any of them, so he would hold on to Francis.
All this being said, it followed that it really shouldn’t have been a surprise to wake up with Francis’ stubble dragging over the nape of his neck. Even after the other man had delivered a calculated and brutal gouge to his side with an elbow—but Arthur couldn’t stop himself from immediately drawing up his legs and kicking Francis out of the bed.
Well, trying to kick Francis out of the bed. Francis was clearly more awake than he was, and managed to scoop up Arthur’s ankles so that he ineffectually struck at the blankets.
“Mon petit lion,” Francis scolded. “If this is how I am treated when sharing your bed, I shall simply refuse any of your future invitations.”
Arthur rubbed at his eyes. “What. Oh. It’s you—I didn’t remember.” He was about to apologize, when he remember just what had been responsible for waking him up. “Well—I wouldn’t have kicked you if you hadn’t attacked me!”
Francis scoffed. “Angleterre, you were the one to wake me. I only returned the favor.”
Arthur rolled his eyes, thought about arguing, and then decided his time would be better spent in trying to fall asleep again. He rolled over, facing the wall again—unless Arthur’d been drinking and might need to take a midnight piss, Francis preferred to have the side of the bed closest to the door. Between the other man’s insomnia and his occasional enjoyment of a late-night cigarette while standing moodily at the window, Arthur preferred it that way too.
Fingers jabbed against his shoulder.
“Arthur, I asked you a question.”
Arthur groaned, and rolled back over to glare balefully at the rough shape of Francis. “Oh did you?”
“Oui.”
If Francis could respond flatly, so could he. “What was it then.”
A moment of pointed silence followed, so that Arthur could infer that it was Francis’ turn to roll his eyes. A sigh.
“You talk in your sleep, mon amour. Not only do you talk in your sleep—which, let it be known, I have been aware of and tolerated for a very long time now—but you were most undeniably speaking French. A strange, old, and bastardized French…but French nonetheless. I am merely wondering why you would be using a language not your own. We are not wired for such easy unconcious mumblings.”
Arthur glanced at him and avoided the question. “Matthew speaks French, and I called him earlier to sort out hotel arrangements for the upcoming meeting. Perhaps that’s what brought it on?”
“Do not lie to me. Or try to change the subject to Matthieu’s particular dialect of French. Which sounds nothing like what I heard from you, in case you were curious. It was legal fare, was it not?”
“Yes.” The words tore from his throat.
What did Francis know of how they were wired for language anyway? His linguistic development had been in natural rhythms, evolutions of vulgar Latin to something independent, ebbing and flowing influence from his neighbors, but never needing to graft something entirely different directly into his core.
Francis’ language grew. ‘Grew’ from ‘grow,’ ‘grow’ from Middle English grouen, grouen from Old English growan. Arthur’s language mutated. ‘Mutated,’ a back formation of a new verb derived from the Middle English noun mutacioun. Mutacioun, from the Old French mutacion. Old French mutacion directly from the Latin mutationem.
What would Francis know of being wired for a language not his own?
Arthur scraped through his half-recollection of the dream he’d been having before Francis’ elbow had shocked him awake. “It was legal fare. An act of Parliament passed in order to empower a court to punish certain misdemeanors. Rioting, unlawful assemblies, and the like, in order to attempt to reduce murders, robberies, and other—ahem—unsureties related to the loss of life and goods. Nothing unusual.”
Now for the revealing part.
“It’s no different than any of my other laws passed at that point. In content…and in form, it’s utterly average. As you know, I have a bad habit of rattling off official legislative material, declarations and royal proclamations while I sleep. This was no different.”
“It was no different in presentation?” As Francis’ voice hit the final syllables, his accent upended, and the word slipped from English to French.
“Qu—When? When was it written?” The way Francis aborted his French part-way through and settled back into English ate into Arthur’s chest.
Arthur debated rolling over to face the wall. Instead he stared miserably at the faint contours of Francis’ face. Arthur drew his tongue over his teeth, pressing it against the sharp edge, and tried not to say anything. He could sense Francis’ expectant face in the darkness, even turned away from the thin blades of street-lamp light slipping into the room from around the edges of the blinds.
A lorry rumbled by outside, the first engine-noise he’d heard since waking up. Unusual, but not unlikely, given the time of night. He squinted at the space next to where Francis’ head ought to be, trying to find the blinking red numerals on the alarm clock, only to find the man’s hip and torso in the way. Why had he decided to sit up for this conversation? What time was it?
“Fourteen eighty-seven,” Arthur gave up.
“Ah. Before Boulogne?” Francis then asked, no doubt trying to clarify the time within his own memories, and as Arthur pursed his lips to clarify—“Well. Before the first time at Boulogne, that is. Not whatever your King Henry attempted afterwards.”
“Actually, they were both Henry.” It was the least important part of the sentence, but Arthur owed it to his pedantic heart to pick at it. He tried not to think about Henry VIII more than necessary, even now, and Francis’ blunder sent the psychological scar-tissue of those rapid changes in his identity twinging. “But yes, it was before the first time at Boulogne.”
“Fourteen eighty-seven,” Francis repeated, and Arthur could feel the way he rolled the date around in his head like a set of dice. Ready to gamble. To toss them at Arthur, and see where they landed.
“Yes.” It’s as much a warning as it was a confirmation.
For once, Francis listened to him, leaning back against the headboard. The light finally caught him then, or at least it caught the elegant column of his neck, tracing over the prominent Adam’s apple, and the delicate gold chain, no longer bearing its corpus-crucifix, the delicate thin sparkling chain that he continued to wear in an attempt to distract from the equally thin and delicate line of scar tissue wrapped around his throat. Whether nation-edifice or experience gave that to him, Arthur has never had the courage to ask. He licked his (always, perpetually) dry lips, wished he could figure out why the only chapstick that ever seemed to help was the stuff he liberated from Francis’ nightstand in Paris during the eighties, and sat up.
“It’s clearest while I’m sleeping,” Arthur admitted. “Awake, it feels like a dream, only for the truth that I lived it.”
Sometimes he can even pretend that the only tongue of his adolescent memories belonged to him.
“Hm. Ouias. I see.” The sentences tripped from Francis’ lips, one after another, staccato beats that marked his need to say something, even as he struggled to understand what Arthur was insinuating. Arthur doubted he would get anything approaching empathy. Sympathy if he was lucky, but Arthur’s first French kiss had nearly stolen his tongue for good.
And Francis had been both inventor and administrator.
In an irrational moment, Arthur leaned up through the dark, his hands fumbling toward where the light danced along Francis’ neck, threading his fingers through the silky-soft hair that spilled over Francis’ collarbones, and pulling him in for a messy kiss. Open-mouthed and desperate. It was not what had come before, but it was the way things were between them now. Francis might be a flirt, but Arthur knew that his kisses had eaten to Francis’ marrow in the way that Francis’ tongue had once buried into his. He had nearly a century of this quiet trust between them—as nations, as individuals—to prove it.
“Show me,” Francis panted. Arthur arched an eyebrow, thankful that his place propped up against Francis’ torso meant that enough light covered them both for Francis to see his expression. “Give me an example of our bastard language. I want to know it.”
Arthur blinked, and scrambled to think of something to say.
“Uh. Voir dire?” It came out strangled, and Francis leaned back on his elbows, propping himself against the pillow. His nose didn’t quite crinkle, but his lip curled down.
“Please, mon trésor, I know you can do better than that.”
His cheeks burned, but he leaned up to press his lips along the shell of Francis’ ear anyway. “Come here, then. Come cy-près comme possible, and I’ll give you a better example.”