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I.
Henry always leaves.
And Henry always comes back.
But what if, this time, he doesn’t come back?
Hans tells him a story of two brave knights, shamefully hoping that maybe, possibly Henry will stay. But only cowards shirk their duties, and Henry is no coward.
What if this is the last time Hans will ever look at Henry?
What if this is the last time he will feel his warmth beside him?
What if Henry is captured and killed and unceremoniously left to rot in some unmarked grave?
What if Hans keeps withering away, so weakened by starvation that one day the others will come to wake him only to find a corpse in his stead?
“I’ll be back, I promise”, Henry says.
Henry has always been too brave for his own good. It’s served him so far, but lately it hasn’t felt like Fortuna favors them anymore.
Maybe they have arrived at their last day.
And if this is the last time they see each other, what then?
What then?
Henry’s hand lies heavy on top of Hans’. Fingers almost intertwining but not quite. It feels like a door standing ajar, and Hans glimpses something heavenly and terrifying on the other side. He’s been standing in front of that door for some time now, daring himself to open it. But it’s never stood ajar before.
It feels like an invitation, but is it?
Is it?
Is it?
He dares to glance at Henry. A small reassuring smile. Then Henry stands up.
Leaving.
He always leaves.
And he always comes back. Always, always.
“I’ll bring reinforcements”, Henry mumbles, like a prayer. “Everything will be alright.”
If this is the last time I see him, I shouldn’t just sit here like a fool, Hans thinks.
But what then?
He wants to stand up. But if he stands up it means that he doesn’t believe that Henry will return. Henry always returns. This time won’t be any different. He can’t allow himself to believe anything different.
“Audentes fortuna iuvat”, he says. It sounds like a childish rhyme. Words that mean nothing at all.
Henry looks at him. Smiles. Lingers just for a moment by the door, or maybe Hans just wishes he does.
Then he leaves. Leaving the door ajar.
II.
Henry always returns.
Hans always drinks too much.
Maybe he drinks even more because the relief of Henry returning is almost too much to bear. He follows him around like a dog all night, talking and talking until the wine and the schnapps numbs his tongue and makes it too difficult. Then he just settles for an arm around Henry’s broad shoulders, laughing at every stupid thing he says or just because he is so relieved.
Henry doesn’t seem to mind. He drinks too, face blossoming red and blue eyes hazy.
At the end of the night, or the deep blue beginning of a new day, he leans his heavy head against Hans’ shoulder, the two of them slumped against the battlement, too excited and too exhausted to go to bed.
There’s a new day, and there will be another one after that and after that.
Then there will be a wedding and, horrifically, more days after that.
Hans presses his shoulder harder against Henry, dizzy and suddenly infinitely miserable.
“Was that our last chance?”, Henry mumbles. Or at least that’s what his slurred words sound like.
“What?”, Hans says, unable to get more than one word out at a time.
Henry’s hair scratches against his cheek when he moves, the weight of him disappearing as he straightens up to look at Hans. He squints. Shakes his head slowly.
"I forgot what I was saying."
“Oaf”, Hans says, lifting a clumsy hand to give him a fond shove. His hand lingers there, on Henry’s shoulder, the wool of the worn gambeson and Henry’s sturdy muscles beneath it steadying the spinning world around them.
Henry leans into him again, unexpectedly putting his arms around him, reeking of sweat and wine, breath hot against Hans throat.
“I thought I was the luckiest bastard in Bohemia when I saw you all yellow and alive in the courtyard”, he says, giddy as a child, almost toppling them over because he cannot seem to find his balance. “Audentes fortuna iuvat, right?”
Hans desperately wants to tell him about everything he thought when he saw Henry in the courtyard. But now he can’t get any words out at all.
Instead he throws up on Henry’s lap.
III.
Back at the Devil’s Den Hans desperately tries to wash all his worries away with wine and bath water. With the sound of the wind booming as he races his horse across the meadows. With the sound of bathmaids politely moaning in his ear as he fucks them.
It feels like his last precious days on this earth. Like when the master of hounds gives a dog about to be put down one last run through the forest and a nice, fat sausage to eat before the arrow pierces his heart.
If Hans is the dog, maybe Henry is the master, following his every step with a slightly worried look on his face.
Or maybe it’s not like that at all, because the dog is blissfully unaware of his fate and Hans knows that life as he knows it is about to be over. And the master of hounds is the one knocking the arrow, while Henry has no say in Hans’ life at all.
Though Hans fears that even if he did he wouldn’t do anything about it.
“You’ve been through worse, haven’t you?”, Henry says one day. He sits perched on a tree stump, polishing his breastplate while watching Hans loosen arrow after arrow at a birch tree behind the Den. The tree has done him no harm but he pictures it as Hanush, or his faceless future wife, or maybe his mother and father for putting him in the duty-bound shoes of a noble.
“A bad day may just be a bad day”, Hans says through gritted teeth, pulling the bowstring back against his cheek again. “But marriage is for life, Hal. How many bad days am I supposed to take?”
“What if you like her? I mean, you… like women. And she can probably read!”
Hans doesn’t answer. He loosens the arrow and this time the tree is Henry.
Why does he talk about the wedding as if it is a certainty? Hans wishes that he would at least pretend that there was a way out. Brave Sir Henry saving him again.
Except no one wants to save him from this, because it is his duty, and only cowards run from their duty. And Henry is no coward, so why would he allow Hans to be one?
“Hanush is married, isn’t he?”, Henry says, after sitting silent for a minute. “I’ve never even seen his wife.”
“Let’s just hope I’ll find some useless ward to go pester instead of staying home with my family, then.”
“I could keep you busy”, Henry grins. “Knight me, and I’ll go and make trouble as a robber baron who refuses to treat with anyone but you.”
Hans laughs, lowering his bow. “You just want a knighthood, you greedy bastard.”
He expects Henry to laugh along but instead his expression hardens. “Oh, my apologies, Sir. How could a common bastard such as I dare to suggest it?”, he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m just trying to cheer you up, Jesus Christ.”
Hans doesn’t say anything.
Truth be told, he has thought about it.
The two of them. Henry kneeling. Hans’ sword touching his shoulders, feather-light.
Truth be told, it’s not just the wedding he worries about.
It’s that door left ajar.
A bad day is just a bad day, and the last day is the last. That day in Suchdol could have been their last, but Hans survived and Henry came back, and now their life must continue.
He should close the door.
Would it be bravery or cowardice?
IV.
At the end of September they are summoned back to Rattay.
Hans feels like a feral dog caught in a snare. Meanwhile Henry packs up their things.
The sight breaks his heart. For weeks and weeks the room at the Devil’s Den was theirs.
He’s woken up to Henry snoring every morning, heard him mumble in his sleep, counted the scars on his back when he kneels by the chest to fetch his clothes. One time he even woke up to Henry screaming and had to sit by his bedside clutching his hand as his ragged breaths evened out and he fell back asleep.
Now the shutters are opened, airing out the smell that Hans has started to associate with coming home. Now the table has been cleaned, the wine-stained cups carried back down into the kitchen and the dice swept into their packs. Now the beds are made and the chests are open and emptied of their belongings.
When he thinks of his room in Pirkstein it seems small and empty. He will sleep alone there, then he will probably return to his old bedroom to sleep with a stranger that he didn’t even choose for himself. He doesn’t know which alternative is worse.
“Are you ready to head out?”, Henry asks, peering in through the door.
Hans stands crestfallen in the middle of the room. “No.”
“Come now, spring is far off”, Henry says, closing the door behind him. “We’ve got plenty of time for hunting and boozing and chasing wenches and all of that.”
Hans glares at him. “Under the watchful eye of Hanush.”
Henry grins sheepishly. “That never stopped you before.”
“Will you stop?”, Hans snarls, not in the mood. Never in the mood, these days. “You can’t fix this, so just stop.”
“I’m just…”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”, he asks before he can figure out why. “Or are you just relieved to get rid of me?”
“Get rid of you?” Henry says, baffled in a way that takes Hans completely by surprise. “I’m coming to Rattay too, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but…”
But what?
Rattay is where they met. Their home. When they were apart and Hans was haunting the woods outside Trosky, he always thought back to Rattay and wished that nothing had changed.
But everything has changed.
In Rattay they won’t share a room. In Rattay Henry will probably be swept up into the services of his father again, disappearing from Hans’ side to tend to more pressing duties. And Hans will have duties too. Ones that won’t involve Henry, but involve a wife that he’s never even met and that’s probably ugly and boring and nothing like Henry at all.
“It won’t be the same”, he just says, avoiding Henry’s questing gaze.
And Henry sighs. “Maybe not”, he mumbles.
It shouldn’t make Hans happy to hear him sound so sad.
Then; his hand on Hans shoulder. Squeezing lightly.
“But I won’t leave your side, Hans. Never.”
Brave Henry, who always leaves.
And he always comes back, but what about the space in between?
Sometimes it feels like an eternity.
Hans puts his hand on Henry’s, silently asking him to stay. They linger like that, fingers almost intertwined.
Almost, almost.
V.
Rattay is familiar, but it’s not the same.
He can barely sleep, his room feels so cold and empty.
The mural of the hunted stags mock him, as if it is an image of his own fate. They have him now; he’s trapped and doomed.
He decides that if he has so little time left to be Hans Capon, the foolish young lordling, he should make the most of it. So in the midnight darkness he steals out of his room, down the stairs, thinking that he is heading for the bath house.
Instead he knocks on the door to the shed where Henry sleeps.
For a long while no one opens. He is just about to give up and be on his way when the lock rattles. Henry is squinting in the light of the torch, fastening his sword to his belt, preparing for battle.
“Hans?”, he croaks, urgency in his voice. “Is everything alright? Are we under attack?”
“No, you idiot”, Hans whispers, unable not to smile at Henry’s ruffled hair and the way his face has gone soft with sleep. “I’m going to the baths, want to come?”
Henry glances up towards the star-speckled sky. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“So?”
“They’re probably closed.”
“Not to the lord of Pirkstein.”
And Henry, bless his heart, simply shrugs and says: “Alright then, give me a moment.”
When he emerges he is fully clothed and without his sword. He does have a wineskin though, and he passes it to Hans. It’s vile, probably stolen from the Devil’s Den. Hans drinks deep.
They pass it back and forth until they reach the gate, where they sneak past the dozing guard and the warm torchlight of the town. With only the light of the full moon to guide their way they walk along the curve of the hill, talking nonsense in hushed tones. The bath house is hard to make out against the backdrop of dark trees, but one thing is abundantly clear: not a soul is awake. As they get closer Henry reaches out to touch Hans’ elbow.
“Maybe we should just leave them be”, he says, thinking about everyone else’s needs before he thinks of Hans’.
“You go back then!”, Hans hisses.
“Let’s just…”, Henry looks around for inspiration. “Take a walk?”
“A walk?”
“Aye, we could walk along the river, that’s what me and Theresa used to do when…”
He trails off, his gaze sliding over to the mill, blue and grey in the moonlight.
“When you were fucking?”, Hans says, crueller than intended.
“Shut up”, Henry says with the fierce sort of protectiveness that always sneaks into his voice when Hans dares to address Theresa.
“I know, I know! She saved my life, Sir Hans!”, he mocks, putting his hands together as if in prayer. Talking about Theresa always brings out his claws.
Henry’s too.
“Well, she did! And you’d be dead too if it wasn’t for her, as many times as I’ve saved your sorry hide.”
“Don’t act so high and mighty, you told me that you didn’t even say goodbye to her.”
Henry glares. “We were only supposed to be gone a few days.”
There’s blame in those words, Hans can hear it. No matter how many times Henry had told him that it wasn’t his fault.
“I know, I’m sorry”, Hans mumbles, suddenly remembering to be kind to the only person who gives him such grace. “I am grateful to her, you know, for bringing you to me.”
But Henry only shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“She’d be a fool not to forgive you”, Hans adds, but his generosity rings false. In his heart, his selfish, blackened heart, he hopes that Theresa and Henry never speak again.
The way he used to speak about Theresa half-convinced Hans that he would foolishly end up marrying her, no matter how unwise it was. That was before Trosky though, a whole lifetime ago. Hans nearly forgot she existed. Now he wonders if Henry has gone to see her since they got back. If they’ve walked along the stream together.
“Maybe”, Henry says after a moment of silence. “I don’t know, everything’s different now.”
Hans waits for him to elaborate, but Henry only walks ahead in silence.
When they pass by the mill’s courtyard Henry does not look wistfully towards the silent house where Theresa sleeps, instead he stares stubbornly ahead, tense and sullen. Inside the house there’s the faint glow of a hearth. Hans remembers that the first time he met Henry there was this smell about him that he couldn’t quite place, but here there’s a whiff of it in the air.
He remembers wrinkling his nose at it then.
Now he breathes it in deeply.
Something about remembering that day aches.
Not even a year ago.
Not even a year of this.
Less than a year was all Fortuna could afford him.
The mill disappears behind the bushes and trees at the bend of the road, and with it any more talk about Theresa. Rattay disappears too. Maybe the whole world disappears. There’s only the flutter of invisible wings from the wilted foliage surrounding them, the quiet murmur of the ink-black water. Henry has taken out the wineskin again. They take turns drinking while speaking in hushed tones about nothing at all, suppressing their laughter in the quiet of the night, eager to forget about everything.
It’s cold outside. Hans breath turns to mist. He dressed for the promise of a warm bath, not a walk in the autumn chill. Not that he cares much, he’d rather freeze his fingers off out here than tossing and turning in his narrow bed. He draws up his hood and throws his arms around himself.
“Are you cold?”, Henry asks.
Then he throws his arm around Hans’ shoulders and presses him close, laughing fondly as if it’s some joke between them.
Hans should laugh along with him, but he doesn’t.
Less than a year, he bitterly thinks. Before that he knew warmth only as brief sparks and dying embers. Now he’s learned of a different kind; like sitting by the hearth in the dead of winter, like lingering in bed on a cold morning.
He tries to tell himself that Henry is right there, right beside him. Spring is still far away.
They have time.
For what? For what?
“Are you alright?”, Henry asks. So softly.
In the middle of the night, in the middle of the road.
Angled towards each other, when did that happen?
Henry’s other arm slides beneath Hans’, pressing him closer. So close it almost hurts.
Henry smells like the room they shared: sweat and leather and wool. His stubble scratches against Hans neck.
The warmth is so all-consuming. Almost too much to bear.
“No”, he sighs, inhaling the scent, hoping to keep it forever. “Are you?”
“Not really”, Henry mumbles.
-
The day after Hans looks for Henry but cannot find him. He walks all the way to the upper castle, where he finds Hanush in the solar, having some letters read to him by the scribe.
“Where’s Henry?”, he demands.
Hanush and the scribe exchange a glance. “He rode for Pribyslavitz this morning, on his father’s orders”, Hanush says with a sigh. ”You should see it as a chance to prove that you can behave without him.”
”He’s my page, you said so yourself”, Hans spits.
”Don’t be insolent, he is still Sir Radzig’s man. There are more pressing duties than trotting after you, Sir Hans. Surely you can do without him for a few days.”
The rest of the conversation, the animosity and the raised voices and the scribe leaving the room, is familiar. Hans could recite every word by heart.
Yes, Rattay is familiar; the loneliness most of all.
VI.
Henry comes back.
And he leaves again. Winter comes and leaves as well. Hans has never much liked winter. The woods become hostile and the wet and the cold seeps into castles and taverns and baths, always lurking just outside the feeble warmth of candles and hearths and layers of wool.
Sometimes he wonders if Hanush, who was once so eager to see Henry by his side, is now trying his best to keep them apart. He and Radzig both.
But Henry always comes back, and when he does the warmth wins out. Together they pretend that they are still boys. They practice their aim by throwing snowballs from the battlements, wrestle in the snow red-nosed and breathless from laughter, race their horses recklessly on icy roads.
Then suddenly the snow starts dripping from the rooftops and the sleepy sun grows hotter and the roads turn to mud as spring rains start falling.
First there are messengers. Then there are preparations. Then Rattay is suddenly bustling with nobles and burghers eager to see the wedding. It is only a week until the bride is supposed to arrive, and two weeks until the end of Hans’ life as he knows it.
And Henry is gone. Sent away on some wedding errand.
Why can’t Henry say no? Why is he helping them tie the rope around Hans’ neck to lead him to the butcher?
Ever since they returned to Rattay a seed of bitterness has grown within Hans, and in the spring sun it blossoms. He lies awake at night, looking at the mural in the dim light of the fading fire.
Two deer.
One attacked from behind by hounds, one face to face with the hunter’s arrow. He always thought that he and Henry were the two deer, but maybe he is a deer and Henry is a hound.
And Hans was never his master, after all, though it felt good to pretend.
Actually, he’d much rather they were two deer, running side by side in the woods, free from duty and sacrifice.
Henry comes back. A few days before the arrival of the bride. Hans glimpses him in the courtyard, washing the mud off his face before he disappears into his humble abode. Hans is busy all day, going to the tailor, speaking to the scribe, getting lectured again by Hanush.
After supper he returns to his room, looking down at his palms where four slivers of red shine against his pale skin.
There’s a familiar knock on the door.
Hans opens it.
Henry smiles sheepishly at him, the left side of his face discolored by a nasty bruise.
“Jesus Christ”, Hans says.
“I fell off Pebbles”, Henry says, almost apologetically, limping inside. “It’s nothing, really. It’ll heal until…”
He quiets.
Hans closes the door behind him.
“Will you even be there?”, he says.
He doesn’t know what would be worse; standing there with his stranger bride seeing Henry smile encouragingly, or not seeing him at all.
“Of course I will!”
“Don’t be so sure, you’re never around much”, Hans mutters. “Always off somewhere.”
“What am I supposed to do then? It’s not like I have much choice in the matter”, Henry says, not apologetic at all.
“You could try saying no. You could stay by my side, like you said you would.”
Outside the spring sun lingers over the battlements, but the winter cold still remains inside the walls of Hans’ room.
“I’m trying”, Henry says. Not annoyed, not angry, not defensive. Only hurt. “I thought you knew that.”
“Well, you’re always leaving!”, Hans says, because he allowed the bitterness to take root and now he is reaping what he sowed. “Tell them no! Tell them I need you!”
Henry looks away, scrunching up his face. It looks painful with the bruise.
“I can’t do that. What would I be then? I can’t afford to be useless.”
“What, like me?”
“I never said that.”
“Everyone else thinks that, so why not you?”
“Because I know you”, Henry says.
Hans wants to speak, wants to reciprocate, do anything to escape the weight of the silence that follows.
It’s like putting his hand to a flame. The warmth hurts.
Then Henry speaks again, voice strained and strange: “And you know that if I wasn’t useful I’d be nothing but some village lout, and I wouldn’t be by your side at all.”
“That’s not true”, Hans says.
But it is.
They stand one step apart.
A threshold, a doorway.
He puts a hand on Henry’s shoulder. Puts his hand to the flame.
“I’ll knight you then”, he says. “Then you could tell them no. And they’d have to call you Sir Henry.”
Henry’s laugh cuts through the silence, and at once everything is alright.
“You can’t do that”, he says, obviously imagining it.
“Not yet, but once I can I will”, Hans says, squeezing Henry’s shoulder, shaking it a little. “I promise.”
“Then you wouldn’t be able to order me around either”, Henry points out. “I could say no.”
“Ah, but you won’t”, Hans smiles.
Henry rolls his eyes, but he smiles back. “Well, anything for you.”
Less than a step apart now. How did that happen?
Hans’ hand lingers on Henry’s shoulder. Pushes down, gently.
“Kneel”, he says, stretching out his hand to reach for the scabbard leaning against the foot of his bed.
“You just said you couldn’t”, Henry says, already kneeling. He smiles still, even wider, eyes glittering. "Has the lord of Pirkstein decided to be generous?"
Something flutters inside Hans’ breast. His heart or the wings of a bird, longing to be free.
“Shut up, I'm always generous. Let’s just get the formalities out of the way, shall we?”
He draws the sword slowly, watching as light dances across the blade. The orange glow of the fire, the red of the fading sun. Solemnly he brings it to Henry’s shoulder.
Still looking at the blade. Warm all over. His hand trembles as he moves the sword over Henry’s head to the other shoulder.
“I don’t know the words”, he says with a small laugh. Even his voice is trembling.
The almost-knight tries to look solemn, but he is fighting a grin, looking straight at Hans.
Hans can’t reciprocate. He feels like crying for some reason.
“For your unwavering bravery, your undying loyalty”, he says, swallowing before continuing: “And for doing me the kindness of being my dearest friend. Rise, Sir Henry.”
There they stand. Two knights. Hans sheathes the blade.
“Now, you can do whatever you want”, he says. “Sir.”
“Aye”, Henry says, voice strangely rough.
Hans feels a weight against his hip. Henry’s hand. Warm even through wool and linen. Warmer than anything.
The door is wide open.
He can see it so clearly now. Everything heavenly and terrifying that waits on the other side. He must have been blind and deaf not to understand it. Or just cowardly because even now he hesitates.
He wants to step inside but what about Henry?
What would happen to him, to them, then?
He has never before been afraid of wanting. But it was only ever brief sparks, and this is a fire that consumes.
And the tale of two knights ends with grief.
But it’s not the last day.
Not yet.
If I can have this, I’d be a fool not to take it, he thinks.
And his hand caresses Henry's face, his thumb tracing the edge of the bruise. Henry’s breath hisses between his teeth, but instead of withdrawing he leans into the touch. Around them the room has grown darker, but the glow of the hearth catches in Henry's eyes, fever-bright and glistening.
Hans has pictured this. Seen it in his dreams. Stood on the threshold countless times, never daring to take the step.
But Henry is brave, so he does it without hesitating.
Hans thinks he could die a thousand deaths for this; Henry’s hand gripping the back of his neck, lips parting, opening like a door to reveal all things heavenly.
They press close. So close that when Hans opens his eyes for a brief moment, just to see that it’s all real and that Henry is truly there, holding him, caressing him, kissing him, the room and the castle and the fire disappears and there is nothing but Henry, Henry, Henry, his dearest friend his Lancelot the only person that has ever cared to know him.
“Hans”, Henry whispers, like a prayer, lips sliding along Hans’ jawline, nose pressed against his throat, clawing at the hem of his pourpoint to find the skin beneath. “Hans.”
“Hal”, Hans whispers back, his fingers buried in Henry’s hair and clutching so tightly that it probably hurts. “God, Hal.”
Henry smells like their room at the Devil’s Den. Had everything been different all of those nights could have been theirs.
Their bodies impossibly press closer and now Hans feels the extent of their want, the desperate all-consuming fire in his loins. He’s felt it before and hid it away, washed it down with wine and water and women. Never could he have imagined that Henry was doing the same. That thought stokes the fire and he lets his hand slip between Henry’s legs as he would have with a woman, not really knowing what to do just tracing the hard length he finds there with his fingers.
It’s enough to make Henry groan and to remind Hans that while he knows little about love he knows a lot about foolish desires.
He lets that thought lead him.
Into the bed.
How familiar the feeling of skin against skin. Hands scrambling to find their way beneath layers of clothes. Sheets quickly growing damp with sweat.
And how unfamiliar to see Henry slowly unravelling. His gaze somehow intent and dazed at the same time, letting out a moan when Hans skims his hand across his ribs and strokes the small of his back, trying to get even closer. Sometimes Henry winces when Hans accidentally grazes a bruise, but when Hans tries to withdraw he won’t let him. Clumsily, desperately, they rub against each other, consumed by the heat.
When they finally shed their braies there is a confused moment of what should come next.
”Just…”, Henry softly says then, guiding Hans hand down slowly, until they’re both stroking each other, gasping into each other’s mouths.
Heavenly, heavenly.
They come undone; Hans first, sudden and hard, then Henry almost immediately after, spurred on by Hans clawing at his back and muffling his strangled cry in the crook of Henry’s neck.
Then; silence. The sweat cooling on their fever-hot bodies. It’s dark outside the window, the only light in the room that of the crackling hearth. Henry twines a strand of Hans’ hair around his finger, calloused fingertips brushing against Hans’ temple.
”We could leave”, Hans mumbles into the softness of his shoulder. ”Just fuck off somewhere, be errant knights.”
Henry laughs and holds Hans tighter and kisses his brow.
”I’m not a knight, Hans.”
-
They lay awake all night, whispering softly into the tiny space between them, fingers intertwined, holding tight.
At dawn Henry rises. He has to leave. But he will come back because he always comes back.
Outside spring has arrived, and with it a new life; heavenly and terrifying.
But fortune favors the brave.
Ever since Hans and Henry met she has smiled at them.