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Sworn to Carry Your Sacks, My Lord. 

Or 

Five times Hans struggles to express his feelings and the one time he succeeds.

1. Shall I Carry that Sack For You, My Lord? 

It’s become something of a joke between them. Not that they’ve had much time for jests, running madly from one problem to the next with all manner of trouble at their heels. Yet whenever Henry spies a sack, be it wheat, or turnips, or fertiliser, his lips twist with that odd little smile, and he stops in his tracks to proffer the most ridiculous bow he can muster. 

 “Shall I carry that sack for you, my Lord?” 

And Hans will turn his nose up and play the haughty noble even as his throat tightens with the incredible need to apologise. To apologise! Christ. He knows he’s in the right – he’s a lord, and lords do not sully themselves with manual labor, no matter how dire the circumstances – but Henry has a way of turning him about until he isn’t quite sure anymore.

Today, it grates on him. 

“That won’t be necessary.” 

He brushes past Henry and continues up the wooden stairs. There’s a spot about halfway along the open corridor where the burning sun is blocked by the Maiden, and he can stare out across the courtyard without fear of losing his eyesight. 

Perfect for thinking.

With a gusty sigh, he leans his forearms against the solid railing and weaves his fingers together, brings them up under his chin. The problem is this: Von Bergow won’t give them an answer to their petition, and it’s beyond his nascent diplomatic acumen to demand one. They’re stuck here, in this admittedly impressive castle, and as badly as he wants to saddle up with Henry and blaze out into the open sky, he can’t.

He’s trapped. A rabbit in a snare. Fucking politics. 

“Sir Hans – are you alright?”

Henry’s hand on his shoulder. Heavy. Warm. Welcome. Hans turns into it. Follows the long line of Henry’s muscled arm to his stupidly handsome face. He must have put on ten pounds and nearly as many inches since they left Rattay, and he towers now, broad and strong. Hans hasn’t a hope of catching up to him, hasn’t grown much upwards since he was sixteen and strutting about, thinking himself tall in every way that mattered.

And look where he is now.   

“Lord Capon? Hello? Are you in there?” Henry’s eyes are damnably soft. His fingers twist into a pantomime of a knock as they slide against Hans’s shoulder.  

Fucking hell. He can’t handle that look anymore. Like he’s made of glass. Like he’s something precious, but in the worst way. A hapless maid in need of protection, or – not even. A useless piece of fine china that Henry would be whipped for breaking. 

He hasn’t a clue what he wants, beyond freedom, of course, but this is far from it.

“Stop looking at me like that.” 

“Like what?”

“Christ, Henry.” Hans runs a hand through his hair. Dodge. Distance. Deflect. Hans Capon’s tools of trade; tried and true. “Don’t you blink?” 

“Once a day. Sometimes twice on the solstice. I’ll blink more if my lord commands it.” 

“Oh, very droll.” He would too. Probably a hundred times a minute. Henry’s a fiend for malicious compliance, and he has a knack for defying the laws of man and nature. 

“I asked if you were alright,” Henry reminds him, dogged. 

He’s Mutt with a bone. Worse. Mutt can be bribed. Henry has a rigid oak for a heart; he won’t be placated with anything but the truth.

“No. I’m not. And I won’t be alright. Not until we get that answer from Von Bergow.” Mostly true, if not completely honest. He may never be alright again. Not after this. 

“Give it time,” Henry says, implacable. 

In his borrowed finery, he looks like the lord of the two of them. Strong and steady. Nothing of Hans’s ruin in him, and it has to stay that way. He couldn’t bear to drag Henry down too. Not when he’s the very best of what youth has to offer; bright-eyed and fired up and alive to the cause. 

A peasant’s quiet pride with a noble’s native bearing. 

Christ, next to him, Hans feels a hundred years old. There’s a weariness in his bones. Wariness. A deep sense of betrayal. Henry saved him from the gallows, but he couldn’t save him from the rope. That terrible knowledge is in his bones now, and it festers. 

What separates him from a peasant, in the end? Fine clothes and a clean face? There’s nothing noble about a corpse whatever its providence. 

Everyone bleeds red. Even him. 

“You’re bleeding.”

“Eh?” Henry blinks at him. 

“Your face. It’s bleeding.” Hans lifts a hand and touches the corner of Henry’s eye. The cut there is shallow, but the blood seeps into his gloves nonetheless. 

“Oh. It’s nothing. I had a bout in the practice ring with Black Bartosch.”

“Again?”  

Henry doesn’t respond, merely sighs and takes Hans’s wrist. Moves his hand away then turns it over. Examines it. Releases it. “Tch. Now I’ll have to clean the blood out of those gloves.” There’s hardly a tone in his voice. Fond exasperation more than reproach.

But a thread is enough. 

“I take it you lost,” Hans snaps, “or surely you’d be done with him by now.” 

God, he feels like a child again. Like the drunken lout that Hanush would have dragged out of some wench’s skirts and frog-marched into Sunday mass, belching and guffawing as the poor priest stuttered through his sermon.

He’s since grown, hasn’t he? Since meeting Henry, since embarking on this mission, since he fled the gallows, clutching his throat, but, Christ, it doesn’t always feel like it. Is that possible? To feel both unspeakably old and monstrously childish, all at once? 

Maybe Henry would know; he’s always been impossible.

Henry snorts. “Hardly.”

“What?” Hans startles, certain Henry’s ripped the thoughts straight out of his head. Must he now add witchcraft to the steadily lengthening list of this ridiculous man’s talents?

“I said, ‘hardly.’” Henry eyes him, brow furrowed. “He’s a good swordsman, I’ll give him that. Near matchless. But I won’t be beaten. Not again.”    

Such a statement should sound arrogant at best, if not downright idiotic. From Henry’s lips, it's a simple fact, and Hans is grateful for it even as his gut sings with jealousy. For soldiers, defeat is death, and Henry may have the bearing of a knight, but he doesn’t have the coin of one. The men of this country wouldn’t know to ransom him, couldn’t possibly fathom that a blacksmith’s boy turned warrior could be worth every groschen in the Rattay treasury.

“I’ve lost you.” 

“Never,” Hans says, then flushes. “I mean – what?” 

Henry huffs a laugh. “And just where is Lord Capon’s mind this fine afternoon, hmm? Still with last night’s wench?”

“Naturally.” Hans takes the gracious out and forces a laugh from his aching lungs. He’s always been a coward when it truly matters. Why change now? “And I do believe I’m ready for the next one. Time waits for no man, Henry, and neither do the wenches.” 

He claps Henry on the shoulder and tries not to wilt when the other man rolls his eyes.  

“Maybe try and get some actual rest in between all that wenching,” Henry says, which is laughable. He’s the one who never sleeps, always up reading some new book, practicing swordwork, or fiddling with his herbs or his blacksmithing. There’s more of a taste for progress in him than the rest of Bohemia combined.

Hans had that once. An insatiable lust for life. Wine, women, and song; the three pillars of ignorant happiness. It all seems so far away now. At the other end of an ever-tightening rope. Maybe he has changed after all. 

“Right. Yes, of course.” He laughs, an awkward, shrivelled thing. Too high to be genuine, but Henry doesn’t seem to notice. “You too. I expect we’ll hear Von Bergow’s answer on the morrow. Can’t have my trusty squire yawning outrageously through the whole thing. What would people think?”    

Henry gives him a little smile. “Goodnight, my lord.” Turning on his heel, he trots down the wooden stairs, across the mud and well-trodden dirt and over to the little shed given to him as his accommodations, but he doesn’t go in. Instead, he stops at the nearby forge, pulls a long piece of iron out of a bucket and examines it with a practiced eye. 

Hans shakes his head, but turns and seeks his own chambers. Sleep will likely elude him too, but not by choice. He’s never liked being alone, and he likes it even less now. Maybe he will seek out the company of a local wench. And wine. A lot of wine.  

Anything to drown it out. To drown all of it out. 

1. Even Peasants Have Sacks That Need Hauling. 

The feast is in full swing. Candlelight glints off of polished silver cutlery. Succulent roast pork scents the air, nobles laugh and drink their weight in fine wine and golden ale, and all the knights and ladies crowd around Henry, inexplicably eager to joust for the attention of a bashful commoner, albeit a striking one. 

Hans would rather like his attention too, feels fairly entitled to it – at least more than these blabbering idiots anyway – but he’s been tucked away in a corner for most of the evening, and Henry has yet to look for him.  

Some squire he is.

“There you are.” 

Hans narrows his eyes. More witchcraft. Could one of those silly potions Henry brews in the dead of night be a mind-reading tonic? He can’t count it out. Quite of its own accord, the glass in his hand tips, and red wine sloshes onto the clean, pressed fabric of his green hose. 

“Soused already, my Lord?” 

How Henry can sound disapproving with an honorific on his lips, his fourth tankard in hand and half the eyes in the room on his back, Hans will never know. At least he’s over here now, and not giggling like a courted maiden every time Bartosch sends a whispered word his way.

And what’s that about anyhow? The two have been thick as thieves for hours, days really given all their practice time, which would be bad enough. Henry is Hans’s friend and squire after all, and he shouldn’t have to share him. At least not in this country where Henry doesn’t know anyone. But there’s something more there. Something in the way the stolid man’s eyes follow Henry, the way that thoughtful gaze slides up and down the length of him and…and lingers.  

It’s unsettling.  

Henry sighs. “Are you going to say anything, or are you going to keep pretending you can’t hear me?” 

Vexing. In another life, Henry must have been a flintstone, because he never fails to spark Hans’s ire. 

“What do you see in him?” he asks. Demands, really. He feels prodded. Stung.   

“In who?” 

“Black Bartosch.” 

Henry shrugs. “He’s been all over, and he’s good with a sword. There’s a lot I can learn from him.”

Ah, his never-ending quest of self-improvement. Hans should have known. Still, he has the queer thought that Henry’s not talking about swordplay at all, but something else. Some whispered secret he isn’t privy to. Perhaps that’s the crux of it, why this whole evening feels like a boot jammed onto the wrong foot. He’s never liked being left out. And the Henry of it all; there’s that too. 

Also, he’s drunk, so. Fuck it. 

“Don’t like the way he looks at you,” he declares. His voice is too loud in their little corner, and there’s nearly no space between the words. 

Henry raises an eyebrow. “How’s that?”  

“Like he – like he wants to devour you. It’s not right.” Hans looks down at his wine. There isn’t any left, and it’s a tragedy, but the nearest pitcher is halfway across the room, and he doubts Henry will fetch it for him. Honestly, he’s more likely to move it further away, the mothering bastard.

The silence drags, monstrous despite the surrounding revelry, then –  

“What if,” Henry says, “I do?”

“Do what?”

“Like it.” 

Hans blinks up at him. Has the wine gone swimming in his ears now? He can’t be hearing what he’s hearing. Can he? “Like what?”   

Henry sighs. “Christ, Capon. Are you really that dense?” 

He’s dropped the faintly mocking ‘lord’ he’s adopted of late, and the generally respectful ‘sir,’ which means this is…this is serious. This is a conversation, and Hans is far too drunk for it.

“I’m drunk,” he says, unnecessarily.  

Henry pinches the bridge of his nose. “Next you’ll tell me the sky is blue,” he mutters. “Fine. What if I like the way he looks at me? Bartosch, I mean.” He doesn’t elaborate any further. He’s a man of few words at the most inopportune moments. Still, his meaning is scandalously clear for all that it makes no sense at all.

“You…like it?” Heat flushes his cheeks at the thought of – the thought of – But it’s the wine. And the ale. And the festooned walls creeping in around him, and the inexorable burn of the rope around his neck. 

Henry nods. His stubborn chin is set, his cerulean gaze challenging. “Aye. And maybe I’d like to do something about it.”   

Even sober, Hans rarely knows anything with clarity, but he knows he could fuck things up right now. If he unleashes his acid tongue, if he lets the wounded, drunken words on his lips find purchase in the heavy air, or voices the mewling fears in his heart, he could lose Henry. Not physically. Henry would do his duty as a squire; he doesn’t shy from any obligation no matter how loathsome. No, Henry would stay by his side, but he’d lose his trust. The vizor of his rusty, scavenged bascinet would clamp down, and it wouldn’t rise again.

Not for Hans. 

It’s a sin. That’s why his chest clenches and his throat tightens. He’s worried for Henry’s immortal soul. But everything Hans does under the cover of darkness is a sin too, isn’t it? The blaspheming, the wenching, the wanting. Maybe they’ll burn together.

Too much comfort in a thought like that.

He reaches out and steals Henry’s tankard with a graceless swipe, washes the thought down with a sip of his lukewarm ale. Henry watches him from beneath a furrowed brow, silent and tense, shoulders drawn up around his ears.

Hans would give him anything. Even this.   

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay?” 

“Just – be careful, would you? This place is far too friendly with the gallows, and we both know I’m not nearly as resourceful as you are.” 

Christ. He can’t handle the relieved tenderness in Henry’s eyes, the wonder and softness of them. Sober, it’s too much. Drunk, it’s unbearable. 

Focus, Hans. Dodge. Distance. Deflect. “I still need someone to fetch my wine, after all,” he adds, “and carry my sacks and all that peasant nonsense.”

Henry laughs like someone startled it out of him with a stick. What did he think, that Hans would condemn him for this small imperfection? They’re friends for fuck’s sake. He owes Henry his life a dozen times over. Does he come across as that much of a heartless bastard, even after everything they’ve been through together?   

“Of course, my Lord. God forbid you sully your lordly hands with a common sack. They might strip you of your nobility for the offence, and then where would we be, eh?” 

The comment hits too close to home. Hans touches his neck. Rough and coarse. His throat burns, and the bells are screaming, the crowd like tinder, alight, and where is Henry? Won’t he even show up to watch him die? He’d thought their friendship meant something – but it doesn’t matter now. In a moment, nothing will matter at all.   

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” Henry lifts a hand. Lowers it. There’s that softness again, in the corners of his eyes. Unbearable. “Listen, I don’t have to. We could –” 

“Nonsense.” 

Hans waves the words away, but only succeeds in lodging them deeper under his skin. We could. We could. We could…what? The gold of his embroidered sleeve catches in the candlelight, and he watches that instead of – instead of. He puts on a noble face, tilts his chin, curves his lips. 

“Away with you, squire. Go forth and, and – well.” He can’t bring himself to say it, and his cheeks bloom anew. Wine. It’s the wine. “I intend to do the same, of course. Find a wench and bury myself in her, if you know what I mean.” 

Henry studies him. He never looks away during conversation, not ever, and it’s the best and worst thing about him, the way it makes Hans feel improbably tall and yet so very small in bafflingly equal measure. 

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“Must I make it an order?”

Huffing a laugh, Henry shakes his head. “That’ll be the day,” he mutters. “Alright then. Goodnight, my lord.”

Later, he leaves with Black Bartosch, shoulders pressed together as they squeeze through the dwindling crowd and out the doorway. It’s so obvious now it’s obscene, but no one pays them any mind. Just Hans. Languishing in a dusty corner. Again. He downs another three glasses of wine in a sullen silence, then kicks over a stool and makes for his quarters.

The darkened walkways are quiet, only the odd guard standing watch, red waffenrocks bright in the flickering firelight. They nod and call out greetings as he wanders past, gait unsteady, and one trots ahead to open the door to the Crone Tower.

“May I help you to your chambers, my Lord? They’re –”

Hans waves him away – he’s no doddering invalid – and staggers up the stairs. The rooms he passes are unfamiliar, but he’s yet to learn the layout of the castle, the twists and turns, the labyrinth of doors and corridors. None of them open for him, and he trips from door to door, testing the locks with mounting incredulity.

How dare the doors in this festering cesspit of a castle refuse him entry? He’s a noble for the love of God. A fucking lord. He should be welcomed with wine and wenches, feasted and feted, not drenched in shit and nearly hanged and forced to wander the empty corridors like a drunken wastrel.

Or a ghost. 

Tense and miserable, he staggers up another staircase, clutching the bannister with both hands as the world wobbles around him, a drab gauze of dark and shade. Sounds drift from the landing above, soft words murmured in a deep voice, a throaty chuckle. Christ. At last. Someone who knows how to have fun in this abhorrent, muddy wasteland of a – 

Henry. 

Hans drags a hand across his face. What fresh torture is this? When he peeks through his fingers, the cruel apparition remains. Henry. Bartosch. The dark-haired man has Henry backed up against a wall, a scant inch separating the neat lines of their bodies. He leans in, his hand on Henry’s neck, his thumb shifting, caressing. Henry stares back at him, a maiden’s blush along his cheeks, ducks his head, averts his gaze for the first time in his fucking life and –  

Locks eyes with Hans.

Hans’s heart thumps. His gut swoops. Bells toll in the tender hollow of his skull. Henry pushes Bartosch away with a firm hand to his chest, strides forward and seizes Hans’s arm as the world begins to tilt.

He felt like this once before. In a joust. One of his first. A rival knight wedged his lance beneath Hans’s shield and popped him from his saddle. Everything spun. His head struck hard dirt, and his breath whooshed from his lungs, the crowd bayed and hollered, and the autumn-bright sky scorned him with its endless expanse, and somehow, it hurt less than this.   

“Sir Hans? Are you alright?”

Henry shakes him a little, pats the side of his face. Doesn’t let go, even when Hans steadies himself against the railing and wipes the sweat from his brow with a wavering hand. 

“I – my room?” 

“This is the wrong tower, my Lord.” Bartosch peers over Henry’s shoulder. There’s nothing in his dark gaze but polite concern. 

Hans hates him for it. And for the way he presses himself against Henry, the way their shoulders brush all the way down to the lower arm. Christ above. Hans is right here. He might be fucking drunk, but his eyes haven’t stopped fucking functioning. 

“Guests are accommodated in the Maiden,” Bartosch adds. “With Lord von Bergow and his family. Only the knights and squires room up here.” 

“Right.” Hans pulls away from Henry. Staggers. Waves him off. “Of course.” He’d rather attend the longest, most boring of his uncle’s meetings buck-naked and completely fucking sober than stay here a moment longer. “I’ll just…be off, then. As you were.” 

“Sir Hans –” 

“Not a word, Henry.” He fumbles down a few more stairs, holding tight to the railing. “I really don’t want to know.”

The moon is bright and blurry as he drags himself across the courtyard, and the world spins in his eyes and sings in his ears. He makes it as far as Henry’s little hovel before the sea swells within him and he has to pull off to the side to let the hot, fetid waves crash upon the muddy rocks. When the tide recedes, he wipes his mouth with a sleeve and staggers back upright. If he has to make it all the way back to his room, wherever the fuck it is in this mouldering labyrinth, he’ll die. He’ll perish out here, in the mud and dirt and horse droppings, and Henry will have to tell Hanush why. 

Henry won’t want that. Nor will he be in need of his bed tonight, given he’s found another to accommodate his lanky frame and relentless snoring. That’s that then. Hans stumbles through the unlocked door (thank Christ that Henry has no fear of theft despite his steadily growing collection of oddities) and collapses onto the bed atop a pile of rumpled sheets and a discarded shirt. Sighing, he wriggles under the blankets, drawing them around him and snuggling his face into the undyed fabric.

Not as soft as his sheets, of course, but there’s something pleasant about them, something warm, as though Henry had a nap before the feast, or sat upon the bed and paged through one of the hundreds of books he lugs around. Hans presses closer, breathes in. Henry smells like the outdoors. Like campfires and stars and the gentle chill of dawn.

Forests in his dreams. Grass underfoot. Air in his lungs, fresh and full. Light drifts through the trees, and Hans drifts with it. Away from the burbling stream with its soft banks and swaying reeds, above the drum of hoofbeats as they gather. Drive. Advance.  

“Sir Hans?”

“Eh?” He lifts his head, befuddled and bleary. The blankets slither from his shoulders and leave them bare. Cold. 

“It’s time to wake, my Lord. Everyone’s gathering in the outer bailey.” The voice comes from behind, somewhere near his legs, low and familiar in its mixture of respect and amusement. 

Hans plants his arms in the bedroll and turns, catches himself with his elbows when his balance gives way. “What the –” He pulls his arms up. Blinks at them. Where there should be hands, there is only yellow. 

“Henry, help. I can’t find my hands.” 

Henry laughs. “Christ. How much did you drink?” Large hands gentle, he disentangles the pourpoint from each wrist, then folds it and sets it aside. “Better?” 

“I should think not. My shoulders are cold, and I’d very much appreciate it if you’d stop playing dice inside my skull.” He groans. Presses his hands into the hollows around his eyes.

“Hmm. That sounds serious. Would you like to put your shirt back on, my Lord, or do you need me to do it for you?”

“I think I can manage –” He opens his eyes and the room swims. Settles. “–on my…own. Henry, where are we?”    

“We’re in my room. At Trosky castle.”

Henry stands as Hans swings his legs off of the bed and tests his feet against the ground. Solid enough. Must be his head that’s spinning.    

“Right.” He frowns. “Generous of you to call it a room. And how, er, how did I get here?”

“You’ll have to tell me, Sir. I only found you.”

After you were done with Black Bartosch, Hans thinks. Scowls. 

“Fast asleep and hugging one of my shirts,” Henry adds. “Like a babe with a blanket.” 

Hans flushes. “It was closer than mine.”

“The shirt?” 

“The bed. Christ.” He touches his temples, digs his fingers in and feels the raised veins. “My head.” He’s too warm now, and the dice in his skull refuse to go bust.

“Here. Drink this.”

Henry shoves one of his vile concoctions into Hans’s hand. Hans stares at him. At it. They all have colours, his potions. And symbols. And names. This one is black with an orange cross thing in the middle, though the cross has a hole in it, which means it’s probably not a cross after all, but some weird other shape that Hans doesn’t have a name for.

One of many things Hans doesn’t have a name for. 

There are no windows in the little hut. Faint light seeps under the door. Henry’s cheeks are ruddy with morning chill, his hair damp. Probably dunked his head in the nearest trough like a demented farm animal. 

“Trust me,” he says. 

Hans does. Hans always does. He drinks under Henry’s watchful gaze, one potion, then the next, and the day’s colour returns to his soul, the energy to his limbs, but there’s still one thing that sits under his skin, a burr in a horse blanket, scratching and scratching.   

Later, after they ride out from Trosky, when the sun drifts further above the horizon and drenches the fields of weaving grain in endless gold, he draws up his courage, tastes his pounding heart upon his lips, and takes the plunge.  

“So, Henry, how was your night with the illustrious Black Bartosch?” He draws the word out, letting his tongue linger on the ‘sch.’

Henry glances around, but no one is near them. Hans made sure of it. Aethon and Pebbles are forging their own path, scything through the wheat as it bends and breaks before them. He leans over, plucks a stalk from the ground and rolls the grains along his fingers. 

“Well?” 

Henry sighs. “There’s nothing to tell.” 

He loosens his reins, and Pebbles drops her head to sniff the ground. Her mane and tail are plaited, her neck and flanks covered with a thin caparison. It isn’t much protection, but it’s all they could afford without begging more from von Bergow. Hans would have, if Henry had asked him to, but Henry didn’t, and, like most things, it didn’t occur to Hans until it was too late.

“Nonsense. Of course there is. I don’t need the sordid details, but you have to give me something.” 

“I can’t.” Henry lifts his shoulders. Drops them. “Nothing happened.”     

Hans shifts his seat to slow Aethon’s brisk trot. He needs to see Henry’s face. “Well, why not? You two looked pretty cosy. Are you telling me you didn’t–” He makes a gesture with his hands that couldn’t be further from the activity in question “...you know?”

“You mean, after you nearly fainted at the sight of us?” Henry snorts. “Forgive me, Sir Hans, but few things kill the mood like one’s liege lord falling down the stairs and breaking his noble neck.”

“I did not –” 

“Only because I caught you.” 

“Right. Well.” Hans deflates, ashamed, and queerly grateful for the admission. “Thank you, Henry.” Christ. He’s not actually thanking Henry for not having sex with Bartosch. That would be insane. Ludicrous. Demented. 

Henry raises an eyebrow, thoughts clearly drifting along the same lines. The faintest streak of pink graces the crest of his cheekbones. His lips part, no doubt to tease Hans with some witty comment or other, and Hans cannot allow it.  

“For catching me,” he says, and affects a little bow from atop his horse. “My noble neck and I are in your debt. Again.” 

Henry holds his gaze. “There’s no debt between us, my Lord, and there never will be. It may have been your neck in the noose, but you weren’t the only one up on the gallows. I was right there with you.”

Hans digs his fingers into Aethon’s mane. Christ. It was the one thing he was grateful for when he was up there on that little stump, hands tied, throat tight: at least he hadn’t dragged Henry down with him, hadn’t signed his death warrant with his arrogance and stupidity. 

Of course, he hadn’t thought to wonder what might happen to Henry after he was hanged. Typical Hans. Thoughtless. Shallow.   

He swallows. “Right. Because Hanush charged you with my safety.”

Dust puffs in the air as they rejoin the trail. Aethon’s muscles shift beneath Hans, smooth and steady. He’s a fine horse; finer than any Hans has ever owned, with his proud head and intelligent eyes, and his gleaming white coat. 

A true knight’s steed, though Hans has never felt less like one.

And then there’s Henry, tall and stately astride his stolid grey nag. Pebbles really is the ugliest horse, muddy grey, older than dirt, sway-backed and heavy-footed. A cast-off from the Neuhof stables disguised as a gift to a peasant who’d probably never ridden a horse let alone owned one. But in Henry’s eyes, she’s fairer than a queen. 

What must it be like to be loved by a heart so fiercely loyal?  

“Right,” Henry says into the stilted silence. “Because of that.” He shakes himself like a wet dog. “Lucky for you, eh? I doubt you could afford a debt to me, my Lord. I charge interest. That castle you owe me? It’s a fortress now. With a smithy. And a moat.”

“Interest?” Hans splutters.

Henry grins. “Don’t worry, my Lord.” He winks. “I’d let you work it off. Even peasants have sacks that need hauling.”

Pebbles launches into a rocky canter, and Aethon follows, smooth as silk. Hans breathes and the air runs rampant through his lungs. The sun’s on his back, the wind’s in his hair, Henry’s by his side, and everything’s fine. 

Until it isn’t. 

3. Would You Carry Me If I Were A Sack? 

To be honest, he doesn’t know why he does it. There’s a perfectly serviceable room on the third floor of the Devil’s Den after all. But it’s – it’s too quiet. No one spends any time up there, and Hans spends far too much. He’s useless for the planning meetings – too inexperienced – the missions – too valuable – the busywork – too noble. Might as well be a tapestry they’ve mounted on the wall in some musty attic and forgotten about.

He only escaped the stifling confines of Maleshov less than a week ago, and despite everything that happened since, almost nothing’s fucking changed. Henry’s gone, Hans is (essentially) confined to a room, and blabbermouth Brabant is the only one who’ll give him the time of day (and the answers to at least eighteen questions he didn’t fucking ask). 

It’s criminal, is what it is. 

At least von Bergow let him out into the countryside on occasion. They’d even given him a mount (a dumpy little brown thing compared to Aethon’s grace and beauty; Christ, he misses that horse like it’s a metaphor for his own nobility) and a small army for an entourage lest he get any grand ideas.

(He had, but the less said of those, the better.) 

Quite frankly, he’d rather be there still, despite the eternity it took for the pompous Frenchman to relay even one of his embellished stories, and the fact that Hans could never get more than ten feet away from him, even when using the privy. 

Sure, if he was stuck at Maleshov, Henry would still be gallivanting about without him, but at least he’d be gallivanting about trying to rescue him and not whatever the hell he’s doing now with some scruffy bandits he met on the side of the road, for Christ’s sake.  

Plus, if Hans was still a noble hostage, he wouldn’t be betrothed to some woman he’s never met who’s bound to be ugly, or shrill, or disagreeable. It’s too soon; he’s too young. He doesn’t want a wife, or a family, he just wants to take off into the world and have adventures. A knight and his squire, or better yet, two knights. 

Wine, women and song. There’d be enough of all three for the both of them in a life like that, and at the end of each day, he’d have Henry. 

Henry, shaking his head, muttering his witty little comments with his mocking my lords, with his straight back and endless eye rolls, brow furrowed as he bails Hans out of whatever foolish thing he’s done this time (or, more often, compounds the trouble with his quick temper and even quicker fists). 

Henry, with his muscled blacksmith’s arms and his scholar’s soul, pursuing his one-hundred-and-forty-three hobbies across the length of the Bohemian countryside, rescuing pretty maids and solving petty squabbles in his panoply of scavenged armour (waste not, want not, he says; a true peasant’s creed if ever Hans heard one). 

Henry, with his eyes full of fire, taking his place at Hans’s side like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Hmm. Maybe he should change the saying. 

Wine, women, and Henry. 

Hans sighs as he walks across the wooden balcony. He just wants…he doesn’t have the words for it, really, but it’s something he’ll never get, and the knowledge is yet another noose tightening around his neck. 

It feels like all he does lately is sprint from one gallows to the next. 

Shuttered silence greets him as the door swings open. It’s clear no one’s been here in days. The far side bed is unmade, sheets tangled at the bottom, as though the occupant kicked and writhed to be free of them. A book lies open on the ground, pages crushed beneath the weight of the embossed spine and cover. All manner of clothes are strewn about, some on the floor, some lying half-out of the solid oak chest beside the bed. Under the table is a soldier’s kettle hat, rolled away and forgotten, and a little column of ants marches from the open windowsill to the half-eaten apple beside it.  

Christ, Henry’s a slob. 

Hans steps into the room and pulls the door shut behind him. The restless wolf in his chest yawns and settles as he closes his eyes and breathes in the Henry of it all. Shameful, how much he misses him, this blacksmith’s boy and the crude hollow his continued absence has carved into Hans’s heart. But then, he’s never had a friend like Henry before. Never heard a riddle like him either, one with a thousand clues and no clear answers.

Anyway, if he’s going to sleep here, it can’t stay like this. 

With a huff, he gets to work. 

First, he lobs the half-eaten apple, ants and all, right out the window (“Who the fuck threw that?” roars Hynek in his strange, croaky voice), then straightens and folds the clothes and tucks them neatly into the wooden chest. Henry has two different sets of peasant attire, one black, one muddy brown, and seven pairs of shoes in various states of repair (one even has a needle and thread poking out of the toe). There’s scattered bits of finery along the furniture; a brocade hood here, a pair of noble’s hose there, and a beautiful, gleaming sabre hidden beneath the rustiest, bloodiest hauberk he’s ever seen.

Eighteen books are stashed under the bed, with titles ranging from the ominous Skull Crushers, to the intriguing Quiet as a Cat. They’ve all been heavily thumbed through, with bent pages and water stains. Hans surveys the room, humming under his breath, then stacks them on top of the table. He’ll ask one of the Devil’s men to help him make a little shelf for them later; surely one of them has some carpentry experience.  

Hours pass as he goes about his task. It feels oddly intimate to handle Henry’s things like this. Folding them, cleaning them, setting them out. He feels a bit like a servant, or a wife, puttering about while his husband labours at the lumberyard, or the mines, and it’s – nice. Warm. The thought of someone coming home, of Henry coming home and –  

What the fuck. 

Henry’s thin bed sheets crinkle in his hands. Is he really going to make the man’s bed for him? Silence rings in his ears. No one is around to judge him. Henry won’t even know, will probably think it was the innkeeper or one of the maids. The sheets are mussed and threadbare, and cold with his absence, but they smell like him. Hans presses the fabric to his face and breathes it in.  

Christ, he’s going stir crazy. 

He drops the blankets onto the bed, then climbs in and wreathes himself in Henry. God damn him, but he feels warm. Safe. Loved, even though there’s never been anything like that between them. It’s a fantasy – an impossibility – something he doesn’t want, and never would want. Still, he closes his eyes, and breathes, and as his hammering heart softens, he drifts off with the troubling thought of Henry’s arms around him.

**

It takes three days before someone brings it up. Hans drags in an extra chest to store his meagre possessions in, and gets the little shelf built for Henry’s books. It’s far from perfect, but it keeps them off the floor and gives the room a more homely feel. He expects to be challenged about it, spends all three of the intervening days with his shoulders stiff and his head on a swivel. Most of the Devil’s men are too busy to pay him any attention, and Žižka and Hynek are probably just glad he isn’t underfoot, demanding to be included.

But, eventually, his luck runs out. 

“Hey,” Kobyenka calls from below. “Isn’t that Henry’s room?” He’s seated at one of the tables outside the inn, playing dice with Adder and cursing his luck in four different tongues. They’ve been there for hours, ever since Hynek stormed out of one of their endless meetings and disappeared into the woods with a crossbow in one hand and an entire keg in the other. 

Up on the balcony, Hans freezes. How did they even – Slowly, he peers over the railing. Kobyenka and Adder look up at him. Adder mumbles something in his strange language, and Kobyenka snorts.

“Aye. He says you’ve been dragging things in and out of Henry’s room for days. One might think you’re building a nest.”    

“Er.” Hans clears his throat. Shrugs one shoulder. “Well, he’s not using it. Besides, it’s nicer than mine. Why should he get the best room all to himself? I’m the noble.” What else can he say? Think – 

Dice crackle across the table. 

“Bust!” Kobyenka declares. 

Adder scowls and smacks his fist against the hard wood, and the matter is forgotten between one roll and the next.

Hans exhales and pushes away from the railing. When he opens the door, he freezes at the threshold, pounding heart in his mouth, because – 

“Henry?”

The man’s tousled head pokes up out of the blankets as blue eyes crack open. “Hans? S’that you?” He rolls over, onto his back, armoured from head to toe and covered in blood and grime and God knows what else. 

“Henry, what the fuck?” Hans darts to his side. The floorboards creak under his knees as he drops down, hands scrabbling along crusted buckles and half-tied laces. Panic makes him clumsy; blood and dirt collect beneath his nails.  

“Stop that.” Henry bats him away with sleep-heavy limbs. One of his broad, weathered palms touches the side of Hans’s face, slips down along his cheek and across his chest. “S’not mine.” He yawns and stretches, then collapses back onto the bed in a boneless heap.

Hans leans back on his heels. His heart thunders; it’s a wonder Henry can’t hear it. “You’re getting my bed dirty, you animal, and you – phew. You smell like you’ve been a vagabond for a century. Did you dig up another grave? Christ. At least take off your armour before you fall asleep in it.”

“Your bed?” Henry’s eyelids flutter. Open. Shut. Open. “Sorry, did I–” 

Fuck. “I meant your bed.” Hans rubs a hand across his face. His cheek burns where Henry’s palm made its brief landfall. “You’re getting your bed dirty.” 

Henry’s eyes slip shut again. “Don’t care. Too tired. Sort it out in the mor–” A sigh snakes out of his lungs and travels the length of his body. “What’re –” He yawns again. Paws at the laces of his gauntlets then gives up. “What’re you doing in here anyway?” Sighing, he nuzzles further into the blankets. “Mm, smells like you. S’that mint? S’nice.”

And then he’s out like a snuffed candle. 

“What the fuck?” Hans says.

Henry’s mouth falls open as he snores. He’s a noisy bastard at the best of times, but in the confines of their small room, his every breath rasps like a blacksmith’s bellows. Matted brown curls peek out from under his padded coif, and his eyelashes flutter against his sun-kissed skin as his chest rises. Falls. Rises. Falls. 

This is what Hans has been missing?

“Christ, Henry,” he mutters. The blood really is everywhere, the grime even moreso. There could be wounds under there, no matter what Henry says. Wounds he hasn’t noticed because of adrenaline or pure, stubborn idiocy. He could call one of the others in. One of the maids or bath wenches. Or – 

Or. 

He fetches a pail of water. A sponge and some soap. Bandages, just in case. The inn is black as charcoal and church quiet as he tiptoes down the stairs and rifles through the shelves. When he returns, Henry is still flat on his back, snoring. One of his arms hangs off the bed, gauntleted knuckles shy of brushing the ground. 

Hans sets the bucket down. He unlaces the gauntlets and puts them aside, slides off the laminar sleeves and picks at the knots holding the cuirass in place. The hauberk requires a little maneuvering, but even that comes off easy enough – Henry sleeps like the dead when he feels safe. Not even the Finger of God could wake him now.

When he’s stripped down at last – only a thin shirt and hose – Hans pulls the bucket closer. Gently, he dips a cloth into the water then draws it through the blood on Henry’s hands and arms. He lifts his shirt next, to check, but there’s nothing there. Just skin and muscle and the bewitching rise and fall of Henry’s chest. His knees ache – he’s not been on them this long before, even in church – but he’s not done yet. He moves a little up and forward and over and touches the cloth to Henry’s cheek. 

Henry’s eyes snap open. He seizes Hans’s wrist and yanks him forward. Hans braces himself against the bed so their foreheads don’t collide. Leans back. There’s no awareness in the other man, no trace of that Henry spark in his gaze, just pure, animal instinct. 

“Ssh.” Hans pitches his voice low. “Go back to sleep, Henry. You’re safe.”

Henry’s eyes flutter shut with a dark sweep of his lashes. Hans pulls his hand back, but Henry’s grip around his wrist might as well be cast in iron. He drops back into the bed, pulling Hans with him. 

“Oh, fuck.” 

Hans loses the cloth as Henry drags him close and smothers him with warm skin and soft blanket. Something nuzzles into his hair. Stills. Henry’s breath falls softly against his forehead, hot and damp. 

“Christ, Henry,” he says, for the third or maybe fifth time. The muscled arms around him are a vise; he can hardly struggle. 

Henry’s heart patters beneath his cheek, and Hans is – Hans has – 

Well, he’s never been this damned warm, for one. This held. This safe. It shouldn’t be possible. He should feel trapped. Caged. 

He doesn’t.     

Things – things can make sense again in the morning. Right now, there’s Henry’s arms, and Henry’s breath, and Henry’s heartbeat, and here, in the dead of night, in this den of thieves and vagabonds, it all belongs to Hans.  

**

Of course, the morning is another story altogether. Hans wakes when the world shakes beneath him, and his pillow rises like the unhappy dead to shove him unceremoniously to the floor. 

“What the fuck?” Stunned, he lays on his back for a minute, sucking air into his lungs. 

“Sir Hans?” Henry peers over the edge of the bed, brow furrowed. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Hans snaps between enormous gulps of air. “You’re the one who – Christ –  put me here.” 

Inexplicably, Henry colours. The flush spreads from his cheeks all the way down his neck to disappear into his shirt. “I thought that was a dream,” he mutters.  

Hans is too raw to make fun of him. Too flayed by the emotion stirring within. He staggers to his feet. Sucks in some more air. Straightens his clothes out and resolves to move the fuck on before anything else is said about the situation.

He’d rather keep it to himself anyway. Unspoiled.

“What’re you doing here anyway?” Henry asks. With a yawn, he lifts his hands above his head, laces his fingers together and stretches. It lasts forever, a full eternity, as his shirt rides up along his stomach, revealing soft skin covered in wiry little hairs.  

Christ. Hans swallows. “What – what are you doing here?” he counters.  

Henry blinks at him. “Um. Sleeping? Isn’t this my –” He stops. Blinks. Frowns at the armour laid out on the table. “Is that my –?” Lifts a hand and turns it over. “Did you –?” 

So it’s happening then. 

Hans crosses his arms. He doesn’t look away; that would mean he has something to hide, and he doesn’t. He was a good friend. That’s all there is to it. “You were covered in blood. I just…made sure it wasn’t your own.”

Henry holds his gaze. “Thank you.” He rubs the back of his neck, ducks his head and smiles to himself. “I see you also…made yourself at home?”        

“The place was a mess.” Hans sniffs. “You live like an animal.”

The smile grows. “You cleaned my room for me.” 

Hans bristles. “I did not. I cleaned our room for me .” 

Before any argument can be made about the semantics, or Henry can think too hard about the sleeping arrangements, Hans sighs. Waves a hand with the magnanimous grace he’s had drummed into him since birth. Sometimes literally.  

“Let’s not fight. I’m much too glad to see you. Do you know how bored I’ve been?” 

“I think I have some idea,” Henry says, glancing around. “Fuck me, is that a bookshelf?” 

Hans chokes on air. Coughs. “It – yes! It is a bookshelf. But forget about that. You’re here! Now we can –” He stops. “Fuck. Don’t tell me.” 

Henry’s face says it all. “I’m just here for today, I think. Žižka called a meeting. We’re going on the offensive. I don’t – I don’t know exactly what yet, but –” 

“You’re leaving.” 

“Aye. I’m sorry.”

He does look sorry, for what it’s worth – crestfallen, really, with his furrowed brow and that little frown on his lips – but Hans is much too angry to give a shit about how Henry feels. He’s not the one who has to stay here twiddling his thumbs until it's time to get married off for the cause.

Christ. Surely he has more to offer than his name and his noble seed.

“Sir Hans?” 

Hans waves him away. Livid, he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room, along the balcony, down the stairs and out of the inn. If he doesn’t shoot something now, he’ll shoot Henry, and while that might be fun for a moment, he’ll probably regret it. He holds some affection for his so-called friend, even if he does treat Hans like an unwelcome skin disease, shedding his company at every opportunity.

The sky is delicate and pink, and the little archery range at the back of the inn is blessedly empty. As the sun softens the morning frost, Hans sets himself up with arrows and a good bow and shoots until his fingers bleed and his arm is scraped raw and the last blush of dawn has been flushed from the air.

“You’re supposed to use an arm guard.” Henry, of course. 

Hans ignores him. Nocks another arrow. Draws. Aims. Shoots.

“Sir Hans.”     

The next three arrows hit shy of the centre. 

Hans sighs. “Henry. Kindly fuck off, would you? I’m mad at you.”  

“Why?”

Christ above. There’s hurt in his voice, and it’s not fucking fair. Hans is the injured party here. Hans. Not Henry.  

He spins around, an arrow nocked between his fingers. “Because you’re supposed to be my squire, Henry. My friend!”

Henry stands swiftly, hands raised in a calming motion. “I am.” He’s still in his shirt and hose, no doublet or pourpoint. No shoes either, so he must have run right out the door after Hans then sat there on a little stump, watching him shoot for hours.

Hans has no idea what to think about that, so he just…doesn’t.      

“Then where the fuck are you?” he snaps.  

“Here,” Henry says. “Trying not to get shot by my own liege lord.” 

“What? Oh. Christ, Henry.” Hans yanks the arrow from the bow and hurls both of them at Henry. “Idiot. I’m not going to shoot you. I’m just going to watch you ride off again to do heroic things without me , while I rot here and get fucking sold off to the highest bidder.”  

Henry catches them both – the absolute bastard – and drops them onto the dewy grass. Then he approaches Hans, hands still raised like he’s calming a skittish fucking horse. 

“Fuck.” Hans scrubs at his eyes and stops fighting the inevitable. He lets Henry take his arm and examine it with gentle hands.   

“So it’s true then.” Henry pulls Hans down to sit on the stump, then kneels beside him, produces a phial out of his belt pouch, uncaps it and sticks his fingers in. They come out smeared in a white paste. 

“Aye. The great Hans Capon, scourge of the Rattay bathhouse, broken to bit and bridle at last. How the wenches will weep.”   

Henry is silent as he smooths the paste along Hans’s raw skin then wraps it neatly with a bandage. Gentle, quick, proficient. Is there anything this blacksmith’s boy can’t do?

Oh, right. Stay. He’s fucking rubbish at that.  

Eventually, Henry says, “Can Sir Hanush really force you to marry someone you’ve never met?” He has yet to release Hans’s arm, and Hans has yet to request it. Probably won’t because there’s something deeply wrong with him.  

“Why not?” he says. “It happens all the time.” 

Henry digests this with a frown. His thumb presses into the base of Hans’s hand and works at the knot there. “Well, to girls, yes. But you’re a lord. Don’t you have any say in your own future?” 

“Probably even less than a blacksmith’s boy.” Hans laughs, a small, mean thing. “Nobility is a fucking cage, Henry. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Hmm. Seems to me it’s a damn fine one.” 

“Because you’ve never been in it.” Hans looks down at his knees, at the fine green hose that stretches across them. “A cage is a cage. The bird is still trapped, no matter how sweetly it sings.” 

Henry snorts. “I reckon the finery ought to help a bit. The nice clothes, the bowing and scraping and the my lording.” He moves his fingers a little higher up Hans’s hand and repeats the soothing motions. “Never knowing the callous bite of a harsh winter, or the way desperate hunger sinks its claws into your gut.”

Hans lifts his head, intrigued. “Have you gone hungry?”

“Well, no.” Henry shakes his head. “Not like some. Pa’s blacksmithing kept a roof over our head and food in our bellies even when the crops failed. We were luckier’n most.” 

“Your village was burned to the ground.” 

“Aye. I reckon that should tell you something about life as a peasant, my Lord. We fight for everything we have, only to live and die in the service of our betters.” 

There’s faint mockery in Henry’s deep voice, but it doesn’t feel like it’s directed at Hans. His gaze is far away, his thoughts turning inward as his fingers slow. Still, he doesn’t release Hans, and still, Hans doesn’t ask for it.   

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” 

Henry blinks at him. “Believe what?” 

“That some people are better than others. I think if you did, you wouldn’t say half the things you do to me.” 

Henry smiles. With a quick pat, he releases Hans’s arm and lies back on the grass, then folds his hands behind his head like a makeshift pillow. 

“No, my lord,” he says, eyes fluttering shut. “I’ve seen far too much of your noble blood to still think it’s blue.”  

“Ha fucking ha. Really though.” 

Hans drinks him in. It’s shameless, but there’s something about the play of light and shadow along his languid form, the sun in his brown hair, the softness of his lips. Trees sway above him and the air kisses his cheeks with faint colour.  

Henry hums. “It’s about power, I think. Some have it, some don’t. Some you can fight for, some you have to be born with.” He shrugs and turns his face further into the sun. “I’ll fight for what I can have, while I can have it. The rest isn’t up to me. It’s up to fate, or God, or whichever liege lord I put my faith in.” 

Hans scoffs. Kicks at a rock on the ground. “Better find a good one then,” he mutters.

It wouldn’t even be that hard. At this point, Henry could throw a stick in the woods and hit a lord who would take him into his service. Which is fine. Hans doesn’t need him. He’s always got along just fine on his own.    

“I already have,” Henry says. 

It’s a kick in the chest, how quickly he replies. No thought. No weighing, no measuring. Hans is breathless with it. 

“That’s you,” Henry adds. “In case you’re sitting up there stewing about it.” 

“Of course it’s me,” Hans snaps. Regret flares, deep in his gut, but it’s out there now. Christ, he has to rein that temper in. Henry’s being unspeakably nice, and in the face of that generosity, Hans is…Hans is a spoiled brat. Unworthy.

No one could ever be proud of you.   

“Henry –” 

“Yes, my Lord?” 

Hans groans and throws his hands in the air. “Enough with that. Out here we’re equals, alright?” He slides off of the stump and lays himself out beside Henry. Their elbows brush, and the sun paints itself along him too. “There. Now we’re in the same position. Both somewhat damp with grass stuck to our arses. Equal.”

Henry goes quiet. He pulls one hand out from behind his head and fiddles with the laces on his travel-worn shirt. “Is that – is that really possible?” 

“Why ever not?” 

“Well. Think about it. You’re the one who has to allow it. You could take it back.” 

Fucking hell. Henry hardly needs a sword the way he wields his words. 

Hans frowns. “I wouldn’t do that. Don’t you trust me?”

The weight of Henry’s secret presses into the scant space between them. Henry hasn’t spoken about it since their brief conversation after his almost-night with Black Bartosch. Nor has he done anything about it. Well, as far as Hans knows anyway. After all, they’ve been separated for such vast swathes of time lately. Maybe Henry’s been riding more than Pebbles across the Bohemian countryside. 

Christ, that’s a thought. 

“What on earth are you thinking about?” Henry twists to face him, digs his elbow into the springy grass and rests his chin on his hand. “You’ve gone redder than an apple.” 

“Have not.” Hans shuts his eyes and wills the thought away. It’s indecent and unholy and – fucking hell.  

Henry prods him in the shoulder. “Sir Hans – are you ill?” 

Hans groans. “Quite possibly, Henry. Quite possibly.” Surely this is an illness, though not the kind that can be remedied with any of Henry’s potions. Ugh. Dodge. Distance. Deflect. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t answer mine either.” Henry points out. Huffs a little breath. “Of course I trust you. Don’t you know? There’s no one I trust more.”

Shocked, Hans turns to him. Henry gazes back, nose only a few inches away from Hans’s own, eyes steady and unflinching.  

“Really?” The naked vulnerability in his voice is entirely an accident, and he rushes to remedy it. “Good. Then trust this. Out here, in this backwards little patch of the world, we’re Henry and Hans. No lords, no blacksmith’s boys. Just two men – two friends – lying on the wet grass getting their faces burnt off. Equally.” 

Henry closes his eyes. Shakes his head. Chuckles, soft and sad. “A fine dream, Sir Hans, but we’ll have to wake from it eventually.” 

Hans might die, if Henry keeps talking like that. He’ll combust. Out here in the countryside with his thoughts swimming and his heart pounding and his best friend shaking his head like he isn’t worth anything and everything Hans might ever have to give for him. 

“Henry. Please.” How can he make Henry understand that he needs this? He reaches out to touch him, his cheek or his shoulder, but it feels too close, too intimate. Like it might mean more than he could ever be ready to acknowledge. 

“You were the one who laid out the way of the world, my Lord. Laboratores, remember? I’m beneath you. Might as well be one with the sacks you refuse to lay hands on.”

Henry, always with the fucking jokes. He never lets anything go. It’s one of his nastiest traits, the way he soaks up everything Hans says, drinks it in, just so he can throw it back in his face at the worst possible moment.    

Hans turns away. “I think you gravely underestimate your power,” he tells the vast, untouchable blue of the sky. It hurts to look directly into the sun, and the light brings tears to his eyes, but it’s far easier than looking at Henry while he flays Hans to the bone.

“Hmm. Are you saying that if I was a sack, you’d carry me?” 

“Henry, what the fuck,” Hans says, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. “What kind of nonsense question is that?” 

Henry prods him in the side of the face. “Just answer it, Hans.”

Hans. Not Sir Hans. Not my Lord. Not Capon.   

Hans turns his head. He holds Henry’s gaze, though the sharpness of it slices him to the core, parts the skin and muscle and tissue and finds the softness within.

“If you were a sack?” 

Henry nods. 

“And what am I in this absurdity?” 

“You’re you.” 

“But you’re a sack?”

“Yes. Well?” 

Hans  breathes. He can do this. “Honestly, Henry, I can’t say I see the difference. You said it yourself; you are a sack.”

Henry says nothing. His warm breath ghosts across Hans’s face, his nose, his cheeks, his lips. His lion heart beats in his chest. Hans wonders if it beats the way his does; high and thready, desperate and desirous.  

“Of course I’d carry you,” he adds. “I already did when you were half-dead and delirious, spouting nonsense and bleeding all over me. Thank Christ they weren’t my own clothes. You’d’ve ruined every bit of them.” He bites his lip. Fights the urge to duck his head. Asks. “Would you, um…carry me?” 

“If you were a sack?” 

Hans nods.

“Hmm,” Henry muses. “Nah. Apologies, Sir Hans, but I can’t be sullying my peasant hands with a lordly sack. What would people say? They might remember my face, and then I’d never hear the end of it.” 

Hans shoves him. “You’re such a bastard.”

Henry barely rocks back. He’s made of solid stone, but the core of him burns, and burns, and burns, and Hans can’t look away. Might as well be a moth, wings wet and useless, grasping for the sun. 

“That’s not news to me, sir. We covered that last year. Don’t you remember? It was a whole thing…”

Hans closes his eyes as Henry prattles. Wine, women, and Henry. The recipe for a perfect adventure, a perfect life. He needs to get back to his roots. Back to when things were simpler and made sense and he didn’t know the weight of the rope around his neck. A hunt. That’s what he needs. With Henry. 

The two of them out in the woods. Like old times.

Wine, women, and Henry. 

4. Someone Has To Haul Those Sacks For You. 

“I’m leaving.”

The words should come as a surprise, and they do, in a way. Hans is no mind reader after all, no great sage given to splendid visions of the future. Not that he couldn’t have predicted them – Henry’s always leaving him for one reason or another. But it isn’t the words he recognises; it’s the grasping, hollowing ache in his bones that accompanies them.  

When Henry pulled him from the gallows and the captain confirmed his nobility, Hans thought he was safe. When the door slipped open at Maleshov and Henry strode in to rescue him, Hans clutched him close and believed the worst was over. When Sigismund’s army turned tail and left Suchdol, not twenty minutes ago, he’d made the mistake of thinking this could be it; finally, a fitting end to their thankless quest. 

He’d only offered to act as a messenger in the first place as a way to get out of Rattay. A way to dodge Hanush and tedious responsibility, to take to the glorious countryside with his new friend and enjoy the pleasure of his company, to revel in their shared youth and lust for life. 

Audentes fortuna fucking iuvat.  

But he’s past all that now. This godforsaken campaign has drummed the truth into him: he’s never safe. Not from the world, and certainly not from Henry, whose faint smile and soft eyes and insistent abandonment strike deeper than any sword ever could. He’s a man of his word to the rest of the world, but when it comes to Hans, his promises mean nothing. 

We’ll manage it together, he said. Yeah fucking right. They’d have to be in the same room for that. Hell, the same fucking castle would do. And what was it he said in the crypts? I care about you. Maybe more than you know.  

What the fuck does that mean?

“Sir Hans? Did you hear me? I said –”   

“You’re leaving. Yes, I heard.” Bitterness steals into his words, and he can’t stop it. Can’t stop anything. Certainly not Henry. “Well, what is it this time then? Some festering bandit camp? Another barnyard wrestling competition? A comely maiden? A comely man?” 

A lowered voice is the only concession he makes to the danger in his petty accusation. Not that it matters. There isn’t another soul in the courtyard who isn’t three sheets to the wind in joyful celebration. 

Just them.   

Henry folds his arms across his chest. His lips are flat, his gaze steady. Damn his calm. And damn him, for that matter. He’s the worst kind of friend; there for the trouble and nothing fucking else. 

“Erik challenged me to a duel.” 

Hans loses it. “And you’re going to go? Just like that?” He throws his hands in the air. “Christ, Henry. I knew you were foolhardy, but this is insane. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but there was an army on our doorstep not half an hour ago. A rather large one.”

They were going to die, trapped rats in a castle, and then they didn’t, and Henry should stay now because it’s over. It’s fucking over, damn it. Bohemia can manage without him, can limp along until the next blacksmith’s boy emerges from the flames to save it. 

It’s Hans who can’t.  

“They won’t care about me,” Henry says. “A lone rider? Nah. I’m nothing. Besides, I owe it to him.”

There are so many things wrong with that he hardly knows where to begin. “What the fuck, Henry. You don’t owe him anything.” 

“I killed the man he loved. If he had killed y–” Henry stops. He draws in a breath, and his implacable mask shifts for a moment; his eyes slip shut and his cheeks hollow out. “If I were in his shoes, I’d scour the ends of the earth until I put me in the ground. I won’t deny him.” 

Hans saw a hummingbird once. When he was five. A tiny little thing, with a spun-sugar body he could have crushed in his hand and the very wind for wings. They vanished as it flew, zipping from flower to flower in a heady blur. That’s how he feels now. Like his heart might beat fast enough to vanish from his chest.

“But what about me?” 

“What about you?” 

“I –” He swallows. “You could die.”

“Hans. Look at me.” Henry lifts his hands in a placating gesture. “He can have his duel, aye; I have no plans to lose it.”

“But what if it’s a trap?”

“It isn’t.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“It wouldn’t matter. I’m going.” Henry fiddles with his gloves though there aren’t any straps or tethers to adjust. His gaze slips away and then back, and something in his expression slides open. “Listen, if you’re so worried then come with me.”   

“I thought you wanted to do it alone.” 

Fear makes him sharp, as always, but the breathlessness is new. Has the air always been this thin? He hasn’t been properly out in the fields and forests for far too long now; not since his ill-advised stint as a poacher. That little hunting trip with Henry wasn’t nearly enough. With Henry, it never is.    

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Henry sighs. “But you’re right. It’s safer for you here.”

As if that was the fucking point. Thick as a brick, this one, for all his many talents. 

“And what about you?” Hans demands. 

Henry doesn’t reply, but the answer lies rigid between them anyway. My safety doesn’t matter.  

Of course it fucking matters , is what Hans should say. He should seize Henry by those stupidly broad shoulders and shake some sense into him. You fucking matter you incredible moron. To Samuel. To Radzig. To me, most of all. That’s what he should say.  

But what comes out is: “What if I forbid it?” Thin. Tremulous. Pathetic. 

“You won’t.” 

“I could,” Hans insists.  

“But you won’t.” Henry stands there in the dirt and grime. Calm. Impassive. He might as well be a castle wall; there are no gaps in his mortar. No vulnerabilities. “Henry and Hans, remember?”

Hans cannot win this siege. Not this way. “Look, Henry. Maybe this is the wine talking, but please. Don’t go.” The plea rings in his voice, and the naked need in his words is beyond undignified. It’s obscene. “Would you have me beg?”  

Inscrutable as always, Henry smiles. It’s a little half smile, a mere twitch of the lips, as though this is mildly amusing. Another meaningless jape from the endless arsenal of Lord fucking Capon. 

“It’s a matter of honour, Sir Hans.” Despite the smile, and the teasing honorific, his voice is flat. Dead leaves abandoned on the forest floor have more timbre, more life. “There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.” 

Hans wants to hit him. Nearly does, for all that it would feel like striking a boulder with his bare hands. “Christ’s sake, Henry. I don’t know if you’ve fucking noticed, but I’m a lord. I can give you anything. Name it.” 

He has him. For a moment, he has him. Everyone wants something; even Saint Henry.  

Henry’s eyes soften. “Aye, I noticed.” 

A passing breeze ruffles his little beard, cavorts in the plush fabric of his brocade hood.  There’s such fondness in that gaze. It’s everything he hardly dares to want, and yet it isn’t that at all. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. Hans can’t bear it. Or this damnable silence. 

“Well?” he says. Reaches out with trembling fingers. “What is it? Wine? Wenches? That castle I owe you? I could ask my uncle to –”   

“Stop.” Henry pulls away from Hans’s desperate grasp. Gentle, but firm. “Just – stop. I don’t want any of that. You can’t –” He exhales through his nose. “You can’t buy me, Hans.”

“I can buy anything. Just tell me what you want.” 

Henry shakes his head. “Not this. Not me.”  

“Are you fucking serious?” 

It’s terror that pulls the words from his breathless lungs. The thought of a life without Henry. Might as well pluck the sun from the sky and drown the world in winter. 

He won’t survive it. 

“What wondrous treasure does the great Henry of Skalitz desire that is so beyond my humble means?” The words paint the air with vitriol, and Hans…Hans doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore. 

What is he searching for? Some evidence that he’s still first on Henry’s priority list, held above even his own basic needs? It’s breathtakingly selfish, even he can admit that, but he needs to know that this one thing hasn’t changed. That he can centre himself around Henry and find his footing in that quiet dedication, that burning sense of honour and duty. 

Truth is, he doesn’t know who he is without Henry anymore, and he wants so badly for the opposite to be true. But he knows it isn’t. Henry doesn’t need him, has never needed him. Not the way he needs Henry. Christ, he could find a hundred Hans’s in the spoiled and rich lords of Bohemia, but Hans will never find another Henry. 

“It wouldn’t be fair to ask it of you,” Henry says. “Not now. Not like this.”

Hans clenches his fists. He’s never been more useless than when he was outside the gates of Trosky, filthy and destitute, but this comes close. In the face of Henry’s stubbornness, Henry’s certainty, he’s not a lord, he’s hardly even a person. But that’s the worst thing about Henry; he takes all of Hans’s power and gives none of it back. 

“This isn’t fair to me, Henry.”

“I know.” 

“But you’re going to go anyway. You’re going to ride out that gate and leave me again, and again, and again.” 

Even in the face of his fire and fury, Henry doesn’t waver. He never wavers. The indefatigable summer sky shines in his eyes, the afternoon light wreathes him in gold, and he charges into battle. 

A true knight, if ever there was one. 

“Aye.” 

Christ above. Hans takes it all back. Everything nice he’s ever said or thought about him, because he’s a fucking bastard. 

“Fuck you,” he says with feeling. “Fine then. Go. Get killed in a dirty field somewhere. See if I care. I’ve got other friends you know; I probably won’t even notice.” He brushes imaginary dirt off of his sleeve and pretends that the whole of him isn’t fixed on Henry.

Why isn’t he enough? Why is he never enough?  

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” Hans says again. “No, really. Fuck. You. And for that matter, fuck off.”   

“Fine.” Henry’s lips part in a quiet sigh. He settles his helmet over his head, and cold steel crushes the wisp of honey curls across his brow. A sharp whistle follows. Hoofbeats ring through the courtyard. Henry rests his foot in the stirrup and mounts, swift and graceful. He’s not wearing chain mail, or plate armour, merely a thick, padded gambeson, his father’s hard-won longsword at his hip.

Christ. He doesn’t even have a shield. What an utter madman. 

Paused at the threshold, Henry looks back. 

Hans crosses his arms, tilts his chin away. 

Henry rolls his eyes. Probably. Beneath his helmet, it’s hard to tell. “Don’t worry, my Lord. I promise I’ll be back. Someone has to haul those sacks for you. Hyah!”

Pebbles canters through the gate. Proud and resplendent in her flowing caparison, she thunders across the drawbridge, Henry astride, his back as straight as the peerless swords he forges in every spare moment.

Hans hates him. Hates his stupid beard, and the stupid face underneath it. Who gets up to pick herbs at three in the fucking morning? What kind of demented weirdo collects dusty feathers and abandoned charcoal and, christ, cobwebs from the fucking ceiling of every inn he visits? And then there’s that thing he does with his hands in conversation, where he lifts both pointer fingers in the air and pushes them forward like a complete lunatic. And then – 

And then – 

And then. 

He hates and he hates, and then he hates himself with a startlingly great fervour, because – what if Henry doesn’t come back? What if that’s the last thing Hans ever says to him?

Fuck. You. And for that matter, fuck off.  

Christ, he’s a fool. 

“Why so glum, Capon? Anyone would think you a weeping wench whose husband’s off to war. And an ugly one at that.” Hynek’s crackling laugh echoes through the courtyard. “Where did your better half run off to anyhow? He left in such a hurry. Did he finally get sick of your nagging or did you fail to keep him satisfied?”

“Excuse me?” Hans twists towards the mocking voice, hand on the pommel of his hunting sword. “Do you want to fucking repeat that?”

Leaning against the fence of the small training yard, eyes glinting above sunken, pockmarked cheeks, Hynek lifts his hands. “T’was only an observation.”

“Then take it back.”

“Or what? You want to go a round in the practice yard, pup? I’ll bite, but I warn you; I don’t play nice, even with little lordlings.”

Hans gets his sword half-way out of its scabbard before a hand clamps around his wrist and forces it back down. 

“What’s this then?” Žižka holds a quelling hand out towards Hynek, the other firm against Hans’s own. 

“He said – he implied –” 

“Aye, and what of it? You bitch like an unhappy wife, Capon. No wonder he fled from that marriage bed.” 

Hans sees red. He launches forward, but Žižka catches him. Tugs him back, both arms tight around his chest. It’s lucky that Žižka’s a wiry bastard, or he’d have skewered the Dry Devil by now. 

“How dare you malign Henry’s honour.” 

“Henry’s? Not your own?” Hynek grunts. He shifts his hand away from his sword and crosses his arms. “Fuck. I’m not nearly drunk enough for this. Get a drink, Capon, and sit down. I meant no offence.”

“Go on.” 

Žižka releases him, but puts a heavy hand on his shoulder and steers him towards the table the Devil’s men dragged out of the kitchens. When they get there, he presses a tankard into Hans’s shaking hands and pushes him down into a chair.

Hans drains the tankard. Discards it. Picks up another. Here he is, drinking once again, while Henry’s out there riding to his death. Scowling, he drains the second one and smacks it down against the table. Maybe he’s not giving Henry enough credit. He’s a tough bastard; he’ll probably live just to spite Hans.

See, my Lord, he’ll say, I told you I could do it. And he’ll dismount from Pebbles, dirty and covered in blood, lugging his sacks of useless loot, and smug, so damnably smug, and Hans will grasp him by the shoulders and call him a fool, and a moron, when what he means to say is thank Christ you’re alright, and he’ll haul him close and kiss the smirk from his lips and – 

Christ. He must be drunk already.

Cheeks aflame, he drinks and drinks as the sun sets and the wind whistles through the flags seated high on the keep’s walls. Žižka sits beside him, head bowed, tankard in hand, keeping his own counsel, while Hynek perches on the edge of the table, nursing a fine bottle of wine he filched from Lord Pisek’s stores. 

A crow caws from the battlements.

How far is Sigismund’s abandoned camp from Suchdol fortress? Would Henry be there now, drawing his sword, lowering his vizor? Could he be lying there in the mud and offal, watching the same burning sky with sightless eyes? 

I care about you. Maybe more than you know. 

His chest tightens. 

“Why would you say that?” he asks Hynek, words spilling from his lips like wine of the cheapest vintage. “About me and Henry.”

The Dry Devil shrugs. “T’was nothing, lad.” 

Žižka stirs. He flings a hand out and topples his empty tankard. “Hynek,” he scolds. “Be straight with the lad.”

“Straight?” The Dry Devil snorts. “Ah, Christ.” He swigs his wine. It sloshes over the rim to dribble down his chin. Cursing, he swipes his arm across his mouth. “I merely meant – well. You’re attached at the hip, aren’t you?” 

“Not hardly.” Hans scowls at his tankard and swirls the golden ale about. “But so what if we were? We’re supposed to be friends. And he’s my squire, even if he’s never fucking here to do anything about it.”

Hynek rolls his eyes. “You hear it, right?” he says to Žižka. “Like a maid mooing out a window. Christ.” 

“Excuse me –?” Hans bristles. “We’re both men, in case you haven’t noticed. No one is…is… mooing about anyone.”  

Žižka guffaws into his empty tankard.  

“Ach.” Hynek waves his bottle. “You’re young yet, and wet behind the ears to boot. War’s a long, nasty business. Tis’ only natural men will turn to each other when the campaign drags on and the wenches are far and few between. Beggars can’t be choosers an’ all that.”  

Shocked, Hans lifts his head. “Have… have you…” 

“Aye. Once or twice over the years.” Hynek shrugs. “Never developed much of a taste for it though. I’m a tits man through and through. I need a nice, firm pair and a soft ass or you won’t get much out of me. Though, now I think of it, there was that one night with –”

Žižka coughs, cheeks red. “The point Hynek is so eloquently trying to make,” he says. “Is that sometimes the bond of friendship and camaraderie between two men can, er, equal the bond between a man and wife.”

Hynek scoffs. “Žižka, you great prude. I’m not talking about love, I’m talking about –”

“And if it was that way –” Žižka forges on. “Erm, between you and Henry –” 

“We’re not like that,” Hans insists. There’s no part of him that isn’t on fire; he’s liable to combust at the slightest touch. “I’m a Lord. It…it can’t be like that. And Henry, he’s – I care about him. I wouldn’t use him like that. And he’s not interested in me that way.” 

Drunk as he is, he’ll take Henry’s secret to the grave. It’s true enough anyway. Henry likes men. That doesn’t mean he likes Hans. And maybe he doesn’t like men anyway. Maybe it was just Black Bartosch. After all, Henry’s always had a thirst for new experiences, maybe he was just…trying it out? Christ. Hans never even thought to ask. Was always far too afraid to. 

He’s a terrible friend.

Sighing, he drains the rest of his ale. 

“Hmph,” Hynek mutters. “Are you sure?” 

“Hynek.” Žižka sends him a warning look from within his tankard. 

“What? I’m just saying. If I had a wench that looked at me like Henry does Capon, I’d be a happy, happy man.” He belches. “For an hour, anyway.”

“Wha’s tha’ sup – suppose – supposed teh mean?” Hans slurs. Is this his third cup? Or his fourth? The courtyard is weaving about, so maybe it’s his tenth. 

“Nothing, lad.” Žižka waves the words away. “If you’re meant to know, you will. Some things shouldn’t be spoiled by the idle wonderings of jaded men.” He claps Hans on the shoulder and sends him sprawling partway across the table. “Get some rest. I’ve a feeling Lady Fortune isn’t quite done with us yet.”     

5. He’s A Lord, Not A Goddamn Sack. 

It’s a stupid plan. A desperate plan. The kind you scrape off of the bottom of your tenth tankard. The kind that tastes like gold, and rings like truth, until the inevitable morning after strips the befuddled haze from your limbs and shoves the sense back into your skull.

It’s a terrible plan. Downright suicidal.  

Of course Henry volunteers.

Of course Hans is shot down.  

Hans simmers for the rest of the meeting, boils and broils like one of the southern fire mountains, Vesuvius towering over Pompeii, churning and churning and waiting to erupt with God’s holy fury, to devour fields and villages and set the countryside aflame.

He’s not doing this again. He’s not going to be left behind like some frail maiden, won’t be treated like Mutt and made to sit and stay and heel. For Christ’s sake, he’s a lord, not a…not a goddamn sack to be ignored and abandoned at will! His words should have the weight and reach of trebuchets, his decisions the subtle folds of the finest steel. 

No one respects him. Least of all Henry. 

Žižka ends the meeting, and the rest of them slink away to lay about and bemoan their hunger while Samuel and Henry prepare to waste their lives on an impossibility. Hans is hungry too, has never been hungrier, but there’s more than one desperate hollow beneath his skin. 

This one comes first. 

He pulls Henry aside. Drags him out of the main room and into an empty corridor, corners him by the mops and brooms, the things that are too base, too dirty, for the light of day, and makes himself tall.      

“I’m going with you.” 

“What?” Henry frowns at him. 

Hunger has slimmed his face and waist, stolen the roundness from his cheeks and the slight softness from his belly, but he’s still solid. Still there. Twenty-six days. The longest he’s stayed by Hans’s side since this whole cursed campaign began, and it wasn’t by choice.  

“You heard me.” Hans crosses his arms, holds them tight against his chest. “I won’t ask you to stay; it never makes a fucking difference. But you’re not leaving me behind again. I won’t allow it. I’m going with you.”

He holds Henry’s gaze, acid and arguments on his tongue. But whatever he expects, it isn’t this. It isn’t the way Henry’s brow creases, the way his frown deepens. It isn’t the way he drags a weary hand across his face, pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs, long and low. It certainly isn’t the way he wields his words, sharp and precise; knives dipping beneath Hans’s skin and slipping straight between his ribs. 

“I don’t want you to come,” he says. “I’d rather go with Sam.” 

“Christ, Henry.” The shock of it, the blunt brutality, is enough to shake loose the words that fester in the depths of him. “When did I stop being enough for you?”

Henry is silent. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t deny anything, and it’s worse than any answer he could give.  

“What, you found out you have a brother and suddenly I’m not good enough to watch your back anymore?” There’s a war in his chest, in his throat, between rage and hurt; the clash of bronze in his voice, the tang of iron in his vowels. 

“It’s not about you.” 

“Then what is it about?” 

“Me.” Henry’s gaze sweeps the room, skates along Hans’s elbow, shoulder, neck, but doesn’t make it back to his face. “It’s about me. Alright? If you came with me, I’d just be distracted. I’d be too worried to do my job.” 

“And you won’t worry about him?” 

“It’s different.” 

“Why?” Hans scoffs. “Because I’m useless? A piece of noble scenery, good for a wedding or a ransom and nothing fucking else. If only I was a blacksmith’s boy, right? Or a Jew. No one would think twice about having me along then. We’d go off on this ridiculous suicide mission, and if I got caught, it wouldn’t fucking matter.”

Henry snorts. “That’s the dumbest thing that’s ever come out of your mouth. And I have a damned long list.” He takes a step forward, eyes liquid in the orange candlelight. “What do you think happens to soldiers in war, my Lord? To the peasants, and the bastards, and the blacksmith’s boys? The ones without blue blood and silver armour?” 

“I –” Hans swallows. “I suppose –”  

“No one has to worry about them getting ransomed, aye. But that’s because they get fucking killed instead. They get stabbed and gutted. Shot. Beheaded. Hanged.” Henry huffs a breath. Gentles. “I’m sure you’d make a fair corpse, Sir Hans, but I’d rather not test that theory.” 

“I can handle being killed, Henry.” 

Henry raises an eyebrow, and Hans flushes, anger pricking his veins. 

“You know what I mean. I’ve been shot before. I’ve been stabbed. And what’s so terrible about dying, anyway? At least I wouldn’t have to live through it! Christ, Henry. You’ve probably never sat out a fight in your life. You have no idea what it’s like to be me. Watching you go off and risk your life time and again while I just fucking rot here –” The words catch in his throat, and he pinches the web of his thumb hard. No tears. Not here. Not now. “Henry, please. It’s unbearable.”

Henry watches him. “I reckon you can bear it just fine if the alternative is you getting your noble neck wrung.”

“Fucking hell.” Hans searches the stiff lines of Henry’s face, but finds no safe harbour. All of him is withdrawn, locked up, battened down. “Have you no faith in me at all?”

“It’s not about you,” Henry repeats. “Me and Sam – if one of us gets caught, the other might still make it. If you got caught, the whole siege would be over.”  

“Yes! Yes, Henry, it would. This horrible thing that’s been killing us, one by one, and whittling us down, inch by inch, would be fucking over. Is that so bad?” 

“We’d lose, and all of this would be for nothing.” 

“But no one else would have to die. And neither would…neither would you.”

“I’d gladly die if it kept you safe,” Henry says.

It’s so honest, so sincere, straightforward and unadorned, and…and such a spectacular misunderstanding of the point that, for a moment, Hans can only stand there and gape uselessly at him. A hooked fish at the end of a rod. 

Eventually he shakes himself. “Don’t you know that’s what I’m afraid of?” He clears his throat. “Henry, can’t – can’t you just live for me instead?” 

“I intend to,” Henry promises. “That’s why I’m doing this.” He takes another step, brushes past Hans. Turns. As always, his eyes are damnably soft, even when the words on his lips are forged in iron. “I have to go get ready, but – can I see you again? Before I leave?”

In case I don’t come back, he doesn’t say. 

Hans nods. What else can he do? He’s not made of stone like Henry, or Hynek, or Katherine. He’s made of bone, weak and brittle and ragged with wear. Maybe the problem is that Henry still doesn’t understand. Maybe the problem is that Hans doesn’t know how to tell him. He hardly has words for the emotions that live within his skin, that twist in his gut and catch in his throat, that hook into an endless, maddening refrain: 

Henry, Henry, Henry.  

Hans knew more than just Henry, once. More than the soft sound of his voice or the comfort of his sheets, long abandoned. More than the subtle spice of his name, the warmth of his hand, friendly and fleeting. More than the empty space beside Hans, carved in Henry’s ineffable likeliness, a shallow effigy.

A ghost. 

Hans knew more of the world, once, but lately, it feels as if Henry is all he has left. Must he lose that too?

He wanders, and he wonders, and he waits. 

Midnight finds him in his room, on his bed, hands on his thighs, palms up towards the ceiling. Deep grooves part the skin, the limbs of trees with their branches thin and forked. Shadows of veins, purple and green, flit beneath the surface, shy fish in a still pond. 

Some hedge witches claim a person’s life can be read in their hands; the length of it, the love in it. What story will his tell?

Footfalls, soft. The bed creaks. 

“I’ve come to say goodbye.”

Hans turns. For once, Henry is there, by his side. He’s dressed in his unsavoury clothes, the ones that sit tight against his skin and hardly rustle as he prowls about with the easy quiet of a cat. Henry has more outfits than a highborn lady, drags the most outrageous wardrobe around like it’s a cardinal sin to be improperly dressed for any conceivable occasion. How fitting that he would have an outfit for this too. Their last goodbye.

“Already?” 

“Aye.” Henry looks away. “We have to leave at night.”

Hans would pay a king’s ransom for his thoughts, to know the truth behind that furrowed brow, the downward tilt of his lips, the shy cant of his gaze. But Henry was right; some things he cannot buy. Instead, he must forge through the impenetrable forest, bereft of guile or guide, with only his useless words, the crumbs of his heart to be laid to rest amidst the foliage.  

He exhales. “Henry…I’ve been thinking a lot about the two of us. And about what you told me at Maleshov.” 

“And?” 

“You see, once I heard a french minstrel tell a tale of two knights. They met on the battlefield, where they faced each other. One as a commander, the other as a black knight.”

Henry frowns. “And why are you talking about this now?” 

“Wait. I – I’m getting there.” Hans swallows. “In this story there’s something…something I don’t have my own words for.” 

“Hans, I’m sorry. I don’t have time –” 

“Please. Just listen. The commander, Galehaut, saw how valiantly the black knight had fought, and decided to surrender alongside his entire army, even though they had the upper hand. After the battle, the knights met. They grew close to each other, and from then on, they only fought side by side. When on campaign, they slept in the same tent. They even seduced court ladies together.” He clears his throat, cheeks burning. 

Christ. Why did he include that part? 

Henry watches him. He’s quiet for a long moment, his expression unreadable despite how desperately Hans pours over its furrowed pages. Hans doesn’t dare fill the silence, though his gut churns and his chest aches with the weight of it.

When the fevered hush reaches its cruel zenith, when Hans’s fears writhe and take form and unsheathe their claws, Henry speaks.  

“So, how does their story end?” There’s hardly anything to his voice, words slow and soft, as though he feels the pull of it, feels as small as Hans does, crushed beneath its height and breadth and width. 

Maybe there is hope, after all.   

Hans breathes. “They went through a lot together, until Lancelot was eventually captured. Everyone thought he was dead. When Galehaut found out, well…he was distraught. He felt life was meaningless all of a sudden. In the end, he dies too. Of grief and sorrow.”

Hans knows a bit about hearts. His tutor told him amidst their discussions on bones and ligaments and tendons and all the little things that keep a man upright and functioning. He knows his own sits in his chest and beats and keeps him alive with its ceaseless march. 

One day it will stop , his tutor had said. No one quite knows why. But even if you escape death by illness or mortal wound, one day, it will just give up. 

He’d thought it madness then – what fool would simply…quit living when there’s so much of life to enjoy? – but he understands now. How Galehaut felt when the news of Lancelot’s death reached him. It’s all too easy to picture his fierce heart slowing in his chest, bereft of any reason to soldier on in a world without light, without colour.

But Hans has a reason. A reason that’s solid and real and here. 

At least, for now. 

“Henry, if anything happens to you, then…then…” Christ. He can’t fall apart now. He still has to make it through the inevitable moment when Henry gets up from the bed, gives him that soft smile and walks out on him. Maybe for the last time. 

He throws his hands in the air. “Well, why the hell can’t I save you once for a change?”

Across the room, the fire crackles, spits, dies. Douses the room in darkness but for the glowing embers, faint and frail.

Ba-dum. 

Ba – dum.

Ba – 

dum.  

Hans rubs a hand across his face, snuffs out any weakness before it can manifest. Sneaks a glance at Henry, who looks back at him, hands folded demurely between his knees.  

“I’ll be back,” he says. 

Hans shakes his head. He rarely knows anything with certainty, but he knows this: he’s going to lose Henry. To this mission, or to the next. To death, or duty, or marriage, or the scattered thumping in his chest, that fragile bird screeching from within its thunderous cage. 

Would Henry turn away, if he knew? 

Can Hans bear not to find out?    

Henry’s hand covers his own. Fingers curl, hold, tighten. Release. “I promise you.” Bells toll as he unfolds and rises to his feet. A death knell. A dirge. “And everything will be alright.” He takes a step, shoulders hunched, and he’s leaving. 

He’s leaving. 

And Hans – 

“I’ll bring reinforcements –”

Hans surges to his feet. He seizes Henry’s arm, spins him around, yanks him in. The crooked lines of them crush together. Entwine. Entangle. His hand on Henry’s waist, his mouth against his lips. A fire in his cheeks and in his fevered heart; a weakness in his limbs and breathless, aching lungs.

Dizzying, the heights, and then –    

the fall. 

Henry pushes him away, hand firm against his chest. Hans staggers back as Henry turns towards the door, the whole of him hushed with shock, rigid with disgust. 

Ba - dum. 

Ba – dum. 

Ba – 

Hans turns. His vision blurs. The walls are too close, the air too thin. “I’m so…I…I’m…I’m sorry.” Trembling, he snatches at the firewood, pulls the stack into his arms and casts a log into the sickly fire. Say something. Explain. Wave it away. “I..ah…I just, um…”

Christ, he’s a fool. To think – to think that — 

A sharp click. Hans flinches. Footsteps, soft, then loud. Louder. He dares an upward glance as his vision fills with Henry. Firewood crackles against the hard floor, but Hans hardly hears it.

He’s alive. Aflame. 

His lips – 

Henry presses them to his own as though the air is an insult. His hand grips Hans’s nape and draws him close; his fingers trail sparks like restless stars and seed the sun’s giddy warmth into his tender skin.

It’s everything, and yet, it’s not enough. 

With Henry it never is.  

Because in the end, he leaves.

+1 Fuck the Sacks. I’d Rather You Carry My Heart Instead.  

They haven’t spoken since the siege broke at Suchdol. Not with any depth or intent. It’s easy to dance around the ghost of it. To wave away searching looks and lingering touches. Things look different in the light of day, with life on the horizon and death off the table; there’s no telling what Henry thinks or feels or wants, and Hans won’t trap him.

It’s almost enough – Henry by his side and the memory of that night in the marrow of his bones – though Hans suspects he’ll chase the tenderness of those fragile moments for the rest of his days and fall forever short.

He’s different now. Hollowed out yet fit to burst. Hungry and harrowed and full to the brim with all the things he cannot name. 

“Not far now,” Žižka calls. “We’ll reach the Devil’s Den by noon.”  

Hans shares a look with Henry, who offers him a smile, chin tilted up to catch the sun as it flits through the trees. His reins are long, his shoulders loose as Pebbles picks her way along the dusty trail. Hans can’t recall the last time he saw that brow unfurrowed and unsown, free of the weariness so often seeded there like the season’s favoured crop. 

He’d do anything to keep it that way. 

“Let’s go.” He clucks his horse into a trot and breaks from the path. The doughty little gelding isn’t anything like Aethon. He probably isn’t worth Aethon’s left hoof, what with his muddy brown coat, his short tail and scraggly mane. But he’s been with Hans since Maleshov, is the very horse that spirited him from captivity, and he wouldn’t part with him for the world.  

“Hans –” 

“Come on, Henry. The world awaits!”

He moves past Kubyenka and Janosh and their long, ponderous cart full of God knows what, swings around the bend in the path, then forks off into the green wild. A laugh bubbles up in his lungs as the swaying trees engulf him. Welcome him.  

“Don’t get lost,” Žižka yells. 

“Yeah, in each other,” Hynek cackles.

“Fuck off!” Henry calls back to them. 

There’s a smile in his voice though. Hans can hear it, and his own lips twitch up to match. As the trees slip apart into a grassy meadow, he shifts forward in the saddle, throws his hands up along the horse’s neck, tangles his fingers in rugged black mane, and lets him take off. Wind rushes through his hair, and his heart thunders in his chest.

Pebbles pulls up alongside, dapple grey neck stretched out, a fiery glint in her dark eyes. Henry laughs, folded like a crease on her back, hands gripping the saddle as she carries him to victory, beating Hans and his horse to the distant pond by a nose and a half.  

She blows heavily through her nostrils, sides heaving, but there’s no denying the proud carriage of her head, the smugness in the way she snorts and stamps at the soft earth. Hans dismounts, and Henry follows suit. Hands gentle, he strokes Pebbles’s nose and loosens her girth, murmurs fond words into her dappled neck. 

Hans pats his mount’s soft black nose, smooths his hand across the little star of white atop his forehead. 

“Have you named him yet?”

“I think –” Hans clucks his tongue. His traitorous heart skips a beat in his chest. Now or never. “I think I’ll call him Galehaut.”

Galehaut sniffs his empty pockets, lips at the hem of his pourpoint, then deems him irrelevant and drops his head to nip at the long grass.    

“A fine name.” 

Henry doesn’t say anything else, and Hans isn’t brave enough to press him. He watches Henry out of the corner of his eye as he picks through the reeds, yanks plants from the earth and turns them over in his hands. 

“I’m surprised you have room for those.” 

Henry looks up. “There’s always room. Besides, they go off. Fresh is best.” 

“Right, right.”

The pond ripples. Silver fish flick their tails above the surface. Across the bank, a deer sips from the water, ears twitching beneath a glorious set of antlers. 

Hans hums. “I’ve decided to make poaching illegal,” he declares.  

“It is illegal.” Henry huffs a laugh. He draws his belt knife and carefully cuts the flowers free of a squat yellow plant. “You were nearly hanged for it, remember?”

“As if I could fucking forget. I mean the crime, Henry. I’ll make the crime illegal.” He drops down to sit on the springy grass, flings his legs out and rests his weight on his hands. 

“That’s what crime is.” Henry folds the herbs into his pocket, then sits beside Hans. He pushes his legs out too, leans back and fixes his gaze on the water. 

The way his foot cants ever so slightly to the right; their boots nearly touch. There are inches between their hands. Hans feels each one like a physical blow to his chest. He aches to bridge the distance.  

“When did you become so pedantic?” he says instead. “Ugh. Whatever. I mean, I’ll make it legal. To hunt. Around Rattay. And I’ll petition the other lords to do the same. I think Sir Divish would agree. He’s always struck me as a free thinker. Hanush might have a conniption, of course, but once I’m –” He cuts off. Swallows. “Well, once I’m married he won’t have the power to push me around anymore. It’ll – it’ll all be mine.”

“Can you really do that? Isn’t it – well, doesn’t it all belong to the king?”

Hans snorts. “Which one? Oh, who cares anyway?” He waves his hand lazily in the air. “If I can’t, then I’ll just refuse to prosecute it. No one should go hungry because of a stupid law, Henry –” He glances left. Frowns. “You’re laughing at me.”

Henry’s smile is wide. It stretches across his cheeks and crinkles the corners of his eyes. “No. No,” he says. Lies, the lying liar. “I think it’s a fine idea.” His chest heaves with his poor efforts to stifle what is clearly an obnoxious laugh of incredible proportions.

Hans hopes he chokes on it. “Liar.” He sniffs. “If you think it’s so great, why are you laughing?”   

“Because I’m in love with a noble idiot.” 

Hans nearly misses the words. They aren’t soft – if Henry bothers to say a thing, he says it, loud and clear and unapologetic – but the enormous weight of them…

He can’t have heard right. 

Dodge. Distance. Deflect. “That’s no way to talk to your lord, Henry.”

“Oh, a thousand apologies, my Lord. Pray, if you can find it in your noble heart, please forgive this humble peasant.” He rolls his eyes. 

Hans snorts. “You’ve never been humble a day in your life.”

“That’s one more day than you, my Lord.” 

“Honestly, the cheek on you. I’ve let you get away with far too much.” 

He makes the mistake of looking at Henry then. There’s a world of emotion in his gaze, the blue as endless as the satin sky. A promise in there as bright as the setting sun.   

“Aye,” Henry murmurs, leaning in. “And maybe one more thing?”

Their fingers brush amidst the earthy loam. 

Hans swallows. “Let me say something first.”

“Alright. Are you going to tell me another story?”       

“Not this time.” 

He lifts a hand and touches it to Henry’s cheek. Cradles the curve of Henry’s jaw in his palm, and thrills to his core when Henry’s eyes slip shut and he leans into the touch. Breathes. The warmth of his breath tickles Hans’s skin, and it’s so clear, it’s all so clear in the way his heart flutters in his chest, aloft with the borrowed wings of a thousand butterflies.  

Still, the words catch in his throat. 

He sighs. “Do you – do you really have a list of the dumbest things I’ve said?”

Henry tilts his chin and presses a kiss to the base of Hans’s wrist with lips made of fire and flame. “Shall I read it out to you?” 

“What? No. Oh, Christ, no, I don’t think that will be necessary –” 

Henry’s smile etches itself along Hans’s skin. He presses another kiss into the hammering pulse there, then pulls back. 

“Oh, Henry, I couldn’t possibly carry these dreadful sacks. If I sullied my lordly hands in such a heretical fashion, God would surely strike me down! You’ll just have to do it for me, and maybe later I’ll help you find your poor little dog.”

Hans gapes. “I never said that. I – Henry! I never fucking said that.” 

“Oh, Henry, my blood is too blue for dirty labour. It’s an offence against man and nature. Take it away before someone sees me and my good name is soiled forever.” 

“Oh, you fucking bastard.” Despite himself, his lips twitch. “I never said that either.”

“Oh, Henry, carry my sacks for me. There’s a good peasant –”

Hans tackles him. Henry falls backwards with a startled ‘oof,’ and Hans straddles his waist, pins his arms to the grass, leans in until their foreheads touch. 

“Honestly, Henry – fuck the sacks.” He flushes. “I’d rather you carried my heart instead.” 

Henry, the bastard, cackles. He damn near splits his sides laughing, so Hans shuts him up. In the very best way. With hands and lips. With the sun in his hair and the wild world at his back. 

With love. 

End.