Chapter Text
In the twinkling darkness of the countryside, Maleshov fortress stands tall and proud, looming sentinel over the small and quiet village.
And Henry, long having abandoned his attempt to remain stealthy (for either the guards of Maleshov do not know or do not care that he watches from the pond’s bank), keeps his eyes trained on the windows of the castle with a burning intensity. Desperate is he, in the face of improbability, to catch a flash of yellow silk or golden hair in the frames.
Coming to Maleshov tonight had been an honest mistake. He’s still to secure a meeting with the noble family who, until quite recently, if he is to believe Lichtenstein’s intelligence, resided over the Maleshov estate. In complete honesty, he’d assumed that the first time he’d set eyes on the place would be at a later date, while in the process of staging a well-informed rescue mission. But he’s still unused to the Kuttenberg woods, and a few wrong turns in the dark of the night, as he’d made his way toward what he thought was Kuttenberg proper, had been enough to get him properly lost in the thicket. And as he’d ambled around in the dark - as, not expecting to have to travel through the night, he’d neglected to bring with him a torch or Nighthawk potion to light his way - Maleshov had revealed itself to him suddenly and without warning. Seeming to spring from nothing like a spectre, the sight had stopped him in his tracks.
In his mind, as the weeks had barrelled past him in Kuttenberg proper, he’d painted himself a steady portrait of Maleshov. It would be tall and well defended. Not as large as Trosky’s two-headed beast, perhaps, but foreboding in its own right. It would exude a hostile miasma, and its guards would be well-trained and alert as any Praguer aught to be. He would have to be poised for action when the rescue happened, his nerves stretched taut as a new bowstring.
Except, now he’s here. And … well. Somehow, the reality of the place - the sleepy little village, the moon reflecting prettily in the pond’s still surface, the way the guards don’t even try to see him where he watches - cuts worse than any of the horrors he could have imagined. Maleshov is smaller and more placid than most of the towns he’s passed through in the region. They don’t even have a catchpole patrolling through the night in the village. Maleshov’s defiant resistance to his expectation knocks the action out of him, leaving him at once untethered and rooted in the spot.
At his feet, Mutt whines. He paws at Henry’s leg and glances between him and the fortress.
“I know, boy,” he says, momentarily led away from the hypnotic pull of the fortress. He claps his faithful companion between the ears, although he’s not sure which one of them he’s comforting. “I miss him too. But we’ll get him back soon enough. Just … not yet. I don’t think the two of us could take the whole fortress alone, no matter how good a doggy you are.”
Mutt’s tail thumps appreciatively against the dirt path.
On the fortress walls, the guards swap their positions. Slowly. Lazily. The glow of torchlight flickers just above where Henry stands, and were the guard not presumably yawning through his boredom and inattention, he might easily spot the man and his dog standing in the open, not a stone’s throw away. Mutt growls lowly. It pisses Henry off, too. It shouldn’t. The lacklustre performance of the guards bodes well for Hans’ eventual rescue. But it feels almost insulting to him, and to his Lord.
I’d do a better job of guarding him, he thinks, before remembering that, were that actually true, he wouldn’t have to stage a rescue for Hans in the first place.
Katherine had assured him all the way to Suchdol that there hadn’t been anything that he could’ve done differently. He’s just one man, she’d told him, and Otto Von Bergow is too smart for his own good. And he’d had the Hungarian and the Finger of God to help him in his triumph over them, after all. But Henry thinks that maybe if he’d trusted his instincts - that horrible gut-churning he’d felt when they’d assembled in Von Bergow’s fine quarters in Trosky after Hans had nearly hanged - then perhaps he and his Lord would already be back home in Rattay.
Mutt growls again. Or maybe it’s Henry, this time, and that low, angry sound is coming from his own chest.
A singular thought overtakes him.
Before he can stop himself, he’s pulling his bow from his back and notching one of the sharp, black-feathered arrows. Not for the first time in the past month or so, but certainly for the first time with any hope, Henry wishes that his Lord could see him shoot.
He’s still new to the bow and, as such, his movements are not as smooth and fluent as those of someone who has been shooting his whole life. But his arrows strike true and strong these days. A far cry from his marksmanship that afternoon in Rattay, when not a single one of his arrows had hit their target, and his cheeks had burned as Hans had watched on with his lip curled in a surly leer. It would be different now. Having those sharp eyes on him as he shoots. He can see his Lord’s new, revised reaction in his mind’s eye as clear as day. He’d beam when Henry’s arrows land, and smack him on the back, and say something like bloody good shot, Hal, but you’ve clearly just gotten lucky. And it would be backhanded, but the nickname would be said with affection, and the tenderness in his eyes would reveal the truth of the compliment.
Nobody has called him Hal in weeks.
Henry looses the arrow up toward the walls of the fortress. There isn’t any real target to aim for past the glow of a torch, so he knows that it will not strike anything or anyone of consequence. But his form is good, and the arrow sails clean and smooth through the air, into one of the crenels, before clattering on stone somewhere out of sight. There’s quiet, and the sound of someone in plate armour moving. Then, shouts. Calls to attention. More torch glow lights up Maleshov and paints the walls the bright orange of hellfire.
And that, Henry thinks, is more like the Maleshov he’d imagined.
By the time the guards send out their search party to comb through the woods, Henry has already fallen into the shadows. He watches them for a while. Observes the tension now coiled in the soldiers’ movements. Counts them. A dozen or so, but the fortress still glows with those left behind inside the walls.
He hopes that next time, and it probably makes him a monster for hoping so, his arrow will find a home in one of their necks
But for now, satisfied with the knowledge that the guards of Maleshov will perhaps do their jobs properly and guard his Lord with the vigilance and attention that he deserves, Henry turns his back to the fortress and begins walking towards Kuttenberg proper.
➼ ➼ ➼
“A marvellous job, Master,” the marksman tells him, gripping the wood of his new axe and swinging it in the open air to test its weight.
The sharp metal edge cuts through the mild heat of the day with a whistle. It is a nice blade. Henry may have gotten carried away with the commission when he heard that it had come all the way from Maleshov. His blacksmith’s mark catches the light and winks up at him conspiratorially with each swing the marksman makes.
Henry had been surprised when he’d received the commission, but pleasantly so. Naturally, it can only be a good thing that his work is receiving attention from across the wider Kuttenberg region. If his work is being talked about by people - even if only by common folk - then surely the annoyingly stubborn guard of the Ruthards’ townhouse in Kuttenberg will soon forego the abundance of caution (or snobbery) that has had him knock Henry back from the gates three times.
The master marksman, a man by the name of Marek, in what looks to be his forties or so, doesn’t yet slide the axe into his awaiting work belt. He smiles sheepishly. “Although, looking at the quality of this blade, I’m not sure that I can take it from you. Forgive me, but I can’t afford to give you more than a hundred groschen.”
Henry shrugs him off, although he knows that what the marksman says is true. “It’s just a simple work axe, sir. You owe me nothing more than what the Guild rates already ask for.”
“It’s a damned sharp work axe. You could take out a wolf or a bandit with this thing with one well-timed swing. And here I’ll be wasting the edge on timber.”
“Well,” Henry says evenly. “Any work axe worth its money should be multi-purpose, so to speak.”
Marek laughs. “Aye, true enough. Alright. I’ll take it. But only if you’re sure about the cost.”
“I’m sure,” Henry assures him. “A hundred groschen, and an excuse to be out here in the sun, is more than payment enough.”
“First time in Maleshov?”
“Er-” Henry hesitates. Deliberates a version of this conversation that ends with him confessing ownership of the stray arrow that had sailed into Maleshov fortress four nights ago. “Aye. First time here. It’s a lovely village you have here. Peaceful, like.”
It’s not a lie, although Henry’s not sure if you can really call a tavern, a bathhouse, and a general store in a farmer’s back room a proper village, really.
“Peaceful, like. Bloody boring, you mean. But it’s a nice enough place to live for game hunting, if you like that sort of thing,” Marek says. “I have to say, though, that I’m surprised you’ve never been here before. You’d think that, what with the fortress and all, one of that lot would be up your arse for a new sword. But I suppose they probably have someone for that in their ranks.”
That catches Henry’s attention. He decides to feign ignorance. Makes his face as blank as he can before he asks, “That lot?”
“Oh, aye. There’s been a change in ownership recently. Of the fortress, I mean,” Marek says disapprovingly. “Right cock-up that all was. Old Sir Kunzlin’s a decent sort of Lord. Spends most of his time in the city, mind. But decent. And that daughter of his is shrewd as she is lovely, and a dab hand with a crossbow.”
“A noble lady with a crossbow?” Henry asks, momentarily taken aback. He’s met women who can handle themselves with weapons, of course. His Theresa (his heart aches for home at the thought of her) knows her way around a longbow well enough. But a noble lady shooting a crossbow is a new concept for him.
“Just so. Young Sir Ventza had one commissioned for her before he was slain. I’ve seen that girl outshoot most of the men in the town, and confidently too.” And then, looking abruptly worried, he adds, “Although, if you don’t mind, Master … Since your work may have you rubbing shoulders with the likes of them, it’s really best you don’t mention as much to her Lord father. The young lady would surely have my neck wrung before her father even got the chance.”
“She sounds interesting,” Henry remarks, genuinely impressed. His Lord would have liked to hear this - a pretty wench who could outshoot him, and a noble besides. Henry hopes, shamefully, that they never meet. “But they no longer live here, you said?”
“No, sir. Driven out by the ginger fox himself. Now it’s some King-blessed toff holed up in there. Royal something-or-other. I couldn’t tell you. Makes nought of a difference to the rest of us, at the end of the day.”
“They don’t leave often, then?”
“Sometimes soldiers come and go. Messengers ride in and leave with a company. And sometimes you see them in the baths.” Then, he scowls, his face a storm. “They’ve had to be chased out one or two times. Expect the full service, if you catch my meaning.”
“Ah.”
“But mostly, that lot keep to themselves.”
“And,” Henry continues, trying to keep his tone light, “it’s only soldiers in there?”
Marek shrugs. “I’d presume so. I can’t say I make a habit of getting in their way. But who else would you expect to find?”
“I only mean-” Henry cuts himself off. Thinks about how to word this without drawing suspicion. “I just wonder if they’re guarding anything or anyone in particular. What with them waving the Prague banners.”
“I couldn’t tell you, lad. As I say, I keep my nose well out of their business. You’d be better off asking Doro at the baths. She’s the one who manages dealings with them, more often than not.”
“Right,” Henry says, backing down from his impromptu sleuthing mission. “Well. I’ll have to be heading back to Kuttenberg. I don’t like riding through those woods at night. But maybe I’ll stop by next time I pass through.”
As he turns to leave, heading back towards where Pebbles whinnies at the marksman’s front gate, Marek catches his arm, stopping him. “Wait, lad. Before you go. I can’t possibly let you leave with just a hundred groschen. The more I think on it, it’s just not right.”
“Sir, really. It’s fine.”
“No,” the marksman says, adamantly. “I’m quite decided. We’ll do a tradeswap. Let me give that longbow of yours a service. It looks like it’s seen better days. And I’ll even mark on your map the best hunting spots around here.”
“Sir, you really don’t have to-”
“No,” the older man tells him. “It’s decided, lad. You’ll come back in a few days, and I’ll have that bow of yours looking brand new, okay? And call me Marek.”
And the thing is that Henry’s bow - which is to say, Ranyek’s bow, which he pulled from a pit of literal human shit not six weeks ago - surely has seen better days. And Henry needs an excuse to return to Maleshov. And maybe the women at the baths can tell him if they’ve heard anything about a noble captive dressed in fine yellow brocade inside the fortress walls. And so, he agrees to Marek’s proposal and resigns himself to returning to Maleshov in a few days' time.
Before he sets himself on the road back to the city, Henry gives in to the current that washes him toward the tower. He stops for a while to watch the windows of Maleshov fortress once again. For a moment, he thinks he sees movement in the tower’s loftiest windows, and his breath hitches.
But his eyes must have been playing tricks on him, because he watches for another ten minutes after, and sees nothing but darkness.
➼ ➼ ➼
The next time Henry comes to Maleshov - this time to pick up his longbow, which has been sanded, waxed, polished within an inch of its life, and restrung with fine linen string - it’s raining heavier than it has all year.
It used to be that with the rain - and especially the heavy kind, that bounces where it falls and rattles roofs - would come nostalgia.
It would mind him on those days in the early springtime of his youth, when his Ma would caution him against going out in it lest he catch himself a sickness. Still, she’d not chastise him later, when he’d return home from playing in the fields with Fritz and Matthew, drenched to the bone and cheeks tingling from the sharp chill of the rain. She’d simply strip him to his braies and plonk him down decisively in front of the hearth with a warm bowl of stew and a kiss on his brow.
Now, things are different. The nostalgia’s still there, but with time, it’s become a sour thing all twisted up in his gut. It’s not so much a wistfulness as it is a deep ache of longing. For his Ma, and his friends, and for a younger version of himself, unburdened by the weight of a sword and the responsibility that now rests heavy on his shoulders. And now, when the clouds rumble overhead, he’s reminded that the rain, too, belongs to Toth. Each time it rains these days, a part of him is transported back to that tower, where he’d watched Toth’s bones snap on the rocks below, and been troubled only by how little it shook him.
There is a physical ache to it, too. His shoulder hasn’t healed quite right after the arrow at Rocktower Pond. It’s left a cluster of pale, pinched skin on the back of his left shoulder, and a dull pain deep in the joint that smarts when the rain is on its way.
The dirt roads of the village have been transmuted to a thick, pasty mud, which coats poor Pebbles’ legs like poorly mixed limewash, and the water has soaked right through his hood and drips steadily down from his hair and into his eyelashes. Thankfully, he’d felt his shoulder throb when he’d peeled himself from bed in the morning, and had had the foresight to leave Mutt at the forge with Magdalena. He’d debated not making the journey today because of the pain. The marksman could surely wait another day.
But the thought had slipped into the back of his mind unbidden: What if I see him this time?
And then the pain hadn’t seemed all that much of a hindrance.
“Good God, lad,” the bathhouse proprietor, a woman of unplaceable middle age with a fine frilled, white veil, remarks as he approaches her where she sits under the awning of the small wooden building. She speaks with a lightly accented Czech, although he can’t place what accent. “You look as though you’ve been drowned thrice over.”
“Aye, I got, er- I got a bit caught in it, is all,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “I don’t suppose you’re open for business?”
“No. But I’d be sending you to your death, leaving you out in the cold. Come on then,” she chastens him, gesturing toward the bathhouse’s yard. “You can have a bath, and I’ll dry out your clothes while we wait for this rain to pack it in. You’ll have to be content with my help today. I’ve told the girls they can have the morning off on account of the weather. And no funny business. We’re not that kind of bathhouse.”
“Noted,” Henry replies as she leads him toward the farthest tent, although he’d not have asked for it anyway.
That kind of intimacy has been harder to stomach since the Semine wedding. And even when he wants to - actually wants to, like with Klara in the meadow outside of Nebakov, or with the friendly bathwench Elishka at the Kingfisher’s opening celebration - he finds that his mind flits unprompted to the pink impressions of recently discarded armour on bare skin, and a torso dusted with spun gold, and can’t quite bring himself to follow through.
The bathhouse in Maleshov is a cobbled-together sort of thing. The setup is closer to that of the Devil’s Den than that of the Kingfisher, or even the bathhouse back home in Rattay. A handful of tents are set up in the garden of the wooden house overlooking the pond, which blurs silver with the unending ripple of heavy rainfall. Actually, Henry has the distinct impression that until recently, it probably wasn’t a bathhouse, in the official way that bathhouses are, at all. The soil has the look of a farm repurposed for something that is, at least for the meantime, more profitable than a harvest.
The bathhouse proprietor has him strip bare and climb into an awaiting tub, before leaving the tent to hang his clothes in the adjoining building, and to collect a pitcher of freshly hearth-warmed water. The water in the tub is lukewarm, but it’s such a stark contrast to the chilly rain that he finds his skin flushing hot all over. There’s a refreshing aroma of dandelion and mint in the air. It makes his own stench apparent. It’s been a few weeks since he’s visited the baths, and he’s grown used to the odour of the sweat, smoke, and the harsh tang of metal that refuses to wash off in his trough.
He smells, he thinks, like his Pa.
“I wondered when you’d come calling here, blacksmith,” the woman says when she reenters the tent, washcloth and pitcher in hand and sleeves pushed up to the elbow. Her tone isn’t unkind, but it’s not friendly either. Cautious. Her dark eyes pass over his bare form, sizing him up. They trace over the scars that litter his skin, some old and pale, and others pink and puckered, and then over the silver striations along his arms and legs where his muscles have grown too large, too fast. “Marek’s been talking all about you in the tavern. Says you undercharged him for that new axe of his, and that you’d been asking questions. About that lot.”
That lot is a common refrain for the Maleshovites, it seems.
“I’ll take that to mean that you’re Doro, then?”
“Dorottya, until I decide what sort you are. Marek says you’re a decent sort, but Marek says about everyone’s a decent sort, and the poor soul hasn’t half a head of sense on him. What’s your name, lad?”
“Henry. Of Skalitz.”
“Of Skalitz, eh? Have I a Lordling on my hands? Heard about a fortress being emptied out of its keepers, and came running to stake a claim? Or are you just a blacksmith with aspirations above his station?”
Henry hesitates. He really needs to stop introducing himself that way. “Er- I’m no Lordling, Ma’am. I’m a blacksmith, and I’m from Skalitz, and that’s all I meant.”
“Alright, Henry the blacksmith from Skalitz,” she concedes. She dunks the washcloth into the water, massages in some of the fragrant soap, and then wrings it out over the surface of the bath. Begins scrubbing at the skin on his back, and the heat starts to ease the aches in his bones. “So. What exactly does a blacksmith from Skalitz want to know about that old fortress of ours, then?”
“Oh, I just came here to have a bath and some shelter from the rain.”
Dorottya snorts. “Aye. You’ve come all the way from Kuttenberg for a country marksman to wax your bow and to have a bath. We’re not all as bloody dim as Marek, lad.”
“Marek says some of that lot aren’t treating your girls right,” Henry diverts.
“Ach. They’re used to city bathhouses and war camps. When they first came here, they could be … Handsy. But it’s nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“They’re not that way anymore, then?”
“We get new soldiers joining their company now and then. And sometimes, when they get a drink in them, their humours boil over and they forget their manners.”
“I see.”
Dorottya raises an eyebrow skeptically. “And am I to expect that’s what you’re here asking after? The safety of my girls?”
“Well,” Henry shrugs. “I’ve done some security for the municipal bathhouse of Kuttenberg. I suppose I wondered if I could be useful here?”
“And what would you say that’ll set me back, blacksmith?” She asks dubiously, her eyes narrowed in on him with a great deal of suspicion. The washcloth passes over the tender spot on his shoulder, and he winces despite himself. She presses down harder, rubbing the scar with the pad of her thumb. It throbs, and he’s about ready to pull away when Dorottya smacks him on the other shoulder, admonishing him. “I know it hurts, lad, but a wound like this ought to be worked just so.”
“Why? Surely this’ll just make it hurt worse.”
She shakes her head, kneading at the scar with resolve. “The pressure and the heat of my hands help to break apart the armour your body’s built up around it. Most folks think a wound’s healed as soon as the skin’s knit itself back together, but the ones that go deep enough need to be handled long after the fact. I’d bet this scar of yours has you straining to look over your left shoulder, and waking you if you sleep on that side too long.”
“I- Er. Yeah. How did you know?”
“That’ll happen if you don’t loosen up the scar tissue every now and then,” she explains. “If you’ve a lady back home in that forge of yours, have her give it a rub over with some chamomile before you head to your kip. It won’t take away the pain completely, because nothing ever will, but after a while, the skin’ll soften, and stretch with the rest of you.”
“I can’t do it myself?”
The only lady back at the forge is Magdalena, and for some reason, asking her to help him with his bad shoulder feels a bit embarrassing. Like asking his Ma to patch him up after getting into a scrap with Kunesh.
“I suppose you could. It’s harder to deal with these things alone, is all.”
She finishes rubbing over the scar, and the skin tingles from the heat and weight of her hand. Henry thinks about the weeks he spent alone, sleeping in the blacksmith’s store room in Tachov. The wound was still fresh then, and would burn red and angry on the days he moved it too briskly. He’d favour a shortsword on those days, despite the inferior reach, and fill his waterskins with painkiller brew, and the spirits and the poppy would make him feel as though he were outside of himself.
If Hans had been there, then maybe he could have asked-
But no. Even if his Lord had been there, Henry would never have asked.
“Will you answer my question, then, blacksmith?” Dorottya asks, interrupting his train of thought. “What exactly is it that you want from me? In return for security, or whatever it is you think you’re offering.”
And if Dorottya isn’t beating around the bush with it, then neither will Henry. He decides to just come out with it. “I want to know more about the fortress. How many soldiers are stationed there, and the like. If there are any ways in outwith the front gate. And …”
“And?”
“Well. If you know who they have holed up in there. That is, if you’ve seen anyone-”
“Ah,” Dorottya says, as though she’s discovered the answer to a question she never bothered to ask aloud. “You’re here for one of them. Which one is it you’re after? The handsome one, or the annoying one.”
Oh. Henry’s heart drops into his stomach.
“Forgive me, but that doesn’t really narrow things down for me.”
“The blond one with the pretty face and the melodramatic disposition,” she amends, “or the foreign one, who never stops talking?
“Oh, Jesus Christ be praised forever and ever,” he breathes, pressing a hand over his heart. “He’s here. The handsome one. Is the one I’m after, I mean. You’ve seen him, then?”
“From a distance. They have the two of them stowed away in the tower,” she tells him matter-of-factly. The movement he’d seen in the tower! It might have been Hans, after all. “But some weeks back, they took them out for a ride around the pond and back. To keep the blond one from his lamenting, or so the soldiers tell me. The lad’s been mournful as a widow since he got here.”
“But he’s alright? He’s in one piece?”
“He is, now,” she confirms. “He was in rough shape when he arrived. All bruised and battered, and then a fever took him for a handful of days. They had a couple of my girls taken into the fortress to tend to him. But after the fever broke, old Drahomira, their cook, took over his care. And now, he’s at least well enough to have a ride around the pond.”
Christ.
The emotion rolls over him all at once. The confirmation that Hans is nearby - that he’s okay, and Von Bergow doesn’t have him strung up in some dungeon - makes Henry’s body forget all of its aches and pains. And there’s a new ache taking root in his throat, as an embarrassing, sentimental lump begins to form. He blinks rapidly, his cheeks and ears flushing with heat, as stupid, boyish tears threaten to form in his eyes.
“Sorry,” he apologises, his voice thick. He somehow keeps the tears at bay through sheer force of will, but the relief that floods through him is overwhelming to say the least. He tucks his hands under his thighs, and he knows that if he were to raise them, they’d shake. “I’ve been … uneasy. Worried. The last time I saw him …”
Dorottya doesn’t say anything at first, but sits back on the stool next to the tub, and watches him with silent, careful appraisal. Then, she asks, “So, who is he, then?”
“He’s Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein, heir to the noble seat of Rattay.”
“Well, I knew that, lad. It’s apparently all he ever talks about.” She rolls her eyes. “What I mean is: who is he to you?”
The answer to such a question should be simple. But it’s not. Not anymore. He hesitates.
Finally, he settles on an answer, and, even as it strikes true, it feels like an understatement: “He’s my friend. My best friend.”
She’s silent for another moment and then sets her jaw, appearing to come to some unspoken decision. “You know, it’s a terrible shame what that lot did to the Ruthards. Especially young Ventza. He was a kind boy. Mischievous and a terrible influence on that sister of his, but kind. Only five and twenty summers and gone over the petty grievances of Kings. It’s not right, that.”
“No,” Henry agrees, feeling hollow. “It’s not.”
Then: “Say, I could use the help of a blacksmith. It’s a matter of security. Could I place a commission with you, Henry?”
➼ ➼ ➼
After the rain has stopped, Henry sets off back to Kuttenberg with a refreshed fixity of purpose.
He feels more firmly anchored than he has in weeks. Since the night they’d spent in Nebakov, before Otto Von Bergow, Istvan Toth, and Markvart Von Aulitz arrived, borderline comically, like a bona fide parade of all of his most detested people.
The sun, which has reappeared in the still-grey sky after three hours of torrential downpour, casts the fortress in pretty yellow light as it begins to set. As is now routine, Henry pauses for a while at the pond, just barely concealed by the forest’s edge, and watches, meditative. He can only see two guards on the walls this evening, talking amicably with one another. One of them says something that the other seems to find terribly funny, because whatever it is has him doubling over laughing, leaning casually over one of the wall’s crenels.
Distracted. Again.
Henry pulls his bow from his back. The wood feels solid in his hands, and the string is taut and unfreyed. He notches one of the arrows and takes aim at the laughing man. It would be an easy kill. He could have him right between the eyes and dead before he even knows what hit him. He draws the bowstring taut and angry.
And then something catches his eye.
Hans Capon, eyes sorrowful and lips downturned, rests his elbows on the window’s frame, resplendent in the golden haze of the sun.
Henry lowers the bow, his previous endeavour forgotten.
In the weeks since Nebakov, Henry’s had his sights set solely on this - on finding his Lord, and on freeing him. Despite first Zizka’s and then Jobst’s not uncertain reassurances, it’s remained a constant aspiration in everything that he does. I can’t abandon my Lord, he’s told Katherine and the Dry Devil and John bloody Lichtenstein. And that’s true. It’s never a lie. Hans is his Lord, and Henry has a duty to protect him - a duty entrusted to him by his Father and Sir Hanush. Except, somewhere between the stocks in Troskowitz and the executioner’s boot on the stump in Trosky, duty had started to feel like a transparent excuse for something else. Something which Henry knows but never dares to name, and which threatens to leap forth each time he watches his Lord laugh or smile or bloody well scorn him.
Who is he to you?
When he sees him at that window in Maleshov fortress, the answer to that question is laid painfully bare; Hans Capon, to Henry, is everything.
➼ ➼ ➼
Henry’s sleep that night is fitful and restless.
His fingers itch to have the commission finished. It wouldn’t take him long, and if he borrowed a horse from Groom Hanniker and let Pebbles rest in the yard, he could be ready to head back out to Maleshov by dawn. But by the time he’d arrived at the forge, long after the sun had set, Magdalena had closed up the shop for him and was snoring audibly in her chamber. And he has neighbours to worry about, now - he’s not sure how well the folks at the Hole in the Wall would take to being awoken in the middle of the night over a single farmer’s horseshoe.
Blessed by a priest, if you can manage it, Dorottya had said. Henry wonders if the local chapels of Kuttenberg take those kinds of requests, or if that will turn out to be another ordeal in and of itself.
But heading back to Maleshov so quickly would be fruitless, anyway. He wouldn’t be giving his new friend time to tally up the soldiers who visited, or ask them any of the questions he desperately needs answers to. Hans is fine, he tells himself, and he’d serve him better with a decent night’s sleep and a well-thought-out plan of attack. But he tosses and turns. Mutt snorts by his side. Outside, he hears the familiar squabbling of drunkards. His shoulder aches.
And eventually, as the sky begins to pink, Henry gives up on sleep, lights a candle, and sets himself to writing his Lord a letter.