Chapter Text
Henry looked down at the unconscious lump of Hans Capon and bit through the soft skin of a half-eaten pear.
The flesh was dry and browned. Grooves of perfect teeth remained on the edges of the rich, almost sickly green skin.
He tongued the marks, memorizing the shape of each tooth.
He thought a silent prayer, an apology to God Himself. For the indirect kiss he was devouring from a man he had taunted into damnation.
Because Henry had always been like this.
If it wasn't Hans, it would have been someone else. Time and time again in Henry's life, men would proposition him. Touch him, say too little, but just enough.
Either his presence turned men into sodomites, or he attracted them like flies.
Hans was just the most recent in a line of many.
Henry hated this about himself, even if he could not deny it. It was his cross to bear.
He'd gotten too close to the young lord, led him on. He'd thought it was safe. He couldn't count the number of bathwenches and barmaids Hans had laid with. He'd thought, surely, this one wouldn't be turned.
Dried spill streaked the wooden frame of his bed. In the pressed-earth floor, indentations remained where his knees must have dug into the ground.
As though his act had mimicked a kneeling prayer.
Henry stepped on the grooves, scuffing the floor until he couldn't see them anymore. He took water from the pitcher on his nightstand and wetted the stains, scrubbing with his fingertips until the discoloration blended out.
He brushed his damp fingers over his lips, daring himself to taste it. Stopping just short.
He left his room, finding a laundry basin to dip his head into. He was filthy from the labor, anyway. It was just as well he cleaned up.
He scrubbed his face, then his arms, his chest. He let water spill from his shoulders in rivers down his back. A sniff check told him the attempt to clean himself had hardly been worthwhile, but tomorrow would consist of hours of horseback riding and bloody combat, so he didn't bother wasting his few scraps of soap.
The water from the basin cooled his head as much as the distance from Hans did. Henry had to wake him, take him back to his quarters. If he'd sobered up alright, it wouldn't be a task that involved much touching. If Hans hadn't, Henry could expect his master to lean against him on every staircase.
He returned to his room. Best to be done with it.
He threw the fur off of Hans’ shoulders, eyes darting immediately to the exposed thighs of a man with his hose pulled halfway down his legs.
Christ alive.
“In my bed?” He asked, affronted. Henry had hoped he could have feigned ignorance, but the bastard had simply left him without that option.
Hans scrunched his face, a hand lifting to cover his ears at the sudden noise.
“Whuh—?”
He blinked up at Henry, the wetness of his eyes a white highlight in the otherwise nearly pitch room.
“You've got your pants down to your ankles, what kind of idiot do you take me for? First that move at the forge and now this, you're a damned dog in heat!”
Hans' eyebrows raised, and his head turned, examining himself rather hurriedly as he came to consciousness. “No, no no no, I can explain!”
He fumbled to pull the fabric up his legs, making himself half decent. “I was just… trying to strip, for bed. Too drunk I guess. I fell asleep before I could even get out of my hose.”
It was almost believable, if not for the stain. As if to mark his guilt, Hans glanced at the very spot where it had been, shoulders easing at the evident lack of proof.
Henry reigned in his fury. The problem with sodomites was that they were all liars. One sin necessitated the other.
To carry on talking to Hans, pretending nothing happened, made him just as much of one.
“...very well,” he muttered. “Think you can get to bed, then?”
Hans stood, fingering the ties of his braies, knotting them loosely.
With his hands still over that most sinful place, he said, “I’ll be alright. You ought to get dressed yourself if we're heading to the castle.”
Henry caught Hans’ eyes pouring brazenly over his bare skin. The trail of his gaze cast shivers in its wake.
Henry left briefly to fetch his tunic, abandoned on a table in the forge.
When he returned, Hans was already standing outside, arms folded over his chest.
He seemed sober enough to walk himself, for which Henry was grateful. Henry lit a torch and held it aloft as they set off towards the castle.
Few guards were stationed between the two points, but each was bored enough by the droll of a night's watch that they made sure to greet Henry. He smiled kindly to each, hoping it wasn't the sort of smile that stirred men's loins.
Kindness, Henry found, was almost always punished.
Some guards even remarked teasingly on Henry's companion, and the strangeness of their late-night activity. They didn't suggest sodomy outright, but sex, certainly. A shared partner, or a coy mistake. A relationship closer than what it ought to be.
Their words sat in his stomach like spoilt milk.
Hans quipped playfully back every time it happened. It couldn't be lost on him how deathly silent Henry fell every time it was even suggested they might have been up to such things.
They hardly shared a word between them, not until they made it to the kitchens, which were blessedly empty.
Hans paused long enough to peruse the leavings on the long table, plucking a stale bread roll from a wicker basket.
“How's the sword, then?” He asked, pinching the hard shell of the bread apart to reveal the fluffy insides.
Henry watched silently as Hans dug his fingers into the white dough, tearing a chunk out to tuck between his lips.
He ate like a temptress.
“It's alright.” He settled on, not interested in making this any longer than it had to be. Just a few rooms away, now. “I'll have it for you tomorrow morning.”
“Long and hard?” Hans asked, chewing. Henry grit his teeth.
At his reaction, Hans' lip twitched into a guilted smile. “Sharp?”
“Sharpened it myself.”
“You're really no fun, are you?” Hans asked, sitting on the long bench beside the table. Henry barely held in a sigh.
“I'm plenty fun when there's fun to be had. But it's late, and I'm in no mood for games.”
“Well it's late and I'm famished. You ought to be too, I saw you at the banquet. Hardly ate a thing. Come, eat.”
He held out his bread crust. Hans didn't eat bread crusts, it was just as much good to him now as it would be on the floor. Offering it was hardly a gesture of good faith.
Still, Henry found himself lowering onto the bench beside Hans, taking his scraps.
He bit into the edge of the crust, ignoring Hans' relentless staring.
The bread practically sopped up all the moisture in his mouth, leaving him dry. It sat heavy in his already upset stomach.
There was mead on the table. He ignored it.
“Have you had much experience fighting, since the pillories?”
Hans was squeezing a tuft of soft bread into a ball between his fingertips. The idle actions only made Henry frighteningly aware of the lithe, sensual nature of his fingers.
Henry looked away. “A bit. Bandits are about as plentiful in these parts as dandelions. Wasn't making an effort to, though.”
It was disturbingly normal.
He took another bite, speaking through the mouthful. “You've been practicing your shot, though?”
Hans huffed, amused. “Shooting bucks. Hardly the same as shooting an armored man.”
“It may come into play.”
“We're going to have to come at Nebakov through a gorge. They'll have the high ground. If anything, we're the ones at risk of being shot.”
Henry didn't say anything. The time was soon approaching, and the idea of being shot at again made his shoulder itch.
“We're leaving with a veritable army, tomorrow. We have nothing to fear.”
He stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth as Hans said:
“I hope so.”
He took Hans to his chambers without incident.
Henry walked back to his quarters beside the forge in silence. The guards along his path were the same, and having already had their way with him only nodded their greetings now. He gave about half of them any recognition at all, his own curt nod poisoned by the expression fixed upon his face.
He felt ill.
Henry closed the shoddy wooden door of his quarters behind himself and doused his torch. Mechanically, he stripped off his tunic, hose, and shoes.
Only when he approached his bedside was he reminded of the filth that soiled it.
He cursed.
“Father, forgive me.” He muttered. For cursing, for having the capacity for thought and wasting it on this.
The fur had been cast aside by Hans in his rush to cover himself, and Henry rediscovered it crumpled at the foot of the bed, half its length slouched onto the empty crate and draping onto the floor. Obviously, a lord hardly expected to make up his own bed, let alone a lesser’s.
Henry lifted it, laying it across the middle of the cot.
He imagined what Hans might have done. Here, surely, was the worst of it. Had that stain been there before? He thought it might still be wet, but didn't dare touch. Henry readjusted the edge of the pelt until it covered everything he deemed suspicious.
Carefully, he laid down.
The weather was such that he didn’t mind not laying beneath the fur, but the bristled hairs tickled him and barbed his side as he adjusted, attempting fruitlessly to get comfortable despite the desecration of his most vulnerable of spaces. He shifted his head against his pillow, freezing suddenly.
Surely. Surely Hans had done something with the pillow.
He ignored the salacious images his mind provided. Of Hans grinding against it, or pressing his lips against the fine patch of drool Henry had left just last night. Tried to ignore them, anyway.
Henry considered flipping the pillow over, but even as he did so, he knew he couldn’t trust the damned thing. Hans hadn’t done well to hide much of what he’d done, but if he’d done anything to the pillow, it would only make sense to at the very least flip it.
Defeated, Henry threw it to the floor. He folded his arm and cupped his ear with the fat of his thumb. It was a bare equivalent, but Henry had slept in far worse conditions.
At dawn, he met the blacksmith for his own kit, suited up, and headed for the stables.
His neck ached, and turning to the right was difficult. His mouth was tacky and his eyes were dry. His stomach still felt horrible, now as if something was trying to chew its way through him.
But the weather was good, and he was as well outfitted for combat as anyone could ask to be. He tried to be grateful.
A part of him worried he would have to wake Capon himself, holding up the whole assault. His pleasant surprise at finding Hans already on his horse as he reached the stables was soured by the words that left him.
“What do you mean a full-frontal assault? Isn’t that needlessly dangerous?”
He found Pebbles and scratched her neck, quick to retrieve her bridle from the groomsman fitting her, weaving it over her nose and ears. Chamberlain Ulrich dismissed Hans’ concerns, and Henry readied himself mentally to reassure his young lord that, yes, going straight for the castle’s doors was a stupid plan.
He counted his arrows. A bow wouldn’t be much use once they made it to the castle walls, but maybe it could service them if anything happened before.
He found a stirrup with his foot and lifted himself up into his saddle.
As familiar with Aethon as Henry was his rider, Pebbles naturally sidled up to the blue roan, snuffling as their heads knocked together.
Hans looked at Henry, noticing him for the first time. He radiated frustration.
Stopping him just as he opened his mouth, Henry grumbled, “Save it. Here's your sword.”
The sword stifled his anger just enough. He took it in a gauntleted fist, testing its weight.
“You made it longer,” he said.
Henry watched as their horses fought over the spare blades of grass creeping through the sandy pathway. If Hans tried another damned cock joke…
“Said I would.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
That was the last of it. The company set off, and with the caravan as big as it was, the trample of horse hooves left little room for conversation.
They followed the roads, too big a band for the usual bandits to bite. The few towns they passed through had their fair share of gawkers, but no incidents arose.
It was a short enough ride that they didn't need to rest their horses, and quickly valleys turned to woods and flat dirt roads became narrow hillside slopes.
They shuffled from rows of four to two, and Henry found himself beside his lord. The incline of their path left enough space between each pair of horses that the thunderous applause of hooves was quieted, noise tangling in the thick brush of the forest undergrowth.
“I can't believe we're just going straight in,” Hans began, as if the complaint had been cocked and ready since before they'd left Trotsky.
“Its a horrible idea,” Henry agreed, looking first before then behind them to make sure no one that mattered overheard.
They were only 2 sets away from the Chamberlain, easy to spot in his ostentatious teal chaperon. Ahead of him, a fair ten men made up a vanguard.
“If it were me,” Hans started, glowering at the bobbing splotch of teal, “I'd have—”
Several explosions battered Henry's ears at once.
He watched as Chamberlain Ulrich's horse bullied its way past the vanguard in flight.
Pebbles, ever quick to startle, threw Henry before he even understood what was happening.
His vision became spotty. Having been thrown before, he made a rapid assessment of his body— battered, but otherwise fine. He hadn't struck his head, or if he had, his helmet had done its job.
He stood, drawing his sword. A dappled grey horse lay dead on the road beside him.
A simple brown leather bridle wrapped its unmoving muzzle. For a second, he thought it was Pebbles.
Stupefied, it took him until he saw the rider, crushed under the horse with his legs still tangled in the stirrups, to realize that it wasn't. He looked around, but his horse was nowhere to be seen.
“HENRY!”
He followed the voice, spotting Hans' yellow gambeson like the vibrant shock of poppies blooming in a wheat field. Only this wheat field was decidedly green, and quickly becoming red as blood soaked the earth and spattered the plants.
Instantly, everything was terrible. It took him too long to realize a man nearby wasn't an ally, armored so familiarly and bending forward towards another fallen soldier from Trotsky. Only when he thrust a dagger into the man's chest did Henry realize, running him through on his unused blade.
“Bastard!”
“Henry!”
He slid his sword free and stumbled towards Hans' voice, picking up a fallen soldier's shield along the way. He hadn't brought one, preferring to use a double-handed weapon. But the explosions were coming from the ridges above, felling soldiers at every angle.
Henry threw the shield up to protect his right side, pushing through the carnage to find his lord.
Hans stumbled towards him once he was close, lifting the visor of his helmet just long enough to show how frightened he was.
“It's a fucking massacre!” He cried, letting the metal flap fall again, looking about.
“It's an ambush,” Henry replied. He had to raise his voice over the roar of battle. “We need to get through whatever area they've set up.”
He matched Hans as he lifted his sword, not sure who they were striking just yet, not until he turned to find the mercenary that had been in his blindspot. Hans struck first, and the brigand caught his new blade on a large shield, leaving himself open for a strike to the skull. Henry swung, and the crunch of metal and bone resounded as the man crumpled.
“Let's move!”
There was no time to evaluate anything. How many they'd lost. Who was winning, how many enemies there were. He thought he might've seen that teal chaperon trampled and bloody, but he had no time to check.
Henry spotted a patch of blood blooming on Hans' thigh, but there was no time to pat down corpses for spare bandages and tinctures.
“Here,” he managed, forking over a round bottle from his pouch. It wouldn't stop the bleeding, but it would keep him from dropping if it came that close.
Hans didn't drink it immediately. Doing so would require lifting his visor. As scattershots continued to rain down, it wasn't worth the risk.
Henry followed Hans through blood-slicked mud, over fallen horses and logs and bodies. They killed two more ambushers together before finding the end of the road, where overturned carts blocked their path.
“This way!”
Henry followed Hans as he made his way around the blockade. Here, a larger pile of men clashed, and Henry found himself helping a soldier he didn't recognize. First to finish off his aggressor, then to his feet.
Almost as soon as he was up, he buckled, shot.
Henry cursed, moving forward.
He lost track of Hans briefly. Searching for him as he rounded the blockade, Henry found him crouched low beside a throng of archers.
Henry shouted, diverting their attention. Hans managed to strike two down before they could switch to closer ranged weapons. By then, Henry was upon them too, and together they quickly dispatched every one.
Hans was stumbling, now.
“Drink that damned potion,” Henry barked, catching Hans under the armpit as he stumbled. Another enemy appeared in the bushes.
He stepped away from Hans long enough to strike the new opponent.
He hadn't realized there were more. Many more.
Hans cried out. Henry spun. Someone grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back.
A blade pressed against his throat. More importantly, a matching blade pressed against Hans'.
“You can't kill him!” Henry cried, at the same time that Hans wailed, “don't you know who I am?”
The sounds of death filled Henry's ears as, around him, Sir Otto's soldiers were felled one after another. There were more enemies than allies now, at least in the nearby vicinity. Maybe only enemies.
A man dressed like a captain lifts his helmet, revealing a quaffed moustache and a Cheshire smile.
Henry looks death in the face and bares his teeth. Despite everything that Hans Capon is, Henry cannot let him die.