He felt life was meaningless all of a sudden. In the end, he dies too. Of grief and sorrow.
---
Но не сомкнуть кольцо седых холмов,
И узок путь по лезвию дождя,
И не ищи — ты не найдешь следов,
Что Воин Вереска оставил, уходя
With regards to all that post about possible kcd3 plot, Henry probably joining Zizka for Hussite wars and Hans being on opposite side for battle of Zivohost
I have vision
Hans seeing Henry dying by Eric's hand, killing Eric, holding Henry's body in the battle aftermath
and after all that leaving Petr Konopistsky side, effectively never fighting in Hussite wars afterwards
This all started with @bad-system's post about Henry affiliating with the Hussites in a possible third game, and the dawning realisation that yes, the Hussite Wars being the grand finale of KCD is actually a quite probable scenario, and yes, it would put our boys on the two opposing ends of this conflict.
You have been warned. (I'll spoil you that much: no character death in this story. Doesn't mean no hearts getting slaughtered, though.)
I
When Hanush stormed into his study, Hans was reading, or so it seemed. The book lay open on the table in front of him, flickering candle light illuminating the thin, fading letters just enough against the darkness that gloomed outside. His eyes were rushing across the parchment like a swarm of wasps, hectic and fast, and just like wasps, they couldn't understand the words that they touched. His mind was wandering elsewhere, and yet this elsewhere was still too dreadful for his thoughts to acknowledge it properly. It can't be, was the only thing they brought forth occasionally. They must be wrong. How could they not? It can't be.
Whatever hope for doubt there was got shattered when Hanush flung the letter down on the table, with such force that it left a cut as thin as a hair where it hit Hans's outstretched hand. Hanush didn't say anything, but his breath was heavy and hoarse. He didn't need to talk. Everything he could have said was explained in the letter, and even that letter wasn't necessary, because Hans knew already. But it can't be, his mind screamed one final time, helplessly, hopelessly, then it gave up. It was. The wasps had landed on the letter, and they had finally found a sentence that they could understand. Radzig Kobyla's bastard, they read, in Prague, conspiring with the Hussites.
“Read it.”
Hans's eyes slid over to the window, behind which the world was collapsing in on itself, dripping from the rain like carelessly applied paint on a wall.
“Or read it not then.”
“There's no need to.” His own voice was hard to recognise, it could have just as well been the wind howling in the cracks of the walls, had the words not burned in his throat.
“So you know already.”
“I found out this morning.”
“How? Did he tell you?”
Hans didn't reply. It hurt too much. In his throat, he tried to convince himself.
“He didn't then.” Hanush took a step back, turned away, hands pressed into his sides, as if he had just ran up all the stairs of Pirkstein thrice, robbing him of all the breath he had in him. He proved this supposition wrong immediately. “For fuck's sake!” His voice was so loud that it echoed from the walls like a bell. “How many people in this godforsaken country know about it already?”
“Not too many, I reckon.” Against Hanush's bellowing screams, Hans's words were not much more than a breath of wind.
“Well I sure hope so!” Hanush spun around again, his finger slamming down on the letter as if he wanted Hans to look, just look God damn it, but Hans's eyes were still fixed on the window pane, where the world melted into ugly splashes of varying greys. “Radzig Kobyla's bastard! Knight of the house of Leipa! Siding with the enemy!”
Hans swallowed, and it hurt but not in his throat, Christ, he couldn't even feel his throat anymore, couldn't feel his face or his hands either, only his chest and the sting in it. “Seems like he has made a decision.”
“But he had no right to ever make this decision!”
“If he feels like this is the more sensible battle to fight in, then he will go for it, there is no stopping him, he is a free man, he will –“
“But he isn't!” A noise tore through the air, as Hanush gripped the letter so harshly that it ripped, only to throw it back down a moment later. This time it caught the candle flame on its way and tumbled to the ground like a shot-down bird. “Fucking hell, he isn't! He has never been! But you, you always felt the need to treat him as one. And now all of us have to lie in this shit-covered bed that you have made!” Hanush leaned in closer now, close enough for Hans to smell his breath and the stench of way too much wine in it. His voice was quieter when he spoke again, nothing more than a threatening hiss. “He is your vassal, Hans. So bring your disloyal dog to heel. Before someone mistakes him for a wolf and cuts his treacherous head off.”
* * *
Heinrich swung the wooden sword around as if it was a burning stick with the most detestable insect dangling from its end. He would blame the heavy rain for it if his friends asked him about it, or the clothes that were just a little too big for him still, or perhaps the cawing of the crows that had distracted him, he always found an excuse. It was a miracle, Hans pondered, how a boy could be so skilled with a needle or a chisel or even a forging hammer, and yet so ungifted with something as simple as a sword.
Hans shivered, the cold creeping under his pourpoint, biting into his skin. He blinked quickly a few times against the rain drops that got stuck in his lashes, and for a while the greyness of late autumn vanished in front of his eyes and gave room to lush summer sun, so bright that he was convinced he could feel the warmth on his skin. The vision seemed as real as a dream often did, and it had been real once, more than ten years ago. Jitka sitting on a chair in the middle of the grass, a servant had carried it outside for her. She was leaning over the back rest, one hand pressed to the roundness of her belly, her eyes were closed, her face seemingly at ease for someone who didn't know her as well as Hans did. He had been watching her closely during his training fight with Henry, as if that could keep it from happening. A part of him – a big part, that was – was scared for her, since he knew damn well what giving birth could do to a woman. Another, even bigger part was scared for himself.
The sword hit his shoulder, ever so lightly, not to harm, only to bring him back to reality. “What's that long face about?” Henry laughed. He had the fucking guts to laugh! “You'll be a father soon! That's some cause for celebration, eh?”
“Celebration?” Hans glanced over to Jitka, hoping he hadn't squeaked out the word loud enough for her to hear, or that if he had at least she wouldn't notice the repulsion in it. Cautiously, he lowered his voice as he continued. “What is to be celebrated about this? It's more like this child has already tied an iron chain around my ankles. I can feel it dragging me down to the bottom of the river!”
“This is a gift, you know, not some cruel divine punishment.” He laughed again, the fucker. “And let me tell you this, from bastard to becoming father: A child doesn't even have to change anything, if you do not want it to. You might as well give it over to a wet nurse, and talk to it once every other week if that's what you prefer.”
Hans let his sword cut through the air, metal hit metal, a spark broke away from their blades. His skin felt as if it was on fire, too, and the air was filled with the smell of sun-burned grass, blending in with marigold and sweat. “But that's just the thing, I do not prefer! I had the pleasure,” he spat the word out like venom, reinforcing the meaning with another blow of the sword, “of growing up without parents. I won't let my children suffer the same fate.” Henry blocked the stroke, followed it up with a quick aim for the upper thigh that Hans parried lazily before letting his shoulders sink down. “It's just that I don't feel ready for it yet, either.”
The smile that Henry gave him was warmer than the summer sun and way more pleasant. “You won't be alone in this, you know? Jitka will be a wonderful mother, I'm sure of that. And I will keep a close eye on little Heinrich as well. Or on Henriette.” His mouth twisted to a crooked smirk. “Although I have to admit, I'm wishing more for a boy. I could teach him some things on the anvil, so that one day, when he grows tired of politics, he can just run off and become a smith. Like his father.”
It had to be a joke, a half one at least, but it sounded so sincere that Hans just couldn't hold back the soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “A child with a mother and two fathers?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Hans closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief, and then he stepped forward and lowered his voice once more, while his left hand, covered in a thin leather glove, found its way to Henry's shoulder. “You don't need to do this, you know that. This is my child, my blood, my responsibility. Not yours.”
“You are my responsibility.” Henry brought his free hand up, placing it on Hans's, their fingers intertwining, and, God, after all this time this one simple touch still seemed to lift all the weight of his sorrows off Hans's chest. “And so is Jitka, by extension, and so is this child. I wasn't of Martin's blood either, yet he was the one who raised me, the one who called me son. I don't see why that has to be any different with this one.”
Heinrich screamed as he hit himself with the training sword. The summer sun disappeared, the warmth, the smell of grass and flowers and sweat, the sight of Jitka, her hand resting on the unborn boy. Here he was, right in front of him on the practice ground, and everything was different, every sweet word uttered all these years ago twisted into a lie. Because Henry wasn't really to Heinrich what Martin had been to him, or maybe Martin hadn't been that either, who knew. Hans's children weren't truly Henry's, and every hug, every kiss on the forehead, every lesson at the forge and every bedtime story hadn't kept him from running off to pursue his own goals. Not giving a fuck that he was putting the whole house of Leipa in danger, Hans and Jitka and the children, his responsibilities, as he had called them once, but the word felt like a mockery now. Maybe, Hans thought bitterly, blood was truly running thicker than anything else. Maybe, in the end, Henry had more of Radzig Kobyla in him than he himself believed or wished.
There were footsteps approaching, softly placed but still distinguishable from the rain. Jitka came to a halt next to him, leaning over the balustrade of the training ground just as he did, and for a brief moment he could have sworn that there was a round belly underneath her poppy-red dress, but it had just been the memory, clawing itself out of the pits of Hans's mind one last desperate time, before he banished it for good. Jitka didn't look at him, but she didn't say anything either, and there was a sadness in her eyes. So she knew.
Hans allowed himself one final deep breath before he uttered the inevitable. “I will be going to Prague.”
“Prague?” She laughed as if surprised but it sounded shallow. She had always been a smart woman, sharp with her wits and words, but never with her lies. “What business does the Lord of Rattay have over there in sacred Prague, and in these troubled times no less?”
“My visit is concerning the Hussites.”
She nodded. The feigned smile faded completely, the sadness returned stronger than before, but not because of the truth this time, but because he lied. “It's concerning him.”
Hans didn't reply because it wasn't necessary. They watched Heinrich for a while, as he fumbled around ineptly with his wooden sword. The boy's movements had become even more sluggish now, though not from exhaustion. He was listening, and of course he wouldn't let them know just yet, hoped to keep his parents in ignorance just a bit longer, so that they would continue their conversation. Only later would he come running to his father and whine about his departure, perhaps he would even wait until tonight when Hans was already tired and worn out from the day's preparations. He was almost as smart as his mother, that little brat.
“He is acting foolishly!” Hans sighed suddenly, and, at first, he wasn't even entirely sure who he was talking about. “I have to go and see him myself, bring him back to his senses somehow.”
Jitka laughed, but there was no happiness in her laughter, only bitter valerian and sharp steel. “Well, good luck then. You will need it.” She turned to go back to the city, arms wrapped tightly around her chest, against the cold, or so Hans hoped. Then she stopped again after a few steps, faced him once more. “This is Henry of Skalitz we are talking about.” Her voice was loud and clear against the rain, and heavy from concern and despair. “No one can bring this man to his senses, Hans, as long as he doesn't will it himself. Not even you.”
II
It was almost ironical, how close their hideout was to the royal castle. A promise to themselves, a reminder of what was to come, a threat to their enemies, had they been smart enough to actually find them.
Or dumb enough, really. It had only taken Hans half a day to do so. For a few hours he had wandered around the city, asking whoever seemed dubious enough to not get him or Henry into any further danger, and even then he hid his true intentions and identity well. As well as he could, that was. He just hoped that the hood of the cheap, grey woolen coat he was wearing covered his face enough as to not invite anyone to ask questions about why his skin was this smooth and neatly shaven or why his hair was shining and smelling of roses. Maybe he should have visited Trosky again, for old times' sake, and asked them to cover him in shit once more. That might have done the trick.
The sun had started to set and Hans had relocated his search to the local taverns. Just to one, in fact, because it was there that he stumbled across Kubyenka, of all people. Under different circumstances, Hans would have been brimming with joy about finding that old drunkard still alive and thriving, but this night all he managed was a soft smile and a nod. Kubyenka, on the other hand, had turned into a waterfall of talk and emotion, and in the span of only one beer, he had told Hans everything that he needed to know and even offered to accompany him to their hideout himself.
The first person Hans had met there was Godwin. Of course. He couldn't even tell why it surprised him. Their conversation was reduced to the briefest formalities, a few questions about Hans's family's well-being, and some quick chitchat about the Prague weather. Then they both reached the limits of what little they were comfortable with sharing, and followed it up with a long and unpleasant silence. At last, Godwin stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him, held him for a while, and it felt just like back then, like reassurance before a battle, like the attempt of a final goodbye, should everything go to shit. It was nice. Needed. When they finally parted again, Hans took a deep breath and prepared for the worst. “You know why I'm really here.”
“I do. But he's gone. Went out with Žižka.”
“When will he back?”
“Tonight? Tomorrow? God knows, the two of them always get caught up in something.”
“I will wait then. And if it takes a whole week. I will wait.”
He didn't have to wait for a week. It might have been shortly past midnight, when the door was pushed open and two pairs of booted feet stormed inside, their steps elated, almost floating. Hans couldn't see them from where he was sitting alone in the neighbouring room, but the sound of Henry's walk was enough for him to know that it was him, and to make his heart ache even more terribly than in the last few days and weeks before.
“Godwin!” The deep voice that would usually soothe every nerve in his body now made his hands shake from cold sweat, and Hans tucked them more tightly under his armpits, to remain as steadfast in his position on the edge of the table as he possibly could. “You won't believe it, but we actually convinced them! They will –“
Henry looked like a man that had stumbled out of a merry bathhouse straight into his executioner. Whatever bright smile had been visible in the short moment when he entered the room, vanished within the blink of an eye. His mouth opened like that of a stranded fish, unable to form any words. The shock on his face made Hans realise how much older he had grown. Not just in the past weeks that they hadn't seen each other, but in the decade that lay behind them. Had the wrinkles next to his eyes always been this deep? And were those some grey strands of hair on his temples, reflecting the candle light like molten silver? They hadn't been there before, Hans thought, when he had dragged Henry away from Pirkstein into the woods, just after his accolade, but then again, that before had been ten years ago now, a moment preserved in time like a marble stature when their lives had still belonged to each other, and now the politics and plays of power rampaging around them seemed to have cut all ties loose from that stature with one sharp swing of an axe, had the sweet before shattered on the ground. Reality had caught up with them. Was about time, he mused bitterly, we had been lucky for way too long.
Žižka took one step into the room after Henry, stopped dead once he noticed Hans, raised both his eyebrows, and turned on his heel without a second thought. Hans could hear him walk away, but not very far. He would stay close enough to listen carefully to every word they spoke, Hans was aware of that, and he couldn't have cared less about it.
It was Henry who first broke the silence, still standing right in front of the door, as far away from Hans as he could, and yet it felt not fucking far enough. “You shouldn't be here.”
Hans shrugged his shoulders and felt the shiver return. “I could say the same thing about you. This battle is not the battle of the house of Leipa. And you belong to the house of Leipa.”
“I belong to Žižka.” There was a flicker of confusion still in Henry's voice and in the way his eyes wandered around the room as if he was expecting some wondrous explanation to the man sitting in front of him. “I have been fighting for him for years now, and you know it, you always knew.” He fell silent for a while, his eyes locked on Hans, and Hans wished they hadn't. They were dark, as dark as the night sky, with no trace of the usual blue left in them. It's just the dim light in this room, he told himself, but even the dimness couldn't be responsible for the anger that burned in them, the repulsion. “I belong to my father, who has been fighting on the very same side for all this time.” His words were louder now, too, firmer, hammering in a truth that Hans was aware of and that Henry had no right to speak. “I belong to myself. And to my own believes.”
“You belong to me!” Christ, he knew himself how desperate he sounded. “You swore an oath.”
Henry nodded slowly. It seemed like he was swallowing, but Hans couldn't tell for the life of him whether he was swallowing down sadness or hatred. “You want the sword back? Fine, take it. I have many more.”
“This is not about the sword, Henry!” He rose from the table a little but stayed leaned against it, because his legs felt too weak to properly carry him. “It's not about the knighthood! It's about the oath that you swore to me, to me alone.” Loud fiddles and lutes and drums, the smell of wine and burned meat, the movement of too many feet twirling around in circles. He had taken Henry's hand and pulled him away, away from the celebration, away from the city, down the castle hill and into the woods, to where they were alone, to where they could speak their own oath, an oath that exceeded that of a knight to his lord. “That you would protect me, and I swore that I would protect you, that we would fight side by side until our dying breath.”
“What, against everything that is just?” Henry moved now, stretched out his arms while he was speaking, and it made him seem even broader than he was, intimidating almost, in a way that Hans had never known from him before. “You think that because of a few love-drunken words that we spoke some ten years ago, I am supposed to simply disregard everything I stand by? Is that what you want? To always fight by your side, as long as it only is your side that we fight on! Besides, if I recall correctly, we both spoke that oath to each other, didn't we? And you broke yours a long time ago.”
“What?”
“You signed that treaty with Petr of Šternberk, even though I advised you not to.”
“Because it was the right thing to do!” His voice cracked, and he detested the sound of it. “The right thing for my people, for the whole of Rattay, for my family.”
“Maybe, but not for me. Not for my people.”
There was a time once, Hans thought, when my people were your people, when my family was yours, too. He didn't say it. It didn't matter now, because Henry was right. No knighthood and no bastard blood could have ever changed that. He let himself sink back down on the table with a sigh. “You could have at least told me about it.”
“You knew.” Another truth Hans didn't want to hear, every single one feeling like another nail being driven into his outstretched hands and feet. “You knew it since the day I rode out the Rattay gates and didn't return.”
“But you could have said something. Just one word. Instead of sneaking away like a thief.”
“You would have never let me leave.”
“No!” He brought his hands down, clasped them into fists, and for a moment he was certain there would have to be blood pouring out between his fingers. “No, I fucking wouldn't have! You think I want you to fight on the enemy's side?”
“The Hussites' side. And their cause is just. The church has too much power, and so has nobility. This world isn't ruled by the hearts and wits of people, it's ruled by coin and status alone, and the rulings are enforced with sharp steel and flaming stakes!” Henry talked himself into a rage now, pacing up and down the room like a dog in a cage. “An opposing tongue gets cut out and burned to ash on a pyre. And it's always us, the people, the peasants, who have to suffer under the nobility's and the church's political chess game.” He paused then, staring at Hans as if the dog had smelled its prey. “I heard you were good at chess, Lord Capon.” The mocking title hurt more than every word before, more than every truth. The lance piercing his side, a final kiss of death. “So tell me. It is the pawns who get sacrificed first, isn't it?”
“But you are no pawn! You are the knight, my knight, I knighted you.”
A bitter laugh escaped Henry's throat. “In a foolish act of twisting me into something that I've never been.”
“That doesn't matter, Henry.” He stood up from the table once more, and this time his legs weren't giving in, his hands weren't shaking. The deathblow had been dealt, there was nothing left to fear, and Hans could sense his own anger rising up in his stomach, burning so hot that it set his throat ablaze. “You are my vassal now. Do you know what my uncle called me when he found out about all this? Weak. Not just because I let you run off and join the enemy's forces, but because of all those years. Because I never punished you for speaking up against me, because you never had to face any consequences for every insult that you threw my way. I treated you as an equal. And you did the same, and that's what held us together.”
“If you truly see me as an equal, then I don't understand why you're here.” He turned his face away, looked at the dusty carpets on the wall instead, but Hans could tell that something in his expression had shifted. “You chose your side, now I'm choosing mine. And if you ever knew me at all, you'd know that I couldn't possibly choose anything else. Bread for the people, wine for the clergy? Wine for you, while we crawl in the dirt to your feet, picking up the crumbs that you throw us!”
It was unfair because he spoke the truth again, but it was a twisted one. Hans wasn't Sigismund, wasn't the Pope, he was Hans, and this here was about them, not some bigger societal conflict, just the two of them. “I don't care about wine and bread, Henry, I don't care about this bloody chess game, I care about you!”
“Then try to understand what I care about!”
“But when has that stopped being me?” He choked on his own words, a tear running down his cheek that he hadn't even felt coming up. It was a pathetic thing to say, to think even, but it was the truth. Not Henry's destructive truth of nails and lances. His own truth of a pain that he couldn't hide anyway. “You swore an oath.”
For a long while the hissing of the flames and the autumn wind outside the house was the only sound between them. Hans couldn't even hear Henry breathe, and he couldn't see it either. He wasn't moving, his chest wasn't heaving, his eyes were still fixed to the carpets as if they held all the wisdom of this world. When he finally turned his head and spoke again, something in him had changed once more, and this time so much so that Hans couldn't even recognise him. The blue seemed to have fully disappeared from his eyes, and there was a foreign hardness to his voice that Hans had never heard before. This must be how he looks and talks when he is facing someone that he is about to kill, Hans thought. When facing the enemy. “That oath was sworn ten years ago, my lord. Time moved on, I did, too, only you didn't. You are still that scared, little boy who is too afraid of what the world might think or say about him, who is hiding himself in his books of aventiures, waiting for a knight in shining armour to rescue him. Keep on waiting then. I am not that knight.”
Hans wanted to answer. He couldn't. His mouth opened but the only thing escaping were sobs and cries. A scared, little boy, nothing more.
“You can take your sword back, I do not need it. And I do not wish to fight with it either. You should also tell Šternberk and your other allies that I am, indeed, a traitor. That I have acted on my own, without your knowing, that I have broken my oath and will henceforth be considered an enemy to the crown, including the house of Leipa, and that I will be declared an outlaw to the whole of the country.”
“Henry …” Barely a whisper.
Henry didn't seem to have heard it, or he simply didn't care. “Will you remember that? I know, these kinds of political declarations have never been a strength of yours. I could write it down for you if you wish.” He waited briefly for a reply that Hans could never give, nodded then and turned as if looking for something. “I will get some parchment.”
“That won't be necessary.” Hans stood up. He didn't know where the strength was coming from. Maybe from the fact that he was already dead. Only a dead man could feel such emptiness in his soul. “I will remember those words. I will remember them clearly.” He put one foot forward, then the other one. Strange how the dead could walk. When he passed by Henry, he stopped for a brief moment, and felt the word “Farewell” creep over his lips. There were other words in his chest, too. My friend. My love. They wouldn't come.
* * *
As soon as the door closed behind Hans, Henry broke down like a tree hit by lightning. He didn't even feel his knees hitting the hard wood of the floorboards, but when he bent forward, curling up, arms clenching his stomach, his forehead touched the ground. He had to press a fist to his mouth to muffle his crying, didn't want Žižka and Godwin and the others to hear, and more importantly Hans, should he still be close by.
Žižka and Godwin of course heard it anyway. They walked into the room together, he could hear their footsteps, and even that couldn't stop him from crying like a child. A hand touched his back, Godwin's clearly, it was soothing, encouraging, the touch of a father.
They gave him time, both of them, neither one said a word, they just watched in silence and understanding. When Henry finally found the strength to push himself up to a kneeling position, he could see the looks they regarded him with, sympathetic but not pitying. He tried to wipe the tears away with the ball of his hand. They kept on coming like the plague. “What have I done,” he breathed out finally. “God forgive me, what have I done?”
“You followed your heart,” Godwin answered, his hand still resting on Henry's back, as if he feared that Henry would just collapse in on himself again if he took it away. “You acted out of the deepest love. There is nothing God has to forgive here.”
He shook his head, couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it. “How could this possibly be love? Love is supposed to build you up and give you strength. Not cripple you.”
“And it did just that. To you. It made you strong. You could have never spoken these words if it weren't for love.”
“I hurt him, Godwin. I slaughtered him.”
“You did the right thing.” Even Žižka's voice sounded hoarse, and he turned away towards the candle on the table, right next to where Hans had been sitting just moments ago. “Capon was never going to join us. Or maybe he would have tried to, but in the end the word of a nobleman is fickle, with all their personal power plays and intrigues going on. We can only rely on allies who fully support our cause.”
“And I would never have allowed him to break his alliances and bring himself into danger like that.” Henry wiped his face again. The cries had stopped, but the tears were still coming, as if something in that conversation had driven a pickaxe straight into his heart and opened a well of sadness in it. Not something, he realised. His very own words. “Hans was right. I swore an oath. And I will see to it until the day I die.”
“Well, I'm glad you did it.” Godwin offered him a hand, and Henry took it, let the priest pull him to his feet with way too much strength for his old age, and yet so much less than when they first met. “I like the lad. When all of this here goes to shit, at least we know that he will be out there somewhere, raising his children, drinking some fine wine, fucking wenches.”
“Will he though?” Henry shook his head again, and it made him so dizzy that he was glad Godwin was still holding onto him. “I broke him, Godwin. I broke his heart.”
“It was inevitable.” Žižka was now standing just where Hans had stood, and it felt almost sacrilegious to hear his voice coming from where Hans had spoken and begged and cried. “The sooner you broke his heart, the better.”
He was right, Henry was aware of that. But no army in the world could have forced him to admit it. “I will go out,” he declared instead. “I need to clear my head for a bit.”
“Where will you go?”
“Out of the city,” Henry replied, already on his way to the door, avoiding Žižka's worried look. “Into the woods. Hunting maybe. It might take a while.”
III
Henry had followed the Šárecký potok to the east for a while, staying close to the river as it offered a clearing in the more tree-covered areas, allowing him to see the path he was treading despite the late nighttime. The walk felt good, offered his body something to do and his mind a distraction, because he didn't want to think right now. All thoughts led back to the same thing anyway, running around in circles that were tightening more and more until they felt like a noose around his neck. Hans in that grey beggar's coat on the edge of the table. Candlelight making the tears in his eyes shimmer like glowing embers. You are still that scared little boy, hiding himself in his books of aventiures. And he had looked just like a boy then, his eyes big as plates, his bottom lip quivering, scared and hurt and alone, and to know that Hans only felt this way because of him. When has that stopped being me?, and Henry had wanted to scream at him that it hadn't, that it never would, that even when their ways parted, Hans would always be there by his side. The memories of a lifetime shared, the hope to what could be again one day, the feeling of being so utterly loved. His lord's wreath wrapped around his jousting lance, protecting him in the tourney. Henry shook the thought off and focused on his footsteps again. Sword duels and even bohorts he could get into, but he had never understood the fuss about jousting.
When clouds started covering the whole sky, conceiling the light of the moon, he sought out a place to his left, where the ground lifted up into rugged mountains. He found a rock that reached out far enough to form a small overhang, and sat down underneath it, pulling his knees up to his chest against the cold, and Mutt rolled up next to him, his body pressing against Henry's, lending him warmth and protection.
Henry didn't notice the moment the exhaustion became too much to bear, and how it turned into sleep shortly after. Only that suddenly he found himself on a battlefield, surrounded by shrieking screams and the stench of death, his skin hot from fire and wet from blood. And there were his parents kneeling on the ground, both their bodies sliced open, right above the heart, and his mother's eyes found his, sad, broken, disappointed. "How could you do this to us, Henry," she whispered, and he could hear her words ringing in his ears like a hammer despite all the noise of the battle. "How could you leave us here to die?" He wanted to get closer to her, but he couldn't, his legs weren't moving, as if they had got stuck in vines, and when he looked down he saw that it were hands holding him, arms sticking out of the ground, the arms of soldiers and bandits and thugs, and the gloved hand of Ištván, the white armour of Erik, the black one of Markvart, women's hands, too, his wife's, his daughters'. "I'm doing this for you," Henry screamed, and he wasn't sure if anyone could hear him, anyone but the dead. "Can't you see that I'm doing all of this for you?"
He woke up in cold sweat, the weight of their hands still tearing on his legs, and it took him a while to realise that it was only the rain that had soaked the fabric of his hose. The sun had risen, the clouds had torn open to shower the world in sweet-smelling autumn rain, albeit just a little. The nightmare was still mingling with reality, and for a brief moment he could feel something he hadn't dreamed of, something warm and comforting. A hand caressing his shoulder, a warm breath on his cheek, followed by a kiss, then a forehead pressing against his temple. "It was just a dream, Henry." He couldn't even tell which memory his mind had dug up because this had happened so many times, always the touches and the kisses and the reassuring words, it was a miracle Hans never got tired of it. "It wasn't real, yes? This is real. I am real. Can you feel this kiss? And this one? That is real."
Henry turned his head and stared into empty space. Liar, he thought bitterly. Not real at all.
It was only when he finally managed to stretch out his numb limbs and crawl out of his night's hiding spot, that he noticed that Mutt was gone. He couldn't be far, Henry knew that, every possible cause for that old dog ever leaving him would have clearly woken him up. Maybe he was hunting. Or trying to, that was. Mutt's sight had been lacking for a while now, and his left hind leg had a limp that made it impossible for him to catch anything faster than a hedgehog.
“Mutt?” There was a bark nearby, a little bit further up the hillside, and Henry waited for a while but Mutt didn't seem to come to him. Maybe he had hunted something and didn't want to leave it alone. Alright then.
At least the short hike got his blood flowing again and heated his body back up. A few more steps and even the terror of the nightmare had faded mostly, only one thing still clung to him like a leech, and it was the one thing he really had no need for right now. A hand on his shoulder, a kiss on his cheek. This is real.
He found Mutt under a far sprawling oak tree, and the stupid dog looked at him like a proud child. Only that there was nothing to be proud of. No game that he had hunted, no abandoned camp of another wanderer he had found, not even a flower or a mushroom. “What …?”, Henry just mumbled, and then Mutt turned around, wagged his tail, barked again and limped away further into the woods. Henry sighed loudly. “Fine, I play along. If it makes you happy.”
The play Mutt had chosen for the two of them went on for quite some time. He was clearly sniffing out something, but despite an occasional bark there was no sign of them getting any closer to the source of the trail Mutt had picked up. Henry couldn't see anything in the distance either. There were only trees and clearings every now and then, the rocks to their left disappearing, new ones forming, the rain stopped at some point and a few sunbeams forced themselves through the dense autumn leaves, painting them in all shades of orange, yellow and red. They had been his favourite colours once, the colours of the sunrise, but now they were the last thing he wanted to see.
The sun was already high up in the sky when Mutt finally decided to stop. He barked three times, wagged his tail proudly, howled once, then he sat down, as if he had said more than enough for Henry to understand. Henry didn't understand shit. A few steps away from him, the hill formed into a steeper mountain slope, behind him, rock formations rose from the ground like threatening fingers of God, and the trees looked beautiful here, still full of leaves despite the time of year, but there was nothing unusual that could have possibly aroused Mutt's interest like that. For a few moments more, Henry just stood there in bewilderment, then he shook his head, and finally he let out a laugh. “You silly dog. Hoped to get me on a walk, eh? Wanted to distract me a little? Well, it sure worked alright.”
He didn't notice the enemy, only when the arrow missed his head by a hand's breadth and got stuck in the bark of the tree right next to him. Henry drew his sword without a second thought, twirled around, ready to fight. Fool!, he scolded himself. Stumbling straight into danger, and he wasn't even wearing a single proper piece of armour!
He didn't need any armour. His enemy was standing high up on one of the rocks, his bow raised, the string drawn, another arrow nocked. The soft breeze lifted the lower end of his grey beggar's coat, blew golden strands of hair into his blank face, it had grown a little longer than when Henry had left him in Rattay a few weeks ago, it hadn't been visible the night before, hadn't been as disheveled yet.
Hans let the second arrow go, and it missed Henry's head again by the smallest distance, this time on the other side, piercing the ground. His expression still didn't change, there was no surprise, no love, not even hatred, and Henry felt how that realisation alone gave him hope. Another arrow. To the left again, Henry could see the tiny movement his hands made just before he let go of it, and Henry raised his sword and smashed the arrow in two.
Hans lowered the bow. “Huh,” he made. Appreciation.
Henry stormed forward. Do not!, everything in him screamed. This isn't wise, you will only hurt him more. He gave a shit about it. Just this once he felt like he deserved it.
There was a grass-covered corridor to his left, leading further up the mountain between the rocks, and he followed it, sheathing his sword again to get more freedom for his hands as he climbed up. By the time he reached the cliff, Hans was gone of course, but he quickly spotted his grey coat dashing through the trees in the distance. Henry ran after him, stumbling across wet autumn leaves and slippery roots, branches slashing his hands and arms, his face, and he couldn't have cared less. Hans was fast. He had always been the faster, more nimble one of the two of them, but the coat seemed to be in his way this time, and it gave Henry an advantage he would make sure not to miss. Another jump across a fallen tree, and Henry wanted to cry and he wanted to laugh, because damn it all, it felt just like they were children again, ignorant to the world around them, living in nothing but this haven they both had created for themselves. More cliffs in front of Hans, and he had to turn around, run back for a bit, and Henry used this moment to change his direction and cross the path Hans had to come down. Hans sidestepped again, tried to go for the opposite way, but Henry saw it coming and cut him off once more. He was trapped now, between Henry and the cliffs, and in a last desperate attempt he just ran for it, perhaps hoping for his own quickness and agility to save him, but it didn't. He was fast, yes, but Henry was stronger, and with one final rush forward he slammed into Hans, pushing him off his feet and down to the ground. The leaves helped to dampen the fall a bit, but the impact was still enough to press all air out of Hans's lungs with a sound that made Henry feel dizzy. He gathered his strength quickly again, he was a skilled fighter, too, after all, but Henry was pressing down on him with his whole body weight, his hands wrapped tightly around Hans's wrists, and it felt so familiar that Henry wanted to run away and hide. He didn't. Just this once I deserve this foolishness.
He moved his face closer, so far down that their noses almost touched, and he could feel Hans's breath on his lips. It was just a dream, he seemed to whisper. This is real. I am real. “One last kiss between lovers?” He hated himself for these words as soon as they left his mouth, because he did deserve his fun, yes, but not this, not to fall again when all it would do was to punish them more.
Hans smirked, but it looked wicked and dangerous, the smile of the devil. “No. Make it a kiss between enemies.” His left wrist slipped free from Henry's grip, and before he realised what was going on, Hans had reached out his arm far enough to get hold of the bow that he had lost in the fall. The hit of the wood against his head came unexpected, and it completely incapacitated him for a moment, more so from surprise than from pain or the actual blow itself. That was all Hans needed. When Henry opened his eyes again, he had moved out from underneath him and got back to his feet, running a little slower now, but still running nonetheless.
Henry grunted, and the sound bore all the anger and frustration and self-loathing that had built up in his chest. “Mutt!”, he shouted, and the dog answered with a high yelp. “Sic!”
Hans didn't get far. The fact that he still must have struggled with breathing certainly played its part, but that didn't matter, neither to Henry nor to Mutt. The dog bit his coat and dragged him to the ground, then he let go and slammed his teeth into his calve, just where the leg of his boot was covering it. Mutt knew Hans just as long as he knew Henry. He would have never actually harmed him, perhaps the only one of Henry's commands that he would always ignore, Henry was sure of that despite never trying.
He called Mutt off anyway, as soon as he reached them, partly to not eventually get Hans hurt, but mostly because this wasn't Mutt's prey to take, this was only his. A quick whistle, a nod to the side, and Mutt knew that he should leave them alone for the time being. He would get a reward later, Henry would make sure to find a special treat for him.
As soon as Mutt was gone, Henry took his place, letting himself sink down on his victim, putting one knee to his lower back and bending his arms up so Hans couldn't reach for anything this time. He still tried to fight but it was pointless. A sharp laugh escaped him, muffled by the leaves beneath his face. “You barely joined the enemy, and already you are playing foul.”
“Let this be your first rule for our future enmity then, my lord.” Henry tugged his arms back a little bit further, and Hans let out a moan that wasn't caused by pain as much as it should have been. “There is no fairness in war, no politeness or honour. Only war.”
Hans wriggled himself free once more, but it was a weak attempt, one easily answered by Henry with a tight grip to his shoulders, turning him around on his back. His face showed no will to fight, and Henry realised that it hadn't shown any from the start, not really. This game of catch had been just that, a game, and despite being the one trapped underneath him, Hans had won, because he had Henry just where he wanted him. Henry knew that and he didn't mind. I deserve this, he thought again. Just this once.
Henry leaned down and kissed him. It was a hungry kiss, full of teeth and tongue and despair and stubbornness. As if he had been offered a forbidden fruit for the very last time that he wanted to relish fully before it was ripped from his grasp forever. The kiss tasted of wine and roasted bread and of earth and salt. It was dirty. No room for politeness in war.
Hans was the one to break the kiss first, and when he turned his face, Henry could see that his bright eyes were filled with tears. He brought both of Hans's wrists together above his head so he could hold them with one hand alone, didn't want to let go off him just yet, didn't want Hans to feel abandoned. He used the free hand to wipe the tears on his cheek away, together with the dirt that the leaves had painted on his skin when his face had hit the ground. “I'm sorry,” Henry whispered, and he knew that no apology could ever be enough. “I had to.”
“I know,” Hans replied. He meant it. He understood.
Henry wanted to say more, wanted to assure him that his words from last night hadn't been true, that he would never leave Hans alone, that he would always keep his oath, that in the end it was Hans who mattered most to him, no one and nothing else. He didn't have the heart to do it. There was no fairness in war, but this here wasn't war, this was nothing but love and devotion, and there was no room for more lies in that.
“I'm proud of you, you know?” Hans still didn't look at him, and it was better that way, because his words made Henry's face twist in disbelief and pain. “You're doing the right thing.”
“Just like you.” Despite the way his voice broke, Henry tried to make sure Hans could feel the sincerity behind his words. “You are doing the right thing as well. For your people, fulfilling your duties. Having the support of Šternberk and Kunštát and even of the king himself secures safety for Rattay. It's a wise thing to do for now, believe me.”
“But it makes us enemies.”
“Yes.”
The wind rattled the trees, more leaves were floating down to earth around them, red and orange and yellow. Somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker hammered his repetitive song into his instrument. The air had gone cold, Henry noticed. Won't be long until the first frost of this year. But nature was so unforgiving in its course. Plagues spread, rebellions formed, villages were burned down, and yet nature always trod on, greeted even the most cruel bloodbath with a new spring.
Hans turned his face. The tears were still there, but his expression had changed completely, he didn't look lost and hurt anymore, only determined. He even pouted. Thirty years old, and pouting like a child. “Should we ever face each other in battle, I won't raise my sword against you. I will never hurt you, and should you be in any danger, I will fuck all alliances and rush to your aid.”
There was something in the naivete and sincerity of his words, the way they were not just a declaration but a pledge, that wrapped itself around Henry's throat like an iron gauntlet. He wanted to speak, but it took his voice a few attempts to follow his will, and when it finally did, he felt a single tear run down his face. “So will I. You will always be under my protection, no matter the side I am fighting for.”
Words reminiscent of the ones they spoke back then, after his knighting, in the woods, too, but near Rattay, near home. They had told Godwin about it later, and the priest had laughed. "Couldn't wait for a priest to be present and bear witness to your marriage vows, now could you? How very heretical of you." He had taken a sip of his beer, then he had winked at them, a soft smile tugging on his thin lips. "Well, I'm sure God still listened. He always does."
Hans chased away the memories by giving Henry a weak kick with the knee to his side. “Keep me informed, will you? Tell me where you are and how you fare, just from time to time, yes? I will do the same.”
“Hans …” He took a deep breath. “I can't. Just knowing of our whereabouts could put you in danger.”
“No one will know. We will exchange private messengers. We don't have to give away any political secrets, I just want to know whether you're still breathing. Maybe we could even manage to see each other every once in a while.”
It was foolish, Henry knew, but he couldn't hold back a smirk. “A meeting of enemy leaders?” He brought both his hands back up to Hans's wrists, pushed them deeper into the leaves. “Perhaps including the taking of a noble hostage?”
“Stop joking, I'm serious!” Hans tried to sound angry, but the smile on his face gave him away, and so did his body. He seemed to notice, too, because he lowered his eyes and his lips twisted into a chaste grin. “Although I have to admit, you are the only one I would ever let myself be taken hostage by, without any resistance even. After all, you swore to always save me from harm.”
“Even when I have to save you from myself?” Henry laughed.
“Yes. Even from yourself.”
And damn him for how right he was. The sooner you broke his heart, the better, Žižka had told him, and yet here he was, kissing and swearing to Hans as if his previous words had no meaning at all, despite knowing that it was foolish to keep him this close. But he had to save him, from the heartbreak that he himself had caused. It will be our downfall, a voice of reason in the back of his mind screamed, and his heart replied: What if it won't? “Who knows,” Henry said with a smile, and suddenly he couldn't stop himself anymore, “maybe it will do us good in the end? We will be enemies for a while, yes, but maybe one day we will have created a world in which our two sides are not as drastically opposed anymore as they are now and can come together again. And we can bring peace. Our love bringing peace and progress and change to this whole country.”
Hans huffed and frowned skeptically. “Well, now it's you who sounds like he's hiding in an aventiure.”
“We can try, can we not?”
“We will.” Hans shrugged, as well as he could with his arms still restrained above his head. “I wouldn't even know what else to do.”
In the distance, the woodpecker continued his song. Around them, the leaves were falling. The taste of ice lay in the air, and Henry felt his own weight sink down further into Hans, though not against the cold. It would be foolish, he thought. But maybe he deserved this one, too?
“So …” Hans began, his voice only a little bit hoarse, giving away what he, too, was feeling, “this is farewell for now?”
“It is.”
The muscles in Hans's arms tightened, and in one quick movement he pulled them out of Henry's grip, clutching at his belt. “Then we better make it count.”
* * *
Henry couldn't remember ever having cried during a fuck before, and he knew of some friends of his who would have loved to chaff him about it had they found out. But Hans cried, too, and their tears mingled whenever Henry brought his head down to kiss him, and then both their lips tasted of salt, and it was sad and hopeful at the same time, every kiss, every touch, every movement screaming: This is not the end. It was another oath, this one given without any words but with their bodies alone, a keepsake for a long and frightening time, and a promise for the future.
They didn't move for a long while when it was all over, stayed entangled with every limb they had because Henry didn't even know how to break off the embrace, felt like they were two links of a chain, tightly forged together, that no human hand could ever separate. God listened, Godwin had said. He always does.
Even after they had put their clothes back on, they didn't move up from the ground. Henry's arms were wrapped tightly around Hans, holding him, one last action Hans should remember him by. The leaves were falling on them, covering them like a blanket. The woodpecker had stopped his song, but other birds had picked it up, turning it into a more cheerful and versatile tune than their friend's monotonous hammering.
He only left when Hans had fallen asleep, pressing one final kiss to his temple that Hans could not feel. Henry wouldn't dare say a proper goodbye. Knew that it might never come across his lips. He stayed close, of course, watched him carefully from a hiding spot below an overgrown tree nearby. A linden tree, Henry noticed as a leaf softly landed on his shoulder. Ma, Pa, he prayed silently, and his breath formed a cloud of hope in the ice-filled air. Please, be with us in these times to come.
“Any work going around here?” He asks as soon as the innkeeper pockets his hard-earned coins.
“None whatsoever,” the man shrugs. “You can try talking some sense to Old man Johannes, but that is a futile effort, so be warned. If he buys you a drink, that’s a reward enough.”
“Old man Johannes?” Henry quirks a brow.
“Aye,” the innkeeper nods. “He lives at the end of the village. Recently he’s been… annoying, to say the least. Keeps wailing deep into the night. Scared off some of well-paying travelers, too.”
“And you want me to do what about it? I’m not an exorcist.”
He huffs a dry laugh. “No, I imagine you are not. It was just a thought, so that we don’t stand here idly and in quiet. You asked, I answered.”
Henry looks around. It’s a small hamlet, not far from Prague, recently having transferred hands from the church to the village proper. No work here, well, apart from this weird thing with “Old man Johannes”, but perhaps in Prague he’ll have more luck. He’s weary, though, so hanging around for a day in a place filled with peace and, apart from the reported inconsolable Old man Johannes, quiet – so far it’s been quiet, at least, but come night, there’s things bound to happen – will do him good ahead of the bustle and rustle of the big city.
“Thanks anyways,” Henry parts ways with the innkeeper.
He tends to his horse, checks up on his supplies. He can’t deny he’s intrigued by the Old man Johannes. His curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks around. Most folks only know of his nightly weeping, saying he cries himself to sleep and that it takes painfully long, too.
“Like the devil’s roasting him on a spit over the bonfires of Hell itself,” one man tells him. It’s difficult to say whether or not he’s exaggerating.
Old man Johannes doesn’t have a job and comes and goes. There are days when he’s holed up in his house and days when he disappears without a trace, only to come back in the evening to the tavern. Some say he’s good company by a pitcher of ale. At any rate, Henry is directed to a stone cottage at the edge of the village, by a road that should lead to Prague.
The house is a little run down, Henry has to admit. The roof could definitely use some work. The grass surrounding it is overgrown, and there are no animals, in fact no sign that anyone would be living here. The makeshift fence’s gate is propped open, so Henry wanders into the property, yet vigilant for a sign that someone is about to hurl at him with a pitchfork and cuss him out. Nobody comes. A beaten path leads to a distant outhouse shared with the nearby properties. There is nothing unusual or exceptional about Old man Johannes’ home.
Henry knocks on the door, and waits for an answer that doesn’t come. So he tries again, and when nobody answers still, he checks the perimeter, wary of nosy neighbors. They must be out in the fields; seeing no-one, and no-one seeing him, Henry tries his luck by pushing against the dry, gray wood of the door. To his utter surprise, the house welcomes him – light from the outside pools into the dim, dusty room.
It is cold and dark inside. The house smells like an old castle, damp stone and aged wood. There’s a low wooden tub set against the wall. A small room to its right is a pantry, albeit quite poorly stocked: a piece of cured meat hangs from one of the shelves, some dried grains have spilled from a sack knocked over, root vegetables whose best days are over, a chipped, emptied pitcher. Henry closes the door to the pantry behind him and instead ventures into the main room whose door is wide open and inviting him inside. Old man Johannes is a right fool, Henry thinks.
What looked outside as a miserable peasant dwelling hides inside no modest man’s abode. Old man Johannes has wooden floors and a large, painted fireplace, a proper bed – and a wide one at that. He is no peasant, that is for sure.
Henry approaches the bed first. Sturdy, crafted wood holds enough space for two people to comfortably rest in clean sheets. But only one side appears to be slept in. The other is neatly made, clearly it’s been a while since anyone occupied it. From underneath its pillow peeks out a book, half-heartedly shoved there. Henry reaches out to look at it, finds a withered, leather-bound volume. Breath hitches in his throat. Before he can inspect it closer, a creak of the wood startles him. He abandons the book, and moves onto the rest of the furnishing.
Beside the bed is a table, also set for two. One chair is pulled away, probably by Johannes, for it too looks more worn compared to its sibling. There is a fine, embroidered tablecloth stretched over the surface, a bowl of unfinished gruel of sorts in front of Old man Johannes’ seat. An empty bowl sits before the empty chair, set for someone who won’t be dining tonight, dust collecting at its naked bottom. A glass chalice suffering the same fate; Johannes’ cup stained by remains of wine. Is Johannes waiting for someone? Does he keep any company at all in his home, occasional, at least? Is he mourning a wife, a child, in this eerie, frozen world he has built for himself? In the middle of the table sits a vase with the remains of a bouquet. Withered flowers: sage, dandelion, poppy… a lone, drought-blackened rose, and some forget-me-nots. Like Johannes’ heart? Henry begins to muse almost poetically. Old man Johannes might be an old, bitter wretch, after all. Let’s not assign to him romantic visuals of piety and faithful suffering, not yet. These flowers grow all over Bohemia, and plenty of people pick up a stem or two to bring home after a long day. Johannes might’ve picked them himself, sure, to add color to his gray existence within these sad walls. Or he might’ve been given them. By whom, if nobody really talks to him, remains a mystery.
Henry looks around the room. The fireplace is cold, but in the pot set in it sits fresh water. Johannes must’ve been home recently, even if he comes and goes at odd hours. Why, he might come back any minute. Better not to linger.
Henry’s attention returns to the bed. A singular chest sits at its foot – Henry won’t steal from it, not yet, at least. The fact that it, too, is left unlocked, frustrates Henry. The chest is filled to the brim with clothing of undoubtedly finer variety. Perhaps Old man Johannes is an opportunistic trader? Henry digs between the clothes, inspecting them. It turns out that there aren’t nearly enough of them to fill out the chest on their own. Their height is inflated by pieces of armor, disassembled and sandwiched amongst hoses, shirts, underwear… tarnished, wrecked plates of hard steel, though of fine craftsmanship. Henry stills. Old man Johannes is a mercenary? An erstwhile bandit? Or is he storing loot found on the site… of an unfortunate accident? It doesn’t seem he intends to sell the armor. And then, at the bottom of the chest, wrapped in a thick, woolen fabric, lies a sword that’s seen better days, collecting rust. Old man Johannes, what secrets are you hiding? Henry jumps to conclusions that cloud his judgement.
The book under the pillow draws Henry’s attention once again, as though promising him answers to his questions. He abandons the stash, and returns to the bed. The tome has been in kinder hands. Its cover is completely beaten, dented and worn, hanging onto its dear life. The pages are thin, similarly frayed by years and years of reading… or careless flipping through. It’s an illuminated book of hours, written in Latin. Did Old man Johannes steal it? Did he buy it? Did he receive it as a gift? Does he understand what is written in there? Henry flips through the pages as though looking for an explanation in the text, and finds himself at the book’s end. Its last page catches his attention with its inflexibility, preventing him from closing the book until he investigates. Upon closer inspection, it’s not one, but two sheets stuck together. Depressions in the parchment as though command him to look, and, well, Henry was never the one to turn down a challenge. He wedges the nail of his thumb between the pages to gently pry them apart. He is rewarded with a look at a beautiful, though faded illumination.
At first, the image is unclear, smudged and pale, its colors blotted by time. Focusing on it, a scene of two knights on horseback approaching faint walls of a city unravels. The inscription has since washed out, but the slightest undertone of pigment remains on their tunics: one wore yellow, the other quartered orange.
No little dread set onto Henry. One wears yellow, the other quartered orange. Their horses, also a little worse for the wear… one wearing a yellow caparison… the other… is gray.
Henry flips the book around. He was wrong – it wasn’t a dent on the front. Though the leather is dark, scratched and flaking, the shield he had mistaken for damage bears the two crossed branches of the lords of Leipa.
The room is too dark, too suffocating. It is screaming at him, berating him, ridiculing him. The ground quakes beneath his feet, and gruesome, dark scenes flash before his eyes. Henry mistakes the bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face for a raindrop, and his chest tightens, he grits his teeth, he sucks in air to cry out—
“there’s something very special I have for you,” Hans grinned.
“you’d like me to guess?”
“no, you’ll just have to be patient. I want it to commemorate our journey, which has barely started yet. We have plenty of time,” he said wistfully.
Where did this book come from? Why, after all these years, did it end up in his hands? Where is the man who received it when it was brand new?
He never found out just what that special thing for him Hans had. Henry shudders at the memory, and to ground himself, he presses the old volume to his heart, closing his eyes, forcing away the memories that crawl out of the depths of his mind and quicken his heart, make him feel cold, small and cowardly all over again. As panic subsides, he studies the book again… but it’s too painful. It reminds him too much of what he’s lost. He becomes angry with Old man Johannes – why does he have this book? Where the devil did he get it? He hadn’t intended to steal anything, but this… this is too valuable to leave in the hands of a wrong person. It might hurt Old man Johannes. Henry will explain it to him. He will not, must not, cannot leave this place without that book.
Though his hand tremors, he puts the tome back where he found it. Old man Johannes might know more, and he will be more willing to divulge his secrets when approached in goodwill.
He might give up the book whose contents are worthless to him. He might know of a burial mound Henry can go to.
Through the window a woman’s figure appears in the distance, clearly headed towards the house. Henry quickly clears out of the building, just in time to appear that he only recently arrived and is still just looking around.
“Are you searching for someone?” The young woman accuses him when she finds him loitering before the door.
“Aye, Old man Johannes. I was told he lives here,” Henry tells her.
She eyes him up and down. “Have you tried knocking?”
“Yes, but no-one’s answering.”
The young woman shrugs. “Bummer. Then he’s not here. I was just about to bring him his laundry, too.” And she rebalances the woven basket full of linen on her hip.
“You wouldn’t know where I could find him, would you?”
“Dunno. But he’s bound to turn up, sooner or later. Probably at the tavern, though.”
“They told me he goes there often, but I haven’t seen him there.”
“Why you looking for him?” the young woman asks.
Henry stalls. “I was led to believe he might… know something about a man I’m looking for.”
“Who you looking for?”
“An old friend,” the words are heavy on his tongue.
She frowns. “Old man Johannes is not the talkative, nor the… friendly type. I don’t think he’ll be able to help you. But hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You said he goes to the tavern?”
“That he does,” she sighs. “To drink his money away.”
“He’s a drunk?”
She shakes her head. “Who isn’t, these days. Nay, I wouldn’t say he’s a drunk, in the usual sense. But this time of the year, when summer nears, he gets bad.”
“Bad? How so?”
“He says he’s haunted. That he’s trying to keep demons at bay. That he doesn’t want to remember.”
A history of thieving, perhaps? “Remember what, his debts?”
“Nay, he’s quick to pay for everything. Maybe too quick. He goes to Prague every now and then and comes back with a pocketful of coins. Spends them right away at the alehouse. Why, sometimes he comes home already drunk. What little he manages to save, he spends on food and soap. I used to do his laundry for free, but he slips me a groshen or five for my work.”
“You do his laundry, does that mean he’s ill? I heard he doesn’t work.”
“He does have something of a lame leg, walks a bit… unsteady, even when sober. But with the money he gets from Prague I doubt he will ever really need to work. I do his laundry… out of kindness, I think. He looks so sad and helpless. Most of the folk only talk to him at the alehouse… and only for as long as he keeps their pitchers full. When the money runs out, so does their attention. I wanted to show him he’s not… completely alone. Anyways it’s not like he couldn’t work.”
Henry frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Well… you didn’t hear it from me… but despite his bad leg he looks quite well. I don’t see a reason a man like him couldn’t do a bit of farm work, swing a garden hoe. At first I thought him an idler… but there is something else to him. It’s like he doesn’t know how to work. He’s handsome, too… or he would be, if he gained a little bit of weight and muscle… and smiled more. He just needs cheering up, and to stop drinking. Maybe that’s why they all started calling him Old man Johannes. He is called Johannes, but he’s not an old man. In fact he could be just slightly older than you.”
His heart starts, but there’s no reason to have hope yet. “And he doesn’t keep any friends, any company at all? Doesn’t have a wife or children?”
“Poor soul, he’s all by himself in this world. Breaks my heart just thinking about it.” She wipes at her eyes, even though she didn’t shed any tears. “He doesn’t go to the church, either, except on high holidays. A couple of years ago some people came by from far away by the looks of it, spent time with him. They were quick to leave, though. Nobody has visited him since.”
“Has he always lived here?”
“No. It’s maybe ten years since he’s come to the village? More or less. He had the house built right away, and hasn’t budged.”
“Where did he come from, then?”
“Some of the places ruined by the war… who knows. He looked harmless, so we just let him stay.”
Old man Johannes lived an empty though tranquil life, hid old armor in his house, kept a book he might as well have pried from cold, dead hands—a drunk and impaired. Henry can’t tell whether he hates or pities the man. And yet… and yet what were the chances? What if Johannes…
“His name really is Johannes?”
“Aye…?” she eyes him funny.
Johannes… Johannes with a taste for wine and an aversion to manual labor… Johannes with fine clothing in his chest and a pocketful of groschen… Johannes with old knight’s equipment… Johannes with the book of hours. Johannes who never married.
Henry turns his eyes to the clear summer sky and waits for his heart to stop hammering.
“I still don’t think Old man Johannes is the man you’re looking for. You have nothing in common,” the young woman interrupts his thoughts.
We might have more in common than you’d think, Henry ponders. “One last thing. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find him at this here moment.”
“Maybe… but you must promise me you’re not here to break his neck.” She notes his armor, the long sword hanging by his side. Cutthroats still swarmed the country, and she had every right to protect the man. Even if she told Henry a lot as it is.
“i’m here to make amends,” Henry tells her.
She studies him, long and hard, and seeing his earnest, sad eyes, she gives in. “’Twas this morning I saw him go thataway,” she gestures vaguely in the direction Henry had come from, “Probably to pick flowers. Beyond the grove is a meadow. You’ll find him there, I’m certain. But please, be kind. He needs kindness.”
“And kindness I shall show him,” Henry tells her as he mounts his horse, then he’s off galloping in the direction she sent him to.
Will he be the same? Is it really him, or just one of the bastards that shuffled him of his mortal coil? Is it someone who found him battered and dead and kept his things, an impostor living off of the name of a gone man?
And it is him, if it truly could be him, was he really here all this time? How did he get here? Why was he hiding? Will he remember Henry? Or will he scorn him? Does he still love Henry the way Henry never stopped loving him?
He remembers the rain, most of all. It was rainy that day, and cold.
It was supposed to be a fun adventure. Hans came up to him one day with an offer impossible to say no to: that they, finally, after years of careful planning, see the Holy Land. Naturally there was nothing holy in Hans’ face as he said it – his eyes glinted with mischievous, contagious opportunity that captivated Henry time and time again. Just the two of them on a beautiful journey, what more could he ask for? Even if the world seemed uncertain, even if everything and everyone seemed to be against their odds, they stole away yet another slice for themselves. With the first thaw they mounted their horses and rode off.
Lulled by a sense of security, intoxicated by their freedom, living each day as if it were their last, living for each other. Barely were they out of sight when they seized the first opportunity to kiss and touch and profess undying love to one another. Day by day they drunk up each other’s presence.
It was the most blissful time of Henry’s life. Every day he woke up greeted by an armful of Hans. Every meal they shared out of one bowl. From every spring they offered each other fresh water to drink from their palms. Odes and sonnets could be written about their adventure. At night they huddled as close as their skin allowed them to. Wandering through endless grasslands, Hans would stop to pick flowers and then stick them into Henry’s hair. He became quite talented at weaving flower crowns as well, to bestow upon Henry’s head. They didn’t have to worry about watchful eyes, about treacherous companions, because this time it was just the two of them, and sometimes it felt as though the world around them wanted it, too.
The forest sprouted out before them like a warning finger. Hans was skittish – they should just camp here, wait until the morning. Threatening, rumbling nebulae loomed not far from them, hot on their heels. If they ventured into the forest, the rainstorm would catch up with them twice as bad. But Henry wanted to press on and reach the mountain pass by the next morning.
The woods were dark and threatening at night as they were, but the downpour turned them into an impenetrable mass of morbid, elongated and frightful faces ambushing them left and right. The howl of the wind chilled to the bone, screeching bloody murder. When Henry decided to throw in the towel, it was too late. And as to punish them for his stubbornness, the darkness released unto them more of its misfortune.
Henry turned around to find that Hans’ horse had thrown him off. It took him another moment to realize Hans wasn’t just struggling for breath, but also his life – a group of brigands surrounded them, armed to their teeth and out for blood. Henry was surprised it took them this long to run into these lost souls. Without hesitation and roused by Hans’ screaming, he jumped off of his horse and pounced on the bastards. He killed a couple, or so it seemed. One or two ran off with his horse. It was difficult to make heads or tails out of the situation, with the darkness and the rain, and the scowling wind that drowned out the splintering of wood.
“Henry!” Hans shrieked. “Look out!”
For years, Henry was haunted in his dreams by that scene. In the deathful dark of the woods, Hans’ face appeared, as though illuminated by a halo – bright, his pearly teeth gritted, his eyes glowing with rush. He was reaching out for Henry, and Henry opened his arms to catch him – no, he punched Henry with all his might, who stumbled backwards and fell, and as he made contact with the ground, the whole world shook.
All was too still for a moment, and too quiet. When Henry collected himself, Hans was nowhere to be found. In this deep, dark forest, Henry found himself utterly alone. He reached forwards blindly, palming empty air and crawling forwards, his eyes and ears peeled for movement. Just a few steps away from where he was lying was no longer the road. Instead, there appeared a deep ditch created by freshly sunken ground. Henry made out the roots of a tree toppled over when they stabbed him in the face.
Hans? Henry asked into the darkness. Hans!
And there was no answer. The darkness and the forest swallowed him, and no matter how hard Henry cried, how he cursed and wept and screamed, they wouldn’t give him up. Henry stumbled off of the road, calling Hans’ name in vain, treading unwisely on the slope of the hill. The wind’s howl was his only answer, the long patches of murk ghosts, the treetops bending over to hush between them of his recklessness, the rain not giving way to his tears. He wore his throat out screaming into the night, and he was willing to bargain his soul to Satan, for God was of no help no matter how hard he prayed. Henry found himself in a hayloft on a gray morning – some people traversing the forest had found him, helped him in his delirium. They knew nothing of the man whose horse they brought with Henry.
It was a miserable journey home, where nobody cared for a missing, at any rate deceased nobleman. To Henry’s grievance, neither was anyone willing to raise money or the people needed for a rescue mission everybody considered a waste of time anyways. It was shocking how quick they were to dismiss Hans being alive. They held a small funeral for him instead. A final goodbye without a casket, a tomb without a body. War, which during their merriment broke out, preoccupied anyone wanting to mourn. Anyone but Henry.
Henry knew, or at least believed firmly, that Hans was still alive. He knew that he’d feel it in his heart, and his heart was telling him that somewhere out there, there was a heart that beat for him and him alone. Hans was alive, he wouldn’t perish that easily, and it was Henry’s duty to find him. Henry promised him. Henry owed him, if not saving him, then at least, by God, burying him properly to grant him eternal rest. When nobody was willing to aid Henry in his sacred duty, he took it upon himself to go and return to Hans, or whatever was left of him. And if anyone had anything to go with his untimely passing, well, he has long since forsaken his soul in the eyes of God. But he never found the place again. No forest, no sunken ground. No Hans.
He wandered aimlessly for years, asking people about a man with pale hair and bright eyes and the heartiest laughter in the world. His words fell on deaf ears, in places nobody understood his tongue, in the faces of people who’d never comprehend what a reproach to God it was that one of His seraphim has vanished. Even his Latin, admittedly butchered, was but a twig of hay in an ocean that he was drowning in. When he finally returned to Rattay, bitter, spent and beaten, not only nobody truly remembered Hans, the estate had been picked apart by Hanush’s progeny. They paid Henry off not to blacken their doorstep again.
Everything from Skalitz came back to him and hurt twice fold, like a sword just-now taken out of the heat of the forge and showed down his throat. Were he a weaker man, he would’ve turned to liquor to drown out his sorrows and help him quicker to the next world. Yet that feeling in his heart never went away, and he decided, after many a sleepless night, after years of searching, that he must live for both of them. That he ought to make sure Hans’ sacrifice wasn’t in vain. He owed him that much. He owed him happiness. Hans would’ve wanted for Henry to live just as fully as when he was with him. So that was what Henry did. He helped people. He devoted himself to kindness. He lived for Hans’ sake. If nobody else, at least Theresa understood.
…
Beyond the grove really is a meadow, a beautiful and lush one, but barren of Old man Johannes. Perhaps the young woman purposefully pointed him in the wrong direction, Henry thinks. Perhaps Old man Johannes went to Prague, and Henry will have to wait him out, live for the next couple of hours in anxious uncertainty. If he set off now, he could reach the city by sundown. But he would find out tonight, he was sure of it. Everything was in its right place.
He spurs the horse around, looking over the meadow – there! A person, walking away from him, sinking beyond the horizon, where the shiny emerald grasses slope downhill.
“Wait!” Henry calls after them, knowing the wind won’t carry his plea. He almost jumps off of his horse, rushing blinded by adrenaline into the greenery.
Where the hill breaks, he stops, not too far from the person bent over amongst a sea of forget-me-nots. The sight chokes Henry, and though he’d want to speak, his voice hitches in his throat. So, he watches.
They appear unaware of his presence, so absorbed in their flower picking that they somehow overheard the rustle of Henry’s armor. Bent over, in one hand they clutch the corner of their apron, with the other they place flower stems into it – sage, poppies, dandelions. They wear a dark hose, colorful strings tied beneath their knees, a fine shirt. The flowers and weeds caress their long, thin limbs, the only touch they know. Henry wants, needs to know too badly to bask in the serenity of an unhurried, pleasant scene.
“are you Old man Johannes?”
In the middle of reaching for a stem, the person stills, their hand in a spasm. After a moment, they slowly grab for the flower, snap it from its root, place it in their apron. Then, finally, they straighten up – they stand about as tall as Henry, but thinner, weaker. And their hair glows golden in the summer sun.
“Are you Old man Johannes?” Henry repeats.
“Who’s asking?” they answer.
The voice is too wrong. It is much too coarse, much too weak and scared… worn thin by liquor and sorrow.
Henry swallows. “A friend.”
“I had a friend once, with a voice like yours… ages ago…”
“Now he’s here to repay his debt.”
“…Tell him there’s no debt to be paid.”
“His voyage would be for naught, then.”
“Why?”
“It’s the only thing he lives for.”
Old man Johannes is quiet. The meadow rustles instead. Birds chirp in the grove.
Henry’s legs are made of lead and it takes all his willpower to move them. Mysterious are the ways of the Lord. Henry’s roads were paved by blood and gnashing of the teeth.
“Is it really you?” Old man Johannes whispers, “Could it be?” His voice is softer now, almost… almost like the real thing.
By then, Henry can breathe down Old man Johannes’ neck. “It is me,” he hums.
“My God… I’m scared.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m scared you won’t be there when I turn around. That you’re not real. I’m scared Death bears your face.”
“I’m right here. With you. I’m not Death,” and here, he reaches down Johannes’ arm, snakes his fingers along the bones of his wrist, intertwines the man’s hand with his own, the stem of the forget-me-not crushed between their clumsy, sweaty palms. “I want to be your life again.”
“…Jindříšku...” Hans mutters, a heart-wrenching sound, the apron's corner held tight against his chest.
Henry encircles Johannes’ waist with his arm, tethers him to himself – he is trembling, convulsing, wracked with sorrow. His skin burns, and smells of pollen, dust, sweat and soap. It’s the scent Henry knows intimately, cannot get enough of it, etched into his mind by prickling hay, coniferous twigs, nails dug into his skin. He squeezes Hans’ body closer, buries his nose in the crook of his neck, breathes in the scent of his flesh, relieved. Sweet, sweet relief. Heavenly peace, and famishing, maddening desire in double time.
He looks up, thirsting to dive into Hans’ beautiful, pristine eyes, parched like a man in scorching desert, and sees that his face is scrunched in a painful grimace, tears rolling down his sunken, withered cheeks, lips quivering.
“My lord…” Henry whispers. “My Hansel…”
The painstakingly collected flowers whisper in the grass around them. Hans’ lips are still as soft, as warm, as full of blood and laced with wine as he remembers them. In an instant he sheds the skin of an old man, throws away his bell and staff, cured by Christ’s touch. The setting sun lights his golden hair aflame, and this fire burns Henry to ashes. He missed its burn. It melts down his armor, first. It eats through the linen of his clothes. It blazes on his naked skin, sends flares down his spine. It blinds his eyes. He reaches deep into it, envelops it, steals it away for himself to gorge his eyes upon. All that is left of him are honest sinews and boiling humors. Hans’ face glows in the low, orange sun, his eyes sparkling as he crowns Henry with a wreath of flowers. He cries with joy and pleasure, a sight that melts Henry’s worries right away, evaporating the worried, pale face from the forest and nesting in its place. Henry traces his skin with his hands, drinks up his breath. They were unnecessarily eager to go searching for Holy Land in faraway places, when all along holy was any place along Sasau river, in the corners of besieged fortresses, in a meadow and everywhere that skin meets skin.
That night, people still get little sleep in the village. So much less because of Old man Johannes’ crying, so much more because of the ceaseless, birdsong laughter they can hear coming from his home.
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