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It is the cold that’s getting to him. The cold that the wind has blown straight through his clothes, his thick jupon and scarf, the wind that makes their (his) threadbare banners beat smartly against their lances. The cold that is sticking to the ground and covering the trees with frost while threatening to make his ears fall off below his warm hat. The ice-cold water that splatters upon his boots and hose as the horse breaks through the thin sheet of ice that covers the many pools of water on the road, oozing through his clothes. The only saving grace is that his accursed armor is off, lying in a cart at the back of the column.
Hans Capon, lord of Rattay sneezes loudly, hard enough for his breath to feel as if it’s being dragged through a thorn bush. Phlegm flies forward onto the neck of his uncaring palfrey. Drying his mouth with his gloved hand, he looks upwards at the towers and merlons of Rattay that had started to appear in the distance, seemingly closer in the cold November air. He probably should look forward to returning, to hearth, to his wife and child. But he does not look forward to seeing the faces of its citizens when they see the diminished and bloody band he is returning with.
Hussites, he thinks. Waldensians they were called when he was young. He dimly remembers Henry once telling him about some other group named Cathars, in France, long ago. But that is not a memory he wishes to dwell on, so he doesn't. Heretics, lord Peter had called them when he addressed the motley crew of barons and their retinues. Men who gave no respect to neither god, nor church nor kings or lords.
People of his own kind really, Hans had thought. But then again, he was not one to shirk his duty, whatever that was these days. Or whatever it had ever been for these lands had not seen a proper functioning authority since he was a lad and honestly, he was starting to believe that his uncles’ stories of good king Charles had been just that. So, he came and joined the nobles with his retinue, they faced off against the rabble and were promptly beaten soundly when some other barons of a different persuasion of duty had charged them out of nowhere. He had all but laughed as they fled from the field.
It didn't seem as funny now as he was leading what was left of his retinue home.
The roads and fields were blessedly empty, so it wasn't before the came to the Broken Wheel tavern that people started to take notice of them, staring dumbly at their lord and his beaten men. Yes, why come and look at your lord and master and his latest fuck-up, why don't you? Something to sneer about into your cups tonight as you forget all about hussites, wuzzites or whatever they call themselves these days. It’s not you who have to ride across the countryside in mid-winter only to lose a battle and slink back with your tail between your legs.
He is starting to feel sick and is not sure whether it is the cold or the disdain. Thankfully, one of the upsides of this approach is that they can avoid the town itself.
In the courtyard he meets his wife.
Jitka curtsies, for she is unlike him well-brought up at the royal court and actually knows how to behave around people.
"My lord husband" she says "I am glad to see your return." The words are ritual, expected of a noble wife at her lord and husbands bloodied visage returning (hopefully successfully) from the battlefield. His answer is as ritual.
"I am glad to have returned." With the vigor of the young man he once was he swings himself from the saddle and almost start coughing again for his trouble. He looks at his wife, her hands folded onto each other over the embroidered velvet dress that she must have donned for the occasion when the lookout called out that their lord was approaching (they had decreed that lookouts should be posted day and night because all the news in Bohemia are of war this winter). The furs she has thrown over her shoulders are thick enough to make her seem bigger and more impressive. A perfect lady, for an imperfect lord. The silence between them is deafening.
For a moment he considers whether he should sweep her off her feet and carry her to his chambers, to the smiles of his soldiers and hoots of the more uncouth stable-boys but he never had the courage to treat Jitka like he treated his other lovers throughout the years. In any case, he's cold, literally beaten, his lungs are killing him and he feels older than his thirty and some years. So he takes her by the arm instead and walks up the stairs to the hall, determined to not go outside again for a month.
His resolve holds till about midday the next day.
Oh, the evening is amiable enough. Mulled wine with honey makes his throat hurt less, a stupendous roast fills his belly nicely and he regales his son and heir, young Henry, with outrageously overblown stories of the battle and how their charging destriers made the heretics cover and flee. His wife doesn't smile at his stories though. Of course, she knows they are all lies. Maybe her sympathies are with the Hussites but those are dangerous thoughts, especially now when once again gentry and commoners alike are picking sides in Bohemia.
Hans was never much one for sides. Once again he wishes their marriage was one where these matters could be discussed openly or at least privately behind locked doors but it isn't and that’s probably his fault if he’s being honest.
(Henry would have known what to say)
But the morning arrives and it is more splendid then any November morning has any right to be, clear sun making the frost on trees and soil gleam. Over breakfast he mentions that maybe, just maybe, this would be a good day for him to take young lord Capon hunting. The boy's eyes shine with the suggestion but his mother reminds him of his lessons and anyway it is far too cold and also you are sick my lord husband.
So he agrees (he usually does). And spends an awful morning going through the paperwork, making sure his fallen troops widows and children are taken care of (important) and the accounts are in order (dreadful). So by midday he grabs his dagger, bow and arrows, sneaks down to the kitchen to pack up a jug of wine, a slice of ham and some newly baked loafs, loads it all on the horse and sets off for the forest.
The woods of Rattay has been his refugee ever since he first learned how to sneak food out from the castle kitchen and out through the postern gate. Ever since Bernard cut him his first bow it is where he has disappeared to whenever the demands of lordship became too stressful.
He idly wonders whether he should have cut his son a bow but then remembers that he has absolutely no skills in that department. Maybe Henry could have? But then again, Henry could barely smith despite being apprenticed under his father for years so the off chance that he would know bow-making sounds farfetched to Hans.
The woods are blessedly quiet. There is almost no wind to shake the trees and the frozen soil and leaves makes crunching noises beneath his horse’s hooves. The ground is too hard for good tracking and most animals are either hibernating or otherwise resting, trying to conserve as much energy as possible. They're wiser than him, he thinks, as he edges his horse forward through the frozen, silent wilderness. There is precious little game to be had and when he was younger he would have raved and complained at this but in his middle age he has gotten used to the occasional failure. Much like governing he thinks.
They have reached the gorge that is the little river that flows towards Talmberg. Hans descends from his horse and sits down on a fallen log with his food. The water is not yet frozen but flowing merrily. His lungs are still hurting and he breaks out in another fit of cough, his ragged throat disturbing the peace of the woods. Across the stream a scarred old boar breaks concealment, staring Hans down across the water.
Once he would have picked up his bow and tried to bring the boar down. But he only took the one horse and leaving the proud animal here for the various predators doesn't sit right with him anymore. So instead he sits still until the boar decides he is not a threat and disappears into the gloom and frozen undergrowth. By now the foolishness of the expedition is clear to him and he mounts his horse to coax his hurting lungs home. At one point he is close falling off and he considers how long it would take for the castle to find his body. Once he had almost disappeared in these woods, courtesy of an admittedly foolish boar hunt and a couple of Cumans. His uncle had chewed him out he remembers. He wonders what they would say about him if he disappeared today. Would his people miss him? He had not been a bad lord, he thinks, or at least he had tried not to be.
Now that's a fucking epitaph he thinks, here lies Hans Capon, lord of Rattay. He tried.
The thought spurs him enough to steer his horse home. He spends the two days bed- and fever ridden, sipping hot soup in-between sleep and bouts of fever dreams.
You didn't make anything of your heritage his uncle says in one. I was twice the lord you ever was.
You tried to take it from me, he wants to say. I might have given it to you is you had but asked. But in the dream he is silent.
A lord must be conscious and proper, Radzig says in that pompous voice of his, not a wastrel to abandons his heir and duties to go hunting.
You abandoned your only son and sipped wine while your people starved in the gutter, he wants to scream. But in his dreams he is mum.
You haven't changed a bit, Henry admonishes, I must have been a fool to have believed you could.
I tried Henry, he wants to cry, I tried to be what you thought I could be. But even in his dreams he can't speak trough his tears.
On the fifth day his fever breaks long enough for him to stumble out of bed and down to the church. To pray for the souls of his parents, he says when his wife asks whether he should really be out of bed. To pray for his own soul, and prayer it needs, says the servants behind hands and snigger's.
In truth he goes to visit Bernard.
The old man had passed away only a few years before, falling down stone dead in the mud as he was in the process beating some new recruits into shape. His family up in Kamberg had never shown much interest in him so Hans had taken onto himself to commission the man a tomb and a proper stone effigy in the castle church. A waste some would say but Bernard, for all his sternness, did his utmost to keep Hans on the straight and narrow and for all his flaws Hans is not someone to forget to pay his debts. So he enters the church and after exchanging some cursory words with the priest he is left alone by the tomb. He supposes he should kneel and pray but his lungs are taking fire again so instead he simply sits down next to his old captains’ tomb. He tells him of the battle, of how his men fought well and how it was not their fault they were finally driven from the field. He tells him of young Henry and how he wishes Bernard were still with them in case some sense would need to be knocked into the boy. Finally, he asks him if he has been a good lord.
Bernard doesn't answer. But still it makes him feel better. The old man was never one for soliloquies anyway.
On the sixth day he feels well enough to ride. His cough and lungs feel better but he still feels cold. A bath he decides, that is the cure. So he has his horse saddled and ride slowly down the street. His people keep out of his way but it is, he is relieved to notice, not out of fear but out of sheer practicality of not wanting to be splashed by mud.
He spots Karolina as he crosses the square. Big and plump after six childbirths and as beautiful as ever, the butcheress, having finally inherited the shop once her husband died last spring, Hans remembers, confidently waves at her lord, who feels his heart flutter despite the years. They probably haven't talked besides exchanging basic courtesies since his marriage but it still makes him happy to know that at least some of his subjects don't despise the sight of him.
His horse exists the gate and starts its descent along the slope. On the way he spots the miller leading a horse and cart with finely ground flour towards the town. He nods towards her and she nods back, acquaintances by the virtue of a mutual friend. One day, he thinks, one day we must sit down and talk about Henry, just you and me Theresa. Just you and me, us who loved him and saw him leave. It is not the first time he has thought this particular thought and now as ever he knows that he will not do anything about it.
"Has my lords baths run cold and dry?" the bathhouse proprietress greets him.
"Cold and lonely without you Zdena." He says, "a bath without company is not a bath at all."
She laughs, the same laugh she always had, that could make even the saddest man smile. "Well then, you are in luck my lord, we have heated water ready and a new shipment of Rhenish has just arrived."
"Excellent! Will you join me for a spot of dice as we await it to heat?"
She laughs again. "For the good of Rattays financial health I really should abstain." But her smile is real and she leads Hans into the warm wooden room smelling of herbs and sour wine, with its cask full of hot water and it’s pine-smelling walls.
Zdena guides him into the tub with her and with perfect courtesy he serves up the cheese and slices of choice meats he brought with him. They do dice, but not over money (or clothes) but over raisins and nuts. He knows that as a proprietress, Zdena will these days leave the drinking and bathing with customers to the younger girls but he always asks (but never insists) that she accompany him.
"Why this old hag?" she asks, as always. "Why not one of my young pretty friends?"
"Women are like wine" he jokes "when preserved in a proper cask they become even better with age." She rolls her eyes and throws a roasted chestnut at him. He laughs and mocks taking cover in the water.
He doesn't say You're the only one I have left. But he's pretty sure she knows.
The bath, wine and conversation (and despite the wagging tongues of the town, that is all that happens between them that day) makes him feel warm again, despite his aching lungs and wheezing breath.
While not wanting to risk hunting, on the seventh day he takes his son on a ride down to the fishing traps by Ledetchko. He has the foreman show the boy around and the boy, not yet old enough to look down on such commoner pursuits, takes it all in with dewy eyes. They feast on grayling clay-baked in the fire together with dried herbs, on fresh bread and winter apples and dark frothy beer from the inn and he regales the boy with tales of the time he meet king Wenceslaus, of the night raid on Talmberg when he got shot in the butt (his son laughs so hard at this story that he falls off his seat and it's all Hans can do to hold back the joyful tears) and other battles, of hunts and mischief he got up to as a young man. He exaggerates of course and feel just a little bit guilty of the way the boy takes it all in. But at the same time does it matter? Hans certainly doesn't think so. On their way home he considers whether he should have something made for the boy. A sword perhaps? But then again he has seen what happens to boys that get too obsessed with that particular weapon. By spring however, he resolves, he will take the boy to Prague or at least Kuttenberg and commission something for him from one of the master craftsmen.
On the eight day his sickness returns with a vengeance and he is again bedridden. By the ninth his fever is hot enough to burn the hand of the apothecary that touches his forehead. By the tenth his wife actually sends for the priest but Hans waves him away. He is only half conscious and his fever is returning, as are his dreams. Some are terrifying. Some are soothing. Others simply confusing.
By the twelfth he is temporally lucid enough to have visitors. He has a quick word with his clerks to make sure all the documents are in order, for he does not want to leave his son as complicated an inheritance as he received. He tells his wife to take care of their son and apologizes for not loving her as she should have been loved, for despite his flaws he is conscientious a lover enough to face his shortcomings. She smiles (but without tears) and kisses his burning forehead.
Finally he meets with his son. He has the boy tell him of his lessons and try to give him all the advice he has ever been given on lordship. It's jumbled, and probably doesn't make that much sense but then again he received the same advice and it wasn't like he turned out anything beyond a mediocre lord. At one point his eyes glaze over and he asks. "Henry? Henry why did you leave? Why didn't you stay with us?"
The boy is confused and scared. "I'm here father. I have never left you."
Hans eyes sharpen again. "Ah yes," he says and grabs the boy’s hand soothingly "so you are." And then he asks his son to make him a promise that he does not fully understand.
By the thirteenth day he is no longer lucid.
By the fourteenth he is dead.
On his effigy, as long as it lasts before time and architects destroy it, is says his name, his place of birth and demesne. He is shown as the warrior he once wanted to be, weapons and coat of arms proudly displayed. His son, who will become an actual great lord and general, winning victories over some of the hussites his father failed to vanquish, will honor his father and talk of him as the great lord who taught him everything he needed to know. Henry of Rattay will be a great man, perhaps a good man, certainly a fair man.
His father will have asked him to live up to his name.