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Harry Percy could handle many things. He was a seasoned soldier, even at sixteen. He'd been fine through the marches and skirmishes leading up to King Richard's surrender in Wales. He’d survived the coronation of the new Henry IV, and his own appointment as a Knight of the Garter for his assistance. Deposing one king and crowning another were finished now apart from the formalities, and Harry Percy couldn't wait to finish those up so that he and his father could go back home where they were needed and things made sense. Harry Percy was out of his element in London and at Court.
The Percies kept a court at Warkworth in Northumberland, with well-stocked kitchens and music of some sort on the regular. His mother and sister kept the place warmly decorated with tapestries and embroidered banners, mostly featuring the Percy blue lion. They even had books! His favourite was a Latin text by a man named Vitruvius who described interesting things like bridges and siege engines. Harry Percy knew how to keep his hair in good order where it showed from under his coif, he wore well-fitted hose, and his new cotte was of a fine scarlet wool that anyone should be proud to wear. He washed and changed his shirt regularly, and generally felt like he presented himself as a gentleman should.
But that was Northumberland. There was nothing like London in Northumberland. There was nothing like Court in Northumberland.
Richard's court at London (and it was, in many ways, still Richard's court) made Harry Percy feel shabby and unfashionable. Coifs were out of favour here-- the young men wore their hair clipped so close that it looked untidy if it wasn't trimmed every other day, and only the old and unfashionable wore coifs. Wool was worn, but only for travelling and for garments that wouldn't show much. Court gentlemen wore cottes made of silk brocade, and had them cut in strange ways to show off their figures and take up more fabric. And their shoes! There was no reason to wear such mad shoes, except to show off that one never had to do any running. Even the food was more form than function, with strange colours and garnishes that served no purpose. Music without words bored him, and the ballads sung at court were overblown, sentimental, and often in French, which Harry could read reasonably well, but struggled to understand when spoken or sung. The library did not have a copy of Vitruvius or anything similar. Everything done at court was a show of wealth and leisure, and so it was all expensive, impractical, and uncomfortable.
Harry Percy hated it. After three months, he needed something familiar, and if he couldn’t find anything that reminded him of Northumberland, he could at least find something that reminded him of the army camps he’d grown accustomed to since he was old enough to squire for his father.
And that is how Harry Percy found himself in a seedy tavern in Eastcheap, nursing a mug of… something... that wasn’t quite strong enough to loosen his shoulders from his ears, especially when he heard someone shouting his name from across the room.
“HARRY! YOU’RE BUYING THE NEXT ROUND, EH?” He absolutely was not. He didn’t know what was in his mug, but he’d already spent too much on it and he certainly didn't feel like buying drinks for any of these people. Please god, let this be someone I don’t have to be polite to. Harry Percy wasn’t good at polite even under the best of circumstances. Purposely hiding in the least likely place that someone might look for him was a fair indication that these were not the best of circumstances.
Luckily for him, the shouting did not wait for a reply before continuing. It was some other Harry being shouted at, not him.
“WHAT’S YOUR PLAN NOW THAT YOUR DA’S BEEN CROWNED KING?”
Wait. The words slid around in his head, slowly colliding with known facts. Harry was short for Henry, and Henry was a common enough name. Harry Percy himself shared it with his father, the earl of Northumberland. And they both both shared it with the newly-crowned king, Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford. Harry had only just met his father’s long-time friend Bolingbroke the previous summer. A memory surfaced of Bolingbroke on a hillside in Glostershire. Or was it Bristol? Not important.
“Your father named you for me, you know, not for himself," he'd said. "And I named my eldest for him. Perhaps you’ll meet my Harry someday, and be as good a friend to him as your father Northumberland has been to me. We Harries should flock together, eh?”
But surely Bolingbroke’s eldest son wouldn’t be here of all places? He's the heir to the throne. Doesn’t he have things to do?
But sure enough, a rumpled bleary-eyed young man of about sixteen got unsteadily to his feet and raised a hand to quell the shouting while he fished through what was clearly a beer-induced haze for the words to form his reply.
“I’m going to a brothel-- And I’m going to find the dirtiest slut there-- Gonna ask her for a glove to wear as a favour. And then I’m going to unhorse the lustiest son of a bitch at the next tournament!” He sat down heavily amid the joyous uproar that followed his announcement, and was nearly knocked off his seat by the shower of friendly shoulder-blows from his companions.
Harry was aghast. This was his counterpart, then, Bolingbroke’s eldest. This drunken vulgar fool who would openly flaunt his vices and low company before his father, the court, and the nation. Harry may have hated court and courtiers and he was the first to admit his lack of social graces, but at least he understood honour, dignity, and the way a gentleman needed to present himself. This was not it.
His stomach clenched cold. Hot blood rushed from his face to the back of his neck. He needed to confront this boy-- shout obscenities, throw a punch, or simply howl wordlessly-- or he’d burst. The mug of mystery drink had done its work, however. The room lurched dangerously as he rose from his seat, and the floor of the tavern seemed to rise up to stop his progress. He resisted its pull just long enough to crash into someone (or something, or some combination of the two) before he surrendered to the floor’s smelly but inevitable embrace, lying there with limbs too heavy to move as a prickling flow of frustrated tears made itself known.
Harry Percy would not be introducing himself to Harry Monmouth at this time. He would not be his friend. He would tell no one he had been to this tavern. No one would know that he had fallen over his own two feet on his way to fistfight the heir to the throne and then cried about it. And he would be keeping a close and suspicious eye on this new king and his son.