Chapter Text
Henry took a large sip from his ale while he watched the dice game at the neighboring table. A wayfarer decided to try his luck against the village’s biggest swindler – who Henry knew very well; him, and his loaded dice that always favored odd numbers. Henry also knew that the foreign wayfarer was sure to lose all his groschen tonight.
“Henry!”
He didn’t look away from the game; he wanted to see the wayfarer lose, and he was curious how the stranger would react to his misfortune. One can never know what a friendly game of dice can turn into: a brawl, a swordfight, a nasty quarrel - either of those entailed an evening full of entertainment, something that Henry lacked in the past couple of days.
“Your lord is talking, you dimwit!”
Henry sighed and forced himself to turn from the dice game to look at Sir Hans Capon, Lord of Pirkstein, sitting right in front of him, on the other side of the large tavern table, holding something firmly in his hand.
“Now, where is my ale?”
“Your ale?” Henry repeated.
“Are you deaf? Your lord is thirsty. Go, fetch me some ale.”
Henry didn’t move. He continued drinking his mead, not bothering to lift a finger to help his lord out. Hans had his own two legs to walk up to the innkeeper, his own mouth and tongue to ask for a beer, his hands to bring it to the table – and Henry had his own set of eyes to watch the interesting dice game, which proved to be certainly more entertaining than answering to all of Hans’ little requests.
“This insolence…” Hans waved for the innkeeper to bring him a pint of his best.
Henry glanced at the small object that Hans was gripping in his hand. It looked like a small phial, one that he often uses when brewing decoctions.
Curiosity bested him. “What’s that?” he nodded toward the small jar.
“This, my dear Henry,” Hans raised the phial into the air, turning and twisting it carefully as if it was a rare diamond. “This is a potion.”
Henry raised his eyebrows. “What kind of potion?”
Hans watched the small phial as if he was examining the eighth wonder of the world. “A special kind.”
Henry snorted, and Hans shot a disapproving glare at him. He put the phial carefully on the old wooden table, between himself and Henry, and they both watched the potion while the innkeeper served Hans his drink.
“Where did you get this… special potion from?”
Hans grabbed his freshly served ale and took a long sip, appreciating the strong taste with a click of his tongue.
“Don’t tell me some charlatan sold it to you…”
“Charlatan? What are you talking about? I made this.”
“You?” Henry grabbed the phial and it was his turn to twist it in the air, observing the plain, brown surface. “Nah, you didn’t. You are no alchemist.”
“I’m telling you I did!” Hans grabbed the phial from his hand, as if he didn’t trust Henry. “Are you doubting the words of your lord?”
“I am doubting your words, that’s right.”
“Henry,” The expression on Hans’ face changed, from cheeky to somewhat strict, as if he wanted to imitate Sir Hanush, as if he wanted to demonstrate he was a serious, responsible nobleman. “Your tongue is too sharp today. I think you’ve had enough of your drink,” and with his strict, commanding look, with his noble expression, he swept Henry’s ale off the table.
The wooden mug rolled off with a loud thud, the remaining drink spilling all over the ground. Henry followed the demise of his ale with a pitiful look in his eyes. Hans loved to act like a spoiled little brat all the time, he knew – and yet, Henry always managed to be caught off guard.
“You owe me another round!” he pointed his finger at the fallen mug in the dirt.
“I owe you shit. Now Henry, smell this,” Hans removed the lid from the phial and offered it to him. “Take a good smell.”
After some hesitation, Henry leaned just a bit closer, but the moment he smelt the disgusting aroma, he wrinkled his nose and pushed Hans’ hand away.
“The fuck is this?”
“A special potion, I told you.”
“A special piss, more like.”
Hans chuckled, covering the opening of the phial and putting it back on the wooden table. He adored it as if it was a gemstone, a jewelry, something too precious to be ignored.
Henry could not care less about the strange potion. Annoyed with Hans for spilling his ale, he turned his eyes at the dice game instead – the wayfarer, of course, seemed to be losing. He cursed loudly, while his opponent, the local swindler looked calm and sure of himself. Of course he would, he was cheating from dusk till dawn.
“Now, the question is, how should I give it to her?”
“Hm?” Henry’s attention was fully on the game the next table.
“The potion. How should I use it? Any idea?”
Henry turned his eyes back at the phial. “What’s this potion anyway?”
“A love potion.”
Henry forgot about the dice game for a minute. His eyebrows high upon his forehead, he could not believe his ears. “A what now?”
“A love potion,” Hans repeated confidently, removing the lid from the top and smelling it. He didn’t seem too pleased about the odor, either.
Henry tried his best to not laugh in the face of Hans. He pressed his lips together, leaning a bit closer, his arms crossed on the weathered table of the village inn.
“What do you need a love potion for?” he asked in a low voice.
“What do you think?”
“But Hans, you… I mean, you are still young and everything…”
“I am. And?”
Henry tried to find the right words, while also trying to avoid to publicly humiliate his lord by openly laughing at his ridiculousness.
“I didn’t know you needed… such things to help with… you know.”
Hans raised an eyebrow and said nothing, as if he didn’t understand what Henry was referring to.
“I mean… like, oiling up a sword –”
“Jesus, Henry! It’s nothing like that.” He furrowed his brows as if he wished to send him to the gallows with one simple look. “I’ll have you know, I have no problems in that regard.”
Henry swallowed back a laughter, trying hard to keep his face serious.
“Then what is it for?”
“I want to give this to a lady.”
“A lady? This disgusting drink? Why?”
“Why, he asks! Why do you think? Because she is a fucking nun, that’s why! But Henry, you should see her… the fairest maiden of the land! I met her two days ago, and she bewitched my soul and my senses with a simple glance of her. The problem is… she is living under the roof of her strict brother, locking her away from… Are you listening, Henry?”
In fact, he wasn’t. The moment Hans started to describe the newest wench he utterly fell in love with, Henry’s attention was back at the game of dice.
The wayfarer seemed to catch up with the swindler, now both of them having equal points in the game. More and more people gathered around their table to watch; no one anticipated the local swindler to lose, and yet, his victory no longer seemed possible. Henry straightened his back, trying to catch a glimpse of the gaming board with the dices spread all over it.
Hans snapped his fingers before Henry’s eyes to avert his attention.
“Your lord is talking, Henry.”
“But Hans, I still don’t understand,” Henry said with a sigh. He was in no mood for another amorous adventure, he still remembered what he had to go through back in Rattay. “You need no love potion. Simply walk up to her and say the one line you always use with everyone. That will do the trick and open a way for you.”
“What line?”
“Remind her that you are Lord Hans Capon.”
“Bah,” Hans waved his hand as if trying to sweep the notion away.
“I’m serious. What lady would refuse the Lord of Pirkstein?”
“You don’t get it, Henry. She is too pure, too graceful to accept me into her bed just because of who I am. I learned that she is planning to really become a nun soon. Such a waste, I’m telling you, my friend! So, I was thinking how to get closer to her, and decided to visit Bozhena…”
Henry rolled his eyes. He should have known. “I can’t believe Bozhena took part in this nonsense.”
“No, she didn’t. She said I was a fool. But her daughter… well, she happened to hear my agony, and she told me there is actually a way to make someone fall in love with me. She even taught me how to brew this potion. This…” Hans poked at the phial, its strange aroma mixing with the heavy, drunken atmosphere of the tavern. “She said if someone drinks from the potion, they will fall in love with the first person they lay their eyes upon. That is, me.”
“Nonsense,” Henry replied, unable to turn his eyes from the dice game. With one lucky roll, the foreign wayfarer might actually win. That would be historic. To see the swindler lose…
The whole tavern standing around the players, all eyes glued to the dices, Henry himself wanted to move closer to see what the final roll would be. Hans was always in love, he always found a girl to woo, and Henry developed a certain kind of immunity toward his affinities over the years.
The wayfarer rolled his final dices, removing the cup slowly. Tension thick in the air, with no sound produced, Henry absent-mindedly reached for his ale to take a sip from it.
The ale tasted strange, and he looked at the mug in his hand.
“Henry, you fucking idiot!”
Hans yanked the phial from Henry’s hand and covered it quickly, staring at Henry with wide eyes – and Henry stared back right at him.
“Henry, don’t tell me… you didn’t drink from it, did you? Did you?”
The people all started cheering around the players. It sounded like the wayfarer won, defeating the cheating swindler, and the people lost their minds to see it with their own eyes. The wayfarer would win a fortune.
Henry was staring at Hans, at the phial held in his hand, at the panic he displayed in his eyes. No one paid them any attention; the tavern was occupied with the historic dice game at the neighboring table.
Henry felt like a thousand people tried to crawl into his head, as if they wanted to turn him inside out; he felt like he was getting drunk from one innocent sip of the drink, his thoughts going hazy, his mind and his vision blurry, with Hans as the only clear thing before him. He leaned on his elbows, holding his head in his hands as if he felt sick, as if he had been drinking for two days straight.
“You fucking idiot… Say something, Henry!”
Henry put his hands on the table, watching his fingers as if he wanted to count them. “I… I…” He looked back up at Hans, feeling dizzy, thinking that he might faint any second. He moved his hands closer to Hans, as if he wanted him to keep him steady, to prevent him for fainting and falling from his seat. Hans didn’t react, only his eyes were getting wider.
“Hans,” Henry whispered, but he felt like his lips were too numb to form words. “What is… What was…”
“You fucking stupid, fucking idiot Henry! God… What are you feeling? Tell me.”
Henry closed his eyes and shook his head, as if he wanted to get the weird thoughts and senses out of his head. “What’s… in the potion?”
“I told you it’s a love potion, and you just drank from it! Christ Almighty… This was meant for the lady, not you!”
Henry shook his head again and glanced at the dice players. The swindler looked defeated, staring at the wooden board with his loser loaded dices on it. Someone paid the winner, the wayfarer, a round of ale, and they celebrated by singing loudly, with the whole tavern joining in – except for the wayfarer, who was showing his open palm for the swindler to give him all the coin they betted on.
Henry’s vision started to slowly become clear. After taking a few, long breaths, he felt like everything went back to normal in his mind, as if it was just a quick, temporary drunkenness he experienced from one sip of the mysterious drink. The dizziness stopped, the numbness from his lips disappeared, his ears no longer rang like bell. He was normal.
“Are you alright?” Henry nodded. “And… Did it work?”
Henry cleared his throat and looked at the cautious Hans. Like a kid who found himself in big trouble, he looked like he didn’t know what the consequences of his actions would be, and he could do nothing but watch the events unfold before his eyes. Henry has just taken a long sip from the love potion he made – what’s the worst thing that could happen?
There was also a level of curiosity in Hans’ eyes. No wonder, Henry has just turned out to be the perfect, involuntary volunteer to test the success of his foul decoction. Staying silent, Henry decided to pull his lord’s leg a little.
“Lord Capon, please… spend the night with me,” Henry whispered, looking deeply into the eyes of his lord.
Hans nearly dropped his phial.
“It… worked? I can’t fucking believe it –”
“Hans.” Henry rose from his seat, not taking his eyes off Hans. He looked like he wanted to walk closer to him, but Hans moved further away in his seat.
“Don’t you fucking dare approach, Henry! You stay where you are.”
“But my lord…”
“I’m warning you, Henry. Stay. There. Not one step closer.”
Henry smiled at him, staying in his place as his lord commanded; he smiled like a mischievous kid, pulling a prank on adults, and Hans furrowed his brows.
“Wait. You are fucking with me, Henry.”
He could not hold back this laughter anymore. He sat back to the table, laughing at the pitiful sight his lord presented. “Of course I am. You should see your face!”
“This isn’t funny, Henry. You don’t know what this potion is capable of.”
“It’s capable of nothing. There’s no such thing as love potion. See? Nothing happened to me. It won’t affect your fair lady, either.”
“So… it really doesn’t work. Fucking hell.”
Hans put the phial on the table. He no longer looked confident and full of himself; evidently, this potion had no effect whatsoever: Henry was the living example, the involuntary test subject, and he was the usual arsehole he always was. Nothing changed.
“I suggest, my lord, to stick to the traditional ways of wooing a wench. Buy her flowers, write a poem, call her sweet words. But definitely don’t give her this foul smelling and tasting potion.”
Hans looked exactly the same as the defeated swindler at the next table. As if his big plan, that he was sure of, unexpectedly failed and he had no new tricks up in his sleeves but to admit that he lost.
Henry took pity on him: “Is she really worth all this hassle?”
Hans circled his finger around the phial, thinking but remaining silent.
“You can get anyone you want, Hans. Worst case scenario, you can pay a visit to the bathhouse.”
Hans nodded, looking lost in thoughts. The singing didn’t cease in the tavern: everyone celebrated the unknown wayfarer who paid everyone a round with his quickly earned groschens. The swindler was still staring at the board silently, and when Henry glanced at him, he had a sinister feeling; he felt like the swindler was a slowly boiling cauldron, and the louder the people sang, the more likely he was to erupt.
Not that Henry would have minded. He was craving some entertainment for the night.
He looked back at Hans and a sudden sense of responsibility came over him; he might be craving drama and entertainment, but he sure as hell had to keep his lord out of it. He knew Hans. He always got into trouble, never missed his chance, and it was Henry’s duty to pull him out of everything. If he wasn’t there for him, Hans would have already been beaten, hanged – at least twice – kidnapped, robbed, branded, whipped, whatever misfortune one could imagine. But Henry was always there, luckily.
He observed Hans as if he saw him for the first time. Hans was one cheeky bastard, the definition of a spoiled lord, vain and obnoxious; but he was also charismatic, even funny, smart, and whenever Henry needed help, Hans never hesitated, either. He might have been a lord, keeping his nose high, but his actions spoke for him. He cared about Henry.
“Look, someone brought a lute,” Henry nodded toward one of the villagers who took a seat by the furnace to try to tune his strings.
Hans turned his head in the direction, but showed no enthusiasm. It seemed like he really believed his potion could make someone fall in love with him, and seeing his plan fail was a stab in his thick vanity that he always kept as a shield.
“Why don’t I pay another round of ale and we forget about the wench, hm?”
Even though Hans was loaded with money, Henry thought it would be kind to offer to pay for his lord’s next round – that might cheer him up.
Seeing that Hans didn’t protest, he waved for the innkeeper to bring them a new round of drink.
The villager started to play on his lute; the tune turned out surprisingly melodious, and some of the folks joined the music by singing along. Henry looked at the swindler, who was now collecting his dices, his cheeks turned red, his hands slightly trembling, and he shot a deadly glare at the wayfarer from time to time.
“How about we go hunting tomorrow?”
Hans shrugged and took a surprisingly long sip from his ale, as if he was a common drunkard.
“Alright, let’s go hunting. You might as well shoot me while we’re there.”
“For God’s sake Hans,” Henry slammed his beer mug on the table. “It’s just a girl you can’t sleep with, not the end of the world. There are hundred others.”
“But not like her.”
“I bet. I can see that she bewitched you. Maybe she poured some potion into your drink?”
The lute did not help Hans at all. The villagers seemed to be singing a love song, something about a broken-hearted man who was watching the birds in the sky, longing for his beloved.
“Birds are flying over Bohemia’s sky,” the villagers sang along the lute’s music, with nearly the whole tavern joining in. “Tell me please, why can’t I –”
The swindler jumped from his seat, and with a few long steps, he walked up to the lute player to tear the instrument from his hand and throw it on the ground, snapping its unfortunate strings.
The singing in the tavern stopped completely. Everyone stared at the ruined instrument, at the sudden outburst of the swindler, their mouths gaping, their movements halted as if they were in a still painting.
“You cheater!” the swindler turned to the wayfarer, walking up dangerously close to him. “You have weighted dice. You cheated!”
The wayfarer didn’t look threatened. He smiled mysteriously. “Did I? Or did you?”
The swindler grabbed the collar of his shirt, and the villagers in the tavern tried to calm him. To no avail – as Henry expected, the swindler could not accept his defeat with elegance. He punched the wayfarer right in the face.
Everyone emerged from their seats to look at the fistfight. Suddenly, no one wanted to stand between the swindler and the wayfarer to calm them; they started cheering instead, as if they were enthusiastic spectators for another round of dice game.
Fortunately, they made Hans forget about his broken heart, too. He joined the group of people observing the fistfight; he whistled, he cheered for the wayfarer, and the heavier the punches were, the more excited he became. Like a kid, really, and Henry shook his head with a smile on his face, joining his lord and standing by his side, cheering along for the wayfarer.
He knew something bad would come out of this dice game, and he was not too disappointed to see the swindler fight the wayfarer – now, this was some quality entertainment. He occasionally glanced at Hans, who enthusiastically whistled and yelled, showing his fist as a sign of encouragement, and Henry could not hold back his smile as he watched his lord. No matter how ruined his mood was a moment ago, he was like a carefree brat, turning cheerful and jaunty in an instant, always putting his emotions on display, and Henry caught himself looking more at his lord and less at the fistfight.
A pity – because if he paid more attention to the fight, he would have noticed that the wayfarer landed a heavy punch on the swindler; a punch that sent him staggering back, bumping right into the chest of Hans, almost making him fall over from the unexpected collision.
“Oh kurva!” Hans yelled, pushing the swindler away. That’s it – Henry knew him too well. Hans would now join the fight.
He tried to grab his arm to hold him back, but Hans shook him off easily. The people in the tavern cheered even louder, now that Hans joined the fight on the side of the wayfarer. Two against one, the swindler seemed to be losing at another game, yet again.
But the swindler had his own supporters among the spectators, and they quickly joined him before he got beaten to the ground in this unfair fistfight.
“Stop it, Hans! Remember what happened in Troskowitz?”
No reply. Hans has already started to land punches on whoever was standing right before him, and no reasoning could reach his ears anymore. Henry wasn’t sure what to do to stop his lord from getting into further trouble – that is, until Hans received a punch so hard, he had to cover his nose and stagger back from his opponent.
Hans was a lord. A noble man – and a common drunkard has just punched him. Henry could not let it slide without punishment; so, without thinking twice, he came for his lord’s defense and hit his attacker as hard as his fists could.
And thus, Henry and Hans got into a common tavern brawl, yet again.