Archive of Our Own ^beta

Above him, the clouds moved like fish in a pond. They were smaller now than they had been before, when a storm hat swept over the land, carrying rain with it. The rain had been surpri­singly cold for this time of year, and since they were all wea­kened enough as it was, most of them had fled inside. Ludek, a young soldier under Frenzl's command, had stayed in the outer bailey, collecting something from the bloated earth he had called seeds, and once he had gathered about a handful of them, he savaged them like a pig. Hans had watched him skep­tically from the smithy where he tried to wait out the storm. Ludek's mouth had been covered in smudgy, wet soil when he looked up with a wicked laugh and stretched out his hand in Hans's direction to offer him some of the seeds. Hans had politely declined with a silent shake of his head. Too many of their men had died over the past few days from whatever rotten food they had been able to find, he should be damned if he got tempted by God only knew what Ludek had dug up there.

As soon as the rain had ended, the heat returned with even more force than before. The sun was almost as unbearable as the storm, so that many of those who had fled to the castle preferred to stay there instead of boiling outside in the court­yard where there wasn't much shelter. The sun had dried the ground rather quickly. Ludek had whined about it for almost a whole hour.

By now, the sun had started to set. It had already disap­peared behind the wooden outer walls of Suchdol, had sunken down so far that its light had dimmed to a warm tint of red. It painted the small, quickly moving clouds above him. Fish in a pond. Red and dark yellow and orange-brown fish. Nicely roasted fish. Hm. Not a thought he wanted to entertain now.

Besides, the hunger wasn't even what bothered him most. It had yesterday, and also the day before. He had sent Henry out in the hopes that he could find something for him, that sly de­vil. And much to Hans's surprise, he actually had, a few leeks and onions, that was, and even an only half-emptied wineskin, and they had both devoured this treasure together, hiding away in the bathhouse where no one would see them, and in that moment even the raw onion had tasted like the ripest, sweetest apple.

No, what made this day truly unbearable was the boredom. The storm had distracted him for a while, watching Ludek eat the earth's excrements had, too. But as the rain had driven every other sane person inside and with Hans not being able to bear the walls of the castle right now, it had left him alone for most of the time. Which normally wouldn't bother him too much, he was used to the solitude, chased it himself ever so of­ten, but there wasn't much joy to it when one couldn't return to civilisation afterwards. And his civilisation as of now consisted of the never-changing three dozens of people and the never-changing two racks of books in this never-changing confine­ment of a castle, and Christ, how he hated it more with every day to pass!

The rain had also chased Henry away. The only company Hans could never imagine himself getting tired of.

The sun had set a little further still, the heat that had turned into a comfortable warmth over the span of the afternoon was banished by the creeping coldness of the night. The grass that covered the ground here, next to the tent in the outer bailey, stopped being a warm and inviting bed and made him shiver, despite the armour he wore over his pourpoint. Which had be­come increasingly heavy over the day, and it itched and pinched in all the wrong places.

Hans let out a deep sigh. Time to stand up and get inside.

They had moved a table and a few stools out into the castle courtyard, and lighted some candles so they could all sit toge­ther and kill some time. Kubyenka talked too much even wi­thout anything proper to drink. Žižka looked as if he was done talking completely. Godwin stared into the emptiness in front of him as if he had just witnessed an apparition no one else could see. Henry was with them, too. Sitting a little too close to Katherine for Hans's liking.

He greeted them with a nod in passing. When Henry noticed him, he opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something to Hans. He didn't, and Hans didn't feel patient enough to wait for him to make up his mind.

A part of him regretted his stubborn decision to ignore the group and leave for his room all alone. It might have been nice to talk to them for a while, and hadn't he been bored anyway just moments ago? It was Kubyenka's fault, he told himself. Just from that short time Hans had seen him, he had known the idiot wouldn't shut his mouth any time soon. And Žižka's ex­pression hadn't looked all too inviting either. And then, of course, there was the more obvious reason for his reluctance. Hans flung the door to the castle open and gave it an additional kick for good measure. His fucking arm! His fucking arm around her shoulder!

He turned left and saw the door to his room stand open, light flickering behind it. The fireplace? No, he was certain that he hadn't bothered lighting it anew before he had went outside this morning, and even if he had, it should have long gone out by now. He slowed his steps, listened. A creaking sound, a rattling one, iron scraping over iron. Someone was in his fucking room!

The intruder had brought a single candle with him that only scarcely illuminated parts of the chamber and the side of his body that was facing away from Hans. He was on one knee in front of the chest Hans used to store his wardrobe in, and both his hands were suspiciously close to the chest's lock. The man wore a green padded doublet. He had taken his helmet off, had placed it next to his bent knee, and his short cut, ruffled hair was almost as dark as coal in the dim candlelight.

“Samuel?” Hans took another step into the room and heard the door fall shut behind him. Samuel wasn't bothered at all, neither by the sound of the door nor by Hans's sudden appea­rance. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” He flicked his right wrist, the lock sprung open. No hesitation, not even a single glance over his shoulder to Hans, he just raised the lid of the chest and began to rummage around in it like a madman. “You must have some­thing else in these chests than only clothes and books.”

He shook his head, even though Samuel couldn't see it, wouldn't even care to look. Christ, under different circumstan­ces, his audacity could have been impressive! “Like what? Some nice illustration you can yank your virgin pizzle over?”

“Do not act as if we didn't all know what you are.”

“Yes, fucking annoyed. I cannot believe you stole away from the others to break into my things!”

“You are a spoiled noble,” Samuel explained with a calm­ness in his voice that was infuriating. “They stick everything up your tuches to make sure you are nicely taken care of. They would never let you starve to death like the rest of us.”

“Food!” Hans felt a laughter tear itself free from his throat, even though the situation wasn't funny to him at all. “You are looking for food? You seriously believe Janosh would give me more than the rest of you? Where do you think he'd even hide it?”

“Well, he must have something secured. They could never risk anything severe happening to you.”

Hans crossed his arms in front of his chest, watched in be­wilderment as Samuel lifted an old hose form the chest and shook it as if it was the arse of a money-shitting donkey. “Look, I appreciate you valuing my life so much, but I can assure you, I'm just as much in the shit as all of you.”

“Schmonzes. You were reeking of onions yesterday.”

Another laugh, but this time one of sheer disbelief. A few onions and some bunches of leek had been Henry's meager yield, and this little fuck was angry at him for it! He had known from the start that it was a mistake to led Samuel join their group. Had known since the raid of the Jewish quarter that Samuel had dragged his brother into, or at least since his hot-headed attack on von Bergow, had known from every whispe­ring conversation with Henry, from every suggestive look he gave him, every time he asked for a moment alone with him to discuss God knew what! “Well, had you been smelling your brother just as extensively as you apparently like to smell me, you would have known that he was reeking of them, too.”

Samuel let the lid fall shut with a loud clang and stood up. At first, Hans believed he must be disappointed from not ha­ving found the evidence for the betrayal he was hoping for, but when he turned around to face him, there was genuine anger in Samuel's narrowed eyes. “Because you put him on a search for food. To sniff something out for his poor master. Like the good dog that he is to you.”

The words stung in his stomach sharper than the hunger ever could. “Don't you dare speak of him like this.”

“No. I speak of you like this, goy.” Even his fists were clenched. As if a long held frustration was bursting out of him like lightning from a thunderstorm, and Hans had to be lying if he claimed the feeling wasn't mutual. “You use him.”

“I use him?” He didn't mean to say the words the way he did, didn't want to give Samuel any hint at the feelings he truly held in his chest, but the truth was fighting its way out of him like a disease. “And what on earth am I doing to put you under this impression?”

“A bastard serving as your page.” Samuel's voice sounded more like the growl of a wolf now than the talk of a man. “And he has to care for your every wish, fetch you some food, wipe your arse, accompany you to a hunt whenever your loneliness gets too much to bear.”

If Samuel sounded like a wolf, than it was on Hans to feel like one, and damn it all, had it not been for the thought of Henry alone, he had been storming forward and smashed his brother's head in. “You know, Samuel, you shouldn't judge others by your own standards, but I for one can take of my arse's cleanliness all on my own, thank you very much. And I don't see any problem with me wanting to spend time with your brother. After all, you're doing it plenty yourself!” He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to make it seem as if he was simp­ly collecting himself when in reality, he didn't want Samuel to see. Jealousy. Fucking jealousy, and it was foolish, because Sa­muel was a bloody liar, Hans didn't need anyone by his side, he had never been scared of the loneliness, and fuck it all, why was this prick reading him as if he was looking into an open book?

“Only that Henry and me are actually alike. We are both on the lower end of this society. Forever damned to work for you people, and to still be spit on when we do not comply as you wish.”

Which was just why Samuel had no idea what he was tal­king about, because how could he, the lord and heir to Pirk­stein, ever long for the company of a peasant, not as a servant but as a friend! It would have made him a laughing stock, it would have made him the target of dangerous accusations that he was breaking the God-given order, and he wanted to scream this truth at Samuel's face, but the anger died all of a sudden, as quickly as the storm had earlier. And when he spoke next, his words were filled with honesty, sincerity, because what he truly wanted was for Samuel to understand, to see him the way Hans didn't even want to see himself. “It is not my fault that we were both born into different estates. But I promise you, I've never thought of him as lesser. And I have never wished to use him, as you claim. If anything, he is the one who has a hold on me.”

“Oh, how so?” Samuel's voice was heavy with mockery. “Enlighten me, please, I am dying from curiosity.”

Hans didn't answer. Christ, he had said more than enough already.

His silence wasn't enough for Samuel to wield any mercy, or maybe he simply cared too little about him. “Can he order you to be whipped with the wave of a hand? Or ask for your head when you open your mouth a little too wide again? Did he somehow gain the authority to demand you to do his every bidding?”

“I would never make him …”

Samuel's words kept falling down on him like the blows of a hammer. “Or isn't perhaps the only reason you feel so reliant on him the fact that he is the one person in this world who has patience enough to endure all your drek? A loyal dog that will always stay by your side. Your only friend.”

“He's so much more than that.” He had only whispered the words, and was thankful for it. That was not for Samuel to know. A secret only he was ever allowed to bear the weight of. When he continued, he spoke louder again, with more confi­dence, too. Sincerity. He shouldn't even care so much for Sa­muel to believe him, it did not matter, it wasn't wise. “Do you have any idea how much I'd be willing to sacrifice for your brother? How far I'd go to safe his life?”

“And have you? Have you sacrificed everything for him yet, just like he has sacrificed everything for you so often?”

“I wanted … I try …”

Samuel laughed. A taunting hiss of air between his teeth.

“I'd give my life for him!”

Something in Samuel's expression changed. His pale eyes narrowed just a little bit more, he closed his mouth, clenched his jaw, there was confusion on his face, and something more scrutinising, and Hans felt bare underneath it. Then Samuel wrinkled his nose, took a sharp breath and shrugged it off, be­fore turning back around to face Hans's bed, as if their whole conversation had just been an unpleasant dream. “So you are a much bigger fool than I thought.”

For a little while, Hans found himself baffled, staring at Sa­muel while he was kneeling down again, searching the empty space underneath the bed, standing back up, feeling the mat­tress, the blanket. This was a joke, it had to be! “Are you fucking serious?” he finally managed to exclaim, when Sa­muel's hands were getting closer to a part of the bed they abso­lutely shouldn't be going. Just the sight alone made Hans feel sick. “What, do you believe I'm just sleeping on a big, fat slice of meat?”

“I would not put it past you.” Samuel hesitated, his fingers found something, hidden under the pillow. Of course he pulled it out, that bastard, and Christ's wounds, Hans would have done the same! Curiosity killed the cat, but it didn't matter now, be­cause fear had taken hold of every fibre of his body, forcing him to just stand and stare in panic, as Samuel turned the book in his hands as if it was the strangest thing he had ever laid his eyes upon.

“Put it back.” Hans wished there had been more authority in his voice, more of the threat that he felt from an invisible dag­ger pointed at his own throat. “That is clearly nothing to eat anyway.”

“Why are you hiding it?”

“Because it's none of your business.”

“Hm.” Samuel looked up at Hans, his eyebrows raised. “Secret correspondences perhaps?”

“What? Wasn't it enough for you to accuse me of hiding food from you all? Now you're also taking me for a spy!” His eyes widened as he saw Samuel lifting the thin leather binding, and he raised both his hands in shock, taking a step forward. “Stop it! Samuel, I mean it!”

“A book of verses,” Samuel read, and Hans felt his whole body tremble with dread. “Dissolutely leisurely.” A shake of the head, a confused laugh. “What does that even mean?”

“It's nothing you could comprehend. So put it back!”

Samuel raised his gaze at him, and the crooked smile on his lips made Hans shiver to the bone, from how much it reminded him of Henry. “Is that a command, Lord Capon? And I thought you saw us all as equals here.”

“I do. And unless you want me to pry around in your things next, you better leave it be.”

Samuel opened the first page. Whether it was because he was still actually suspicious or because he simply wanted to punish him even more, Hans could not tell. “Ever since the day I was born,” Samuel began to read, slowly, stuttering, raising the book higher to seek out the faint candlelight, “I hesitate to ask my thorn: Is it just you, thorn, or the whole rose, that my loved one desires most?” He laughed again. This truly was all just a joke to him. Couldn't he see, did he truly not realise? “This is horrible!”

“Exactly.” Hans's voice was shaking too now, his teeth were chattering as if from the cold. “Which is why there really is no need to …”

Samuel had flipped to another page. There was a crease in its upper corner, Hans could see that, and he took a deep breath to prepare himself for the worst. Whatever that was. To fight perhaps, if he still had the strength in him, or to flee, climb the castle walls, run right into the enemies' arms, at least that would be a more merciful death. “A knight in battle attire got into bed with his squire. Instead of conquering forts, they played with each other's swords.” Samuel furrowed his brow, the laugh disappeared. He read the lines again, and then a third time, moving his lips silently with the movement of his eyes. Then his mouth opened the tiniest bit, his face went slack. Now he saw. Now he realised.

Hans stood and watched. Was he even still breathing? He couldn't tell.

A few more pages yet, and suddenly Samuel turned the book sideways, to take a closer look at something that was written on the margin. For a brief, foolish moment, Hans hoped Samuel might not be able to decipher his scrawled handwriting. But of course he could, the fucker. Audentis fortuna screwed over again and again. “Though my horse has never carried me to what they call the Baltic sea, I reckon it's just as deep and blue as your eyes feel when I lose me in you.” Two more pages, the next passage scratched sloppily into the empty space next to the other poems. Like watching the Finger of God being re­vealed to them and knowing that the lethal blow would come any time now, Hans just couldn't tell when. He didn't have to wait much longer. “A strange feeling I must declare,” Samuel began, and Hans nodded as if Samuel was reading his death sentence to him, and there was no strength in him to do any­thing but accept it, “to miss and long for the moment where your fists were first raised against me, scorching my skin like fire. Oh bruise me again, my rescuing knight, but bruise me with desire.” He looked up.

Hans stumbled a few steps back, as if Samuel's eyes were an arrow shot for his face. Then he waited, for the inevitable to come. Insults perhaps. A punch, or rather a dozen of them. Sa­muel's features disappeared just for the blink of an eye, and he saw someone else instead that he had long thought forgotten. A similarly slender face, but a broader chin. Round eyes, dark as ink. It wouldn't hurt as much as it had hurt with Matej. He didn't trust Samuel as much as he had trusted Matej, didn't care for him as he had for Sir Bernard's squire.

Samuel turned around again, leaned forward and put the book back on the bed, placed it neatly on top of the pillow, carefully as if it was some saint's relic. “Your rhymes are better than those of this so-called poetaster.” Then he went over to the candle on the windowsill, grabbed it and made for the door.

“Wait.” Just like Matej, Hans thought, saving the attack for when it would hurt most, but he had learned over the years, wasn't a foolish boy anymore, wouldn't let himself get hurt the same way he had back then, or at least now he knew how to prepare himself for it. “You … You do understand, right? You understand what you just read, what I wrote?”

“Of course I understand.” Samuel's voice was as sharp as steel and just as bitingly cold, but then he fell silent for a while, stared down at the candle in his hand. His eyes absorbed the golden light, and they were nothing like Matej's eyes, confused, yes, even averse perhaps, but not hateful. “In fact, I feel like I understand a lot of things a lot better now.”

And what are you going to do about it? Hans wanted to ask. He didn't dare to. Maybe he hadn't learned after all.

“You are a commander in this whole siege,” Samuel conti­nued, and the sudden change to politics caught Hans by sur­prise. “So is Henry. The other day, you both had to choose men for something you yourself described as a suicide mission.”

“It was horrible,” Hans answered truthfully. “I'm not sure I could ever make such a decision again.”

“I know how you feel about it. Henry told me.” Samuel's eyes were still fixed on the flame, but his expression was so blank now, that Hans could not even have made a guess about where he was going with all this. “He hated it as well, I could sense that, but all he talked about was how bad it was for you. How you were feeling.”

Hans couldn't tell why, but the tightness in his stomach loo­sened a bit, and when he looked at Samuel again, Matej's face was gone completely, and instead he could, once more, see the resemblance with another man. Soft bright eyes, the faintest smile.

“This siege is slowly starving us,” Samuel said. “Even if all of us can somehow make it to the end of it, there will still be a huge battle awaiting us. And just like for the Devil and the men you chose, it can be over for us every single day, every other moment that passes.”

“Trust me,” Hans swallowed down the lump in his throat, “I'm well aware of that.”

“You are not.” He raised his eyes now. Not Henry's eyes, way smaller than his, fiercer too, a similar greed for revenge, but without his compassion. The spitting image of what Henry might one day become. “You cannot be fully aware of it unless you know what it feels like to wait for too long and lose the one chance you had. Only then can you understand how much you should truly fear death, when it comes and goes and leaves you behind, alone, full of regrets.”

“You loved someone.” It wasn't a guess. Hans knew, be­cause, for the first time perhaps since he met Samuel, he had allowed him to see past the resoluteness and anger, had turned another page to read out loud, only that this time the secrets he shared were his own. “You lost them.”

Samuel pressed his lips together. His thoughts seemed to be battling over how much more he was comfortable with sharing, and then it was over. He shook his head, closed the book for good. “Some things are just not meant to be. Anyway, I hope you see that you can quit the virgin jokes from now on.”

“I … I'm sorry, Sam. I did not mean to …” Hans lowered his eyes, felt too ashamed to look at him any longer. “It was just …”

“I know.” He saw Samuel turn on his heel, but he didn't move just yet. The candlelight threw dancing shadows on the wall, flickering from Samuel's sharp breaths. “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.” His voice was soft all of a sud­den, so soft in fact that for a moment Hans doubted it was ac­tually him uttering these words. “As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. Under its sha­dow I delighted to sit, and its fruit was sweet to my taste. He has brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love.” He fell silent again. The short outburst of emotion was gone.

Hans furrowed his brow. “Did … you just make that up?”

“No.” The usual hardness had returned, it was almost com­forting. “But it still goes to show that my people understand poetry way better than yours do.”

With those words he left, leaving Hans in the complete dark­ness of his own room, until his eyes slowly got used to the faint red shimmer of light that was still illuminating the night sky. “What the fuck?” he mumbled, turning his face, looking at the book on the pillow, now nothing more than a square, indefin­able shadow. You cannot be fully aware of it, Samuel's words echoed through his mind like a bell, unless you know what it feels like to wait for too long and lose the one chance you had. He had been sincere, hadn't tried to trick him, wasn't Matej af­ter all, but Martin's blood, and Hans had never known the blacksmith, but he had heard Henry talk about him, and he damn well knew the son that Martin had raised.

Alone, full of regrets. Hans had believed once that he under­stood what it meant to feel alone. How could he not have felt that way when fate had taken both his parents from him before he even got to know them? But if he understood the feeling so well, then what was he scared of now? Why did it hurt so much to see Henry's arm around Katherine's shoulder, to see Samuel share hours of talks and laughter with him? Because his parents had left a hole in his heart of a shape he did not know. An em­ptiness, yes, but an indescribable one. The weight of Henry on his very soul, that was something he could feel, something he could grasp. And he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to lose that, too.

A love like a banner over him. A love like a lily among thorns. Fine then. Let it sting. Let it pierce him, slice his soul open, he would not care. Samuel's poetry had written it, and Samuel's life had turned it into a painful lesson. Hans would take his advise, would not make the same mistake as he did. No missed chances. No regrets.