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The road stretching back to the Den is long and dry.
Henry's helmet dangles from his saddle, bloodied and dented, and swings like a severed head on a belt. Something rotten hangs in the air; war, maybe, with its stench of old rust and copper. He's certain the birds can smell it, too, or they wouldn't be prowling the countryside like vultures.
Just ahead of him, Hans handles his horse with care, leading Henry home as though it is his God-given right. They haven't spoken since mutely mounting up and setting off, and although he wishes to talk about the fight or the heat, Hans leads him home and Henry follows.
He might be bleeding, he thinks. They'd done their best to patch themselves up before leaving the camp, but Hans seemed to only be able to manage a moment's light contact before he was pulling his hand away and watching it as though it had deceived him. Whatever wound that burns on Henry's shoulder could not be reached by his own care and Hans' new hesitation to look at him was not of any help. The warmth blooming slowly on his back, he figures, is unlikely to have been caused by the hot day.
It was a new thing, this fear, only making itself known after Raborsch. Coming and going with seemingly no clearer pattern than the sun and the rain. Back at the Den, he had shown no sign of it, yet there it had remained in his heavy steps, clamping his muscles into a rigid picture of reservation once the camp had been cleaned up.
Almost as though he can sense Henry wanting to ask, Hans breaks the still.
"So, you're to join Sigismund," he says with a lightness that doesn't quite match the taut lines of his back and arms. "I ought to declare you a traitor and have you executed."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Henry means it as a joke, but it doesn't land. Belatedly, as though he hears it only after a minute, Hans huffs one hollow exhalation of laughter, but otherwise ignores him.
Something is wrong. The sticky air feels it in full force, making Henry sweat.
"Have you an objection, my lord?"
"No." He replies, too quickly. "And I don't wish to discuss it any further."
Something is wrong.
"Sir, I have to insist—"
Hans cuts him off with a distinct and distant force.
"Please, Henry. Don't insist on anything. It only complicates matters."
"What am I supposed to do, then?" Henry asks, trying to ignore the way Hans' words carry across the wind that he breathes into his chest. "Stick my head in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong?"
Hans doesn't answer immediately. For a moment, there is only the field with its breeze-danced crops, its crows and its cattle some distance away, the hooves of the horses on the loose stones. Mutt barks at a hare and the world is slow.
When he next speaks, his words are heavy and slowed by caution so that they are barely perceptible over the cogitation of the wizened earth.
"You act as though it is our responsibility to end this war for all of Bohemia."
"Isn't it?" Henry replies, almost instinctively. He had avenged Skalitz with his life, and he's since come to learn to do the same for Hans. There is no question about his loyalty to his country, to the King.
"Radzig and Hanush are surely far more capable of leading a battle against Sigismund."
"Forget about Sigismund. Zizka is gathering an army to kill Von Bergow as we speak. Under your instruction."
Hans slows slightly, but it's enough that Henry is able to catch up and ride alongside him. He notes the slope of Hans' shoulders, visible only to a trained observer. In the afternoon sun, the now-drying blood glistens in a coat of deep red dashed against the bright yellow of his pourpoint, making him appear utterly formidable.
By his expression, however, Henry suspects he is barely capable of shooting a deer at present.
"You were excited at the prospect of revenge only hours ago. What changed?"
"I'm sure—I am, still. Von Bergow deserves to suffer for everything that he's done."
"Then what?"
"I don't know, Henry."
They fall silent again, horses in lockstep as they trudge ever north. Henry tries to make sense of it all, but Hans seems miles out of his grasp, unfathomable in the distance between them. That trepidation rears its ugly head again, colouring Hans' cheeks and making him turn from Henry in shame.
Maybe he can understand, in some way. The siege will undoubtedly be dangerous. Deadly, even. Henry himself knows that the adrenaline and fear that he feels in the very tips of his fingers now does not come only from their battle at the camp. When he beholds the stars at the close of the day, he wonders if they might shine differently from above. Maybe he can attest to the dread that befalls one with the knowledge of his own imminent mortality.
But, in the end, it does not truly matter. After all, the stagnation of indolence has never saved anyone, and simply waiting with dread can do no more than—
"What do you think happens after all of this?" Hans asks carefully, with some air of impending doom. His feet kick absently in the stirrups and his horse veers slightly from the road. Again, Henry's mind stills and it is a true testament to his master's blind grip on his lungs that any word would knock the wind from them.
Breathless, at a loss, he tries to reply with dignity. "What do you mean?"
"Well, either we die during battle, or we survive. What happens if we survive?"
"Surely we keep on living."
"But what if…" Hans' words are chosen as though with great pain to be perfect, and somehow, this is what worries Henry most. For it is unlike Hans to weigh his meanings so carefully, as if there is something he urges Henry to know even though he cannot bring himself to say it. "Must we?"
"Live after the war?"
Hans shakes his head as though everything is wrong. "As we had been, I mean. I can't go back to Rattay and pretend none of this happened."
"Sir, if you no longer want to be the lord—"
"That's not what I said!"
Still facing determinedly away from him, Hans rounds his shoulders, seeming for all the world like a stubborn child. Like if he simply turns his back, Henry will forget he was ever there.
"It's just that… fighting those soldiers. It got me thinking." Something watery floods Hans' voice then. Something tender. "I don't want to lose this. Once it's over."
Henry considers Hans for a long moment. He tries to reason with his blunt words and falls short, a feeling lingering that he is missing something fundamental. He thinks— hopes, really—that he knows what is hidden in the in-between.
He tries to respond in kind, but it feels flat on his tongue. "You won't, Hans."
"You don't know that."
Again, Hans falls silent. Henry longs to reach out and hold him, but they are too far apart.
"I'm to be married."
Everything turns cold.
"What?" He asks, fighting the sudden, bitter wind and feeling utterly stupid.
"To Botschek of Kundstat's niece. Jitka, I think."
The house rings only a vague bell, and Henry cannot imagine this Botschek. Something tugs at his gut and despite Hans' stubborn refusal to look up from his reins, he can still make out the fatigued resignation on his face. He's seen it before, in Trosky, no less, when Hans was but moments away from his own hanging.
He hesitates. "Is she… pretty, at least?"
Hans scoffs quietly. "How should I know? I've never met her."
"Hanush organised it, then?"
"I can only assume so. I certainly didn't, and no one told me."
Henry looks at Hans, a man of noble honour and prestige. Militant, determined, righteous, covered in the blood of Sigismund's men and none of his own. He should be proud, Henry almost decides, to let himself be wed in the service of Wenceslas, of his uncle. But when he tries to picture the woman standing by Hans' side, this Jitka of Kunstadt, he sees nobody. And suddenly Hans' fear starts to make much more sense.
Henry clears his throat. "Is this wedding… is it what you want?"
"It's for the good of the war, Henry. For peace. We all have to do things we don't necessarily want."
"I know that, but—"
"Please. Leave it alone." Hans finally looks up at him. His eyes are red, ever-so, and Henry can't help but feel every knot in his stomach dissipate with one, small, pleading glance. "Your disappointment is pungent."
It sinks in his belly like a rock in a river, and Pebbles clatters to a stop of her own accord. Hans doesn't seem to notice and makes it a few feet up the path before he realises he's alone and halts. Almost like a deep breath, or a dagger straight to the chest, the sun bores into Henry, exposing every crack and crevice and making him keenly aware of the blood that drips from his hands as well.
Not just panic, not even panic, it feels like relief as the heaviness that has lingered in the back of his mind dissipates, as the weight on his lungs burns away in a fiery blaze. As it all starts to make blessed sense.
In the empty stillness, Hans wilts, tilting his head imperceptibly like a dog. Waiting.
"Hal, please don't pretend—"
Henry cuts him off quickly. "I'm not.”
A crow caws in the distance.
"Good."
They lock eyes, and in those briefest of moments, Henry understands all he will ever need to.
That he has never been wrong about it all, that he isn't alone, that his love, for that is what it truly has become, for Sir Hans Capon is weaved so delicately into the very fabric of his being that to lose that love would be to lose himself.
That there is going to be a wedding.
The thatched cottages of Bohunowitz loom on the horizon. The sun is low in the sky. They ride in silence the rest of the way to the Devil's Den, pausing only to rinse off as much of the blood as they can in a small dam.
Nobody questions the lack of game when they return, for which Henry is grateful. He knows there would be no love lost over the camp of Sigismund's men, but he rather fancies not having to explain what they were doing and why they're back so soon.
He moves automatically to tie up the horses, but is stopped by a gentle hand that does not withdraw.
Hans watches him with little less than reverence.
"I'll do it. You should go and eat while you still can. I hear Sigismund serves his men nothing but cabbage."
It sinks in like a breath of fresh air, a dove's olive branch after years of empty seas.
"Thank you," Henry replies sincerely, letting Hans take the rope from him and lead Pebbles to the trough. "And I'll have you know that I like cabbage."
"Good thing you're the one they're sending to the camp, then."
With one final unreadable look, Hans disappears.
Henry skips dinner and instead makes his way upstairs, ignoring Janosh and Kubyenka yelling at him from one of the dice tables. He changes and climbs onto the bed, falling asleep instantly. He dreams of yellow dandelions and blood-stained shoes by an open window.
When he wakes, Hans' bed is untouched.