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An opportunity presents itself, nudging Hans softly in the ribs with a playful elbow.
He turns away from his survey of the village in the distance, the red flags flying above the occupied homes, soldiers marching and digging and fortifying their position. In his stomach, a heavy ball of nerves, knotted tightly, felt with every breath. In his side, Henry’s elbow lingers, then withdraws.
“How many shitting holes do you think those soldiers are going to be digging?” Henry asks.
Hans follows his gaze to the group of red clad soldiers digging a short distance from the village. Ten or so of them, half standing around leaning on their spades. A good sized latrine has already begun to take shape before them.
“At least four more of those,” Hans says, pointing. “I don’t envy them this task. Imagine the smell.”
“Can’t be much worse than sharing a watch with the Devil.”
Hans laughs, a sudden sound that bursts from his mouth unexpectedly. The air of the fortress, the subjugated feel of the siege, doesn’t feel as though it can accommodate laughter. Henry leans forward against the stone of the heavy wall of the fortress. His hair is a touch too long, locks of brown falling onto his forehead, some tucked behind his ears. He wears a gambeson and a chest plate that could use a polish, dressed down somewhat, the casualness of his lighter than usual dress giving Hans pause. When he looks at Hans, he gives him a small smile that has the ball of nerves in his stomach unravel just a little, just enough.
This would be a good time, Hans realizes. Or at least, not a bad time. There is a relentless stress that bears down on him and, he can tell, on Henry, although he hides it well. Either the stress will do them in or the soldiers will. On this second week under siege, it seems that the former is more likely. He takes a deep breath, smelling kicked up dirt, the far off latrine, the ever present hint of burning firewood, the still water of the moat that surrounds them. Henry beside him, still smelling like sunlight even as the sun dips under the edge of the horizon and paints the sky pale orange.
“Henry,” he starts, then stalls when he realizes there are no words coming out except for his name, said on the end of a soft breeze that brushes between them.
Henry looks at him. Patient. Waiting. The hint of a smile still touching his face. Hans’s eyes flicker down to his mouth, then quickly away, out toward the village.
“This reminds me of the wait before we took on that robber baron, in the Talmberg woods,” Henry says. “Remember waiting at the campsite where we stayed that first hunt of ours?”
“Of course, I remember.” He remembers fear, then as now, and Henry lifting the lid on it and letting it drift away. Now, he wishes for the same. He starts, stops, starts again, and manages, “Do you remember what you told me before that battle?”
Henry’s eyes search his. Hans knows that he knows although he says, “Remind me.”
“You told me that courage in the face of fear is a knightly virtue,” Hans says, kicking at a loose pebble at his feet. It skitters between them, settling just shy of Henry’s boots. “And that being brave is something that you have to learn.”
Henry kicks the stone back. “Oh, aye. I remember now. You were afraid. Was that your first battle?”
“It was.” Hans nudges the pebble with the tip of his shoe. “But I felt good after your little speech. Your… encouragement. I think about it often.”
Henry turns his entire body to face him, leaning his shoulder against the wall. His careful attention raises goosebumps along Hans’s arms and legs, mercifully concealed under his pourpoint.
“Are you afraid now?” Henry asks in a low voice.
Another breeze almost swallows his words. Enough of a cover that Hans could pretend he didn’t hear, and he knows Henry would ask something else instead, not pushing him, never pushing him. His fingertips are light and tingly, as though feeling the aftershock of a hard sword strike. He knows what that feels like now, the shock in the hands after he brings a sword down on another iron clad body. He knows so much more than he did at that campsite listening to Henry tell him how to be brave. But in many ways he is still just as afraid as he was then. And not just of battle.
The moment passes. The opportunity slips away, out of Hans’s nervous fingers. He shrugs, leaning forward against the wall, letting Henry disappear into the edge of his periphery. He watches the soldiers dig for a moment. He calls to them, “You’ll need a deeper hole, you fuckers! There’s a lot of shit coming your way!”
Henry laughs, grabbing Hans’s shoulder and pulling him away from the wall just as an arrow sails toward them and embeds itself into the stone some way below where they’re standing.
“I see you have no lack of courage now, Sir Hans,” he says, shaking his head.
Hans feels the warmth of his hand on his shoulder through the brocade of his pourpoint, the gold embroidery dull with dust and grime. Henry smiles at him as though the gold still shines.
.
An opportunity presents itself in Henry’s room, at the changing of the guard.
Henry sits on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes. Hans hands him a cup of wine.
“Oh,” Henry says, blinking up at him. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“I thought you could use something to warm you. It's a little chilly outside tonight.”
Their hands brush during the exchange, Henry’s still warm from sleep, Hans’s cool from his long and boring watch on the walls, walking among his men, patrolling the boundaries of their newly narrowed existence. As he walked, he had looked forward to being in Henry’s room, watching him sleep for a minute or two before gently shaking him awake to take over the watch. Now that he’s here, his fingertips still tingling with the brief contact with Henry’s hand as he passed over the cup of red wine, the anticipation bubbling in his veins has transformed into something light, something almost frothy. Like fear. Light enough to rise throughout his body until he feels like he could float from it, as though he’s in a deep tub of water.
“How was your watch?” Henry asks. He’s still waking up, his voice deep and groggy. He takes a sip of wine and sighs. His throat shifts as he swallows, and Hans tracks the movement, the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down.
“Fine. Uneventful. Not much activity in the village.”
“I don’t know what’s worse, a boring watch or an eventful one,” Henry says with a small chuckle.
“At this point, I wouldn’t mind a little skirmish every night just to shake things up.”
“My word. Aren’t you brave?” His voice is teasing. A smile breaks across his face. The edges of his eyes crinkle. Hans sees and hears each of these little details and has to sigh at the sudden pressure that builds in his chest.
This would be a good time. Henry dressed in a shirt and his braies, the slope of his shoulders visible through the dim candlelight in the corner of the room. His hair still a mess from sleeping, falling onto his face. He looks up at Hans and is smiling and holding his cup of wine in both hands at his lap. He is so himself, no armor, no weapons, not that sword that takes all his attention, not his men asking for orders, just Henry. Only Henry. Only for him. Hans stays standing before him, finding that he is quite unable to move. Or speak.
“I was just fucking with you,” Henry says, misinterpreting his silence. He gives Hans a gentle kick on the shin with his bare foot. The touch is barely a bit of pressure felt through his still strapped leg armor but is felt all the same. “Of course, you’re brave. One of the bravest people I know.”
“Oh, come off it,” Hans says, suddenly frustrated. With this endless siege, with the tightness of the straps of his armor, with himself, able to face with ease a stream of soldiers with a sword and a bow but unable to say something, say anything, say anything right now before this moment ends and Henry goes his way and Hans goes his. The next attack could kill Hans. It could kill Henry. And both of them would never know what could come of the churning, burning thing in Hans’s chest that boils his blood and heats his heart like meat over an open fire. It has to go somewhere, this feeling. It has to go somewhere.
“Fine, fine,” Henry says, taking another sip of his wine. “Do you need my help getting out of your armor?”
“Just the back straps of my chest plate, I can handle the rest.”
“Alright.” Henry drains his cup and sets it aside, then gets to his feet. He puts a hand on Hans’s shoulder and turns him around. Hans stands perfectly still. Henry’s hands are at his back, unbuckling the plate, his fingers of his other hand pressing into Hans’s side, holding him steady. All at once, and before Hans can fully absorb the idea of being touched by him, Henry steps away and says, “Done.”
Hans looks back at him. “Thank you, Henry.”
Henry smiles at him, easily. His smiles are always so easy. “You’re welcome, my Lord.”
The moment passes here, between Henry’s smile and Hans taking a breath to cool the heat that rises in him. The opportunity slips away, out of Hans’s fingers, still cool from the night watch. Hans gently nudges Henry’s foot with his own, still clad in his dusty boot, armor clinking together as he moves.
Henry nudges him back, a soft touch.
.
An opportunity presents itself, in the kitchen over a loaf of bread they both share.
Steam still rises from it, cut in half with a knife laid beside it on the plate. Hans’s stomach cramps around the bite he’s already swallowed. He glances down at the slice in his hand, frowning.
“All good, Hans?” Henry looks at him from across the table.
He’s already eaten his slice and cuts himself another. There’s a smudge of shadow under his eyes, otherwise he is as calm as ever, taking everything in stride. Hans’s hands feel light, almost shaky. His stomach hurts. He doesn’t know how to deal with any of this with grace. He complains, “I’m fucking hungry and this bread isn’t cutting it. Also I think it’s over-baked.”
“That it is,” Henry says, but he takes a big bite of the still steaming slice in his hand. With his mouth full, he adds, “It has almost no flavor. I wonder if Janosh used some sawdust in here.”
“Oh, fuck, don’t say that.” Hans forces himself to take a bite. He swallows heavily. He realizes Henry is watching him closely, watching him put the bread in his mouth, and chew briefly, and swallow hard. A skitter of anticipation runs through him, down his spine, raising goosebumps all over his body already tender with exhaustion and hunger. Everything feels more extreme the further they get into this endless siege and the closer they get to death. “It’s fine, I’ll still eat it. What choice do I have anyway?”
“I’ll go scavenging for you later.”
The way he suggests it. Offhand, as though he’s already been mulling it over. Hans realizes, slowly and stupidly and dulled by hunger, that Henry thinks about him. That he is on Henry’s mind, probably often. There is a tenderness in his chest that almost hurts. He places his hand there and finds himself saying, “Thank you. That would be nice.”
“Of course, sir.” Henry slips a piece of bread past his lips. There are a few crumbs clinging to his mouth, extra pink from the heat of the bread, and his beard, and when he swallows his throat moves conspicuously. And after he swallows his mouth curves into a smile.
This would be a good time. Or at least, as good a time as any. The dining room outside the kitchen is empty but for them. A soft rain falls just outside, further obscuring them in this bubble of sound and thought. The future looks like a dirt path in the middle of a forest at night. Only the immediate few steps ahead are illuminated by the torch he holds out before him. Beyond that, utter uncertainty in the darkness. Death or captivity. And lost opportunities.
“Henry,” he says, and his heart jumps into his throat as though to stop him. He forces it down with another bite of tasteless bread, swallowing hard. “I have something I need to say to you.”
“Alright.” Henry slices through the loaf, distracted. When he looks down, his eyelashes brush the very tops of his cheeks, long and black, almost like a girl’s. Distracting.
Hans looks down at his half eaten slice on the metal plate before him. Words burst out, different from the ones he wanted to say, “What did you mean before, when you said I’m one of the bravest people you know? I can’t reconcile that. Explain, please.”
Henry looks steadily at him for a moment, as though looking through him. Hans knows instantly that Henry knows he has dodged the actual question. But this is why he needs to know. He doesn’t feel brave, not now. He’s jumping at shadows. He sees threats within himself that could jeopardize a most valued friendship. He hears a voice in the very back of his mind repeatedly say, he doesn’t care about you like that.
“Well, I said it because it’s true,” Henry says. “I know you haven’t gotten out much before this. And to be fair, neither have I. Everything that’s happened to us in the past few months is happening for the first time. I think all of this would break people. It hasn’t broken you. I think that makes you brave, Hans.”
His name in Henry’s mouth awakens something. The tenderness in his chest spreads. The bread in his mouth finds some flavor and he swallows and takes another bite eagerly. Outside, the sky brightens suddenly despite the rain, and a ray of light breaks through the gloom of the room through the highly placed windows. Everything is more beautiful. Hans swallows the bread, and his words. He can’t ruin this. He won’t.
The moment passes between one bite of bread and another. Henry cuts Hans the last full slice and takes the end of the loaf for himself.
“I would whore myself out for an apple or a plum,” Hans says.
Henry laughs until his cheeks are pink. The sound pushes itself into the folds of his brain, sinking in, becoming a part of him.
“Oh, fuck,” choked out on the end of his laugh. “Why didn’t you say so? I think we can get more than just a plum for your ass.”
“Two plums?” Hans asks hopefully.
Henry rests his chin on his palm, looking at him from across the table over the crumbs left behind on the plate from their measly dinner. Still, Hans’s stomach churns with nerves, mixing with the bread, filling him up well enough. This will have to be enough.
“Two plums,” Henry says. When he speaks, the smile is audible in his voice, loud and clear.
.
An opportunity presents itself, forces itself, makes itself impossible to ignore, when Henry sits beside Hans on his bed.
He’s dressed already, dark clothes so as not to stand out in the dark night air. A black gambeson, black hose, black shoes. Perhaps a coat to go over him, or so Hans hopes, knowing the summer nights can still find some briskness, some cold. Henry’s mouth is dry, his lips chapped. Hans’s lips too, and his entire body also, dry and chapped and tired and hungry and ugly. He sits almost bent double, leaning his elbows on his knees, staring into the slowly dying fire, and tells Henry the story of the two knights.
“In this story, there’s something… something I don’t have my own words for,” he says. Everything is coming out wrong. Their breathing fills the air, and the crackling of the fire, and the soft breeze coming in through the window. Easy sounds, soft sounds. But the thing in Hans’s throat is not soft. It has spikes. It lodges itself there, digging in, not wanting to come out. He’s missed so many opportunities that now here he is, at the worst possible moment, about to unload something big just before Henry goes on a mission that will most likely end in his death or capture.
His hands shake. His voice too. “Henry, if anything happens to you, then… then….”
Henry’s hand falls gently over his, on his knee. Warm, a welcome weight. Hans is shocked into silence, and very slowly he accepts the fact that he is being touched. By Henry. Henry is touching him. His skin. The back of his hand. A smile starts to break across his face and then Henry gets up. Makes for the door. Footsteps heavy against the worn wooden floors.
The moment will pass. Henry will descend the walls. Hans will stay in the fortress, waiting, as always. For Henry, for someone to rescue him, for a battle to kill him, for despair to set in and render him immobile, useless, more useless than he is now. A moment in a series of moments when Hans could’ve said something at any time but didn’t because he is afraid. More afraid than he’d been in any of the battles he’s fought in, more afraid than during ambushes and being buried alive in rubble and held captive with no way of knowing whether Henry was dead or alive until he saw him and threw his arms around him and felt him embrace him back. He thinks back to that moment. Hugging Henry felt so natural. He had done it without hesitation. And Henry had responded in kind. What made him do that? What made him brave?
Hans jumps to his feet, grabs Henry’s shoulder, turns him around, and kisses him.
It’s a violent kiss. Their bodies slam together, Henry’s still moving with the momentum of Hans’s hand on his shoulder. Their teeth click together. Hans sinks against him, relief bursting in his chest like the recoil from a fired handgonne. Henry’s mouth is so warm, like standing too close to a forge. In the split second that follows, he feels Henry’s mouth move against his, his lips brushing his own, and Hans almost sighs into his mouth, and then air rushes between them. Henry has pulled away and turns his back to Hans. And Hans turns quickly to the fire and grabs two pieces of firewood to keep his hands from shaking.
His mind is almost blank with panic. “I’m—I’m so sorry,” slips past his lips, still tingling with the contact, hot and just a little wet from Henry’s mouth. A shiver runs through him and he masks it by tossing a piece of firewood into the slowly dying fire. He puts his hand over his mouth, closing his eyes.
And then Henry’s back. Hans drops the firewood as Henry spins him around. His hands are on Hans, on his shoulder and his waist, and his mouth is on him again, and Hans melts against him, unable to stay upright on his own any longer. Henry guides him back to the bed, stumbling over each other’s feet. His hand on the back of Hans’s neck, gentle as he lowers him onto the bed and lays on top of him with all his weight.
“Oh, I’m so glad you did that,” Henry says, kissing up Hans’s neck, his mouth brushing the stubble there, catching on the hair, kissing around his jaw and his chin. “I’m so glad you did that.”
Hans laughs, and it sounds too light, almost a gasp. “Me too. I almost—” a real gasp now as Henry’s hand slides down his waist and onto his thigh, squeezing. “I almost let the moment pass. Like so many other times. Oh!” Another gasp as Henry slots himself neatly between Hans’s legs. As though a dam has broken, Henry showers him in kisses and urgent touches, his hands working at the buttons on his chest and the garters holding up his hose, his mouth still working at his jaw, his cheeks, his neck, then down to his chest, then brushing his stomach, empty and cramping moments before, now painless, as though all feeling has been elevated to some dreamlike state of no pain, no matter, no panic or fear. Just Henry kissing him, undressing him, his mouth hot, his skin as he slowly undresses himself also hot.
Henry props himself up over Hans, on his elbows. His face is pink, and the skin around his collarbones is flushed. Hans reaches up and touches him, his neck, the beard there obscuring his face, rough against Hans’s fingertips. The fire’s orange glow makes Henry’s eyes shine.
“Is this alright?” Henry asks, and Hans realizes they’re both naked, that their skin brushes against each other and goosebumps rise against each other and all of Henry’s weight is still on him, pushing him down onto the bed.
“Please, please don’t stop,” Hans whispers.
Henry smiles against his mouth. “I won’t. I’m still… accepting that this is happening.”
Hans takes a deep breath and their chests touch, skin shifting together. “You feel good. Just like I’ve always imagined.”
“You’ve imagined this?” Henry gives an incredulous laugh, his breath hitting his face.
“So many times that it’s made me sick.” He wraps his arms around Henry’s neck. A move so familiar from Hans’s daydreams that it‘s almost no effort to do it now. “I just never found the courage to do it.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.”
“All it took was for me to go on a suicide mission.” Henry laughs again. His body moves against Hans as he does, their arms touching, legs touching, chests moving together through breath and laughter.
“Don’t say that, for God’s sake. You must come back to me. No matter what.”
Henry’s smile fades slowly. There is still a trace of it left in his eyes, the way the edges of them crinkle. “I promise you, I will come back. You were brave enough to make the first move. I can have half your bravery and complete this mission.”
Hans scoffs, turning away slightly to hide the sudden burning in his eyes. “Come off it. They are in no way comparable.”
“Certainly, they are. Something made you brave. Gave you courage. I could use that too.”
Something. Hans lets his hand trail over Henry’s shoulders, the slope of them, the tight, shifting muscle underneath. Something. Henry’s mouth brushes his, a soft and light touch, like a feather. Something. Hans hooks his leg around Henry’s waist and they both sigh as a friction between them builds. Something makes him melt between Henry’s weight and the bed pushing back up against him. Something makes him forget his place. Something makes him turn all the burning, churning energy that bubbles up inside of him like a boiling cauldron into words, words that break past his lips, out into this room where a daydream manifests, an opportunity is acted upon, a moment is held and isn’t left to pass between them.
“Love made me brave,” Hans says, whispers into his mouth.
“Then love will bring me back to you,” Henry whispers back.