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Henry felt awkward around Rosa.
He felt awkward around most noblewomen. With noblemen he could at least understand a little of their lives, being himself a man, but the noblewomen he'd met seemed like an entirely different species from Theresa or Bianca. Rosa had tried, many times, to joke around with him like Capon might, but there was always a line in the sand. He and Capon could get drunk at the baths and start a brawl in the clothes they'd been born in, but if he said something that displeased Rosa, he put their alliance with her father at risk. He suspected she'd like very much to pretend to be someone like Hans or Bianca or Theresa, someone who drank in the taverns and escaped to the woods and philosophised about poverty and nobility, but he didn't quite buy her dedication to it. She liked the idea of those things, but the reality—having Henry philosophise back, having her family's woodlands and properties be a space where others could live and grow, engaging with people who simply weren't smart enough to speak her high-minded language—seemed distasteful to her.
All that said, Rosa didn't seem at all awkward around him. She always seemed like she was trying to get him to say something, to respond in some way, and he got the idea that he wasn't delivering in the way she wanted but couldn't imagine what she did want. She spoke gravely of how the conflict would soon separate them, which he'd assumed had been not only a given, but preferred. She hadn't appreciated when he'd given the Devil the go ahead to raze the tower, and while she'd accepted his apology and his oath that he wouldn't have done so if he honestly believed that von Bergow would hold out against any threat to his person, he knew he'd disappointed her in some way he didn't quite understand that had remarkably little to do with the perceived threat to her life.
"You never know, my lady," he said, hoping to console her a little. "Your father is a vital ally, and he'll shortly be rescued and the Court plundered. If all goes as planned, you'll be free to go wherever you please."
"Maybe," she said thoughtfully, eyeing him again. He'd ruined her script, he knew—he didn't know how but watched as she pivoted in conversation, taking a different approach to try and run him down with a different dog. "But your duties are elsewhere; Capon's estate is in Rattay." He was used to, by now, people assuming that he was sworn to Hans in a more formal sense than he acted; furthermore, he didn't feel like having the drawn-out conversation it would require to correct her. "Besides, he'll be getting married soon and you'll surely be accompanying him."
The room suddenly shrank, and Henry could hear himself take a stammered breath.
"Henry?" Rosa prompted, and he blinked a sudden blurriness out of his eyes.
"Capon's getting married?" he asked. Surely she meant—eventually he'd be getting married, of course. He knew that. He felt foolish, suddenly, for pointing it out—he'd no doubt upset her again by not saying what she wanted him to say, and he'd reacted strangely to an offhanded comment.
"Yes, to Jitka of Kundstadt," she said, too confused to be upset. "Sir Hanush and Sir Botschek arranged it the night we were raided." That'd been—Henry'd shown up to fight them off, checked in on Hans who hadn't said anything but been swaying drunk, then he'd rushed off to the Jewish Quarter...days blended in his mind, but it'd been days and Hans hadn't said a fucking thing. He hadn't even told him. "Henry, are you well?"
"I-I'm sorry, Lady Rosa. It's...difficult, for a peasant to keep everything straight sometimes." Hans was getting married. Hans had been betrothed for days and was going to get married and he hadn't said a word. Hans was going to be married to some noblewoman and she would live in Rattay and..."Please excuse me. I should rest before the others arrive."
Before Hans arrived.
. . . . .
Henry was staring at him over the food, but Hans either didn't notice or was doing a remarkable job pretending that he didn't see his best friend glaring at him from his bowl. He was, as he ever was, jovial and emboldened by the promise of their heist, chatting amicably with Brabant and drinking, laughing. Was he pleased to be getting married? Did he delight in the idea of some strange, pretty lass being picked out and hand delivered to him? A bold new adventure for the amorous Sir Hans, to woo the poor chit his uncle picked out for him, a dashing knight romancing the poor displaced maiden. Was Henry being irrational, getting so upset about this? Of fucking course he was. Nothing would change about his life. He wasn't even in Hans' service; their whole arrangement was a temporary measure, a partnership of duty and convenience. By all rights, Henry wouldn't even go back to Rattay. Radzig would send him to Skalitz, and if Skalitz wasn't ready yet then he had duties to perform in Pribyslavitz that had nothing to do with Rattay. What right did he have to seethe about this enormous, horrible thing that'd happened while he'd had his head turned?
He was seething.
Hans called for another drink and under normal circumstances Henry would've stopped him before he completely incapacitated himself before a major operation; then again, usually he would temper himself on his own, more eager for the danger and daring of said quest over the transitory joy of getting soused. Perhaps the fucking joy of matrimony overwhelmed his senses, because he certainly wasn't savouring the drink. "What has young lord Capon done this time?" Godwin asked, sitting heavily on the bench beside him. Henry didn't pause his glower.
"Nothing. Dunno what you mean."
"I mean if you stare at him any harder, you're going to bore a hole into his forehead."
"Think he could use a good trepanning," he grit out. Luckily Godwin wasn't the prying type, least of all when there was drink nearby to enjoy; unluckily, the mention of the young lord Capon had alerted the man to Henry's scowling face, and he started at the intensity.
What? he mouthed around the din of the dining hall, his face pink from drink. He shook his head shortly, but Hans theatrically rolled his eyes. What? he insisted with more dramatics.
Henry stood and made a loop around the table, reaching out to grab Hans's arm and drag him out of the dining room and onto the sparsely guarded battlements: a man asleep by the gate was their only defence in enemy territory. Perfect. "Ow, Hal—" Hans complained, and Henry let him go. "What's your problem?"
"Are you to be married then?" he asked, his voice low and hoarse. Hans froze. "So it's true."
"Who told you?" he asked, and Henry turned from him.
"You were keeping it from me?" he demanded, and Hans shrank. "Everyone knows but me?"
"I didn't want—I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. I-I...I wanted us to enjoy...this. Being a team. Being out of Rattay and adventuring."
"And then what? We go back to Rattay and—" What was he yelling about?
"Maybe not. Maybe we run away. I'm not Hanush's prized fucking stud, and I didn't—I didn't ask for this," he said imploringly, and something unwound in Henry's chest; that hideous, slimy part that had been so sure that Hans was trying to shake him off with his future bride assured. "Hal?" he asked softly, and he realised his eyes had slipped shut. "Don't be angry at me."
"I'm not." He didn't know what he was. Anger required a target and Hans wasn't that target anymore, and there was no use being mad at Hanush about it.
"Then why are you angry?" he asked, his eyes suddenly focused. Henry felt his jaw loosen and then go tight, his teeth grinding. Why was he angry?
"I'm not," he insisted. Hans was staring at him, his brow knit. He knows, Henry thought, his chest coiling in hot terror. He knows why.
"Don't be angry at me," he repeated, his voice softly slurring almost in spite of himself. "Please don't—"
"It's okay, Hans," he said soothingly, letting his shoulders droop. "I was...I was upset. I thought you were keeping it from me. I must've just missed it."
Hans nodded a couple of times, his eyes spinning like they did when he was really drunk. "Why would you be upset that I hid it from you?" he asked, his eyes too keen for his state of inebriation.
"I don't keep anything from you," he shot back, unable to look anywhere but Hans' face.
"You're not answering the question," he insisted, reaching for Henry's wrist—he pulled it back, too sharp, and stepped away to straighten up. "Henry, why are you mad at me?"
"For Christ's sake, I already said I wasn't mad."
"That's not what I mean!" he burst, then rubbed his face. "You were glaring at me the whole time we were eating and you let me get completely soused," he insisted. "You didn't even come to greet me when I showed up."
"So? Do you need a fucking handshake every time you grace a place with your noble presence?" He was getting upset; too upset. "I'd just finished clearing off the property and hiking through the woods all day. I was tired." He'd been terrified. All he could hear, pounding in his head, was Capon's getting married, and if he went to see Hans as soon as he'd arrived everyone would've known. Everyone would've watched his heart break.
"Henry, just say it," Hans snapped, swaying so severely that Henry reached out to steady him. His face was flush and he grabbed Henry, tightening his hands until his knuckles paled.
"Say what? You're talking rubbish; go back inside before you fall off the wall and I have to explain to Hanush what happened."
"I'm not—don't. Henry please, just...just say it," he begged, and Henry felt the hot panic heat to a boil in his gut again. He didn't know what Hans wanted, but looking into his eyes...did he want him to admit it? It? Almost a year now of shared rooms, shared tents, shared baths, daring rescues, two near-misses, a siege...did Hans know?
Or was Henry heartsick and about to make worse than a fool of himself hardly five feet from almost everyone on earth that he knew? Had Hans noticed that he jumped when they touched and his heart pounded at his attention, that the blacksmith boy mooned over his royal pain in the arse in spite of everything, and wanted to...what? Laugh at him? Send him to the stocks? Back to fucking Sasau like Lucas?
"Go back inside, Hans. Sorry I snapped at you."
"Henry." His voice was low and almost panicked. "Henry I don't want to get married, I swear."
"I know, okay? I'll think of something."
"Just say it," he whispered. "Say it and we-we'll run away somewhere."
His chest twisted. He was imagining this. Hans was drunk and Henry was heartsick; he was a grown man now and he couldn't blow up his life every time he wanted something from a noble anymore. "Hans, I don't know what you mean."
"You do," he hissed, his breathing as unsteady as his footing. "You know but you won't say it."
"Then you fucking say it if it's so important to you," he snapped, and Hans turned his head, grunting in frustration.
"I don't—I don't know..." he snapped, his sway finally turning into a lean. Henry reached out and caught him, grunting from the effort of catching a grown man in his arms; a blushing maiden, Hans Capon was not.
Henry set him on his feet, letting his arm linger around his waist for a heartbeat—to steady him. To make sure he was steady. Nothing else. "Sober up before we head out tomorrow," he warned, and Hans scowled.
"Yes Hanush," he hissed, and Henry closed his eyes and counted. He listened for the sound of the door slamming.
"Fuck," he said out loud, his voice remarkably even. "Fuck," he repeated, louder, turning to ram his fist into one of the wooden support poles. "Fuck!"
"All right, sir?" asked the singular guard between them and getting their shit rocked in the middle of the night.
"Fucking fine," he hissed, his voice lowering as he felt his throat tighten. "Just fucking excellent."