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As Sir Otto collapsed and the crowd’s attention shifted, Henry and Hans locked eyes. Hans was panting, gaze pleading and face pale, nearly ready to collapse with his neck still in the noose. The rope was taught and chafing. Henry shouldered his way past the guards who had been dragging him back and vaulted onto the gallows platform. He took a firm hold of Hans’ elbow, ready to catch him if he slipped, and flipped the rope over Hans’ head and away. Hans slumped and nearly fell from the block, but Henry steadied him and managed to set him on his feet instead. He was just barely mindful of the crowd, few of whom were still watching them rather than craning to see what has befallen their lord, but Hans’ pride mattered so dearly to him still, and Henry could not find it within himself to permit his lord another injury, even one so slight.
After fumbling briefly with the ropes at Hans’ wrists, he gestured to the nearest guard in frustration.
“Get these damned bindings off him, would you?”
The guard made no move to help, expression hardening instead. The stairs at the side of the platform creaked, and Henry looked over to see Captain Thomas climbing them with halting steps. He stopped next to the guard, who gaped at him, and wordlessly held out a hand, palm up. After a moment of confusion, the guard handed over a small dagger, which Thomas used to slice the bindings.
“We are in your debt once more,” Henry said, but Thomas shook his head.
“If there is a debt, it remains mine,” he said hoarsely. Hans trembled and Henry steadied him as best he could, but he was sure from Thomas's glance that he had seen. “It will be some time before my lord is fit to hear your case - come, I will find you somewhere less public to await his pleasure.”
Thomas turned and began down the stairs of the platform.
“H-henry.”
Hans’ voice was quiet, almost strangled. Henry looked at Hans' face and saw a worryingly distant stare.
Shit. Need to get him out of here, now.
“Come, Sir Hans,” he said with forced calm and cheer - his best court voice, straining to tell Hans to play along, to pick up the ruse that wasn't really a ruse this time. Come on. Play with me. Play the part of a lord, if you can't muster it for real right now. “This way, my lord.”
He heard someone snicker in the crowd, someone who still thought this was a delusion and Hans a madman, but he ignored it. His tone and words had worked - Hans pulled his posture upright and set his chin in a determined fashion. His posture was wooden, with none of his usual swagger, but it would fool someone who knew him less well. Henry kept a discreet hold on his arm as they went down the stairs, moving his hand instead to hover protectively behind Hans once they were on steady ground. He crowded Hans to follow Thomas closely, on his right, and positioned himself on the other side of Hans to keep some distance from the onlookers. No one was paying them any mind, now, but Henry was not in the mood for chances.
Thomas led them to a small storage room above the guard barracks - hardly comfortable, but it had a door that could close between them and the rest of this damned castle, and it wasn't a jail cell. That was all that mattered at the moment.
“I'll find a sensible guard to set outside, to keep out the curious - and I'll see about sending some food and water.” Thomas swayed in the door frame as he said this.
“Have a care for your own health, sir,” Henry admonished. “Not that we aren't grateful.”
Thomas waved this away. “I'm falling on my arse as soon as I've found someone I trust for both tasks,” he assured Henry. He gave him a weak smile. “I won't squander your good work, I promise.”
With that, he was gone, leaving them alone at last.
The last of Hans' stubborn lordly airs fled with the closing of the door and he collapsed. Henry caught him by the arm, but in his surprise and exhaustion he was unable to prevent them both from falling to the floor - instead, he made it a softer landing than it would have been otherwise, lowering Hans after him.
“There, now, easy,” he said, tone gentle - the tone his father had taught him to use on startled horses. “Easy.”
Hans' breathing sharpened and quickened. He closed his eyes and gripped his hair on either side of his head, hard enough that Henry winced in sympathy.
“Hans. Hans. Look at me.”
Hans lifted his head, hands drifting instead to the faint red mark at his neck left by the rope. He picked at the neckline of his rough tunic with trembling hands, as if even that reminder was too much.
Henry reached up and caught his hands, lowering them and giving them a squeeze.
“H-henry,” he said again. Still the only word he'd spoken since his burst of shouting on the platform. The tremor in it went through Henry's veins like ice.
“You're alright,” Henry said soothingly. He released Hans' hands and reached up to his tunic laces, loosening them and gently tugging the collar away from his neck. “You're safe.”
His breathing quickened again and he closed his eyes, going paler still. This close, Henry could see the beads of sweat forming on his brow and upper lip. Hans shivered and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his head.
Henry thought of his words in the cell the night before, about the walls closing in. Hans' breath caught in his throat with an audible wheeze.
Impulsively, Henry moved to kneel next to Hans and scooped him up to lift him - no easy feat, given their similar sizes and all the charcoal he'd hauled that morning, but he managed nonetheless. Hans squeaked in surprise and grabbed Henry by the shoulders to steady himself.
“What are you-”
He stopped as Henry deposited him onto the carved bench by the room's large window, which Henry then unlatched. The window pane swung open a few inches before halting, but it was enough to let in a small breeze. Hans leaned gratefully against the window frame, taking deep breaths. Henry settled on the bench next to him.
“Thought you could use some air and a view,” he said. Hans looked at him, eyes welling with tears. Henry's heart squeezed. Again acting on an undeniable impulse, he reached out and laid a hand on Hans’ shoulder. Hans covered it with his own and looked out the window, overcome.
“You came for me,” he said eventually.
“Course I did,” Henry said roughly. Hans released his hand and leaned back, so Henry settled himself more comfortably on the other side of the bench and looked out at the hills beneath the castle. “Took me a few hours to work out who I needed to suck up to to get into the castle proper, but I knew from the start that Thomas was our only hope.” Henry huffed a pale imitation of a laugh. “Fat lot of good *that* did - Ulrich didn't listen to him. It took Sir Otto's blessedly lucky arrival.”
“But you came.”
Henry looked at Hans sharply, hurt beginning to brew. “You thought I wouldn't?”
“No, not…not at first,” Hans said. He looked down at his hands, which were fisted in his lap. “When the guards changed shifts, the one who came to get you was outside my cell. He…stood there and told me what you were up to, that you were making nice to Ulrich, working for the blacksmith…not thinking of me at all. Making your own way without me.” Hans clenched his shaking fists tighter. “He started telling me about the gallows, about other hangings he'd seen, about how they never quite built the top tall enough to really get a clean h-hanging-” His whole body shuddered. Henry leaned forward and gripped his shoulders, forcing Hans to look up.
“I will always come for you,” he said. “I promise.”
He felt his own words hang in the air between them, giving form to something previously left unsaid. He felt curiously naked, exposed. Eventually, Hans nodded, and Henry released him. A breeze shook the window, setting Hans to shivering - the prisoners’ garb was thin and poor. Henry made to close the window, but Hans stopped him.
“No! No, I…I need the breeze more than I need to be warm, now,” he said, casting his eyes down as if ashamed to admit this weakness.
Henry left the window open and considered. Hans’ shoulders were hunched, his posture uncertain, and his eyes darted from one spot to another. He wasn't on the edge of panic anymore, but nor was he far from it. Henry hardly felt steadier himself - his heart hadn't stopped racing since the twelfth bell had rung. They both needed something to pull them further away from that awful, endless moment before Sir Otto's trumpet had sounded.
“In that case…the view may be better, and warmer, from over here.” He gestured toward his end of the bench, then, before his nerve could fade, reached out and tugged on Hans' elbow. Hans’ expression was surprised, then guarded, but he followed Henry's urging with only a small grumble, turning and scooting along the bench.
Henry told himself that this was purely for his lord’s benefit as he leaned back against the wall, one leg up on the bench and Hans settled against his chest. Hans' shivering certainly subsided quickly as they gazed out the window together. Henry, however, had never been in less of a position to appreciate a good view. They had fought, together and against one another; they had trained and traveled and lived together; but they'd never been quite this…close. Hans smelled of sweat and must and acrid fear, but Henry could not possibly have cared less.
He told himself that his awareness of Hans was leftover adrenaline from the near-fight at the gallows; that the rightness he felt was merely a grateful awareness that Hans was alive.
“Thank you,” Hans whispered. Henry could hear a thickness in his voice that told him Hans was crying. He felt no contempt or derision at this, but was also at a loss for words - so instead, he settled for pressing Hans closer against him, draping one arm protectively over Hans' shoulder. Hans reached up and laid one hand on Henry's bicep, twisting a little so his head could rest on Henry's other shoulder.
Something tight unwound within Henry. The moment stretched on, and despite everything, for a while, Henry was content.