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A pair of feet drowsily shuffled from the bed to the door. The creaking wood alerted the half dozing guard standing outside the room, whipping his spine into a straight line. Eyes wide open, he stared directly into the closest firelit torch to wake himself up before his liege lord would find out.
"Oh, come now, no need to bother," Radzig waved his hand at the guard's rigid posture. The guard loosened up a bit, but didn't allow himself to slouch all the same in Sir Kobyla's presence. Had it been a week ago, Radzig would've demanded such vigilance constantly. Now that the Hungarian threat had moved on, he overlooked the occasional heavy eyes here and there.
He had no clue what time it was, but it was still pitch dark outside and the world dead quiet. The important part was that he was back home. Well, home. Back in Rattay. In the borrowed bedchamber in the lower castle. At least it was conveniently adjacent to the dining hall.
Radzig walked to the table and poured himself some wine from the pitcher Hanush had refilled specifically for him before going to bed. Sagging down onto his chair at the head of the table, he turned his head toward the guard pretending not to watch his every slow move. "You may go for now. I need to be alone for a while."
The armor rattled in a bow, and hugging his polearm closely to his chest, the guard left his post. His iron steps echoed through the hallway toward the exit. They stopped eventually, and hushed whispers between him and a fellow guard began instead. Other than that, silence. In the dead of the night, every hum and whisper was amplified. A tiny mouse scuttling along the wall to its hideout could seem like a horse galloping through a cathedral. Even Radzig's throat muscles contracting to swallow a gulp of wine sounded clearly in his ears.
He found strange solace in the quiet. Peace had become a luxury, especially after having been kept hostage himself and besieged for multiple days under constant bombardment. The deafening blasts of projectiles crashing into Talmberg's walls, taking chunks of the battlements down hit by hit, still haunted his sleep. One of those stray missiles would eventually find him, blast through the wooden roof and send him to the Maker. Or, in the case of a dream, back to reality.
"Why are you two slacking off here?!" A familiar voice rumbled through the hallway like an empty wine barrel rolling down a flight of stairs. "You're not given a night shift to idle it away! Do you need a pillory to remind you that?! And you're supposed to be at Sir Radzig's bedchamber, so what are you doing here?!"
"Sir Kobyla s-sent me away, Sir," the poor guard's voice cracked, "he is in the dining hall and wished to be alone."
"Hmpf," Hanush grunted. "I'll be the judge of that. And now stop rambling here like old wives on the green and do your job, or I'll have you whipped!"
A set of footsteps resonated through the hall and became louder until they found Radzig in his seat, sipping on the red, smiling at the newcomer.
"No need to be so harsh, Hanush."
"They need to be kept in line. But I'll deal with that later." Hanush grumbled, waved it off and walked toward the table. Grabbing a goblet, he lowered himself to pour his own wine, then found his seat by Radzig's side and sank into it with a heavy huff.
"Bad dream again?" He hushed his voice to a raspy half whisper.
"Again."
Looking at the man beside him, Radzig tipped his goblet toward him, and a dull clink sounded as Hanush mirrored his motion.
Swallowing another gulp, Radzig spoke to the goblet, "I truly appreciate you staying here with me, Hanush, but now neither of us gets good sleep anymore."
"I said I'd keep an eye on you, and I keep my word." Now that two scoundrels of theirs were off for a few good days, Hans' room was left empty, open for Hanush to invite himself in. "It was us using the trebuchet after all. So I am directly responsible."
"Come now, it was a great solution. I would've done the same. It worked. We got out alive."
"Including that rat Toth," Hanush barked and took another sip to calm himself.
"Don't even remind me of him. But he's gone. And we're here."
They drank to that and sat in silence for a while. Hanush's presence was making the otherwise lonely nighttime break warmer. Safer. He acted like a torch, but of human consistency. He filled the space with his temperament, but whether it was good or bad depended solely on the others present. And in Radzig's case, he got to enjoy the rarer caring side of him.
The goblets were drained in no time with no words interrupting the wine's effortless flow. The alcohol softening Radzig's memory of his nightmare, warming his body and rising to his head brought him to loosen up his posture. He shuffled in his seat to get more comfortable, bumping into Hanush's leg under the table.
The contact made Hanush look down at Radzig's shapely thighs. Now that they weren't hiding under moulded armor, their form could rest naturally on the chair, wider to the sides. Hanush inhaled, hesitated, then brought his hand down and laid it on Radzig's leg. His fingers slid down to the inner side of his thigh, feeling its inviting heat. Hanush's gaze then slowly climbed up Radzig's body all the way to the curious eyes staring back at him.
"Is it too early to ask you… after all that?"
"It's more risky than early. Sound carries," Radzig whispered, but the smirk on his face signaled it wasn't refusal.
"I do like a good challenge."
"And a proper knight shouldn't turn down one, should he?" Radzig arched his eyebrow. His head was so close to Hanush it wouldn't take much for him to kiss him.
Hanush attempted it, but Radzig was faster and leaned back, evading him. "Not here." First his eyes indicated to the hallway, where the whispers of the guards had resumed all anew. Then he nodded to the door to their left. Making as little noise as possible, which in Hanush's case sounded entirely different than in Radzig's, the two stole away into the bedchamber.
The murmuring guards on the other side of the hallway were interrupted by some scraping of a chair against the floor, then a few footsteps. A door closed. Then quiet again. One of them rolled his eyes.
"At least it might make him more sufferable for a while."