Archive of Our Own

"Do you have anything from the cellar? This one's warm already, and I have to carry it back to the mill."

"Fine, but that'll be extra."

Theresa tips back her head. Sighs. Spills the ale, just a little.

In the terrible new after, she is made to argue constantly. In Skalitz, she saw it more as bargaining. Conversations, where trade would mingle alongside inquiries into the health of one's aunt, whether or not a lame workhorse had yet recovered.

In Skalitz, where everyone called her Tess, and knew that she would be sure to make good on her debts, even if she had to go to battle with her own father to do so.

Father, who is dead now, along with Sammy, and Bianca, and most of the people she used to trade with, and the aunts, and the horses. The mud of the village thoroughfares is presently pressing them into the earth, bandits are scouring the last of their possessions, and all of them are yet to meet with God.

There's no bargaining here. Here, in the aptly named Trader's Tavern, she is another refugee, and it's just arguing. And she has not been sleeping well. And each day takes more than each night supplies.

"Never mind, then," she says.

She hands the groschen to the alemaid—Jarmila, if memory serves—and makes to leave, only to find her arm suddenly viced by a masculine hand as she passes the table by the gate.

Before she has a chance to break the tankard over his noble head, the young lord of Rattay speaks.

"Wait," he says, round blue eyes squinting at her through the afternoon sun. "You. You're the mill wench Henry talks about."

Theresa knows who he is, of course. She has seen him haunt the corners of both of Rattay's taverns, the splendid caparison of his stallion hitched outside, somehow not quite as yellow and regal as the hair which falls in an all-too-orchestrated manner across his soft temples.

And even without his steed, he is impossible to miss. She passed him stumbling back from the bathhouse, once. The road, wide enough for four horses, and still she scarcely missed colliding with his drunken Lordship. If she remembered correctly, it was only just past noon.

She had heard plenty from Henry, but his condition was obvious to anyone with two seeing eyes: a lord, still too young to be tethered by the commitments of his lands, but now too grown to be adequately leashed by a guardian who could wrangle him toward more sensible pursuits. Unmoored. Drifting between one vice and another. Drink, brawls, drink, girls, drink, agreeable lackeys, girls, drink.

Today, however, he is alone. And she realises, then, that in the quiet absence of his usual company, he must have been eavesdropping.

In one respect, he manages to surprise her: he has mustered together enough of his ever-fleeting interest to people-watch.

"Hal stays with us from time to time," she replies.

Sir Hans raises his eyebrows. Theresa draws hers together, uncertain what could possibly be surprising about something he obviously already knows. For a moment, it looks like he's mouthing the word 'Hal', as if to taste the feel of it, the shape of it in the walls of his mouth.

Then, he cocks his head, eyes travelling across the length of her. Up and down. Back up again. Lord Capon hums, a sound so low and judgemental, she feels the rattle of it carry from his grasp into her bones, nestling in the socket of her shoulder.

Theresa knows she must wait for him to excuse her. She knows this. Even without his celebrity in this town, his fine clothing is more than enough to indicate how this exchange is supposed to go.

But, he is yet to introduce himself. He is stuck in thought, and she can hear his mind keening, turning over itself.

He grips her arm. She is desperate to be elsewhere.

"Would you kindly excuse—"

"Sir Hans Capon of Leipa and Pirkstein," he says abruptly, and, with a smile, releases her—physically. His hand now free, he throws it in a gesture to the seat opposite. "Stay. Have a drink with me."

"My uncle will be missing me, my lord. And his ale, most importantly."

"He'll surely survive without you for a little while." When she doesn't move, he adds, "I'll pay for the trouble."

Somehow this attempt at a consolation only serves to magnify her reluctance. And her rage. She sits down on the bench across him anyway, unable to do anything else.

Once she rests the tankard on the table, Sir Hans takes it for himself, bringing it to his discerning nose. It barely kisses his mouth before he swiftly decides, "Well, this swill won't do."

Theresa watches its wheat-gold contents pour out, watering a patch of poppies that have thus persevered in the stony patch where grass meets paved ground.

His Lordship waves for the ale girl. It is a practiced motion, agile, but one that obviously takes no second thought, conjuring its intended recipient with uncanny speed. "Two beers. From the cellar. For me and my friend Thalia."

"Theresa," she corrects him.

Jarmila flicks her eyes over to her, bemused at this sudden turn of events, but wasting no time. She nods politely and turns on her heels. Like any woman: eager to stay uninvolved.

"Theresa, of course. That was it." Hans seems to speak with his smile baked into the words. Or rather, the words are secondary. The smile is heard first. "And how could I forget? Henry talks of you so often."

She stiffens up a little, all too familiar with the way that men speak about women when they believe there are none around to listen. Stibor was bad enough, and he was far from the worst. Theresa always thought Hal seemed above such talk, at least for the most part, but he had changed since Skalitz. She felt a change within herself too, of course she did, but she suspected the antidote to her grief took a very different shape to his. They were closer than they ever had been before the raid, and yet sometimes she thought that the more she got to learn about him, the less she seemed to know.

And, since Skalitz, she had given Henry reason to gossip. Reason to gloat.

She swallows. "I dread to think what he might be saying."

"Something about saving his life… something about two weeks nursing him back from the brink of death…"

"Oh," she says, relieved. "Yes, well. It was nothing. What any Christian would do."

Sir Hans looks at her for a moment longer than comfortable. She can feel that sharp judgement descending upon her again like a gathering storm. Flighty as he is, his attention dissipates as quickly as it settles, now preoccupied with Jarmila, who returns with their fancy cellar beers.

"Here you are, my lord. Only the best."

Hans quirks his mouth and it seems this is thanks enough. Jarmila folds into a gentle bow and leaves them to their conversation, which seems to have come to a sputtering end before it truly began, since Sir Hans is tilting his head, soft-lidded eyes trailing after the alemaid. Theresa scarcely needs to imagine exactly what he's looking at.

She wonders whose grave she stepped on, that fate would forsake her like this.

"Lovely eyes, hasn't she?"

"Hm? Oh. Yes." He cheerses her drink fondly, and proceeds to clear the entire tankard.

Theresa watches this performance, watches his throat bob and duck with deep swigs, soft flesh undulating with the strain of his affliction. She wonders if someone nicked him there with something sharp, whether he would bleed blue.

She makes a mental note to pray later.

He exhales sharply, with the last of his drink. Wiping his mouth with his knuckles, he manages to keep his gaze steadily aligned with hers. "Though, Henry completely failed to mention yours. Keeping those to himself, it would seem."

A moment passes as Theresa panics. She feels blood flooding into her cheeks, and knows how it will flatter him, though really she's just trying not to think about the last time she caught a stranger's eye. Or, God forbid, the time before.

Her eyes find his belt. Then, the sword which waits there in its sheath. Theresa breathes in.

"He's mentioned you, too," she says.

His eyes flash. "Oh?"

—wet-nursed by Sir Hanush all his life. Fucking yellow-embroidered whoreson. And he can't even throw a real punch. I swear, Tess, never have you seen a more stuck up, pompous—

"He regrets the way he came into your service, I think."

Sir Hans laughs. Loudly. It is such a hearty and carefree thing, that it even manages to thaw off some of her concern. She finds herself laughing a little, too.

"I'll pretend you're not humouring me," he sighs, wiping his eyes. Tess just smiles innocently, takes a long sip of her drink.

It is indeed very nice ale. And cold. There must be a special, noble keg squirrelled away for him, she thinks.

A hand propping up his chin, Hans watches her swallow. A little too intently, perhaps. "You know, Theresa, if it's ale you're after, the baths are much closer to the mill than the tavern."

Immediately, all that gathering warmth is fanned away in an instant.

Theresa blinks. Clears her throat. Takes a long inhale, forces herself not to quirk an eyebrow, or pull a face. Clears her throat again.

"You wonder why I don't go to the baths, my lord?"

"Whyever not," he shrugs.

She freezes. She wonders if she replies, "because I'm not a whore," how likely it is to offend him. Or to invite him to debate the point.

Perhaps he thinks she's easy. Perhaps he's the kind of man to hear tell of one scramble in a barn and assume that a woman will smile and open her legs for anyone with a lofty enough title, or a few groschen in hand.

Was this why he was interested enough to accost her like this? Because he assumes that she's a whore? Henry's whore?

He's still looking at her. His eyes are handsome, as blue and as blithe as a jay's wing, and suddenly she wants to stick her thumbs in them until something red and sticky appears.

"It's just ale," he tells her.

"Maybe for you."

"Let me get you some food. You look hungry."

"I'm not."

He pays her no mind, already raising his hand. He flashes her another thin smile. "Let it not be said that I don't care to tend to the needs of my subjects."

She is too stiff. Her neck will not bend in gratitude. She says, anyway, "That's generous of you, sir. Thank you."

When the food arrives—a rabbit stew, paid for by the unknowable whim of her golden lord—it seems to turn to ash in her mouth. Theresa had no idea it was so easy to be bought. Nothing remains to be done but to wash it down with ale, its numb half-promise of oblivion, all at once deeply appealing.

* * *

The only time Sir Hans is remotely tolerable is when he's talking about Henry. Fortunately, it seems that Henry is his favourite topic. Unfortunately, he is incapable of shutting up.

In fact, it concerns her just how much he seems to know. Enough to where the sun arcs, lazily curving the tail of its journey, then dips below the roof thatches, and still, somehow, he has more to say. More to ask.

Theresa had no inkling that Sir Hans even liked him. When Hal mentions his lord, it's never anything more than some deprecating, offhand remark—other than the very first time, that is, when it was nothing but a barrage of curses.

But over the course of the afternoon, she learns that their ill-fated hunting trip was a lot more lethal than the washout Henry had flippantly described. She knew Sir Hans was captured, but not that he was badly injured. Nor did she know that Henry had been shaking so badly after the skirmish that he could barely hold his lord's weight as he walked him back to Rattay. Nor that this had been necessary.

Something curdles at the revelations of these smaller details. They bother her more than they should.

Still, this discomfort is preferable to the alternative. The moment conversation is steered into topics about himself, or Rattay, or, God forbid, her, she is whiting her knuckles so not to scratch out her own eyes. She finds herself knocking back her tankard, again, again, just to give her hands something to do.

Evening falls gradually, then all at once, the heavens pressing down on them. And the ale keeps coming. And the other patrons keep leaving. And Sir Hans is a little too charming. And Jarmila will not close the inn until he rises to leave.

Theresa hates him.

She is drunk, it is dark, and she needs him to walk her home.

She absolutely hates him.

Theresa has had dalliances with hatred before, but never a full affair. To Theresa, hatred is an oily thing, one that slips from her grasp once something more pressing comes along. It is simply the reverse side of love, of family, of wanting a person to change while knowing that they can't. But this… this loathing is different. It is steady and grooved and utterly bereft of loyalty. She could hold it endlessly even as it blackens her palm and pollutes her blood. And it's a sin.

This is a sin.

Eventually God takes mercy, and even Sir Hans tires of sitting idly on his noble backside, though it has grown so late that most everyone required to rise with dawn the next morning has since retired to bed. To his credit, he doesn't make her ask to be chaperoned home, instead offering himself freely, like a dutiful lord.

She correctly suspects this is just so he can squeeze out another half-hour of mindless talk.

All the ale has long since rendered her useless in dialogue, and he is mostly conversing with himself as they head through Rattay's lower gates. She is too drunk to pick up the thread he unspools and too irritable to even make the attempt. It is only when he begins to turn off the path too early that she is shocked back into conversation.

"What are you doing?" she asks him.

Hans tuts. "Has the mill maid forgotten her tasks already? I'm getting booze for your uncle since you left the tavern merrily empty-handed."

"I can't go in there, sir."

Her words bleed together, diluted with drink, but not enough to where their meaning is lost. The young noble stares at her, and she knows they're in a standoff.

He truly does want her to follow him inside the bathhouse.

Part of her wants him to try it: grabbing her elbow and dragging her in just to give her enough of an excuse to kick and scratch and hurt him. But, a dull, sober voice reminds her that he is a noble, and she is a mill maid, and there is no ending to that scenario that she would be able to crawl out of unbloodied. And so, she plants her heels, and enunciates. "I really can't go in there, sir."

Of all things, he smiles. He has so many smiles, she has learned, and this one is new still. He hands her the torch. "Well, then you'll have to wait here for me."

She watches him turn and leave. She feels a protest pulling itself together in her throat, but there's no time before he's reached the decking, is swinging open the door and yelling something that has the women within shrieking delightedly.

When the door closes again, all the light and noise that seems to radiate his person is shut in with him, and Theresa is left alone.

Swaying on her feet. At the side of the road, in front of the baths.

Tess closes her eyes and tries not to fall over. "Heavenly Father," she begins in a whisper, and then remembers that God does not hear prayers that plead protection from danger. At least, that had never been her experience before.

The mill is not far. She could go alone. Except, Rattay's heir apparent just commanded her to wait. To stay.

The world shifts uneasily, swirling around her like water moss, torchlight throwing mangled and obscure shadows across the little radius that it illuminates. It seems to swallow any light beyond, and she is suddenly besieged by a sincere desire to extinguish it.

Survival, she had learned, is entirely conditional on being unseen. Not being a small, drunk girl, stupid and alone by the whorehouse.

A breeze kisses past her, like the brush of a hand around her arm, and she forgets if she is at the Rattay Baths, or the Traders' Tavern, or the Skalitz Mill. Her memory clouds, and there are shadowy hands on her shoulders, her waist, searching for the ties of her dress. A wall at her front, booze-laced breath wetting the skin of her neck. The crushing weight of the inevitability of things, all exits slowly hinging shut at once, closing in around her.

Her breath has quickened without her leave, the press of God's exacting hand on her chest. There is not enough space for the air she requires. Ale and stew and bile ferments in her guts, snarls her mind, and she is clutching the wooden fence. She is clasping and heaving and nothing is coming out, except more breath, steadily receding.

Something glints in the corner of her vision, and she is ready to drop the torch and run, until she sees it is just an axe, a wedged blade, winking at her from the stub of a trunk, stuck in perpetuity until someone has need for more firewood.

Theresa does not need firewood, but her hand twitches nevertheless, and suddenly she is straining to pry it from its block. When finally she wrests it free, she is awash with a familiar feeling. The same that heralded a slaughter. A flooding, fresh rush of justice that prefaced the crush of desolation as she beheld a man—a child, once—set on his journey to Hell by a girl playing God.

She turns the axe over in her hand. Heavy. So much so, it is an effort just to level it at her side. It does not want to be held. It longs for the ground, for rest, for peace.

Her breathing slows. She runs a thumb across the hilt's grain, learns the story of the creature it was, before it was turned to the necessity of other purposes.

She tries to forgive it, this object. This thing that now exists just to be grabbed and swung around.

Theresa thought she had repented. Guilt alone is not enough. Girls are supposed to scream and die. They are not supposed to kill. They are not supposed to pacify themselves with axes and thoughts of violence.

Something permanent and profound is wrong with her.

The creak of an opening door wrests her spirit back into her body. She whips her head around to see Sir Hans standing in the open doorway. For a brief moment, the world seems to hang there, suspended in that image: a young lord, laughing a goodbye to a court of bathmaids, his silhouette sharp and magnificent against the warm candlelight within.

Theresa briefly wonders if she will ever know rapture of that kind—the liberty to bridge whatever threshold one pleases and to greet every new stretch of the Lord's firmament with a kiss and a laugh. She wishes she could paint, just so she could sustain that picture in her mind, and through its capture, name that feeling hers; forever.

The door closes and the thought is chased away, made small and malformed by the smell that clings to his clothes and hair as he approaches. Sir Hans was only occupied for a short time, and still it was enough for steam and fragrant herbs to leave an echo, warmth pinking his cheeks.

Focus slips away again, washed away in part by a tide of ale. She thinks of Henry, a week ago or so, returning hungover to the mill, the same fragrant scent cleaving to him like a shroud. She had thought, then, that she saw the spectre of someone behind him. Beside him. On top of him. At worst, she had suspected the fingerprints of some sweet-smelling bath girl.

Now, she is envisioning someone else entirely.

"Here we are," Sir Hans says affably. "The finest wine Zdena has. I think your uncle will forgive your absence now." His eyes catch on her wrist, on the axe she had forgotten she was holding. He frowns. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" Theresa drops the axe like it has burned her, too drunk to be any wiser.

She realises what she has done too late, and while it is fortunate that her toes narrowly avoid the bit, there is still the belly of the hilt. It comes down hard, and she yips as it crushes her ankle and the arch of her foot.

Even through the fog of booze, the pain is a flash of white, fizzing out, leaching hotly to red. Her eyes water as she bends over, swallowing a whimper. "Sakra..."

"Let me see."

She had almost forgotten Sir Hans was still here. Her intoxication has poked holes in her brain, and all her thoughts seep through her neck, rushing to the source of the throbbing.

She looks up at him. His face is unreadable. Theresa hesitates, unsure what to do.

He nods to the bench behind her. "Sit down and let me see."

She does as she is asked, staggering to the bench and collapses ungracefully down. Needless to say, she is wary about her self-appointed healer, but he is unexpectedly gentle as he places down the wine bottle and touches her, undoing her shoe and examining the damage. She winces as he finds a sore spot, and to her surprise he even apologises, although the situation is entirely her own fault.

"Have you been here with Hal?" Theresa asks him before she can think better of it. She is eager to break the tension, lest he start to think something intimate might be taking place.

"Once, yes." He looks up at her from below, brows raised. All too invested in this line of questioning. "Why?"

"I'm just curious," she tells him, a little nastily.

He smirks. "Jealous?"

"Curious."

"Jealous."

Theresa is not jealous. She's not curious either—obviously. She is… something else. Worried, maybe, for Henry. His lord had beckoned him to the baths, and as his page, he had justly followed where he was bid. What reason did he have to keep that from her?

"It's not broken," Hans decides at last. "Can you walk?"

"I can probably manage it."

"No, you can't." Theresa is too slow to respond, flustered by how he could possibly be so sure when she's yet to even try. "Not to worry," he says, reaching down for the bottle he'd left there. "I'll just have to carry you."

"Oh. No, that's not—"

"Here, put this in your dress."

But he doesn't even hand her the wine, he just reaches over and drops it into the pocket of her pinafore. Bends down.

"Wait—"

Theresa squeaks a little noise of exclamation as the ground is snatched away by two strong arms. She is forced to cling to him only out of a primordial fear of falling.

She hates him.

"Fucking hell," Hans murmurs. From here she can feel his sternum reverberating through his pourpoint, humming soft organs beneath a hard and gallant shell. "Theresa, does your uncle feed you at all? Your bones are like a sparrow's."

Theresa groans, made bold by sheer indignation. "Oh, spare me. You're just trying to brag."

"Ha! Would you rather I told you you weighed a ton?"

"Yes," she replies, like a reflex. "Actually, yes. Tell me that."

Hans rolls his eyes. "Christ, you're drunk."

Flailing in the air and rocking up and down with each of his footfalls does nothing for her condition. This, combined with his flowery bath-smell.

She senses an awful premonition.

"Jesus," she slurs. "You're going to regret this when I vomit down your back."

"I'm sure you'd have enough sense to warn me," he says. "…Then again, you just dropped an axe on your foot."

"Stop talking," she pleads, before she throws up, before she reaches up to his face to tear off something soft and essential. "I'm concentrating on keeping Jarmila's stew where it belongs."

"Do that, then. I'll concentrate on not throwing you into the nearest dung heap if you so much as drool on my hood."

Theresa ignores him, bringing her focus to the fall and reflexive ascent of her chest. The slow, deep muscle residing there. The same of Hans', as it presses into her side. The hushed warmth of his hand, splayed against her rib, forearm propped under the crook of her knees. The way her calves drape, acquiescent, over his edge. Hung about him in whatever shape his scaffolds deem to prescribe.

God above, she hates him. She hates herself.

It's not like anyone can help it. It is by design. Woman. Damsel, preferably. Fragile. Light. Smaller, as if underdeveloped; aborted too soon. Cold and slick with tears, prettily hazed by mystery—the shadow of some ancient transgression.

And, Lord forgive her, she is tired of it. A swell of melancholy overtakes her, and she just wants to sleep forever. Or—no—to wake up, to pick up the axe, and actually live. To be heavy. Hot. Like a man, so she could throw a punch, or spit in someone's eye, or kill a person who wronged her without being wracked by sin in the aftermath.

Maybe Henry would see her, then. Perhaps she would be truly known, if she didn't have to stand and wait at the side of the road for someone important to return. If she were a man, who could brawl with him, cross swords with him. Who could happily wander into the baths with him, loud and chesty and untroubled, and wear God's favour like a halo of candlelight against a tall and noble crown.

* * *

Henry's girl has gone quiet again. She has a habit of doing that.

Even when carried like a lady, she is sheepish, as if desperate to cringe away from the places of contact that prevent her from breaking her back on the ground. As if she cannot wear the guise of a courtly maid for just a few, fleeting minutes. As if the roughness of her overdress isn't enough to remind Hans of the pretence.

Of course, he wasn't really planning on bedding the wench. He only wanted to learn how far she was willing to follow. And either Henry would sour on her, or be baited into another brawl, or both. From Hans' vantage point, a victory on all sides. An afternoon well-spent.

As it turned out, she would not follow far.

And a shame it is, since Theresa is actually very pretty, if a little roughed up from labour. But for what she lacks in build, she more than makes up for with those eyes, so severely green. Sometimes, as they spoke, her focus was so violently piercing, he was convinced that she wanted to… Well, to fuck him, basically.

True, Theresa didn't care much for his character. That much was obvious, but hardly worth noting. Such was the case with most everyone he met. And anyway, he was well-used to warming the beds of women who wanted little to do with him after he'd gasped and rolled over. Not to mention the several who begged him to shut up as he fucked them, just so they could adequately pretend he was someone else in the ensuing silence.

Naturally, Theresa has little in common with those girls. She is odd. And boring. Obnoxiously predictable, when she isn't doing or saying something completely bewildering. And she keeps Henry close to her chest, clutched within curled fingers, like a secret. The foremost of many, if he guesses correctly. A pity, since he gets the impression that her secrets are the only thing she possesses of any real value.

Hans is not a common miner, and he won't dirty his hands trying to prize cherished jewels from reluctant women. Chases are good for boar and stags—girls are too abundant for that sort of thing. If he can't win her with an afternoon of ale, freed from all her troubles, she's well beyond the lengths he is willing to reach.

"Is that Pebbles?" she says, finally.

As they approach the mill, Hans can just about make out the barn, Henry's dappled mare hitched within.

"Henry must be here." Hans hums, suddenly overcome with self-satisfaction. "That's a nice barn you have. Very spacious."

Theresa stirs in his arms. He thinks he feels her stiffen, until she speaks.

"Planning to take up husbandry, are you?"

He doesn't get the chance to fire her a warning as she toes the line of disrespect, before a familiar dog barks and bounds up to them, all lolling tongue and wagging tail as he excitedly greets two unexpected friends.

Ahead, Hans catches sight of two men, talking with each other outside the house, now turning to look.

"Theresa?" Henry calls, disbelieving. Even from this distance, Hans can see how his mouth hangs open, dumbstruck.

Hans might not have been able to boast that he coaxed Henry's girl into the baths, but at least he gets to have him see her delivered home, carried safe in his lord's arms like a bride. "Hail, gentlemen!"

The miller merely gapes. "What in Jesus…"

"Fear not, lads." His voice is thick with strain as he folds himself awkwardly, lowering Theresa's legs to the floor, careful to keep her weight until she finds it herself. "The maiden only bruised her ankle."

"Tess, what…" stammers the miller. "Where have you been? It's been hours!"

"I…" Theresa begins, looking to Hans for help.

Hans is no saint. This, he knows well. If nothing else, Hanush is always all-too-eager to remind him of all his many shortcomings. Yet in Hans' experience, his impulses were just about the only thing that seemed to grant life any amount of colour at all. After all, if he was supposed to be a monk, he'd be in a monastery. And so, he lets her struggle for a moment. He dangles her over the precipice, just for a second. A little innocent revenge. Recompense for her refusal to enter the bathhouse.

She chokes, forsaken. "It's… I only meant—"

"I met lovely Theresa at the Trader's Tavern and couldn't resist her company for a while, since I've heard so much from my page." He turns to the miller. "I'm sure you don't mind, goodman. And anyway, this should soften the blow." Reaching into Theresa's pocket, he unceremoniously hands the man the wine.

This is a moment of satisfactory silence as the pair of them behold this display, presumably dumbfounded by its familiarity, which likely borders on inappropriate in all truth.

"We were… We were so worried," says Henry eventually. "I only just got here from Sasau. I was about to send Mutt after you. And you're injured?"

In her hesitance to reply, it seems Theresa is even more stupefied than the men. "Well…"

"She fell," he intervenes. Knowing that he's tormented her enough, he'll throw her a nice little lie to send her on her way. It's the chivalrous thing to do, after all. Saves her having to explain she was senseless enough to drop an axe over her leg. "Well, tripped, more like. Twisted it. And I should know—God knows Bernard has given me my fair share of sprains. It should heal within a few days."

Theresa glances at him. He merely smiles.

"Can I see?" Henry asks her.

She shakes her head. "No, don't worry. I'm alright."

"Maybe I can give you something for the pain."

But she's already making for the house, limping as she goes. "No, it's—" Her foot betrays her. Whether its the drink, or favouring the wrong side, she stumbles, only just managing to find her footing before she buckles completely.

Henry jolts. "You alright?"

"I'm fine."

He rushes to meet her at her side. "Let me help—"

"No," she snaps, grabbing his beseeching wrist. "If I need help I'll ask for it!"

Large, wet eyes, already predisposed to sorrow, stare back at her, teeming with confusion and worry.

What a cruelty. She might as well have gone and kicked Mutt with her crippled foot, and still the sight would have been less injurious.

Privately, Hans thinks to himself: Job done.

She releases her blacksmith, brushes at her skirt, busying the hand that previously ensnared Henry's. Looks to Hans. "I'm going to bed, if you'll excuse me, my lord."

He tips his head politely.

She stands in the doorway, a hand on its edge, steadying herself. Just as he begins to wonder why she's yet to clear off, the atmosphere around them thins and he realises that she's giving him one last look with those 'fuck me' eyes.

And Henry gets to see it for himself. Bizarre girl.

Her curtsey is faint, wobbly, before she says, "Thank you for the wine."

"Most welcome," he replies, ducking his way into a bow. Nowhere near deep or straight enough to be mistaken for anything earnest. "Goodnight, fair maid."

The miller clears his throat, sputtered into action with the absence of his niece. "Yes… er… thank you, sir. Awfully generous of you. I hope she didn't cause you any trouble."

Hans waves a hand, dismissive. "Nothing of the sort."

"Well… glad to hear it," he replies awkwardly. Turns to Henry. "Are you staying then, lad?"

"He'll be heading back to Pirkstein with me. Won't you, Henry?"

Henry pauses for a second, then shrugs. "'Course. Just one moment."

Before they can make to leave, Henry goes to unhitch his horse from the fabled barn, fetching a phial from his saddle bag as he goes. Handing it to the miller, he mutters something Hans pretends not to hear about a promise to return to tomorrow to check on things with the girl. To make sure she drinks the decoction before bed.

"Shall we?" Hans asks impatiently.

The two of them commence their journey back to town. For a while, they walk in silence, and it is only Pebbles' nickering and the whispering of the long grass as Henry's mutt disturbs it, still boundless and raring even at this hour, which punctuates the night's quiet soundscape. Once the mill is a ways behind them, Hans cannot resist any longer.

"Pretty eyes, eh?"

"Fucking hell, Hans."

"What?" Hans flinches, too thrown to even correct him on the honorific, or lack thereof.

"Theresa? Really?"

"What are you talking about? Nothing happened."

"Nothing happened?! She's as drunk as a sow!"

"Oh, well, nothing important happened, I mean." Henry merely scoffs at this, and Hans scoffs back. "Don't tell me you've never seen a wench drunk before."

Henry's brows pull together. He gives Hans a baleful, wordless look that roughly translates to you're being a noble cunt, my lord.

"What? We had a lovely time!"

His page sighs. Looks straight ahead. Hans feels him withdraw, as if he is too weary to fight this battle.

This was not the reaction he was hoping for.

"Do you have to try to corrupt every girl you see," Henry mutters quietly.

"Funny," Hans says, though he doesn't laugh. "I reckon that's what she thinks about me. That I'm trying to corrupt you."

He sniffs. "Maybe she's right."

Hans feels a twinge in his ribs, a muffled pang that he feels an instinctive need to throw off, to exile to some far off horizon.

"Oh, don't be so serious. It doesn't suit you. You and I have fun, don't we? That's what it was like with Theresa. Just fun. Nothing to get yourself in a twist about."

Henry glances at him, sidelong. "Well, it depends what kind of 'fun' we're talking about."

"Henry!" Hans gasps, throwing his palm to his chest in exaggerated consternation. "What sort of friend do you take me for?"

Henry stops.

"Friend, sir?" he asks, turning his head fully now. If Hans isn't mistaken, he could swear he hears something hopeful, something anticipatory in Henry's voice. Like a grin he's trying to suppress. Hans heart beats twice. "Last I checked I was a minion."

Hans smiles. Broadly. Dumbly. He's not Theresa, and he doesn't care to be demure about it. He wants to tear out his heart and rotate it in his palm, to show all of its fleshy angles to this blacksmith's son. Whether it be the ale, or some other bacchanalian impulse, Hans thinks that he would show him his guts were he only to ask. Would bloody himself open, if only to have Henry inspect his dark and forsaken interior.

Rattay's cool night air breezes against his skin. Dawn is several hours away, and yet this strange joy is so potent, Hans thinks it might just be enough to crack the heavens.

Truly, he wants for nothing but this. Ale in his belly, gold in his purse, and a friend at his side. These things assured, all the world splays out at his feet, and he is overtaken by the will to thread his arms beneath Henry's shoulders and fly him anywhere he wishes. Prague. Rome. The bathhouse. All the places chaste little mill girls cannot follow.

"Of course we're friends, Hal."

Henry's smile sets itself free, born anew in welcome of this new word, previously foreign to Hans' vocabulary, now comfortably at home. "Alright, then. Friends. As you say."

"Besides, there's no way any earthly man could corrupt Saint Theresa." His page rolls his eyes disapprovingly, but that doesn't deter Hans from slapping an arm around him, squeezing him close. "What an angel."