Archive of Our Own

Henry has changed over these last few weeks of spring.

She used to do this in secret with Bianca and Johanka, and the three of them knew of all the best hiding places by the streams around Skalitz. They giggled and hushed each other, and sometimes it seemed like the boys knew there were onlookers in the branches, and the boys would play it up and tense their gangly limbs to bring out what little sinewy muscle was growing in them. Henry did that the most, she knew, because it was him she always watched.

Where she sits now, looking out of the corner of her eye, it is like she is back there again. But now, Henry doesn’t have to flex his muscles to coax them out anymore. His back has broadened, and his arms and thighs bulge with strength. He has become a man and somewhere along the way, she must have become a woman.

They don’t know she’s there, and she shouldn’t be looking, but she can’t look away—and still, it is Henry she’s watching. And still, he is doing that thing, that thing where he seems to be showing off, making himself look as good as possible for an invisible audience. But this time there’s no way he knows the audience of one is there. 

He’s laughing and shoving the other lads around as they wash themselves and their clothes in the glittering water. She has always adored that sound, the sound of Henry happy.

His laughter has echoed in her memories since she raced him by this very stream a few weeks ago. It was the first proper laugh she had had since Skalitz burned, and it made her think that at least there’s that; at least there’s still Henry.

When the boys pack up to leave, Theresa innocently sits herself on the bench in front of the mill and goes back to mending her apron, and she doesn’t look up until she hears, “Good day, Theresa!”

Henry’s soaked hair sticks out on one side, and it makes him look like a wet cat. He’s waving at her, and she giggles uncontrollably because he’s adorable and a little silly-looking, and she’s full of butterflies. “Good day, Henry,” she says back, and all too soon the boys have gone by.

That day’s work goes by easily and quickly.

At least there’s still Henry.

A short week later, Henry beats up a man for her. There really is nothing else to do but to kiss him for it. His confusion is so utterly endearing she almost kisses him again. She wants to dance and sing on her way back into the mill. Henry, the most beautiful boy in the world, is hers.

From time to time, Henry shows up at the mill, bringing gifts of varying appropriateness and stories of all the strange and sometimes dangerous tasks he has been given.

She does not like the nobles sending him out into the world like that, and she does not understand how he so easily complies; not after everything…

He also regularly talks of young Lord Capon. First, he hates him. Says he’s a horrible, snooty bastard, and she worries he’ll go and punch him—again. And then, after he comes back from the hunting trip he has been forced out on, his tune has changed, and now Capon is a bit strange instead. Only a few days pass, and with a smile, Henry calls him ‘not so bad, after all’. And just like that, Henry is friends with a noble.

She thinks Capon sounds a little insane, something she doesn’t say aloud, but either way she’s glad Henry is on his good side.

One afternoon, Henry helps her with the laundry, and he does so with a smile. She decides it is time. Wedding in the past or wedding in the future, to her it’s all the same, and God will just have to agree with her on this one.

Henry is so gentle and so sweet, and Theresa knows she loves him.

After that, Henry disappears for a while, and Theresa has the time to worry he’s one of those men, after all, the ones who use up and throw away poor mill maids. Sometimes she forgets she’s supposed to work and stands looking up the road, hoping he will come down the hill from the castle. She listens for footsteps and for horse hooves and for barking dogs, and she listens for Henry’s voice talking to his animals, because he does that sometimes, and on good days she thinks it’s charming and on bad days she thinks it’s stupid.

If only Henry had just settled into an apprenticeship with a blacksmith. She knows there are several just up in Rattay, but of course Henry has to go far and wide and worry her with his restlessness.

If only Johanka were here, she would understand.

As soon as Johanka comes to mind, so does the rest. If only Bianca were here. If only Father, if only Stibor, if only Sammy…

Some days a broom is heavier than others.

When Henry appears again, suddenly he is Sir Radzig’s son and has been through… things. She can see it in his eyes; things he won’t talk much about. He hates Sir Istvan Toth.

She wants to pry but lets it be.

One thing won’t let her rest until she asks it.

“Would you still care for me, a common mill maid, if you were a nobleman?” She asks on the verge of a joyless laugh, and oh God, please, please, she can’t hear the answer be anything other than ‘Yes! Of course, dearest Theresa!’

So, when he says, “Of course. I’ll always be fond of you. Nothing will change that”, she can’t hide a grin.

“I’ll remember that. I hope you won’t regret those words!” she jokes. Halfway jokes.

“No fear of that,” Henry says, and he means it.

Then Henry says he’s going away for a bit, and Theresa wants to tear her hair out. Not again, not again.

At least he tells her upfront this time.

“It’s only a three-day ride. It won’t be long.” Henry takes her hand over the table and looks her in the eye. “I’ll soon be back.”

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” she asks of him, desperately clutching his hand.

“I promise.” He squeezes her, and Theresa thinks that maybe, if she just doesn’t let go, he won’t leave.

But there isn’t much choice, of course. When the moment arrives, she lets him go.

Henry leaves, and three days turn to six days, turn to three weeks, and Theresa begins to think Henry is a damn liar after all.

Six weeks pass, and Theresa stops thinking Henry is a liar and starts thinking he might be dead.

There isn’t much to look forward to without Henry there. She curses him again and again for his lust for adventure. She thinks she might lose her mind.

One sunny day in late summer, she hears them before she sees them. Many sets of horses’ hooves and men’s voices coming down the road. Before she can catch herself, a small bud of hope blooms in her chest. She clutches her broom and squints at the mass that is closing in on the mill. 

That’s surely Sir Hanush and Sir Radzig at the front, and her eyes dart to their faces to find signs of what state they’re in; any kind of hint as to what has happened. They’re talking to each other, but she can’t hear what they’re saying. But there, that’s a laugh from Sir Radzig, and her chest rises with expectation.

There’s an entire entourage of guards following the lords, and she’s afraid she’ll miss him in the crowd. Then, first between the tree branches, like rays of sun, then out in full, comes Sir Hans in his bright yellow pourpoint. And, as had become custom, where Sir Hans is seen, Henry isn’t far behind.

And there he is. She smiles for the first time in weeks.

But then they are coming past the mill, and Henry hasn’t seen her. He is turned around and talking with Sir Hans, and she sees nothing but the back of his head. 

They are all so tall on their horses, looming above her that her voice disappears in her throat. But then they are past the fence, and Henry hasn’t even sent a glance her way, and she desperately pipes up, “Henry!” 

Henry stops his horse and looks around as if he has been woken from a dream. Sir Hans stops beside him, and in an instant they’re both looking at her, giving her a start.

It takes a moment, but Henry jumps down and comes trudging through the grass with a smile on his face. “Theresa,” he says, and holds his arms out.

He looks thinner than when she last saw him, and his eyes are sunken and bruised, but he seems to be in one piece.

Theresa throws herself into his open arms, and oh God, it’s good to feel him there with her. She can’t understand how she has managed all these weeks without him.

She pulls back, looks him in the eyes, dull and exhausted, but crinkling a little from smiling. She leans in… but meets nothing. He has ducked his head and is embracing her with his cheek at the side of her head.

He probably didn’t see; didn’t catch her meaning—so she just hugs him back.

“It’s good to see you, Henry,” she says as she lets him go.

“You too, Theresa.”

She wants to take his hand. She wants to kiss him and drag him into the mill and feed him until he stops looking gaunt and sad. But there are soldiers and lords watching them, and she has no knowledge of their plans. Henry wasn’t on his way to the mill.

Maybe later.

Sir Hans’ horse scrapes at the ground with its hoof, and Henry’s head swings around. 

“I have to go, but I’ll see you around, Tess.” He smiles and nods his head in a little bow. 

The use of her nickname makes her heart clench in her chest; she hasn’t heard it in ages.

Henry walks back to his horse—stiffly and slowly.

Sir Hans follows him with his eyes, not blinking until Henry is back on Pebbles.

And then she’s alone on the dusty patch in front of the mill. Her broom lies discarded on the ground. A magpie chatters nearby.

She has waited so long for this. She has spent countless anxious hours wondering if Henry is alright, if he’s fed, if he’s hurt, if he’s even alive. And now that he’s back, it has left her hollow as a rotted tree.

Theresa isn’t sure what she expected. Perhaps it was for Henry to show up the day after, or maybe the day after that, just to see how she was; just to say hello, but Henry is nowhere to be seen for another two whole weeks.

She goes up to Rattay for meat at the butcher’s and cloth at the tailor’s, and vegetables at the market, but always forgets something, so she has to go back the next day. She never sees him.

Sometimes she wants to march into the castles, one after the other, and demand to talk to Henry. But she has lost some of her guts. She thinks she burnt through all of her bravery in Skalitz and that for the rest of her life she will have to ration her reserves.

The days turn back into madness and waiting, and it makes her thoughts overflow into her daily tasks, turning her work shoddy. What else is there to do? Patch up clothes, prepare food, sweep the stairs, wash laundry, dry laundry, on and on and on, and in between in it all comes visions of Henry smiling and laughing, but it is with another girl, a faceless one, one from Trosky. Then she’ll see herself as a blacksmith’s wife, spinning thread as Henry works in the smithy, where he occasionally turns around to look at her already looking at him. It is always the smithy in Skalitz, the one that doesn’t exist anymore. Whenever she imagines her future, it is always in Skalitz.

She has to sit down when Skalitz unfolds in front of her. She never wants to go back, not even in her own head, so she drops the broom and runs down the road along the river until she doesn’t know if her heart thunders from the exertion or the memories.

Three days in a row she does this, and all three times, Uncle Peshek is in the doorway looking at her with furrowed brows. He doesn’t say anything as she comes inside and starts preparing dinner.

Like the mill wheel, she goes round and round all day. Reliably, she does her tasks as is her job. The wheel never complains, and neither does she.  

One afternoon he stands in front of the mill, just as she’s going outside to hang laundry. It’s like he’s just shot up out of the ground like a dandelion the way he stands there, still as a statue. She almost drops her basket.

“Henry,” Theresa says, uncertain.

“It’s been a while, Theresa.” Henry sounds shaken, the way he says her name, like he’s unsure if that’s what she’s actually called.

“Aye, I’ve been waiting for you. I started thinking you didn’t want to see me.” She is more serious than she is joking.

“I did,” Henry says. “I did want to, it’s just… there’s been a lot happenin’.” He shifts back and forth on his feet.

Theresa steps down the stairs and comes as close to him as she dares. He is not as thin as when she first saw him ride in, but he is littered with remnants of bruises and scratches, and his eyes are still sunken and shadowed.

“I don’t think you kept your promise to me, Henry,” she says calmly.

His eyes widen. “What?”

“You promised me you would take care of yourself, remember that?”

Henry’s lips part, and he stares at her until he suddenly breaks eye contact. “Aye… aye, Tess, I remember that.”

There’s a stretching silence then. Henry doesn’t elaborate.

“I’m glad you’re back, Henry. I really missed you. It’s a lot more boring here without you.”

All the nights she spent alone listening to Uncle Peshek’s snoring as she tried to listen for horses, thinking maybe she could differentiate Pebbles’ gait from other horses’ come to mind. So do the never-ending days of joyless work, and so do the nightmares.

Henry looks up with his lips quirked up on one side, the way he sometimes smiles. That’s still the same, at least.

“Aye… I missed you too. Can’t say it’s been very boring for me exactly… but thank you, Tess, you always know how to put a smile on my face.”

There’s that light in his eyes again, the one she saw before he left, when he sat with her by the river and joked and laughed, and when she pulled him into the hay with her, and when he told her with utmost conviction she had nothing to fear, he would always be fond of her. For the first time since he left for Trosky, she feels that sparkling connection the two of them have had for a while, even since he still was with Bianca.

They look at each other, and it’s nice to be still with him.

Henry is the one to break the silence. “Oh, I brought you something.” He holds a bundle of cloth out towards her.

She takes it with a smile. Henry and his gifts… She unpacks it.

It’s a dagger.

She has to stare down at it for a long time before she knows what to say.

“You’ve already gifted me a dagger, Henry.”

Henry’s face turns from a mild smile to genuine confusion. “Have I?”

“Aye, in the spring. You said it could come in handy for… protecting myself.”

Theresa hid that first dagger away. She couldn’t bear to look at it. It reminds her of the one she stole from that Cuman man. It reminds her of the strangling fear and despair that drove her through that entire day. But Henry wanted her to have it, so she kept it around, just in case.

“Oh…” he looks forlornly at the dagger in her hand. “D’you need another one, you think?” 

Theresa is helpless against this. His eyes are so large and wondering, and he means so well with his silly gifts. Months of worrying and then weeks of stress and annoyance vanishes and is overtaken by a rush of fondness.

“Oh, Henry…” she laughs, and puts her hand on his cheek and pulls him into a kiss.

Finally. Finally, finally, finally he kisses her back—if a bit awkward with his arms hanging down—but he’s kissing her like she has hoped and dreamt. How ridiculous she has been—thinking he doesn’t care anymore. He has been through so much; of course he is a bit wavering and out of it. He only needed time. She feels a sting of shame for doubting him.

Henry’s warm lips make her blood rush; the stubble against her palm makes her chest bubble. He’s such a wonderful man, such a sweet boy, and she loves him so much she can’t think.

Theresa doesn’t want to break the kiss, but she pulls back to look at him. His brows are even more knitted than before.

Theresa’s smile falters. “Is there something wrong?” she says and lets her hand drop.

Henry’s brow flattens as he widens his eyes. “No, no, nothing’s wrong. I’ve got a lot to think about.” His eyes drift far away.

For a moment she wonders if he has disappeared completely—but then he sighs.

“There’s just… there’s a lot goin’ on—with Hans’ wedding coming up and all.”

The rumour that Capon was getting married, and that he was not happy about it, had reached the mill as she waited for Henry. Most seem to think it’ll be good for the young lord, a chance to grow. Theresa can’t help but pity the poor bride.

“Why are you thinking about that now?”

Henry shakes his head quickly. “I wasn’t! Not really. I’m thinking of lots of things.”

He takes her hand and intertwines his fingers with hers. His hand has got rougher; it’s like holding a rock.

“War is a nasty business,” he says sombrely.

Theresa’s heart does a little leap. Henry never seems to want to talk about these things; she’ll be glad if he would.

“I can’t imagine.” She tries to catch his eyes, and he reluctantly does look up.

“Maybe you can,” he says, and squeezes her hand.

Her father falls to the ground before her eyes, arrow in his back. Men, more men than she can count, men in armour speaking a strange tongue pressing her against the door of the mill, the smell of smoke, terror beyond belief, waking up to find Sammy dead against her side.

She swallows as her mouth has gone dry. “Maybe I can.”

They knock their foreheads together and stand quietly with their warm hands clutching each other.

If it’s all this Henry has experienced, more of this, more of Skalitz, she can understand why he has become strange and skittish. She wishes Henry didn’t have such a knack for heroics, so maybe he could have been spared at least some of the horrors.

Again, Henry sighs; long, like an exhausted dog.

He kisses her cheek. “I have to go. I promised I’d be back before evenin’.”

“Already?”

“Aye, there’s wedding planning tonight, and Hans will probably lose his mind on Sir Hanush if I’m not there to rein him in.”

She doesn’t doubt it. “Alright. Take care then.”

“Aye, I will. You too, Tess.”

He turns his back to her and begins walking away. It is a terrible sight.

“Hal,” she calls after him, and he turns. “Do come back soon.”

Henry smiles gently and bows, then he leaves.

As much as Henry had rejected the thought that things would change now that he was a noble’s bastard, he does seem to embrace the station somewhat.

It’s not lost on her that Henry has dropped the honorifics for Capon.

Henry had promised her he would take care of himself. That is a promise he did not keep. He looks to have run face-first into every danger they encountered on their travels. He had also promised that they would always be together. She still isn’t quite sure about that one.

Henry keeps his word and comes back more often to see her, and she always relaxes when he shows up and is left tense and confused again when he leaves.

Luckily, he drips information from his travels to Trosky—and Kuttenberg, it turns out.

Sir Otto von Bergow is a bastard. Sir Istvan Toth is an even bigger bastard.

“I killed him,” Henry says.

“Did you really?”

“Aye, I pushed him out of a window in Trosky Castle.”

“Oh, God.” Theresa crosses herself. How on God’s green earth does one end up in a situation like that? But this is Henry, and with Henry, anything can happen. She isn’t sure she likes how his eyes gleam when he says this.

Henry saved Hans from hanging. Henry has a stepbrother from Kuttenberg. Henry killed Markvart von Aulitz. Henry saved everyone from starving in a siege in Suchdol.

All these things Henry has experienced, like he has lived a whole life over the span of three months. And she has had no part in it.

Henry still looks the same. Almost the same. He has a new scar on his cheek, and another on his neck; there are probably more hidden away under his clothes. And his eyes are changed, they flit around a lot, and a little wrinkle is turning permanent between his brows.

Sometimes he still looks at her with fondness. Sometimes they even laugh together. Other times he looks at her like he’s a dog that has destroyed her shoe and is ashamed and doing bad job at hiding it.

Something is wrong when they’re together. Henry’s eyes and smiles and words are wrong. Theresa’s thoughts are wrong. The air is wrong.

Henry has locked something away. He’s tense and hunched as if he’s hiding a wound, and she can’t quite figure out where it is.

In the time after their reunion, Theresa almost longs back for the period Henry was away. She had the hope and the direction driving her forward then. Now everything is muddy. Then she chastises herself because Henry came back alive, and nothing is better than that. She prays to God, too, and thanks him for bringing Henry back safely. In addition to asking him for some bloody clarity.

God’s answer comes one evening in the form of Henry on the doorstep.

He is pale as a sheet, and his eyes are glassy, almost feverish. He has a single rose in his hand.

“Come in,” she says instead of asking what’s wrong.

He steps in and brings with him a strange and tense air, and he turns into a dark shadow as she closes the door. He nervously fiddles with a thorn on the rose and attempts a tight-lipped smile a couple of times.

Theresa says nothing as she waits for him to find his words. Like a rolling thunder, dread builds at the same time as expectation.

“Theresa,” he says seriously. “Theresa, we’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?” He looks at her like it’s a question but doesn’t wait for her answer. “I did tell you once before that I intended to take your hand in marriage, and so, here I am making good on my promise. I will provide for you, and we’ll create a nice home together, sharing the burdens of work and life.” He draws a shaking breath. “I—I care for you, and I want nothing but a good life for you.

Theresa stares at him with frost spreading through her chest, painfully cold and sharp. When Henry mentioned marriage earlier in the summer, she laughed him off but was so happy she could fly; she could at least wait, wait until Henry was actually at ease and he would be ready to ask again. She had some sort of peace knowing where his thoughts were, and there was no hurry. Now he is back with the same request, and Theresa has never felt less at ease than right now.

He looks and sounds like some sort of ghoul. He is so hollow and sick-looking that she feels like there’s a strange creature wearing his skin, or like he’s been cursed by an evil witch.

He has said everything she has wanted to hear, but now she feels ill, because he doesn’t mean a word of it.

“You met someone, didn’t you?” She says, restraining her feelings, and ends up sounding cold.

“What? No!” he says, but his face is burning red as she watches him. 

Her insides turn to snakes that writhe and turn and make her want to heave. “Don’t take me for an idiot, Henry. I don’t deserve that.” There is a sob wanting to explode out of her, but she stops it in her throat by clenching her jaws shut. 

“Theresa, I swear, it’s not what you think.”

Henry takes a desperate step forward and Theresa takes an equal step backwards, but then the back of her leg collides with a bench, and she falls on her arse onto it. And now she has nowhere to go, so Henry closes in above her.

“There is no other girl, I swear it before God.”

And that makes her blood boil, for she knows this boy; she knows him too well for his own good. “That’s a sin too far, Henry. You should know both I and God know when you’re lying.”

Henry gasps, and it’s shaky and abrupt, and then he sinks to his knees and looks up at her where she’s perched on the bench.

She has always thought Henry’s eyes were so beautiful, and they are now, too—they’re big and wet, and they look so sincere, but he sounds like he’s lying like she’s never heard from him before. 

Henry grasps her skirt in his rough hands. “I haven’t met someone new; there is no other girl, and please, dearest Theresa, don’t hate me like you hate me right now.”

She thought she would be fine; that she knew Henry’s restless and adventurous spirit would return to her whatever happened out there in the world where she couldn’t follow him. Henry had come back, but he had not returned to her. It wasn’t until he said it that she felt it properly; she does hate him right now.

“No promises,” Theresa says, and Henry’s eyes glitter as tears brim over and fall down his cheeks with a blink. He looks so pitiful she can’t help but feel for him. This is why Henry is so dangerous; whatever he does, he has her heart in his hands.

Henry lets his head fall and cries into her dusty apron, and somehow, it’s her comforting him. She holds one hand on his arm, and she strokes his hair with the other. She would rather pommel him black and blue with her generous hands, but a part of her is sure this is the last time she will ever feel the soft short hair at his neck or the warmth of his strong arms. 

Many years ago, in Skalitz, Theresa chose Henry, and every day since, she has had to watch Henry choose someone else. For only a couple of weeks this spring she thought he had finally chosen her back, but now something newer and shinier than her must have shown up, and he has gone after it like a magpie. 

Theresa’s hands turn to claws on Henry’s body, and she sobs. 

It takes a while, too long, but Henry eventually untangles himself from her apron and apologises. When she doesn’t answer, he disappears out the door and leaves behind an empty room. Theresa is still there, but it doesn’t feel like she is.

The rose lies discarded and withering on the floor.

When she goes to bed, Theresa questions God about whether some peace really is too big of an ask.

In the morning, Uncle Peshek asks her to go buy groceries. She would rather lie in bed; she would rather turn into a cloud and fly away. But of course she says yes; what else is there to do?

On the way up the hill towards the lower gates, she hopes he’s not there this time, not ever. She stops halfway up and contemplates turning around and telling Uncle Peshek she’s ill or she sprained her ankle, and she realises Henry cannot take this from her; the market, the stores, the alehouses, the people, Rattay.

She turns back around and goes in through the gates with her chin up.

The whole time she’s there she watches over her shoulder or glances through windows before going inside, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Theresa takes the long way back to the mill; she needs to walk off the restless energy, and she needs the sky above her head for a little while longer. So she reaches the green above Rattay and turns into the thicket of trees and bushes on the steep hill. There are poppies and sage across the ground, and there’s a starling singing from a branch somewhere, and it nourishes her for only a moment, because there’s something else… Low voices talking. Two men, it sounds like. And she grows nosy, so she corrects her path towards the quiet conversation. 

As she closes in, she sees a flash of red.

“… calm down.”

She almost jumps because that’s Henry. 

In between the branches of a beech tree and a large bush, she can clearly see them; it’s Capon, and it’s Henry. And Capon is pacing back and forth while Henry sits on the trunk of a fallen tree. 

“I cannot take this anymore! I cannot! We shall leave as soon as possible—tonight! Yes, tonight. I won’t wait to see another day in Rattay. Not like this—”

“You don’t mean that,” Henry interrupts. “Rattay is yours. You can’t just… run away from it.” He sighs and wrings his hands. 

“I don’t care anymore!” Capon turns suddenly and stoops threateningly close to Henry’s face so they’re eye level and he points his finger almost touching the bridge of Henry’s nose. “I feel like my soul is rotting away living like this, and you of all people should understand. I feel like my skin is strangling me. I—”

Henry grabs Capon’s hand, the one that is pointing in his face, and then collects the other one and keeps them tightly held between his own hands. “Hans,” Henry says, and he says the name so tenderly Theresa freezes up where she stands. “Hans, please calm down and think for a moment.”

“I’ve done nothing but think for months!” Hans almost yells, and Henry calmly hushes him and brings Capon’s hands to his mouth.

“I know.”

Capon falls to his knees with his face crumpling; his hands still held between Henry’s. 

Henry hushes him again and brings his forehead to Capon’s, and they’re so close their eyelashes almost brush. 

“Breathe, Hans, we’ll figure it all out. I’ll never leave, whatever happens. Even if you have other obligations, even if it turns out you love her, I’ll be here and we’ll figure it out.” 

Capon’s face scrunches up like he’s being overtaken by a sudden pain. “I still stand by what I said. You still have options; you can create a life for yourself, and I’ll… leave on my own.” His breath catches, and the words leaving his mouth next are unsteady. “But that offer won’t stand much longer if you continue talking like that. I’m giving you an out—”

Henry shakes his head like a shudder goes through him. “Please don’t do that to me.”

And then Henry’s shoulders begin to shake, and it’s not long before he is trying to catch his breath through sobs. 

Capon frees his hands and cups them around Henry’s face, and now it’s Capon who is hushing Henry, and a tear trails down his cheek and onto his lips as he leans…

Theresa stands still with her brown dress and her brown hair, and her arms stretched to the side holding the basket on her hip, and she breathes with the wind, and she might as well be one of the trees surrounding her as Capon kisses Henry on the mouth. 

There is no doubt what she is looking at, but all the same she cannot make sense of it.

Henry doesn’t flinch, or yell, or punch him; he sits still and lets himself be kissed like it has happened before; like it has happened a thousand times before. He wraps his arms around Capon and presses his face into the crook of his neck.

Capon turns his mouth close to the shell of Henry’s ear and whispers things Theresa can’t hear. He’s carefully holding the back of Henry’s neck in the palm of his hand and rocking them gently back and forth.

Fearful she will turn to ice if she stays any longer, Theresa slips away, the two men too wrapped up in each other to notice. Roots and rocks nip at her feet and branches rips the seam of her dress as she staggers down the hill towards a more familiar path.

When Theresa comes back to the mill, back home… no, the mill, she places her basket somewhere—she doesn’t know where—and sits on a bench. Her head is so full she can’t differentiate one thought from another, and thus is blessedly free of the emotions she should feel. After some time of hearing the water turn the mill wheel around and around, she gets up but then sits down again as a thought tears itself from the tangles.

There is no one who is Theresa’s anymore. 

She prays. Mostly for Henry. A little for herself.

The priests have talked about this. It is a terrible sin, they say, an abomination.

Maybe Henry and Hans met the Devil on their travels to Trosky, and it’s he who has led them astray, and that is why she feels frozen inside every time she thinks about the two of them.

But one thing confuses her, it didn’t look evil and abominable. She has never seen Capon so gentle as he was with Henry in that forest.

She isn’t sure if it is more or less excruciating if this is Henry under a devilish curse, or if this is Henry in love.

She walks around as if in a daze, feeling her heart thrum and twitch weirdly in her chest as she goes about her days. Nothing could have prepared her for this, so she has no idea what to think or what to feel. 

If only he hadn’t lied so much for so long. Then she wouldn’t have to feel so stupid on top of it all. Everything she thought she knew was wrong. Everything she had planned was wrong. 

She thinks she might spit in his face if she sees him again. Whack him over the head with her broom. Pull one or both of those daggers she gave to him and stab him in the chest, so that they would be even.

She misses him so much she can barely breathe.

She stirs a pot of stew—round and round. Food, all day every day there’s food, and someone has to make it.

Faintly, like it’s far away, a door opens and heavy steps close in.

Uncle Peshek sighs heavily.

“What is going on with you, lass? You left the milk out in the sun and now it’s curdled, and you didn’t take the wash in yesterday, and it got soaked in the rain again.”

That makes it all boil over for Theresa, and she lets the wooden spoon go and brings her apron up to cover her face as she can’t hold back tears anymore. She sobs like a little child as it all comes crumbling down. Her mother is gone, her father is gone, both her brothers are gone, most of the people she has ever known are gone, and she thought that at least Henry was still there, how happy she had been when he woke up properly after sleeping in this very house for weeks, at least Henry was there with her. Now they’re all gone. Henry even took the damned dog.

She can’t stop the crying and is bracing for the scolding that is undoubtedly coming from her uncle, but time drags on and he says nothing, so she dares peek out from her apron.

Uncle Peshek takes his hat off and folds it between his hands. His thinning hair sticks to his forehead and temples after the day’s work. He sighs as he sits down heavily on a chair. “Is it that bug-eyed boy who’s bothering you?”

Theresa almost lets out a laugh, but it turns sour and comes out as a sob instead.

She fumbles for the spoon again and stirs the stew that has probably been ready for a long time already. “He made more promises than he could keep.” She sniffs.  

Uncle Peshek shakes his head and closes his eyes. “It’s always the same with these whelps, Theresa. This happens as certainly as the sun rising the next morn. Come here now.”

Theresa obeys, and Peshek takes her hands in his and squeezes them. “But you’re worth more than this; you’re a strong and clever lass, and you deserve better than broken promises from some little stripling.”

Calling Henry a little stripling is stretching it, but she appreciates the sentiment.

If she weren’t crying before, she is now. He sounds so certain, and his hands so secure, and for a moment it’s like her father is there holding her too.

“Don’t let him break you—we’ve got work to do, see.” Peshek winks at her and squeezes her hands once more before letting go. “Now, though, we eat. This looks… more than done.”

She wipes her face with her apron. “I’m sorry, I’ve—”

Peshek makes a sound and holds up a finger to stop her apology, then he spoons stew into a bowl. “If he shows up again, I’ll kick his sorry arse from here on your pa’s behalf, may he rest in peace.”

One morning Henry stands by the fence before the mill like a stranger on a doorstep. He clutches the wooden fence, so his knuckles whiten and his face tells the story of a child who has been forgotten somewhere unfamiliar by his parents.

Theresa thinks of throwing a shoe at him, or a spoon. Instead, she goes up to him, looking him straight in his big, fearful eyes.

“Henry,” she says as a greeting.

Henry’s lip twitches. His eyes are so large. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I…” he shifts around uneasily. “I came to apologise.”

Theresa says nothing.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on with me.” He breaks the eye contact and his face scrunches into itself. When he looks up, the edges of his eyes are red. “But I think you were right. I think it’s unwise for you to marry me.”

The ice on Theresa’s heart thaws a little as she sees his forlorn little face. He looks so much like the Henry who was only little and who whined and whimpered when the river got too deep, and who hid behind his mother’s skirts when a cow grazed too close. He is the Henry who didn’t let her beat him in a race, but who almost sacrificed his life with a too large sword and too much bravery to save hers.

This is why Henry is dangerous… Yet, it is hard to imagine the Devil ever having come near this boy.

When Theresa still doesn’t answer, Henry continues. “I can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. If there ever was an angel on earth, it’s you, Theresa. I did mean what I said. I want nothing but a good life for you, but if I want that… I can’t marry you. I wouldn’t be able to do right by you in the way you deserve.”

Theresa has already understood this, and she’s glad they in a way are in agreement, but the finality of Henry saying it is still crushing. Somehow, she is struck by disappointment all over again.

“Did you even ask my uncle for my hand?” she asks.

Henry looks like he’s thinking for a moment. “I did not,” he confesses.

There’s something she needs to reach for. Even if it’s all a mess and her chest aches, she says with a lilt in her voice, “Who says he’d let a scoundrel like you marry me?”

Henry’s eyes light up a tad, like he senses there’s hope she doesn’t hate him.

She does.

She does not.

She can’t, she still cares too much for the idiot.

“I didn’t do it quite right,” Henry says, and it’s hard to decide whether his expression is sad or humorous.

Theresa shakes her head slowly. No, he did not do it quite right. Maybe she didn’t do it quite right either. Maybe she should have taken the opportunity, married Henry, and led a stable life and faced the troubles of work and life with him. But then she thinks of his dead eyes as he asked her for this, and that she would never have been able to live with.

“It isn’t much,” Henry says and breaks her out of her thoughts. “But I have something for you.” He reaches into a satchel and brings forth a pair of lovely leather slippers. They are way above her station.

“Henry, for the love of God. You can’t keep on bringing me gifts. It’s not right.”

“Please take them. I saw them and thought of you.”

It’s like a strange echo of the times he would bring her gifts because he cared. She can’t quite understand why he would keep doing this. “I’ll feel like I owe you something.”

“You won’t. I promise.”

She sighs. It is so difficult to say no to him. Despite her better judgement she takes the shoes from him, and her fingers brush his hands. She wishes they hadn’t.

The shoes are too nice, and she doesn’t know where she would wear these. To wear while she works, as she wades through dust and grass and mud? To a dance? Is he expecting her to attract another mate with her impeccable choice of footwear? She could put them on and walk away.

She shakes her head and accepts that she now has a pair of beautiful slippers in her possession that she’ll have to hide away so her uncle doesn’t sell them.

“Maybe I’ll have to bring you gifts now…” She feels strangely giddy all of a sudden as a long-forgotten memory resurfaces in her mind. It is a sunny one. “Remember when I brought you that basket of apples?”

Henry’s face brightens as he remembers. “And I ate all of them? Aye, unfortunately.”

“In one sitting! You almost spewed them all up again.” She giggles despite herself.

“I did spew them all up again, just couldn’t do it in front of you.”

This stabs her in the gut. What bitter nostalgia. This happened in a warm and summery Skalitz many years ago. If she doesn’t think too hard about it, it is free of fires and armies. Nicely encapsulated in the past when Henry was young and innocent and she was too.  

This is all twisted and smarting because Henry is back. The old, real, easy, and fun Henry from before everything is back, but he didn’t come back until she let him go. It is difficult not to feel like it’s her there’s something wrong with.

So she wants to ask: ‘do you love him?’. Maybe it would be easier then, if that is what it is, if that’s the thing that is keeping him from her. But maybe it would not, because her soul tears a little at knowing her love didn’t keep him with her.

She cannot get herself to say any of that to him, so she asks instead, “Are you happy, Henry?”

His gentle expression freezes, then fades. “Err… Aye, I suppose.” He grabs the top of a fence post and nudges at a piece of wood with his finger. “I dunno.”

She shakes her head for no one but herself. “Me neither.”

At least they have that in common. For a moment it is silent, and they are connected in their uncertainty.

A door creaks.

“Hey, lad!” comes Uncle Peshek’s voice from the mill, and the two of them look back at him. He makes an obscene gesture. “Fuck off!”

A laugh punches out of Theresa before she can stop it; it’s a little painful. “It’s alright, Uncle. We’re just talking.”

Uncle Peshek throws his hand up in the air in surrender and disappears back into the mill.

Henry looks so confused Theresa has to laugh again.

“Don’t mind him,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Uncle Peshek is right, it is time; Henry should fuck off now. There isn’t much more for them to say.

Except maybe…

She straightens her back and looks him unwaveringly in the eye. She lets her breath go and paves the way ahead for herself. “Go to him.”

If she isn’t mistaken, if it isn’t the shadow from a cloud passing over the sun, Henry goes pale. He searches Theresa’s eyes for knowledge, and it looks like he finds what he’s afraid of.

If she’s now giving his soul peace or unrest, she’s not sure. Perhaps a bit of both; perhaps that’s what she wants it to be.

She doesn’t give him any more than that. Neither goodwill nor judgement. It is what it is.

It takes a moment for Henry to collect himself, but he eventually does and gives her a nod. He seems a little unsteady and draws his breath sharply. “Theresa…” he says. But then nothing more. He pats his thigh, and Mutt obediently comes to him. “See you around, Theresa?” He says, and it sounds like he does want to know.

“Aye,” she says, and it sounds like closing a door.

Henry smiles one of his crooked, sweet smiles, and he turns, and he walks. He walks up the road leading up into Rattay with Mutt trudging alongside him—probably going back to Sir Hans now, back to where he has left his mind and his heart every time he has come to see her.

He will certainly be around, but this somehow feels like it is the last time she’ll ever see him.

Just as Henry disappears around the crook in the road, Uncle Peshek steps in beside her.

“Glad to see him gone. Cost me a lot of money in the tourney, that one.”

Theresa laughs despite it all. It’s short and hitched and it nearly makes her cry.

She places her hand on the rough wood of the fencepost in front of her; it’s deceptively similar to the one by the mill in Skalitz. The mill wheel clunks and the water sloshes the same here in Rattay. The work is the same, the food is the same, and Henry is just as out of reach as he has always been.

“I miss them,” Theresa says quietly and clutches the fence in her hand, the wood grains scratching her palm.

It is quiet for a beat, but then an arm comes around her shoulders.

“I know, Tess. I do too.”

She would like to cry again—but she doesn’t. Maybe later. Probably later.

Everything feels so open and empty and clear, like the early morning or the washed ground after rain. There are many paths to take, and she’s not sure which to choose, or even how to take them. If she picks up little pieces one by one, maybe it’ll lead somewhere.

When she thinks about it, the work here isn’t quite the same. There are some lovely and loyal ladies she would like to see again. She sniffs. “Uncle, maybe we should get some chickens?”

He turns and looks searchingly at her. “Maybe we should. But that would be your responsibility.”

“Aye, of course. I’ll feed them and collect the eggs and fight off foxes and—”

Uncle Peshek nods and smiles. He pulls her along with him. “That sounds like a good idea.”

They walk back towards the mill, her uncle still with his arm around her.

When she gets inside, she will fetch her sewing needle and her thread and she will mend the seam of her dress, and she will think of asking her uncle to let her go visit Johanka in Sasau, but that’ll be another day, she already asked about the chickens. She will eat a bread roll and maybe try on her new shoes, or maybe not, she hasn’t decided yet. She will cast the Skalitz smithy from her thoughts, and she will go outside in the sun and watch the grass and the trees, and she will not think about Henry; instead, she will think about that little ladybird she sees taking flight from a straw and flying away.