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Hans finds him up on Pirkstein’s battlements.
It’s astounding, really, how easily he always locks onto Henry’s position—seeks him out like a bloodhound even here, at the oddest pre-dawn hour. And what else should he do but talk? Content enough to wax poetic to his bemused audience of one, Hans extols the virtues of good food, good wine, and good company, seeking reassurance only that Henry is still conscious and listening.
And Henry doesn’t mind. Did, once, but hasn’t for a long time. Hans’ un-quiet companionship serves the dual purpose of a bounding, puppy-like playmate with whom to stumble into no shortage of mischief; and of a warmth-seeking purpose in a hollowed out wasteland on which Henry can fixate his frenetic energy, and anchor his unmoored attention.
So when Hans announces to the slow-brightening horizon that he has grown peckish, it’s with a fervency unsuited to his sleep debt that Henry offers the walnuts from his pouch.
”My hero!” Hans says, immediately moving to fumble through the sachets of herbs and bits and bobs stuffed into the bag at Henry’s hip. “You are a strange man, you know that? Though I suppose I ought to be grateful for your eccentricities, and for the fact that you didn’t supply a kolache from your pocket instead.”
Rolling his eyes, Henry says, “Oh, aye, far be it from me to offend his lordship with a thing like that.”
Hans roots around for a long moment, his knuckles bumping warmly against Henry’s waist as he goes. “You know, it’s good to see that you do actually contain some respect for my place in the world. Deference at last in the form of an unshelled walnut.”
The bow of his lips pulls taut when he smiles, curling the edges of his mouth and widening the divot in his chin. The stubble there catches whisper-soft in the torchlight, betraying his own sequence of unslept nights just as easily as the smudges beneath his eyes.
There’s a niggling recognition pricking at Henry’s nerves like a wren rooting out worms as Hans finally pulls his hands back to himself.
In another life, Henry was the same—staying out too late and sneaking back before the sunrise, entertaining himself with old friends and new experiences, seeking excitement and adventure above all else. He too found himself driven from bed for want of a life lived to the fullest and the sort of fun best found in the forgiving cover of night. The price of a wretched morning was far less than the worth of camaraderie and cheer.
And he still finds his diversions where he can get them. Hans has proven more than capable of driving both of them to distraction and keeping Henry tied up with tasks both menial and amusing. But the errands that give purpose to his days abandon him in step with the sun, and the void of night no longer welcomes him with such open-armed possibility.
Of course, he doesn’t begrudge Hans his still abundant merriment. Henry would never wish upon him the reason or the fee now levied for his own sleepless nights.
There’s a duty-bound obligation to see that Hans is looked after. But more than that there’s a friendship-formed consideration that hones his focus and lets him see the tense way that Hans holds himself, and the measured way he’s unspooled the longer he breathes in the chill morning air—the longer Henry lets him speak uninterrupted.
And now, increasingly, as he devotes himself to breaking open the walnuts.
”You know,” Hans says, fumbling clumsily with too many nuts smooshed between his two palms, “I always did enjoy the challenge of cracking these with my hands. If you can get the pressure just right on the seams, they’ll pop right open! Though I suppose you don’t need to be told that—surely your turnip digging skills transfer to foraging in some ways.”
The tip of his tongue peeks out of the corner of his mouth as a few of the shells give out. “See!” He scoops the meat from one of the halves with his fingernail. “You’re really a life saver with these, Hal. I’m not sure I could have survived until breakfast without you.”
“One more for the tally, then,” Henry says, grinning, as he rummages for his own walnut, rolls it briefly around the pads of his fingers, and splinters the shell in the vise of his palm. He pries the soft innards out and drops them in Hans’ hastily cupped hand. “You’ll have no assets left to promise me if I keep saving your life like this.”
”Right,” Hans says, gone stock-still and stiff. “Right. That’s—right.”
Wide blue eyes flit between Henry’s face and the empty shell he holds in a circuit fractured somewhere around his chin before finally settling on the far off tree line. “You—should be careful not to, um. Not to hurt yourself doing it like that. It’s sharp.”
It’s loud when he swallows, clearing his throat against the too-hastily chewed intrusion. The hard angle of his elbow jabs into Henry when he shakes his head, knocking the fine gold of his hair loose across his forehead and poorly hiding the frantic set of his eyes.
“Of course,” Hans says, breathless, “I shouldn’t be worried, what with your yokel hands. I’m sure they’re more than brutish enough to withstand something so—so undignified as that.”
This is different.
Not the insults couching a gentle concern. Even the outpouring of affection and gratitude could be expected from Hans on any given day for the simple gift of stale food.
But the blatant, clumsy attempts at obfuscation—that’s different.
“As cracking a walnut for a pompous lord?” Henry says, gaping.
And Henry is no fool. He’s not arrogant or wishful enough to presume, would never dare to seek out an answer to his wondering.
But in this, too, there is a recognition—a cognizance of the same wretched blight he nurtures within himself. One he no longer has the mental fortitude to spare to pretend confusion at.
“Pompous!” Hans laughs, takes Henry by the shoulder and shakes him. “Should I write you a sonnet? Something about your rugged peasant strength that can rip apart walnut shells one-handed? It’ll be sure to have all the maidens swooning, Henry, and then you’ll be indebted to me.”
Even in the torchlight, the sweet flush dappling his cheeks is obvious. It’s one of the first things Henry noticed about him—how the milky fullness of his cheeks pinks so fully whether from affront, exertion, or fervor. Not, until now, from standing too close on the ramparts at dawn.
But Hans is—Hans. His lord. His friend.
Someone he cares far too deeply for to wish this upon.
Maybe it’s not too late for Henry to forget this—to ignore it and go back to the world before the sun crested the horizon. Spare both of them the pain and isolation that lies at the end of a road like this one.
At the very least, he can pretend. Can go on serving Hans, cultivate what could never be a truly normal relationship between lord and subject, but at least one more closely aligned to their strange sort of friendship. Join him in his pursuit of wine and of women, and one day of a beautiful wife and beautiful children in the beautiful city he will be charged with. And through it all, Henry will stand beside him as now, will crack walnuts in his work-hardened peasant hands and placidly patch over the moments when something catches in the swirled plaster holding them at their safe distance. Can point to the stucco and silently remind the both of them that some deep waters are better left undredged.
Maybe Henry shoring up the foundations alone is the best outcome either of them can hope for, and Hans’ un-quiet companionship can be enough.
“Hal?” Hans says, reaching out. Unsure of what he wants, Henry lets himself be grabbed as Hans huffs and runs his grip down the length of his arm. “You have this one.”
The rough catch of calloused fingertips drags over the lines of Henry’s palm, drawing a neat little circle around the wrinkled walnut. Hans is warm here even in the dewy chill of morning, lingering over a simple task and chipping fissures into cement.
Something hopeful catches in the upturned corners of his brows, a confused eagerness to be near that tells Henry he’s not even sure where their wall came from or why it needs to be there in the first place.
And maybe it’s better for both of them if that realization never actualizes—if Hans never endeavors to indulge that particular introspective bloom. If he can remain in his blissful distraction of wooing and wenches for just long enough to let the season pass, and the vine to go to seed.
“Don’t let me eat your entire supply,” Hans says, beaming like the maddening complication that he is, and drags their joined hands up to Henry’s mouth. His fingertips bump careless and rough over Henry’s teeth as he slides them between his lips. “Good things like this are much better shared, you know.”
And in the foolhardy first light with Hans’ fingers insistently pressed to his lips, Henry thinks that, maybe, he is right.
Maybe it would be worse to not enjoy their shared flowering while it lasts.