Chapter Text
Radzig would never admit to it, but he has never been much of an early riser. He gets up at a responsible hour, but not a minute before if he can help it. He has also never seen himself as a restless sleeper, but with today's task ahead of him, he finds himself in bed but awake early enough to see the sky turn, and the shadows move across the walls.
He’s ashamed to admit that he’s been putting it off for as long as he has. What with having to walk by the remains of his people who are still living in squalor in the inner bailey of his borrowed castle. The war has kept him busy. Every other hill had hid a bandit camp, but with the retreat of Sigismund’s forces and their efforts to clean out the area being successful, there are no excuses.
It’s time to return to Skalitz. See what can be done to rebuild. Right the world again.
He’s waiting to see the sun peak over the castle wall when he picks up the sound of clopping hooves on gravel. Nowadays, Henry is pretty light on his feet, so he must have been newly shod for him to make this amount of noise. His son. How weird it is to finally allow himself to use those words. Radzig doesn’t actually need to bring Henry along; in truth, he should probably have been bringing guard patrol with him, knowing the area might still be overrun with bandits, but he wanted an excuse to be with him alone. He hasn't seen much of him ever since he left with Hans to deliver the damned letter. Much has happened since then. Faced with great adversary, Henry rose above and beyond his station, and Radzig will forever be proud of him, but truth be told, he barely recognised the lad that came back from that whole mess. It’s time to re-familiarise himself with him. The valet knocks on his door. With a grunt, he gets up. Ready to face the day and his son.
-
It should be said before anything else that Radzig never regretted Henry's birth. He just wishes that he could have gotten him under better circumstances. If Lena had at least been a merchant's daughter instead of a peasant. That could have meant that he could have pleaded his case in front of his father to marry her properly. Maybe that could have avoided the whole situation before it even showed itself. He’s not ashamed of what he has set into this world, but he would wish his child could have better odds. The world isn’t kind to bastards. Even less so to the cursed kind.
Lena also deserved better. The unfairness of it all is that if it were to come out that they had sired a child together, Radzig would probably have been fine. Nobles sired bastards all the time, the trouble was when you got caught. It would have been an embarrassment. A stain on the family, but he could have moved on. For Lena, it would have been a catastrophe. An unmarried woman with a child is one thing, bad as it is. But to have let a nobleman bed her like a common whore was another. Ruined and dishonoured, she would have been ostracised, and then what would happen to her and the babe? Martin, fleeing for his own bout of bad fortune, was a miracle sent from God. Radzig convinces him to meet her, and somehow he convinces both of them to get married and leave the area. Radzig is about to be stationed in a town called Silver Skalitz. There, he will oversee the silver mine operation as the hetman of the area. He pays for a forge and for a house to be built just outside the castle wall. He makes sure that they move before he does and gets everything they need, and enough funds to last them until the blacksmithing business picks up.
Radzig had imagined them getting along eventually. They were both of the amicable sort. He should have foreseen how two people as wonderful as they would see the same in each other. They were already on their way to domestic bliss well before the babe started showing.
He cannot say that he didn’t feel a deep seated envy that the arrangement turned out as well for Martin as it did. He gets to be with the woman Radzig loves, and will never get to have. He gets to be with her through joy and sorrows. He gets to listening to her heart and breathy moans as they make love. And soon, he will get to raise his child. Meanwhile, Radzig will have to watch from the battlements of his castle. Rich in many ways except the ones that matter.
-
Radzig is alerted to the birth of his child one fine winter afternoon, when he spots a gaggle of women practically carrying Lena across the yard and into their house to her very loud protest. Martin comes running from the forge, but he is swiftly kicked out of his own house by the local midwife.
He can’t do much except pretend to go on a stroll and just so happen to meet Martin in his time of need as he waits outside on a bench by the linden tree. He joins him to keep him company in this trying time and winch along with him for every one of Lena’s cries and expletives that can be heard through the window.
Time comes and passes along with women carrying water and linen with them. By nightfall, he has a child. His being already present means that he gets to view the babe as one of the first ones. Holding him is reserved for the father, but Radzig still gets to see him and his tiny toes and oh so delicate paw like fists. According to the midwife, he’s on the smaller side, and good God, how will he manage to protect him from anything bad that might look their way?
Lena is sitting up with her back to the wall. She’s sweaty, her hair is in disarray, and her face is red from exertion, but frankly, he doesn't think she has ever been more beautiful. The womanfolk are crowded around Martin, making sure he is holding the babe right and cooing at the little creature. So they get a moment where they can just look at each other in disbelief. They made that child. That perfect creature, with its wispy dark hair and eyes as clear as a lake in spring.
The child is named Henry. As far as Radzig knows, not after any particular relative, but it was Lena’s choice, and so shall it be. Henry, meaning ruler of the house. He wonders if she’s insinuating anything about him, possibly legitimising him in the future, but that is a matter for another time.
-
He could have gone with his head in the clouds until the turn of next year if reality didn’t kick in a couple of weeks later. He knows something is wrong when he wakes up without the sound of a hammer striking an anvil. Walking out on the wall, he sees no smoke from the forge. In the distance, the town is bustling like always, but the yard is quiet. He asks the soldiers from last night's patrol if anything had been amiss, but they are as puzzled as he is. From his balcony, he witnessed two townsfolk come by for their order and be turned away at the door.
By the cover of night, he sneaks past the patrol and down to the house. Martins doesn't seem surprised to find him as the one knocking on the door. Radzig tries to press his way in, but his one friend just stays in place, steady as a boulder and looking at him with judging disdain like he cannot fathom him. He looks like he wishes to deck him, and that is concerning when it comes from Martin, who has always preferred to talk over violence. Radzig fears for the worst. The first months for a mother and child are dangerous. You never know what might go wrong. Martin lets him pass, and he storms into the house. He is relieved to see Lena on her feet, phasing in front of the crib. She's hugging herself, one hand in front of her mouth like she’s trying to stifle any sounds. She looks at him with big, scared eyes when their gaze finally meets. He wants to pull her into his embrace, but he knows he lost the right to it. It dawned on him that if she is alright, then it must concern Henry.
He looks at the crip. Standing like that in the middle of the room, it feels like something holy, like a shrine, or a grave marker. He’s about to make his way over to it when Lena shakes her head and points towards the bed. In it lies a lump under a sheet.
“Did you know?” she asks, and her voice is wavering, but the betrayal still cuts clean like a blade.
Radzig can’t answer. His tongue is a dead piece of meat in his mouth. Something is pressing in his throat, and he wants to swallow, but he fears that it might make him gag instead. Martin has joined them in the room, and Radzig feels his judging eyes on him as he kneels in front of the bed. With shaking hands, he lifts the sheet.
He’s not sure what he’s looking at. There is his son. Blessedly alive because he reaches out when the cover is removed, like he wants to pull the sheet back on. His little chest hitches as he grumbles half asleep, but that’s where the familiarities end. Below the navel that should end in two human legs, there is instead another body with four. It’s covered in chestnut fur, and its legs end in round hooves. The tail is still mostly a tuft, but it’s unmistakably a horse tail. He runs the back of two fingers down its flank just to be sure it’s real. It’s warm and smooth as velvet. He pulls the sheet back over the creature and turns to Lena and Martin’s judging presence.
Radzig knew that it could be a possibility. A distant one, but possible. What noble family didn’t have a couple of curses somewhere in the bloodline? Monstrous progeny was an infamous one and not one he knew to be running within his family.
Martin throws his hands in the air. “The fool isn’t even gonna defend himself?” What is there to defend? The proof of his misdeed is lying on the bed for all to see. Because it is his misdeed, how could she have known that she was bedding a man who could sire monsters? He had been careless in his belief that something like this couldn't befall him.
“Martin–” Lena snaps, but she doesn't continue to defend him. The silence between the three of them is a river. The chance to defend himself slips by.
“The whole town knows we had a son,” Martin says with a sigh. He goes over to fall into the chair placed beside the bedside with the weariness of a man who has already counted his chickens and found himself short of a dozen. “We can’t hide him forever.”
“He has to survive the night first–” Lena croaks. Most monstrous progeny don't survive long. The body simply cannot take the transformation and wilts. The thought is like a dagger in his chest. Martin has lifted the sheet to brush a finger down Henry’s round cheek, then up a large pointed ear, now running to the top of his head. The small creature wriggles to get closer. His tiny hands reached towards the finger. Neither Martin nor Radzig can look away.
“–then the rest of the time to come.”
“I can take him,” falls out of Radzig’s mouth before he knows what he is saying. He can take him, but if he keeps him, it won't be long before the whole village knows anyway, because there has only been one child born in the last couple of months. The only realistic approach would be to claim he died in the crib, and Radzig will take him away to find him a place in a court. Radzig is still in good standing in Wenceslaus' court, so maybe even in Prague. The cursed have been known to be taken in as curiosities and entertainers, and if that fate means that Henry will be fed and cared for, then so be it.
“You’re not taking my son.” Martin barks, shaking Radzig out of his plotting. “Whatever you’re scheming is out of the question. You didn't want him before, so you are certainly not taking him now.” He wants to make his case to Martin, a bitter part of him also wants to remind him that he is not the father, but Lena has pushed her way past Radzig to stand by her husband's and child's side.
“This is not about wanting, this is about practicalities. I can take him to a place that will keep him fed and in comfort.” He has the most realistic chance to make sure their child gets a chance to be treated fairly. Centaurs are familiar, yet rare enough that the knowledge about them for most folks is more speculation than fact. Most of it isn’t promising well for his son's right to be treated with the respect he deserves. What will his life be like in a town as small as this? Will the community truly embrace him, or will he be doomed to be a pariah or worse, a common animal?
“But will he be loved?” Lena says, and to that Radzig has no answer.
“Will you listen to yourself? He might be drowned here if someone gets into their head that he’s a demon! You might be run out of the town for spawning it!” Do they not understand what kind of knife edge they are standing on? Martin stands up, and before he knows it, he has been shooed to the door.
“We will make do. If you want to take care of him, order more nails.” Martin growls, and then he shuts the door in his face. Radzig looks up at the wall to check if anyone has seen them. The wall is empty. He sneaks back into the castle before the next patrol arrives. His heart heavy with the uncertain future of his son.