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Henry is always a little bit surprised by the arrival of spring. Winters are hard in the village, food is scarce and travel is difficult, even to the next village over, and ever since that winter, Henry feels the cold far more sharply than ever before. By the time the snowdrops are peaking their heads up out of the soil, it feels like a small miracle that they’ve made it another year. Another round.
It’s tradition now though, that as soon as the lillies are in full bloom, round and purple, they go for a long walk along the riverside. They pick lillies for Lenka, marigolds for Yvette, poppies for Alena, and these past couple of years, lavender for Mila.
Hidden from prying eyes, they’re free enough here for their hands to slip together as they walk. Others use the forest, of course, but they know this path well enough to know that no one else has any real reason to come this way today.
This, too, is easy now in a way that Henry marvels at.
“Ready to head back?” Henry asks as Hans drops the last of the small patch of marigold into the basket hooked over Henry’s arm. Hans is sweating a little, he wore his woollen tunic even though Henry told him he wasn’t going to need it today. His forehead glistens in the sun until he dries it on his arm.
Hans smirks, “I don’t know,” he says, “Are you sure we’ve made quite the most of the day yet?”
It’s the kind of smirk that swallows all thirteen of the years they’ve known each other whole. Henry’s as useless in the face of it now as he was when they first rode out to Trosky.
They settle, limbs entwined and hearts pounding into a tangle of grass just about tall enough to hide them from anyone that might stumble upon this part of the forest. They have time, necessary because the complexities brought to this act by the lingering weight of the past, by the aches and pains of ageing, injured bodies, mean it is never simple as much as it might be easier than Henry ever could have hoped for.
After, when they wash off in the river, not quite warmed all the way through yet, they shiver until they stretch out on the afternoon-baked banks. Beads of water trickle down Hans’s face, his chest, his legs. Henry would kiss each one dry were he not too happy and lazy just stretched out beside him to move.
“Now are we done?” He says, eventually, his put-upon tone purely put on.
“If you insist,” Hans says, before countering his own words with a long, slow, incredibly distracting kiss.
“I don’t know how I ever get anything done with you around,” Henry complains as Hans helps him back to his feet, shoulder and back protesting, but no more vehemently than normal.
“I would perhaps argue that you get plenty done with me around,” Hans says, and Henry supposes he was asking for that one.
“Come on,” he huffs through a laugh.
“Don’t mind if I–”
Henry stops him with a raised eyebrow, and they make their way back to the village.
The sun is casting streaks of gold and pink across the sky by the time they get back, trudging across rain-soft ground towards the apothecary. They’re walking slowly, Henry’s too tired from being on his feet for so long to even have a hope of keeping up with Hans’s preferred pace.
They pass the inn first, a strange horse is stabled there.
It’s been a long time since anyone unfamiliar tried to find them here, but not long enough that Henry’s heart doesn’t pick up a little.
“Hey,” Hans reminds him, squeezing his arm, “Katherine told us that Zizka’s busy helping with the unrest in Prague.”
He’s right. But it’s hard to shake that night from his mind. It sticks, like far too many things, more easily than the present.
“Aye,” he says, “You’re right. Probably just… just a traveller.” They don’t get many this way, they prefer to stop at the slightly bigger villages closer to the nicer roads. Or if they’re Germans or Poles, at the German and Polish speaking villges closer to the borders. But they get them occassionally, leaving all three residents of the apothecary sick with worry when it happens.
But Henry manages to calm his pounding heart just in time to hear voices echoing, loud and irate, from the door to the apothecary.
The apothecary, where Mila, not yet even seventeen, is watching the counter.
Henry is glad that Hans doesn’t wait for him as he bolts forward, Henry as close on his heels as he can manage. He’s limping heavily by the time he gets in through the door, head spinning. He doesn’t know what he’ll even be able to do if there’s trouble, but he supposes an elbow’s as good for bloodying a nose as a fist.
He takes in the scene with the same eye that, thirteen years ago, saw bandit camps and worked out the best ways to poison wine and stew pots, which throats he needed to get whilst they were still sleeping to spare himself fighting the best armed men should they wake up.
The man is broad-shouldered and well-attired. Hair mostly gone to grey, a slight slump to his back. He has a sword at his belt, and he’s favouring his left leg a little - an old injury perhaps. A warrior, but an old, injured warrior. Hans will have him in a second.
“I already told you there’s no man here by that name, so clear off!” Mila snarls, and Henry’s attention goes to his irate apprentice. Her cheeks are splotchy with anger, hair flying loose from her braid. Her shoulders are up, knuckles white where they grip the counter. There’s a hunting sword underneath it, and thanks to the combined efforts of Hans and Katherine, she knows what to do with it.
“Yes, I am well aware of what you told me girl, and I’m telling you that I know you’re lying to me. Where is your– your father.” The voice is eerily familiar. Odder still is the way he stutters over what he’s saying.
“Six feet under,” Mila snaps, “And I’d thank you to keep his name out of your filthy mouth.”
“Do you know who you're lying to, girl?”
“Excuse me,” Hans says, louder than either of them, “What in God’s name is going on here? Sir, if you plan to keep harassing our apprentice, I’m going to have to ask you to–” The stranger turns round. “--Jesus Fucking Christ.”
It’s his father.
For the second time in a day, thirteen years disappear in a heartbeat as Sir Radzig turns around to say, “Son?
Things get a little bit fuzzy after that.
There's a lot of shouting, then his knees feel very unsteady.
He's on the floor, and then he's in a chair in the kitchen, Hans pushing a hot drink into his hands.
He drinks obediently, then chokes, a voice that might belong to him, “Christ Hans, how much valerian did you put in this?”
“About as much as you look like you need,” he says worriedly, rubbing the back of Henry’s knuckles with his thumb.
He's not wrong.
The cup is empty, then the cup is cold.
They’re not in the kitchen anymore, they’re in the bedroom. The big chair by the fire, Hans beside him. Perched on a stool. Hans. Their hands are twined together, his thumb stroking the back of Henry’s hand. He can feel it, but it’s dulled and distant, contrasted by the strange hyperreality superimposed over its image.
There’s a burn scar from the tavern on the back of Hans’s hand, faded now to the same texture as the rest of his skin. Veins like tree roots, twining up his wrists. A loose flick of hard dried skin on his nailbed that catches the light from the fire. All of it is too bright and too far away to touch.
He thinks he hears himself say something about Hans needing to take care of his hangnail, and then Hans is gripping Henry’s hand in both of his, setting aside the book that was resting in his lap.
It takes Henry a moment to put together the pieces of what Hans is saying, “Are you back with me, Hal?”
Not quite.
He doesn't quite feel yet like his body is his yet. Like all the pieces of ill-fitting armour he clumsily squeezed into all those years ago, it rattles and chafes and sits too heavily on all the wrong spots. But he's here. Mostly. So he nods. Then, “Mila?”
“With Lenka,” Hans says.
“And she's–”
“She’s fine.”
He exhales heavily, then nods. It’s dark outside, how much time has slipped away without him even noticing its passing?
“And Sir Radzig?”
“Henry?” Hans says, and Henry realises he didn’t hear Hans’s answer to his question. Guilt curdles in his guts.
“Sorry, I didn’t…”
Hans cups Henry’s cheek, sweeping his thumb across Henry’s cheekbone. The touch is an anchor, and Henry clings to it as Hans repeats, “I said that I left him to stew downstairs.” The expression he wears is dark. “I can tell him to leave, Hal. Never come back. Get the village lads to shoot him on sight.”
Henry snorts a laugh, and that too brings him back a little, “No, it’s…”
He frowns, eyes closing, resting in the sensation of Hans’s touch - on his hand, his cheek. He breathes in slowly, then out, trying to ease the knot tied around his heart. He doesn’t know how he feels. What he wants to do.
Radzig. His… fuck. His father.
He’ll feel it in the morning, he thinks. But now, he just feels empty. Hollow.
“I don’t think I should deal with him tonight,” he hears himself say, “Send him… send him to Lenka’s. Bring Mila home. I…” he opens his eyes again, meets Hans’s, “I just want my family.”
Mila greets Henry at the door by hurling herself into his arms and burying her face in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she’s saying, even though Henry isn’t sure why, “I didn’t know he was your Pa.”
Henry meets Hans’s gaze over her head, a question in his gaze. Hans shakes his head. He hasn’t explained it to her yet.
“It’s alright,” Henry says to her. There’s a damp patch on his tunic - she’s crying. Strange, that she feels so much whilst Henry’s struggling to feel anything at all. Even Hans seems more upset. “He’s not really.”
Lenka sent Mila home with fresh bread and enough stew to feed thirty, never mind three. Too used to Alena and her boys, it seems, she’s lost all concept of how much households without three young lads need. Over supper, the story comes out slowly, Mila’s eyes widening with every detail.
There’s one point that Henry really wants to hammer home though: “Martin was my Pa. He raised me, did his best to see that I had a future, stuck by my Ma and me through the tough times.”
Hans, in the middle of clearing away their dirty dishes, pauses, pressing a kiss to Henry’s forehead as Mila nods along. “I can understand that. Takes more than blood to be someone's Pa.” Henry doesn’t miss the way her eyes go between him and Hans.
She doesn’t always call them Pa, but she does sometimes. He’s glad that Martin’s the figure from his own life that she sees him and Hans in, not Sir Radzig.
It’s harder when he gets to the part of the story with Suchdol. She knows bits and pieces, dribs and drabs of the horrors that Henry experienced there seeping out through the cracks, as much as he would’ve liked to keep every second of that time locked far out of her reach. But he can’t talk about it. Not in any more detail than the vaguest of explanations.
Hans steps in, bowls now put away, fire burning low. He slips onto the bench next to Henry after pressing cups of Lenka’s mulled wine into each of their hands, heated up on the fire. It's a game, normally, to try and guess what herbs she's used, but Henry can hardly even taste the alcohol right now.
“Radzig left,” Hans explains, “Right when he was most needed.” Hans squeezes Henry’s hand, glancing at him again, “You were so out of it, Hal, I don’t even know how much you remember.”
“Very little,” Henry admits, those early days after his rescue are mostly a blur to him, thank the Lord, “I remember him saying goodbye. ‘Other duties’.” He snorts derisively, but Mila’s mouth is ajar in horror.
“He left you?” She hisses, red splotches on her cheeks. Hans rescues her cup just in time for the wide, sweeping gesture she makes with her arms. “You'd just been tortured and he left you?”
“Well…” Henry frowns, “I'm sure it was a bit more complicated than that…”
“What? Too busy off– off– collecting indulgences from the poor and riding fancy horses?”
Henry sighs, “Have you been talking to Godwin again? You know it's the church that collects indulgences, not the nobility?”
“Same thing,” she scoffs, and she has definitely been listening to Godwin. Christ.
“Look,” Henry says, “It was a pretty crap time all round. I don’t know how well or poorly Radzig was handling it because I–” his hand is numb, head reeling until Hans’s hand on his shoulder anchors him again.
“It was hard,” Hans reaffirms.
Henry is well aware that Hans’s feelings on the subject of Radzig are far less kind than the impression he’s giving to Mila, but he’s grateful for the neutrality, however pretended it might be. He isn’t sure he’d be able to take the two of them ganging up on him right now.
Mila still isn’t happy, “I’m still taking back my apology. I don’t care that he’s your Pa, or your ‘father’ or whatever. I’m only sorry I didn’t have him running round in circles for longer.”
Henry sends Hans another questioning look, but Hans just squeezes his shoulder a little tighter and says “It’s a long story.”
That night, as he lies in bed besides Hans, neither of them sleeping, Henry murmurs, quietly enough that Mila won’t hear him through the thin wall between kitchen and bedroom, “I wasn’t expecting her to be so upset.”
Hans rolls over to face him. The moonlight spilling in through the gap in the shutter rests lightly upon his cheeks as he pulls the blankets further up, tucking them under his chin. “She cares about you,” Hans says, like he’s reciting the most obvious of facts that he’s already told Henry a million times before. “I don’t know why you still don’t realise that people who care about you get upset when they learn something bad happened to you.”
“He’s my father, not… something that happened to me,” Henry shifts a little, but the new position sends a dull ache through his hip, so he immediately moves back to how he was.
“Him leaving is something that happened to you,” Hans says, “And I’ll be honest. Even if you manage to forgive him…” his throat bobs as he traces the scars on Henry’s hand, “I don’t know if I ever will. You had so many fevers… so many times when you just got so much worse and we didn’t even know if you were going to make it.” He exhales with a shudder, and Henry wonders if he’s back there too. Both of them stuck living dual lives, caught between now and those long, painful months. “And then this…” he whispers, carefully resting his hand on Henry’s arm, just above the stump. He never touches the end, just in case he sets of another attack of the godawful pains that afflict the hand that’s no longer there. “You could have died when Musa cut it off. You lost… so much blood, God, it was fucking everywhere.”
“Hey,” Henry murmurs, “I’m here. I’m okay.”
“Yes. You are.” A deep sigh, “Can I..?”
Henry shuffles closer, rearranging the blankets tucked between his knees as he rests his head against Hans’s chest. His ribcage quivers as he tucks his fingers into Henry’s hair, his lips to his forehead. Reminding himself that Henry is safe, whole, here. Reminding Henry of the same.
“You could have died,” Hans whispers, “And I’d have had to be the one to fucking tell him. He wouldn’t even have been able to come to the funeral. Your own father.”
“I know he was wrong about all of that,” Henry says, Hans opens his mouth to interject, but Henry just reiterates, “I know. But he’s my father.”
“Blood only has to mean as much as you want it to. And you don’t owe him anything. He left you to be raised by another man in squalor–”
"Hans, my Pa was a blacksmith. You know how well Josef does for himself. There’s no excuse now that you know what it’s like to actually be poor.” Not that Henry would describe their current situation as impoverished. They’re business owners, through happenstance or otherwise. So what if looking at the ledgers after a trip to the market is an exercise that requires copious amounts of alcohol?
“Well regardless. You already gave him another chance and he squandered it.” There’s an intensity in his gaze that would frighten Henry were it not for his benefit. There is no doubt in Henry’s mind that, should he ask it, Hans would stride over to the tavern and demand his father be put out on the street immediately. Lenka would go along with it too.
“I can at least hear him out. He came all this way, what harm could it do? It’s just words.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” Hans says, pulling away and holding Henry’s gaze. Henry looks away.
“I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. And the worst of the hurt’s already done, this is his chance to make it better.”
Henry sleeps poorly, but he was expecting as much. Chased from one nightmare to another, he wakes up several times, gasping for breath as Hans, himself still half asleep, squeezes his hand and mutters assurances that only half make sense.
When he finally wakes up for good, it’s his hand that does it, the one that’s no longer there, stinging with remembered pain. It’s rare that he suffers such sensations now, but they’re no less awful when they do hit, burning and pinching, like he’d spent the night lying on it and now the sensation is returning. There’s no chance of him getting back to sleep now.
Hans is still asleep beside him, so he’s careful not to disturb him as he slips from their bed. He pauses at the edge of the bed, massaging his stump in the hopes of chasing the pains away as he stares out of the window across the village.
He can spot movement in the inn, Lenka putting the morning bread in, most likely, preparing breakfast. His father isn’t her only visitor tonight; horses and a cart belonging to a travelling merchant family are stabled alongside Radzig’s beast.
It’s odd that he came alone. It’s risky for a man such as him to travel without an escort, particularly so far from home.
He dresses awkwardly, leaving the laces on his tunic and leather jerkin untied, before leaving a note for Hans on the slate he keeps by the bed.
There’s a bite in the air, so he slips into his cloak before stepping outside.
He doesn’t make the short trip over the way to the inn immediately. Instead, he follows the dirt path to the smallest farm on the edge of the village, luxuriating in the crispness of the breeze against his face, the taste of it, carrying flowers in bloom and the first budding leaves.
Already, the farm is in motion. Little Kaja with her mother's red hair braided in a crown atop her head is milking Dandelion Puff, the family cow. Her Pa is nearby, setting up the plough for the morning, and Henry waves, “Morning Teo!”
“Oh, morning Hal!” he calls back, “Yvette’s just in the garden, if that's who you're after.”
“Cheers,” he says, but lingers, eyeing Teo's wrist as he works. “That sprain still bothering you?”
“Don’t you be worrying about that now,” he scolds, “I already get enough of that from Yvette.”
And rightly so, it was a nasty fall he had. “I'll worry about what I please,” Henry says, already thinking about who might be willing and able to lend a hand. The field needs ploughing if any of them are going to eat, no doubt about it, but Teo hurting himself even more won’t help anyone.
“I’ll be careful Hal, promise,” he says, right as Lida comes bounding out of the farmhouse. Having only recently discovered the strange new ability to tear about like there’s a pack of wolves on her heels, she’s keen to use it wherever possible, Teo lets out a soft ‘oof’ as she collides with his shins.
“Alright down there, missus?” Teo says, but she just squeezes harder. Running, but still not talking yet, apparently.
“See you later, Teo,” Henry says with a laugh, as he continues down the path.
He finds Yvette in the small herb garden the family keeps outside the farmhouse, baby Gus strapped to her chest as the small pile of weeds by her side grows. She no longer regularly works in the apothecary, the farm and the children keeping her more than busy enough, but she still knows which herbs are most in demand. Most years, they trade whatever she doesn't intend to use herself for a few of the hares Hans brings back from the forest.
“Morning Yvette!” he calls, going round to where the gate is already open.
“Morning Hal!” she calls back, setting aside the weeds and struggling to her feet before he can tell her not to, “Early for you, isn’t it?”
His smile thins, it’s obvious what she’s doing, they know each other too well by now for him to miss her getting ready to prod. “Oh, you know,” he says, “Just wanted to bring these by.”
He produces the small bundle of marigolds, and her face lights up the same way it always does every year, “Oh you’re a gem, you and Hans both. Come on, let’s go and put these inside.”
He follows her into the small farmhouse as she busies herself about, moving her mending from a chair and insisting he sit down, as she goes and fills a cup with water for the marigolds and puts a pot onto the stove with a handful of nettle and mint.
“And how's this little man doing, eh?” Henry asks when she finally stands still enough to talk, giving Gus's nose a gentle flick, eliciting a big wide grin from the babe.
“Being a handful already. Just like his brother and sisters. Won't sleep unless he's with his Da.”
“I bet Teo loves that.”
“Like you wouldn't believe,” she says, with about as devilish a grin as she’s capable of.
“You know you gave us all a right proper scare you little monster,” Henry reminds the grinning child, who lets out a peel of laughter. Henry's glad to see him healthy. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever forget Mila coming out of Yvette’s house, barely holding it together until they get back to the apothecary, then dissolving in tears as she told him about how Gus’s little shoulder had been wedged tightly in place. “Is his arm..?”
She sighs, then lifts Gus out of the wrap so Henry can get a better look at it. The wrist is bent backwards and rotated, and he doesn’t seem like he’s able to move it.
“I’m writing to everyone I know for answers,” he says quietly.
She smooths a hand over the back of Gus’s head and puts him back onto her chest. “I know you’re doing your best,” she says. “You always do, Hal. And Mila knows I don’t blame her, aye?”
“Aye, she knows, don’t worry.”
“She got us both through what by rights should’ve killed the pair of us.”
Henry’s still trying to get Mila to believe that last part.
The pot is boiling, so she goes to it, pouring them a cup each before bringing them over. It’s too hot just yet, but the fresh, bright scent of the mint clears Henry’s head.
“So,” Yvette says, “Out with it. What’s bothering you?”
Well, there’s no use putting it off any longer. He came here because he wants to talk to her. “My Father’s here.”
She frowns, “I thought he was dead?”
Henry winces, because of course he’s never given her the whole story, “Aye, it’s… he massages his temple, “It’s a bit of a complicated tale.”
“I’ve time,” she says, blowing on the steam wafting from her drink.
So again, Henry explains as much as he can. And when he gets to Suchdol, without Hans to step in, he manages only, “After… after I was tortured. That last time…” he should be used to this feeling by now, like it’s someone else coming up with the words, his mouth just happens to be the one saying them.
“You don’t have to say more,” Yvette says, so gently.
“I’m alright,” he hears himself mutter, “Just… a minute, maybe.”
She gives him his minute, standing and giving his outstretched arm a gentle squeeze as she finds herself things to tidy, bits to put away and get out and move. Henry stares into his cup, forcing himself to breathe. Hans isn’t here, but he likes to imagine him in moments like this, quietly reminding to breathe slowly, each inhale longer than the last. He feels the heat of the cup, smells the stew, cooking slowly for supper, hears Yvette’s soft humming.
He’s here. Miles and miles from that place. That time.
No matter how often it tries to come back for him.
“Better?” Yvette says when she notices him watching her putter about.
He nods, ”Aye, as much as I ever am.”
“Oh Hal,” she says softly, slipping back into her seat. He squirms, drinking his drink, now cooled enough that it doesn’t sear his mouth. “You were telling me about your Da,” Yvette adds.
He nods and flexes his fingers. “Aye. Well. After,” he ignores the phantom hands on his hips. “I was hurt - even worse than when Hans dragged my sorry arse over your Ma’s doorstep. And my father… he left.” He swallows around the lump in his throat, watching Yvette play absentmindedly with the soft, baby ringlets on Gus’s head. They’re soft and blonde - he takes after his Pa, in that area, it looks like.
Yvette’s hand stills as he speaks though, and she stares across at him, eyes widening, “Your Da left you after you were tortured?”
Henry shrugs, “Aye, well… it was complicated…”
“If my Teo did that to any of ours, especially in the state you were, Hans has told me just how bad it was don’t you worry, I’d– I’d–” she frowns down at baby Gus, before gently pressing her hands to his ears and whispering, “I’d string him up by his ballsack no matter how complicated.”
“That’s more or less what Hans said too,” Henry says, laughing bitterly. “But… I don’t know how, but he’s back. And…” he swallows. He feels… small. Like he just wants his Pa, or anyone, to tell him…“I don’t know what I should do.”
Yvette’s eyes crinkle with sympathy, “I can’t tell you that. You know that.”
“What would you do?” It feels a little like begging, but she takes pity on him.
“What would I do?” She sighs, and her eyes glisten, “I don’t know, Hal.” She leans back a little, staring pointedly up at the ceiling in that way she does when she’s about to cry but doesn’t want to. Just like her ma. “I can tell you that I’d– I’d give anything for it to be my Da walking through those doors just one more time.” She gives in, dabbing at her eyes.
“Sorrry,” Henry says, “I didn’t mean to upset–”
“Don’t be silly,” she laughs, “Does us all good to have a little cry now and again. But aye, I suppose that’s my answer.” She smiles a little shakily. “I’d just want to tell my Da about the kids. Let him know that I’m alright, that Teo’s looking out for me.”
“Are you okay?” He asks as she dabs at her eyes.
“You know how it all just hits sometimes.”
He does. “Let me take Gus,” He says, “You take a moment.”
She breathes out heavily then nods, “You’re an angel.”
She passes him over carefully, and Henry takes him, along with the cloth she uses to tie him to her chest – he doesn’t quite trust himself to hold him unaided when his hand and arm have been playing up both. Yvette steps away, leaving Henry alone with her son.
His tiny heart beats, and he reaches towards him with his even tinier hand - one limp at his side.
Henry glances out of the window. Lida is now perched on her Pa’s shoulders as he tries to work, Kaja and Emanual having taken up chasing each other around his legs.
He thinks about Mila. He might never get to tell his Ma and Pa about her, can only hope they’re watching them from wherever they are, that they’re as proud of her as he is, of how far she’s come from the young scrap of a thing, scared of her own shadow that she used to be.
He’ll never tell them about her, but he could tell Radzig.
“I'll just be downstairs if you need me, lovely,” Lenka says as she leads him to Radzig’s door. “Are you sure you don’t want Hans with you?”
Henry’s palm sweats, but he shakes his head. “I need to do this on my own, I think.” He knows it's going to be painful, but it's the kind of painful that needs to happen, and Hans loves him too much to be able to sit through it.
He thinks back on what Hans said, about people who care about him not wanting to see him hurt, but Henry is all too familiar with how pain is sometimes the biggest part of healing.
His worst wounds are the ones it’s the hardest to feel.
“Well, if you’re sure…” Lenka says, before knocking on the door. “You’ve a visitor, my lord,” she calls loudly, not hiding the disdain in her tone. Henry doesn’t have to wonder what Hans has told her already, then.
“Who is it, goodwife?” Radzig calls back.
His body doesn’t quite fit. He hears himself say, “It’s me.”
It’s all he can do to pray that he’ll keep his head when he actually sees his father’s face again.
The door creaks open. By the time Henry reorients himself, he’s sitting in the chair in Radzig’s room, his father on the edge of the bed opposite, peering at him, worry creasing his brow.
“Sorry,” Henry’s mouth says, “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said you’re looking well,” Radzig says.
Radzig himself wears his years poorly. His skin sags on angular bones, creased and folded like the gnarled trunk of a tree. Dark shadows sit under watery eyes, and his hair has gone almost entirely to grey. He has a slight tremor, Henry notes, as he reaches for one of the two cups on the table between them.
Henry isn't stupid enough to think it could be any kind of grief over him that’s done this to him. It’s his duties. Responsibilites to King and Country and everyone in Bohemia but his son.
“Henry?” Radzig prompts.
Henry isn’t bitter. He isn’t. But he can’t resist saying, “Aye. That wouldn’t be hard now, would it? Considering the last time you saw me I’d spent the month previous getting tortured.”
“Son–”
“Don’t call me that,” Henry hisses, and the vehemence with which it comes out is a surprise even to himself. “You didn’t have that right to begin with. Then you pissed away any work you did to earn it back.”
Radzig’s eyes slide shut, and he nods to himself. “Of course, you’re right. I never was much of a father to you. Even in those few months we did have.” He looks back up at Henry, “I didn’t come here expecting absolution, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Then why are you here. Or rather, how are you here? I told Godwin not to tell you.” If Godwin’s told Radzig Henry’ll… well, it won’t be pretty.
“No,” Radzig says quickly, “Godwin said only that you were alive.” He smiles tightly, “As to how I found you… I didn’t earn my place as hetman through fecklesness, lad.”
“Tell me.” Henry says, folding his arms. If they can be found so easily… he needs to know how.
Henry stays mostly quiet as Radzig tells the tale. How he sent scouts after Godwin, who tracked him north for miles until he slipped their tail just past the river. “That was five years ago,” Radzig explains somberly. “Since then, every Spring and Summer I’ve had has been dedicated to finding you. I asked in every village, every town and city.” He shrugs, “It wasn’t long before I heard tell of a one-handed apothecary going by the name of Henry. I didn’t think it was you at first, of course. The man they described was in his middle years, and accompanied by his brother and daughter.” His eyes crease, “I can hardly believe you made a grandfather so quickly of me, lad.”
Henry can’t help the laugh that escapes, “You mean Mila? She’s not–” he stops himself before he says she isn’t his daughter - because that’s not quite true, really. Hasn’t been for a long time. “She’s not a blood relation. We took her in after her parents were killed. You didn’t really think she was mine by birth, did you? She’s at least five or six seasons too old.”
“Oh…” Radzig says, a flush of all things covering his cheeks. “I’m… but she looks so much like you.”
Henry supposes that’s true, “Happenstance,” he says nonchalantly, “It was Hans who found her.” And Henry realises that’s as much of the story as Radzig is getting. At least from him. He isn’t owed any more of their lives.
Radzig takes it. “Well. It seemed odd. You hardly had an apothecary's training. You didn’t have a daughter, and the boy I remember… well, you're hardly in your middle years even now.”
He looks it though. Grief. Pain. The horrors of what was done to him in Suchdol. Henry knows those thirteen years weigh no more lightly on his own shoulders than his father’s. Add to that the stiffness of his movements after hours being rattled about in the back of the wagon when they travel to the next village or town, and the cane he rarely carries now in the village but always takes on trips beyond it for fear of his balance going whilst he's somewhere unfamiliar… he can understand the conclusions drawn about his age.
Radzig continues, “Eventually, though, the leads became so sparse I was willing to follow any of them. So about five months ago, I showed up here and was met with your…” his brow crinkles.
“Mila?” Henry suggests, even as his heart skips a beat. Mila mentioned nothing about a strange man showing up at the apothecary. It’s not the first time she’s tried to protect them, or him specifically, but it’s concerning.
“Yes. She told me that there was no one here by the name of Henry and there never had been.” he smiles wryly, “She did well in throwing me off. I spent the winter in the city, sheltering with the local lord and continuing my investigation. The apothecary there said he’d spoken to you mere months previous, which made her lie seem quite suspicious.”
It’s hard to follow the looping trail of his journey to them when his head is like this, fuzzy and distant, not wanting to hold on too tightly to reality. The main thing though is this,”Sounds like you didn’t have an easy go of it.”
Radzig barks a laugh, “Three years before I was able to get even a general location for you, another five chasing rumours across the entire region. I should be commanding armies, building fortifications, working at our king’s right hand. I have sacrificed…” He trails off, eyes going to Henry’s stump, the missing finger on the hand curled around his cup. “Not nearly enough, to make up for the pain I must surely have caused you.”
Henry sets his cup down. “I never asked you to do that,” he grunts. “I don’t…” he swallows reflexively, his mouth dry, “I don’t know what you want from me. Why you’re here. You made it pretty clear that I didn’t matter as much as any of that last time we saw each other.”
Radzig winces, “I suppose that’s quite fair.” He’s dressed in only a linen pourpoint. No armour, no leather or steel. Henry doesn’t remember ever seeing him out of his armour before today. “I’m here because…” He sighs, and gets to his feet, going to the window he stares out at the village. “I think those few months where I didn’t know…didn’t know if you’d survived, were some of the worst of my life. And it was the both of you, of course, so Sir Hanush was in a state.”
“Does he know that Hans…?”
“No. Godwin swore me to secrecy, and I quite agreed. This meeting would have been far less pleasant if Sir Hanush knew Hans was alive as well, I fear. Much as he’s grieved the lad.” he sighs. “It’s painful to witness, but I won’t put you at risk in that way. You can trust me on that, if nothing else.”
He glances back, and Henry nods. He can’t bring himself to thank him.
He continues, “I spent those months consumed by guilt. With thoughts that… that the last thing I might have said to you was… well. I’m sure you remember as well as I.”
“Your other duties,” Henry rasps.
“I never… I intended for us to meet again, Henry. When you were well enough to make the journey back to Rattay.”
“I’m curious,” and he definitely sounds bitter. Far more bitter than he feels, because he feels nothing but empty. Dead. “What were those other duties?”
Radzig links his fingers, places them atop his head, “I was the King’s Hetman. You know as much already.”
It was easier to accept that excuse when he was freshly hurt. Desperate for love, and so willing to accept the obvious; that he was a burden, that staying was too much to ask, that giving up anything for his sake was too much.
And then Hans had given everything.
It wouldn’t be fair to ask that of just anyone. But of a man claiming to be his father? Who wants him now to accept him back into his life, or whatever Radzig is here for?
“It wasn’t just responsibility and duty though, was it? That position gave you power too. You could have found a way to stay, if you wanted to.”
Radzig is quiet for perhaps too long. But then he sighs and admits, “Yes. Most likely.”
“So why didn’t you?”
There are voices downstairs, the merchant family going down for breakfast, those villagers who take their meals in the tavern. Cups and plates clatter, and the low murmur of conversation drifts up through the floor.
Radzig’s fist clenches and unclenches at his side. “Do you really need me to say it?”
“I think you owe it to me.”
He sits back down, resting his head in his hands. “I never knew how to be a father to you, Henry.”
Henry’s voice is hoarse even to his own ears, “I was too much.”
Out of thirteen years of silence, these few moments are the most painful.
“I didn’t…” Radzig begins, then stops, leaning back. He stares up at the ceiling. Not once has he met Henry’s eye. “You were so badly hurt. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So you left me. Hoping that, what, I’d come trotting back to you, all healed up and ready to be thrown to the wolves again?”
“No.” He shakes his head, voice firm, “No I wouldn't…” It's strange. The Radzig of Henry’s memory is unflappable. A stolid pillar, unshaken by the massacre at Skalitz, calm in the face of his own capture, sturdy even when he rode to Trosky after Henry and Hans’s disappearance.
Even at Suchdol, Henry remembers only his solidity. A firm hold when panic and memory seized him and shook him and left him drifting.
The man in front of him is crying.
“I had a room set aside for you. Better than that damned shack you were sleeping in. I knew that you wouldn't be able to fight any more. Even if you were physically capable, it wouldn't have been right. I wouldn't have been able to stand it. It would be a betrayal of Martin and Anna's memory, to do that to you.”
He lets himself imagine this life Radzig concocted for him. Scribing, perhaps. Servants at his beck and call should he need anything.
Watched.
Hans locked away with a wife he’d either grow to love or tolerate. Henry relegated, after enough years passed, to a nightmare kept locked away in a room in the castle, the furthest one from the light. They’d probably tell stories about him. Make him into as much a monster as he made himself in his head.
“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.” Henry says, even as Radzig’s face falls, “I’ve built a life here.”
He doesn’t say ‘we’, as much as he wonders what Radzig suspects.
“I can see that,” Radzig says, then sighs, “But then I heard that you might be dead. And those months… I have spent thirteen years regretting my last words to you. You must understand that.”
Henry swallows thickly, “Good. Because I’ve spent thirteen years hearing them in nightmares.”
Thirteen years watching him walk away.
“I’m sorry. If I could undo any of it…”
“I know,” Henry says, then glances out of the window. His skin itches, having conversations like this cooped up. Nothing but the lingering, musty scent of sleep and still air. “Let’s go for a walk.”
He gets up, and Radzig starts, “Are you not concerned about being seen with me?”
He laughs, “Everyone and their fifteenth cousin three villages over probably knows who you are to me, why you’re here, and what you had for supper last night already. Don’t you remember what Skalitz was like? Word travels fast in places like this. Honestly I find it stranger that nothing got back to me about a strange nobleman looking for me.”
“If you’re sure…” Radzig follows him out of the little bedroom, down the stairs and past Lenka, who calls after them.
“Everything alright, love?”
“Aye, we’re just having a wander!” he calls back, the cheeriness of his tone strange to even his own ears.
They walk mostly in silence, heading towards the stream and forest, the route that Henry prefers is the flattest, but still beautiful.
Father Libor waves at him as he passes the church – he’s bent over in the small vegetable patch in the church yard. He shouldn’t be kneeling like that, the willowbark Henry gave him for the pain will only do so much if he doesn’t avoid doing the things that caused his knee problems in the first place.
They pass Sofie, not so little anymore, picking the tiny, not quite yet ripe strawberries poking out from between the slats of Borek the farmer’s fence. “You’ll want to watch Borek doesn’t have your head,” he warns, and she startles before waving.
“He’s gone to the market day the village over,” she calls back, “But don’t tell anyone else or they’ll be after my spot!”
Henry laughs, “I promise.”
She notices Radzig then, “Is that–?”
“Careful,” Henry chastises futilely, “do you want me telling your Ma that you were pestering people over private business?”
She waits until they’re barely out of earshot, before abandoning her strawberry picking and dashing off in the direction of the apothecary, no doubt to pester Mila. He can’t blame her. There’s very little in the way of excitement in the village, and Henry is frequently distressed to realise that his family and their consistent stream of interesting visitors are the source of much of it.
“You’re well liked,” Radzig notes as they wander out past the village edge.
Henry shrugs, “Well enough. Like I said, we’ve a life here.”
“We. You and young Sir Capon.”
Henry curses himself at the slip, “Aye.”
“I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him to settle down somewhere like this, to live as…” Radzig frowns, “humbly as you seem to.”
Henry bristles at the insinuation, “Well he did. He’s done more for me than anyone.”
“Of course, I apologise.”
They walk out into the forest. It’s mostly safe here at the edges. Hans and his little ragtag band of farmers’ lads and tradesmen make sure of it. On the rare occassion that bandits do show up, they’re swiftly invited to leave. Henry still feels on edge journeying out here without Hans though. He still has more than one scar from the Trosky wolves, even if the wolves out here are far less agressive.
“Alright,” Henry says, leading them out the path along the river’s edge. Sunlight dances off the clear water, tufts of grass and wildflowers brightening beneath it. “Ask your questions.”
“I think,” Radzig says carefully, “That I already know the answer to the only one that really matters.”
“Ask me anyway.”
“Are you happy?”
It’s not an easy question, but Henry thinks that’s a good thing. He knows himself well enough to know that the reckless young man he used to be would never have been content with easy.
“I have bad days,” he says carefully, “really bad days. Nightmares more nights than not, even now.” It's hard to know how much to say. “Days I can't get out of bed because I'm in too much pain, or because I just… just can't. I don't have the willpower, the energy, the presence of mind. Whatever you want to call it.” There’s a log nearby, and he goes to sit on it. He’s better on his feet than he ever used to be, but his toes still swell painfully if he walks too far or for too long without resting.
Radzig sits beside him, apparently not minding that Henry’s seat of choice is covered in moss and half chewed up by fronds of white fungus. “I’m sorry to hear you still suffer so greatly.” He clasps his hands together in front of him, staring down. They’re weathered - calloused and tanned from swordplay and days in the saddle. He has an ink stain on his wrist, and Henry thinks of the stain that never quite came out of Mila’s old yellow dress. Henry is half expecting a clasp on the shoulder or friendly pat on the back like he might once have given, but it never comes. Did Hans or Lenka warn him of Henry’s aversion to touch? He wishes they hadn’t. It’s strange, there’s a part of him that craves it. The awkward affection that was slowly turning to ease all those years ago. Simple fatherly advice, ‘wine, women, and song’.
“Trust me, s– lad,” Radzig repeats, “If I could go back and change any of it…
“It’s done.” Henry says, digging his fingers into bark. He knows exactly how far that kind of thinking gets a man.
“I should have tried harder. I knew that you’d been tortured at Trosky–”
Henry starts. “What? How?”
“Godwin. Told me if I had any care for you, I’d drag you back home kicking and screaming.
I should have insisted you come back with me, when we encountered you after your rescue of young Lord Capon. But I didn’t even wait to see that you made it back from your mission safely. I left, and then…” He exhales heavily, the sound of a man who’s replayed the same moment in his head every chance he’s had for thirteen years. Henry only has so much sympathy for him. He has a lot of those moments of his own.
“Never mind that,” Radzig continues, “I should have never even let you leave on that damned mission with Lord Capon in the first place. You were still wounded from Vranik - another thing I should never have allowed to happen. I should have insisted you stay behind to recover.”
“What?” Henry snorts, “And you thought I was going to just… listen to you? Like I did after Skalitz? Or when you told me not to get mixed up with those bandits at the monastary? Or any of the other times you told me not to put myself in harm’s way?”
“I should have tried.”
“Maybe,” Henry agrees, and admitting as much feels like pulling out a splinter. “But I still wouldn’t have listened. Probably would’ve been more reckless. Might’ve even gotten myself killed, trying to prove that I was more than you could ever hope for me to be. Typical headstrong, foolish young lad. See plenty of them with broken arms and legs, all sliced up or beaten in the apothecary.” He swallows. “I was… you know how I was. I couldn’t think straight after Skalitz. There was no amount of reasoning, no amount of protection or– or love that would’ve kept me safe.”
He hates remembering that time. Grief a constant, hollow scream, so loud, so insistent that he couldn’t even register its presence. It was his normal. Those rare moments without it - moments where he helped someone and managed to feel good about it, or when Hans managed to get a laugh out of him - those were what kept him up at night, puzzling over them and trying to pick apart what it meant to feel okay when nothing ever could be again.
“If I could have done anything to prevent what happened to you…”
“Aye,” Henry says, “I know.” He’s not the first to say as much. “But you asked if I’m happy,” he redirects, because he hasn’t finished answering yet.
“I did.”
The breeze picks up, carrying with it the cool chill of a long winter that still hasn’t quite loosened its grip. The wildflowers lining the river banks, marigolds and poppies and lillies, sway in the breeze. Henry leans back, lets it sting his cheeks pleasantly cool. “I never thought I could be again, after what happened. Everyone left, and I thought, well, that’s it. That’s life now. No use to anyone. No point to any of it.”
Radzig exhales slowly, “I’m sorr-”
Henry cuts in. “I was wrong. Someone stayed.”
“Sir Hans.”
Henry nods, “He just goes by Hans now. To everyone.”
He still remembers waking up, after he thought that Hans had left, and finding him still there. Remembers the weeks after, the thick haze, the certainty weighing him down that he’d never have anything he could contribute to anyone ever again.
More importantly, he remembers what it was like to find himself, again, proven wrong.
“Hans stayed. And then the people here gave me a reason to stay too. Treated us like family.” Warm, steady Yvette, and Lenka whose heart was so open there was room enough for even the likes of him and Hans to walk right in. Alena who reminded them what it was like to have fun. And every villager who let Henry care for them and cared for him and his little family in turn.
“And the girl?”
Henry smiles, “Mila. She… she came to us in a bad way.” Christ, she’d been so…so hurt. It’s hard to reconcile the girl she’d been with the woman she’s growing into. Blossoming into, really. Vibrant and willing to speak her mind no matter what. Fiercely protective, clever and strong. “But she’s come a long way. She…” he pauses, struggling to find the words for what she’s become. “She needs us. And she… she’s someone to keep going for. It’s easy to see the good we’ve done in taking her in. In the good she does.” She’ll take care of the village even better than Henry’s been able to one day, he just knows it. Or if she decides to do something else with her life, whatever it is, he knows it’ll be better and more wonderful than anything he could ever possibly have hoped for, as long as she’s happy.
“And she’s your…” Radzig frowns, waiting for an answer, clearly.
It’s a tough one, even now, to admit out loud. But any other answer would be a lie. “She’s our daughter. Or close to one as we’ll ever get.”
“So it’s a yes then.”
Henry nods, “Aye. It is.”
It would be easy to add a ‘but’, or to preface it with an ‘almost’. But it wouldn’t be true. He has his family. He has purpose and fulfilment. He has spring days spent with the man he loves at his side, picking flowers in the forest.
He can’t think of anything he could possibly want more.
Henry’s so exhausted by the time he gets back to the apothecary that Mila brushes off his attempts to help her finish up for the day and recruits Hans in wrangling him upstairs to rest. Time blurs, but he thinks he must manage to doze, because he wakes up fully clothed on top of the bedsheets, head tucked into Hans’s side as Hans carves an as yet indecipherable pattern into the handle of a spoon.
Henry watches his clever, nimble hands for several long minutes as they mould the shapes of leaves and branches and berries into the wood as easily as if it were a pencil over a sheet of parchment. He was always good at this, but long winters and hours by Henry’s side have sharpened a simple pastime into true skill.
But he can’t watch forever, and eventually Hans notices him staring and sets the piece aside.
“Was I sleeping?” Henry asks softly. Not bothering to sit up, his body and eyes are too heavy.
“You drifted for a little first,” Hans says, referring to the times that Henry slips from his mind, “But then you slept. Mila’s preparing supper now.”
They don’t talk for a moment, and Henry nearly falls back asleep until a clang from the room over jolts him back to wakefulness.
“You’re not pestering me,” Henry realises soon after, glancing up at him.
“Oh don’t worry, there’s plenty of pestering to come,” Hans promises, and Henry snorts.
“You can pester now if you want, I can tell it’s killing you.”
“Oh thank Christ,” Hans says, “Are you alright? Is he gone? What did he want–”
“Okay, you can pester me slowly,” Henry groans, head reeling.
“Sorry, sorry. Are you alright though?”
Henry nods, “I… I think so.” He reaches for Hans’s hand, squeezes it. He’s real. He’s here. He’s not leaving, not after thirteen years “I think I might have forgiven him once,” Henry says quietly. “If he’d found us what, five years ago?”
“Before Mila,” Hans says softly.
Henry nods, “Aye. Before Mila.”
Before Henry knew what it meant to look at his child and know that he would rather die than leave her to face what he faced alone. Before he knew that it would kill him as surely as any blade to have to watch her suffer as much as he had, in those first few weeks after Suchdol.
He pictures himself, hearing about her the same list of injuries, of tortures and defilements, that Radzig surely must have heard about him. It’s a wonder he’s sane enough to hold a conversation. Henry wouldn’t be. Just thinking of the men who hurt her now makes his blood boil. She was just a child–
He breathes, and Hans, sensing his distress, presses a kiss to his forehead.
“He’s not the hetman anymore,” Henry says softly, recounting the latter part of their talk. “He was spending too much time looking for me, it displeased Wenceslaus – he’s still living with your uncle in Rattay. Never does anything for the King anymore. Anything for anyone.”
“Is he coming back?”
Henry smiles, “I’m not sure but…” he glances towards the thin wall separating them from the kitchen, past it, to the village and its people, the family they’ve built. Further, to the parents and friends he’ll never see again. “I told him I’d like him too.”
Henry’s lost too much for one lifetime. He’s not going to ignore the chance to finally get something back.