Chapter Text
“So, how does it feel to be officially unfaithful to your wife?”
Henry slid down into his chair, placing a tankard in front of Hans. It was the ironically named weißbier: a dark, tasty stout.
Hans flicked his eyes up from the brew to look at Henry, a handsome smirk on his lips. “You remembered I like that one, did you?”
Henry was pleased his chosen beverage had been so well-received. He always enjoyed the hell out of making Hans smile like that.
The ale was probably not the only factor in the expression he wore on his face, though. There was satisfaction on his lips, a pretty curl to the corners that Henry would do nearly anything to place there. His cheeks dimpled just as well. But he still had not answered Henry’s question.
“Aye, of course I remembered,” Henry replied.
His eyes flitted to the garnet on Hans’s ring finger, the flash of the gold. A reminder of what they shared that he had never taken off during the activities of the previous night. Henry was still keeping the simple gold band engraved with Jitka’s name in his pocket, as Hans had requested of him.
He pulled it out and slid it across the wood table.
In the background, Sam hopped about like a little bird, the sounds of Yiddish – or German, Henry could not distinguish the two languages – floating up from nearby tables, which other customers were beginning to fill out.
Hans held the ring a few inches from the table’s surface, and then he let it go spinning. When it landed on the table, it danced over the wood just like that toy top Sam had shown him, a dreidel. It meant something to Sam’s people that Henry did not understand, but could appreciate nonetheless. It had taken him back to his boyhood in Skalitz when he spun it. It even dredged up a fond memory of Martin once having carved him a spinning toy much like it, but without the strange Hebrew letters.
When the ring fell on its side with a musical tone, Hans sighed and set down his beer. “It doesn’t feel like anything. I’ve never been faithful to her. Remember?”
Under the table, Henry felt the toe of Hans’s boot on his ankle.
Henry dropped his eyes, too chivalrous to smile at a comment like that.
“And besides,” Hans sighed, stretching his arms overhead and leaning back in his seat. “We don’t have that kind of relationship. Most of the time, it barely even feels like I have a wife.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?” Henry murmured, glancing at him with only the tiniest smirk.
Hans snickered. “Yes.”
“Yet,” Henry said.
When Hans looked confused, Henry elaborated. “You don’t have that kind of relationship yet. We’re… working on that. Aren’t we?”
“Sure,” Hans said, bobbing his head around another sip of ale. “Though, I confess, yesterday didn’t exactly feel like work.”
Henry scoffed. “And how would you know? You’ve never worked a day in your life.”
“Then wouldn’t you agree that I should know what it feels like not to work?” Hans said over the edge of his tankard, one brow quirked.
Henry shook his head. “I’ll give you that, My Lord.”
Something sparked in Hans’s eyes. “Careful,” he murmured, his toe finding the inside of Henry’s calf. “Or I’ll have to take you upstairs and cause your dear brother to wonder why the chandelier is rattling.”
Henry smiled into his own cup, his ears turning pink at the thought. But he caught himself, and his eyes darted to scan the room.
There was a flash of a certain blue pourpoint as Sir John II of Lichtenstein rounded the corner with some empty plates in hand. Henry still thought it quite funny that this was what he, a high nobleman, wanted to do with himself these days. Sam had shrugged and said it made him happy. He’d grown tired of being a spy, and besides, he’d been unmasked one too many times already. And he could not wield a sword if his life depended on it – that was the way John himself had put it.
Sam was not visible at the moment, but Henry knew he was there. He was always present – sometimes like a cat, silently curling around the table leg, but there nonetheless. Henry would have to find him later to see about getting a room.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m grateful we had that bath after,” Hans muttered, glancing around. He smirked. “We were both left in need of it. Especially you.”
Images invaded Henry's vision at Hans’s prompting. The way she had dripped down his wrist, his beard. Round breasts above him, soft thighs on his cheeks. Catching Hans’s eye through a curtain of long hair.
“Aye,” he said into his cup.
He thought of the extra groschen he’d folded into her palm, and he was glad for having done it. He did feel refreshed. Quite lovely, even. However, he was not the one who was cheating on his wife.
Then again, the very purpose of this indiscretion was supposed to be ensuring that Hans would be able to fuck his wife in the first place.
Always in tune with him, Hans was somehow able to answer Henry’s thoughts.
“I think I can do it now,” he said, casting Henry a meaningful glance. “I mean, I really think I’m ready now.”
Henry nodded quietly. Suddenly, he found himself eager to find Sam. Once they could secure a room and wait until an appropriate hour to retire there, they would be able to speak much more freely. To share more touches than just a boot under the table.
“Good, Hans. That’s good.”
Hans looked pensive, and he drew in a breath. But before he could say whatever was about to come out of his mouth next, the very man Henry had been hoping to see interrupted them: Sam.
“Bruder,” he said with a curt nod by way of acknowledging them both. When Henry looked up, his gaze met the emerald green of Sam’s sleeve. He was reaching forward, setting two tall cups full of glühwein in the middle of the small table.
Henry looked at Hans, and then at Sam.
“L’chaim,” Sam said.
Henry squinted, his mouth rounding. “Um, that’s kind of you, Sam. But you didn’t have to—”
Hans echoed the sentiment, raising his tankard of weißbier, still half-full, with a mildly confused look.
Sam shook his head, crouching down until he was low enough to murmur and let Henry hear him. “I cannot take credit, bruder. These are from that man over there. He says he knows you?”
Sam continued speaking, but Henry had already whipped his head around in the direction in which Sam had vaguely gestured, and he was no longer paying attention.
“…And that you would enjoy a drink like this. Is that so?” Sam finished.
Henry stared, slack-jawed, too stunned to speak, or even to breathe. He could not respond to Sam, nor even look at Hans. His heart stopped, and then it began to hammer out frantic triplets.
Bartosch was there.
The sight of him stung Henry’s eyes. There he was – right there – just leaning against a wood post with his arms and his ankles crossed, the same moustache, the same feathery black hair falling over his temples.
But he was not dressed the same as when Henry last saw him. His clothes were casual. Practical, but not ornamental. He wore a dark leather brigandine and trousers. He looked more like a mercenary than Henry had ever seen him. One who was dangerously successful at blending in. He wore no colors. None at all. Either he was on some stealth mission, or he no longer had any allegiance to display.
Henry found his hand at his hip, his fingers clutching for a weapon, before he could think. Technically, he understood himself and Bartosch to be enemies. It had been that way ever since the battle of Nebakov, and he’d thought he had long since made his peace with it.
But the mountain of sand in his throat, his wild heartbeat… they said otherwise. And unless the wine he’d sent over was poisoned, which he knew Sam would never allow to happen… well, it did not seem like a gesture that an enemy would make.
As Bartosch locked eyes with him, Henry tried not to gape. From across the room, and though his eyes were black, Henry could see how the other knight’s pupils widened.
Oh – the other knight. How long had it been? Only a few months, but how much had changed. Now, he was a different person in so many ways. Sir Henry Kobyla of Skalitz, secret husband to Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein and Kunštát.
Now he was being kicked under the table. By one secret husband.
Henry’s head whipped around, and instantly, he met wide, blue eyes. Hans looked panicked.
“Bruder? You must know him. You look as though you saw a dybbuk.” Sam’s palm draped Henry’s shoulder, his green eyes ticking between his face and Hans’s, trying to discern just what the hell was going on in that quiet way he had.
Henry could not help it. His eyes went to Bartosch again. This time, Bartosch smirked at him warmly, like an old friend.
Bartosch raised his palm in acknowledgement to Sam and Hans, nodding at them both as well. Then he caught Henry’s eye again with a question on his brow. Henry’s eyes fell to the corner as he belatedly remembered to close his jaw. Bartosch was already making his way over to them.
“Should I stay? Or leave you to talk?” Sam muttered, his eyes fleeting back toward the direction from which Bartosch was approaching.
Henry’s shock dissipated enough that he was able to choke out, “Sam, you spoke to him? Is he alone?”
“He is. Why?” Sam’s brow twisted.
“Can’t say right now. It’s complicated,” Henry muttered, unsure if Sam would even hear it.
“Ah. Sir Bartoschek,” Hans was saying, glancing up and over Henry’s shoulder. Henry knew every tone of voice in Hans’s arsenal by now, and this one was curiously neutral – flat like ice that lurked beneath the snow, waiting for the right moment to knock someone’s feet out from under him.
“Good evening to you, Lord Capon.” Henry heard Bartosch reply from behind him, and instantly the memories came flooding back to him when that rich tone hit his ears. Oh, how he’d enjoyed that voice… on his throat; in his ear. Against his lips.
Henry twisted in his seat to look at him up close. Bartosch was finishing the bow he’d offered to Hans. When he straightened, he was already gazing down at Henry as if his eyes had never left him the whole time. In the soft light of the candelabras, he looked as magnificent as ever. There were those high cheekbones, those lush lips… and Henry could not help but imagine them once again around him as they had been that night in the baths. Around him, but also not – now he was thinking of Bartosch’s head tipped back as Henry had embraced him the same way, his eyes closed, those lips pushed forward in bliss. Or kissing him, sucking on the juicy pad of the bottom one. Pressing against him in the dark, taking those fleshy lips gently, one by one, between his teeth.
And then there were his eyes. Striking, piercing like arrows. Black like obsidian. They looked through to Henry’s soul right now, and he could almost cry. His breath caught in his throat. He could not make his voice utter a greeting. He felt as though all the composure he’d so carefully cultivated had been stolen from him, like a wicked gale that ripped through a garden and left cornstalks and poppy petals littering the earth.
“Hello, Henry,” Bartosch said to him. His voice was soft, gentle, hitting that intimate note that Henry had not heard since their night together at Trosky. He stayed frozen as Bartosch’s hand reached out for him, closer to his shoulder—
But Bartosch stopped short of making contact. His fingers landed on the back of Henry’s chair. His eyes lingered over Henry’s face.
Were they supposed to hate each other? Henry couldn't see how that would be possible. Even knowing what he knew, even after being apart for all this time, he still could not help that his body reacted to Bartosch this way.
“May I?” Bartosch spoke after a tense moment, addressing the question to Hans.
Henry looked at Hans. His lips were in a worried pout, the corners of his eyes drawn as he looked at the table. He had snatched up his wife’s ring and hidden it in his fist.
He nodded once, still gazing at the wood tabletop, a frown twitching his chin for an instant. Then he looked Henry in the eye, holding his gaze steady and sure until Henry felt the pattering of his heart slow.
Then Hans did something Henry did not expect. He raised his eyes to look beyond Henry’s shoulder. “Please.” He gestured to his side as he scooted his chair closer to Henry to make room.
Bartosch glanced around until he saw an empty chair at another small table nearby. From the corner of his eye, Henry saw that Sam was watching him too. But when Bartosch began to drag over a seat, there was something different about the way he moved than what Henry remembered of him from Trosky. He was favoring his left foot, leaning on the seatback to spare the right.
Sam noticed that, too. There was not much that could be put past him, a fact which Henry was especially grateful for right now. Without him here, this all would surely be worse.
Sam was at Bartosch’s side in a flash, taking the chair from him without a word and placing it in the space Hans had opened at the table. He pushed it in as Bartosch sat. At the same time, he sent a question to Henry on his glance. Alright?
Henry gave a tiny nod in response to his brother’s query, swallowing roughly. When Hans glanced at him next and took a sip from his tankard, Henry gratefully followed suit. Despite the tang of beer on his tongue and the untouched glühwein that sat in front of him, he still felt he lacked enough drink for whatever might come next.
“Would you like something to drink?” Sam asked, turning to Bartosch, his hand on the back of his chair.
Bartosch’s eyes were on Henry again, locked to his face. As Henry regarded him, he noticed something: a sadness. It was there at the corners of his mouth, in his eyes. He had never seen it on Bartosch before.
Bartosch appeared to tear his gaze away from Henry so he could answer Sam’s question. “I would love a drink. What would you recommend?"
Sam shrugged and frowned. “Well, nothing I serve is bad.”
Bartosch scoffed, a smile turning his expression more easeful. There was the version of him that Henry had known.
“Of course. Well, why don’t you surprise me, then? And if it’s really a bother to decide, perhaps you could assign the task of choosing to John?” He pointed toward the far corner of the bar with his chin, where the kingfisher blue of Lichtenstein’s hat rapidly vanished around the corner. “But really, I won’t be a difficult customer to please. I like it all.”
I like it all.
That was what he had said that night when Henry asked.
What do you like?
I like it all.
Henry swallowed roughly and aggressively tipped back his beer.
Sam nodded and left, his eyes lingering on Henry protectively even as he walked away.
Bartosch cleared his throat, his hands folded on the table. “Can we talk?”