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Henry returns on a rainy day. Water slices through the dirt paths in rivulets that turn into thin streams, racing downhill, turning the well trod paths of the Pirkstein courtyard into a muddy mess. Hans leans forward against the wooden beams of the third story landing, squinting. After a beat, he calls, “Henry! Henry’s come to see us!”
He sees Henry’s head move, maybe to look up. The door to his room in the courtyard is barely visible. It’s the type of rain that creates a fog, drops that hover in the air before they fall, reflecting and scattering what sunlight can cut through the heavy clouds. He sees the reflective glimmer of some kind of armor on Henry’s chest as he turns. Slowly, he raises his hand in a wave. Hans waves back.
It takes Henry a while to come across the courtyard and up the stairs. Hans bounces from one foot to the other. There is a gap in the awning he stands under that allows a small bit of rain to pool at Hans’s feet, and he has been dipping the toe of his pointed shoes into it, drawing lines in the dry wood that now look silly and juvenile. He quickly drags his foot over his work as Henry arrives on the third story stairs, erasing it all.
“Henry!” he calls again. “You’re back! My God, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about us.”
Henry gives a little bow, inclining his head, his hand over his heart. He wears a chest plate, dulled with rust and scrubbing. Still, it picks some stray sunlight and swallows it, bright and eye-catching in this gloom.
“Here I am, sir,” Henry says. His voice almost disappears in the rainfall. Hans takes a step closer to hear him. “I hope you haven’t been waiting here the whole time.”
Hans laughs, then clears his throat. “Certainly not. And anyway, even if I wanted to, Hanush would be up my ass about it. He’s been especially finicky these days. The mint business has him riled up.”
Henry nods sympathetically. “That’s not good.”
A raindrop falls on Henry’s cheek and rolls down his face like a tear.
Hans looks down at his hand, clutching the edge of the wooden railing, rain slashing across his knuckles. “How was your sojourn into the monastery? Did you make it in? I’m assuming yes, since you’ve been gone for weeks.”
Henry nods.
“Well?” Hans asks when the silence stretches.
Henry says, “Yes, I made it in and completed the task the bandits asked of me. I’ve learned where they’re congregating and have come to share the location with the Lords.”
“Oh. Wonderful. You really are a man of many talents.”
Henry inclines his head again. He still has his hair, despite his trip into the monastery, deep brown and roughly cut, and Hans stares at his cowlick, a swirl of hair around an origin point at the top of his head, slightly wet from the rain, slowly drying. Hans feels a warmth spread from his chest outward, as though he’s had a too big sip of schnapps.
“I must say, I missed you around here,” he says. The words burst from his mouth before he can stop them. His tongue runs away from him, as usual. He looks out at the rainy courtyard, addressing the falling drops. “It gets boring as hell. Don’t disappear for too long like that again.”
“I’ll try, sir. I didn’t intend on being gone for so long.”
“You must tell me all about it. Over some wine, of course. I bet you’re craving a good time after being stuck in that cloister with those boring fucking monks.”
“Yes, some wine would be nice.”
Silence again. Henry places a hand on the railing and leans heavily into it, shifting his weight between his feet, as though tired. Raindrops collect on his fingers. He watches this, the rain on his skin, catching on his nails, with a strange stillness. Hans watches him.
“Henry, are you alright?” he asks, suddenly nervous.
“Of course. Just tired. I’ve had a long journey. Excuse me, please.”
He walks back down the stairs. His footsteps reverberate, each footfall reaching Hans through his own feet, both firmly against the third story landing, and his hands, both clutching the railing in a too tight grip. Eventually, Henry steps off the stairs and walks through the muddy courtyard, and Hans lets go of the railing. He draws the tip of his pointed shoe over the puddle at his feet. Henry’s room is already obscured by the low cloud of rain, heavy in the air, covering him from Hans’s view.
.
It’s raining still as Hans leads Henry to the tavern on the green. He wears his bad boots today, high over his calves, older leather cracked with age, saved specifically for when the roads are more mud than track. Henry also wears old looking boots, ones Hans has seen before on days without rain, and they trudge through the hovering drops and low hanging clouds to get to the well lit tavern, a glow in the fog, candlelight that beckons.
“This fucking weather,” Hans says, speaking without looking back at Henry. “I can’t stand when it’s like this. Can’t go hunting, can’t drink outside. We must stay within the tavern with the old men, and the only fun thing to do really is the baths.”
Henry makes a noise of acknowledgement behind him. He reaches around Hans to push open the tavern door before Hans can reach for the door handle himself. They step in one after another, shaking their heads and splattering rain onto the walls, creating a fresco of raindrops that quickly fades in the dry tavern air.
“I suppose the rain didn’t bother you at the monastery,” Hans says, collapsing into a chair at a table close to the window. “All the same to them, prayer and contemplation regardless of the weather, yes?”
Henry nods as he sits opposite him. A barmaid approaches, giving Hans a quick curtsy, and Henry a wide smile. Henry nods back at her, then looks steadily at Hans, as though waiting for something.
“Two cups of wine to start, the special red in the back,” Hans says. “And keep it coming until we say to stop.”
The barmaid leaves. Henry still looks at him.
“What?” Hans asks, touching his cheek. “Something on my face?”
“No. Sorry.” Henry averts his gaze. His hands have either absorbed the raindrops or let them slide onto the table, where a tiny puddle forms. He draws his finger over the puddle and stretches it into a thin line. “Actually, when it rained at the monastery, it would get quite loud. The high ceilings would amplify the noise, I think. Or something. Most of my task was completed while it rained.”
“Oh, interesting.” The wine is deposited dutifully before them. Hans brings his cup to his lips immediately. Before he closes his eyes to drink, he sees the girl make eyes at Henry again. When he lowers his cup, the girl is gone. “I imagine this secret knowledge is useful to some of the monks who were up to no good. Loud rain to cover up the theft of some wine, for example.”
“Perhaps.”
“Was it deathly boring in there?”
Henry takes a long sip of his wine and closes his eyes as he swallows. His Adam’s apple shifts in the glow of candlelight. His skin, newly shaven, seems almost pink, a soft shading around his cheeks, and over the bridge of his nose, and on the tips of his ears. Hans tries to imagine him in a monk’s white habit. The girl walks by again and smiles at Henry as she passes.
“It was, a little,” Henry says.
“A little? You sound almost like you liked it.”
“A little.”
Hans finishes his cup. The barmaid is back immediately with their pitcher. Red wine is poured, Henry’s cup topped off without him asking.
“Do you know that girl?” Hans asks as she walks away, the swing of her hips catching his attention.
“No. Maybe. I think I’ve seen her around town.”
“She keeps looking at you. You might get lucky tonight.”
“Oh.” Henry doesn’t turn to look at her. He drinks in silence for a moment, then says, “Is it loud in here?”
No louder than usual, Hans thinks. The same crowd in their cups. The same rotation of girls. Windows cracked to let in the sound and smell of the rain, a cleansing of the town. Henry turns his cup around and around. The little puddle on the table before him has long since dried.
“You must have gotten used to the quiet,” Hans says. “Monks don’t talk during meals, do they? And I suppose all the prayer didn’t lend much to discussions either.”
“How do you know about that?” Henry asks.
Hans swirls the wine in his cup, trying to look nonchalant. “Read about it in a book, I suppose. Anyway, is that true? No talking at mealtimes? Seems terribly boring.”
“It took some getting used to. I think I need to get out of it still.”
“I can certainly tell. Pulling words out of you now is like pulling teeth, for God’s sake. Tell me about your time in there, and then go put that girl out of her misery. If she keeps craning her neck to look over here, she might strain it.”
Henry shakes his head. “I can’t, I’m too tired.”
“Then you won’t mind if I try?”
“No, by all means. Go ahead, sir.”
“Alright. Anyway, you will tell me something about the monks. Something others don’t know. A secret.”
Henry takes a sip of wine. Hans charts its journey down Henry’s throat, a slow swallow, almost thoughtful.
“Alright. They don’t choose their own names. When they take their vows, the prior just tells you what your new name is.”
“Damn. They even took your name? Christ. What were you called?”
Henry’s voice breaks a little as he replies, “Gregor.”
Silence falls between them, brief and tight. “Doesn’t suit you,” Hans says after a beat. “You look too much like a Henry.”
Henry smiles. His eyes seem bright in the candlelight. A trickle of warmth slides into Hans’s chest and seems to expand, like a bubble. Outside, the rain continues to fall, loud and clear.
“Tell me more,” Hans says. “Did you make any friends?”
Henry brings his cup to his lips but finds it empty. “Yes,” he says, and he word is barely out of his mouth before the barmaid is back with their pitcher. This time, when she smiles at Henry, he gives a small smile back. Hans notes, with some kind of heat in his cheeks and along his jaw, that he received a wider smile than she did.
“And you only know them by their monk names?”
“All but one. There were a few other novices. One of them was the man I was sent in to kill. He was the only one who’s true name I knew.”
The way he says it, the way the words stumble out of his mouth. His hand on the cup of wine, a tight grip, fingertips white. Hans leans forward, his elbows on the table. The air between them is like paper, thin enough to fold in half.
“I didn’t kill him,” Henry says, after a pause. “I found another way.”
“Of course, you did. You’re so—” He drains his cup and waves the barmaid over as he walks around words that float up onto the tip of his tongue. Smart. Resourceful. Good. You’re so good. “What’s your name?” he asks the girl as she refills his drink.
“Anna, my Lord,” she replies. Her voice is soft and breathy. There is a tension in Hans’s body that he is aware of as she speaks. He imagines running his hand through her yellow hair. His eyes snap to Henry, his cowlick, the swirl at the top of his head.
“Thank you for being so attentive tonight, Anna,” he says. “My friend Henry here also thanks you. He’s been among monks, you see, so he has quite forgotten his manners.”
“Oh.” Anna glances at Henry. Her cheeks flush a pretty pink. “You don’t look like a monk.”
“I’m not.” Henry gives Hans an impatient look. “I had a job to do at a monastery. That’s all.”
“He might also need to be reminded of another thing,” Hans says.
Under the table, Henry presses his foot over Hans’s, a light touch with some pressure.
“What’s that?” Anna asks, her voice light, but there is a knowing look in her eyes, and she gives Henry a quick smile that he returns while stepping on Hans’s foot again.
“What schnapps tastes like,” Hans says. “Bring over a bottle, if you please.”
Henry shakes his head. “Hans—”
The girl steps away from the table. Henry moves his foot. Hans’s hands and feet tingle as though they were all stepped on. He reaches for his cup of wine. Empty again. Fuck. This is going down too easily. He props his elbow on the table and his chin on his palm. Henry seems to shimmer in and out of view, like he’s looking at him through dirty window glass.
“I should go,” Henry says. “Sir Radzig wants me to scout out the bandits’ lair. This place called Vranik. I don’t know what might happen there so I should be rested.”
“You will not leave Rattay without soaking in a bath for at least half a day,” Hans says loudly.
Henry looks like he’s about to retort when the girl returns with the bottle and two fresh glasses. Her hand lingers on the table before Henry.
“Anything else?” she asks him.
Hans’s stomach tightens around the wine. “No,” he tells her sharply. “You can leave us now.”
Henry raises his eyebrows at him but doesn’t speak. The girl’s shadow falls over him as she turns to leave. The candlelight reflecting in Henry’s eyes is interrupted for a moment, and his eyes seem to flash as they fall on Hans.
Hans pours them their first round. The liquor burns its way down his throat. Henry takes a small sip and makes a face.
“Baths tomorrow morning,” Hans says. “And you can finish telling me about your monastery adventures. And why it took you so goddamn long to finish your task and return to m—to Rattay.”
Henry takes another sip. “Alright, Sir Hans.”
Hans leans forward. In the dim glow of light at their table, he can see freckles across Henry’s nose, and some peeling along his hairline from a healing stretch of sunburn. Details he’s missed over the past few weeks. He reaches for him without thinking, then lets his hand drop on the table between them. Henry watches this display with an unreadable expression. A stillness.
“We must drag Gregor out of you,” Hans tells him.
Henry nods. “Yes. We must.”
.
A peal of lightning wakes Hans from a light sleep, followed by a crack of thunder that he feels as much as hears. For a moment, he lay there in the haziness between dreams and waking life. His hands are clenched into fists. He stretches his fingers out, listening to his knuckles crack in the quiet of this temporary room. Radzig has taken over his room, and this one has an extra bed that is conspicuously vacant.
Outside, rain falls in earnest. He wears his old boots again, and pulls his hood over his head to salvage his morning attention on his hair. In the courtyard, he runs into Henry, emerging from his room with a confused look about him.
“Still waking up expecting to be at the monastery, are you?” Hans asks.
Henry blinks slowly at him. There are dark half moons under his eyes, purple smudges of tiredness. “I’ve been awake for a while. They woke us up very early.”
“Christ, can these people do a single thing that doesn’t cause pain and lasting damage?” Hans claps him on the shoulder. Rain falls on Henry’s head and eyelashes, drops on his hair catching light hidden behind heavy clouds, like jewels. “Come, a soak in a warm tub will do you a world of good. Then you can go to this Vranik.”
They ride down the hill on horseback. Hans leads, and the sound of Henry’s horse following mingles with the rainfall, creating a pleasant ambiance despite the downpour. Hans’s hood is completely soaked by the time he throws open the door to his usual room. He strips where he stands, the door hanging open, and the bath maid, already having prepared the tub with steaming water, picks his clothes off the floor and hangs them on a line by the fire.
Hans climbs into the tub. His slightly rain chilled skin relaxes immediately. He sighs heavily, sinking into the water.
“When you came by,” he says with his eyes closed, “to confer with Radzig before you went into the monastery. You said there was some nobleman who’s place you could take to get in there. I bet he’s living it up now in another town. Given a stay of execution.”
Henry removes his hood and hangs it on the line. “Yes, although I think he will go running back to his castle when he runs out of money and face his father’s wrath.”
“That’s life, isn’t it? His father might give him a hard time but what can you do? Some people are only good for boozing and whoring. Such as yours truly.”
Henry pauses as he slips out of his shirt, half in and half out of the dripping wet tunic. “You’re not only good for boozing and whoring. You can hunt pretty well.”
“Hmm. Yes, that I can.”
Henry hangs his shirt. He peels his hose from his legs next, clinging to his skin soaked in rain. His body is lean and tight with muscle. There are stretch marks along his biceps where the muscle grew in too quickly, tracks of silvery skin stark against the rest of him, uneven tans, freckles, an aged yellow bruise here and there, a stretch of mottled skin from a badly healed cut. Hans’s heart beats in a peculiar, staccato way, an uneven thumping as he takes stock of all the marks on Henry’s body. He looks down at the water as Henry turns to face the bath. The bath maid pours a measure of floral soap into the water and mixes it gently with her hand.
Henry climbs into the bath. A sigh escapes him as he sits in the tub across from Hans, sinking into the water until only his head is exposed, and the image of his body under the surface shimmers and moves. “You were right, I needed this,” he says.
“I don’t suppose there were baths in the monastery,” Hans says.
Henry shakes his head. “No, of course not.”
“Everyone must have smelled ripe.”
He chuckles a little, a secret laugh. “Yes. But you got used to it quickly enough.”
“So what did they do all day? Just pray, literally that’s it?”
Henry sits back. He looks at Hans from an angle, shadows falling onto the side of his face, hiding half of him. “Pray, mostly. There was some work to be done with herbs. I improved my knowledge of alchemy, which was useful. I also got better at writing. Copied some Latin. Mostly I just had a lot of time to think.”
“Sounds like hell,” Hans says.
“Thinking?”
“Too much of it.”
Henry shrugs. “I haven’t had any time to do any thinking since Skalitz. When I was in there, I didn’t have anything to do but my singular task, and most of the time I couldn’t make progress because of my cover. When I was grinding herbs, when I was praying, I didn’t have to do anything else or be anywhere else. Gave me time to breathe, I think.”
“Oh.” Hans moves his hand under the water. A small wave moves to the surface. A bubble pops between them. The bath maid comes by and drops a handful of herbs into the water. “That doesn’t sound so bad I suppose. I have the same feeling when I’m hunting. A brief sense of calm.”
“Yes, just like that.”
“Although I stand by my earlier statement. Too much thinking is hell, I believe.”
“Why is that?” Henry rises a little out of the bath, his shoulders breaching the surface. Hans’s eyes are drawn again to the stretch marks around his upper arms. He imagines the tightness of the muscle there. How it would feel under his fingertips. Hard, like the flat of a sword. Not like the softness of a girl.
He startles when the bath maid appears behind him, and over his shoulder her arm hovers, and she drops another herb into the water. He waves her away. Henry touches a floating flower and it shifts toward him, the petals still dry.
“I just don’t like being still,” Hans says. “And thinking. I end up just feeling very angry, I think.”
“Angry about Sir Hanush?” Henry asks.
“Yes. Well. Just angry in general.” Hans splashes his hand down onto the soapy water. “Fuck, we are supposed to be having fun. I’m not going to have any fun talking about myself. Tell me more about the monastery. Your new friends. Surely you made some friends, you’re so good at that.”
“Yes, one or two,” Henry says, and falls silent.
The bath maid appears again with more soap, and Hans waves her away again, making a gesture to his mouth as though holding an invisible cup. She leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Alone, finally. Hans’s eyes drop once again to the marks on Henry’s arm.
“One of them was named Antonious. He was actually the one who I was sent in to kill. I didn’t kill him,” he adds after a beat. A bubble pops in the silence that follows, loud in the quiet. He continues, “We did it another way.”
“Of course, you did.” Hans hears something in his voice. The quiet allows it, the gentle movement of the water as they both soak in the soapy and herby tub. There is awe here. He can usually hold it back. But today the air seems as thin as it is steamy, and his voice carries too much through it, carries feeling he would normally hold back. He nudges Henry’s foot with his own under the warm water. Henry meets his eyes. His are very blue in the murky rain filled light that filters in through the cracks in the wooden boards that cover the windows to keep in the steam. ”Tell me more about this friend of yours. What’s he like? Was he involved at Neuhof?”
“Yes. Although he wasn’t one of the band that went murdering. He’s just an ordinary thief, fallen into a bad situation.”
Henry lifts his hand, and drops of water slip over his knuckles to drip back into the tub. He watches each drop fall. Hans swallows. His throat shifts almost audibly.
“So you like him,” he says.
Henry shrugs. “He also didn’t belong in the monastery. So the two of us became friends.”
“You would make friends even in a monastery.”
Henry looks at him from underneath his dark eyelashes. The angle of his stare makes something churn deep in Hans’s belly, as though he’s skipped a step on the way down from the castle. “You would too, I’m sure.”
“Oh, I doubt that. Firstly, I wouldn’t want to speak with any unwashed monks. Likewise, they would smell the sin on me anyway and avoid me. Also, you just…” Hans trails, pretending to be busy popping a particularly large bubble that has formed by his knee. “You just have that way about you. People like you. You know how to make friends.”
“You do too,” Henry says. “You’re friends with me.”
“Only because Hanush forced us together as a punishment and I realized through that that you’re not just some dumb yokel.”
Henry chuckles, a soft sound that seems to trail over the steam in the air, surrounding Hans. “I think we would’ve become friends even if Sir Hanush hadn’t sent us on that hunt.”
“If you say so.” Hans imagines it, the future without the hunt. No Henry to pull him out of the Cumans clutches, no Henry to sit with him in the tavern, no Henry soaking with him in the tub. No one to hit back. No one that thinks about him in any capacity other than “My Lord.” He nudges Henry again under the water and tries to focus on the brush of their skin, but the warm water is too heavy and his movement too sluggish to register any touch. “Henry,” he says. His voice breaks. He clears his throat and starts running his wet fingers through his hair, adjusting some locks that have fallen onto his face. “It gets awful here when you’re gone. I’m telling you, if you’re going to disappear for several weeks again, you must take me with you.”
“I’m sorry,” Henry says. “I didn’t mean to be gone that long. I thought it would be a couple of days at most.”
“What took you? Did Antonious have you fooled for so long?”
“Yes and no.”
The barmaid returns with a pitcher of wine. She pours two cups and sets them on the little table just outside of the tub. Hans waves her out again. Henry says a quiet, “Thank you.”
Hans grabs the cups and passes one to Henry. “Drink up, this is supposed to be our relaxing time.”
Henry drinks deeply. He sets the empty cup back down on the table. Hans nurses his cup, laying back, watching him. After a beat, Henry begins to speak.
His words are unhurried, measured. Hans can clearly see him in the monastery, walking slowly, unrushed for once. No pressing task, no Lords ordering him around, only his one mission that he needs to focus on, and prayer, and quiet contemplation. He can imagine Henry in the white habit, how the white would contrast with his dark hair, how it would make his eyes look. He imagines him and this Antonious huddled together over a book or something. Talking. Becoming friends. His belly churns again. He puts down the cup of wine, then brings both his hands back into the water.
Henry describes Antonious. Dark hair, long and in need of a cut. Cutting, clever eyes. Slender fingers, perfect for pickpocketing. Tall and lean. Kind. Smart. “He poisoned me,” Henry says casually, and later adds, “He nursed me back to health.”
Hans shifts in the water and watches the small waves break against the edge of the tub, evidence of his movement. “And you became his friend anyway. This is a very Henry situation, I must say.”
“That I become friends with people who obviously don’t like me?” he asks with a knowing smile.
Hans smiles back. It’s so easy to do. “That you see something in people that others would just ignore.”
Henry leans back against the wall of the tub. “I like to remain open to possibility,” he says.
“I know.” Hans reaches for the cup again and takes a sip to swallow a solid something that has suddenly lodged itself into his throat. “I know you do.”
.
Hans closes the door to his room. Henry walks to the window and looks down, at the courtyard below, the rain falling softly over the already muddy paths. The back of his neck is wet, and fragrant bath water slides down from his hair in thin rivulets, leaving dark imprints on his hood.
“That was nice,” he says. “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.” Hans sits on the edge of his bed, then throws himself back, sinking into the feather mattress. “Well, are you feeling more like yourself again? Or do we need to go whoring to get Gregor out of your system for good?”
Henry sits beside him, then carefully lays back so they’re side by side. Hans turns his head. Henry’s sunburn peels just a little near his hairline. He notices a healed scar along his jaw, as though he had been punched by someone wearing a ring. He realizes with a little smile that it must have been him, back when they first met.
“This is going to sound odd but I believe Gregor will always be a small part of me,” Henry says.
“As long as we can mostly drown him out with booze and wenches, and the occasional soak in a bath,” Hans tells him.
Henry turns his head. Hans realizes then how close they are. Henry’s breath smells like wine, heavy and warm in the air between them.
“When you said goodbye to Antonious, after you let him go,” Hans says, then pauses, not entirely sure of what he’s asking.
Somehow Henry hears his question anyway. “I told him my name is Henry.”
Hans hears a bird call. He lifts himself up on his elbows and glances out his window. A ray of sunlight has poked through the dense cloud cover. “Oh, thank God. It’s stopped raining. It seemed as though it would rain forever.”
He can feel Henry’s eyes on him, like two piercing daggers. The sense of his gaze skitters across his body, raising goosebumps under his clothes, his skin prickling with awareness. He imagines them in the monastery. The quiet. The white habits. The way Henry’s freckles would look in the colored light coming through the stained glass. He imagines Antonious as Henry described him, the dark hair, the kindness through the shrewd eyes. A peal of hot envy cuts through him like a strike of lightning. He looks down at Henry and says, “I missed you here more than you miss the monastery.”
Henry’s hand moves, brushing against Hans’s side. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
Rainwater slides down awnings, an uneven clatter of drops against the wooden stairs and the ground. Henry’s eyes are very blue in the light from the window.
“If you want quiet and time to think, you have that here,” Hans says.
“Yes.”
“Yes.” Hans lowers himself back onto the bed. It moves slightly as he relaxes his weight onto it. Henry’s hand brushes his again before he moves it away. “And if Gregor is still in there somewhere, he has a place here too.”
Henry is quiet. Hans shifts on the bed. The sound of his hair slipping over the sheets fills the air between them. In the monastery, perhaps this would be one of the sounds that would be in the background of their lives, bodies moving around in a shared room, hair sliding over a pillow, the soft echo of their breathing, in and out, and in and out. He realizes, with some surprise, that this is how it is right now. There is no need to imagine some parallel possibility. Henry is here right now, his breath mingling in the air with his, and the rain has finally stopped.
“If we can’t completely drag him out,” Henry says with a smile. The edges of his eyes crease as he does it. “Gregor, I mean. Will you tolerate him?”
Before the words are out of his mouth, Hans says, “Yes, I will tolerate him.”