craven haven

-

The walls of the Devil’s Den are far too thin.

“Ouch, Henry, be careful! God’s wounds, it’s like you have hooves!”

“What this? It’s just a scratch,” Henry replies, goading him as a distraction while he dabs at the angry, puckering wound upon the tender flesh of Hans Capon’s breast. Hans sits on the edge of Henry’s bed, the blacksmith’s son perches on a stool, hunched over to see in what little light the fire allows. Musa made fine work of the sutures just after the final battle of Suchdol. It was only a matter of keeping it clean and tended now.

“A scratch? I was shot!”

“And you’re bearing it with lordly dignity.”

Henry dips the cloth in the steaming pot by the fire. Hans’s attention flicks down at Henry’s knee between his only briefly before turning his eyes heavenward.

“Almost done. Here, raise your arm.”

He obeys, and Henry carefully winds clean strips of linen around his chest and shoulder to cover the wound that sat in the tricky place between. His hands are thickly calloused, but they are always warm. His handling of Lord Capon is careful and delicate as he presses the strips down. Hans shivers. Gooseflesh prickles across his sparsely haired chest.

Seeing him like this, it is impossible not to think about what happened that night before Henry departed Suchdol with no real hope of returning alive. He still doesn’t know the answer to the question that gnawed at him after their stolen evening in Hans’s room. 

Would he have locked that door and turned around if he thought he would ever see Hans again?

Now here they are again and somehow he is stuck in place. 

“I heard you killed Brabant. What happened?” 

Henry sighs and his eyes dull.

“Found him in the Praguer’s camp, torturing Sam. He’s a traitor. I couldn’t let him walk away.”

His throat dries. He can still feel the meaty resistance against his father’s blade as he plunged it into the Frenchman’s back.

“He yielded but I-”

A hand wraps around his forearm.

“You did the right thing,” Hans says, and the doubt scatters, “did he say anything?”

Henry snorts, a meager smile pulling at his lips, “What do you think? But there wasn’t much substance to it. He just begged. Bargained. Tried to, at least.”

Hans nods, his determination enough for them both.

“Good. I hope Adder enjoyed looking down on that.”

They both share a stilted chuckle at the sentiment. Henry stands and rolls his neck before washing his hands in the basin between their beds.

For how often Hans insists he is a grown man, it is a childish notion. Adder is looking down, is it? If any of them were sure to be burning hell, it was the cocksure Pole.

A silence settles between them. Henry appraises his charge.

Hans’s narrowed gaze drifts downward, his knuckles pressed to his mouth - no doubt turning his own eternal outcome over in his mind.

It would be nice if Adder made it to the gates. After all, if a man can kill the personally appointed arm of the Supreme Pontiff himself - a day before dying, God rest his soul - with his balls blue as the holy mother’s veil, and still shake hands with Saint Peter, then maybe the good lord will overlook other sins. 

Nearer ones.

Hans chews his lip pink and his shoulders sag. Strands of golden hair fall across his forehead. He is - is precious the word? Precious when perplexed. And when he is having a tantrum. And when he revels with firelight dancing in his eyes. Capon’s gaze flicks up to him and Henry knows he’s thinking the same thing.

They might very well burn.

Henry cannot remember when Hans became the center of everything - only that it began with a simple order: keep him safe. From bodily harm, from poor decisions, from destructive boredom. Then from fear. From worry. Pain. Loneliness.

Maybe it happened little by little. Maybe it was stoked in him all at once that day they were ripped apart in the cells at Trosky. When Henry could hear Hans screaming down the hall. Begging not to be left alone in that black little cell.

Henry reaches down and lifts his chin to better see Hans’s face. How fair his lord is. Color deepens in the soft skin of those cheeks under his watch. The perfect tip of his nose pertly rises, spared by the privilege of pulled punches, no matter how many fights he picked with the local peasantry whenever he didn’t get his way. 

And what bloody use does a man have for such long eyelashes? Pretty and curling as a calf’s.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little,” Hans looks askance, bashful under Henry’s soft scrutiny. He clears his throat.

“But it’s nothing really,” 

Henry swallows. Something stirs at the sight of Hans looking lost and - future holdings and titles beside - so powerless.

“Henry?”

He leans down and kisses his Lord Capon, their quivering and half-held breaths intermingling before tasting one another. Hans’s palms are warm through the linen of his shirt, gliding up and around Henry’s tanned neck. Any hesitation vanishes. Hans rakes his fingers through Henry’s hair, down the back of his neck - earning a throaty growl.

“Come,” Henry says, taking his lord’s hand and lowering himself on the bed. 

It would always be this way, would it not? Secreted and in the dark. Cloistered by dusty, gapped planks holding up the rotten thatch above them and with long black shadows cast by a fire. The only light that could be shone on these affections. 

Still, even in these conditions, the sight of Hans crawling to him makes him painfully stiff. His weight is trivial when he finally leans atop his loyal bodyguard. The way Hans kisses him is somehow so arrogant. So practiced and certain. A diabolical chuckle rumbles from his chest when a perfectly placed nip right beneath Henry’s jaw makes him buck.

Hans straightens up just to smirk down at him, the bastard. Henry grips his thighs, hands sliding up their firm shape. Capon could never enjoy having the upper hand - he has to gloat too - gloat and bask in the sight of his lap dog panting, eyes black and half-lidded. 

He doesn’t notice how purposeful the roughened grip around his hips suddenly is.

“You should see yourself,” he barely manages to say before squawking like a hen as Henry unseats him and traps him to the bed.

“Ahh, damn it, Henry, you oaf!” he whines, “my shoulder!”

Hans looks up and his scowl cracks. His brows lift, breath catching, lips parting. 

Above him, Henry - gloriously proportioned by a lifetime of hauling sacks of grain and swinging hammers - stretches to peel off his shirt. He watches shamelessly for every flex of the muscles of his chest and arms. His stomach tenses as he fights with his clothing. A dark trail of coarse hair spans from his navel to the hem of his hose. Hans licks his lips. Henry is already settled between his lord’s legs - knees spread, unyielding.

Before he can make another smart comment, Henry’s hands are planted solidly on either side of Hans’s head. His expression is focused, hungry - maybe a little irritated. Gone is the dog. Here is perched a less courteous beast. 

Then, something small swings into view, close enough to tickle Hans’s nose. A dark shape, no larger than a groschen. Hans catches it between his fingers, brushing his thumb over it. Henry swallows and closes his eyes.

“Archangel Michael,” Hans whispers, turning the scapular over in his hand. The icon is crudely embroidered in white thread on a plain woolen square. He bites his lip, holding the token up between them, and squeezes one eye shut. He snorts. There is a wistfulness in the brief quiet between them as he studies Henry.

“An uncanny likeness,” he says at last, grinning up at him with all the vexing boyishness that would see Hanush denying him his inheritance for at least a decade more.

“Right. Enough talk out of you,” Henry growls, hiking Hans’s legs around him and leaning in for another kiss. 

They must not waste time. Every moment they share now is bought with tomorrow’s anguish and an eternity of penance. 

Audentes. They dare.

–

Zizka raises an eyebrow at Katherine as he sips his freshly topped-up ale, swallowing it with a satisfied sigh. Across from him, Hynek - the Dry Devil - slams his dice cup down on the board much harder than necessary, sending ripples through every cup on the table.

“But did you not already see to young Capon’s wounds? I thought Musa had...”

“Henry can manage it, I’m sure,” she replies, her words dismissive and smiling.

“But wouldn’t it-”