Hearth and Kin β Epilogue
The fire had settled into its work.
Two heavy logs, and the flames moving across them with the patience of something that knows it will have its way β not urgent, not fierce, only steady and certain, the way warmth fills a room not all at once but layer by quiet layer.
Through the window, light. Golden, soft at the edges β still carrying the morning's uncertainty, still blurred by the last of the mist dissolving slowly in the first real warmth of the day. Outside, the world was weighing its options: summer's last generosity against the first cool patience of autumn, and the light itself seemed to belong to neither quite yet, hanging between the two like something not yet spoken.
It moved across the room unhurried. Across the floorboards. The chest. Two swords leaning against it. And then across the bed β and across what the bed held: the smooth curve of bare shoulders, bare back, the firm round of backside, a body half-swallowed by the quilt, warm and still and entirely unconcerned with the morning's indecision.
Quiet. Heat. The slow rise and fall of breath.
The beard of his chin found bare skin β lightly, deliberately β and drew itself downward along the line of the spine. Slowly. With the focused attention of a quill moving across paper that does not yet know what will be written upon it, and the hand that holds it does.
Hans's body answered at once.
Gooseflesh ran from his shoulders all the way to his hips and back β small, helpless candour of skin that cannot pretend indifference when indifference is no longer true. In that shiver, in that instant of giving way, everything was present.
His hand moved without his eyes opening. Found Henry's palm in the blind and certain way of something that has made this journey so many times it no longer needs to see the road. Fingers laced through fingers.
Henry followed with his lips. Slower now. The back. The hollow of the spine. The small of it β skin there finer, warmer, quicker to know, and still faintly salt from their lovemaking, still alive with it β and beneath those lips Hans's breathing changed. Deepened. Confessed itself.
He smiled into the pillow. Eyes still closed.
Then β weight. Careful and warm and certain of its welcome. Henry's body covering his, the way something comes home after a long road and finds the door still open. Hans felt his lips at the soft place beneath his ear. And against the curve of his arse β Henry's wanting. Plain. Unapologetic. Simply and entirely there.
Henry, a few inches away, looking back at him β a smile at the corner of his mouth that was not quite innocent and had given up pretending otherwise.
Henry leaned in and kissed him β slowly, with the full warmth of it β and his hips moved, gently, nearly without intention.
Hans let out a sound that couldn't settle between a laugh and something else entirely, and turned his face toward the pillow.
Henry pursed his lips slightly. Considered.
"Blame yourself," he murmured against his neck. "Not me."
Hans turned beneath him β one long, unhurried motion, fluid as a river finding a new course β and his arms came up around Henry's neck and drew him down. Chest to chest. Hip against hip. Henry onto Hans.
And held.
The church door closed behind Godwin with a quiet, hollow sound.
Then stopped, rubbed his forehead, muttered something private and dissatisfied, and went back. Opened the door. Disappeared for a moment into the cool half-dark that smelled of wax and old wood. Came out again. Closed the door. More carefully this time.
The wind came off the fields and brought with it the smell of straw and stubble and morning dew β the smell of a season turning, of summer releasing its hold field by field without ceremony.
On the road between the meadows β a horse, a fine courser, moving at an easy pace. And in the saddle, straight-backed, lean and broad across the shoulders, moving with the horse the way a man moves when horse and rider have long since stopped being two things.
Something eased in Godwin's face.
He walked on β passed the inn at a brisk pace, eyes ahead, moving with purpose β and turned toward the manor.
At one of the outside tables a young man sat watching him go. Dark-haired, strongly built. He had the look of someone whose thoughts had gone somewhere his body hadn't followed.
After a moment his eyes dropped to his bowl β empty, with only a thin ghost of soup left on the bottom β and then across the table to the boy, who sat opposite working through his own with the focused, unswerving dedication of someone for whom a meal is a serious undertaking.
Martin looked away from the road. Down to the ditch's edge, where cornflowers moved in the light air β back and forth, back and forth, entirely at ease with themselves.
Blue. The blue of eyes that hold the whole sky in them.
Martin said nothing for a while. His thoughts were somewhere else. Some other time.
His younger brother looked up from the bowl. Questioning. Mildly reluctant.
Martin rose from the bench.
He walked β straight, no hurry, no hesitation β and Vashek watched him for a moment with the mild curiosity of someone who has learned that his brother's "I'll be back directly" covers considerable ground.
Put his spoon back in the bowl and returned to the only thing that mattered.
"And who is this fine little lord?"
Katherine leaned over the child in Jitka's arms β eyebrows up, eyes wide, wearing the expression women wear when something small and round and entirely perfect has been placed within reach β and Heinrich studied her with grave attention.
And then his mouth opened slightly and curved to a smile β slowly, with a faint air of surprise, as though he too was discovering for the first time what he was capable of β and from his lips came a small, soft sound. A coo, warm and soft, like something trying out its welcome in the world.
Settled herself more comfortably against the bench.
She looked across the well toward the old tree, heavy with small red apples that caught the soft light and glowed like little lanterns hung there by someone who cared about such things.
Mutt, who had been lying at her feet providing warmth with the dedicated purposefulness of a dog who takes his responsibilities seriously, stirred.
He sat up. Fixed his gaze on the child β eyes intent, ears lifted, every part of him gathered into a single point of absolute importance that demanded his full attention.
Heinrich looked back at him.
For a moment they simply regarded each other β dog and child, each belonging to a world that had not yet found the measure of the other β and then Heinrich extended his hand. Small fingers spreading open, offering themselves to the air.
Without taking his eyes off the child.
Katherine laughed β a light, clear sound, like a small bell struck once and left to ring.
From the yard came the sound of hooves.
Voices. Then steps β quick, direct.
Thomas appeared in the garden entrance. His eyes wide.
"My lady." He caught his breath. "Sir Hynek."
Jitka looked at him for a moment without speaking.
Then turned to Katherine.
She settled Heinrich into her arms β a sure, practised motion β rose from the bench, and set off toward the yard at a quick walk.
By the time she passed through the garden gate, she was running.
Dry Devil stood in the middle of the yard.
Road-worn armour, dust on his shoulders. Planted wide, with the easy self-possession of a man who doesn't need to occupy a space because the space arranges itself around him regardless.
When he saw Jitka, something in his eyes softened β quickly, almost imperceptibly, the way a door opens just far enough to let the light in before the hand remembers itself.
For the briefest moment she stopped β only that single hesitation, that single breath β and then held him tight.
Dry Devil's arms came down across her back.
Slowly β the way a man performs a gesture he knows well but has not used in a long time and wants to be sure he still remembers it properly. Then he held her. Drew his hand across her back β once, twice β slowly, carefully, with the gentleness of something that has no precise name but arrives anyway, because it knows where it belongs.
Jitka raised her bright eyes to him.
Katherine was coming from the garden at an easy pace, the child in her arms.
"Uncle," said Jitka, and touched her fingers to her eyes. "Allow me to present Heinrich Capon."
Dry Devil raised an eyebrow.
And at that moment β from above, from the stairs β came Hans's voice:
"Except that his mother calls him Hynek, and has done from the start."
Hans was coming down the stairs a step behind Henry, both of them smiling.
Dry Devil looked at them for a moment without speaking. Then at Jitka. Then at the small one.
He cleared his throat loudly. Blinked β as though something had got into his eye.
"That'll be a bloody fine lord."
The fingers holding the needle moved with quick, practised ease. In, out, in, out, thread by thread β her eyes down on the work. But her ears. The ears of Johanka's mother were straining, carefully and without any appearance of doing so, like leaves turning toward light, toward the bench outside the cottage.
Moved his weight from one side to the other. Let his eyes travel across the old stones by his boots, across the grass pushing up between them, and then, from the corner of his eye, to Johanka.
She was sitting beside him.
Far enough that the gap between them remained visible β that particular gap which is neither distance nor indifference but a performance. A thing displayed for the mother sewing in the shadow and for the neighbours passing on the road.
In the girl's hands β a red kerchief.
New, entirely new β the colour still loud, the cloth yet to soften. Johanka turned it gently in her fingers β folded, refolded, worked quietly between her palms β and looked down into her lap.
"Every week I set something aside β from the wages Lord Hans pays me," Pavel said quietly.
Johanka dropped her eyes shyly to the kerchief. Drew her thumb across it β once, slowly.
Pavel glanced toward her mother.
The mother was sewing. In, out, in, out.
Wearing the expression of a woman to whom none of this is of the slightest concern.
Pavel looked back at the girl beside him.
At the red kerchief in her hands, which he had bought at the fair a few days past.
"When I have saved enough," he said β quietly, but with a steadiness that was not volume but decision β "I will ask your father for your hand."
In the shadow by the wall, the needle paused.
Then went on β in, out β as though nothing had happened.
Gravel shifted and crunched at the gate.
"Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ."
Hynek let out a short, rattling laugh without turning.
"Of course," he said, "every devil gets his priest eventually, come to save his soul."
He laughed and turned to meet Godwin coming across the yard.
Godwin looked at him β with the expression of a man somewhere between a smile and a long-suffering acceptance of the world as it is β and nodded.
"Word has reached us even here," he said, "of how Sigismund finally withdrew from Znaim."
"Indeed," said Henry. "That was welcome news."
"Withdrew?" He laughed. "The way I heard it, that ginger cunt shat himself all the way up to his fancy curls."
The rattling laugh rang across the yard.
Hynek crossed to Katherine.
Looked down at Heinrich in her arms.
"What did Hanush say β about the boy?"
"Nothing yet," he said. "I sent word, but no answer has come."
Katherine, in the act of settling the child back into Jitka's arms, smiled β without turning, the smile of someone who knows they are being spoken of and has no objection to it.
"When the happy news came," she said, "I knew I was needed here more than in Rattay."
Hans spread his arms wide. "I suppose there is nothing for it but to gladden my uncle with a visit in person."
Henry scratched his temple and smiled sideways.
"This time I ride with you."
He turned to Dry Devil and looked at him for a long moment.
"And you, Hynek?" he said. "Where does your road take you now?"
Dry Devil drew his palm slowly across his jaw.
His gaze moved across the yard β across the stone walls, across the castle rock rising above them, across the walkway where the watch paced its eternal back and forth.
"Is my chamber still up there in the castle?"
A shadow fell across the grain of the wood.
Vashek's finger β which had been travelling the rings of the table without much thought, tracing their arcs back and forth as though looking for a path in them, or simply giving his hand something to do β stopped.
Looked into his brother's face.
Martin smiled at him, a little. A little sad.
Martin drew a slow breath. He looked around the village β across the cottages, the road, the well in the square, the fence past which someone was walking without raising their eyes β and breathed out.
"Up you get, then," he said. "Time to move on."
The wind passed quietly through the apple leaves in the garden.
Stirred the forge door on its hinges.
The roof of the bailiff's cottage.
Lifted the red kerchief and let it fall.
Slipped past the dark clusters of elderberries hanging heavy on the bush by the inn.
Raised the canvas of the wagon standing nearby.
Moved gently through dark, wavy hair.
Turned around the church tower.
Brushed the bunch of cornflowers beneath the iron cross.
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