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The first time he’d met the man, he’d covered his nose.
Hans wouldn’t have been keen on any yokel interrupting his supper, but the fact this one dragged a cloud of death and dung into the room with him had him itching for Sir Bernard to throw him out on his ass. He looked like he belonged in a ditch, anyway. Mud was smeared on every inch of his ruddy, round face, flecks of dirt clinging to his long eyelashes and peppering his hair. Hans listened to his sob story from behind his goblet, nose safely tucked away where the air smelled of last year’s vintage.
The milksop had some gall making demands of his betters, and Sir Radzig, out of some misplaced pity, indulged the boy.
His uncle and the beggar lord can dole out second-hand arms to whoever they like, but when their charity case sours the air of his training, he’s under no obligation to be so magnanimous.
Henry of Skalitz looks like a freshly dug up turnip as he shuffles into the training yard, a dented kettle helmet pulled down over his ears and a yellow and black waffenrock belted too tight. Hans scoffs at him as he notches another arrow, eyes flicking from the target to confirm that the smear of dirt sitting over his nose is the same as when he barged into the feast hall.
He’s beyond hopeless. He can tell before Bernard even sticks a bow into his mitts and turns him down range. Every arrow falls well short, and a few even sink into Hans’ target instead. But he doesn’t have the good sense to give up, and he’s perfectly content to waste arrows and poison Hans’ air.
The shamelessness of this boy has him digging into his cheek as his fingers loose.
“Kurva,” Hans hisses, watching his own arrow fly wide of the target.
Henry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to; Hans catches the smile peeking behind the bowstring.
Bernard returns to give his assessment of this yokel’s incomptence and Hans is quick to throw his own barbs in. He doesn’t really pay much mind to what his mouth is saying, but when the blacksmith’s boy challenges him, he doesn’t pass up the opportunity to drive this peasant off from his training yard with his own hands.
Henry lays him out minutes into their first bout in the pen.
Sloppy as his technique is, it’s clear mindlessly swinging a hammer all day has left more strength in his shoulders than Hans can overcome. The bout ends clumsily with Henry bucking the end of his sword against Hans’ crossguard until he stumbles over himself and buckles onto the muddy turf like a newborn fawn. Henry’s after him a moment later, training sword pressing to Hans’ throat as he bends in to savor the victory. Hans wants to blame the night at the baths for his footwork, but he knows he should be good enough to beat this bastard blind drunk.
Henry presses close enough for Hans to see the beads of sweat sparkling in his hair. Hans’ eyes trace a drop as it runs from the ridiculous slope of his brow down his nose, his eyes crossing as it sits there on the tip, threatening to spill onto his cheek.
God, he reeks . If his other arm wasn’t pinned beneath his knee, he wouldn’t feel any shame in pinching his nose, but like this, all he can do to avoid breathing in this bastard’s rotten stench is hold his breath. Henry lifts a brow at the sight of Hans purpling beneath him, cheeks puffed out and eyes squeezed shut.
“Are you alright, sir?” He asks, easing the sword off his throat even as the edges of his mouth impudently curled.
“Don’t worry your mangy head about me, peasant.” He wheezes, eyes stinging as he tried to turn out of his hold. “Now get off me.”
“As you wish.” The foul weight of him finally eases, and Hans could at last trudge away to the baths to try to scrub all the muck and wounded pride this peasant has left him with.
The extra groschen for the flowers in his bath is no object, but Christ, it’s not enough. Even freshly laundered, he still catches a hint of that man’s sweat along the collar.
It’s like he’s branded him.
He leaves the bathhouse with his teeth set and a need to wash his mind out with a few mugs of ale and passable company, but he’s not even half deep into his cups when Henry arrives to soil his mood once again.
“Curfew’s been rung. The alehouse is closing.” The boy is doing his best impression of a guardsman with his hands folded behind his back, but no one’s buying it. Least of all him.
“Nothing closes while I’m sitting here.” He plants an elbow on the table and tips his tankard back. Despite the climbing laughter from the guardsmen or the friendly advice from the innkeeper, Henry’s eyes stay firmly on him. Heat rises above his collar as he spits whatever provocation his mind can supply, but the yokel’s only getting closer.
They’re sharing too much air.
The combination of drink and miasma stirs a frenzy in Hans that ends with him driving his fist into the peasant’s shit smeared face. Or he would’ve if the blacksmith’s boy hadn’t so insolently ducked.
He takes a pop to the cheek, but the spirits in his blood help him sway with the force and stay planted. He won’t disgrace himself again. They trade shots, but there’s no finesse in their movements, and it’s not long before they drop the pretense of jabs and crash into one another, fingers burying into the cloth of each other’s shoulders as they try to force the other onto their back. Hans digs his heels in and puffs foolishly against Henry’s rough linen waffenrock until Hanush’s voice breaks their clinch.
His punishment is pronounced with the usual amount of dramatics, but later when he’s skulking back to the upper castle gnawing on the injustice of spending a hunt with that yokel there’s a treacherous part of his mind picking over the end of their fight.
Hans had tamped his face into that peasant’s shoulder, dragged his nose over his neck, and it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it should’ve been.
He’s not sure when he starts associating Henry with the scent of comfrey and sage more than horse sweat.
He remembers picking out the tang of sage flower on his tunic when he’s carried back from that Cuman’s camp, and when Henry drags him out of that bath, his first gagging breath is laced with poppies. It seems the incorrigible fool has just as much of a talent for saving his hide as tanning it, and every rescue seems to add another flower to the bouquet.
He takes a long pull of schnapps and realizes he’s grown to quite like this squire of his.
The fires of St. John’s eve are burning low and the blood in Hans’ veins has gone cloudy with wine and spirit, but he’s still too damn cold for a summer night. Fortunately, God loves Henry enough to put a furnace in his chest. He figures it can’t be theft to take what a man leaves crumpled on the ground, and if it’s such an offense, maybe he could leave something in return.
Some girls probably shed their dresses on the riverbank, that could do.
Hans’ thumps onto his knees to pick Henry’s coat out of the pile and giggles as an image of Henry bound up in a white linen kirtle lolls through his wine-sopped brain. Wouldn’t that be rich? Henry hitching his skirts so he can bound over the fires with the other fair maidens. Hans wheezes, trying to pull himself up but ends up flopping onto his side as his mind is papered with visions of Henry laced with ribbons. He’s cackling too hard to get a sense for his own limbs, and he gives up and pulls the wool coat tight over his shoulders.
He’d quite like to share his joke with someone, but despite being wrapped up in the scent of him his damned page is nowhere to be found and the glee bubbling in his lungs wilts into drunken melancholy. It’s not right, his mind warbles at the absence. Everything smells of dirt and sage, but he’s all alone. Maybe that’s why he finds himself nosing the collar of Henry’s surcoat as he curls up on the grass.
“They don’t sell it in town if that’s what you’re after.” Henry’s voice startles a very undignified noise out of him. He looks up to see the blacksmith’s son crouched beside him, a dumb grin on his foolish face.
Hans can’t help but return it. The blacksmith’s boy reaches into the pocket of the surcoat and fishes out a green glass bottle.
“Thought it’d be good to try it out on a special occasion.” He pops the cork and holds it up for Hans to sniff. Even with his senses dulled with drink, he knows it’s delightful. Sharp and herbaceous, but it’s not quite right. The linen pulled around Hans’ shoulders is floral, true, but there’s something pungent and earthy mixed in with the bright ichor.
“I can brew you some if you like.” Henry plugs the bottle
“You’re a perfumer now, too?”
“Can’t bring my lord much honor if I’m running around smelling like a cow pat, can I?” His page settles down beside him.
“No, you rightly can’t.” Hans sniffs. “What’s in it?”
“Nothing special, just a little sage and mint.”
“Sagiment.” Hans nods, tapping his chin. “I’ll have to order some.”
Henry chuckles, and something warm flickers in Hans’ chest from earning that sound, like he’s nailed a bullseye from sixty paces.
“You know, I was thinking about going herb picking tomorrow, and there’s usually some fat hares nibbling around this patch I like. Always thought it’d be nice to bring some meat back to stew with the extra herbs, but I don’t have a great hand for archery.” Henry rubs at his knuckles as he casts his eyes back towards the fire. “Would you like to go with me, and we could make a day of it?”
“Going flower picking with my page?” Hans hoots, and he quite likes the look of color rushing to Henry’s ears.
“I’ll pack wine.”
“You better!” Hans shoves at his shoulder. “I won’t be weaving flower crowns with you sober.”
Hans should’ve taken his hangover for the ill omen it was.
It nearly takes him till noon to finish spilling all the good cheer he’d imbibed last night, and he’s half certain, when he stumbles out to the tavern to meet Henry, that the innkeeper will tell him his page left for the woods hours ago. But there he is, dressed in a simple green tunic, sharpening his foraging knife without a care on his face. Hans isn’t sure if he’s delighted that Henry waited for him or put out that he looks perfectly content chatting up the locals.
“You don’t seem to be in any hurry.”
“Afternoon, my lord.” He smiles up at him, and Hans feels like he needs to shield his eyes. He’s almost certain the man outdrank him, but it’s like sunlight’s leaking from his pores.
“I thought you’d be off by now.”
“The herbs aren’t going anywhere, and I’d already wedded myself to the idea of having thyme-roasted hare for supper.”
Hans tries to force down an ale sour belch. “If I’m honest, I’m not sure how useful of a shot I’m going to be for you today.”
“Regardless ‘ll be glad for the company,” Henry smiles, fishing a phial out of his bag that he hands over to him. “Cheers.”
The mixture is downright vile, but it quiets the churning in his stomach enough for him to almost enjoy the feeling of the sun beating down on his back.
A perfumist and an alchemist. What can’t his errant page do?
Be halfway decent with a bow, he remembers as they come upon Henry’s little patch. The ground beneath them is carpeted in clover and lemonbalm with tufts of purple sage and blood red poppies wavering in the sunlight. The place is teeming with rabbits, all of them so busy lazily nibbling the heads off dandelions, Hans is sure a child could’ve come away from this place bagging a half dozen.
“Alright, good hunting. I’m going to see about some Herb Paris, it grows a bit further in.” Henry nods toward the far side of the glade. “I’ll join you after, alright?”
“I’ll have dinner waiting.” He flicks two fingers from his brow in salute as he lets his bow drop from his shoulder.
But even when he’s got his arrow notched, his eyes drift from the hare to Hal’s retreating form.
There’s a tugging urge to follow after him that he tries to redirect toward bagging rabbits as quickly as he can. Won’t do if Henry returns to find him shirking the one task that got him invited to this place. He’s finished sinking his third shot when he hears footsteps creep behind him, and Hans smirks.
Not much of an archer and not much of a thief, are you Hal?
Still, he doesn’t turn curious to see what sort of prank the blacksmith has for him.
“Your money or your life!” A rough voice curdles the afternoon, and Hans winds his bow back toward the source. The scab-faced cutthroat is quicker, though, and his sword slices through his bowstring, the tattered ends snapping against his cheek.
“Sakra, Hal, get over here!” Hans puffs, pulling his short steel free.
“Now!” He shouts as rusted steel screeches against the length of his baselard.
He knocks the footpad in the teeth with the butt of his hunting sword and hears something crack. The bastard curses, spit frothing red around his lips as he sputters around the shards of his front tooth. His ears prick to the sound of steel hissing as it's freed from a sheath and heavy footsteps breaking through the brush, and he whips around prepared for more unpleasant company.
But there’s Henry, green tunic nearly melting into the underbrush and sword held steady even as he pants like he’s run the whole breadth of the Earth for him.
“Took you long enough.” Hans breathes out a sigh of relief.
“Bastard.” The footpad rounds on him, chipped blade swinging for Hans’ head. He manages to duck out of the sword’s path, but his foot catches on a root, and he’s left screaming as dull metal carves into the meat of his thigh.
“Hans!” He’s not sure he’s ever heard his name shouted like that. Fear instead of anger or annoyance. He’d find it rather nice if he weren’t so concerned with trying to stay on his feet.
Henry’s upon the wretch before he can lift his sword, allowing Hans to shuffle back, hand keeping pressure on his gushing thigh. It’s over as quickly as it begins. Henry thrusts his short steel through the man’s throat, and the sounds of struggle die with the wet crackle of sinew and meat. The body drops to the forest floor in a limp heap, and Henry quickly steps over it to hurry toward the mossy furrow where Hans is going to breathe his last.
“Get your hose off, let’s have a look.” Henry rolls up his sleeves. There’s a furious tugging at the ties of his hose and he’s half certain Henry ends up undoing most of them, but when his page rolls down the dark blue wool to examine his thigh, Hans nearly faints. The gash runs along his thigh is nearly a handspan long, and Christ knows how deep, but granted his hose felt so wet with blood he thought he’d pissed himself Henry should send for his last rites..
“You’re lucky, he missed everything vital.” Henry clicks his tongue as he presses a bandage to the wound.
“I’m glad to hear but I don’t think it’ll matter if my cocks still attached if there’s no blood to fill it.”
“Not much risk of losing that much. All the major vessels run here,” Henry drags his palm along the unmarred skin further inward, and Hans goes a little dizzy from the sight.
“Enough with the lesson, Galen, I’d quite like to keep this leg, so what do you have in your bag of tricks that’ll keep it from rotting off?”
“Well…”
“Henry?”
“You’ve caught me a bit light, I’m afraid.” He grimaces, dumping the contents of his pouch into his lap. Wine, bread, honey, buck’s blood, and a wedge of cheese. It looks like he’d packed for a luncheon in the woods.
Well, that’s what he’d told him to do.
“The one time you’re not carrying an apothecary’s stock in that bag.” Hans lets his head thud back against the grass. “God, help me.”
“I thought it’d be best to travel light. Wasn’t sure if you’d get tired of my company and make me chase after game for you.” Henry shrugs. “Not to worry, though. I can manage without an alchemist’s bench.”
He settles Hans’ hand over the bandage before rising to his feet. “Just keep pressure here. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Thank all the saints, he doesn’t venture far this time. Hans tries to ignore the pounding ache in his leg and keep his focus on Henry as he rummages around in the beds of clover. When he returns to his lord’s side, his fingers are full of color and he’s chewing.
“What do you have there?” Hans furrows his brow.
“Chamomille and poppy.”
“Alright…” Hans draws out the word cautiously. “But how is you eating them going to help my leg, Hal?”
“Spit poultice.” He sticks out his tongue to show the mass of red and white pulp. “S’not ideal, but it’ll help with the bleeding until we can get you tended to properly.”
Henry settles between Hans' legs, jaw working as he lifts the blood-soaked bandage. “Don’t make a face. It’s nearly as good as a mortar and pestle.”
“I don’t doubt you’ve got teeth.” Hans wrinkles his nose as Henry sticks another pinch of chamomile petals into his cheek. “I’m just worried about catching something.”
Henry rolls his eyes.
“If my mouth’s good enough for the baker’s daughter, it’ll serve you just fine.” He gives him a puckered smile as he pats his thigh, and Hans almost chokes. It’s too bloody much for him to handle all at once.
Fear, revulsion, and blood churn too near an open wound, and it’s making him feel utterly witless.
“Just gonna mix it with a little honey to keep any infection from taking root, and that should be good.” He digs out the little jar from the pile beside them. There’s a squelching pop as he drags his fingers free, scooping it out into his other palm. The sound of the woods is overtaken by a rushing in Hans' ears as he’s transfixed by the sight of Henry spitting the poultice into his hand.
“I think I’m going to die, Hal.” He croaks.
“Don’t say such things, my lord. I’ll have you right as rain.” The honey between his fingertips glitters gold as he kneads the poultice under his thumb. Oh, he’s dying. He knows it.
Hans hisses as the slimy mash is pressed into his thigh.
The pain lances through his marrow, white hot and revelatory. He tries to buck out of Henry’s grip, but the blacksmith’s hold might as well be iron on his leg, so all Hans can do is fan out his toes and wait for the quaking in his thigh to steady.
“God’s wounds,” the curse sizzles between his teeth.
“Sorry, just give it a minute.” Henry keeps his fingers pressed over the poultice, but his other hand rubs circles into the trembling muscle. He remembers performing the same gesture for his thunder-spooked mare just a week ago. Hans would laugh if he weren’t worried that the pain would have him snap off his tongue, so instead, he takes sipping breaths through his teeth and forces himself to nod.
The acrid sting softens to a steady hot pulse, and Henry seems to read the transition on his face. Gingerly, he hitches Hans’ ankle onto his shoulder so he can wind the bandage around his thigh unimpeded. Any other time, he’d be impressed with the proficiency, maybe ask him what the monks get up to that required education in field dressing as part of their training.
But other matters have arisen that demand Lord Capon’s notice.
“There you go.” Henry pats his thigh, blind to the tent in his braies until it bounces from the force of the friendly gesture. Their eyes meet, and Hans prays he could go back and stop himself from ducking out of that sword’s path. It would’ve been a far more dignified death.
“No shame in it, my lord.” He does an admirable job of not stumbling over the words with another man’s cock so near his face. “I-um I have the same thing happen after battle sometimes. There’s a reason I’ve been favoring long gambesons since Vranik.”
Hans squeezes his eyes shut and tries to will the blood to spill past Henry’s poultice. “Hal, could you please just shut up and let me die.”
“Not a chance.” He can hear the smile lilting in his voice, and confound him, it’s not helping the situation.
“I could help, though, if you’d like.” Hans opens one eye, sure that Henry must’ve been replaced with some bedeviled impostor.
“What?”
“Well, it’d be purely medicinal, of course.” Henry’s eyes meet his without shyness. “You need your humours well distributed to heal properly…if too much blood is pooling away from the wound, then that could be quite detrimental.”
They blink at one another for a moment before Hans hears himself answer.
“Oh, right…that makes sense.”
Henry’s hand drifts up from the bandage to that soft juncture between thigh and groin, but it ventures no further. It takes an embarrassingly long moment for Hans to tear his attention away from the contact to see his page looking up at him expectantly, waiting for an order to proceed.
He clears his throat. “Go ahead…please.”
Hans swears a half smile flashes over his lips before he drops his focus to hooking his thumbs under Hans’ braies, there’s a swift tug and then his cock is out enjoying the summer breeze. This is hardly the first time he’s been on the receiving end of this sort of tender care, but Christ, he doesn’t remember struggling to figure out where to look the first time Magdalena gave him a helping hand.
This isn’t like those other times at all, his mind corrects him, Hal’s just tending to his health like a proper page.
It’s probably best to give Henry privacy while he works, so he tips his head back to the dappled vault of the woods and tries to remember to inhale. Coarse fingers wrap around his shaft and his thigh jumps painfully with the contact. He can’t trace which movement pulls the whimper from his lips, but Henry graciously assumes it’s the latter.
“Apologies, my lord. I’ll try not to cause any further harm.” He withdraws his hand. The absence is so sharp that Hans nearly orders him to put it back, but then he hears the pop of a cork behind him. The scent of cooling blood is blanketed over by comfrey and the pressure that encircles Hans cock returns golden slick and perfect.
“God’s wounds…” He sighs, and Henry takes the shiver in his voice as permission to start moving.
“Buck’s blood won’t do much for a wound, but glad we’ve found some other uses for it.” The words are strung together like one of his usual jokes, but there’s something strange in his voice that has Hans tearing his gaze away from the canopy above.
He’s looking back at him, lips parted and eager as he pumps his fist over Hans’ cock. It’s quite a handsome face, he realizes. It’s puzzling that it’s taken him this long to notice, but maybe he just needed to see Henry with this expression to realize it.
He should’ve looked at him like this from the start.
The blood draining from his brain is clearly eating away his senses, but he supposes that’s to be expected when his humours are being reapportioned.
There’s no hope of going back to looking up at the trees, his eyes are held captive by the sight between his legs. Henry’s ridiculous ears are stained pink, the blush spreading over his cheeks and into his hairline, and when his tongue darts out to wet his lips, Hans has to squeeze his eyes shut to keep his finish at bay.
Father, forgive him. Would it be too much to ask for that tongue to aid in his recovery?
“Is this alright, sir?” He asks, and the sound of his voice overlapping with the wet squelch of his fist has Hans seeing stars.
“Hal, I think it’s best if we drop the ‘sir’ for the time being,”
“As you wish.” Henry’s teeth dig into his lip, but the corners of his mouth still pull into a smile. Teasing bastard. Hans has to ball his fist over his mouth to keep from seizing Henry by the cropped hairs of his nape and forcing those lips where they could serve their betters properly.
The urge fizzles out in his fingers the moment Henry spills more bucks blood over the crown of his cock. The cool oil slithers down his length, leaving its glossy trail as it trickles over his balls.
“Jesus Christ,” Hans hiccups as he watches pearly white bead at the tip. Henry’s fist flutters and twists as it slows on the upstroke, and the motion nearly sends Hans tumbling out of his body. His spine bows back, fingers scrabbling to the grass, digging through to the earth in search of some tether.
“Hal, please! I won’t survive much more of this.”
“I’ve got you, my lord.” He believes him. His voice is so gentle, how can he not?
The fundamental essences of Hans’ body rearrange themselves in a sparkling cascade. Henry's hand coaxes the waters of his heart to spill out into the vessels threading his muscles, and his breath sticks in his throat as he watches his lord stutter beneath him until white dribble out over his hand.
“Better now?”
“Much,” He sighs dreamily. The moments tick by, and he waits for some sense of modesty to rouse him from being so perfectly content splayed out on the grass beneath his page. It’s a long way off yet.
His eyes are half lidded as he watches Henry wipe him off with an extra scrap of bandage. “Do you think I’ll make it?”
He furrows his brow and gives his chin a few scholarly taps. “Well, in my professional opinion, I’d say your odds are good. Just keep that poultice clean until we get back to Rattay.”
“I’m lucky to be in your care.” Hans props himself up on his elbows.
There’s a gentle snap as his page plucks something from the grass beside them, and he rises on his knees to tuck a bright red poppy behind Hans’ ears.
“Anytime, my lord.” He lingers for a moment just long enough for Hans to be sure Henry’s breath smells of flowers too.