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Hans and Henry watch Lady Jitka and Henrich depart Pirkstein together: Hans a nervous wreck, and Henry amused beside him. Hans has made sure that his wife and son are traveling with a full retinue of guards, not including the men that Lady Jitka’s father had sent along besides, and Henry wagers that there won’t be a safer pair on the road in all the land. It doesn’t matter, because Hans frets, especially over his boy.

“You’re like a mother duck,” Henry chides quietly, love warming his voice.

“I will throw you into the river,” Hans snaps, without force, sounding like he’s about to cry. His nose is slightly red and scrunched, like it used to get when he was young and about to throw a tantrum. His eyes are locked on little Heinrich, who is chattering nonstop to everyone around him even as he disappears into the distance. “Should I have gone? I should have gone.”

“You said yourself that you were needed here.” Henry smiles at him. “And my lady’s father isn’t overly fond of you.”

“Yes, well.” Hans clears his throat loudly. “Jitka was right. Heinrich should know his grandfather.” He glances at Henry. “And you say the roads are safe enough?”

Henry kindly decides to tease Hans about his misty eyes later, and nods. “They are.”

“You'r e sure?”

“I'm sure.” Henry reaches out and clasps Hans on the shoulder. If they were alone, he would run a hand soothingly through his yellow hair. In a quieter voice, he adds, “I wouldn't risk our boy.”

Hans relaxes, as if Henry’s word alone is enough to calm him. It’s humbling. “I know you wouldn’t,” he sighs. He waits until his wife and son are gone from sight, before spinning around with a groan. “I told you I would be a wreck the whole time. You’re not allowed to become sick of me when I become unbearable.”

Henry snorts, and follows Hans as he walks back through the courtyard. “I’ve borne worse for you, for less reward.”

“A reward, am I?” Hans tosses Henry a playfully stern glare. “Don’t you start. I already intend to have you on every surface, in every room, until Jitka returns.”

Henry barks out a surprised laugh, and feels himself blush like a boy. “That’ll have the servants talking.”

“I’ll give them the day to wander the town and they’ll love me. None have ever had such a kind, loving master.”

“Nor have I,” Henry says, low and intimate, just to watch the blush climb up the back of Hans’s neck in return.

“Take care not to forget it,” Hans replies, in what would be a nobleman’s command to anyone else. To Henry, it’s a tease and a promise.

Later that evening, they take wine in the lord's chambers, talking long into the early hours. They haven’t had many nights in Pirkstein like this, with just the two of them. They’d been young together in the country and on the road and in various perils, but Hans had been married so quickly, and it hasn’t been just them since. 

Henry luxuriates in it, observing the man that Hans has become. Even with less than half his inheritance, he’s every inch a lord, no longer wearing his title so carelessly. Henry had always known him to be capable, and just, and proud, suited to command and to leadership, even if he would have denied it at the time, and even when others, including Hans himself, could not see it. No one could deny it now. 

Hans stops talking and gives Henry a quizzical little smile. “What’s that look of yours for?” 

He’s illuminated by the light of the hearth at his back, setting his golden hair ablaze in a halo, with his face flushed with wine and high feeling. He glows, almost too bright to look at directly, like a fire sprite of the old pagan religion.

“For you,” Henry sighs, too far gone to say anything but the truth. “Like the rest of me.”

Hans’s smile does one of Henry's favorite transformations. It melts, becoming somehow both as shy and wanting as a lad, and as hungry as a wolf; a spoiled boy’s desires, with a lord’s appetites. He walks to his bed and sits upon it, and with both a plea and an order in his voice, whispers, “Come here.”

Henry goes to him without thought, and falls into his arms. He presses Hans back against the pillows, and they kiss and sigh and strip each other bare in the dark. It’s very much like the first time they had each other, at least to Henry’s memory: firelight in the room, soft touches and hushed words, warm, gentle. It’s sweeter without the aching hunger, and without the edge of fear. As Henry takes Hans apart under his hands and his mouth, and as Hans whispers greedily for more, Hal, more above him, he thanks God for the greatest gift he has been given, beyond Hans himself: the gift of time. 

Afterwards, Henry lies with his head over Hans’s heart, listening to the steady beat of it, as Hans runs his fingers lazily through the waves of his hair. It’s getting a bit long for Henry’s taste, though Hans has told him in no uncertain terms that he might kill him if he cuts it shorter. 

“I want you so badly,” Hans says, in a sated murmur.

Henry hums, and glances up through his lashes. “So soon for you,” he croons, a cruel jape. “My lord usually needs more time before – ”

Hans yanks his hair petulantly, and Henry laughs. “Insolent. When I’m trying to be sweet. I meant that I want you all the time. You don’t deserve me.”

“Aye, I don’t,” Henry agrees, docile and easy. He begins to press his lips to Hans’s chest, kissing lazily and without expectation, until Hans is sighing again, and returns to stroking his hair.

“Will it ever be enough, do you think?” Hans muses. “I suspect I’ll go to my grave still on fire for you.”

“I’m honored that my lord is on fire now.” Henry nips lightly, and Hans huffs out a little pleased breath. Henry doesn’t like talk of death and graves, but he humors Hans, and is honest. “I’ll be on fire for you long past that.”

Hans huffs out another breath, more amused. “A poor joke. We’re not burning in hell for this, Hal.”

“I know,” Henry agrees, because it’s true. He’ll burn for plenty of other sins, but not this one. “That’s not it. If I died and you called me back, I think I’d stand up again. That's all.”

Hans suddenly holds Henry's head more tightly against his chest, and his heartbeat is louder against Henry’s ear. “That’s all,” Hans repeats, voice thickening a little. “You beast.”

Henry smiles, and nips at his skin again.

Hans makes a frustrated sound. “I want to scream for you. I want you to scream for me.”

“Later,” Henry promises him. He rolls off of Hans and props himself up by the elbow, chin in hand. “We can get away, ride out for a day and find our meadow – ”

Hans shakes his head, his eyes two greedy embers. “I would have you scream my name in this bed. I’d have your cry echo through the whole of these halls, day and night, as it should.” He reaches out to tangle his fingers in the wiry hair on Henry’s chest. “I’d have everyone know who brings their lord such joy.”

Henry shivers with delight at the idea of being kept in his lord’s bed, even as he takes Hans’s hand in his own and kisses it. “So we kindly ask the servants to lie to Lady Jitka when she returns?”

“Oh, pish. You're no fun at all.” Hans waves his free hand vaguely, as he does when he’s impatient and dismissive of obstacles. “No one would tell her. Well, her chief handmaid, maybe. But she’s gone along with her anyway, and I doubt my lady wife will be gossiping with the sculleries who mop up our – ”

“Hans.” Henry loves Hans with every breath in his body, and with every beat of his sinning heart. He also still finds Hans to occasionally be foolishly infuriating. His blindness to the lower servants is especially irritating. “Careful. It would serve you right if she had her own lover amongst your servants.”

“Ha!” Hans looks pleased at the idea. “I almost wish it, for her sake. Heinrich is mine to the bone and that’s enough for me.”

Henry should scold Hans and remind him that one heir is not secure enough. But Henry has an eager, greedy heart, and can't bring himself to say so. Hans has not visited his wife's bed in more than a year; Henry knows this, because after the last time, Hans had slipped into Henry's room, huddled in his clothes, and had spent the night in Henry's arms, his face pressed to Henry’s neck and his breath shaky, even in sleep. 

“It’s enough for me, too,” Henry says, as if his feelings could ever matter. But he thinks of Heinrich, with his father’s laugh and his father’s smile, and his brown hair – from his mother, but sometimes, it’s so easy to pretend. “He's the only son I'll ever have.”

The smile Hans gives him has his heart in it, and the kiss he gives him is more loving still. And then Hans snorts and laughs against Henry’s lips, pulling back with a wicked grin. “Well,” Hans says, “the only son that you know of.”

A thousand thoughts, usually so carefully controlled, fly out of Henry's head like a flock of birds released from a cage. They fly to Talmberg; they fly to a night a lifetime ago, when Henry was still so raw, so unsure, so easily led; and they fly to a boy that Henry has never seen.

Hans, even as his most loose and thoughtless, knows Henry better than anyone. He sees the look on his face, pauses, and understanding and regret breaks over his expression. “Oh no, Henry, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right,” Henry lies. Such lies are some of his lesser sins. “I’m not – it’s all right.”

Henry isn’t even sure that the boy is his. It’s arrogant of him to assume so, and Henry certainly doesn’t wish it. He hates to think of any child growing up and learning, through gossip or whisper, that he has been a bastard at his father’s table. And worse still, learning who had sired him: a bastard boy himself, with nothing.

To Henry, the truth of his birth had been shattering, and he’d had two fathers of whom he could be proud. It would be so much worse with Henry himself as the alternative.

And yet…somewhere, there might be a boy with Henry’s eyes. He must be nearly seven years old now. Is he learning to ride on his own pony? Is he starting to lose his teeth? Is he learning to swing a wooden sword, or learning to spell his name in Czech and in Latin? Who is teaching him? Is he loved? Is he held?

Henry pulls himself back from the abyss of his thoughts. It’s not an easy thing to do. 

“It’s not all right,” Hans says, firm and contrite. “I can’t bear how sad it makes you.” Hans leans in and presses his lips to Henry’s collarbone. “Seems a high price to pay for a night of pleasure. Not that I blame you, of course. Can’t say I wouldn’t have jumped at the chance myself.”

Henry brings a hand up to run through Hans’s hair, nodding slowly. “She was kind to me.” And then, perhaps because he’s still loose from pleasure himself, and held in the warm circle of Hans’s affection, Henry says, without thinking: “I don’t know if I wanted it, though.”

Hans frowns at Henry’s chest, and then looks up. “You never told me that.”

Henry frowns back at him. “You never asked.”

The two of them are quiet for a moment, in a strange shared cloud of puzzlement. It’s never occurred to Henry to think of Lady Stephanie in such terms, then or now. 

“I couldn’t…I didn’t seek it out,” Henry admits.

Hans sits up, his frown deepening. “Well you couldn’t have bloody well told her no. What if she’d betrayed you in her displeasure?” Hans’s eyes are darting about in agitation, as if he’s putting the answer to a riddle together word by word. “You'd have been in grave danger if you’d been caught, and she…what, ensnared you?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Henry says, cringing; although something odd jumps in his chest in the face of Hans’s growing anger. It isn’t like Hans to be jealous over the women in Henry’s past.

And Hans is angry. “And her,” he hisses, spitting the word, “using you to ease her own loneliness like a breeding stud.”

“She was lonely,” Henry insists, in defense of a woman he’s sure never thinks of him. He realizes that he’s never talked about it at this length before. It feels…freeing, in a way he hadn’t expected. “You can’t imagine how sad she was. I don’t think she would have thought of it that way.”

“A thin excuse,” Hans snaps, looking both haughty and disdainful even while naked. It’s so endearing. “Is it worse to be thoughtless to those in your charge or to act with dishonor towards them?”

Understanding quiets Henry’s discomfort. Hans is many things, but he is mindful of his duty to those in his protection, and to Henry most of all. “That’s a question I leave to the nobility, my lord,” Henry says, fond and soothing. “And it must be different for ladies.”

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but not concerning you.” Hans still scowls, clearly determined not to be soothed. “Jezebel,” he mutters to himself. “Seductress. The danger was as much to you as it was to her. More so, with her acting the part of…of Potiphar's wife!”

“Hans.” Henry tries not to sound amused, and fails. “I’m no maiden in need of defending.” He isn’t. He shouldn’t be enjoying himself as if he is one. But it’s hard not to bask in his lord’s care, no matter how silly. Even when…when some part of Henry, some deep hidden rawness, is slowly relaxing, after being curled tight in a ball. He isn’t sure what to make of it.

In the old days, Hans would have made a show of displeasure for hours on principle. Now, his frown eases, and he stops staring daggers at a woman he can’t see and looks back to Henry, examining him in that mixture of affection and appraisal he does so well. “But you did like it, at least?”

Here is a question that Henry has never even asked himself. Henry remembers his surprise, his shock, and the naive flattery of it, and of course the pleasure that came later; he remembers fear and unease, too, and the general sense of being caught in a river’s current and, powerless, letting it take him where it might. He remembers how dark the days had been, so soon after Skalitz; how desperate he was for gentleness. 

“I don't know.” Henry says honestly. “It was all…tangled up back then.”

Hans bites the inside of his cheek. He has always hated problems that he can’t fix. “And now?”

Henry melts. He just can’t help it, where Hans is concerned. “And now I have it every day. Are you not a lovely thing that uses me for your pleasure?” 

Hans blushes, blotchy over his cheeks. It’s encouragement and temptation both, and the warmth in the room takes on a new shape. Henry leans closer. “My cruel lady,” he murmurs. “Aren’t you?”

Hans’s eyes darken with obvious, pliant lust, and his blush deepens. He's always liked games. Henry likes them, too, though only if Hans is his prize at the end.

“If I were your lady,” Hans says, a little breathless, and then pauses, swallowing. Sometimes he has to ease into what he wants; sometimes, he needs Henry to take command and make him say what he wants. Henry waits to see which it will be. “I would be very cruel to you.”

The room tilts a little, and Henry’s head swims, as if from too much wine. “Aye, you would be.”

“I’d call for your service at all hours and command you to hold my horse, and pick up after me.” Hans runs a finger down the line of Henry’s neck, landing at the dip of his collarbone; he presses in, where the flesh is tender. “You’d kneel for me too.”

Hans’s lips are still ruddy from Henry’s kisses. Henry stares at them. “What else?”

“Well, if my lord husband was away, and neglecting me…who knows?” Hans hooks his finger under Henry’s chin, and lifts his head up. Blue eyes meet blue; both hazy, and nearly purple in the firelight. “Would you deny me?”

“How could I? I wouldn’t dare.”

Hans looks satisfied. He sits back, and Henry feels the loss of his touch keenly. “I think we should explore this idea…tomorrow.”

Henry sways closer still, caught in the heady pull of Hans. “Tomorrow?”

His voice is breathier, and more disappointed, than he intends. Hans catches the tone, and smiles indulgently. “Poor boy,” he sighs, as if truly sorry. He presses his finger into Henry’s mouth; Henry bites it. “You’ll have to wait.”

-

The next day, Henry wakes up with every sense alert. He stares at the ceiling of his room, instantly aware of every sound and smell, and the lightest sensations. It’s either the feeling of a hunter finding his mark, or of the prey being hunted; either way, it overwhelms.

Not that Hans has given Henry any reason to feel this way. Henry barely sees him. All day, Henry goes about his duties and slowly starves to death, subsisting on mere glimpses of Hans, and receives nothing but a few pleasant, distracted murmurs of “Hello, Henry,” as if he were any other man in Rattay’s service. Henry doesn’t even know what Hans is planning, if he’s planning anything at all. Maybe he’s only teasing. Maybe he’s forgotten all about it. It doesn’t matter, because Henry is drawn tighter and tighter, hour after hour, like a poorly schooled minstrel’s lutestring, ready to snap.

Very slowly, beneath his growing agony, Henry starts to realize that the servants are disappearing. Hans graciously gives the kitchen girls and maids permission to go to town for the day, which Henry learns when he overhears two of them giggling over their kind, handsome lord; Hans sends his scribe to the upper castle on an errand, and the scribe tells Henry so with a frazzled look, as if Henry has the power to lighten his workload; and Hans encourages the castellan to visit his pregnant daughter, and the man passes Henry at the gate and shouts a blessing for their lord as he goes. 

By early evening, Pirkstein is emptier than usual, and though Henry has not been summoned, and has hardly been looked at throughout the day, he knows where he belongs, and where he is expected. 

He walks directly to his lord’s chambers, with an undercurrent of anxiety pricking his skin; it's not fear, precisely, and it's not anticipation. It’s not even, wholly, the hunter and the hunted. Beyond any of that – perhaps most of all – Henry feels a stumbling, almost boyish shyness, as if a lad from the stable has lent him his own untried heart. 

Henry knocks. 

Hans sounds bored, even muffled through the heavy wood. “Enter.”

Henry opens the door, and his legs almost buckle.

Hans is sitting on his bed, reclining back on one arm, and dressed in a woman’s gown. It’s very fine, dyed in Rattay’s colors of marigold-yellow and black, and drapes to the floor. Hans is lazy and languid, drinking wine with disinterested ease and not even looking at Henry, as if he’s far beneath a noble’s notice. 

Henry stumbles a step further into the room, feeling like he’s taken a solid clout to the head in the training yard. He doesn’t think the gown is Lady Jitka’s. Would it be more perverse, or more wonderful, if it were? 

The gown hugs Hans’s body, molded to his chest and tight across his strong shoulders and arms; it shows off his neck and his collarbone, and every long lithe line of him is on display even more than usual. He’s beautiful in it, and unfairly so, as graceful and tempting as he is in armor, or when he's bare in Henry’s arms. Henry’s eyes can’t stop drinking in every detail: the buttons that would take Henry’s clumsy fingers too long to undo, the front laces that Henry’s strong hands could snap, and the skirts, hugging the curve of Hans’s hips and hiding the rest of him, offering the suggestion of his shape beneath without the gift of it.

Her hair is uncovered, Henry thinks, in a bout of madness. It should only be uncovered for her husband.

Hans drains the last of his wine from the goblet, and glances at it with a small sound of displeasure. Then, he holds it away from his body, locks his eyes onto Henry’s, and drops it. It clatters on the ground.

“Pick that up,” Hans orders.

Henry obeys. He closes the door behind him and crosses the room, snatching the goblet up as quickly as he can. As he hands it back to Hans, careful not to let their skin touch and doing his best to keep his gaze respectful, his heart beats faster, as if warning him of some danger. But what else is he to do, when given a command?

Hans eyes him, either calculating, or annoyed, or both, Then he smirks, and drops the goblet again. This time, it lands right at his feet, where the skirts of his gown are pooling. “Clumsy boy,” he complains, eyeing Henry with distaste. “Fetch it for me properly.”

Some defiance twists in Henry's gut at the infuriating voice, so spoiled and childish. He kneels anyway; let no one say he isn’t dutiful. But as he reaches out, he feels Hans place a hand atop his head, holding him in place. It’s not a tender touch. It’s presumptuous, in the way one would touch a dog, or a necklace. 

“What am I to do with you?” Hans pushes against Henry’s head just slightly, with hardly any force. It’s light, and could be mistaken for a suggestion; but it isn’t. Henry doesn’t fight as Hans guides his head closer, until Henry’s cheek presses to the soft wool of the gown, cushioning Hans’s knee beneath. “Fumbling and ill-bred. Are you at least loyal?”

Henry closes his eyes. “I am.”

Hans scoffs. “Any dog would say so.” Henry hears a rustle of fabric. “I wonder.”

Henry’s eyes fly open in time to see Hans drawing his skirts up with one hand. It’s torturously slow; Henry gets a glimpse of a pale ankle, then the curve of a calf. He realizes, all at once, that Hans is completely bare beneath the gown; and when he swallows audibly, his throat clicking, Hans hums above him.

“Would you please your mistress?” Hans asks. The fingers in Henry’s hair are gentle claws, and they urge him closer. 

Henry closes his eyes, caught in that river’s current. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Hans’s voice is a cruel whisper. “And if I wish it?”

Henry bunches the wool in his hands, and dips beneath the skirts.

Hans gives a pleased chuckle, but Henry is already at work, running his lips up, up, up, along the calf, to the knee, along the skin of the inner thigh. In this muffled place, already over warm, he presses his face to the hot skin and kisses his way up, open mouthed and lingering. He reaches the apex of the thighs, knows without looking from the scent of Hans alone, heady musk and sweet tang; and he rubs his cheek along the line of coarse golden hair, opens his mouth, and takes Hans inside.

Hans’s sigh is lost in the obscene wet sounds of Henry’s mouth, and Henry’s own pained groan. He takes Hans in deeply, relaxing his throat on the first try, as he’s learned to do, pliant and pleasing. Though it's a cock he sucks, Henry imagines that it's a woman’s cunt: his lady's, sweet and dripping for him. He has no right to touch her, and he courts death to do so. He’s growing hard, so hard that his vision swims with bursts of light behind his closed eyelids, and he kneads the lean, perfect thighs in time with the movement of his mouth and throat; warm, firm with muscle beneath soft skin, steel beneath silk, just like Hans’s cock, and just like the rest of him.

Then, Hans breaks through everything. “Enough.”

Henry sits back, obedient, the skirts falling away, and looks up. Hans is flushed above him, and his eyes are heavy, but he’s schooled his expression into disinterest and distaste.

“I’m tired of you,” Hans says. He pushes Henry with the toe of his shoe. “Go away.”

Henry rises without a word. He doesn’t even wipe his mouth. He bows respectfully, eyes downcast, and makes to leave the room. He should be glad for the escape and not aching to stay, dismissed by the cruel and beautiful creature on that bed, filled with cruel and beautiful intentions.

Then, just as he’s reached the door, Hans calls to him, warm and throaty. “Henry.”

Henry turns at once, like a dog pulled on a lead.

“I changed my mind.” Hans holds out a hand, elegant and expectant. “Lock the door, and come back.”

Henry turns the latch at once, and then frowns. It wasn’t even locked, Henry thinks. Risking us both, so carelessly, and for what? But he returns and stands before Hans, ready for orders and ducking his head.

Hans observes him thoughtfully. “Strip.”

Henry meets Hans’s gaze, showing defiance in his surprise. “Why?”

Hans’s nostrils flare, and he narrows his eyes. “Because I command it. Don't make me ask again.”

It would be madness to obey; but it would be madness not to. Henry’s fingers find his laces seemingly of their own accord. Perhaps he should undress slowly, for Hans’s amusement, but he does it fast, in a flurry of fabric; he leaves his shirt for last, and when he bunches the linen in his hands and tosses it to the side, he feels his last defenses ripped away.

Hans stands, rising from the bed with a serpent’s grace. He steps closer, his eyes raking over every inch of Henry’s nakedness. Henry feels appraised, like a pig brought to market. His cock is still hard, and it stands proud; Henry sees Hans linger on the sight, just a fraction longer than anywhere else, and feels some small measure of triumph. 

Hans runs a hand lightly down Henry’s bare chest. “I could have you hanged,” he murmured. “If anyone were to catch you here, in my chambers, it would be your death. If I cried rape, who would believe you?”

“No one, my lady,” Henry answers. “I’m no one.”

“Just so,” Hans purrs. “The same as any horse in my stable. Lower, even.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Henry says. It’s a poor protest, and useless anyway.

“No,” Hans agrees, in a murmur. He circles, pushing Henry along, until Henry's back is to the bed. “But you see, I’ve always been fond of my horses.” His fingers dig in, those gentle claws again. “I would see how this one might be ridden.”

He pushes lightly, and Henry falls back onto the bed. Hans climbs over him, smiling his light, bored smile, and straddles, the skirts draping over both of them and hiding their nakedness from view; Henry feels their skin pressed together, and can only imagine the tangle of limbs, the freckled skin, the places where Hans is softest –  

“We shouldn’t,” he gasps, one last try, as if he means a word. “Your husband – ”

“No,” Hans agrees again. He takes Henry’s cock in hand, and Henry whimpers – he can’t see between them, the skirts are in the way, he wants to see – and lines himself up. “But it’s what I wish.”

Hans has prepared himself, and he takes Henry’s cock inside easily, his body wet and hot, and Henry moans and bucks up. He hasn’t felt a woman’s cunt in many years, but this dripping tightness is exactly what it’s like. It must be. Hans rides Henry selfishly, slow and roiling at first, barely a canter, and throws his head back with a mighty groan. 

“Oh, I’ve needed you,” Hans sighs. “I’ve wanted this. I’m sick of being untouched.”

Hans won’t even look at him, as if Henry doesn’t matter; as if this is a game, a perfect, cruel game of pleasure with Henry caught in the middle. Hans moves faster, his thighs pumping, chasing his need, rearing above Henry and using him like a device, like a toy. Henry tries to reach out, to grasp Hans’s waist, to clutch his legs, hidden from him by wool, always hidden – but Hans bats him away, like you would a fly, his head still thrown back, eyes closed. 

The grinding heat builds and builds, and it’s mocking. It’s the mockery of a highborn lady, presumptive, spoiled, and selfish, and so beautiful that an angel would fall for the chance to serve, and finally Henry can’t stand it, this agonized pleasure, one moment longer. He growls, very low, and very drawn out, and it rumbles through both of them. Hans gasps a little, breaking that shell of arrogance, and glances down, meeting Henry’s eyes at last. And then, as if he’s only amused, as if he feels nothing, he smirks. “Easy, boy.”

Henry snaps.

He rears up and seizes Hans by the throat, and flips both of them over, slamming Hans onto his back. Hans sucks in a shocked breath, the skirts bunching up and revealing all of him, and Henry doesn’t give him time to recover; he hooks one leg over his shoulder, holding Hans open, and starts pounding into him, a bruising pace that shakes the bed.

Hans cries out, pinned by Henry’s hand at his throat, powerless to do anything but take. His eyes are huge, his mouth hanging open, his body jerking with the force of Henry’s thrusts, spread wide, on display, the glorious tight heat of him growing tighter still, welcoming the violence of Henry’s intrusion. 

“Yes – ” Hans gasps out, stuttering, breathless, helpless. Henry’s lady, debauched by his cock, with her cunt stretched out for him, filled with him. “Yes, yes, Henry – ”

“Whore,” Henry growls out, and Hans wails and writhes, cock leaking. “You wanted this.”

“I did, I did –”

“Didn't care if it killed me. Your kind are all the same, taking and using.” Henry shoves his thumb, hard, against the edge of that wet hole, swollen and pink where his cock spreads it, and Hans moans and clutches at the hand on his throat without strength. The dear hole flutters and spasms in time. “But weak for me, eh? Couldn't help being a hungry, grasping slut.”

“Oh.” Hans tosses his head; a denial, a confirmation. “Oh, please – ”

“If your lord husband could see you,” Henry snarls, harsh and cruel, and Hans shakes his head desperately, cock leaking more. “Who else has had this cunt – ” He punctuates the word with a savage thrust, and Hans chokes on his moans, high and splintered. “The boys in the stable? The guards at your door?”

“No – one!” Hans can hardly get a word out. Henry stops pounding, presses himself flush down, and starts rutting, hard and deep, trapping Hans’s cock between them and smearing the head on their stomachs. “Only you!”

Henry’s mind is tumbling away; it’s in the air, galloping fast. Every color in the room is sharpening, and he can read every inch of Hans, every staggered breath, every ripple of pleasure wrung from his body. “I’ll put a bastard in you,” Henry grits out, merciless. He’s never wanted anything more. “What then? What will your lord husband do, when you swell up with my boy?

“Your boy,” Hans wails, high and hysterical. His body is contouring, twisting, arching, pinned like a trophy. “Your boy, yes, inside me, give me your boy, your boy – !” 

Henry dips even closer, holding Hans in place, until their lips are almost touching. He gives that beautiful throat one light squeeze, and watches Hans crumble. “What will you do for me?”

“I’ll do anything!”

“Your husband?”

“Anything! He's nothing! I’ll kill him for you! I’ll –”

Henry imagines it so vividly that it becomes real, given form and shape: his boy, with his dark hair and his bright eyes, undeniably his blood, and his lady, his Hans, swelled with his boy, bearing his boy – for Henry, and Henry loved by them both – 

He surges down and kisses Hans, wet, deep, and Hans makes a sound of desperate dying, yielding to Henry completely. 

“We'll fool him,” Henry groans, between kisses that consume his lady’s mouth. “You’re mine. This child is mine, and so are you.”

“Yours,” his lady weeps, against Henry’s mouth. Henry kisses her and kisses her, in time with the thrusts of his cock, punching out the needy, perfect moans and swallowing them.

The pleasure is growing – cresting – shocking the world into sunlight – Henry puts his hand behind his lady’s neck and lifts her, and kisses her brow, and Hans keens, undone by the tenderness. “You honor me,” Henry moans. “Come for me. Take me and come for me, please, show me – ”

Hans bends almost in half and shudders so hard that it’s almost a seizing fit; there’s a guttural cry, and Hans spasms around Henry, overwhelming, violent, and Henry is so overcome that his arms finally give out, and he falls onto Hans with all his weight and ruts, and ruts, and ruts; Hans spills between their stomachs and onto the wool of the gown, and Henry comes inside, so deeply that he could find God there; and for that moment, singular and perfect, the babe is real, and they’ve made him together.

Henry regains his senses and finds himself with his face pressed into the hot, sweaty curve of Hans’s shoulder. Hans is gasping, pushing Henry up and down with the force of his heaving chest. Henry presses his lips to Hans’s throat on instinct, tasting the salt, and waits until both of them have command of themselves. It takes a while.

Finally, one of them laughs. It doesn’t really matter which one. Henry pushes himself off of Hans, pulling his softening cock out with care, as Hans shivers and sighs. Henry gazes at the beautiful mess he’s made: Hans with his legs spread and his cock spent, the skirts of the gown pushed up to his waist and stained with sweat and seed, and the swollen rosy pink center of Hans still gaping and dripping. Henry feels so proud that his heart could burst. He will never be tired of the sight.

Then he flops back down, still half sprawled over Hans, his cheek against the soft wool of Hans’s chest. 

“Oh, Henry.” Hans nudges Henry with his foot, and smiles, satisfied. “You forgot your part.”

It’s hard to exist in a world where he doesn’t ache for Hans, and doesn't drift towards him with a natural heartbeat, but Henry isn’t sure how to put that into words. His mind feels like honey, sticky and sweet. “I can’t pretend I don’t want you,” he manages. “I suppose.”

Hans gives a groan of pure delight. “I was wrong before, last night. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.”

“I know,” Henry sighs, though he doesn't quite agree. Hans kicks him, and this time they both laugh; and for the rest of the evening, as Hans dozes, Henry curls around him and spreads a hand over his love’s stomach, and lets himself pretend. 

Chapter Text

The next morning comes with half a memory of a dream. There’s no child in it, but there’s the promise of one, and the whisper of bastard for a bastard boy ; and Henry wakes with longing and sadness mingling with his satisfaction. But he does his best not to dwell on it. He’s used to shoving his dreams away, by stubborn force if necessary, and this one, less violent than most, goes quietly.

The entire day is quiet, truth be told. The absence of Pirkstein’s lady, and their bouncing, laughing little lord, makes the halls less lively than usual. But the servants are happy, still basking in their lord’s unexpected generosity, and Lord Capon himself is in a fine mood. Hans smiles at Henry constantly, from across the room, ducking around corners, in the middle of conversations, unable to help himself. Henry basks in it, though throughout the day they speak very little; after so many years, and after warm nights, they don’t need words between them.

When they do speak, it’s simple. “Are you happy, Hal?” Hans asks.

“Happy to serve, my lord,” Henry says, cheeky, feeling twenty years old again, both obstinate and eager. Hans laughs in reply, looking very charmed and very nineteen. 

That night, they take wine in the lord’s chambers. Hans spends hours on his knees, drawing Henry’s cock into his mouth, moaning around his balls, pressing bites and kisses all over his thighs, until Henry comes once, twice, three times before the morning. When Henry, half-mad and with the grace of a drunkard, hauls Hans to his feet, he finds that Hans has already come himself, untouched, just from pleasing Henry; his eyes are far away and glazed, like they get sometimes when Hans finds his strange peace and his mind goes quiet, under Henry’s hands and Henry’s loving. So Henry holds him quietly and kisses him, on his swollen mouth that tastes of Henry, and on his brow, and up and down his legs, and rubs his knees, red from kneeling, until Hans comes back to him with a content sigh.

“That was nice,” Hans says, bleary and slurred.

“Aye,” Henry agrees, without a hint of arrogance or irony. “It was.” He pets Hans a little while longer, tucking his golden head beneath his chin. “Rest now, Galehaut.”

“If gallant Lancelot says so,” Hans teases, his voice thick and husky; it makes Henry’s tired cock stir. “A good thing I had you knighted.”

Henry smiles at the memory. It had been Hans’s wedding gift to him, though only the two of them knew it. You’re mine even if I can’t wed you, Hans had said, sincere and trembling in the dark. Will you accept this? And Henry’s heart had broken and reforged like the sword of a saint, and when he’d knelt to take his vows, he’d been a husband.

He kisses Hans on the crown of his head. “Not everyone was pleased to see a man like me brought so high so fast.”

Hans bats his chest lightly. “A man of quality, lest he forget.”

“Aye, the quality of a bastard boy, and baseborn at that, made in shameful sin.”

Hans tsks softly. “Is that what you fear it was? Between Radzig and your mother?”

Hans has a knack for pricking Henry's heart with a dagger, even when he isn't trying. He bares Henry's fears without a thought, leaving him defenseless. “I hope not,” Henry admits. 

“Well, I doubt it.” Hans leans back, and squeezes Henry’s chin. “Put it out of your handsome head. Radzig’s not the type. You can smell it on the lords who are.”

Henry thinks of Hans and his anger at the story of Lady Stephanie. He thinks of how much it clashed with the way Hans carries himself, and the rules of his life. Hans will always be Hans, and is not always wise, or generous, but Henry cannot imagine him cornering a servant and seducing them, knowing that they couldn’t say no.

“I suppose you’d know,” Henry says. “Thankfully you’re not the sort to get a bastard on your servant girls.”

Hans shrugs. In many ways, his sense of justice is still so simple, even as he grows older. He and Henry are alike, in that way. “It just wouldn’t be fair.” He smiles, at an unseen joke. “Besides, the only servant I care to dally with is you. Who else could tempt me?”

The words come out before Henry thinks about them. “A blacksmith’s girl?”

Henry has no idea what possessed him. He and Hans stare at one another, in the low light, and as Henry watches, Hans’s eyes change. They go dark, sharp, like the edge of a knife; a hunter, finding his mark, or a snare given a man’s voice, and a clever tongue to match. Hans smiles, and says, deceptively calm, “Tell me about this girl.”

Impossibly, Henry keeps talking. “Only a new girl would fear you,” he says slowly. “The ones you already have here know better.”

“A new girl, then. From the country.” Hans raises a considering brow, and nods to himself. “Brown haired, I think, and smelling of hay. An honest body with honest desires, beneath her fear.”

“Very honest,” Henry agrees. He's floating a little; the room is so warm. Hans’s smile is so beautiful.

“She'd have eyes like mine,” Hans suggests. “So when the babe came, I'd know it for ours.” Hans runs a hand up Henry’s thigh and hip. “The whole world would.”

“And she'd welcome that shame?”

Hans looks Henry right in the eye. “Oh, I'd have her beg me for it.”

Henry makes a soft sound.

Hans asks, “Would you like that?”

Henry imagines it. What would it be like, to be a powerless, small, fearful creature, a songbird inside an eyrie; and to feel his lord’s eyes upon him, hungry and claiming, and knowing himself both desired and owned? And to have no choice, to be at the will and command of his lord’s will, to be free of choice; to simply take what his lord would give, and to be taken. He would be caught along in a river’s current again, at his lord’s pleasure. Henry burns at the thought – not only of the act, but of knowing the bastard child that would follow, proclaiming his wantonness, and his lord’s lusts, to the world; and that dream-bastard is somehow both himself, and his own boy, tangled together in a mess. 

“I don't know.” Henry says, less than honestly. 

Hans hums, and says nothing. Henry understands well enough. Hans will only press further if Henry tells him so. Sometimes Henry makes Hans see the truth of his desires by making the choice for him, but Hans would make Henry ask for himself. It's more cruel by far, in Henry’s view; his cruel lord without mercy.

Henry swallows, surely red from his chest to his hairline. “Maybe…maybe such a girl exists after all.”

Hans is blushing too, but he observes Henry slyly. “And where might I find her?”

Henry licks his lips, and takes a breath. “We’ll see…tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Hans repeats, disappointed. His hunting look vanishes and he droops a bit, like a sad pup denied a treat. It’s very sweet, and it eases Henry’s nerves to know that Hans wants this, too, as honestly as Henry does.

“So spoiled,” Henry sighs, as if it’s not his favorite thing in all the world. He leans in, and kisses Hans on the mouth; Hans bites him. “You can wait.”

-

Henry hides in his room until the castle is nearly deserted. It’s a market day, and almost all the servants are in town. It makes it easier for him to slip through the halls unseen. He would die of shame if he was spotted; not so much for himself, but for Hans. This is for his lord, and only his lord can see him like this. 

He stands at the door to the lord's chambers, head bowed, expected as before. Gone is the boyish shyness; now there is anxious awe, and perhaps a hint of fear, beneath his thundering heartbeat. He knocks quietly, unobtrusive, as if he could make himself a whisper.

Hans sounds uninterested. “Enter.”

Henry takes a breath, and steps into the room. 

Hans is seated behind his desk, examining various letters. His schooled, stern expression, and the way his presence seems to fill the world, makes him look older than twenty-five; he’s in command of the room, and of Henry, without even looking up. 

But then he does look up, and Henry quickly ducks his head, before their eyes can meet. “I’m sorry to intrude, my lord,” Henry murmurs. “I beg your forgiveness.”

Henry is dressed in a serving girl's kirtle, shamefully swiped for the day from the washing. Henry had thought it looked awkward, over-tight and ill-fitting, but imagining how he might look through Hans’s eyes sends a thrill through him. And he trembles, to know that he wears no braies beneath, and that any man might lift the skirts up and have his way…but that only his lord is allowed the privilege of touch.

Henry can't bear to look at Hans. What if this wasn't what he'd asked for? What if Henry didn't actually want this, and this was humiliating them both? What if?

The unspoken questions hang in the chamber, echoing more than a voice ever could. Henry waits, at his lord’s pleasure: as always.

“Go on, girl,” Hans's voice is deathly quiet, and bored. “To your duty.”

Henry’s heart flies into his throat. He hurries to the cold hearth, and gets onto his knees to rake out the ashes; the lowest job, for the lowest girl, lower even than a kitchen maid, almost no better than a beggar. He should be ashamed for letting his lord even see him, when he ought to be unobtrusive and silent. 

Henry hears a chair scrape against the floor. Lord Capon’s footsteps follow, and Henry thinks that perhaps his lord might leave the room, in disgust; but instead, those steps draw closer. The sound is heavy, direct, and unhurried. It makes Henry’s heart beat faster, to know that Lord Capon isn’t attempting to sneak, or saunter, or muffle his presence in any way. Why would he, in his own castle, where he owns every inch, every person? He wants Henry to know that he’s coming. 

Lord Capon halts behind Henry, looming. Henry doesn't move, but feels the power of his lord’s presence, and imagines how they must look: Henry, crouched in the dust, and his lord, proud and tall, both protector and predator.

Henry’s voice, when it comes, is quiet, and shakes with fear, and with desire. “What is my lord's pleasure?”

Lord Capon strikes. He grabs Henry’s wrists, and pins them above his head flat onto the stone, and yanks Henry backward with another hand on his hip. It pushes Henry up obscenely, his arse in the air and head ducked down, presenting and open, as Lord Capon presses himself over Henry’s back, draped and heavy. 

“You are my pleasure,” Hans hisses, right in Henry’s ear. Henry hears a rustle of fabric as his lord pulls his cock free, and jolts with alarm and anticipation; then the hand not pinning Henry’s wrists hauls up his skirts, exposing Henry's shameful, wanting body to the cool air. “And I’d have you.”

Henry had opened himself before, and he's loose, wet, and ready; but he protests anyway, like any maid would, no matter how much a whore she might play. He has to. He must try. “My lord, wait, please – ”

Hans thrusts inside, fully sheathed, in one cruel swift motion. Henry gasps and jerks forward, as if it hurts, as if it’s too fast, even as his body swallows his lord’s cock down, eager and hungry. His cock is already hard, jumping against his stomach, and his…his cu – 

“Please,” he gasps again, because it’s all he can do. You can only beg a lord; for forgiveness, for mercy, for aid.

Lord Capon fucks him, hard and fast, with no time to adjust to the fullness. Henry gasps, his hands clenching and unclenching helplessly, his ragdoll body jerked backward and forward. Lord Capon keeps a hand fisted in the rough spun skirts and uses them to tug Henry as he likes, dragging him onto his cock, white hot, hard and unyielding.

Henry could throw Hans off if he truly wanted, even if it would be a fight, because Hans is strong; but that doesn’t matter. Right now, Henry can pretend, he can be…he can let go, he doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to earn his own pleasure, to become worthy of it. He serves his lord. That’s all.

“Wet,” Lord Capon growls, both dismissive and pleased. He's breathing hard, and Henry takes such joy in it – that his body serves, enough that his lord is – “An honest cunt for an honest girl.”

Honest. Henry’s heart sings. The pleasure is moving too fast, and whatever resolve he might have had tumbles away; his hole is a cunt, he knows it, he can see it, wet as any bath girl, but only for his lord, only, only. Henry rubs his cheek on the stone beneath them, and hears his voice break, pathetic and pleading. “My lord, you can't come inside – ”

Lord Capon’s next thrust is brutal, and Henry, crying out, is shoved across the floor. “I'll do what I will to what's mine,” Lord Capon says, so dangerous, voice thickening with need. 

Henry closes his eyes helplessly, against the tide of lust and shame. “Don’t put a child in me, please – ” 

“Why not?” Hans snarls. “That’s all this cunt will ever be good for.”

Henry’s eyes fly open with a wild gasp. It's true. He's a baseborn, lowborn girl, fit for the stables. Not fit to be his lord’s bride, but fit for…

“Everyone will know what you've done,” Lord Capon says, mocking. “The shame you'll carry in that belly.” His cock hits so deep inside that Henry could choke, but it's only brushing over the center of pleasure inside of him, both tease and punishment. 

“Please – ”

“I'll give you a boy with my eyes, I think. No man will have you.”

Is this how Henry was made? In a glut of sin and ashes, and that's why he is what he is? A bastard made of base desires, fit only for his lord's use?

But to be worthy of his lord’s cock, to serve him, to sheath him…it’s an honor, too. It’s an honor he isn’t worthy of. “Please,” he gasps, and this time, it's the prayer of a sinner. “My lord, please.”

“Louder, girl.” Lord Capon changes his angle, fucks Henry impossibly harder, grinding and slamming the blunt head of his cock deep, deep into – “Call out for your lord.”

“Please!” Henry cries out, louder. Too loud, he mustn't be so – so selfish, so wanting – “Please fuck me, please  – just you, only you, I’m for you – ”

Lord Capon could wreck him, ruin him, make him carry his shame like a prize, and leave him and discard him after. The touch of him is enough. Henry thinks of it: held open, spread wide, filled up with cock or babe, whenever his lord wants, keening and drooling. To be a hole for him, a vessel, a home, that's enough.

But it's as if Hans hears him. It's as if Hans has his ear pressed right against Henry's desperate, eager soul and hears every word. He makes a ruined sound like his heart is broken, a groan close to anguish, and starts to press messy kisses up Henry’s clothed back to his neck.

“Oh, you sweet thing,” he moans. “Sweet girl, I'll take care of you. You know I will. Tell me you know!”

Too much – his kindness, it’s too much – Henry weeps, held so close to pleasure that it’s nearly pain, straining and full. 

Hans sticks his fingers in Henry’s mouth. “Beautiful girl,” he groans, as Henry sucks mindlessly. “With your beautiful hungry mouth. When you swell with our boy I’ll care for you. I'll raise you high above everyone. Our son – ”

Henry moans so loudly that they must hear him in town. Hans grabs his hair and yanks him up, freeing his wrists, to hold Henry closer and kiss the length of his neck; Henry reaches back, clinging to whatever he can, his lord’s arm, his shoulder, his golden hair, surely smearing him with ash.

Henry imagines a child made in love. A child made not in the duty of the marriage bed, but made in desire, in desperate want…and maybe…maybe Henry was…maybe…

Henry is making sounds, pleas and shouts and wails. He shouldn’t ask for things, he shouldn’t demand things, as if he matters, as if he's worthy, as if he was made for love, he shouldn’t want, he shouldn't…! 

“In me!” Henry gasps, “In me, in me, in me –” 

Hans comes, bucking, burying his face into Henry’s shoulder with a groan that isn't a lord's, but a man's, cuntdrunk and staggered, and the force of it, slamming into the beautiful point of joy inside Henry’s body, pushes Henry down again, on all fours. He presses back, desperate to take all of Hans’s pleasure, every bit of it, held inside his body, even if he can’t come, he needs it, needs all of it, more than he needs air and life.

Hans reaches around him, strokes Henry’s cock once, twice, and orders, in a ruined voice, “Give it to me.”

Henry explodes into stars, coming and arching his back, the world roaring, his throat gone raw and convulsing like he’s sobbing, or shouting; he jerks back as forth as he does, fucking himself on his lord’s cock, finally taking for his own need, chasing his own pleasure, spilling into Hans’s hands, every drop caught, rather than lost to the ashes.

“There,” Hans sighs, sounding close to tears. “Oh, yes, there. My Hal, my darling. ”

Henry floats through my darling for so long that he barely registers Hans hauling him up, guiding him gently; he barely feels it when his back hits the soft bed, and his hair pushed back lovingly, the ash and sweat and tears cleaned from his face; he hardly knows anything at all, beyond being loved thoroughly and well, until he stirs and finds himself in his lord’s bed, with Hans curled around him, his head cushioned on Henry's stomach, practically purring like a cat.

Henry chuckles, even as his heart leaps. “Did I please you?”

Hans rubs his face against the rough wool, not bothering to hide his smile. “Maybe.”

Henry finds the strength to rest a tired hand on Hans’s hair, and they lie that way a while. Hans is still fully clothed, his cock tucked away, as if nothing has happened; but Henry knows Hans, and knows his face, and knows the quiet, possessive pride in his red cheeks. 

“Thank you,” Henry sighs. When Hans looks up at him, puzzled, Henry adds, “For tonight, and before. For letting us pretend.”

Hans gives him an impossibly tender look, with his nose scrunched up and gone red, before turning his face into Henry’s stomach. “I would want it,” he mumbles, muffled. He sounds so young; the first time he’d told Henry he loved him, he’d hidden his face in the same way. “Any child of yours and mine. I’d want it so much.”

Henry smiles with his heart in his eyes, though Hans can’t see him. And then, Henry, being Henry, can’t help himself. “By my count, it’s your turn next.”

Hans snorts, and lifts himself up. “Is it?” 

“Give me an hour.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Pretending is all they have, really. But they’ve made do with it, and carved a home inside. As Hans swats playfully at Henry, knowing that Henry will catch his hands and pull him closer, Henry thinks of the cracks in Hans’s life where he lives: in the shadows outside a marriage, in the love for a child that isn’t his. These are places where only bastards might go, and where love is honest. 

This is one of those places: laying in the lord’s bed, still aching from the lord's cock, and making Hans blush like a maid in love. “I’d better get a girl on you this time,” Henry says, grinning.

“Henry.”