FIC: After the Hart the Bier (Richard II/1 Henry IV, T)
Title: After the Hart, the Bier
Author: angevin2
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Harry "Hotspur" Percy; Edward, erstwhile Duke of Aumerle and later Duke of York; background Richard II/Aumerle and Hotspur/Kate
Warnings: Discussion of beheading; medieval hunting; people being period-typical homophobes
Rating: T
Summary: Harry Percy is running out of patience. Edward of Aumerle is running out of fucks to give.
Notes: Written for speak_me_fair for Yuletide 2012.
First of all, I want to thank my lovely beta-readers: gehayi and aris_tgd, for offering useful input at all stages of this fic, lareinenoire, for her careful attention to theme and character development, and likeadeuce, for holding my hand when I panicked about aspects of the assignment.
Secondly, I've decided to assume that stage time is flexible and that therefore individual scenes depicted by Shakespeare are sometimes representative of a somewhat longer period of time. More specifically, I've stretched out the timeline of the play's final scenes in order to correspond more closely to the historical order of events. However, I've retained the Shakespearean versions of events at all times when they are at odds with the version generally accepted by historians (e.g., Richard's death occurs as in the play, not as in real life where he was probably starved to death). I've also taken liberties with Aumerle's whereabouts in the early 1400s: specifically, I've connected his activities in 1405 with the events of the play, and ignored his service in Wales and Aquitaine, the latter because in Shakespeareland the French wars are basically nonexistent until Henry V (there's, like, one reference in 2 Henry IV but it's hardly noticeable and anyway this fic doesn't go that far). I feel this is in keeping with the canon's attitude toward historical accuracy, as the histories themselves expand and compress things depending on what's dramatic.
Harry Percy finds it highly suspect that Edward of Rutland, former Duke of Aumerle and suspiciously close friend of the former King Richard (for definitions of "friend" that involve royal favoritism and sodomy), continues to hang around at court long after a normal person would either have fled to France or some other place where disgraced royal favorites might want to hang out and plot treason, or alternately have been beheaded like all of the other pretty boys Richard generally preferred to keep around, for the aforesaid favoritism and sodomy.
He finds it even more alarming that King Henry does not seem to mind. Even though he has other things to worry about. Like his oldest son, for instance. Harry's just come back from London, where he's been to call the prince to the tournaments held at Oxford. He'd found him in an especially seedy tavern, swilling ale with his arm draped across the shoulder of a sharp-faced youth with sandy hair, laughing like a drain, and Harry had swallowed hard against rising anger and sinking disappointment as the image of Richard and his minions elbows its way into his brain. It wasn't fair -- King Henry was a good king, and here he was stuck with a terrible son like Prince Harry.
Harry had left then, disgusted. The next time he'd seen Rutland he couldn't help but think of the Prince and his friend and how back when Rutland had been Aumerle Richard had acted the same way with him.
Rutland, therefore, can't possibly be up to any good. Which Harry continues to think right up until, just as he's telling King Henry the bad news about his son, Rutland arrives and throws himself in a panic at the King's feet.
***
Henry does not, of course, appear at Oxford. When he goes to London to muster an army to send in his stead, Edward joins everyone else in the Tower. It wouldn't do to disappear at this point, or to get himself killed now that he's had to put up with a great deal of soul-crushing embarrassment in order to stay alive. For whatever that's worth.
The plot is to go forth on the feast of the Epiphany; at mass they pray for the king's safety. Edward has no trouble saying the words with everyone else. God will know which king he means: the true king at Pomfret, the king he loves, the king whom, because he's too stupid to lie properly, he has betrayed.
The king he is too afraid to die for.
Richard would be thirty-three today (is, in fact, thirty-three today, and when Edward has to remind himself not to think of Richard as though he were already dead, his eyes burn and he has to fight to breathe). He once thought it portentous that he was born on the day in which Christ's appearance to the world was celebrated -- men had indeed once said that three kings had attended his christening -- and indeed, he seemed also to share in Christ's passion, betrayed and cast down by his followers; he himself said as much before Parliament.
(Saint Peter denied Christ three times, Edward reminds himself, but I am more akin to Judas.)
When the heads of his former fellows begin appearing on London Bridge, Edward, in a fit of self-chastisement, forces himself to go look at them, to remind himself that it is he who has placed them there, that by rights his own head should be impaled on a pike beside them, that he has instead feasted on their entrails like a hound at a curée.
He feels nothing.
Nothing, until he catches a glimpse of the remnants of John Holland's blond hair and looks, really looks, at the face of Richard's half-brother, and then he freezes as though the winter wind had cut him to the heart. Holland had never really looked much like Richard, in life, but in death, with his features still, there is the ghost of a resemblance. Or perhaps all faces look alike when they've been dipped in tar.
He has been pretending (wishing, praying) that Henry will be satisfied with the deaths of Richard's friends. And then Sir Piers of Exton comes to court bearing a coffin.
***
Harry is not sure why he feels like he ought to go to Saint Paul's when he knows perfectly well that King Richard is dead and has actually seen the body himself, along with everyone else who was at court when Exton presented it to King Henry, and anyway King Richard probably has plenty of people to hang around and pray for his soul. King Henry had arranged for that, since King Richard was obviously the sort of person who would certainly need it.
Nevertheless, when he opens the great heavy church door he feels a little like he's seeking sanctuary.
It's getting late when he arrives, nearly vespers, but there are still people milling around in Paul's walk -- a pair of merchants arguing over a bolt of cloth, an apprentice hand-in-hand with a young woman, a handful of almsmen, a boy who knocks a pigeon from the rafters with deadly aim. If the French wars were still on, Harry would have figured him for a bowman. Anyone who's come to look at King Richard has already left. It's strange, that Richard isn't the center of attention -- but then, Richard wasn't king anymore.
There is one person standing vigil, though, and Harry can't decide whether or not he should be surprised when he sees it's Edward of Rutland. He hadn't recognized him from a distance, since he isn't dressed like a popinjay, and even close up he doesn't really look like the smirking courtier he'd been when Richard was still alive.
He looks like he's lost the love of his life.
Which is strange, because this whole thing is more or less his fault.
When Harry was still a boy, King Richard's wife had died, and the king had gone mad with grief and burned down the palace where it had happened. The whole kingdom had had to go into mourning with him. Father said later that it was terribly unmanly of him, and that King Henry, except he wasn't king then obviously, had done much better when he lost his wife at about the same time. Harry isn't sure about that: if anything ever happened to Kate he would burn the whole fucking world down.
That has nothing to do with anything, though, because whatever Rutland felt about King Richard was obviously not the same kind of thing he felt about Kate, or even that King Richard felt about Queen Anne. Instead it was disgusting and filthy even when you set aside the part where Rutland and his friends made it completely necessary for King Henry to have him killed.
"Go away," Rutland says, without looking up.
"I have as much right to be here as you," Harry says. "And anyway how do you know I'm not the Archdeacon?"
"Well, I know now," Rutland says, "and now I'd really rather you left."
"He would probably still be alive if it weren't for you," Harry spits out, because it's the nastiest thing he can think of to say, and the very last thing he wants is to talk to Richard's...whatever you call Rutland.
It certainly gets his attention.
"How dare you," Rutland chokes out. He looks as pale now as Richard does; despite what he seems to think is his righteous indignation, his voice drops to a near-whisper as he continues. "How dare you talk to me about betrayal? You and your entire family took up arms against your rightful king!"
Harry's hands clench into fists. He has just enough awareness of where he is not to grab the hilt of his sword. "We had a good reason!" he says. "You just sold him out to save yourself. You're not even good at being a traitor."
"At this court, my own treasons," Rutland says, "can't help but pale by comparison."
Harry wants to punch his stupid fucking face in. He is seriously weighing the pros and cons of doing exactly that, church or no church, except that the bells start ringing for vespers and that ruins his chances of punching anyone without getting himself excommunicated or something.
"I could tell the King you said that," he splutters, but it's not really a very satisfying thought.
Rutland smiles at him, sort of. It's more like he bares his teeth, really, in a way that makes him resemble a rache bringing a hart to bay. "You do that," he says, and then he turns on his heel and disappears down the long nave and Harry is alone (more or less) with a dead king and his own thoughts.
It's strange, looking at him from this close up, all pale and saint-like and martyred-looking (even though he wasn't really saintly at all, of course, or else they wouldn't have had to depose him). Obviously he's seen plenty of dead people before, and obviously he's also gotten people dead before, but that was in battle and it was different. King Richard wasn't much of a fighter -- well, all right, he'd been to war in Ireland and not once but twice, but Harry doesn't think he would have done any of the actual fighting parts, and he can't really have had time this time out at any rate.
And it's not like he'd tried to fight when King Henry came back.
And that's really the frustrating thing, the thing that's been poking him at the back of his brain ever since probably Flint Castle, that King Richard hadn't reacted like Harry had imagined a tyrant would, or even like a normal person would, and instead of putting up any sort of fight he'd just handed over the crown and cried a lot in public. Even Aumerle had been willing to fight with basically everybody at court, including him even though of course he would have been doomed probably before Harry even had a shot at him, if King Henry hadn't seemed determined that everybody forget about the whole thing for some reason. But Richard just...hadn't, at all.
Which didn't make him seem like a worthy opponent.
Which meant that King Henry was the sort of person who'd just trample over an unworthy opponent.
In which case, what exactly did that make him, or the rest of his family?
Harry doesn't want to think about that. Except that by the time he returns to court, he can hardly think of anything else.
He never tells King Henry what Rutland said to him.
***
Richard has been in his grave -- a little little grave, an obscure grave, as he'd once said; if not the King's highway, then neither was it his resplendent gilt-bronze tomb at Westminster, beside Queen Anne -- for less than a year, and Edward is already back in Henry's good graces.
Such as they are.
Edward suspects that it's not so much that Henry has forgiven his inept efforts to betray him as that he either wants to keep his enemies close or, more likely, he doesn't even consider him much of a threat. Which is probably fair. It's not as though Edward has earned his suspicion since the ill-fated Oxford conspiracy (ill-fated, he reminds himself, because he didn't have the sense not to get caught or the nerve to sacrifice himself).
Henry talks constantly of his crusade plans. At first Edward had been excited about this idea, insofar as he's capable of being excited about anything, because people who died on crusade would get to go to heaven, and he hoped that this was still the case if you died on a crusade organized by a usurping king to expiate the murder of the previous king, which was at least partly your fault even though you were hopelessly in love with him, were still in love with him to this day, except that it turned out Henry didn't really mean it and thus Edward wasn't going to get to die for something actually righteous after all.
Not that he deserves that chance.
At any rate, Henry clearly has other things to worry about, with the Percy family muttering resentfully behind closed doors, and Edmund Mortimer getting married to the daughter of Owen Glendower, and his eldest son forsaking the court in order to frequent filthy Eastcheap taverns. Edward can't help but feel oddly impressed by Prince Harry's form of rebellion, or whatever it is -- he's better at defying Henry than Edward is, and he has no damned reason that Edward can see, for even if Henry's son had had a child's fondness for Richard, he had not loved him, not as Edward does.
Edward has largely given up on defiance, even when people whisper that King Richard is still alive, that he escaped to Scotland or to France and will return with an army to claim his throne, when men are arrested for wearing the badge of the White Hart. He knows better.
When Henry appoints him Master of the Hart-Hounds he is certain that it is a cruel jest.
Nevertheless, the hunt is the only thing that makes him feel alive, these days, if he can get the metaphorical applications out of his head: nobody has an agenda and it's very clear who wants to kill whom and for what reasons; there's no factions and nobody to ask you what you think, just you and the quarry, the smell of earth and sweat and blood, the thunder of hooves and hounds and horns and the blood pounding in your ears.
Of course, it does make him wonder if he hasn't turned into his father.
The notes of the mort are still ringing in his ears when Harry Percy corners him, whistling a rather sad approximation of a parfit.
"I see you have me at bay, sir," he says.
"You're not the quarry I'm hunting." Percy grins crookedly, which is odd, because until fairly recently, his interaction with Edward has involved a lot more suspicious glaring and fewer efforts at wordplay. "You've gotten too fat to give a good chase."
Edward rolls his eyes. "Even if you mean to rouse the hart," he says, "I wouldn't sound my horn so loudly. 'After the hart, the bier,' you know."
"I'm disappointed," Percy says. "Some sportsman you are."
"I'm surprised you're for the hunt again so soon," Edward snaps. "I suppose the dogs haven't had enough of the carcass?"
Percy's face goes red, and Edward can't help but think of Richard for a stabbing moment before he drops the whole awkward exchange of metaphors and growls, "You're lucky the King has decided to forget about all of those challenges, York."
"Listen, Percy," Edward says. "There's nothing in this quest for me -- " but then he adds, not ungently, "but take care, lest you be undone."
Percy looks at him carefully for a moment. "You won't even join us for -- the love of it?"
Edward shakes his head. It's summer, and he is still warm with exertion, but he feels a sudden chill nevertheless.
"The hart I would rouse will be moved no more, for he is unmade already," he says.
Percy acknowledges him with a brief nod, and then turns and rides away.
Edward has told him the truth, after all. It's not that he would have too much of an objection to seeing Henry taken down, although nothing about Percy or even his much cannier father and uncle has made him think that they'll be the ones to do it, or that many people will be keen to risk their lives to put Edmund Mortimer, or anyone else really, on the throne.
He himself sees no reason to bother. What does it matter, when Richard is dead? He was there on the day that Exton presented Henry with Richard's battered, naked corpse, has seen the ragged gashes in his side and chest and the hollow of his shoulder and the blood staining his lips and stiffening his golden hair, the skin that once warmed to his touch torn and bruised and leaden-white, and he will never be able to unsee the sight of it.
His suspicion is accurate, though. He never sees Harry Percy alive again.
***
Harry Percy dies at the hands of Harry Prince of Wales, abandoned by his father and betrayed by his uncle, believing himself the last true man in England. His body, like King Richard's, is displayed for the public, in the marketplace at Shrewsbury; his head is set on the gates of York; his body is sent in quarters to the four corners of the realm.
Edward of York is imprisoned when he admits to foreknowledge of the Percies' plot and, once again, the possession of an incriminating letter (his reply to Harry, which consists of more polite refusals, is of course lost). Three months later he is back in King Henry's good graces once again.
The hunting manual he wrote in prison is dedicated to the Prince of Wales.
He keeps Harry Percy's letter for the rest of his life.
Notes
Edward of York was appointed Master of Game to Henry IV in 1406, having been appointed Master of the Hart-Hounds in 1401 (as mentioned in the fic). He actually did write a book about hunting, entitled, sensibly enough, Master of Game, while in prison for concealing knowledge of a plot between Owen Glendower, the Earl of Northumberland, and Edmund Mortimer to remove another Edmund Mortimer (heir to the throne and one of the people Shakespeare conflated for his character "Mortimer") from the custody of Henry IV and then divide England between the three of them. I have conflated this incident with Hotspur's rebellion in the fic for the very good reason that Shakespeare did the same thing.
Master of Game, which is in large part a translation of Gaston de Foix's Livre de chasse, is the earliest extant English hunting treatise. It can be read online in its entirety here. (There's also a recent scholarly edition by UPenn Press, but I can't link to that. Nor have I read it, so I can't evaluate it.) It is the source for much of the discussion of hunting in the fic (that and some googling to define terms). For those unfamiliar with medieval hunting jargon (i.e. just about everyone who isn't the recipient or a specialist) I've annotated a few terms, although I think everything is reasonably clear from context.
Hart/heart puns are available wherever you want them. Medieval and Renaissance poets love that particular pun.
- A rache is a medieval name for a type of hunting dog that hunts by scent and is also involved in bringing the quarry (i.e. the prey) to bay (i.e. the point where the quarry can no longer run and tries to defend itself). This is in contrast to the lymer or bloodhound which was mostly involved in sniffing out the quarry before the start of the hunt. The modern equivalent seems to be the foxhound.
- The curée is the final part of the hunt, when the hounds are rewarded with pieces of the carcass (mostly innards).
- A parfit is a horn call meant to signify that the hounds are on the right track, and here I need to quote from the appendix to the Master of Game edition linked above: "Twici [Master of Game to Edward II] says it began by 'a moot [i.e. a long note] and then trourourout, trout, trout, trourourout, trourourout, trourourout, trout, trout, trourourourout,' 'and then to commence by another moot again, and so you ought to blow three times. And to commence by a moot and to finish by a moot'" (p. 233). This may be familiar to anyone who's read The Once and Future King (which contains an extensive description of a medieval boar hunt). It also suggests interesting things about Hotspur's skill at whistling, although it is "a rather sad approximation." The mort is the call blown when the prey is killed.
- After the hart, the bier: This proverb ("after the boar the leech, and after the hart the bier"), on the subject of which animals will fuck you up the most, is referenced in Master of Game, chapter 3 ("Of the Hart and his Nature"). Despite the saying, boar hunting was a ridiculously dangerous pastime and medieval people mostly seemed to engage in it in order to display their balls in a completely metaphorical way since nobody would want to have those out with a wild boar around.
- ...lest you be undone: Edward is being technical here, as well as ominous: the undoing (or unmaking) of a quarry takes place at the end of the hunt (before the curée, q.v. above), when the meat is prepared and partitioned. In the Middle Ages this had an almost ritual significance. The reference, therefore, also glances at the punishment of traitors, which Hotspur of course received, albeit (fortunately for him) posthumously.
Author: angevin2
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Harry "Hotspur" Percy; Edward, erstwhile Duke of Aumerle and later Duke of York; background Richard II/Aumerle and Hotspur/Kate
Warnings: Discussion of beheading; medieval hunting; people being period-typical homophobes
Rating: T
Summary: Harry Percy is running out of patience. Edward of Aumerle is running out of fucks to give.
Notes: Written for speak_me_fair for Yuletide 2012.
First of all, I want to thank my lovely beta-readers: gehayi and aris_tgd, for offering useful input at all stages of this fic, lareinenoire, for her careful attention to theme and character development, and likeadeuce, for holding my hand when I panicked about aspects of the assignment.
Secondly, I've decided to assume that stage time is flexible and that therefore individual scenes depicted by Shakespeare are sometimes representative of a somewhat longer period of time. More specifically, I've stretched out the timeline of the play's final scenes in order to correspond more closely to the historical order of events. However, I've retained the Shakespearean versions of events at all times when they are at odds with the version generally accepted by historians (e.g., Richard's death occurs as in the play, not as in real life where he was probably starved to death). I've also taken liberties with Aumerle's whereabouts in the early 1400s: specifically, I've connected his activities in 1405 with the events of the play, and ignored his service in Wales and Aquitaine, the latter because in Shakespeareland the French wars are basically nonexistent until Henry V (there's, like, one reference in 2 Henry IV but it's hardly noticeable and anyway this fic doesn't go that far). I feel this is in keeping with the canon's attitude toward historical accuracy, as the histories themselves expand and compress things depending on what's dramatic.
Harry Percy finds it highly suspect that Edward of Rutland, former Duke of Aumerle and suspiciously close friend of the former King Richard (for definitions of "friend" that involve royal favoritism and sodomy), continues to hang around at court long after a normal person would either have fled to France or some other place where disgraced royal favorites might want to hang out and plot treason, or alternately have been beheaded like all of the other pretty boys Richard generally preferred to keep around, for the aforesaid favoritism and sodomy.
He finds it even more alarming that King Henry does not seem to mind. Even though he has other things to worry about. Like his oldest son, for instance. Harry's just come back from London, where he's been to call the prince to the tournaments held at Oxford. He'd found him in an especially seedy tavern, swilling ale with his arm draped across the shoulder of a sharp-faced youth with sandy hair, laughing like a drain, and Harry had swallowed hard against rising anger and sinking disappointment as the image of Richard and his minions elbows its way into his brain. It wasn't fair -- King Henry was a good king, and here he was stuck with a terrible son like Prince Harry.
Harry had left then, disgusted. The next time he'd seen Rutland he couldn't help but think of the Prince and his friend and how back when Rutland had been Aumerle Richard had acted the same way with him.
Rutland, therefore, can't possibly be up to any good. Which Harry continues to think right up until, just as he's telling King Henry the bad news about his son, Rutland arrives and throws himself in a panic at the King's feet.
***
Henry does not, of course, appear at Oxford. When he goes to London to muster an army to send in his stead, Edward joins everyone else in the Tower. It wouldn't do to disappear at this point, or to get himself killed now that he's had to put up with a great deal of soul-crushing embarrassment in order to stay alive. For whatever that's worth.
The plot is to go forth on the feast of the Epiphany; at mass they pray for the king's safety. Edward has no trouble saying the words with everyone else. God will know which king he means: the true king at Pomfret, the king he loves, the king whom, because he's too stupid to lie properly, he has betrayed.
The king he is too afraid to die for.
Richard would be thirty-three today (is, in fact, thirty-three today, and when Edward has to remind himself not to think of Richard as though he were already dead, his eyes burn and he has to fight to breathe). He once thought it portentous that he was born on the day in which Christ's appearance to the world was celebrated -- men had indeed once said that three kings had attended his christening -- and indeed, he seemed also to share in Christ's passion, betrayed and cast down by his followers; he himself said as much before Parliament.
(Saint Peter denied Christ three times, Edward reminds himself, but I am more akin to Judas.)
When the heads of his former fellows begin appearing on London Bridge, Edward, in a fit of self-chastisement, forces himself to go look at them, to remind himself that it is he who has placed them there, that by rights his own head should be impaled on a pike beside them, that he has instead feasted on their entrails like a hound at a curée.
He feels nothing.
Nothing, until he catches a glimpse of the remnants of John Holland's blond hair and looks, really looks, at the face of Richard's half-brother, and then he freezes as though the winter wind had cut him to the heart. Holland had never really looked much like Richard, in life, but in death, with his features still, there is the ghost of a resemblance. Or perhaps all faces look alike when they've been dipped in tar.
He has been pretending (wishing, praying) that Henry will be satisfied with the deaths of Richard's friends. And then Sir Piers of Exton comes to court bearing a coffin.
***
Harry is not sure why he feels like he ought to go to Saint Paul's when he knows perfectly well that King Richard is dead and has actually seen the body himself, along with everyone else who was at court when Exton presented it to King Henry, and anyway King Richard probably has plenty of people to hang around and pray for his soul. King Henry had arranged for that, since King Richard was obviously the sort of person who would certainly need it.
Nevertheless, when he opens the great heavy church door he feels a little like he's seeking sanctuary.
It's getting late when he arrives, nearly vespers, but there are still people milling around in Paul's walk -- a pair of merchants arguing over a bolt of cloth, an apprentice hand-in-hand with a young woman, a handful of almsmen, a boy who knocks a pigeon from the rafters with deadly aim. If the French wars were still on, Harry would have figured him for a bowman. Anyone who's come to look at King Richard has already left. It's strange, that Richard isn't the center of attention -- but then, Richard wasn't king anymore.
There is one person standing vigil, though, and Harry can't decide whether or not he should be surprised when he sees it's Edward of Rutland. He hadn't recognized him from a distance, since he isn't dressed like a popinjay, and even close up he doesn't really look like the smirking courtier he'd been when Richard was still alive.
He looks like he's lost the love of his life.
Which is strange, because this whole thing is more or less his fault.
When Harry was still a boy, King Richard's wife had died, and the king had gone mad with grief and burned down the palace where it had happened. The whole kingdom had had to go into mourning with him. Father said later that it was terribly unmanly of him, and that King Henry, except he wasn't king then obviously, had done much better when he lost his wife at about the same time. Harry isn't sure about that: if anything ever happened to Kate he would burn the whole fucking world down.
That has nothing to do with anything, though, because whatever Rutland felt about King Richard was obviously not the same kind of thing he felt about Kate, or even that King Richard felt about Queen Anne. Instead it was disgusting and filthy even when you set aside the part where Rutland and his friends made it completely necessary for King Henry to have him killed.
"Go away," Rutland says, without looking up.
"I have as much right to be here as you," Harry says. "And anyway how do you know I'm not the Archdeacon?"
"Well, I know now," Rutland says, "and now I'd really rather you left."
"He would probably still be alive if it weren't for you," Harry spits out, because it's the nastiest thing he can think of to say, and the very last thing he wants is to talk to Richard's...whatever you call Rutland.
It certainly gets his attention.
"How dare you," Rutland chokes out. He looks as pale now as Richard does; despite what he seems to think is his righteous indignation, his voice drops to a near-whisper as he continues. "How dare you talk to me about betrayal? You and your entire family took up arms against your rightful king!"
Harry's hands clench into fists. He has just enough awareness of where he is not to grab the hilt of his sword. "We had a good reason!" he says. "You just sold him out to save yourself. You're not even good at being a traitor."
"At this court, my own treasons," Rutland says, "can't help but pale by comparison."
Harry wants to punch his stupid fucking face in. He is seriously weighing the pros and cons of doing exactly that, church or no church, except that the bells start ringing for vespers and that ruins his chances of punching anyone without getting himself excommunicated or something.
"I could tell the King you said that," he splutters, but it's not really a very satisfying thought.
Rutland smiles at him, sort of. It's more like he bares his teeth, really, in a way that makes him resemble a rache bringing a hart to bay. "You do that," he says, and then he turns on his heel and disappears down the long nave and Harry is alone (more or less) with a dead king and his own thoughts.
It's strange, looking at him from this close up, all pale and saint-like and martyred-looking (even though he wasn't really saintly at all, of course, or else they wouldn't have had to depose him). Obviously he's seen plenty of dead people before, and obviously he's also gotten people dead before, but that was in battle and it was different. King Richard wasn't much of a fighter -- well, all right, he'd been to war in Ireland and not once but twice, but Harry doesn't think he would have done any of the actual fighting parts, and he can't really have had time this time out at any rate.
And it's not like he'd tried to fight when King Henry came back.
And that's really the frustrating thing, the thing that's been poking him at the back of his brain ever since probably Flint Castle, that King Richard hadn't reacted like Harry had imagined a tyrant would, or even like a normal person would, and instead of putting up any sort of fight he'd just handed over the crown and cried a lot in public. Even Aumerle had been willing to fight with basically everybody at court, including him even though of course he would have been doomed probably before Harry even had a shot at him, if King Henry hadn't seemed determined that everybody forget about the whole thing for some reason. But Richard just...hadn't, at all.
Which didn't make him seem like a worthy opponent.
Which meant that King Henry was the sort of person who'd just trample over an unworthy opponent.
In which case, what exactly did that make him, or the rest of his family?
Harry doesn't want to think about that. Except that by the time he returns to court, he can hardly think of anything else.
He never tells King Henry what Rutland said to him.
***
Richard has been in his grave -- a little little grave, an obscure grave, as he'd once said; if not the King's highway, then neither was it his resplendent gilt-bronze tomb at Westminster, beside Queen Anne -- for less than a year, and Edward is already back in Henry's good graces.
Such as they are.
Edward suspects that it's not so much that Henry has forgiven his inept efforts to betray him as that he either wants to keep his enemies close or, more likely, he doesn't even consider him much of a threat. Which is probably fair. It's not as though Edward has earned his suspicion since the ill-fated Oxford conspiracy (ill-fated, he reminds himself, because he didn't have the sense not to get caught or the nerve to sacrifice himself).
Henry talks constantly of his crusade plans. At first Edward had been excited about this idea, insofar as he's capable of being excited about anything, because people who died on crusade would get to go to heaven, and he hoped that this was still the case if you died on a crusade organized by a usurping king to expiate the murder of the previous king, which was at least partly your fault even though you were hopelessly in love with him, were still in love with him to this day, except that it turned out Henry didn't really mean it and thus Edward wasn't going to get to die for something actually righteous after all.
Not that he deserves that chance.
At any rate, Henry clearly has other things to worry about, with the Percy family muttering resentfully behind closed doors, and Edmund Mortimer getting married to the daughter of Owen Glendower, and his eldest son forsaking the court in order to frequent filthy Eastcheap taverns. Edward can't help but feel oddly impressed by Prince Harry's form of rebellion, or whatever it is -- he's better at defying Henry than Edward is, and he has no damned reason that Edward can see, for even if Henry's son had had a child's fondness for Richard, he had not loved him, not as Edward does.
Edward has largely given up on defiance, even when people whisper that King Richard is still alive, that he escaped to Scotland or to France and will return with an army to claim his throne, when men are arrested for wearing the badge of the White Hart. He knows better.
When Henry appoints him Master of the Hart-Hounds he is certain that it is a cruel jest.
Nevertheless, the hunt is the only thing that makes him feel alive, these days, if he can get the metaphorical applications out of his head: nobody has an agenda and it's very clear who wants to kill whom and for what reasons; there's no factions and nobody to ask you what you think, just you and the quarry, the smell of earth and sweat and blood, the thunder of hooves and hounds and horns and the blood pounding in your ears.
Of course, it does make him wonder if he hasn't turned into his father.
The notes of the mort are still ringing in his ears when Harry Percy corners him, whistling a rather sad approximation of a parfit.
"I see you have me at bay, sir," he says.
"You're not the quarry I'm hunting." Percy grins crookedly, which is odd, because until fairly recently, his interaction with Edward has involved a lot more suspicious glaring and fewer efforts at wordplay. "You've gotten too fat to give a good chase."
Edward rolls his eyes. "Even if you mean to rouse the hart," he says, "I wouldn't sound my horn so loudly. 'After the hart, the bier,' you know."
"I'm disappointed," Percy says. "Some sportsman you are."
"I'm surprised you're for the hunt again so soon," Edward snaps. "I suppose the dogs haven't had enough of the carcass?"
Percy's face goes red, and Edward can't help but think of Richard for a stabbing moment before he drops the whole awkward exchange of metaphors and growls, "You're lucky the King has decided to forget about all of those challenges, York."
"Listen, Percy," Edward says. "There's nothing in this quest for me -- " but then he adds, not ungently, "but take care, lest you be undone."
Percy looks at him carefully for a moment. "You won't even join us for -- the love of it?"
Edward shakes his head. It's summer, and he is still warm with exertion, but he feels a sudden chill nevertheless.
"The hart I would rouse will be moved no more, for he is unmade already," he says.
Percy acknowledges him with a brief nod, and then turns and rides away.
Edward has told him the truth, after all. It's not that he would have too much of an objection to seeing Henry taken down, although nothing about Percy or even his much cannier father and uncle has made him think that they'll be the ones to do it, or that many people will be keen to risk their lives to put Edmund Mortimer, or anyone else really, on the throne.
He himself sees no reason to bother. What does it matter, when Richard is dead? He was there on the day that Exton presented Henry with Richard's battered, naked corpse, has seen the ragged gashes in his side and chest and the hollow of his shoulder and the blood staining his lips and stiffening his golden hair, the skin that once warmed to his touch torn and bruised and leaden-white, and he will never be able to unsee the sight of it.
His suspicion is accurate, though. He never sees Harry Percy alive again.
***
Harry Percy dies at the hands of Harry Prince of Wales, abandoned by his father and betrayed by his uncle, believing himself the last true man in England. His body, like King Richard's, is displayed for the public, in the marketplace at Shrewsbury; his head is set on the gates of York; his body is sent in quarters to the four corners of the realm.
Edward of York is imprisoned when he admits to foreknowledge of the Percies' plot and, once again, the possession of an incriminating letter (his reply to Harry, which consists of more polite refusals, is of course lost). Three months later he is back in King Henry's good graces once again.
The hunting manual he wrote in prison is dedicated to the Prince of Wales.
He keeps Harry Percy's letter for the rest of his life.
Notes
Edward of York was appointed Master of Game to Henry IV in 1406, having been appointed Master of the Hart-Hounds in 1401 (as mentioned in the fic). He actually did write a book about hunting, entitled, sensibly enough, Master of Game, while in prison for concealing knowledge of a plot between Owen Glendower, the Earl of Northumberland, and Edmund Mortimer to remove another Edmund Mortimer (heir to the throne and one of the people Shakespeare conflated for his character "Mortimer") from the custody of Henry IV and then divide England between the three of them. I have conflated this incident with Hotspur's rebellion in the fic for the very good reason that Shakespeare did the same thing.
Master of Game, which is in large part a translation of Gaston de Foix's Livre de chasse, is the earliest extant English hunting treatise. It can be read online in its entirety here. (There's also a recent scholarly edition by UPenn Press, but I can't link to that. Nor have I read it, so I can't evaluate it.) It is the source for much of the discussion of hunting in the fic (that and some googling to define terms). For those unfamiliar with medieval hunting jargon (i.e. just about everyone who isn't the recipient or a specialist) I've annotated a few terms, although I think everything is reasonably clear from context.
Hart/heart puns are available wherever you want them. Medieval and Renaissance poets love that particular pun.
- A rache is a medieval name for a type of hunting dog that hunts by scent and is also involved in bringing the quarry (i.e. the prey) to bay (i.e. the point where the quarry can no longer run and tries to defend itself). This is in contrast to the lymer or bloodhound which was mostly involved in sniffing out the quarry before the start of the hunt. The modern equivalent seems to be the foxhound.
- The curée is the final part of the hunt, when the hounds are rewarded with pieces of the carcass (mostly innards).
- A parfit is a horn call meant to signify that the hounds are on the right track, and here I need to quote from the appendix to the Master of Game edition linked above: "Twici [Master of Game to Edward II] says it began by 'a moot [i.e. a long note] and then trourourout, trout, trout, trourourout, trourourout, trourourout, trout, trout, trourourourout,' 'and then to commence by another moot again, and so you ought to blow three times. And to commence by a moot and to finish by a moot'" (p. 233). This may be familiar to anyone who's read The Once and Future King (which contains an extensive description of a medieval boar hunt). It also suggests interesting things about Hotspur's skill at whistling, although it is "a rather sad approximation." The mort is the call blown when the prey is killed.
- After the hart, the bier: This proverb ("after the boar the leech, and after the hart the bier"), on the subject of which animals will fuck you up the most, is referenced in Master of Game, chapter 3 ("Of the Hart and his Nature"). Despite the saying, boar hunting was a ridiculously dangerous pastime and medieval people mostly seemed to engage in it in order to display their balls in a completely metaphorical way since nobody would want to have those out with a wild boar around.
- ...lest you be undone: Edward is being technical here, as well as ominous: the undoing (or unmaking) of a quarry takes place at the end of the hunt (before the curée, q.v. above), when the meat is prepared and partitioned. In the Middle Ages this had an almost ritual significance. The reference, therefore, also glances at the punishment of traitors, which Hotspur of course received, albeit (fortunately for him) posthumously.