[FICATHON] 'Tis Not the Balm, The Sceptre and the Ball, for speak_me_fair
Title: "'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball...."
Author: the_red_shoes
Play: Henry IV 1 and 2, a little bit of Henry V? Begins just before Richard reaches Waterford.
Recipient: speak_me_fair
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Hal/Richard II....sort of.
Rating: Irredeemably gen.
Notes: I have taken the liberty of Richard's knighting Hal before they reach Ireland, instead of afterwards.
Summary: "What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!"
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do.....
It was the first time Hal had ever been out of England, the first (and possibly last, he couldn't help thinking) time he had ever been on a ship, and the first time he had ever been so sick he thought he might die. Richard had offered some dried ginger root, which Hal had dutifully gnawed at, somehow swallowed, and evacuated a few minutes later. The ginger had been on an empty stomach; even when all he'd allowed himself for a day and a half had been small sips of warm, somehow dusty-tasting water, his stomach still revolted at the sight of the waves. It didn't help everyone said how unseasonable and violent the summer storm was. Hal took to spending most of his time sulking on-deck, or as near as he could get to it without getting washed off, but to his dismay even when the weather cleared, his internal squall did not. He tried his best not to display his disgrace -- or at least, incompetence -- in front of Richard, but it is hard to hide on a ship, especially above decks. Richard himself, he noted with sour admiration, was ever clean and neat, even if not dressed for court; his boots, hose, and even traveling-cloak (which had obviously seen much use) were all of fine stuff, and all near-spotless -- or at least, not reeking of sick. He managed to avoid embarrassing himself too badly until the very day they neared Waterford.
The weather was perfect -- bright and clear, the sun sparkling off the waters torturously -- and Hal was gripping the side without trying to be obvious about it, squinting off across the treacherous waves, doing his best to convince himself the pebble they were making for was getting bigger. Too late he realized Richard was of course there too, giving final orders and estimations -- for all his fine dress, his men took him seriously, and Hal wondered if any of them had been with him the last time. There was a somehow orderly flurry of people springing this way and that, going in all directions out from the king's person as if he had released a cage of mourning-doves, and then, for once, he and Richard were, for the most part, alone.
Hal flushed and tried to pull himself more erect, or at least not slump over the side. Richard's back was to him, and he thought the king was distracted enough with plans and visions of battle (will I have to kill someone? Will someone try to kill me?). The regular liquid crash of the oars sped up, and he could hear the biggest square sail snap -- the wind was behind them, a good omen. The rigging creaked alarmingly.
Richard said without turning around, his usual amusement but not asperity in evidence, "You're almost as bad as I was, my first time out."
Hal waited but there was no more; Richard always drew you to him, pricking you to get the response he wanted. He also always knew how to stage an encounter; he stood motionless a little above Hal on the forecastle (focsle, the crew called it, Hal corrected himself self-consciously): You come to me. Familiarly amused and annoyed in equal parts -- although the annoyance grew as he realized he was distracted from his own misery, and that Richard had probably intended that effect as well -- he made his way up, proud he only had to grab onto the bowsprit once. He could see the top of the bright figurehead, a snarling gilded lion. As he came up to Richard, glancing at his profile, the king smiled. His hands rested lightly on the wood just above the figurehead, and the sunlight flashed brighter on the rings than the waters: all gold, most worked, some jeweled -- even the jewels dwarfed by the great signet. Hal realized he was staring at it and quickly looked up, but his glance was caught by the large gold-and-enameled brooch, set with jewels, the brightest a ruby flashing in the eye of the white hart, its chain worked into the design. He remembered his own father's brooch, the white swan equally bright, chained as well, but collared with a crown, and swallowed.
"How bad....were you?" Hal ventured, trying for Aumerle's sly, knowing tone; he and Richard would effortlessly badinage by the hour, lazily tossing barbed words back and forth that had double, treble, sometimes seemingly endless mirror-reflected meanings. He heard with horror his own voice carried on the sea air: too loud, too flat, too earnest. He flushed.
Richard's real smile was as good as someone else's laugh -- never broad but surprisingly wide, like a wolf's grin, with the same glimpse of gleaming teeth and vivid tongue. "Worse than you ever will be," he said lightly, and clipped Hal lightly on the shoulder -- controlled, like all of Richard's movements and expressions. Hal could feel the power held in check behind it. It seemed you could always find the opposite meaning in what Richard said, if you looked long enough -- or could convince yourself you had, if you scrutinized his words by the hour, as Hal knew his father did. Richard let his hand stay a long moment -- longer than several heartbeats -- and, whether he meant it or not (it was typically difficult to tell), Hal could feel Richard's thumb rest near his throat, their twin pulses hard to distinguish. He could feel the tips of his ears begin to burn, and knew they were turning dull red. Richard stayed still, looking him full in the face, rare enough; Hal's jaw clenched but he didn't turn away, holding himself still under Richard's hand, not wanting to see whether or not he would be allowed to break free. He felt -- or did he imagine it? -- Richard's thumb stroke slightly against his skin, just one way, as if he were smoothing fur or feathers.
"They lie, you know," Richard said, not abruptly but as if they were taking up a casual conversation again after a brief interruption: something pleasantly meaningless. He waited, but Hal had no idea what he meant and was not at all inclined to ask. "When they tell you the first time's the worst, when you do something difficult." His grip tightened a little, bearing down. "It's the best, because then you don't know what to expect."
Hal gaped at him a little, not knowing what to say. Richard was waiting again. His grey eyes, always changeable, were even more so at sea, from grey-green to almost-blue to grey and green. Whatever angle Hal saw Richard's face from, his eyes always caught the light, and reminded Hal more than once of the sea itself: always changing, somehow always the same. The two were so close Hal could see lighter flecks ringing the pupil like shattered crystal on a background of ice, a dark navy-blue ring around the iris itself. Hal's own eyes were plain brown (like Father's).
Say. Something. He thought of all the questions he'd longed to ask Richard once they were alone -- will I have to fight? how bad will it be?....how long can I stay with you? when can Father come home, will Father come home, have you heard from him, is he all right... He realized this was Richard's way of telling him not to ask those questions, or any questions; it was almost meant as reassurance. You don't want to know. It's better if you don't. But he couldn't stop himself. "You mean -- like killing someone?" he blurted. "In -- in battle?" he added quickly.
The pressure intensified, then resolved into a gentle squeeze, and Richard moved away, no longer looking at or touching him. "Killing someone," he shrugged, voice light and careless, looking at the waves, the sea's reflecting light making his eyes gleam. "Loving someone....fucking someone...." He barely emphasized the last verb, looking sidewise at Hal and shrugging again. Just as the blood had receded, Hal felt it rushing to his hairline again, and scowled. Richard laughed.
"In Adam's fall, we sinn-ed all," he quoted, still sounding affectionate, still amused. "I see you must have your bite at the apple, despite the warnings of the serpent." His eyes glinted. "Heed me, coz" -- the casual endearment pierced Hal. Richard had worn no crown on board, not even the simple hinged circlet, much less the giant ornate affair which actually packed up in its own box (Hal had seen it, stored as casually as if it were any other crate of clothes or jewels, in Richard's cabin). The ring and chain were enough; but even if Richard were stripped of them, Hal thought, he would still be marked, somehow, as King.
Richard slipped the heavy gold chain of office over his own head, quick as a street-thief, closed the distance between them with one stride and settled it over Hal's before Hal realized what was happening. The metal links were as warm and heavy as Richard's own hand had been. "Now you are King," he said, such mischief dancing in his eyes it seemed malicious. "But take care; now all the cares of kingship are yours as well. Ask what you most want answered, and I will be unable to say no. No-one can deny the King." His hands were high on Hal's shoulders -- on his neck, really, as if he were about to hold Hal's face. He stepped back. "Ask quickly, coz. No man is King for long; indeed, some say being King unmanned me." He folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the mast, watching Hal's face.
The chain was impossibly heavy. Hal realized he had already put one hand up to it, as if to reassure himself it were really there, that no one yet had taken it away -- a gesture he had never seen Richard make. How could he refrain from fondling those butter-smooth links half the day, warmed by his own blood? He glanced down at the gold, amazed at how the sunlight, the sea-light, struck it. It lay like iron around his neck, as if it bore the ship's anchor.
He opened his mouth, then saw a shadow fall over Richard, who stood unmoving.
"My lord -- " Aumerle began, then took in the tableau: Richard sprawled along the warm wood, relaxed as the ship's cat in a patch of sun, Hal rigid before him, wearing -- Aumerle arched one elegant brow. "My lord...." he sighed, looking at Richard.
"Leave us," Hal said suddenly -- not snapping out in anger, but with the brusque unthinking privilege of office. It was unthinkable they should be interrupted now, before he had asked anything, said anything -- Both Aumerle's eyebrows went up this time, much more genuinely, and he kept looking at Richard, who raised his own eyebrows back at Aumerle in a mocking mirror image. "Leave us," he echoed, as if it were entirely obvious whose commands carried weight.
"My lord," Aumerle repeated a third time, with unwilling obedience, bowed -- scrupulously, to both of them -- with that studied grace that always made it seem as if it he favoured you when bestowing favour, and left just as if his unspoken question had been fully answered. Richard watched him go, a sardonic grin lifting up only one corner of his mouth, tongue-tip flickering for a moment at the other corner, enjoying the courtier's retreat. He glanced swiftly back to Hal, like a cat momentarily distracted at a mouse-hole.
"Perhaps the office suits you," he said amiably. Hal realized he was still holding onto the chain, like a new lady-in-waiting clutching unaccustomedly at her jewels her first day at court. "That was indeed a royal command. Now what would you command me to do?"
Hal cupped his hand under the chain and let a little of it pool in his palm, still watching the sunlight play on it. Somehow, commanding Aumerle to leave had steadied his head somewhat, and he felt less as if he'd just lost another sack-drinking contest in an Oxford tavern. "My father hates you," he said, not looking up, as if he were speaking to the office itself somehow, not only to Richard.
Richard, arms still folded, slid around so he could rest his back against the mast, wriggling his shoulders, obviously scratching an itch and enjoying it.
"That is not a question," he said mildly.
"No." Hal looked up, the chain in his fist. "Do you hate him?" he asked, voice hoarse, the ugly words hurting his throat. He stared at Richard.
Richard immediately looked away, over the sea, in the same direction as the figurehead. Perhaps he knew the reflected light would make his face harder to read, but Hal still thought he recognized an odd sadness. "No," Richard said finally, watching Ireland come closer with no interest, then met Hal's gaze. "....No," he repeated, the sadness plainer now, but no less puzzling.
Hal's fingers hurt, but he wouldn't let go. "Will you kill him?"
Richard didn't look away this time, although it seemed to Hal it pained him not to. "No," he said after only a little pause, not whispering, but his voice choked, low. "No, I....won't."
This time Hal was the one who looked away, copying Richard's tactic, dangerously close to tears all the same; he got himself through the worst of it with an old trick from childhood, of thinking how Prince Edward would act. With a small shock, he realized that was Richard's father. "Did you hate your father?" he asked impulsively, immediately regretting it, but -- his hand strayed back up again to the royal chain.
Richard's eyes followed the gesture. "I did not know him well enough to say," he drawled, then seeing the expression on Hal's face added swiftly, "No. No, I...." He hesitated, so uncharacteristic of him Hal looked back up. "I was nine...." He shook his head, as if deciding that was all that was safe enough to say. "Then I was ten. Then, I was King." His smile was small and twisted, entirely unlike Richard. "As you will be King," he added.
Hal stared at him. "But I am King after you die -- "
"Well, and your father." Richard's voice was low, drawing, amused again. Hal immediately looked at the deck, shamed into furious silence. Richard paused. He always chose his words carefully, but rarely was it this obvious.
"Have you heard from him?" Hal said recklessly.
Richard lifted one eyebrow, much less theatrically than Aumerle. "I have heard of him," he said, dryly. "He is well."
The encounter was, somehow, horribly, starting to be indistinguishable from one with any other adult. "'Well,'" Hal repeated, disappointed.
Richard slouched even further against the wood, tipping most of his weight onto his heels, perilously balanced; Hal watched nervously. "The last sighting of him reported he was simultaneously paying court to several lovely Frenchwomen, and enjoying the fruits....of the Sorbonne."
"And women were all he was....courting," Hal said warily. Richard looked at him with -- not surprise at what Hal might know, exactly, but slightly nonplussed he had chosen to reveal he might know something. Hal sighed harshly; he was never good with the labyrinthine in-and-out of intrigues, probably because they made him impatient.
"Not all women, but women of the court," Richard said silkily. "Lucia Visconti, I hear tell, although then he'd have had a fearsome father-in-law; perhaps that was why he looked fondly on mine, and chose Marie, comtesse d'Eu. Perhaps he thought her far enough from le Fol she held no taint, but she's near enough, near enough -- " His fists were clenched and he almost glared at Hal, so for a moment Hal understood the comparisons people were always making between kings and falcons, or lions, or angels. It was like passing too near a torch at court. Then Richard let out a slow breath and relaxed his hands, flexing his fingers slightly like the royal citolist before a concert, and they both watched the sun play on the gold rings. "Well, no fear you shall have a new mother yet, even if a new mother you may make," he said idly, not looking at Hal. "Perhaps the Hôtel de Clisson in Paris" -- he gave it the French pronounciation as he always did and Hal remembered a court jest that Richard was French enough to be a frog -- "is not so far from....Swindlestock?" It was the wolf-grin and sidelong glance again; Richard loved to let you know he knew he had scored a point.
Hal felt himself flush again, but the dart had pushed him past embarrassment into annoyance, even anger. "What care is it of yours?" he said, his heated emotions somehow making it easier to speak, not less. "I am your cousin, not your son."
Richard leaned his head back against the mast and laughed, like a man admiring the swing of a punch even as he knows it will knock the wind out of him. "Both of us may yet be glad of that" -- he was still laughing. "But I have no heir and your father is surfeited with them....so you are lent me, at least for a little while." He glanced at Hal, who had unconsciously crossed his arms over the great chain and stood sulking. "No, no, of no use; you are your father's son."
"All you do is joke about it," Hal said crossly, in the scolding tone everyone used with Richard sooner or later, not that it ever did any good. "Is it all nothing more than -- a jest, with you?"
Richard wobbled slightly and reached out for balance -- he looked annoyed, but then slid down the pole like a fish slipping into a pool till he was sitting on the deck, palms flat on the wood, his outstretched feet almost touching Hal's. He turned his face up to the sun and shut his eyes. "The child is father to the man, and the son reveals his father....if caged birds sing why should kings not jest?"
"It is a grave matter," Hal repeated impatiently, knowing his attempt to make Richard take anything seriously was futile. Richard opened his eyes, then tipped his head back as he looked up at Hal.
"Grave, indeed -- "
"They want you dead." Hal could hear his father's voice from his own mouth, and hated it. He glared down at Richard, who grinned.
"Death comes for all." Richard paused, enjoying the effect. "Even kings," he told Hal very seriously indeed.
But just as few could scold Richard -- fewer still, they said, after Robbie, and then Anne, could no longer -- few could resist him. Hal had to smile back, although he rolled his eyes. "Even you," he amended, although it seemed impossible -- Richard not only so sleek and full of life, even stretched out almost at Hal's feet, but King for two decades now, despite every attempt to unseat him....Hal's smile faded. "Sing sweetly, then," he said ruefully, tapping his boot on the deck -- if it had been anyone else he would have kicked at Richard's foot affectionately. "As suits a King."
"I am the King; what I do suits me." Richard's voice was sharp, but not overly so. They both watched the hypnotic dance of the light on the water for a few minutes, halfway between truce and impasse. Now that they were close enough to the land, a few gulls had settled on the rigging, squawking as the sails snapped; the crew had run out of rude chanteys, or the oarsmen were suddenly feeling more pious the nearer they drew to the field of battle, and he heard the drone of a very rhythmic hymn with endless verses instead. Hal was almost lulled, the warm sun and brisk sea-breeze drifting across his skin, and Richard asked: "Do you hate him?"
Too surprised to lie, Hal jerked out, "Yes -- " and looked down and away, thinking too late he had been led into a trap. "And I love him," he muttered, more ashamed at admitting the constant pull in two directions -- whichever he followed, always the wrong way.
"Ah...." Richard squinted off for a moment, then said, "Ah! Odi....et amo," as if he were a palace tutor. "'I hate, and I love....' He hates what he loves. He hates that he loves it." He looked up at Hal, eyes serious, clear.
"He loves -- " But Hal couldn't say you, much less not me, and he'd started it all, He hates you.... It would do no good to tell Richard who hated him, who would kill him, depose him -- he had been living with that threat almost longer than Hal had been alive, at a far younger age than Hal was now. He let his arms drop, but the chain snagged his sleeve, and the heavy links were uncomfortable after all, weighting down his breath. He supposed you were accustomed to it (and the crown that felt heavy even if you only looked at it, and the encrusted robes, and the slim but solid sceptre), if you wore it day after day, but -- "Being King is tedious," he muttered.
Richard rewarded him with a laugh. "Indeed, it is. -- Here, I'll give you the ring as well" -- he made as if to slip it off, but Hal knew better than to react. "You be King, then. Lead the army, crush the rebellion -- and I'll stay in Trim Castle and dream of....Oxford. Or I'll be bosun, or -- ship's cat -- "
Hal stood straight. "Trim Castle!...." he protested.
Richard looked up, but the sun was behind Hal and he had to shade his eyes with one hand. "Trim Castle, yes -- a safe place, and -- "
"No place is safe," said Hal, almost violently.
Richard was silent a moment. "Safer than a field of battle -- "
"I thought you said death comes for all!" Hal was too angry to remember who he was shouting at. "If it came to that, I could die at Trim Castle...." But he had to trail off; it was ridiculous. Trim Castle had stood for at least two hundred years and probably would stand two or three hundred more, a corner crumbling off only every decade or so. He would die there of old age more quickly than anything else. He couldn't bear the thought of being locked away, like a jeweled bauble, or a child -- and knew he couldn't hide that from Richard, but he didn't care. "If there were a, a siege," he finished sulkily.
"Die of the damp, more like," Richard added.
"I want to fight!" Hal protested. "I want to go with you -- " He stopped himself and stood still, head down.
"You wish to serve," Richard said, the old irony back again.
"Yes."
"Serve me," Richard emphasized, to drive the point home. Hal didn't look up.
"Yes."
Richard stood with surprising ease, not using his hands to propel himself up off the deck. "Give us the chain," he said, holding out his hand, palm up, beckoning his fingers once. Hal pulled the chain over his head, not caring how the links fell, and draped it over Richard's hand, still not looking at him, wishing he couldn't hear its chinking music as it moved. Richard slipped it on lightly as if it were a girl's shift. "Aumerle!" he called.
Hal shut his eyes, but Aumerle's voice didn't sound from three feet away -- or Aumerle knew to retreat so it at least seemed as if he hadn't been listening the whole time, more likely. Bootsteps came closer, from a respectable enough distance. "My lord."
"Lend your sword." Hal heard the metal-on-metal rasp as it was unsheathed, and then Richard's voice, closer, hard but amused. "Get down." Hal knelt awkwardly -- no elegant obeisance, but he didn't care, not even in front of Aumerle.
"Do you swear to never traffic with traitors -- never give evil counsel to a woman, even if she is married -- to defend your lady against all -- every day to hear Mass, and make an offering in Church?" Richard's voice was still ironic, and Hal felt Aumerle's smile on his skin. He still didn't care.
"I swear."
As always, when it came down to something real, Richard was serious. Hal expected the flat of the blade to smack his shoulders, but it was a gentle tap instead, hardly felt; Richard never toyed with weapons. "Then in the name of God, Saint Michael and Saint George, I King Richard the Second give you the right to bear arms and the power to mete out justice." Richard paused. "Rise, Sir Henry of Monmouth," he said more quietly.
Hal stood and finally, reluctantly, opened his eyes. Nothing had changed: the sky was still indifferently clear, Aumerle's sword was sheathed, the chain was back around Richard's neck. Richard stepped forward and kissed Hal lightly, without holding him, as if to seal it; once on each cheek, in the French way, and last on his mouth, no more lingering than the others, a bare brush of the lips. It was so sudden Hal did not shut his eyes, nor did Richard. He drew back. "My lord," he said, like Aumerle. Richard's mouth twitched.
"A knight needs a favour." Richard unpinned his enameled brooch, deftly fixing it just next to the hollow of Hal's left shoulder. He stood back and studied the result with exaggerated care, as if he were dressing Hal for a royal audience. "What think you?" He nudged Aumerle with his elbow.
"It suits him," Aumerle said, entirely serious. He winked at Hal.
"My suit suits no-one." Richard turned away.
Hal wondered, later, when he was indeed sent to Trim Castle after Richard had departed for England on receiving the news of Henry's invasion -- and, later still, after his father's coronation and his own investment -- if anything might have slowed the juggernaut, or if Richard's fate had been fixed long before. He thought not -- and he always came to that same conclusion, although that did not prevent him from still picking at the problem, as if it were a fool's riddle. Two kings, no kings, one king, none was king....
He often fingered the brooch, sitting in Trim Castle, while trying to work it out; but after the coronation, when he had carried the great sword Henry had first carried for Richard, he had put it away. He had learnt not to be too attached to possessions, especially in Eastcheap; and he neither wore it constantly nor locked it up as if it were a love-token. He had not forgotten he had it, exactly, but it surprised him when he suddenly remembered not only that he still had it but almost exactly where it was. Even so, when he opened the small box and saw it camouflaged in a casual heap of trinkets that, taken all together, were worth less than a tenth of its value, he had to hold still for a moment to absorb the blow. The enamel and gold warmed quickly to his hand, but the ruby remained cool; in a gesture he almost never made even in private, he touched the chain of office hung round his neck. Now you are King. But take care: no man is King for long....
King Henry the Fifth brought King Richard the Second back to London, to Westminster, with lavish penance, to undo what his father had done. He would reinter Richard with all honour due him; he would take in Mortimer, as Richard had in turn taken him in; he would restore titles, estates, and favour. He would control Lollards, not burn them, and bar Arundel to power; all this, and he looked across the Channel.
But Sir Henry of Monmouth was attendant on his lord. His grief was like a furnace, consuming first of all the black velvet heraldic banners with coats of arms -- some from his father's own funeral -- draped so thickly over the coffin no wood gleamed through, and the black and brown banners dressing the fine spirited horses; and the furnace was lit by the forests of torches that lit Richard's sightless journey from Langley to Westminster as if he were a petted child that must be kept from nightmares in the dark. Henry IV could have his Cathedral, trying to gain favour with Prince Edward even after they were both dead. The Abbey was Richard's -- he had restored the northern entrance and bays of the nave with his love. A new coffin, a new carriage, a new horse-bier, and enough candlewax to make it day within Richard's tomb on his anniversary whether the sun showed his face or covered it in grief, all gone like a stalk of straw in the furnace. They will remember this sight all their lives and tell it to those not yet born; they shall bring babes who can barely see so they may boast they were here today. A hundred marks given as largesse, a hundred hundred, paving the way for Richard's bones. They will bless Richard, on this day.
Henry would guard Richard until he was with Anne and his father again. Then the torches could go out, for the candles would be lit, covering every available surface, to show the shine of the gilt bronze, cold fire -- Richard and Anne holding hands, portrait effigies side by side, a menagerie of beasts supporting their feet and Anne's dress as jeweled as the finest courtly robes she had ever worn, the candle-light and the light reflected from the bronze would light up the scenes painted in gilt gesso-work on the wooden tester above. All would be light, all would be warm.
And it all was as dust and ashes, what was left at the bottom of the furnace, when Henry went to Richard's grave and paid the brothers of Langley not only for alms but for the privilege to be there when the maintainers cracked it open. He had already spent so much (but Richard paid far more) there was not so much as a murmur when he stood, arms folded, as they prepared to transfer Richard to his new coffin and ordered, "Leave him....and leave us." The two men who had loosened the coffin-lid laid it to one side and slipped away; Henry could already hear raised voices debating over who would have the honour of carrying the coffin to the waiting bier.
Henry gently pulled aside the linen folds; he had seen too much on the battlefield not to know what to expect. But Richard had borne up well even under a decade and more of decay; Henry tried to smile, as certainly it would have amused Richard to be found more than presentable. The skin was withered and shrunken, to be sure, in some places stained and in others worn through, but the hair was still bright and abundant, the features uncorrupted. The king unpinned Richard's brooch from his own bosom and, careful not to jostle the body too much, pinned it a little awkwardly to his shroud, in the same place Richard had chosen on him. Death comes for all -- even kings. "My lord," he whispered. He leaned in to give three bises, just as Richard had done, just as lightly, stepping away the moment his lips left Richard's mouth.
Henry watched the brothers carry Richard from the abbey to the waiting bier carefully as if there were a whole rose window in the coffin -- he had shut the lid himself, and watched the nails being driven in. Even the eldest monks wanted to join the funeral procession for at least however far they could go, and spectators were already beginning to line the rough road leading away from the abbey. The royal carriage waited.
"I will walk," King Henry said.
"My liege -- "
"I will walk," Henry repeated, and then, more gently: "Only a few miles." He would walk all twenty-five if he could get away with it, but no need to bicker over that now. The horses were spirited, and snorted at being set such a slow pace; Richard would have liked that, as well. Henry walked first, behind the bier, as was his right, eyes fixed on the carriage as if he could see through the draped velvet and polished wood through the coffin to the small brooch Richard had once given him. In the abbey they were already lighting Richard's candles and preparing to sing Masses for him, and there were torches to light Richard's passage to the tomb where hundredweights of candles would burn for him. And now, even in his coffin, the ruby kindled, and the gold would be like an unseen flame in the final dark.
dedicated to angevin2
Author: the_red_shoes
Play: Henry IV 1 and 2, a little bit of Henry V? Begins just before Richard reaches Waterford.
Recipient: speak_me_fair
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Hal/Richard II....sort of.
Rating: Irredeemably gen.
Notes: I have taken the liberty of Richard's knighting Hal before they reach Ireland, instead of afterwards.
Summary: "What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!"
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do.....
It was the first time Hal had ever been out of England, the first (and possibly last, he couldn't help thinking) time he had ever been on a ship, and the first time he had ever been so sick he thought he might die. Richard had offered some dried ginger root, which Hal had dutifully gnawed at, somehow swallowed, and evacuated a few minutes later. The ginger had been on an empty stomach; even when all he'd allowed himself for a day and a half had been small sips of warm, somehow dusty-tasting water, his stomach still revolted at the sight of the waves. It didn't help everyone said how unseasonable and violent the summer storm was. Hal took to spending most of his time sulking on-deck, or as near as he could get to it without getting washed off, but to his dismay even when the weather cleared, his internal squall did not. He tried his best not to display his disgrace -- or at least, incompetence -- in front of Richard, but it is hard to hide on a ship, especially above decks. Richard himself, he noted with sour admiration, was ever clean and neat, even if not dressed for court; his boots, hose, and even traveling-cloak (which had obviously seen much use) were all of fine stuff, and all near-spotless -- or at least, not reeking of sick. He managed to avoid embarrassing himself too badly until the very day they neared Waterford.
The weather was perfect -- bright and clear, the sun sparkling off the waters torturously -- and Hal was gripping the side without trying to be obvious about it, squinting off across the treacherous waves, doing his best to convince himself the pebble they were making for was getting bigger. Too late he realized Richard was of course there too, giving final orders and estimations -- for all his fine dress, his men took him seriously, and Hal wondered if any of them had been with him the last time. There was a somehow orderly flurry of people springing this way and that, going in all directions out from the king's person as if he had released a cage of mourning-doves, and then, for once, he and Richard were, for the most part, alone.
Hal flushed and tried to pull himself more erect, or at least not slump over the side. Richard's back was to him, and he thought the king was distracted enough with plans and visions of battle (will I have to kill someone? Will someone try to kill me?). The regular liquid crash of the oars sped up, and he could hear the biggest square sail snap -- the wind was behind them, a good omen. The rigging creaked alarmingly.
Richard said without turning around, his usual amusement but not asperity in evidence, "You're almost as bad as I was, my first time out."
Hal waited but there was no more; Richard always drew you to him, pricking you to get the response he wanted. He also always knew how to stage an encounter; he stood motionless a little above Hal on the forecastle (focsle, the crew called it, Hal corrected himself self-consciously): You come to me. Familiarly amused and annoyed in equal parts -- although the annoyance grew as he realized he was distracted from his own misery, and that Richard had probably intended that effect as well -- he made his way up, proud he only had to grab onto the bowsprit once. He could see the top of the bright figurehead, a snarling gilded lion. As he came up to Richard, glancing at his profile, the king smiled. His hands rested lightly on the wood just above the figurehead, and the sunlight flashed brighter on the rings than the waters: all gold, most worked, some jeweled -- even the jewels dwarfed by the great signet. Hal realized he was staring at it and quickly looked up, but his glance was caught by the large gold-and-enameled brooch, set with jewels, the brightest a ruby flashing in the eye of the white hart, its chain worked into the design. He remembered his own father's brooch, the white swan equally bright, chained as well, but collared with a crown, and swallowed.
"How bad....were you?" Hal ventured, trying for Aumerle's sly, knowing tone; he and Richard would effortlessly badinage by the hour, lazily tossing barbed words back and forth that had double, treble, sometimes seemingly endless mirror-reflected meanings. He heard with horror his own voice carried on the sea air: too loud, too flat, too earnest. He flushed.
Richard's real smile was as good as someone else's laugh -- never broad but surprisingly wide, like a wolf's grin, with the same glimpse of gleaming teeth and vivid tongue. "Worse than you ever will be," he said lightly, and clipped Hal lightly on the shoulder -- controlled, like all of Richard's movements and expressions. Hal could feel the power held in check behind it. It seemed you could always find the opposite meaning in what Richard said, if you looked long enough -- or could convince yourself you had, if you scrutinized his words by the hour, as Hal knew his father did. Richard let his hand stay a long moment -- longer than several heartbeats -- and, whether he meant it or not (it was typically difficult to tell), Hal could feel Richard's thumb rest near his throat, their twin pulses hard to distinguish. He could feel the tips of his ears begin to burn, and knew they were turning dull red. Richard stayed still, looking him full in the face, rare enough; Hal's jaw clenched but he didn't turn away, holding himself still under Richard's hand, not wanting to see whether or not he would be allowed to break free. He felt -- or did he imagine it? -- Richard's thumb stroke slightly against his skin, just one way, as if he were smoothing fur or feathers.
"They lie, you know," Richard said, not abruptly but as if they were taking up a casual conversation again after a brief interruption: something pleasantly meaningless. He waited, but Hal had no idea what he meant and was not at all inclined to ask. "When they tell you the first time's the worst, when you do something difficult." His grip tightened a little, bearing down. "It's the best, because then you don't know what to expect."
Hal gaped at him a little, not knowing what to say. Richard was waiting again. His grey eyes, always changeable, were even more so at sea, from grey-green to almost-blue to grey and green. Whatever angle Hal saw Richard's face from, his eyes always caught the light, and reminded Hal more than once of the sea itself: always changing, somehow always the same. The two were so close Hal could see lighter flecks ringing the pupil like shattered crystal on a background of ice, a dark navy-blue ring around the iris itself. Hal's own eyes were plain brown (like Father's).
Say. Something. He thought of all the questions he'd longed to ask Richard once they were alone -- will I have to fight? how bad will it be?....how long can I stay with you? when can Father come home, will Father come home, have you heard from him, is he all right... He realized this was Richard's way of telling him not to ask those questions, or any questions; it was almost meant as reassurance. You don't want to know. It's better if you don't. But he couldn't stop himself. "You mean -- like killing someone?" he blurted. "In -- in battle?" he added quickly.
The pressure intensified, then resolved into a gentle squeeze, and Richard moved away, no longer looking at or touching him. "Killing someone," he shrugged, voice light and careless, looking at the waves, the sea's reflecting light making his eyes gleam. "Loving someone....fucking someone...." He barely emphasized the last verb, looking sidewise at Hal and shrugging again. Just as the blood had receded, Hal felt it rushing to his hairline again, and scowled. Richard laughed.
"In Adam's fall, we sinn-ed all," he quoted, still sounding affectionate, still amused. "I see you must have your bite at the apple, despite the warnings of the serpent." His eyes glinted. "Heed me, coz" -- the casual endearment pierced Hal. Richard had worn no crown on board, not even the simple hinged circlet, much less the giant ornate affair which actually packed up in its own box (Hal had seen it, stored as casually as if it were any other crate of clothes or jewels, in Richard's cabin). The ring and chain were enough; but even if Richard were stripped of them, Hal thought, he would still be marked, somehow, as King.
Richard slipped the heavy gold chain of office over his own head, quick as a street-thief, closed the distance between them with one stride and settled it over Hal's before Hal realized what was happening. The metal links were as warm and heavy as Richard's own hand had been. "Now you are King," he said, such mischief dancing in his eyes it seemed malicious. "But take care; now all the cares of kingship are yours as well. Ask what you most want answered, and I will be unable to say no. No-one can deny the King." His hands were high on Hal's shoulders -- on his neck, really, as if he were about to hold Hal's face. He stepped back. "Ask quickly, coz. No man is King for long; indeed, some say being King unmanned me." He folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the mast, watching Hal's face.
The chain was impossibly heavy. Hal realized he had already put one hand up to it, as if to reassure himself it were really there, that no one yet had taken it away -- a gesture he had never seen Richard make. How could he refrain from fondling those butter-smooth links half the day, warmed by his own blood? He glanced down at the gold, amazed at how the sunlight, the sea-light, struck it. It lay like iron around his neck, as if it bore the ship's anchor.
He opened his mouth, then saw a shadow fall over Richard, who stood unmoving.
"My lord -- " Aumerle began, then took in the tableau: Richard sprawled along the warm wood, relaxed as the ship's cat in a patch of sun, Hal rigid before him, wearing -- Aumerle arched one elegant brow. "My lord...." he sighed, looking at Richard.
"Leave us," Hal said suddenly -- not snapping out in anger, but with the brusque unthinking privilege of office. It was unthinkable they should be interrupted now, before he had asked anything, said anything -- Both Aumerle's eyebrows went up this time, much more genuinely, and he kept looking at Richard, who raised his own eyebrows back at Aumerle in a mocking mirror image. "Leave us," he echoed, as if it were entirely obvious whose commands carried weight.
"My lord," Aumerle repeated a third time, with unwilling obedience, bowed -- scrupulously, to both of them -- with that studied grace that always made it seem as if it he favoured you when bestowing favour, and left just as if his unspoken question had been fully answered. Richard watched him go, a sardonic grin lifting up only one corner of his mouth, tongue-tip flickering for a moment at the other corner, enjoying the courtier's retreat. He glanced swiftly back to Hal, like a cat momentarily distracted at a mouse-hole.
"Perhaps the office suits you," he said amiably. Hal realized he was still holding onto the chain, like a new lady-in-waiting clutching unaccustomedly at her jewels her first day at court. "That was indeed a royal command. Now what would you command me to do?"
Hal cupped his hand under the chain and let a little of it pool in his palm, still watching the sunlight play on it. Somehow, commanding Aumerle to leave had steadied his head somewhat, and he felt less as if he'd just lost another sack-drinking contest in an Oxford tavern. "My father hates you," he said, not looking up, as if he were speaking to the office itself somehow, not only to Richard.
Richard, arms still folded, slid around so he could rest his back against the mast, wriggling his shoulders, obviously scratching an itch and enjoying it.
"That is not a question," he said mildly.
"No." Hal looked up, the chain in his fist. "Do you hate him?" he asked, voice hoarse, the ugly words hurting his throat. He stared at Richard.
Richard immediately looked away, over the sea, in the same direction as the figurehead. Perhaps he knew the reflected light would make his face harder to read, but Hal still thought he recognized an odd sadness. "No," Richard said finally, watching Ireland come closer with no interest, then met Hal's gaze. "....No," he repeated, the sadness plainer now, but no less puzzling.
Hal's fingers hurt, but he wouldn't let go. "Will you kill him?"
Richard didn't look away this time, although it seemed to Hal it pained him not to. "No," he said after only a little pause, not whispering, but his voice choked, low. "No, I....won't."
This time Hal was the one who looked away, copying Richard's tactic, dangerously close to tears all the same; he got himself through the worst of it with an old trick from childhood, of thinking how Prince Edward would act. With a small shock, he realized that was Richard's father. "Did you hate your father?" he asked impulsively, immediately regretting it, but -- his hand strayed back up again to the royal chain.
Richard's eyes followed the gesture. "I did not know him well enough to say," he drawled, then seeing the expression on Hal's face added swiftly, "No. No, I...." He hesitated, so uncharacteristic of him Hal looked back up. "I was nine...." He shook his head, as if deciding that was all that was safe enough to say. "Then I was ten. Then, I was King." His smile was small and twisted, entirely unlike Richard. "As you will be King," he added.
Hal stared at him. "But I am King after you die -- "
"Well, and your father." Richard's voice was low, drawing, amused again. Hal immediately looked at the deck, shamed into furious silence. Richard paused. He always chose his words carefully, but rarely was it this obvious.
"Have you heard from him?" Hal said recklessly.
Richard lifted one eyebrow, much less theatrically than Aumerle. "I have heard of him," he said, dryly. "He is well."
The encounter was, somehow, horribly, starting to be indistinguishable from one with any other adult. "'Well,'" Hal repeated, disappointed.
Richard slouched even further against the wood, tipping most of his weight onto his heels, perilously balanced; Hal watched nervously. "The last sighting of him reported he was simultaneously paying court to several lovely Frenchwomen, and enjoying the fruits....of the Sorbonne."
"And women were all he was....courting," Hal said warily. Richard looked at him with -- not surprise at what Hal might know, exactly, but slightly nonplussed he had chosen to reveal he might know something. Hal sighed harshly; he was never good with the labyrinthine in-and-out of intrigues, probably because they made him impatient.
"Not all women, but women of the court," Richard said silkily. "Lucia Visconti, I hear tell, although then he'd have had a fearsome father-in-law; perhaps that was why he looked fondly on mine, and chose Marie, comtesse d'Eu. Perhaps he thought her far enough from le Fol she held no taint, but she's near enough, near enough -- " His fists were clenched and he almost glared at Hal, so for a moment Hal understood the comparisons people were always making between kings and falcons, or lions, or angels. It was like passing too near a torch at court. Then Richard let out a slow breath and relaxed his hands, flexing his fingers slightly like the royal citolist before a concert, and they both watched the sun play on the gold rings. "Well, no fear you shall have a new mother yet, even if a new mother you may make," he said idly, not looking at Hal. "Perhaps the Hôtel de Clisson in Paris" -- he gave it the French pronounciation as he always did and Hal remembered a court jest that Richard was French enough to be a frog -- "is not so far from....Swindlestock?" It was the wolf-grin and sidelong glance again; Richard loved to let you know he knew he had scored a point.
Hal felt himself flush again, but the dart had pushed him past embarrassment into annoyance, even anger. "What care is it of yours?" he said, his heated emotions somehow making it easier to speak, not less. "I am your cousin, not your son."
Richard leaned his head back against the mast and laughed, like a man admiring the swing of a punch even as he knows it will knock the wind out of him. "Both of us may yet be glad of that" -- he was still laughing. "But I have no heir and your father is surfeited with them....so you are lent me, at least for a little while." He glanced at Hal, who had unconsciously crossed his arms over the great chain and stood sulking. "No, no, of no use; you are your father's son."
"All you do is joke about it," Hal said crossly, in the scolding tone everyone used with Richard sooner or later, not that it ever did any good. "Is it all nothing more than -- a jest, with you?"
Richard wobbled slightly and reached out for balance -- he looked annoyed, but then slid down the pole like a fish slipping into a pool till he was sitting on the deck, palms flat on the wood, his outstretched feet almost touching Hal's. He turned his face up to the sun and shut his eyes. "The child is father to the man, and the son reveals his father....if caged birds sing why should kings not jest?"
"It is a grave matter," Hal repeated impatiently, knowing his attempt to make Richard take anything seriously was futile. Richard opened his eyes, then tipped his head back as he looked up at Hal.
"Grave, indeed -- "
"They want you dead." Hal could hear his father's voice from his own mouth, and hated it. He glared down at Richard, who grinned.
"Death comes for all." Richard paused, enjoying the effect. "Even kings," he told Hal very seriously indeed.
But just as few could scold Richard -- fewer still, they said, after Robbie, and then Anne, could no longer -- few could resist him. Hal had to smile back, although he rolled his eyes. "Even you," he amended, although it seemed impossible -- Richard not only so sleek and full of life, even stretched out almost at Hal's feet, but King for two decades now, despite every attempt to unseat him....Hal's smile faded. "Sing sweetly, then," he said ruefully, tapping his boot on the deck -- if it had been anyone else he would have kicked at Richard's foot affectionately. "As suits a King."
"I am the King; what I do suits me." Richard's voice was sharp, but not overly so. They both watched the hypnotic dance of the light on the water for a few minutes, halfway between truce and impasse. Now that they were close enough to the land, a few gulls had settled on the rigging, squawking as the sails snapped; the crew had run out of rude chanteys, or the oarsmen were suddenly feeling more pious the nearer they drew to the field of battle, and he heard the drone of a very rhythmic hymn with endless verses instead. Hal was almost lulled, the warm sun and brisk sea-breeze drifting across his skin, and Richard asked: "Do you hate him?"
Too surprised to lie, Hal jerked out, "Yes -- " and looked down and away, thinking too late he had been led into a trap. "And I love him," he muttered, more ashamed at admitting the constant pull in two directions -- whichever he followed, always the wrong way.
"Ah...." Richard squinted off for a moment, then said, "Ah! Odi....et amo," as if he were a palace tutor. "'I hate, and I love....' He hates what he loves. He hates that he loves it." He looked up at Hal, eyes serious, clear.
"He loves -- " But Hal couldn't say you, much less not me, and he'd started it all, He hates you.... It would do no good to tell Richard who hated him, who would kill him, depose him -- he had been living with that threat almost longer than Hal had been alive, at a far younger age than Hal was now. He let his arms drop, but the chain snagged his sleeve, and the heavy links were uncomfortable after all, weighting down his breath. He supposed you were accustomed to it (and the crown that felt heavy even if you only looked at it, and the encrusted robes, and the slim but solid sceptre), if you wore it day after day, but -- "Being King is tedious," he muttered.
Richard rewarded him with a laugh. "Indeed, it is. -- Here, I'll give you the ring as well" -- he made as if to slip it off, but Hal knew better than to react. "You be King, then. Lead the army, crush the rebellion -- and I'll stay in Trim Castle and dream of....Oxford. Or I'll be bosun, or -- ship's cat -- "
Hal stood straight. "Trim Castle!...." he protested.
Richard looked up, but the sun was behind Hal and he had to shade his eyes with one hand. "Trim Castle, yes -- a safe place, and -- "
"No place is safe," said Hal, almost violently.
Richard was silent a moment. "Safer than a field of battle -- "
"I thought you said death comes for all!" Hal was too angry to remember who he was shouting at. "If it came to that, I could die at Trim Castle...." But he had to trail off; it was ridiculous. Trim Castle had stood for at least two hundred years and probably would stand two or three hundred more, a corner crumbling off only every decade or so. He would die there of old age more quickly than anything else. He couldn't bear the thought of being locked away, like a jeweled bauble, or a child -- and knew he couldn't hide that from Richard, but he didn't care. "If there were a, a siege," he finished sulkily.
"Die of the damp, more like," Richard added.
"I want to fight!" Hal protested. "I want to go with you -- " He stopped himself and stood still, head down.
"You wish to serve," Richard said, the old irony back again.
"Yes."
"Serve me," Richard emphasized, to drive the point home. Hal didn't look up.
"Yes."
Richard stood with surprising ease, not using his hands to propel himself up off the deck. "Give us the chain," he said, holding out his hand, palm up, beckoning his fingers once. Hal pulled the chain over his head, not caring how the links fell, and draped it over Richard's hand, still not looking at him, wishing he couldn't hear its chinking music as it moved. Richard slipped it on lightly as if it were a girl's shift. "Aumerle!" he called.
Hal shut his eyes, but Aumerle's voice didn't sound from three feet away -- or Aumerle knew to retreat so it at least seemed as if he hadn't been listening the whole time, more likely. Bootsteps came closer, from a respectable enough distance. "My lord."
"Lend your sword." Hal heard the metal-on-metal rasp as it was unsheathed, and then Richard's voice, closer, hard but amused. "Get down." Hal knelt awkwardly -- no elegant obeisance, but he didn't care, not even in front of Aumerle.
"Do you swear to never traffic with traitors -- never give evil counsel to a woman, even if she is married -- to defend your lady against all -- every day to hear Mass, and make an offering in Church?" Richard's voice was still ironic, and Hal felt Aumerle's smile on his skin. He still didn't care.
"I swear."
As always, when it came down to something real, Richard was serious. Hal expected the flat of the blade to smack his shoulders, but it was a gentle tap instead, hardly felt; Richard never toyed with weapons. "Then in the name of God, Saint Michael and Saint George, I King Richard the Second give you the right to bear arms and the power to mete out justice." Richard paused. "Rise, Sir Henry of Monmouth," he said more quietly.
Hal stood and finally, reluctantly, opened his eyes. Nothing had changed: the sky was still indifferently clear, Aumerle's sword was sheathed, the chain was back around Richard's neck. Richard stepped forward and kissed Hal lightly, without holding him, as if to seal it; once on each cheek, in the French way, and last on his mouth, no more lingering than the others, a bare brush of the lips. It was so sudden Hal did not shut his eyes, nor did Richard. He drew back. "My lord," he said, like Aumerle. Richard's mouth twitched.
"A knight needs a favour." Richard unpinned his enameled brooch, deftly fixing it just next to the hollow of Hal's left shoulder. He stood back and studied the result with exaggerated care, as if he were dressing Hal for a royal audience. "What think you?" He nudged Aumerle with his elbow.
"It suits him," Aumerle said, entirely serious. He winked at Hal.
"My suit suits no-one." Richard turned away.
Hal wondered, later, when he was indeed sent to Trim Castle after Richard had departed for England on receiving the news of Henry's invasion -- and, later still, after his father's coronation and his own investment -- if anything might have slowed the juggernaut, or if Richard's fate had been fixed long before. He thought not -- and he always came to that same conclusion, although that did not prevent him from still picking at the problem, as if it were a fool's riddle. Two kings, no kings, one king, none was king....
He often fingered the brooch, sitting in Trim Castle, while trying to work it out; but after the coronation, when he had carried the great sword Henry had first carried for Richard, he had put it away. He had learnt not to be too attached to possessions, especially in Eastcheap; and he neither wore it constantly nor locked it up as if it were a love-token. He had not forgotten he had it, exactly, but it surprised him when he suddenly remembered not only that he still had it but almost exactly where it was. Even so, when he opened the small box and saw it camouflaged in a casual heap of trinkets that, taken all together, were worth less than a tenth of its value, he had to hold still for a moment to absorb the blow. The enamel and gold warmed quickly to his hand, but the ruby remained cool; in a gesture he almost never made even in private, he touched the chain of office hung round his neck. Now you are King. But take care: no man is King for long....
King Henry the Fifth brought King Richard the Second back to London, to Westminster, with lavish penance, to undo what his father had done. He would reinter Richard with all honour due him; he would take in Mortimer, as Richard had in turn taken him in; he would restore titles, estates, and favour. He would control Lollards, not burn them, and bar Arundel to power; all this, and he looked across the Channel.
But Sir Henry of Monmouth was attendant on his lord. His grief was like a furnace, consuming first of all the black velvet heraldic banners with coats of arms -- some from his father's own funeral -- draped so thickly over the coffin no wood gleamed through, and the black and brown banners dressing the fine spirited horses; and the furnace was lit by the forests of torches that lit Richard's sightless journey from Langley to Westminster as if he were a petted child that must be kept from nightmares in the dark. Henry IV could have his Cathedral, trying to gain favour with Prince Edward even after they were both dead. The Abbey was Richard's -- he had restored the northern entrance and bays of the nave with his love. A new coffin, a new carriage, a new horse-bier, and enough candlewax to make it day within Richard's tomb on his anniversary whether the sun showed his face or covered it in grief, all gone like a stalk of straw in the furnace. They will remember this sight all their lives and tell it to those not yet born; they shall bring babes who can barely see so they may boast they were here today. A hundred marks given as largesse, a hundred hundred, paving the way for Richard's bones. They will bless Richard, on this day.
Henry would guard Richard until he was with Anne and his father again. Then the torches could go out, for the candles would be lit, covering every available surface, to show the shine of the gilt bronze, cold fire -- Richard and Anne holding hands, portrait effigies side by side, a menagerie of beasts supporting their feet and Anne's dress as jeweled as the finest courtly robes she had ever worn, the candle-light and the light reflected from the bronze would light up the scenes painted in gilt gesso-work on the wooden tester above. All would be light, all would be warm.
And it all was as dust and ashes, what was left at the bottom of the furnace, when Henry went to Richard's grave and paid the brothers of Langley not only for alms but for the privilege to be there when the maintainers cracked it open. He had already spent so much (but Richard paid far more) there was not so much as a murmur when he stood, arms folded, as they prepared to transfer Richard to his new coffin and ordered, "Leave him....and leave us." The two men who had loosened the coffin-lid laid it to one side and slipped away; Henry could already hear raised voices debating over who would have the honour of carrying the coffin to the waiting bier.
Henry gently pulled aside the linen folds; he had seen too much on the battlefield not to know what to expect. But Richard had borne up well even under a decade and more of decay; Henry tried to smile, as certainly it would have amused Richard to be found more than presentable. The skin was withered and shrunken, to be sure, in some places stained and in others worn through, but the hair was still bright and abundant, the features uncorrupted. The king unpinned Richard's brooch from his own bosom and, careful not to jostle the body too much, pinned it a little awkwardly to his shroud, in the same place Richard had chosen on him. Death comes for all -- even kings. "My lord," he whispered. He leaned in to give three bises, just as Richard had done, just as lightly, stepping away the moment his lips left Richard's mouth.
Henry watched the brothers carry Richard from the abbey to the waiting bier carefully as if there were a whole rose window in the coffin -- he had shut the lid himself, and watched the nails being driven in. Even the eldest monks wanted to join the funeral procession for at least however far they could go, and spectators were already beginning to line the rough road leading away from the abbey. The royal carriage waited.
"I will walk," King Henry said.
"My liege -- "
"I will walk," Henry repeated, and then, more gently: "Only a few miles." He would walk all twenty-five if he could get away with it, but no need to bicker over that now. The horses were spirited, and snorted at being set such a slow pace; Richard would have liked that, as well. Henry walked first, behind the bier, as was his right, eyes fixed on the carriage as if he could see through the draped velvet and polished wood through the coffin to the small brooch Richard had once given him. In the abbey they were already lighting Richard's candles and preparing to sing Masses for him, and there were torches to light Richard's passage to the tomb where hundredweights of candles would burn for him. And now, even in his coffin, the ruby kindled, and the gold would be like an unseen flame in the final dark.
dedicated to angevin2