[FICATHON] The Base-String of Humility, for fuunsaiki

[angevin2]

Title: The Base-String Of Humility
Author: speak_me_fair
Recipient: fuunsaiki
Play: Richard II/Henry IV, Part I.
Character(s): Hal, Poins, Henry IV, Hotspur, York.
Pairings: Hal/Poins
Rating/Warnings: Rated below an R, even with the slash. Set between Richard II and Henry IV part 1.
Summary: Hal's playing the game well, but he knows he's getting in over his head in more than one way…

The Base-String Of Humility.

Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but the prince of Wales, yet I am king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy, by the Lord, so they call me, and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap.

*

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival, all her dignities.

*

Hal sometimes thought that the one thing which could be said for having apartments of his own was that when, as occasionally and inevitably happened, he got a missive -

a missile, a missive, it's the same thing, touches me where it hurts the most and leaves no mark because it makes no outward wound -

from his father, he could have a fit of petulant, childish, uncontrollable temper involving every vaguely moveable object in the room, and there would be no-one who was brave or unwise enough to dare even to remark on it. He could destroy anything likely to break with a sweep of his arm, and there would be no-one to report it. He could even, like his somewhat infamous ancestors, have resorted to carpet-chewing in his overwhelming desire to lash out at things, and simply order a replacement if he damaged it too much.

It took any desire he had to succumb to the emotion away from him, and replaced it with a wave of self-pity that was faintly nauseating to him, even while he recognised it was both earned and absurd at once, that he had caused this isolation and yet suffered from it too, and that he could, if he wanted, summon people who at least cared enough to enquire as to what had put him in such a bad mood.

Summon those who he thought of as friends, even while he knew himself to be using them. Remind himself yet again that he was using up his frailties, ready for a time when he would be unable to admit to anything that others might perceive as a fault, would need to have no perceptible flaws, let alone the possibility of them.

He could give in, too, accept the invitation-command with a good grace and play the prodigal, and find in that a new way of destroying whatever his father wanted to prove this time, with his desire to - prematurely, in Hal's opinion, and he was damn well going to make sure everyone knew he had it - give Mortimer some kind of fête before he was sent off to Wales.

Presumably, the jollity would be unforced and borne on the hope that Mortimer would fail to return - a convenience to all as well as an excuse for pious mourning. His father, the king, the ultimate hypocrite, who was teaching Hal, even from a distance, everything he would ever need about the act of dissembling, however differently they used it.

His father, who managed to couch command or invitation, both being one and the same and phrased with very little difference, in such terms that made his disapproval somehow clear, even with the complete lack of variation that formal words gave any writer, and that Hal unkindly thought his father possessed in any case.

He was, more often than not, disgusted at himself for wishing things were different, even though he was the one who had gone to such lengths to make sure they stood as they did. He did not want to bridge the distance between himself and his father, he did not want to play the part that had been so neatly laid out for him since he became the heir to something he wanted more than he dared admit even to himself, and he did not want to be reminded that every slight, real or imagined, every disapproving glance, every moment of brief dismissal from Westmoreland and his ilk, was something he had worked to gain.

My own personal hair shirt, my own concealed penance. If I give it away, if I admit to it, it will cease to serve its purpose.

He did not want to bridge that carefully-created distance, no - but he could admit, in moments of honesty that he made sure he granted himself, another excoriation of what was left of his soul to add to his small pains - that he wished his father cared enough for who he had carefully designed himself to be to try instead.

Since he had invented his wild and barely lawful (and sometimes wholly unlawful, though he felt some small part of him balk at that even while he relished it) self in order to be the most disillusioning and disillusioned and yes, if he were honest, dissolute of sons, he knew that he could not be surprised at how well his game was working.

He could, however, be surprised that it still managed to make him feel quite so much, and so conflictingly.

He does it in part deliberately, to hurt me as much as I have hurt him, yes, but I knew that, I expected that, and it does ease with time and distance, only flares up like an old wound in the cold on days like these. But I did not expect the sorrow. I did not expect to miss something that God knows we never had in the first place.

The next day, he would play his part, he would obey the summons and keep to his decisions both at once.

But for now -

I have another part to play, and one far more to my liking, because however close it may be to a vizard, it has the merits of a mask as well, in that it permits me to be more myself than at any other time.

It was the irony of that, more than anything, which amused him, the twisted nature of the joke that the one thing that made him false was also the closest he came to honesty.

He did not think that anyone else, either in the palace or in Eastcheap, would appreciate the joke.

*

It was grey and raining when he left his apartments, the river not yet swollen, but rough and choppy with a tide more suited to a harder wind, heavier rain. It was not often that the Thames did not reflect the weather, but on occasion it took on a life of its own, as though it had stored up or was anticipating events. It could be smooth and calm in a downpour and swirl around the bridge with a close to dangerous tide at midday in summer, as unpredictable as the mood of Londoners themselves, and as much a cause of wariness.

Hal had long since stopped caring about what it might or might not reflect within its muddy depths. Like London itself, he used it and its humours for his own needs and reasons, and as long as the results fit his demands, the rest was irrelevant. He knew that London was as fickle and changeable as the tide, knew its unreliability from both sides of watching. They would turn against him as quickly as they had against Richard, view him as the enemy as quickly as they now applauded him for his drunken, reckless exploits, for his whoring and his love of low company. They saw him as one of them, now, looked forward to the day when they would have a king they could truly call their own. They cheered him in the streets when he grudgingly took part in a formal procession, loved his ability to find the prettiest girl in the crowd and catch only her flower to wear for a grace-note.

But he was more fickle than they, and far falser, if they only had the wit to see it. He would not forget, no matter how they thought he had put it from his mind, of the day they had saved their insults for Richard and cried out in joy to see his father take precedence. He could never trust the mob, much though he loved to wallow in its filth, much though he understood their lack of faith and morals.

He had learned that trust was folly far too early in his life to grant it willingly or easily - or, in most cases, at all.

It was the man who was by now almost certainly near to piss-drunk at the Boar's Head who was the closest he could come to trusting. Not Falstaff, as many would have assumed, Falstaff who would gladly have given him all the paternal love that his own father seemed either incapable of or to deem beneath them both. While Hal loved him, for all his faults and his drinking and his complete lack of morality or scruples, and loved him well, he could not trust him any more than he could trust those who surrounded his father. He did not doubt that they loved the king as well as anyone, but love was not all, despite the grand teachings of the bishops, nor should it be.

Fidelity was not among the virtues listed, being a poor pale cousin of the blind faith demanded, but Hal had learned that it was far rarer than unseeing, unquestioning belief and devotion, being born of experience and conviction, rather than learned and unthinking dedication of the soul and mind and heart, that could lead to nothing but despair. Loyalty, not faith, not love, was the greatest virtue he prized, and he knew that this, above all, was what Poins possessed.

When he arrived at the Boar's Head, it could have been any evening or indeed any time of day or week or month or year. It made no difference, any of it, for at all times people were awake, the place was dim enough that it needed candles, the fires were lit, and as far as Hal could tell, the company within hit a consistent volume that made anyone's head hurt for the first hour and then somehow became unnoticeable - possibly due to the sheer amount that had to be drunk to make the whole experience remotely bearable. The tables were rarely cleaned, always covered in wax spills and old stains that could be from wine or ale or something less pleasant altogether, the air heavy with smoke that came out of the fireplaces whenever the wind changed direction, for the chimneys were rarely if ever cleaned, what with the constantly lit fires in the place.

The rushes were greasy with old food and mud from the streets that was always being tracked in on the boots of those who politely termed themselves 'customers' - mud, and, like the marks on the tables, often worse than mud.

The whole place was airless and somehow dank, despite the heat of it, even the beams in the walls looking as though they would be unpleasant to the touch, and Hal, quite unashamedly, loved it in its every unpleasant little detail that could still take even him aback with its nastiness.

So, I'll wallow in worse than mud and degrade myself and call it joy, he thought a little bleakly as he pushed the door open, and was taken aback in the same instant at how deeply his bitterness ran, how easily the uncaring veneer he had so carefully and so painstakingly cultivated since his father's coronation was stripped away from him by the mere thought of his father and the court and all that lay in the past.

Washed away by the Thames, even, he thought, and grinned mirthlessly to himself as the noise and heat and almost overwhelming and competing smells of the far-too-small place swamped him, leaving him almost dizzy for a second before his senses adjusted enough for him to step from the concealing shadows of the doorway and into the main room.

At least half the noise, on this particular occasion, was being caused by a dice game in the corner, which was being as much participated in by those watching as those taking part, and with equal amounts of accusations and near-fighting on all sides. Falstaff, presiding over the chaos, probably had money riding on something else entirely, related but not directly concerning the game, for the smug little wink he gave Hal indicated that whatever transpired, he would somehow emerge the better for it.

Poins, who had somehow managed to find the prettiest girl in the place, was entirely unconcerned with the game, his attention firmly fixed on making sure he had the girl's genuine interest, as well as her bought company. Hal grinned to himself, the unhappy embittered anger that had been thrumming through him all the way from his rooms already subsiding, and got as far as Poins's side completely unnoticed, only generating a faint flicker of a glance when Hal leaned over and claimed the tankard of ale on the table that Poins had unwisely chosen to put down in favour of holding onto his prize.

He drank deeply, before putting it back down by Poins's elbow with exaggerated politeness and a small bow, gaining nothing more than a welcoming grin for his efforts to annoy. Poins was, as Hal had suspected he would be, drunk, but not very, enough so that his usual good humour was a little enhanced, but not so much that the little wild spark Hal loved to coax in him was visible yet.

He has too much generosity of spirit, and I wish it were not always shown to me, Hal thought, a little ashamed by the genuine pleasure in Poins's smile of greeting. The others will be unnerved by what I will do one day, but he will be hurt.

It was an oddly unsettling thought.

"Get rid of the girl," he said, more shortly than he had intended, guilt combining with the rest of his already unsettled emotions to make him just slightly less controlled than he would have liked. Poins gave him a faintly startled look, more at his tone than the request itself, Hal suspected, but he nonetheless eased the girl from his lap with a far sweeter smile than the one he had given Hal, and an extra coin pressed into her palm in silent apology for the mutual waste of time they had been engaging in.

"Hal, sweetest of friends and most annoying and ill-timed companion, this needs to be very good indeed to have lost me that one!"

Hal shrugged. "I'm in no mood for bought flattery," he said. "I'll have enough of it tomorrow."

Poins raised his eyebrows.

"My father requests my presence -"

"You," said Poins, interrupting him, "never learn, do you?" He leant forward, his chin cupped in his hand, and added with overdone interest, "Do continue this fascinating saga…"

"- and I will of course answer his request," Hal said, his mouth twitching a little with unwilling amusement, as Poins kept up his expression of inappropriate fascination. The twitch gained him a little eyelash flutter, and he tried not to laugh as he continued in spite of all temptation to just give it up and smack Poins across the head, "Since he went to all the effort of writing it down himself this time."

"Well, that gives you an even better reason to burn it, forget about it, and ignore him completely, doesn't it?" Poins asked, lifting his head from his hand and sitting back with his arms folded, and Hal would have taken offence at the way he had seemed to brush the whole thing off, were it not for the fact that he knew with Poins, the flippancy came from a genuine desire to make him more content with the situation - because he did not know, and never would, just how deliberately Hal had engineered the whole thing, that the king was as much dancing to Hal's whims as Hal was unwillingly obeying his father's thinly disguised orders.

The knowledge made him feel even worse.

"You know," he said, the sharp edge refusing to leave his voice even as he tried to make the words leaving his tongue seem less harsh, "there is a difference between a general letter and a summons from your father to show up at a formal occasion; and, more than that, when your father is the King, it is, in fact, a command. You have no idea what you're talking about."

Poins just gave him a long, rather sad, look, and shrugged a little, not precisely in dismissal, but not in acceptance, either. Because of course, he did know what he was talking about, he knew more about the tangled and various feelings Hal struggled with than anyone else living, and the only reason Hal found it impossible to stop confiding in him, even though he knew it might be foolish, was that the only times Poins ever used any of that knowledge was when he was worried, or concerned, or trying to stop Hal from doing something that might irritate his father, but was also intensely stupid. In retrospect, Hal often wished he listened to Poins. In immediacy, however, he seemed to be utterly incapable of it.

Poins, who probably knew this from old experience and more failed attempts to make Hal see sense than he had both fingers and toes, had enough sense not to suggest anything further. He just sighed a little, and waved his hand in a general demand for more ale and presumably another tankard, before he smiled a bit sadly.

"I suppose it wouldn't count as a day passing if you didn't do something idiotic about your life," was all he said at last, but it had the effect of making Hal feel that somehow he had managed to let yet another person down, and subsequently more determined than ever to do it with style.

"I'm going. It's in honour of Mortimer, and if I don't -"

"Yes, spare me the reasoning," Poins said with a faint note of exasperation in his pleasant voice. "I did manage to grasp that much, you know. You don't want to go, it's a bad idea to go, so obviously and quite naturally, you will go. You will offend everyone and be offended, and be hurt that others are viewed more highly than you while doing all you can to make sure you seem contemptible. It's hardly a new trick of yours, and I'm only surprised that it hasn't been seen through."

"That's…not very nice of you," Hal said, faintly surprised by both the acuity and the accuracy of Poins's observations. He found himself hoping rather wildly that Poins hadn't realised the same trick applied in reverse to the seedier side of his life.

"No, it's not," Poins agreed. "Being nice is a waste of time when it's you."

Hal started at him in outrage, and Poins held his gaze for a moment, before cackling with laughter and entirely ruining the effect he had created. "Sorry," he said at last. "Was irresistible. You're always talking about how you don't want false flattery…"

"Jesus," Hal said fervently, but he was half-laughing himself, mostly at his own unfeigned outrage that anyone would dare to speak to him like that. His hypocrisy apparently really did know no bounds, after all, and he could hardly object to Poins calling him on it. "And you actually think you're funny, do you?"

"I think I am the soul of wit," Poins agreed, his eyes still dancing.

"Witlessness, maybe," Hal taunted him, and felt his breath suddenly draw easier at the unmistakable look of mingled amusement and affection and undisguised desire that he got in return, because this was familiar ground, unlike the sharpness that he had been able to control when he was speaking of his other life, and Poins's earlier clarity of vision, as unwanted as it had been unexpected. This was one of the few real things in his divided existence, one of the few that were simple and clean and clear - that he might not be seen entirely as he was, but what Poins did know of him, he loved without reservation or condition.

It was, so very often, enough - not forever, not lasting, but for a time, until the old wild unhappy restlessness took him over again and he knew he had to do something with it or let himself be consumed. He knew, though, as well as Wales-bound Mortimer must, how hard-earned even the briefest times of peace could be, and how much more valuable they were for that.

"Should I feel incredibly betrayed and used?" Poins asked, wholly without any sort of sincerity, and timed his question so that Hal's first mouthful of ale went straight up his nose and then sprayed out of his mouth. "Yes, very impressive."

"Gah," Hal managed incoherently. "You -"

"I told you," Poins said, and this time he did not even try to conceal his grin. "This needs to be very good indeed to have cost me the girl."

Hal blinked. Then he laughed, feeling every bit as much of a slow on the uptake idiot as Poins could have possibly intended, as he finally caught on. "Very good indeed?" he asked, lending the repeated words an almost impossible amount of lechery, and Poins's grin turned utterly wicked.

"If you can manage that, of course. I wouldn't want to tax your -"

"You're taxing my patience -"

"Shall we go, then?" And just like that, the limpid, ridiculous, utterly feigned innocence was back, and drove most of what remained of Hal's sense out of his grasp. He was either going to kiss or punch that look off Poins's face in less than a minute, and he truly did not want or need an audience for whichever it was going to be.

"Please," he managed in rather strangled tones, and got to his feet, not daring to look at Poins again.

He had a pretty good idea both of how smug the man would be looking and how much he'd earned the look.

*

It was always Poins's rooms that they used for times like this, never Hal's far more spacious apartments. Within the shabbier, more lived-in environs, it was possible to pretend that closing the door did indeed make the world beyond it no more than an intangible and ineffectual fantasy that belonged to others, that nothing else mattered but here and now; that nothing which had transpired before had led to this; that this was something truly theirs. In Hal's beautifully appointed rooms, there could have been no such pretence, no silver-spun allotment of time to stretch into a feigned infinity, a false sanctuary that bore no resemblance to all they knew of the world.

They would be condemned by the Church, they would horrify the world, and for once, not to protect himself, but to protect Poins, it was a scandal Hal had no wish to create. Even knowing that it would be the one thing that would truly destroy his father, might pierce that cool and calculating armour of his kingship with the simple memory of another monarch who had valued the love of men, the man whose crown his father wore, he could not do it. It would have been an act of pure selfishness that he could not sink to even at his worst and bitterest - not because it would at last force his father to react, but because it would be Poins alone who paid the price, in the end.

And Hal could not bear to think of that. For all his need for deceit and concealment, for all his knowledge that one day he must play a figure who would be closer to Judas in the eyes of Poins and the others than he could really stand to consider, he could not commit that kind of betrayal.

Even with all I must be, even with everything I will say, even with the myriad times of lying, I cannot do that to him.

He did not know whether it was a weakness or a strength in him, but it was an essential part of his nature that he saw no reason to overcome, whichever it might be. He wanted this, wanted it kept separate, wanted to be able to remember the times such as now, when he could let his fingers wander over the skin of Poins's shoulder, tangle roughly in the other man's tousled hair, when he could look and touch, and put his mouth to the beating vulnerable hollow of Poins's throat - wanted to remember each of these moments, and feel no bitterness, have something where he did not need to despise himself or his actions.

Whatever the world thought, he knew that here he was at his best, because he was silent, because his body could not lie; because for all that his actions now would be condemned, for all that he was risking his own damnation and that of his friend, he was sinning less in these times than at any other point in his life, and so he could not regret a single instant, a single moment of touch, a single brush of his lips or unspoken admission of affection. He could not and he would not, for he refused to lose this part of himself that he knew to be worth something, as well as having to live with all those many divided moments and thoughts and deeds that he, as well as the world, knew to be dishonourable.

But not this. Never this. I will never believe that of him or of myself, not when we are like this.

"Stop," Poins said irritably, "thinking." There was a pause while he showed his irritation by biting Hal's shoulder, and then he added, his voice somewhat muffled but the sound carrying down through skin and muscle to reverberate through Hal's bones, making him jump and shiver a little even while he registered the effect and the undoubted intent of it - "Please."

"Make me." It came out as rather more of a plea and less of a command than he wanted, but it turned out not to matter which it had sounded like, because Poins, obliging to the end, turned his attention to doing exactly that.

His hands and mouth were deliberate and sure and uncompromising, almost bruising in their stubborn hardness, but it was that knowledge that he would not yield which kept Hal coming back to this room and this bed and this man, and he would not have had it any different. Even when purpose and method were abandoned and given up to passion and urgency, when he felt himself to be on the verge of losing himself almost entirely, he would not have changed it.

Later, looking down into the well-known face of the man who was as close to being beloved as he suspected he would ever feel, at the slightly curved mouth and closed eyes, the long shadows cast by eyelashes that were utterly ridiculous on a man, and almost insulting in their fairness and their length, he allowed himself the weakness he would never have even allowed another to suspect existed, and said quietly -

"Will you wait for me here? Tomorrow?"

Poins opened his eyes, and nodded, slowly, his fair hair catching what light there was in the room with the movement. It was as though he knew - perhaps did know - that whatever he said would break the moment, make Hal take back his words and turn it all into unwanted and awkward emotion that would need disparagement on both sides to control.

Hal let out a little, shaken breath of relief, and lay down again. He feigned sleep after a while, knowing what would come as soon as Poins believed it safe, knowing it and longing for it. Even with all his need to seem oblivious, though, he could not help but feel something deep within him, untouched even by their lovemaking, uncurl into a sort of peace, as Poins rolled over and drew him close, and he could move his head, as though in an unconscious search for a more comfortable position, so that it was cradled in the crook of Poins's shoulder.

So that, for once, he could let himself lean on someone, and know that it was not a burden, as he would never be able to do if he admitted he were awake.

Wait for me here tomorrow, he thought, and an involuntary little sound of protest left him at the thought of all that the next day would hold.

And in the next moment, all his clung-to illusions that Poins had ever thought he slept were stripped away in their cobweb-frail pretence, as the arms around him tightened, and Poins said quietly,

"Did you think I would be anywhere else?"

There were times when reality could be more of a comfort than the best of fantasies, Hal thought in relief, and for the first time in all their long fellowship, allowed himself to return the embrace.

Sanctuary, he thought, and did not care that it was, undoubtedly, blasphemy.

*

He left for his own apartments before it was quite light, fumbling for boots and cloak in an attempt at silence that was probably far more disturbing than if he had simply lit a candle and kept up a running commentary as to his actions at the top of his voice. Poins muttered something obscene at him, and buried his head under the covers more thoroughly, only the tips of his hair showing. Hal spared him an apologetic grimace that he knew would be registered, somehow, even if it remained unseen, and finished dressing with only one further outbreak of swearing, this time on his part as he hit the edge of the fireplace with his bare foot and discovered for the hundredth time that cold toes hurt far more when hitting stone than warm ones ever did.

He thought, briefly and wistfully, about following Poins's advice, and simply pretending the letter had never come, and he had never read it, and that he did not need to go anywhere and could simply get back into the warm bed for a few more hours and ignore the world and its demands for a while longer.

It felt to much like giving in, like losing, even to think about it, and he finished dressing in a worse mood than he had been while on the Thames the day before, leaving without another word as all thought of speech began to turn sour in his mind, anticipating the twisted mirror of intent that his every word would have to become in a few short hours.

It took him almost that long to get himself entirely clean and into attire that would be at least considered suitable. Hal chose his battles carefully, knowing that an argument in which he had already defeated himself on the basis of his appearance was no good beginning and would only serve to lessen the effect of his behaviour. He would look the part and play the part and even have half the court believing that he meant the part, and without that half-victory already gained, there was not even possibility behind his intent, only the knowledge that his father would have something tangible, for once, to focus his disappointment on.

Westminster, to his mind, was a less desirable place to be than the worst Eastcheap had to offer. The rushes were cleaner and the fires smoked less, and the conversations that swirled through the room held a lot less laughter and a lot more of political undercurrents, but there was very little difference to it other than those surface ones. Violence was never far away here, either, though it was of the less conventional kind, the sort that tore through spirits and consciences and memories, rather than through flesh; that dealt blows to pride and love rather than to bones.

As he had not done the night before, he waited in the doorway this time just out of the shadows, letting the light from the first of the high windows in the Hall fall upon him, knowing that the weak sun, feeble as it was, would strike off the heavy gold of his collar, the metallic embroidery of his sleeves, his smooth hair. He was a prince in Eastcheap and valued the higher for it, but he was also the heir to the throne that each man in this room, secretly or not, coveted in some way, and he was determined that as long as he was within their sight, they would be made constantly aware of that fact.

Forget me as much as you like in my absence, he let his still and careful stance say for him while he remained mute and waiting for the attention of the one man whose gesture would force him to move. Forget me or deride me, it's all one as far as I can bring myself to care. But while I am here, you will remember who and what I am.

He stood there, and let the light do its work, speak for him, bring out all the glittering facets of the part he played here, and letting a little of the detached scorn he felt for those looking at him show through. Not all of it, not as much as he felt, nor the myriad ways in which he felt they had earned it, but enough to set him apart, to lend him that little tilt of certainty that appeared as arrogance, using it to shore him up and keep the blood that wanted to rise to his face under the appraisal of so many eyes away from his cheeks.

"Harry," his father said, and there was neither pleasure nor perturbation in his voice. He was as always, a little melancholy and wholly detached from all things that approached human affection.

If it were not for the still-warm memory of the night before, Hal would have given way under that one word, if only a little, let the full weight of the disapproval and disappointment in his very existence fall upon his shoulders and try to set it right. But he did have that memory, and the courage that came from having faced and understood his own failings as he so rarely managed to do, and instead of hurrying forward, impossible promises on the verge of being spoken and regret choking him, he crossed the floor slowly and knelt like any other subject to kiss his father's outstretched hand.

That, as nothing else could have done, had got through. He saw the quick, startled pain in his father's eyes, before indifference cloaked it once more and he was beckoned to rise. He could almost see the thought as it passed through his father's mind -

If he wants to behave like any other subject, then so be it, and I shall treat him as one -

and strangely, in that moment, felt closer to him than he had for years. Then he was on his feet, and Henry was looking at him with the old expression of patient sorrow, and Hal felt, equally as old and familiar, the sense of exasperation that his father should find it necessary to show such an emotion - and over him! Over his heir! - to the court in order to exonerate however he was intending to behave towards Hal over the next few hours.

"We did not expect to see you here today," his father said gently, and Hal bit back the cry of pure annoyance - then why send for me? - that he felt spring to his lips on the heels of that seemingly innocuous comment.

"Then I am glad to be a source of unexpected pleasure," he said instead, looking around him to ensure that all within hearing distance knew he had taken the 'we' to be a general one and not one born of prerogative.

Henry's smile in return was quite obviously over clenched teeth, a little muscle jumping at the side of his jaw, and Hal realised that for the first time, he had taken the honours in the first and most difficult exchange of the day.

He had at least survived the first few minutes of his temporary sojourn in hell.

*

Mortimer, considering that this day was supposedly in his honour, was quite evidently having as hideous a time as Hal felt himself to be enduring - the only difference being that his usually pleasant face was creased in a scowl that expressed his emotions more eloquently than if he had stood upon the dais and explained them at the top of his voice. Hal, unwillingly sympathetic, was nonetheless not prepared to ally himself openly with someone who rode so near to the wind of true royal disfavour, and contented himself with watching from a distance how those who considered themselves to be closest to Henry found ways and means of making the perils of this Welsh appointment clear. How Mortimer was keeping his temper was a quite unfathomable mystery.

Shamelessly eavesdropping as he made his way around the Hall exchanging empty pleasantries with those who cared to bother with him - and noting, grimly, all those who did not - Hal found at least one answer to the riddle, as he passed by York and Harry Percy having what was definitely not an amicable discussion. With Percy in an overtly belligerent mood, it would be sheer folly on Mortimer's part to spark his brother-in-law into openly quarrelling with all those around him - and all knew that the Hotspur of the North was just as capable of doing that as he was of putting down yet another of the innumerable Border rebellions that were the bane of any king's reign, and particularly of Henry's.

From the tone of his voice as he flatly contradicted some comment of York's about a horse he had just purchased, it seemed that Percy was as likely to start his own small rebellion here at Westminster in the name of Mortimer's admittedly insulted honour as he was to finish the day with everyone unscathed. Mortimer wasn't being noble in his silence, he was following a vague sense of self-preservation, for there was no way in hell that anything Percy did to try and defend him could be taken in any way but exceptionally badly.

It should have been impossible for Percy to quarrel with York. In the days when the quiet, well-read man with the startlingly sad eyes had been the ebullient Aumerle, they had been similar men, quick to respond and react to even a hint of dishonour, holding to a knightly code that placed loyalty above all, faithful without the blindness that Hal so despised.

York, though, had needed to ask forgiveness for his loyalty to his king, and it had killed something in him. He had accepted the faint, stale taint of lacking faith and honour and courage as no more than his due, whereas Percy, who had supported his father and Hal's in the very act York had sought to prevent, still pursued honour as the dearest and truest prize of all, still believed that courage counted for more than its outward show, still held to his own peculiar faith that made him so feared - and hated, too - by the Scots.

Hal envied him that simplicity, that odd unswerving bravery, as much as he pitied York; as much as he despised his father; as much as he mocked himself. He envied him for the simple reason that he knew he was capable of that, knew that when England was his he would give that same unfaltering conviction to her - and knew that he could not show any of that lay within him, for they would take away his belief in himself as surely as they had taken York's, use his commitment against him, another weapon in their arsenal of his perceived weaknesses. York's haunted eyes were the ones which inhabited the moments on the cusp of Hal's sleep, his own personal reminder of what could be done to make a man wholly defenceless, utterly destroyed. Like the slave in a triumphing general's chariot, York's was the voice that reminded Hal that he was mortal, that this sad unquestioning defeat might well be his if he lacked care.

The light and life that made Percy's narrow dark face blaze when he spoke or acted had long since gone from York, along, too soon, with his youth. He seemed middle-aged, now, just as Henry was beginning to seem old - though York would stay like this, Hal knew, for years to come, whereas his father -

He choked that thought off at its conception, resisting the urge to mutter a quick act of contrition under his breath as superstition alone and nothing to do with how close he had come to truly sinning in thought.

It must have been audible, or perhaps he had made a movement out of keeping with his careful demeanour so far, for when he forced himself back into awareness of his surroundings, both York and Hotspur were looking at him, the one with his usual faint smile, the other with a kind of mad relief.

"We," said York with a faint glimmer of humour, for that at least had remained to him, however patchily, "did not expect to see you here."

"I can't return the compliment," Hal said with mock regret, and then, turning to Percy, "but I can to you. What possessed you?"

"Kate," Percy said mournfully, and added, "there may have been a very long speech about family and duty and just how strong the bolt would be on her bedroom door…"

Hal snorted with laughter. While everyone knew that Hotspur's devotion to his wife only went as far as the road leading to his next battlefield, it was nonetheless entertaining each and every time he gave in over a matter of court attendance, not least because she herself always seemed to manage to evade them and leave him stranded in a sea of false politeness. Hal suspected it was her revenge for all the times he left her to worry about his even surviving the day, but had always been possessed of enough sense not to suggest it.

"Come to bid your brother farewell in full pomp, then?" he asked with a fair amount of sympathy. He might prefer himself not to be forced into full regalia, but Percy looked as though his entire body was about to start twitching of its own accord.

"That and to be told that I'm being sent back to Scotland, after," he said, rubbing at the back of his head awkwardly. "And I'd rather the damn Scots than all of this, I'll tell you now."

So would Hal, but since he couldn't run the risk that he might be overheard, he had to content himself with a sympathetic look. Percy, to whom the language of silent expression was apparently unknown, looked at him for a moment, scowled, apparently deciding his overture of friendship had been rejected, and stalked off to find Mortimer, who had managed to perform a fairly impressive disappearing act while Hal wasn't paying attention. He was almost immediately captured and drawn aside by his father, and the weary resignation to whatever conversation was about to take place was almost palpable.

"Never mind," York said, following his gaze, and when Hal gave him his most innocent look, snorted. "Oh, go and pull wings off flies, you brat. Harry Percy's not fair game for you, and you know it."

"I wasn't actually trying to offend him," Hal said very dryly, and York raised his eyebrows.

"Then that makes him unique among us all, doesn't it?" he asked, and Hal, caught between defending himself and honesty, opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again with a sigh.

"Sorry," he said, for once genuinely feeling chastened. York just shrugged.

"I don't mind," he said with a faint, returning flicker of his old charm. "Just - try not to make an enemy of him before you're ready, would you?"

"I'm not his enemy -" Hal began, startled, and York shook his head.

"I said not to make him yours. Which God knows is hard enough with that thornbush at the best of times, and my dear Hal, forgive me for pointing out the obvious to you, but you are not what Harry Percy would in any way consider as approaching the best of times."

"What's wrong with me?" Hal demanded, spreading his arms wide and raising his eyebrows mockingly. York bit his lip.

"Judging from your father's expression," he said, looking over Hal's right shoulder, "everything."

Hal closed his eyes. "Wonderful," he said tiredly, and forced himself to smile before turning around.

His father did not even grace him with a smile, giving York the most perfunctory of greetings and moving on.

"Christ's wounds, father, let it be!" Hotspur's angry voice roared out quite suddenly from an alcove, and Hal pressed his lips together on an agreement, nodding slowly as he came to a decision.

"I think," he said very slowly to York, "that I've had enough."

"I don't think I blame you." York's expression was that of a man who had passed the stage of 'enough' a very long time ago.

"I think I'm leaving."

"Again, I cannot fault the decision."

"And if my father deigns to enquire as to my whereabouts?"

"Dread has overtaken me as to what I should reply, but do go on…"

"Tell him you don't know which brothel I'm going to end up in," Hal snapped with all the viciousness he longed to employ on his father, and while he regretted the wince that crossed York's face, he was at least certain that the message would be repeated. He was also fairly certain that York deserved the vicarious pleasure that his father's reaction would bring.

"Right," York said in the same tone of voice, and then, unexpectedly, flickered a wink at Hal, looking years younger than he had when he was talking to Percy. "Go on. Escape while you can."

Hal grinned at him, letting a little genuine feeling through, since with this man at least, it would do no harm. "Already gone," he said, and made his way out of the Hall.

*

Percy was already outside, standing with his head tilted back to the permanent faint drizzle, the hectic flush across his cheekbones startlingly visible in the dull light. Hal looked at him for a long moment, York's warning still reverberating in his mind, and wondering whether to try to approach the still, somehow vulnerable figure, the dark face more shuttered than ever now that he was silent and unmoving, without the light of the bright, slightly mad eyes to illuminate his features.

He had barely-formed, nebulous thoughts of apology, carefully phrased so as to neither make him seem a craven fool nor add further insult to the day that Percy was apparently trying to get through without causing anyone physical damage, but when the hazel eyes opened and looked straight at him, he found himself blurting out -

"I'm sorry," as though he were still an under-educated schoolboy with no knowledge of behaviour. Percy just looked at him, frowning and a little puzzled, but not unfriendly.

"Why?"

"About - Mortimer. Your father. My father. I don't know. Everything?"

Percy shrugged. "It's not your fault," he said simply, and for some reason, it felt like absolution, there in the gloom and the damp and the rain, and the boats and oarsmen waiting patiently for one or the other or both of them to move.

"It's not -" Hal stopped, swallowed, and said very quietly, "It's not yours, either. Any of it."

"No," Percy agreed, and then sighed, and straightened his shoulders, preparing to go back in. Hal wondered if he looked this tense and white when he was readying for battle, and thought that death and destruction probably held fewer terrors for the man than all the terrifying, bewildering politics and unspoken alliances that lay beyond Westminster's walls. "There is nothing shameful in being your father's son, not for any man. Not for you, either," he said then, and as Hal stared at him, mouth a little open and rendered entirely speechless for perhaps the first time in years -

Who would have credited the mad bastard with that kind of perception?

- he clapped Hal on the shoulder, his hand heavy and strong, the roughened fingers gripping a little, before letting go and making his way back inside without waiting for an answer.

It was to be years before Hal thought of the strange half-conversation again, years and a greater distance between them both than he had ever sought to create between himself and his father; years, and the death of the man who had been the only one brave enough to pierce the heart of his unending dilemma, his living dichotomy.

But for now, there was the rain, and the river, and at the end of it waited Poins - for the simple reason that Hal had asked him to.

He did not look back at Westminster as the boat passed beneath the bridge.