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thatsmyswordHenry woke up with the worst bloody headache and not the faintest idea where he was. Memories from last night only filtered through in uneven bursts.
There had been the talk with Father Godwin at the tavern, of course. He remembered that much--
--
"The blessings of our Lord be!"
"And to you, lad. Take a seat."
So he had, even as Godwin had made his apologies again. Said that he couldn't tell Henry everything, because of the confessional seal, see, but he was trying. He had asked about Henry's home, his parents, how horrid it had been.
Henry almost kept his mouth shut, as he'd done with Hans. It had been months, yes, but those months had been a haze of sorts, dreamy and unreal. The pain was still there.
And yet, the words had made it out of him, none the less. "It was terrible," he'd said, "It seemed so pointless... and we had no warning. They just appeared and began the slaughter... God knows why. They killed anyone who didn't make it to the shelter of the castle... my parents, my girl... even the Deutsch who was on Sigismund's side..."
He stared down at the floor. "I didn't make it to the castle. I wanted to try and help my parents, but there was nothing I could do... then I fled to Talmberg with the Cumans on my heels. They almost killed me. They slaughtered people in the surrounding villages. There was a pile of bodies in front of the church in Rovna - folk who tried to take refuge there..."
Only there did the flood of words start to stutter. He made out with a 'they', twice or so, but his mouth suddenly felt full to the brim with dirt, and he couldn't find whatever words remained.
"My poor child," Father Godwin breathed. "May God grant them eternal rest."
They drank after that, and Godwin, mercifully, turned the topic to more distracting things. Henry's work, and then his own. How he hadn't always been a priest, how he'd lived a life full of forceful persuasion once. How one preached.
"Uzhitz isn't Prague," Godwin was saying. "It's not enough to instruct people, they have to be entertained too! If I only read from the Bible I'd soon be preaching to an empty church."
Henry snorted. "Our priest wasn't exactly a bard," he said. "So what do you preach to your flock about?"
"It has to be something topical, condemning vices... and of course describing them in detail. A tongue-lashing about the two Popes goes down well these days too. And stories from real life with a nice moral to them are popular as well. Especially if they're about fornication!"
Somewhere within Henry's chest, he found one more laugh to release. "Have you any examples?"
"Well, recently, a priest by the name of Jan Hus started preaching in Prague, in the Czech language," Godwin said conspiratorially. "And the people like it! I hear he always has a full house. A journeyman who heard him told me what Hus is preaching and I like the sound of it. I'm thinking about putting it in my own repertoire."
Henry raised his eyebrows. "What's so amazing about it?"
"The preaching of Master Jan Hus about Mother Church," Godwin said. "The lamentable wealth in which the Church is drowning has turned to poison, and nearly the whole of Christendom is contaminated. Just like a flock of hungry ravens, they settled on this land to devour every grain of gold and silver." His voice was growing louder and louder. "They know no mercy! Their hearts are corrupted by longing for wealth, and they shamelessly profit from everything. You want to baptise a child? Pay! You want to steal and murder? Pay and you will have absolution!"
He threw his hands up. "What if the Devil himself were to pay? Would he ascend to Heaven too? With such money, gained from the poor, they buy beautiful horses to ride and needless servants to pamper them. They gamble at dice and dress their whores in expensive furs. While Jesus Christ walked barefoot--" Godwin struck the sign of the cross. "--and had no place to lay his head! Look to your consciences, you robbers of the poor, for you are seen by God and his people too! Amen!"
Right. Well. That sure was lively. "This Jan Hus character is quite a rebel," Henry chuckled.
Godwin grinned. "The congregation will love it."
Henry shook his head. "I don't doubt it!"
"Let's drink to that!"
And a snort. "Now that last bit from your speech is starting to sound familiar."
"My situation is completely different," Godwin argued. "Hus preaches against the prelates and the clerics who are robbing the poor! Look at me - I don't have a pot to piss in! I'm one with them in poverty and suffering and everything that troubles them. I drink with them and curse those stuffed habits in Sasau Monastery!"
Sore spot, then. Henry eyed his ale. Time to drink, then?
"Don't you think it's a bit odd when someone boozes and lives in sin with a woman and then criticises the Pope for debauchery?" he said, skeptically, as he finally sipped his drink.
"No, I don't," Godwin said. He ordered more drinks. Henry had more drinks.
---
From that point on, his memory became fuzzier. He remembered fists flying in his face. He remembered Godwin fumbling with his keys at the church door. He remembered the sound of bells, and the feel of a woman pressing against him. He remembered stumbling outside to watch the morning sun come up with Godwin.
But none of it really solidified into a coherent whole.
"Wake up, you drunkards!"
Oh, now his head really rung. He squinted at Godwin's lover as she swept back out of the room with... something... in hand, and then blinked at Godwin himself, as the priest yelled "Who are you?" and then "Henry! My great friend! Henry, didn't we have a wonderful time?"
It was possible? Maybe? That they had?
"... and if I were you I would move my hairy arse before my flock eats me alive," the woman was yelling. Right. Poor Godwin, stumbling about the room, seemed to have even less of an idea as to what that was about than Henry did.
"I've forgotten something," Godwin muttered. He stumbled past the fire, then seemed to think better of it and turned back around to head in the opposite direction. "What have I forgotten...? What the fuck was it?"
He stared blankly out the window, and-- "Mass!" he bellowed. Henry's ears rung even worse. "Oh shit, I have to say mass!" He turned desperate eyes on Henry for some reason, God knew why. "You have to help me!"
Help him? With mass?
"How?!" Henry yelped. "You're the priest!"
"I can't do it in this stage," Godwin hissed. "... Maybe the liturgy, but I have to give a sermon as well. ... This is a disaster. They're going to excommunicate me!"
"Look," Henry said, as he wiped... something or other off his face. "I'd like to help you, but..."
"You can do the sermon for me," Godwin said.
Henry stared at him.
"What?" he said flatly. "What? So first I investigate a murder no one wants investigated, then I drunkenly keep the whole town up all night, and now you want me to preach at them from the pulpit?!" He rubbed his eyes. "Do you want them to burn us at the stake?!"
Godwin gestured at him to shut up. "No, no, I've got it," he said. "Suppose, as Sir Radzig's protege, you just came from studying in Prague... and you want to share the words of Master Jan Hus, who you recently heard preaching here?"
He leaned in. "Look, Henry, we may have overdone it a bit last night. If the Bailiff or someone else complains about me, the Bishop is going to have my guts for garters." God, his breath stunk like alcohol. "So I'd appreciate it if you'd stop gaping at me like a stuffed squirrel and start helping!"
The insides of Henry's skull were throbbing against the bone. "You're mad," he muttered. "You're stark, raving mad..."
"It's a perfect plan!" Godwin insisted. "It's flawless! And if you do it, I'll tell you about Limpy Lubosh!"
... Well. So much for the sacred seal of the confessional, then.
With barely a moment to freshen himself up, Henry stumbled out of the presbytery and towards the church proper. He kept racking his brain for that memory that had been so vivid that morning - that speech Father Godwin had given him over ale. What was it again? How did it start?
The sunlight sent a fresh bolt of brain through his head. He gripped the side of his head and stumbled faster, through the door, where the entire congregation had already gathered.
He watched Father Godwin struggle through the lithurgy - In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, amen - still desperately seeking any three words he could line up that would sound vaguely... sermony. What had Godwin said about Hus again? Something about being mad at wine or something? He half-turned and found the girl from last night waving at him.
He waved back. Awkwardly.
"...You might not... know... that Henry... recently visited Prague where, by the grace of God, he... was... able to hear Master Jan Hus from the esteemed Charles University preaching..."
Oh, no, Godwin did not sound good.
And Henry was out of time.
He managed - barely - to make his way up the steps to the pulpit, and leaned heavily on the wood. Come on, he thought. Come on-- at least find your confidence. People always find confident folk more believable. "Brothers and sisters," he started, projecting his voice perhaps a touch too much. "Let me get straight to the point. I'd like to talk about the Church and how corrupt it is."
"That boy has cheek," someone in the congregation hissed.
"One... should not believe in the Church," Henry improvised, "Because the Church is not God... God is above all things and the Church is but a means to salvation, which the prelates do not care to hear." Prelates! Godwin had touched on prelates!
"He's right," a woman whispered.
"It is the corruption of God's pastors here on Earth that has brought misfortune on our heads," Henry said, righting himself. He did remember! Raising one's voice, that helped! "Plague, Cumans, hunger and chaos... the accursed wealth that the Church is drowning in is poisoning almost the whole of Christendom!"
Gasps. Excited mumbles. Yes. He'd gotten it right. And so Henry kept speaking, weaving righteous anger and salacious detail together so tightly that by the end of it he was shouting.
"Shame!" someone in the audience yelled. "Shame upon them!"
... He may have also seeded in a touch of praise towards alcohol, to be fair. "Jesus did not condemn alcohol!" For good bloody reason! "It is not drinking itself that is sinful, but intemperance and beastly indulgence!"
He spoke for a good while after that, until finally the well of words he hadn't known he had in him ran dry. When he was finished, the church was silent. The people stared up at him with wide eyes-- and then finally, turned to whisper to one another.
("The lad spoke well," muttered the bailiff. "Considering what a soak he is...")
Only after they'd filed out of the church, when Henry had finally clambered down the stairs to talk to Godwin and receive the details of Lubosh's crime and the men who had helped him commit such savagery at Neuhof, did he realize he'd forgotten to put his hose on and he'd been preaching in his braies all morning.
Ah, well.
--
He rode back to Rattay after that. The last two days had not granted him any restful sleep, and he was tired. He repeated what Godwin had told him over and over again in his head as Pebbles followed the long and winding road back to Rattay, the names: Reeky from Ledetchko, Pious, Timmy. Reeky, Pious, Timmy. Reeky, Pious, Timmy.
It took another short while to inform Sir Radzig of his progress on the case. But then, Henry finally managed to tumble into his own bed for a kip.
He dreamed strange dreams that afternoon. When he woke, he picked up his sketchbook again, the one from Fandom, and leafed through the pages. It had all been real, and so was this; no purgatory, no Hell, just the endless grind of life happening to him, over and over, without leaving him much time or opportunity to make sense of it.
"Pious, Timmy, Reeky," he muttered, and he attempted to scribble the names down on the page in his poor chicken scratch.
Perhaps he should go out and get some flowers to press, as well. To put in this sketchbook. A place to keep all evidence of this strange time in his life - to ground him in what was real, and what was not.
Pious, Timmy, Reeky.
[[ taken from Kingdom Come Deliverance (2018), following yesterday's post. ]]
There had been the talk with Father Godwin at the tavern, of course. He remembered that much--
--
"The blessings of our Lord be!"
"And to you, lad. Take a seat."
So he had, even as Godwin had made his apologies again. Said that he couldn't tell Henry everything, because of the confessional seal, see, but he was trying. He had asked about Henry's home, his parents, how horrid it had been.
Henry almost kept his mouth shut, as he'd done with Hans. It had been months, yes, but those months had been a haze of sorts, dreamy and unreal. The pain was still there.
And yet, the words had made it out of him, none the less. "It was terrible," he'd said, "It seemed so pointless... and we had no warning. They just appeared and began the slaughter... God knows why. They killed anyone who didn't make it to the shelter of the castle... my parents, my girl... even the Deutsch who was on Sigismund's side..."
He stared down at the floor. "I didn't make it to the castle. I wanted to try and help my parents, but there was nothing I could do... then I fled to Talmberg with the Cumans on my heels. They almost killed me. They slaughtered people in the surrounding villages. There was a pile of bodies in front of the church in Rovna - folk who tried to take refuge there..."
Only there did the flood of words start to stutter. He made out with a 'they', twice or so, but his mouth suddenly felt full to the brim with dirt, and he couldn't find whatever words remained.
"My poor child," Father Godwin breathed. "May God grant them eternal rest."
They drank after that, and Godwin, mercifully, turned the topic to more distracting things. Henry's work, and then his own. How he hadn't always been a priest, how he'd lived a life full of forceful persuasion once. How one preached.
"Uzhitz isn't Prague," Godwin was saying. "It's not enough to instruct people, they have to be entertained too! If I only read from the Bible I'd soon be preaching to an empty church."
Henry snorted. "Our priest wasn't exactly a bard," he said. "So what do you preach to your flock about?"
"It has to be something topical, condemning vices... and of course describing them in detail. A tongue-lashing about the two Popes goes down well these days too. And stories from real life with a nice moral to them are popular as well. Especially if they're about fornication!"
Somewhere within Henry's chest, he found one more laugh to release. "Have you any examples?"
"Well, recently, a priest by the name of Jan Hus started preaching in Prague, in the Czech language," Godwin said conspiratorially. "And the people like it! I hear he always has a full house. A journeyman who heard him told me what Hus is preaching and I like the sound of it. I'm thinking about putting it in my own repertoire."
Henry raised his eyebrows. "What's so amazing about it?"
"The preaching of Master Jan Hus about Mother Church," Godwin said. "The lamentable wealth in which the Church is drowning has turned to poison, and nearly the whole of Christendom is contaminated. Just like a flock of hungry ravens, they settled on this land to devour every grain of gold and silver." His voice was growing louder and louder. "They know no mercy! Their hearts are corrupted by longing for wealth, and they shamelessly profit from everything. You want to baptise a child? Pay! You want to steal and murder? Pay and you will have absolution!"
He threw his hands up. "What if the Devil himself were to pay? Would he ascend to Heaven too? With such money, gained from the poor, they buy beautiful horses to ride and needless servants to pamper them. They gamble at dice and dress their whores in expensive furs. While Jesus Christ walked barefoot--" Godwin struck the sign of the cross. "--and had no place to lay his head! Look to your consciences, you robbers of the poor, for you are seen by God and his people too! Amen!"
Right. Well. That sure was lively. "This Jan Hus character is quite a rebel," Henry chuckled.
Godwin grinned. "The congregation will love it."
Henry shook his head. "I don't doubt it!"
"Let's drink to that!"
And a snort. "Now that last bit from your speech is starting to sound familiar."
"My situation is completely different," Godwin argued. "Hus preaches against the prelates and the clerics who are robbing the poor! Look at me - I don't have a pot to piss in! I'm one with them in poverty and suffering and everything that troubles them. I drink with them and curse those stuffed habits in Sasau Monastery!"
Sore spot, then. Henry eyed his ale. Time to drink, then?
"Don't you think it's a bit odd when someone boozes and lives in sin with a woman and then criticises the Pope for debauchery?" he said, skeptically, as he finally sipped his drink.
"No, I don't," Godwin said. He ordered more drinks. Henry had more drinks.
---
From that point on, his memory became fuzzier. He remembered fists flying in his face. He remembered Godwin fumbling with his keys at the church door. He remembered the sound of bells, and the feel of a woman pressing against him. He remembered stumbling outside to watch the morning sun come up with Godwin.
But none of it really solidified into a coherent whole.
"Wake up, you drunkards!"
Oh, now his head really rung. He squinted at Godwin's lover as she swept back out of the room with... something... in hand, and then blinked at Godwin himself, as the priest yelled "Who are you?" and then "Henry! My great friend! Henry, didn't we have a wonderful time?"
It was possible? Maybe? That they had?
"... and if I were you I would move my hairy arse before my flock eats me alive," the woman was yelling. Right. Poor Godwin, stumbling about the room, seemed to have even less of an idea as to what that was about than Henry did.
"I've forgotten something," Godwin muttered. He stumbled past the fire, then seemed to think better of it and turned back around to head in the opposite direction. "What have I forgotten...? What the fuck was it?"
He stared blankly out the window, and-- "Mass!" he bellowed. Henry's ears rung even worse. "Oh shit, I have to say mass!" He turned desperate eyes on Henry for some reason, God knew why. "You have to help me!"
Help him? With mass?
"How?!" Henry yelped. "You're the priest!"
"I can't do it in this stage," Godwin hissed. "... Maybe the liturgy, but I have to give a sermon as well. ... This is a disaster. They're going to excommunicate me!"
"Look," Henry said, as he wiped... something or other off his face. "I'd like to help you, but..."
"You can do the sermon for me," Godwin said.
Henry stared at him.
"What?" he said flatly. "What? So first I investigate a murder no one wants investigated, then I drunkenly keep the whole town up all night, and now you want me to preach at them from the pulpit?!" He rubbed his eyes. "Do you want them to burn us at the stake?!"
Godwin gestured at him to shut up. "No, no, I've got it," he said. "Suppose, as Sir Radzig's protege, you just came from studying in Prague... and you want to share the words of Master Jan Hus, who you recently heard preaching here?"
He leaned in. "Look, Henry, we may have overdone it a bit last night. If the Bailiff or someone else complains about me, the Bishop is going to have my guts for garters." God, his breath stunk like alcohol. "So I'd appreciate it if you'd stop gaping at me like a stuffed squirrel and start helping!"
The insides of Henry's skull were throbbing against the bone. "You're mad," he muttered. "You're stark, raving mad..."
"It's a perfect plan!" Godwin insisted. "It's flawless! And if you do it, I'll tell you about Limpy Lubosh!"
... Well. So much for the sacred seal of the confessional, then.
With barely a moment to freshen himself up, Henry stumbled out of the presbytery and towards the church proper. He kept racking his brain for that memory that had been so vivid that morning - that speech Father Godwin had given him over ale. What was it again? How did it start?
The sunlight sent a fresh bolt of brain through his head. He gripped the side of his head and stumbled faster, through the door, where the entire congregation had already gathered.
He watched Father Godwin struggle through the lithurgy - In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, amen - still desperately seeking any three words he could line up that would sound vaguely... sermony. What had Godwin said about Hus again? Something about being mad at wine or something? He half-turned and found the girl from last night waving at him.
He waved back. Awkwardly.
"...You might not... know... that Henry... recently visited Prague where, by the grace of God, he... was... able to hear Master Jan Hus from the esteemed Charles University preaching..."
Oh, no, Godwin did not sound good.
And Henry was out of time.
He managed - barely - to make his way up the steps to the pulpit, and leaned heavily on the wood. Come on, he thought. Come on-- at least find your confidence. People always find confident folk more believable. "Brothers and sisters," he started, projecting his voice perhaps a touch too much. "Let me get straight to the point. I'd like to talk about the Church and how corrupt it is."
"That boy has cheek," someone in the congregation hissed.
"One... should not believe in the Church," Henry improvised, "Because the Church is not God... God is above all things and the Church is but a means to salvation, which the prelates do not care to hear." Prelates! Godwin had touched on prelates!
"He's right," a woman whispered.
"It is the corruption of God's pastors here on Earth that has brought misfortune on our heads," Henry said, righting himself. He did remember! Raising one's voice, that helped! "Plague, Cumans, hunger and chaos... the accursed wealth that the Church is drowning in is poisoning almost the whole of Christendom!"
Gasps. Excited mumbles. Yes. He'd gotten it right. And so Henry kept speaking, weaving righteous anger and salacious detail together so tightly that by the end of it he was shouting.
"Shame!" someone in the audience yelled. "Shame upon them!"
... He may have also seeded in a touch of praise towards alcohol, to be fair. "Jesus did not condemn alcohol!" For good bloody reason! "It is not drinking itself that is sinful, but intemperance and beastly indulgence!"
He spoke for a good while after that, until finally the well of words he hadn't known he had in him ran dry. When he was finished, the church was silent. The people stared up at him with wide eyes-- and then finally, turned to whisper to one another.
("The lad spoke well," muttered the bailiff. "Considering what a soak he is...")
Only after they'd filed out of the church, when Henry had finally clambered down the stairs to talk to Godwin and receive the details of Lubosh's crime and the men who had helped him commit such savagery at Neuhof, did he realize he'd forgotten to put his hose on and he'd been preaching in his braies all morning.
Ah, well.
--
He rode back to Rattay after that. The last two days had not granted him any restful sleep, and he was tired. He repeated what Godwin had told him over and over again in his head as Pebbles followed the long and winding road back to Rattay, the names: Reeky from Ledetchko, Pious, Timmy. Reeky, Pious, Timmy. Reeky, Pious, Timmy.
It took another short while to inform Sir Radzig of his progress on the case. But then, Henry finally managed to tumble into his own bed for a kip.
He dreamed strange dreams that afternoon. When he woke, he picked up his sketchbook again, the one from Fandom, and leafed through the pages. It had all been real, and so was this; no purgatory, no Hell, just the endless grind of life happening to him, over and over, without leaving him much time or opportunity to make sense of it.
"Pious, Timmy, Reeky," he muttered, and he attempted to scribble the names down on the page in his poor chicken scratch.
Perhaps he should go out and get some flowers to press, as well. To put in this sketchbook. A place to keep all evidence of this strange time in his life - to ground him in what was real, and what was not.
Pious, Timmy, Reeky.
[[ taken from Kingdom Come Deliverance (2018), following yesterday's post. ]]
