Henry's Bohemia, Sunday Fandom Time
Dec. 28th, 2025 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatsmyswordDays passed in Rattay with the sluggish determination of an ox. Henry’s next target was Timmy, the soft-hearted muscle of the group. Timmy had worked at a mill between Talmberg and Ledetchko, Reeky had told him.
So after a full day’s rest - he’d escaped that fight with Runt’s men with his life, but not entirely uninjured - he saddled Pebbles again and rode her along the long, winding paths in the quiet in-between.
The grass and the trees were starting to blend into the background again, he noticed, somewhere in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure if he felt sad about it, but he tried to force himself to pay attention. There was no knowing if Fandom would take him again, and if so, for how long, after all.
The mill sat on a quiet hill, with barely even the sound of millworkers to fill the air. As Henry approached, he caught sight of only a single person - a pretty young girl in green, doing needlepoint at the foot of the house.
He slid off of Pebbles’ back and tried to look as unassuming as possible. Not that the illusion held for more than a moment - not with Mutt charging forward to bark at the poor girl. “God be with ye,” he called, an apology writ on his face, if not in his words. “I’m looking for a colossus by the name of Timmy? I heard he works here.”
The girl nearly dropped her embroidery. “I don’t know anyone like that,” she said quickly.
Henry sighed, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his arm. (He was bloody sweaty and messy again. He should clean off.) “Listen, someone wants to kill him. I have to warn him.”
She frowned, leaning forward a little bit, her eyes searching his face. “You… you don’t want to hurt him…?”
“No. Like I said, I just want to talk to him,” Henry said, shaking his head.
“... Alright,” the girl said. Her eyes wandered from Henry’s face to elsewhere. “... But not here. We’ll talk ‘round back, behind the mill.”
Right. She had to be afraid of something. Runt’s men, most likely. They’d already tried to kill Reeky. No doubt they had their eyes set on Timmy, too. So Henry chose to oblige her, making a roundabout walk until he found himself in the bush behind the mill.
“Why all the secrecy?” he asked her, as she snuck up towards him.
“What do you want from Timmy?” she snapped. Well. Not so timid now.
“Can you help me find him?” Henry countered.
“Promise me nothing will happen to him!” she snapped.
“Why do you care so much?” Henry hissed.
“He’s my brother,” the girl said. “He’s not very smart, you see, and he’s always getting led astray by his no-good friends.”
“Who are they?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know. But they looked like cutthroats and they said some strange things,” she said. “But I didn’t tell them anything!”
“And that’s good,” Henry said slowly. “But sooner or later they’ll find him anyway. Tell me where he is, and I’ll take care of him.”
Her eyes darted back across his face, then past him, then to the mill. She started forward even-closer. “He’s hiding at the Kolben farm, over by Merhojed,” she hissed.
It was as much as he’d get out of her. There were footsteps in the grass behind him, and she took off at a clip, rushing past the mill and back towards the building.
He turned ‘round, but he wasn’t surprised to find bandits - likely more of Runt’s men - facing him. He’d already heard one of them take his sword out of its sheath. He let his own hands drop to his hips as the leader approached him. Best not make himself look like a threat.
“I get the feeling you’re looking for someone here,” their leader said, a young fellow with short black hair. “I’m looking for someone too. Maybe we can help each other.” He had a ragged leather vest on, but underneath, Henry could see a decent chainmail vest poking through. Definitely Runt’s men, he thought.
Henry squared himself. “And who are you looking for?” he asked.
“A great big ox by the name of Timmy.”
No surprise there.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about him,” Henry said, forcing the muscles of his face to stay still.
“That’s a shame,” the leader said, waving that away. “A crying shame. I take good care of people who help me.” He rubbed his chin. “Now if someone were to tell me where to find Timmy, I might offer that man a job. We could use a smart fellow like that at the camp…”
And join bandits that had slaughtered dozens of innocent people? Henry would rather leap out of a tree.
He glanced at the other bandits. There were four in all, including their leader. Armed to the teeth, and decently armored. The odds weren’t great. He grasped for an answer, anything that might defuse this without offering poor Timmy up to the wolves.
Four men. Henry’s terrified mind jumped backwards, to Fandom, to fencing Flint on a beach. Keep your legs steady, he’d said. Practice on the sand, that’ll help you… help you with what? If he could– If he could just strike them. Back away to the mill proper, force them to fight him one by one, he could–
– cut their necks, spill the blood, so much blood and dead bodies everywhere–
“I’ve no idea where he is,” Henry’s mouth said, without him. “I reckon I’ll have to try my luck elsewhere.”
What was he doing?
The leader blinked at him. “That wench didn’t tell you anything?”
Was he buying it?
He was buying it.
Oh Lord.
“Nothing about Timmy anyway,” his mouth said.
“So what were the two of you talking about?” the leader asked, suspiciously.
Henry’s finger lifted up and wagged in the air. “I’d say that was none of your business, wouldn’t you?” his mouth spoke.
The bandit leader stared at him for another moment. Something in his shoulders seemed to give way after that. “Farewell, then,” he said, squinty. “... Neighbor.”
“Farewell,” Henry’s mouth said. And he watched, astonished, as they all just… walked away.
He didn’t stop holding his breath until he’d reached Pebbles, and then the only thing he could think to do with that breath was mutter, quietly, to himself, “We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God, do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin…”
–
Dealing with Timmy after that was easy. He was every bit the slow ox everyone had said he was, and his sister had clearly already given him a bollocking. And so, with new information in hand, Henry hoisted himself back onto Pebbles and rode the short way from the outskirts of Merhojed to where Sir Radzig had made camp.
It remained an odd feeling - knowing that back in Rattay, most of the Skalitzfolk were begging, penniless refugees trying to scrape by with what little they had left. And yet here he was, walking into this large and well-stocked camp, where his own not-insignificant wages awaited. Not comfortable, by any means, but the soldiers all had warm food in their bellies. It hadn’t bothered him as much before, maybe a little bit, but after Stark’s class on other people’s trauma and everything–
He shook it off. There were weights that weren’t his to bear, surely.
He found Sir Radzig’s bright red scarves quickly among the soldiers, and hurried towards him. “Sir Radzig!”
Sir Radzig looked away from the halberd he’d been inspecting, something odd flitting past his face before it smoothed right back over. “Greetings,” he said. “What do you need?”
Henry would ask, but– it wasn’t his place.
“About that encampment, sir…” he tried instead, wishing for whatever thing had possessed his mouth just now to return.
“What is it, lad?” Sir Radzig said, with a little sigh in his voice.
“I found out about the camp from another of the bandits who deserted,” Henry said quickly, not wishing to court his impatience. “He’s called Timmy. A big fellow, but more brawn than brain. The camp is in an abandoned village in the woods to the west of Talmberg.”
“Good work, lad,” Sir Radzig said, with a pleased nod. Something in Henry relaxed. “Have you been to check it out? Do you know how many of them there are?”
And it tensed right back up again.
“I don’t know much, apart from where it is,” Henry admitted. (Didn’t want to say he’d nearly frozen earlier and he was still shaken from– well.)
“We really need to find out more,” Sir Radzig said. At least there was no disappointment in him - he was clearly just thinking about their next steps. “Could you go back there and try to discover anything that could help us in the assault? The more we know, the better.” Something lit up in his eyes. “And if you could carry out some sabotage while you’re in there, it would be invaluable!” he added. “... But don’t take any unnecessary risks. I don’t want to lose you.”
Ah. Erm. That was– well, that was a lot of enthusiasm all of a sudden. Sabotage? Henry had barely managed to kill three men - with Reeky’s help - just the other day. He’d almost soiled himself with Runt’s people. How in God’s name was he going to–
“Sir,” he said delicately, “I’m sure you could find someone more capable for the job…”
Like an actual trained soldier?
“Don’t be so modest!” Sir Radzig said, looking at him as if that was the most foolish thing he’d heard all day. “You’re the best man for the job.” Was he? “...Because you’re the only one I have available.” Ah. “So stop trying to wriggle out of it and get to work!”
Right.
“Yes, sir,” Henry said, flushing. He ducked his head in a half-arsed bow to hide it. “Ah, thank you for your confidence. I’ll find out what I can.”
He looked away and up towards the sky, which was already starting to darken around the far edges. Not tonight, then. It was a few hours’ ride up past Merhojed and Talmberg to get there.
(And, if he were entirely honest with himself, which he was trying not to be, he could use a rest after all that.)
Though naturally, as he rode back to Rattay, he found himself chasing wolves away from some poor woman. And then, as he got off Pebbles’ back to walk the last little while towards the mill, he ran into Sir Hanush, of all people, just-unsaddled and clearly a touch drunk. “Henry, just who I needed to see!” he’d called, and then the last of the sunlight had blasted on by as Sir Hanush went off on some Vicar (short for Vicarious, apparently, some clergy hierarchy thing Henry didn’t pretend to understand) who’d come to Uzhitz hunting for heretics and apparently Sir Hanush was concerned about it– and wouldn’t let him go until Henry had pledged to go see what he could do about it, like he knew anything about Vicars, and then he got home and Theresa asked if he wanted to go to the inn for dinner, and he said yes, because her smile at least distracted him from the woes of the day, and there was banter about all the women he was (wasn’t) picking up at inns, and a meal, and dancing, and then–
Well, he’d just gone and gotten himself into a fistfight for her honour, hadn’t she?
And so the evening of that pitiful day had ended on him sitting on a stool while Theresa tried to clean his face and called him a baby on every dab, just because he had the gall to make noise about it.
All right, maybe that part wasn’t so bad in the end, after all.
“You’ll probably be fine,” she told him, which he was going to cling to on a number of things. “But try to give your hand some rest. Don’t go lifting anything too heavy.”
“Thank you,” Henry said, but he thought: it’s a bit too late for that. “I can walk you home?”
“You never give up,” Theresa said, and smiled, an oddly wistful thing. “But I’ll be all right.”
[[ nfb and nfi! taken from Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018) and god do I always fuck that bandit scene up ]]
So after a full day’s rest - he’d escaped that fight with Runt’s men with his life, but not entirely uninjured - he saddled Pebbles again and rode her along the long, winding paths in the quiet in-between.
The grass and the trees were starting to blend into the background again, he noticed, somewhere in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure if he felt sad about it, but he tried to force himself to pay attention. There was no knowing if Fandom would take him again, and if so, for how long, after all.
The mill sat on a quiet hill, with barely even the sound of millworkers to fill the air. As Henry approached, he caught sight of only a single person - a pretty young girl in green, doing needlepoint at the foot of the house.
He slid off of Pebbles’ back and tried to look as unassuming as possible. Not that the illusion held for more than a moment - not with Mutt charging forward to bark at the poor girl. “God be with ye,” he called, an apology writ on his face, if not in his words. “I’m looking for a colossus by the name of Timmy? I heard he works here.”
The girl nearly dropped her embroidery. “I don’t know anyone like that,” she said quickly.
Henry sighed, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his arm. (He was bloody sweaty and messy again. He should clean off.) “Listen, someone wants to kill him. I have to warn him.”
She frowned, leaning forward a little bit, her eyes searching his face. “You… you don’t want to hurt him…?”
“No. Like I said, I just want to talk to him,” Henry said, shaking his head.
“... Alright,” the girl said. Her eyes wandered from Henry’s face to elsewhere. “... But not here. We’ll talk ‘round back, behind the mill.”
Right. She had to be afraid of something. Runt’s men, most likely. They’d already tried to kill Reeky. No doubt they had their eyes set on Timmy, too. So Henry chose to oblige her, making a roundabout walk until he found himself in the bush behind the mill.
“Why all the secrecy?” he asked her, as she snuck up towards him.
“What do you want from Timmy?” she snapped. Well. Not so timid now.
“Can you help me find him?” Henry countered.
“Promise me nothing will happen to him!” she snapped.
“Why do you care so much?” Henry hissed.
“He’s my brother,” the girl said. “He’s not very smart, you see, and he’s always getting led astray by his no-good friends.”
“Who are they?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know. But they looked like cutthroats and they said some strange things,” she said. “But I didn’t tell them anything!”
“And that’s good,” Henry said slowly. “But sooner or later they’ll find him anyway. Tell me where he is, and I’ll take care of him.”
Her eyes darted back across his face, then past him, then to the mill. She started forward even-closer. “He’s hiding at the Kolben farm, over by Merhojed,” she hissed.
It was as much as he’d get out of her. There were footsteps in the grass behind him, and she took off at a clip, rushing past the mill and back towards the building.
He turned ‘round, but he wasn’t surprised to find bandits - likely more of Runt’s men - facing him. He’d already heard one of them take his sword out of its sheath. He let his own hands drop to his hips as the leader approached him. Best not make himself look like a threat.
“I get the feeling you’re looking for someone here,” their leader said, a young fellow with short black hair. “I’m looking for someone too. Maybe we can help each other.” He had a ragged leather vest on, but underneath, Henry could see a decent chainmail vest poking through. Definitely Runt’s men, he thought.
Henry squared himself. “And who are you looking for?” he asked.
“A great big ox by the name of Timmy.”
No surprise there.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about him,” Henry said, forcing the muscles of his face to stay still.
“That’s a shame,” the leader said, waving that away. “A crying shame. I take good care of people who help me.” He rubbed his chin. “Now if someone were to tell me where to find Timmy, I might offer that man a job. We could use a smart fellow like that at the camp…”
And join bandits that had slaughtered dozens of innocent people? Henry would rather leap out of a tree.
He glanced at the other bandits. There were four in all, including their leader. Armed to the teeth, and decently armored. The odds weren’t great. He grasped for an answer, anything that might defuse this without offering poor Timmy up to the wolves.
Four men. Henry’s terrified mind jumped backwards, to Fandom, to fencing Flint on a beach. Keep your legs steady, he’d said. Practice on the sand, that’ll help you… help you with what? If he could– If he could just strike them. Back away to the mill proper, force them to fight him one by one, he could–
– cut their necks, spill the blood, so much blood and dead bodies everywhere–
“I’ve no idea where he is,” Henry’s mouth said, without him. “I reckon I’ll have to try my luck elsewhere.”
What was he doing?
The leader blinked at him. “That wench didn’t tell you anything?”
Was he buying it?
He was buying it.
Oh Lord.
“Nothing about Timmy anyway,” his mouth said.
“So what were the two of you talking about?” the leader asked, suspiciously.
Henry’s finger lifted up and wagged in the air. “I’d say that was none of your business, wouldn’t you?” his mouth spoke.
The bandit leader stared at him for another moment. Something in his shoulders seemed to give way after that. “Farewell, then,” he said, squinty. “... Neighbor.”
“Farewell,” Henry’s mouth said. And he watched, astonished, as they all just… walked away.
He didn’t stop holding his breath until he’d reached Pebbles, and then the only thing he could think to do with that breath was mutter, quietly, to himself, “We fly to thy protection, O Holy Mother of God, do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin…”
–
Dealing with Timmy after that was easy. He was every bit the slow ox everyone had said he was, and his sister had clearly already given him a bollocking. And so, with new information in hand, Henry hoisted himself back onto Pebbles and rode the short way from the outskirts of Merhojed to where Sir Radzig had made camp.
It remained an odd feeling - knowing that back in Rattay, most of the Skalitzfolk were begging, penniless refugees trying to scrape by with what little they had left. And yet here he was, walking into this large and well-stocked camp, where his own not-insignificant wages awaited. Not comfortable, by any means, but the soldiers all had warm food in their bellies. It hadn’t bothered him as much before, maybe a little bit, but after Stark’s class on other people’s trauma and everything–
He shook it off. There were weights that weren’t his to bear, surely.
He found Sir Radzig’s bright red scarves quickly among the soldiers, and hurried towards him. “Sir Radzig!”
Sir Radzig looked away from the halberd he’d been inspecting, something odd flitting past his face before it smoothed right back over. “Greetings,” he said. “What do you need?”
Henry would ask, but– it wasn’t his place.
“About that encampment, sir…” he tried instead, wishing for whatever thing had possessed his mouth just now to return.
“What is it, lad?” Sir Radzig said, with a little sigh in his voice.
“I found out about the camp from another of the bandits who deserted,” Henry said quickly, not wishing to court his impatience. “He’s called Timmy. A big fellow, but more brawn than brain. The camp is in an abandoned village in the woods to the west of Talmberg.”
“Good work, lad,” Sir Radzig said, with a pleased nod. Something in Henry relaxed. “Have you been to check it out? Do you know how many of them there are?”
And it tensed right back up again.
“I don’t know much, apart from where it is,” Henry admitted. (Didn’t want to say he’d nearly frozen earlier and he was still shaken from– well.)
“We really need to find out more,” Sir Radzig said. At least there was no disappointment in him - he was clearly just thinking about their next steps. “Could you go back there and try to discover anything that could help us in the assault? The more we know, the better.” Something lit up in his eyes. “And if you could carry out some sabotage while you’re in there, it would be invaluable!” he added. “... But don’t take any unnecessary risks. I don’t want to lose you.”
Ah. Erm. That was– well, that was a lot of enthusiasm all of a sudden. Sabotage? Henry had barely managed to kill three men - with Reeky’s help - just the other day. He’d almost soiled himself with Runt’s people. How in God’s name was he going to–
“Sir,” he said delicately, “I’m sure you could find someone more capable for the job…”
Like an actual trained soldier?
“Don’t be so modest!” Sir Radzig said, looking at him as if that was the most foolish thing he’d heard all day. “You’re the best man for the job.” Was he? “...Because you’re the only one I have available.” Ah. “So stop trying to wriggle out of it and get to work!”
Right.
“Yes, sir,” Henry said, flushing. He ducked his head in a half-arsed bow to hide it. “Ah, thank you for your confidence. I’ll find out what I can.”
He looked away and up towards the sky, which was already starting to darken around the far edges. Not tonight, then. It was a few hours’ ride up past Merhojed and Talmberg to get there.
(And, if he were entirely honest with himself, which he was trying not to be, he could use a rest after all that.)
Though naturally, as he rode back to Rattay, he found himself chasing wolves away from some poor woman. And then, as he got off Pebbles’ back to walk the last little while towards the mill, he ran into Sir Hanush, of all people, just-unsaddled and clearly a touch drunk. “Henry, just who I needed to see!” he’d called, and then the last of the sunlight had blasted on by as Sir Hanush went off on some Vicar (short for Vicarious, apparently, some clergy hierarchy thing Henry didn’t pretend to understand) who’d come to Uzhitz hunting for heretics and apparently Sir Hanush was concerned about it– and wouldn’t let him go until Henry had pledged to go see what he could do about it, like he knew anything about Vicars, and then he got home and Theresa asked if he wanted to go to the inn for dinner, and he said yes, because her smile at least distracted him from the woes of the day, and there was banter about all the women he was (wasn’t) picking up at inns, and a meal, and dancing, and then–
Well, he’d just gone and gotten himself into a fistfight for her honour, hadn’t she?
And so the evening of that pitiful day had ended on him sitting on a stool while Theresa tried to clean his face and called him a baby on every dab, just because he had the gall to make noise about it.
All right, maybe that part wasn’t so bad in the end, after all.
“You’ll probably be fine,” she told him, which he was going to cling to on a number of things. “But try to give your hand some rest. Don’t go lifting anything too heavy.”
“Thank you,” Henry said, but he thought: it’s a bit too late for that. “I can walk you home?”
“You never give up,” Theresa said, and smiled, an oddly wistful thing. “But I’ll be all right.”
[[ nfb and nfi! taken from Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018) and god do I always fuck that bandit scene up ]]
