tiltingwithlips | [werewolf AU] homeward bound

Another Percy has joined them.

Lady Margaret Percy stands some few paces off, clutching a set of letters in one hand. She watches them with an expression full of thunder and heartbreak. When Harry and Kate pull apart, she does not speak nor move until she is noticed.

Harry starts toward her. "My good mother--"

"Alive these several months and not a word!" she booms.

Kate winces.

"Mother, we cry your pardon." She's only a step behind Harry. "If we had but been able--"

"Your rebellion failed, and what of it! The wastrel son is now our king, or so he writes me! And where is your father, fled to Scotland with his shame and grief?" She turns to Kate, eyes blazing. "I sent letters to your brother, begging him for word of you! If my son was lost to the battle, could not my daughter have been spared? Yet I heard nothing, and kept this cold house for no one but the old!"

Kate looks to Harry, visibly distressed, and reaches to touch Lady Percy's shoulder.

"Mother -- my lady -- what may we say? After Shrewsbury, there was so much demanded of us, such as you could not imagine -- our silence may not be excused, I know, but pray let it be forgiven."

"She speaks rightly. But, Mother, what we have accomplished still--"

Lady Percy reaches for Kate's elbow, and meets her look, eyes brimming. She can bear it no longer, though, and throws her arms around her son's neck.

"Oh my Harry," she whispers. "You were gone and dead in every other corner of the world."

He sets his chin on her shoulder, and wraps both arms about her tight. "We are both of us hale and well," he says softly. "And talked of little else but the day of our return."

Kate swallows, rubbing Lady Percy's back.

"Even so, mother, even so."

These are her children. Lady Percy is not too proud to sob quietly for their sake. The winter has been very long.

She lets go of Harry and immediately envelops Kate in a hug. "How glad, how glad I am that you are not lost."

That gets a shaky laugh, as Kate embraces her tightly.

"As are we, mother, as are we. Is all well here?"

Lady Percy laughs, once and somewhat bitterly. "You are just returned. Come, let's to a smaller room. I'll have some wine drawn up, and we may speak together."

Harry knows of old that this tone brooks no argument -- so, road-weary as he and Kate might be, he dips his head. "We'll after thee, in all gladness."

Lady Percy is composed again: there'll be no more tears, though perhaps a few smiles.

"I doubt not there is much to tell on both sides."

She reaches for Harry's hand again and gives him a worried look. But how much to tell her?

His mouth flattens.

She must find out sometime or other, not least when they finally have a child. But if she does not ask directly...

Yet this is his mother. She will ask directly.

Harry takes Kate's hand, and circles her waist with the other. "What letters are those you bear?"

Lady Percy shoots him a canny look. "Thou know'st, I'm sure. What hast thou done, to earn such far-reaching and pedigreed pardons for us?"

"He has conducted himself as a gentleman," Kate says with a wry smile.

Lady Percy's eyebrows go up. "Then who is this walking between us?"

"My mother's son, i'faith!"

"Go to!" She shakes her head, but, briefly, fondly, sets her hand on the back of Harry's head. "This new Henry, then -- how has the scapegrace prince comported himself, now that he wears the heavy crown? He writes a very pretty letter, if you would see it."

Harry glances at Kate. "We saw the coronation."

Lady Percy frowns. "What's this?"

Kate sighs.

"We were in London, mother, and spoke with the new-crown'd king before his coronation. He would have the house of Percy as an ally once again."

Lady Percy snorts. "With so much blood between us?"

"Even so." Harry still looks little enough pleased at the prospect, but he is wearied by it, rather than indignant.

She shakes her head. "It cannot be. Even with the Earl pardoned, your uncle--"

"My uncle Worcester betrayed me," Harry cuts in. "And I would hear of this illness that kept my father from the field as well."

Lady Percy looks away. It is not hard to see where Harry's habit of avoiding eye contact when he's in a temper comes from. "What service may we render our most gracious king? And how did you pass unmarked in London to speak with the king at such a time as this?"

Carefully: "What service we may render will be seen."

"It is ever so!" Lady Percy throws up her hands. "Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt, this Harry Monmouth, the young Duke of Lancaster, all of that line shall damn us with their schemes and promises."

They come to the solar, and Harry steps forward to open the door. "King Henry would have us believe him all reformed. He gave a great show of it, when all the world was watching."

"He did indeed," Kate agrees, sounding sour. "Disowned before us all the life he once had led, and even the rogues and thieves who would yet cling to his robes."

Flastaff is not a pleasant person -- but neither was it a pleasant scene. In fact, it was exactly the sort of scene she had been anxious to avoid, and some part of her had been grimly satisfied that it fell on another person, and not her and Harry.

"I well believe he does not mean us harm. I know not if we may call him friend, now or ever."

"We need not call him friend, only liege. He'll be friend enough when he comes knocking with a war in hand."

"What war?" Lady Percy sits, her brows drawn. "Surely not against Wales?"

"I think there's little profit in that," says Harry soothingly. "Besides, there's pardons sent out for Lord Mortimer as well."

At that, Lady Percy's eyebrows go up. "Indeed?"

Margaret Percy has opinions about Edmund Mortimer, much as she loves her daughter-in-law.

Yes, well, Edmund . . . is Edmund, sometimes.

"So it seems."

Kate takes a seat beside Lady Percy. "And it may be hoped that with my brother wed to Glendower's daughter, the Welsh will be less ready to attack."

Hmmm.

Well, there's time enough for that later.

Lady Percy pats the seat on the other side of her. "Harry, wilt thou content thyself with sitting?"

"We have been riding--"

"You have been dead," his mother says sternly.

With a glance at Kate, Harry takes that as his cue to sit.

"How much there is to tell," she sighs. "I'd hear from you both at length. What would you know of me?"

"Above all, mother, are you well? Have you been safe here? The king's soldiers, they have not troubled you?"

"The old king pardoned all your soldiers after Shrewsbury." She lifts her chin. "We have had more visits from the Douglas's men then either Henry's. 'Twas thy father's going that keeps us safest, though. We must send for him now, if he is pardoned. He must see thee living, Harry."

Harry shifts in his seat and stares very hard at his knees.

Lady Percy turns to Kate. "I told him to stay. I told him to send a younger general in his place. That his men did not reach the field, I do not know how that came to be. But the Earl is old. War is a young man's game."

Kate firmly does not look at Harry. She takes Lady Percy's hands in hers, nodding.

"I would have done the same."

Harry shakes his head. "I'll not talk of this and spoil our homecoming."

Lady Percy frowns, and watches him. "What has changed, Harry? Never would I think to hear such words of thee."

"A man may change!" Now he glares. "Even such a man as I."

His mother does not back down. "What came to pass since the day of battle?"

The question is an open one.

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