tiltingwithlips | [werewolf AU] homeward bound

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.

Well. That is the question, isn't it.

Kate glances at Harry cautiously. How much to tell?

Harry hugs his elbows and bows his head. "All the world thought me dead because I came as close to death as man may live to tell. I will show thee the scar the prince gave me if it will not unseat thee. 'Twas a wound that shook off a host of old concerns. It is not so strange."

"And thus is Harry Hotspur cooled?" Lady Percy looks to Kate and tightens her grip on her hands. Harry is a terrible liar. He cannot truly keep a secret for the world, which is one reason she loves him.

"'Twould be enough to cool any man," Kate says. "And leave most of them cold. But fear not, mother, he is hot enough beneath his cooled manners."

"Is he?" Lady Percy's eyebrows go up. "Daughter, what is't you wish to tell me? There is something, by my good name I'll stake it."

Abruptly, Harry begins to laugh. "Incessant, even now!"

Is he close enough for her to hit him?

Well, he's always close enough for her to glower.

"Ah, mother -- I may tell you my story, at least, but I fear what you may say."

"No child, then?" She frowns. "What canst thou say that is more dreadful than that I have lived and feared?"

Harry sobers quickly. "Kate, it need not be now."

"It must be someday, Harry," she says with a shrug.

Glendower took it better than expected; perhaps Lady Percy will as well.

"Mother, I only ask you hear me to the end." She squeezes Lady Percy's hands. "Will you grant me that?"

"I worry more than ever to hear you ask as much of me."

"Do not give over, Mother, 'tis no cause for grief, if you but listen."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject