(AU week)

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly has been telling himself that it's all right to be bound here, after the bitter defeat to their cause. Time isn't passing in Paris--however that works--he's using the time to rest, to study, to learn for the republicans' next attempt--

--he's resting with Harry, Prince of Wales, and studying the swordsmanship of four hundred years ago, and learning how to communicate a few faint ideas of 1830 to a long-gone English kingdom.

So now, spurred by Bahorel's restless energy, the news of Joly's illness, he's pulled out the work he's neglected lately, a sort of extract or paraphrase or adaptation--whatever you want to call it--of the Communist Manifesto. It's challenging work, pulling it together in terms for 1830 Paris, but it's not so very far past their time as all that. It's not a moment too soon for socialism!

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[harryhotspur]

The said Harry, Prince of Wales, bursts through the door with his characteristic sensitivity and grace, apparently in too much haste to deal with such formalities as knocking. Out of the mess of words delivered at a stutteringly incomprehensible speed, his expansive and wild gestures, and his excited pacing, a few key concepts can perhaps be discerned: door, England, come see.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Emilia had been engaged in making an elaborate nest of pens and fan-sticks. The sudden burst of intense Harry startles her; she flashes her wings and everything falls down, and she circles through the air with an indignant shriek.

Feuilly blinks at her and at Harry. "--Shush, Emilia. Harry, what? See what?"

[harryhotspur]

"My door," he manages at last. "It is back."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Your door!" He's on his feet at once, clutching his Marx with his finger to hold his place; Emilia drops down to the ground with almost a bounce. "Your door, Harry! Are you--I suppose you're--"

[harryhotspur]

"O, yes, of course! I must provision while I can, against such time as Madam Bar chooses to trap me again." He has been pinging about the room in his excitement, unable to hold still-- but now he stops to face Feuilly as he asks, "Wouldst like to come?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly stares at him, round-eyed, looking doubtless like a particularly tufty owl. Emilia sitting next to him does nothing to reduce the resemblance. "With you? To--?"

It's the most dangerous, most foolish notion. Suppose he were trapped there? What good would he do anyone, stuck at the court of Henry IV?

But...he could see it for himself. Another country--another time--another world. "How would we manage? If I disguised myself--Emilia is small, she can stay close--"

(He ignores an angry outburst in parrot-voiced Polish.)

[harryhotspur]

"O, 'twould be nothing," he says, waving his hand airily. "I will lend to you some more English garb-- we are near enough in size. If thou needst must speak to anyone, why, most all men of the court speak French."

He glances at Emilia. "It will be easy, and we will not linger long, but gather together some necessaries and soon be gone."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Yes, your clothes would fit--the French is different in your time, but I have some English too, different from your English, but--"

Emilia is flapping wildly at Harry's feet, but as she's considerably smaller than a pigeon and not in fact touching him--and half the things she's saying sound more enthusiastic than enraged--it's hard to imagine that he'll be intimidated.

"--I can leave a note for my friends."

[harryhotspur]

Harry breaks into a bright smile. "Come then! We shall see thee dressed and then we will away. We shall find some-- some hat, some sleeve, in which Emilia may hide herself-- 'tis like enough we will not see a soul, I found this place from Kenilworth and they kept all at Westminster then-- they say no time doth pass, think you 'tis truly so?"

He starts towards the door as he speaks, all but bouncing with excitement.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Kenilworth?" Westminster? Feuilly isn't nearly so keen on the English royal family--as such--as to know one castle from another. "Yes, that's what we've found, my friends and I--some of them are trying to study it, how it can possibly be, since I've been bound here for weeks and some of them come and go--"

His note, left in the center of his desk, is absurdly brief. I have found an opportunity to travel. I intend to be back. salut et fraternité

By the time Feuilly realizes he's still clutching a copy of Marx, he's out in the hall, Emilia clinging to his shirt.

[harryhotspur]

"A palace-- thou shalt see-- my grandfather saw it built--" Harry chatters on happily en route to his room, where he sets at once to digging through the clutter to find some spare clothes, tossing pieces haphazardly in Feuilly's direction as he finds them.

"Now, we must see first of all to a sword," he says as he looks. "Armor, the good Lady Bar will provide should I ever have need of it, but-- oh!" He turns to Feuilly, a hat in his hands. "One of the hounds! What think you?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Right, right, you people with your palaces and your grandfathers...

Feuilly stares with some dismay at the bits of clothing coming his way. All right, he can guess how it goes on, mostly, but-- "What? Oh--oh, um, yes, hounds."

Emilia, standing on a crumpled-up shirt, pipes up with "Why not a bow, so we can see some of that famous English archery?"

[harryhotspur]

"I am too small for a bowman," Harry says cheerfully. "But ay, and why not? Perhaps some other may make use of it. --need'st thou some aid, friend Léon?" he adds with a grin.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Ehhhhh--"

That--that's a yes.

[harryhotspur]

Harry laughs. "Come, 'tis not so hard, first the stockings, then the hose-- canst keep thine own shirt, it will not be seen."

Harry's tastes are far from extravagant (and entirely anachronistic, but that's Shakespeare's fault, not his), and he does his best to find Feuilly something relatively sedate: long hose that fall below the knee, a relatively unpadded doublet in a deep forest green.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"All right, all right--" Stockings, and--and hose. "These things look reasonable on you--"

At least they come below the knee. But staring, Feuilly shakes his head in amused dismay. "I can never call myself a sans-culotte now. --How does this, this part go on?" He has the doublet in his hands.

[harryhotspur]

"Come, put out thy arms--" Harry is trying not to laugh, he's really trying! He comes around behind Feuilly to pull on the doublet like a jacket, but as he comes back to the front to start fastening up the row of buttons, he can't help it anymore-- he rests his head against Feuilly's shoulder and laughs.

"O, forgive me-- thou look'st fine indeed--" It's just strange.

[tu_vas_triompher]

No, no, laughing is good! Laughing keeps out the inevitable questions like how many years' wages would this costume cost?; it turns them into happier ones like how am I possibly going to walk in this?

"If Bahorel saw me--oh God, if Prouvaire saw me--" He puts his arms awkwardly around Harry, a little too stiffly to be called a hug.

Emilia begins to speculate, out loud, as to how many buttons there are. When she begins to count, Feuilly snorts and gives Harry a gentle shove. "I can do these myself. It might take all year, but I can do these myself."

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, go on then," he laughs. He kneels down to tie together the points at the hips which hold the doublet to the hose, because God help you if you want to get out of this quickly. This done, he retrieves a high-crowned hat. "What thinkest thou, Emilia? Couldst hide beneath this?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

He'd barely noticed the ties to keep together doublet and hose; he would have happily wandered through the halls of Kenilworth Castle in a state of shocking undress and never known it. "Do you do all this yourself every morning, or do you need help? --Eh? Oh, yes, I think she could. Oh, come on Emilia, you can hide under a hat--"

"I can ride on a shoulder, too," she snaps.

[harryhotspur]

"I do not trouble with it all, not here. But 'tis easier done with help," he replies. He gives Emilia a speculative once-over. "Thou lookest not like a bird of England."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I could pretend to be a pet," she protests, which--fine--is a turnaround from her usual attitude, but! Hiding under a hat!

Feuilly, heartless, scoops her up and perches her on his head. "Better start out hiding. We're trying to be inconspicuous."

...It's very hard to think of these clothes as inconspicuous. And especially the hat, once he sets it on his head and finally dares to look in the mirror.

Oh. God.

[harryhotspur]

Harry grins and claps him on the shoulder. "A fine gentleman, in truth. Thou wilt be soon freed, Emilia, for as I said, 'tis like enough we will see none will question us. Art ready? Shall we hence?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly's hat rocks grumpily on his head, and he claps a hand to the brim. "We're ready."

...Perhaps Harry will not notice that he has again taken up his Communist Manifesto. He's quite sure that they won't be trapped in medieval England, quite sure, and yet.

He'll at least have some reading if they are.

[harryhotspur]

Right then! Harry sets off for the bar proper, where there is indeed now a door. He makes eagerly towards it, pushes it open-- and offers his hand to Feuilly. "I know not if thou needst must-- but I would not have thee somehow left behind."