(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!

Comments

[harryhotspur]

Harry grins. "Why, what think you of a dog? I would fain bring a horse, but know not how to bring it to the door. But a dog will be as nothing, may run with us when we ride--"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Ride?" Feuilly turns from the window. "Harry, I've been on a mule, twice in my life. I didn't fall off and it was a great victory. That's the extent of my riding, Harry."

Then he looks stricken at the tone of his voice, much closer to irritable than is at all usual for him. Emilia flutters and paces unhappily on his shoulder. "We like dogs," she says plaintively. "We do like dogs--and horses--"

[harryhotspur]

"I-- I would glad show thee how," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. What a stupid thing to do, he thinks, to say put on these silks, here is my father's castle-- here is one of my father's castles--

"If thou wouldst not-- if thou likest it not--" How does one say 'if you want, you can go' and 'please, though, don't' at the same time?

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Ehhhh--" Feuilly scrubs a hand fiercely through his hair, all spikes, blushing. "Eh, I'm sorry if I was short. Yes, I'd like to know how to ride. And yes, let's see about a dog. And--" He gestures to the window, the rainy greens and greys beyond. "--And it's beautiful. Like I imagined, I guess, but it's so different to really see it."

We're all right?

[harryhotspur]

"Thou canst not see from here, but 'tis bordered nearly all around by a lake. Wouldst go below? And we might take to the walls and thou couldst see-- see the lake, better see the countryside beyond--"

(If he had his soul on the outside, too, he wonders, would she know the right things to say?)

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Bordered by a lake. So--is there a town, near? Or is the castle by itself?" He'd hoped to see a town. Of course it's a mad idea; how would they go into a town? He'd be unable to talk to anyone--their cobbled French and English seem to do well enough for the two of them, but he can imagine how different the court English and townsmen's English might be. But he'd hoped. A town, a farm, something of the people outside the castle.

Not that he's turning down the chance to see the castle, though. Feuilly nods firmly. "And yes, let's? Anything you think we can get away with. Is it--should Emilia keep hiding, do you think?"

He doesn't want to admit it, but he feels stupid, dazed, half blind, with his daemon shut up in the dark under a hat.

[harryhotspur]

"It is a castle prized for hunting, it is some distance to the nearest town. But come, let us to the court below, for 'tis not unlike a town, though a small one."

He looks to Emilia, considering. At last he says, "I will give out, should any inquire, she is some fashion, as ladies do keep monkeys. We will say thou'rt new come from France or Italy, and it will then be easily believed. If, good Emilia, thou dost not disdain to behave for this time as common birds do."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"That ought to work. Emilia, you can manage, come on, just stay on my shoulder. --Yes, I'm sure if you say I'm French, they'll--" Feuilly's mouth twitches into a smile, first small, then growing. "--I'm sure they'll believe any sort of foolish fashion. If you say I'm French. --I'm sorry, though; you went to such trouble to find me an elegant hat. Now, sir, let's see your hunting-castle?"

[harryhotspur]

"O, ay, we will believe anything of the French," he says cheerfully, making his way through the door. "Do but think of the foul depravities into which thou hast led me."

The chamber opens out into a larger one, a presence chamber of some kind, similarly decked with tapestries, also empty. His promise that the bulk of court would be away seems to be coming true.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Oh, indeed." Feuilly, leader-into-foul-depravities, that's just how it's been. "Terrible people, the French."

He'd had the sense to leave his book behind--tucked under a fold of a blanket, where presumably no one will dig it up; and Emilia seems to have settled into her role as extravagant foreign pet. Or else she's just not talking to him now.

Feuilly slows to look at the tapestries. "If I had brought some paper--" When they get back he'll try to draw them, get down his impressions. Jean Prouvaire--Jehan Prouvaire--would be in agonies of delight. "Is this--what room is this?"

[harryhotspur]

"What?" He's simply been making his way across the room, paying no mind at all to tapestries the likes of which he sees every day: St. George and the Dragon, a maiden luring a unicorn, King Solomon. "It is the great chamber. It is not often so empty, but-- o! But sure they have all gone forth to hunt! We did intend it ere I-- left."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly lingers a little longer, because he can. And because he's a good copyist, who can see something good and make a poor-man's version, scaled to cheap fans: he wants at least to render something of this, he wants to absorb at least the way the maiden and the unicorn look at one another.

"--Sorry, I was just looking-- If my door appears again--ever--if you go to Paris, I can show you, what, an omnibus?"

[harryhotspur]

"An omnibus?" he echoes. "What is't? I would glad see one, or what else of Paris thou wouldst show me."

Once Feuilly is ready to follow, Harry's off down a closely winding staircase, which he clatters down at what is surely an unwise speed given the narrowness of the passage, the smallness of the steps themselves. But he manages not to break his neck before he reaches the bottom, and passes into the great hall.

Harry's grandfather was brother to a king, and liked to make sure no one could forget it. The hall is immense: six fireplaces; massive windows with elaborate tracery; a high, arched ceiling. And it is assuredly not empty. This is the hub and heart of the house. There are servants, there are ladies and gentlemen, all of whom seem to be about some business or other, even if it is only conversation.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Oh, the omnibus is wonderful, really--it's--hm, it's a very large carriage that holds many people. You pay a fare, and it goes on a certain route through the city. It's not expensive, I take it myself if the weather is especially bad and I have far to go. You all jostle together--everyone is sitting on his neighbor's packages or coattails or dress, but it's an entertaining way to go about town. Someone started a company two years ago--"

But now they're at the stairs, and even if Harry manages to gallop down them every day without disaster, Feuilly is going to pick his way down at a sensible pace. Emilia grips his doublet tightly; there will be little holes in it.

And then there's a new hazard, a room of people. Feuilly, silent, stays close behind Harry. He does let himself look about, though: if he's a new visitor from France, a man of fashion with a parrot, surely he can stare just a bit?

[harryhotspur]

"O, I will gladly ride thy omnibus," Harry says when Feuilly is back at his side.

His confidence in the brilliant of their plan is not as absolute as he makes it seem, but he resists the urge to rush through the hall: calm and confident draws less attention. Or at least it ought to-- but a young man, about their own age, dressed for riding, breaks off from one of the groups and moves to intercept Harry on his way.

"Where have you been!" he cries. "We have been waiting for you this age! The sun will set ere we begin our hunt if you still linger so." His eye falls on Feuilly. "Who--?"

"A cousin of my mother, sure you met when he arrived," Harry says.

"I think not," the young man replies, looking at Feuilly with a direct, but carefully unreadable expression.

"Then I present my cousin-- John Feuilly." He pronounces it something like 'Fully,' as if it is a Norman name anglicized. "And this, Sir Ralph Neville."

Sir Ralph Neville bows-- Harry jerks his head in an attempt to indicate that Feuilly should follow suit.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly--bows? He's watched Harry enough to have a sense of how he moves, and he watches this Sir Ralph Neville's bow, but he's sure he has the gesture all wrong. Should he say anything? Yes? No? He ends up murmuring a few words, barely audible--lately come from France--

If no time passes while Harry's in Milliways--if it's the same day--has Sir Ralph Neville been waiting for their hunt for weeks?

[harryhotspur]

Harry's having the same thought. It has been weeks, and here Neville is, pestering him with plans they'd made as if no time has passed at all. Which apparently it hasn't. It takes some effort not to laugh at the thought of Ralph lounging around for weeks, waiting for Harry to emerge.

"Well, will you come?" Neville asks. "All stay for you."

"Then stay no longer," Harry says. "My cousin is somewhat jostled with his journey and does not wish to ride, so I will remain with him. Go!" he insists when Neville looks set to protest. "And it may be I will join you, but I would not spoil your sport with my delay."

"As it please you," Neville replies, looking himself distinctly displeased. He casts a last glance at Feuilly-- and a pointed one at Emilia-- and with another bow, turns away, calling out to someone as he goes, "He begs our pardon, he will not come--"

Harry looks to Feuilly. "We carried ourselves well, did we not?" he asks in an undertone.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I think we passed." His heart is pounding. Emilia, on his shoulder, fluffs her feathers two or three times, flicks her wings, preens them tensely. Feuilly has no way to read the young man's evident doubt and annoyance--knows nothing of a Ralph Neville and won't ask here and now--but he'll trust that Harry can see things sorted out.

...now to get the rest of the way through this vast hall.

[harryhotspur]

They begin to walk.

Harry has grown used to, if not comfortable with, the idea that people now look at him as he passes. He's not the king, they're all here for the hunting, so there is no domino cascade of bowing as he passes-- though some do-- but they do all plainly watch.

It seems unfair to him, somehow, to force Feuilly to suffer this in silence (and really, when does he ever do anything in silence?), so he says, "He is the Earl of Westmorland's son-- we are of an age, or nearly so. He thinks I cross him just to show I can. Likest thou these tapestries, too? That is Daniel and the lions, and that-- oh, it is some tale of Troy I cannot recall..."

[tu_vas_triompher]

He breathes easier once Harry begins to talk. "Westmorland--I think you've mentioned him?" Feuilly is good with place names and foreign languages, but England has so very many Ws. "He--advises the king--?" Well, Harry can make it up to him, if he likes, sooner or later. (Maybe, Feuilly thinks, biting his lip on a smile, they'll go back to Milliways and Sir Ralph Neville will hold on to his annoyance for weeks on end, suspended in no time at all!)

...and, right, Harry is newly and unexpectedly the Prince of Wales. The sort of person who might cross a son-of-the-Earl-of-Westmoreland just to show he can. Feuilly starts to push a hand through his hair, uncomfortable with the places where personal and political overlap, then remembers he's at court and folds his hands again.

"--Oh. Oh, yes, those are excellent lions." They are: maybe more expressive than accurate, but still, excellent lions. "My friend Prouvaire would--" Well, right now Prouvaire has other things on his mind than medieval tapestries. But at some point. "--He might fall dead of envy, that I'm seeing them."

[harryhotspur]

He laughs (this draws attention, which he ignores). "But thou art, at least, not the sort to boast overmuch," he says. "Would we could take one, too, that he might see it for himself--" His step slows: the seems to be actually considering it for a moment, just running over to the wall and yanking one down. "--but 'twould seem strange."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I'll try to draw some of it for him." Feuilly shrugs--and then laughs under his breath at Harry's speculative look. "--Maybe not one from the, the Great Hall, though."

[harryhotspur]

"A smaller one," he agrees. They've reached the end of the hall at last: Harry ushers them through the doorway and out to a covered passageway, which opens in turn to the inner courtyard, a cobbled expanse ringed all round by castle towers, but open now to the grey sky. This is busier still than the hall, but they draw less attention amongst the men, carts, horses, a group of young courtiers who seem to be en route to join Neville in the hunt.

"I pray they have not taken all the dogs," Harry mutters as they pass.

[tu_vas_triompher]

This is better--and it's more what Feuilly had hoped to see, servants, carters, a woman with a hamper of laundry. (Though still, how much can you learn of a place just walking through it once?)

"Well--even if they've taken most of them, there's probably--puppies? Other--kinds of dogs? --All right, I can't pretend to know anything about hunting dogs. Just what I've seen in, in tapestries."

[harryhotspur]

"But thou hast the right of it, there are differing kinds, for varied uses." He's set on his mission, charging onwards, but seeing Feuilly looking around, it occurs to him to slow his pace.