(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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[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.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly is familiar enough with farm dogs around Lyon, and the various dogs you run into in Paris--lapdogs, strays, dogs that guard shops or carts--but he's no hunter. His sense of medieval English dogs is that they--chased boars and hares and unicorns?

He doesn't really notice that Harry has slowed for him; he's too busy looking all around while trying not to stare too obviously. "What is the nearest town? Are these mostly people who live here at the castle, or people coming with deliveries--?"

[harryhotspur]

"These? They are both," he says. "Come, thou shalt see--"

The inner court opens into the base court, the wide ring around the castle, hemmed in by another wall. But the space between the wall and castle feels more like a small town than a castle courtyard, and here are gatehouses, the chapel, stables.

"The nearest place of any size is Coventry," he says. "And Warwick to th'other side. There is an abbey, too, not far. Many leave here, and keep the castle whilst all are away."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly is, at this point, gawking in a way that would bring him nothing but scorn in Paris. As a town, of course this would be very small, but he's reminded of the barrières neighborhoods.

And all right, Coventry and Warwick, he knows roughly where those are on a map; with those names he feels a little more as if his feet are on the ground.

Less so, when he trips over a chicken. Emilia lets out a quickly-stifled squawk.

[harryhotspur]

Harry thrusts out a hand to steady him, but can't keep from laughing.

"What wouldst thou see?" he asks, letting his hand remain on Feuilly's arm. "We might climb the walls. Or the chapel is just beyond, canst see? And the stable behind. Or-- I know not--" He's laughing still. "I am glad thou'rt here."

[tu_vas_triompher]

That sets Feuilly off laughing too. Now probably a few people are looking at them, and he should care more, but the best he can do is rub his face a moment and try for solemnity, red-faced. "I--oh, I don't even know." Prouvaire would want to see the chapel, and Prouvaire is very much in Feuilly's mind with this expedition; but he's afraid of church-ish etiquette that might trip him up. "The stable? And the walls--well, and the kennels--oh, hell, I don't know, we probably shouldn't stay too long--?"

[harryhotspur]

"True, knowing not how time may pass while we are away." It occurs to him that it is perhaps strange to want to return immediately, that he has no desire (at least right now) to stay, to resume his normal life.

He tugs Feuilly's arm. "Come."

Across the court, past the chapel, towards the stable-- but he passes that, too, and makes instead for one of the guard towers set into the wall. The stairway, like the others, is narrow and must be climbed single-file, so he nudges Feuilly in front of him. There's only one way to go, after all: up and out onto the parapet.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Oh--yes, time passing in Milliways. Feuilly thinks with a pang of his friends. He's fallen out of step with them, a little, Bound in such a nonsensical place for weeks: weeks to come to terms with their stolen revolution, weeks to turn again to the future, France's and other nations', weeks to--spend with a new friend--

Well. He'll still have Louis-Philippe to fight when he gets back.

He's probably slower going up the stairs than Harry would like--he has a care for his neck and his limbs--but his expression of delight when they're out in the open again, up high, ought to gratify anyone. "Ah, Harry--"

Emilia can't contain herself; she flies a circle over their heads.

[harryhotspur]

Harry's beaming smile is like a little boy's, showing off some project and wanting approval: yes? It's good? Not that he had anything to do with all this-- the walls, the grey sky, the lake, the countryside beyond. He is not a person who considers views, who gazes on landscapes, but he looks out and tries.

"Coventry is that way-- Warwick that, and London beyond--"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Yes. Yes, it's good. Feuilly leans out over the wall, looking like he's nineteen years old. He cranes his neck as Harry points out directions. This is another country, another country, a place where people are born and grow and die, speaking their languages and telling their stories, loving the land around them--or hating it, as they fight for a living--

Feuilly is speechless. Even Emilia is speechless.

[harryhotspur]

Harry's dominant thought at seeing that look on Feuilly's face is that really it's a shame they can be seen from the court below-- not that anyone's looking-- surely no one would look or notice if he, just once, just quickly-- but he contents himself with coming to stand at Feuilly's side, bringing one hand to rest at the small of his back, to grab hold in the admittedly unlikely event he should try to lean too far.

[tu_vas_triompher]

He won't lean too far. At Harry's touch, he leans in a little closer, in fact, but he's still looking and looking and looking. Emilia, remembering stealth again, has to content herself with the parapet instead of the air, but she runs along the wall as far as she can.

"I wish you could see Paris," Feuilly says finally. He could give back some portion of this treasure, then--no, share it even more thoroughly.

[harryhotspur]

"It may yet be," Harry says. "Thou wilt not be Bound forever-- and if thou hast not grown intolerable weary of me-- though it may be thine Emilia is easier hid than to supply the daemon I would lack."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Oh--oh, I had forgotten--" He had forgotten, for a little while, the strangeness of all these people without daemons. Certainly he'd forgotten that Harry lacked anything. "Well, we could--"

Some people have very small daemons, he thinks; possibly Harry could pass as someone with a shy beetle hiding in his pocket?

It's hard to imagine Harry with a shy beetle daemon hiding away. Feuilly shakes his head and laughs at the thought. "You could at least come into my room and look out the window. We'd manage. --Thank you, Harry. This is wonderful."