(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

[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."

[harryhotspur]

"There is no call for thanks-- if thou'rt pleased, thy happiness is as mine. Truly," he feels compelled to add, because the words sound like ceremony, formal politesse, but he means it.

He glances back towards the stair. "Shall we descend?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly takes one more long look before he nods. "All right. Over to see about a dog, next?"

[harryhotspur]

"To see about a dog," he agrees. He takes off down the stairs at that same reckless speed and waits at the bottom for Feuilly to catch up. The stables are close by, the kennels attached, both large enough that the absence of half a dozen dogs and horses for the hunt has not left them looking empty. Harry exchanges nods with the grooms, veers off to greet one of the horses and pulls away with a lingering, 'would that we could' glance.

"It will not be an ill place for a dog?" he asks Feuilly quietly. "With the magic and strangeness?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

It's hard to think how they'd manage to sneak a horse into Harry's bedroom. But a dog? Easily. "Oh, no--I see a lot of dogs there. Many people come with dogs, and they seem all right? I wouldn't let it go stray in the woods--there's more, I don't know, magical business there? But--no, I don't think it's a, an ill place for a dog."

[harryhotspur]

They set a boy to keeping the dogs, and he scrambles into a bow when Harry approaches, stammering apologies-- the hunting party-- he did not know-- but Harry holds up a placating hand.

"My friend is new come from France, where they keep not such fine dogs as we have, and I but wished to show him. You need not trouble-- indeed, you need not stay."

It's a subtler dismissal than the one Harry offered to the servant in the castle, but the boy still recognizes it for what it is and hurries to absent himself. The kennel is less like cages or stalls and more like a tiny paddock within which the dogs roam freely-- or, more specifically, are free to advance on Feuilly and Harry as they step inside, barking, tails wagging.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Even with many of the hounds gone with the hunters, it's quite a crowd. Feuilly isn't afraid of dogs--no more than makes sense in a time when dogs were often at work guarding farms and homes--but it's still a little daunting to be at the center of so many open mouths and swaying tail-tips and hard-nailed forefeet.

...they clearly like Harry.

[harryhotspur]

It's not that Harry likes most dogs better than most people, it's just that he-- does, a bit, actually. It seems for a moment like he might give in and just start wrestling with some of them there on the ground. But he doesn't! He just stoops down, nearly disappearing in the midst of them, and straightens with a smallish hound sprawled contentedly in his arms.

"This is Lady," Harry says solemnly.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"--I can see she is." Yes, the way she's lolling in Harry's arms, giving little wiggles and straining to lick his face: all very lady-like. "Well--shall we bring her with us?"

Feuilly is rather absently rubbing the ears of a larger hound, an old cloudy-eyed fellow who seems to have opted for leaning heavily against him instead of joining the busy throng around Harry.

[harryhotspur]

"That was called Hector," Harry says, nodding to the dog. "But now my brother Humphrey calls him Homer." Because apparently brother Humphrey is a dork.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Why? --Oh, of course. Can he see at all?" Poor old boy: but it's good to see that he's taken care of along with the dogs that still can work.

[harryhotspur]

"Oh, somewhat, I think. We have not had much conference on the subject." It's a joke, of course, but it also may not seem entirely impossible that Harry has discussions with the dogs on a variety of topics. "Well, then. That is our errand complete, is it not. Wouldst see aught else? I would not-- would not hurry thee..."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly ruffles the short sleek fur on the dog's neck; the leaning intensifies. "Well--oh, I want to see everything, I want to walk from one end of the country to the other. But we shouldn't risk meeting many people, you already have to explain your cousin. John Fully, was it?"