(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 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?"

[harryhotspur]

"As I stood there, it seemed simpler than to give you out as French-- for what makes a Frenchman here?-- but it was a foolish notion, I confess," he says. Lady yawns (perhaps that is agreement?). "But we must return to the door yet."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"It's as good as anything. Any conversation I had about France would be as much of a disaster--I don't even know who's king! --Yes, all right, let's go back."

With regret, he detaches himself from the elderly hound. Who's a good boy.

[harryhotspur]

"Charles VI," Harry replies at once, because he actually knows that one! He glances down at the old dog and asks with a grin, "Why, wouldst take him, too?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Charles VI, then." Feuilly grins at Harry's prompt schoolboy answer--and then looks guilty. "Oh, well, I don't--he's not going to be running with you while you ride--"

Yes, he very obviously wants to take the dog. Emilia bites his ear. Ow.

[harryhotspur]

"They like not solitude, dogs," Harry says innocently. Because of course he would never try to talk anyone into anything! "They are best pleased to have a pack to return to, even if it is a pack of but two."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"And--and, you know, I spend a lot of time reading. Writing. Not riding." He'd be quite happy with an old dog that wanted to lie down all morning and snore. "But--of course he's your dog--"

Feuilly is hopelessly transparent. Emilia bites his ear again, more gently.

[harryhotspur]

"Bid him follow and he will," Harry says cheerfully, starting back towards the kennel gate. "He is well practiced in commands."

The other dogs swarm around the door as he moves towards it, anticipating the possibility of going out. It takes some nudging to make his way through without enabling a mass escape.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly has no idea what commands medieval English dogs know. But calling "Hector" and setting out through the throng of dogs seems to work; and he has a collar that Feuilly can catch hold of once they're out.

Right. So they've...borrowed...some dogs, and the servant is bringing Harry's sword, and--and they don't have many more excuses to stay. And there are so very many people Feuilly can't possibly talk with.

[harryhotspur]

Harry has set down Lady at last, and she trots contentedly at his heels, occasionally getting distracted and scampering off to snap at a cart horse's heels or try to chase a chicken, but always coming back when she's done.

He's completing a similar mental checklist: dogs, sword, not too many questions asked.

"It may be we could return," he says as they pass back into the inner court, back towards the hall. "Some disguise more clever, thou couldst see more--"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Do you think so? A second time I would, I would know a little better what to prepare for--" Though he knows better, really, than to believe that he'd ever be able to pass any sort of conversational test. And Emilia's patience for playing the role of a tame parrot is--limited. She's already muttering things into his ear.

Hector is above such frivolities as snapping at horses' heels or chasing chickens; he does occasionally stop at a smell and refuse to move or be moved until he's quite done with it. The first time Feuilly gives Harry an apologetic look; after that he decides that Harry knows these dogs well enough to expect it.

[harryhotspur]

Harry doesn't mind it, he's moving slowly anyway, for what he hopes it Feuilly's benefit: a last look at the people, the stones, the sky.

"And why could we not?" Harry asks. "We might wait until the dead of night-- sneak away, perchance, travel to Coventry--" Nevermind how they'd manage to get back, how long they'd be away, how much time might pass while they were gone.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly takes it all in gratefully, even the light rain that has started in again. It's another nation's rain! Falling on another nation's people, from a sky that France shares, but elsewhere--

It's also chilly and wet. Feuilly wipes his face. "I don't--" He doesn't think they possibly could. But then he remembers: when I so little love the thing I am. Why not dream of running away? "--I would love to see Coventry."

[harryhotspur]

"It is not so grand as Paris," Harry laughs, picking up his pace to escape the rain. "But if thou wouldst see a town, why, it may claim that title."

He ducks back into the covered passageway that leads from the inner court back into the great hall, but pauses before he goes inside. "It were best we now move quickly, and bear an air that brooks no questions-- that we do seem to say, while saying nothing, we must have these dogs, and it is not for you to question."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Like smuggling rifles," he mutters. "Or proscribed journals." Eh? Of course I'm supposed to be here in this neighborhood carrying this crate after dark, what do you think?

Some of the urgency even conveys itself to the dogs, who fall behind with a business-like trot.

[harryhotspur]

Harry casts Feuilly a look of surprised amusement. "Thou shalt tell me more this smuggling anon."

As he moves through the great hall, Harry at least has the benefit of rank in preventing undue questions: it's a strange sight, doubtless, but his lifted chin and gaze fixed firmly forward-- not to mention the fact that most everyone of a status to challenge him has gone out hunting-- lets them pass the length of the hall without direct comment, and soon they are back on the narrow spiral staircase up to the great chamber, and relative privacy.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Anon," he agrees.

Feuilly doesn't dare to look at anyone as they pass through the hall, for fear of catching someone's gaze and inviting comment, though he makes himself look at the windows and tapestries now and then, like anyone passing through a grand room in an unfamiliar place might. For once he's glad to be in the narrow break-neck staircase.

The dogs aren't. Well, Lady meets the adventure with good cheer. Hector groans every few steps and casts a reproachful eye at his people. Why have they betrayed a respectable old lymer into walking up all these stairs?

[harryhotspur]

The great chamber, as before, is empty. Lady seizes this opportunity to run the length of the deserted space and back again; Harry decides uses it to take Feuilly's hand.

[tu_vas_triompher]

He gives Harry's hand a firm squeeze. "I think we--I think we made it." Now to see if Harry's sword has been brought?

[harryhotspur]

"Skilled adventurers, we," he says brightly. With reliable servants, too: the sword in its sheath has been carefully laid on top of the trunk that rests at the foot of the bed. Harry takes it up eagerly and, fingers fumbling a bit in his excitement, straps it on.

"We could yet take a tapestry for thy Prouvaire."

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly smiles at his eagerness with the sword. What will he do with a real sword in Milliways? God only knows, but at any rate he'll have one. "Oh--well--ehhh--" He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yes? That is--"

Skilled adventurers? More like bold thieves, they! But--the dogs are Harry's dogs or close enough to it, and it is Harry's sword. And anyway, if no time passes, then he can bring it all back in just a moment. Even a tapestry.

"--Maybe wait a little while to give it to him. He's in no mood for monarchy just now. But--" But in the long run, Prouvaire will love it, Feuilly thinks. He hopes.

[harryhotspur]

"If he likes it not, we will return it," Harry says with a shrug.

He wanders over to contemplate one of the tapestries: a unicorn curled demurely in a lush, Edenic garden. They are neither of them very tall, and the tapestry... is. Because he is such a delicate, cautious sort of person, Harry grabs hold of the bottom and gives it a sharp yank. This does work, though it tears two short lines into the top of the fabric, from the nails that held it to the wall.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Harry--!"

Don't tear the nice tapestry!

Lady comes to investigate whatever made one of the people yelp, and thinks the tapestry is great fun! It's big! And floppy! And strange! She should probably bark at it, and then Hector comes to the same conclusion.

"--we'd better hurry."

[harryhotspur]

Harry starts rolling it up, probably a bit painfully roughly in the eyes of someone who cares more than he does about such things-- though he does take enough care to keep it out of reach of Lady, who has decided that it's time for a round of Bite That Thing. He tucks the roll under one arm, takes a last look around the room. As he approaches the door back to Milliways, he offers his hand to Feuilly once again-- just in case, you know.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Just in case!

And Harry holds Hector's collar with his other hand, and Lady is jumping enthusiastically at The Thing To Bite, and Emilia clings tightly to Feuilly's doublet, and--

Milliways.

(Sitting on the bed of Harry, Prince of Wales, tucked discreetly under a fold of a blanket so no one will notice, remains a French translation of The Communist Manifesto.)