We're in the jailhouse now

[newredmuses]

Following this incident, Malcolm and Hotspur are tossed into opposite-facing cells to cool their heels, assuming that's okay with everyone.

Any number of ways to take young Malcolm's silence. Could be sullen, could be brooding, could be spiteful, could be morose. Harry Percy here, he's humming, and take that as a kindness, for pray you never hear him sing.

He's a man who does not take well to silences, save for when they'll save an army, perhaps. And so, at no particular point in his ditty, he stretches and asks, into the empty space, "Ever been held for ransom before, pup?"

Comments

[newredmuses]

Though he takes pains to look easy about it, he peers towards Malcolm's cell. "How long have you been here, eh? How long since you were with your people?"

Milliways or England, either way, he's nosy. He asks in no small part from self-interest, but the lad seems young, and slow-burning mad.

[adivasheadvoices]

"Here? Why, as long as you, sir," dryly, "or have you forgotten so quickly?"

He runs a hand through his hair. "A season and more have passed since we fled Scotland and the tyrant stole my throne."

[newredmuses]

"Idle hours are all one to me. I turn to princes to learn me of their ways." He gestures at the cell. "I mean this place, you wit. This Milliways." Christ, but the name sounds foolish in his mouth.

"And so you're raising armies, then," he says, as though it was easy and natural as breath.

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm almost -- almost -- grins, sardonic and still not looking at Harry.

"Only a little less time than I have been at England's court, in truth. It appears 'round corners and through doors in the palace -- as it did for you."

The question of raising armies . . . he leaves, for the moment.

[newredmuses]

"Cry thanks to God I was not born with a weak heart, for to first have this place leap out at me and then you, why! A fine and treacherous door, I say."

He wags his eyebrows. "And have you passed your time well here, coming to blows with your pick of fellow travelers?"

[adivasheadvoices]

He snorts. Because he is not going to laugh at this fellow's jests. Really.

"I am no brawler, sir."

Beat.

". . . My current lot notwithstanding."

[newredmuses]

"For that I will take you at your word. My own face tells me so. 'Who has been caressing thy cheek, Harry?' my Kate will beg me when I return, and I will answer her, 'Worry not, my love, 'twas but a prince of Cumberland.'"

[adivasheadvoices]

That not-quite-grin keeps trying to break through.

"Try me again, my good Northumberland, when we're freed of this place, and I shall send thee home to thy Kate with more than a kiss."

[newredmuses]

No such delicacy from the cell across; Harry gives a bark of laughter. "I should not make such promises, my pup, for you've not met my wife when she's of a temper. Should her Hotspur come crying to her bed, why, she'll raise a hand to the rogue who set him so."

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm shoots him a sidelong look.

"What man would marry such a siege engine?"

[newredmuses]

"No other man, or he'll find himself on my sword." He grins. "Why, what fair, fine, obedient wife would you get, eh? Or have got, in faith. I'll look on any such a woman and say she's good enough for another fellow."

[adivasheadvoices]

"Ah -- none, i'faith."

He tries not to look sheepish and pretty much fails.

"I've no time to think of wooing."

Yep.

[newredmuses]

"Not in Scotland? Not in London?" He gestures at the cell. "Not beyond the king's strange doors?"

A troubled young man, laid low with great burdens, if he cannot rise to seek the fairer sex.

Perhaps he is busy raising armies.

[adivasheadvoices]

He coughs.

"Nay, nay. I may think on such things as wives when Scotland no longer bends beneath the tyrant's reign."

[newredmuses]

"And when will that be?"

It's an innocent question. Surely the young man has timed it with great patience.

[adivasheadvoices]

"As soon as we are armed and ready," he says. "But it is no easy thing to convince a man who already has a throne to go to war to help another man win his."

[newredmuses]

"How is that? Very simple to my eye." He hops off his bunk and leans against the bars. "You are the king's friend; the other one is not. If the king knows it's a danger to England to leave Scotland in such hands, he'll be a fool not to lend you aid."

[adivasheadvoices]

"And therein lies our quandry, for now. Macbeth devours Scotland as a fire devours itself -- but no sparks have flown 'cross England's borders yet. And so Edward is content to wait, and so my patience likewise is enforc'd."

[newredmuses]

Hotspur, with great effort against his imagination and nature, takes a long, steadying breath, then lets it go. "I cannot help you with the one, for none ever gave me counsel but it served to make me mad. I can think how I should do't, but we do not live the same lives.

"Yet think on whether you would wait on another man's whim, a king's whim, for the other. And I cannot but put out that many's a fellow will go to war for his wife's kin."

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm's eyebrows go up. The marriage links between his country and England are few, at present, but his mother . . .

Then he snorts, lacing his hands behind his head.

"You do not take kindly to counsel? I should never have thought it so."

[newredmuses]

A knowing chuckle. "I cannot choose. Yet a few may rein me in, but they are willing to fight me on it. My willfulness should not be so charming were I not so often proved."

It is no sin to have forceful opinions about the world!

[adivasheadvoices]

The grin finally breaks through, if only for a moment before Malcolm goes back to trying to look stern.

"Aye, very charming. My guts are charmed near to bursting."

[newredmuses]

Harry snorts. "Go to, your guts will have to be made of sterner stuff." He grins back. "Perhaps there's none can test you so at court, and so you keep finding yourself away."

[adivasheadvoices]

"That I might better my brawling?" He laughs. "A fine pastime."

[newredmuses]

"It pangs my heart that you think me such a fellow." (Harry does not sound all that remorseful.) "I do not often take out my fists, not at my present age, anyway. But put a sword in my hand, aye, there's a good few hours of the day." He studies Malcolm. "Are you a swordsman?"