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]

"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?"

[adivasheadvoices]

"Aye, and one to make my father proud."

[newredmuses]

"That I should like to see," he says, and without a hint of jest.

[adivasheadvoices]

"Call on me when my sword is in my hand, and you may be assured you will."

[newredmuses]

"When shall they let us out, d'you suppose? Or should that prove too soon?"

A poor pursuit before an audience with the king, perhaps, but there's no saying when he'll be let back through, and there's plenty a wild fancy to let run to exhaustion before it's allowed in court.

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm rubs his chin.

"Before we've time for our beards to grow much longer, I wot. But have you a sword?"

[newredmuses]

"Nay, it is at the palace," he says, more than ruefully. "The king called us to negotiate; we cannot appear before him armed, lest we be tempted to treachery." At that, he snorts -- some courtly rule that lends no confidence to loyalty nor to men.

[adivasheadvoices]

"If a man be tempted to treachery, he needs no sword in his hand."

[newredmuses]

"Truer words, and I should go hand-to-hand to prove it!"

There may be a glint in his eye.

"And you, then -- have you a sword with you?"

[adivasheadvoices]

"I may lay my hands on one, methinks," Malcolm muses.

[newredmuses]

"And where, pray, might a man do such a thing in this place?"

And further, will the management let two gentlemen avail themselves to the use of their swords without taking it as an offense to the establishment? A sorry place to be held, if they do so.

[adivasheadvoices]

"There is a smithy, as it happens, outside. A little talk and mayhap a little silver will put a sword in your hand for a time."

[newredmuses]

"Oh indeed? As likely a thing as having a jail, I should wager. What else, then? Racing horses? A ladder to the moon?"

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm cocks his head.

"You did not see the window?"

[newredmuses]

"What window? I have seen many in my time. And if I'll remember ye, we were taken straight off before I'd yet to make my way through the floor."

[adivasheadvoices]

Malcolm shakes his head.

"You would know if you had seen it," quietly. "It looks upon the heavens, and their death, like an illumination of the Day of Judgment."

[newredmuses]

"Hmm."

Well, he's seen the field of battle, and God help him if that isn't doomsday enough.