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thisengland2009-08-18 07:42 am
angevin2.livejournal.com) wrote in thisengland2009-08-18 07:42 am
[FICATHON] Brittle Glory, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
absinthe_shadow
Title: Brittle Glory
Author:angevin2
Play: Richard II
Recipient:absinthe_shadow
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard II/Henry Bolingbroke, with subsidiary Richard/Anne of Bohemia and Richard/Robert de Vere
Warnings: There isn't really anything here that's any more disturbing than canon. Though there is a vague reference to ass-pokering (well, strictly speaking it only mentions the poker and not the ass, but we know where that poker is going).
Rating: PG
Summary: Kingship really, really messes people up.
Notes: Many thanks tolareinenoire for beta-reading, and to aris_tgd and commodorified for moral support.
1. Westminster, June 1376
The first time Henry saw Richard after his father's death he was alone in the oratory, sitting on the floor rather than kneeling at a prie-dieu like you were supposed to do in a chapel, and before he could leave Richard turned and saw him and then he was trapped.
"My father is dead," Richard said. He sounded calmer than Henry expected, but Richard never seemed to react to things in the way you'd expect him to. It made talking to him very confusing.
Henry nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."
Henry's mother had died when he was very young, but he didn't remember it, and it probably wasn't really the same. Especially if your father was heir to the throne like Richard's had been. He thought for a moment about how he would feel if his father had died.
He realized then that he was a very wicked boy. He did not think he would mind very much at all.
Henry had heard Richard talk about his father before, though; he seemed to venerate him like a saint. Of course he did: everyone did. Indeed, Henry couldn't help wishing that his own father were more like Prince Edward. Except for the whole being dead part, because he suspected that he would probably be more upset by his father dying if he were like that. But Richard seemed to be thinking about the entire situation as if it were a conundrum put to him by his tutor. It made Henry terribly ill at ease.
"I'll be king next, you know," Richard said. "When Grandfather dies."
It was a curiously matter-of-fact statement: he might as well have said that the sun rose in the east. Henry nodded again, for want of anything more fitting to say. Their grandfather was very old -- he had been king for many years before Henry was born, and even before his father was born -- and people were afraid he wouldn't live out the year.
Henry couldn't imagine how frightened he would be if he knew he might become king in the near future, but Richard seemed to bear it -- well, as if he'd been born to it, which after all he more or less had been. He already seemed to have that distance about him, the same kind that Grandfather had, and that Prince Edward had had, and that probably all kings did: like he wasn't really a person, exactly, he was a king, and when he looked at any other person he was always looking down. Henry wondered if other people stopped being real to you when you were king.
"Richard?" he said.
"You should call me 'your Highness,'" Richard said, and Henry felt vaguely sick to his stomach.
2. London, the Tower, December 1387
After they have finished dinner Richard takes Anne's hand, gives it a squeeze, and she nods, trying to smile reassuringly. It is difficult: there is little assurance to be found anymore, when his realm has turned against him, the nobility driving his friends from his side. Richard still shudders at the memory of those horrible few hours where it was rumored that Robert had drowned in the frigid Thames, pulled down by his heavy armor while fleeing from battle: the gripping black cold that seized on his heart then has only loosened somewhat since Richard learned that he had merely fled the country.
Anne has been his rock -- as she has ever been. He cannot imagine what would happen if he were ever to lose her. It would be the end of the world.
Later he will fall desperately into her arms, but now he raises her hand to his lips before releasing it, and she withdraws, leaving him alone with his cousin.
Henry turns pale when she leaves: he cannot bear to face Richard alone, though he can do so in her presence, or with the combined strength of Gloucester and Arundel and Warwick as a shield. Richard remembers sparring with him as a child, feigning injury to throw him off his guard. Sir Simon had chided him for it: it was dishonorable, he had said. But it had also worked, and now he is fighting for his life. For his crown, perhaps, but he is not so naive as to think they are anything but inextricable: he knows his great-grandfather died for thinking otherwise, perhaps even until the moment men came to him with a red-hot spit.
He has not even told Anne of the substance of his nightmares.
"Tell me, Henry," he says -- and his voice only shakes a little, for which he is grateful -- "is it worth it, to betray your king, and your cousin, to put Thomas of Woodstock on the throne?"
Henry becomes visibly tense. "Richard, I swear -- " he begins, and Richard feels himself tense up as well, fear giving way to brief yet blinding rage: he is twenty years old, and he has been king for ten years, and if he is to die soon he will be king still until that very moment.
He reminds himself to unclench his fists. "I am still your king," he says, "and you will address me as such."
Henry swallows hard, lowering his eyes. "Of course," he says, adding, after a moment, "your Highness."
Henry is not nearly so good at being unreadable as he clearly thinks, but Richard does not fail to notice that he has, nevertheless, revealed nothing. He presses further: "Or is it someone else you would place on my throne?"
"I don't want to do this," Henry says.
"Then don't," Richard replies. "For God's love" -- then, more softly, and in his desperation he almost means it -- "and mine."
"I wished only to rid the court of...corrupting influences," Henry says, in his own way equally desperate. Richard rises from the table -- Henry stands quickly, nearly overturning his chair -- and draws closer, until they are nearly touching, and Henry has to look up at him. Even in the dim orange glow of a candlelit December evening he can see Henry's face redden.
The lords appellant like to claim that Richard has been bewitched, that he is a foolish besotted youth, that he would believe that black was white, if Robert de Vere said so. They know nothing. He has not been so dazzled, by love or, now, by grief, but that he can see what is right in front of him.
Richard's face is mere inches from Henry's, and he leans even closer as he asks: "Then it is not my place you want, but his?"
Henry does not answer Richard's question that is not really a question at all, but when Richard reaches out and tilts his chin upward his eyes close involuntarily, and open laboriously. Richard hesitates for an instant, lips a hair's-breadth away from those of the man who drove his Robert into exile, and he can feel the room spinning as he anticipates the next moment, imagines Henry's rage, and his own guilt, for his act of whoredom, piercing like swords.
That Robert would surely have understood it is no help at all.
For another instant, though he knows it will do him no good, he considers proceeding in this effort anyway, seized by the compulsion to know what would happen, to see Henry's remaining control shaken. What else has he to lose?
(The answer that comes to him: everything else.)
The pause is enough to give Henry a chance to escape, and he draws back, bowing awkwardly.
"I beg your pardon," he says, his voice strangely thick. "I cannot tell you the minds of Gloucester and Arundel. I'm sorry -- your Highness." Richard is certain he has not imagined the sting of the last two words.
It is not until after he has dismissed Henry that he allows himself to feel it.
3. London, September 1399
Henry Bolingbroke, with the name of Henry the fourth soon to be laid upon him like a leaden cope, wondered what it would be like to ride into London as a true king, and was absolutely certain that he would never know.
The people in the London streets, guildsmen and their wives, apprentices and maidens, laughed and cheered and called his name: Henry shall be king. It was as intoxicating as it was absurd: nothing would change for any of them, for what did it matter to the commons who the king was?
A young man in the crowd had thrown a stone at the former king (not yet the former king, but what was he now, and what was Henry?) His aim had been good enough to catch Richard across the forehead, and Richard had winced as the blood trickled over his brow, but when his eyes met those of his assailant his gaze was kingly enough to make the boy shrink in awe. The image came unbidden to Henry's mind of Richard as a slender, beautiful youth, facing the arrows of the rebellious peasants with terrifying equanimity, nearly twenty years ago. Henry was certain that no number of years on Richard's throne would grant him even a hint of that self-possession.
It was, perhaps, God's punishment to him, then, for he would have given anything to see as he had always suspected Richard had seen; for it had always seemed to him that for Richard the whole world was simply his mirror, with the same substance and reality as a reflection.
Or perhaps he was the one who'd failed to see past the surface.
He remembered Richard's words to him, years ago: for God's love and mine.
It was unbearable to think that at one blow he had lost the hope of both.
4. Pontefract, February 1400
When Richard was a boy and they placed the crown on his head it felt as heavy as lead.
Five months ago his cousin took it from him, and its lack was heavier than its weight ever was.
Now his reign that has outlived itself is over, and Richard can see his own blood slick and warm on the cold stones; it soaks his hands, his breast, even his forehead, like the oil with which he was anointed, the oil which that blood has washed away.
He was wrong about sinking downwards. Everything is light.
Author:
angevin2Play: Richard II
Recipient:
absinthe_shadowCharacter(s)/Pairing(s): Richard II/Henry Bolingbroke, with subsidiary Richard/Anne of Bohemia and Richard/Robert de Vere
Warnings: There isn't really anything here that's any more disturbing than canon. Though there is a vague reference to ass-pokering (well, strictly speaking it only mentions the poker and not the ass, but we know where that poker is going).
Rating: PG
Summary: Kingship really, really messes people up.
Notes: Many thanks to
lareinenoire for beta-reading, and to aris_tgd and commodorified for moral support.1. Westminster, June 1376
The first time Henry saw Richard after his father's death he was alone in the oratory, sitting on the floor rather than kneeling at a prie-dieu like you were supposed to do in a chapel, and before he could leave Richard turned and saw him and then he was trapped.
"My father is dead," Richard said. He sounded calmer than Henry expected, but Richard never seemed to react to things in the way you'd expect him to. It made talking to him very confusing.
Henry nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."
Henry's mother had died when he was very young, but he didn't remember it, and it probably wasn't really the same. Especially if your father was heir to the throne like Richard's had been. He thought for a moment about how he would feel if his father had died.
He realized then that he was a very wicked boy. He did not think he would mind very much at all.
Henry had heard Richard talk about his father before, though; he seemed to venerate him like a saint. Of course he did: everyone did. Indeed, Henry couldn't help wishing that his own father were more like Prince Edward. Except for the whole being dead part, because he suspected that he would probably be more upset by his father dying if he were like that. But Richard seemed to be thinking about the entire situation as if it were a conundrum put to him by his tutor. It made Henry terribly ill at ease.
"I'll be king next, you know," Richard said. "When Grandfather dies."
It was a curiously matter-of-fact statement: he might as well have said that the sun rose in the east. Henry nodded again, for want of anything more fitting to say. Their grandfather was very old -- he had been king for many years before Henry was born, and even before his father was born -- and people were afraid he wouldn't live out the year.
Henry couldn't imagine how frightened he would be if he knew he might become king in the near future, but Richard seemed to bear it -- well, as if he'd been born to it, which after all he more or less had been. He already seemed to have that distance about him, the same kind that Grandfather had, and that Prince Edward had had, and that probably all kings did: like he wasn't really a person, exactly, he was a king, and when he looked at any other person he was always looking down. Henry wondered if other people stopped being real to you when you were king.
"Richard?" he said.
"You should call me 'your Highness,'" Richard said, and Henry felt vaguely sick to his stomach.
2. London, the Tower, December 1387
After they have finished dinner Richard takes Anne's hand, gives it a squeeze, and she nods, trying to smile reassuringly. It is difficult: there is little assurance to be found anymore, when his realm has turned against him, the nobility driving his friends from his side. Richard still shudders at the memory of those horrible few hours where it was rumored that Robert had drowned in the frigid Thames, pulled down by his heavy armor while fleeing from battle: the gripping black cold that seized on his heart then has only loosened somewhat since Richard learned that he had merely fled the country.
Anne has been his rock -- as she has ever been. He cannot imagine what would happen if he were ever to lose her. It would be the end of the world.
Later he will fall desperately into her arms, but now he raises her hand to his lips before releasing it, and she withdraws, leaving him alone with his cousin.
Henry turns pale when she leaves: he cannot bear to face Richard alone, though he can do so in her presence, or with the combined strength of Gloucester and Arundel and Warwick as a shield. Richard remembers sparring with him as a child, feigning injury to throw him off his guard. Sir Simon had chided him for it: it was dishonorable, he had said. But it had also worked, and now he is fighting for his life. For his crown, perhaps, but he is not so naive as to think they are anything but inextricable: he knows his great-grandfather died for thinking otherwise, perhaps even until the moment men came to him with a red-hot spit.
He has not even told Anne of the substance of his nightmares.
"Tell me, Henry," he says -- and his voice only shakes a little, for which he is grateful -- "is it worth it, to betray your king, and your cousin, to put Thomas of Woodstock on the throne?"
Henry becomes visibly tense. "Richard, I swear -- " he begins, and Richard feels himself tense up as well, fear giving way to brief yet blinding rage: he is twenty years old, and he has been king for ten years, and if he is to die soon he will be king still until that very moment.
He reminds himself to unclench his fists. "I am still your king," he says, "and you will address me as such."
Henry swallows hard, lowering his eyes. "Of course," he says, adding, after a moment, "your Highness."
Henry is not nearly so good at being unreadable as he clearly thinks, but Richard does not fail to notice that he has, nevertheless, revealed nothing. He presses further: "Or is it someone else you would place on my throne?"
"I don't want to do this," Henry says.
"Then don't," Richard replies. "For God's love" -- then, more softly, and in his desperation he almost means it -- "and mine."
"I wished only to rid the court of...corrupting influences," Henry says, in his own way equally desperate. Richard rises from the table -- Henry stands quickly, nearly overturning his chair -- and draws closer, until they are nearly touching, and Henry has to look up at him. Even in the dim orange glow of a candlelit December evening he can see Henry's face redden.
The lords appellant like to claim that Richard has been bewitched, that he is a foolish besotted youth, that he would believe that black was white, if Robert de Vere said so. They know nothing. He has not been so dazzled, by love or, now, by grief, but that he can see what is right in front of him.
Richard's face is mere inches from Henry's, and he leans even closer as he asks: "Then it is not my place you want, but his?"
Henry does not answer Richard's question that is not really a question at all, but when Richard reaches out and tilts his chin upward his eyes close involuntarily, and open laboriously. Richard hesitates for an instant, lips a hair's-breadth away from those of the man who drove his Robert into exile, and he can feel the room spinning as he anticipates the next moment, imagines Henry's rage, and his own guilt, for his act of whoredom, piercing like swords.
That Robert would surely have understood it is no help at all.
For another instant, though he knows it will do him no good, he considers proceeding in this effort anyway, seized by the compulsion to know what would happen, to see Henry's remaining control shaken. What else has he to lose?
(The answer that comes to him: everything else.)
The pause is enough to give Henry a chance to escape, and he draws back, bowing awkwardly.
"I beg your pardon," he says, his voice strangely thick. "I cannot tell you the minds of Gloucester and Arundel. I'm sorry -- your Highness." Richard is certain he has not imagined the sting of the last two words.
It is not until after he has dismissed Henry that he allows himself to feel it.
3. London, September 1399
Henry Bolingbroke, with the name of Henry the fourth soon to be laid upon him like a leaden cope, wondered what it would be like to ride into London as a true king, and was absolutely certain that he would never know.
The people in the London streets, guildsmen and their wives, apprentices and maidens, laughed and cheered and called his name: Henry shall be king. It was as intoxicating as it was absurd: nothing would change for any of them, for what did it matter to the commons who the king was?
A young man in the crowd had thrown a stone at the former king (not yet the former king, but what was he now, and what was Henry?) His aim had been good enough to catch Richard across the forehead, and Richard had winced as the blood trickled over his brow, but when his eyes met those of his assailant his gaze was kingly enough to make the boy shrink in awe. The image came unbidden to Henry's mind of Richard as a slender, beautiful youth, facing the arrows of the rebellious peasants with terrifying equanimity, nearly twenty years ago. Henry was certain that no number of years on Richard's throne would grant him even a hint of that self-possession.
It was, perhaps, God's punishment to him, then, for he would have given anything to see as he had always suspected Richard had seen; for it had always seemed to him that for Richard the whole world was simply his mirror, with the same substance and reality as a reflection.
Or perhaps he was the one who'd failed to see past the surface.
He remembered Richard's words to him, years ago: for God's love and mine.
It was unbearable to think that at one blow he had lost the hope of both.
4. Pontefract, February 1400
When Richard was a boy and they placed the crown on his head it felt as heavy as lead.
Five months ago his cousin took it from him, and its lack was heavier than its weight ever was.
Now his reign that has outlived itself is over, and Richard can see his own blood slick and warm on the cold stones; it soaks his hands, his breast, even his forehead, like the oil with which he was anointed, the oil which that blood has washed away.
He was wrong about sinking downwards. Everything is light.
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This line was lovely:
Henry Bolingbroke, with the name of Henry the fourth soon to be laid upon him like a leaden cope, wondered what it would be like to ride into London as a true king, and was absolutely certain that he would never know.
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The image of the leaden cope actually comes from a picture I saw of Patrick Stewart as Henry IV! It is here. (http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/angevin2/stewart-henryiv.jpg)
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And then A SECTION ON THE LORDS APPELLANT. Just, wow. I adore anything that talks about the Lords Appellant! There's so much of Richard and Anne's relationship packed in there, I really got a sense of the public and private sides. I loved Richard remembering his sparring tactics, and the lurking fear of ass-pokering... It's incredibly Richard to twist up the love of God and the love of him, I'm not surprised that that recurs to Henry in part 3. Also, I think it's wonderful how uncertain the power balance is -- Richard is definitely dangerous to Henry even when Henry seems to have the upper hand.
The 1399 section is amazing too! I know this will sound weird, but -- I LOVE THE STONE THROWING AND THE BLOOD. And the link into Henry remembering the PR -- it's so strange to think of it being nearly twenty years later... I guess that's the king with monarchs who accede as children, the actual span of the reign is longer than it feels, somehow. MIRROR IMAGERY YAY. Always a winner! I love Henry inverting it and wondering if really he's the one who's not seen aright.
And I absolutely adore the end. It's wonderful. He shouldn't always have to end with sinking downwards, and of course just because he says it we don't have to believe that's the last thing he feels. The image of the blood washing away the oil is amazing, that sort of... more sacramental reworking (so appropriate to Richard's way of thinking, esp. in 4.1 and 5.5!) of "With mine own tears".
Basically this just enthralled me. Thank you again, so, SO much: I was expecting to enjoy my story a lot, whatever it was like, but this surpassed my expectations! You are an incredible writer.
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Richard would totally tell Henry to call him 'your Highness'.
I love writing wee!Richard -- the thing that's fun about him is that he's not creepy at all in his own POV, but he is very creepy to others, like Henry here. As far as he's concerned he's working through the idea that he'll probably be king in the next couple of years, and that's Very Serious and Important and so he has to prepare for that. And it gives Henry the willies, because even impending kingship gives Richard a sort of unnatural sense of maturity/otherworldliness.
Also, I think it's wonderful how uncertain the power balance is
Richard does surprisingly well when cornered. I think because he's had a lot of practice. And of course Henry is terribly easy to unbalance.
I know this will sound weird, but -- I LOVE THE STONE THROWING AND THE BLOOD.
Oh, it doesn't sound weird! I also hope it doesn't sound weird that it occurred to me and then I though "OMG CHLOE WILL LOVE THAT." I love doing stuff with the polysemy of blood in the histories, you may have noted -- the blood on the forehead is meant to look forward to --
The image of the blood washing away the oil is amazing, that sort of... more sacramental reworking (so appropriate to Richard's way of thinking, esp. in 4.1 and 5.5!) of "With mine own tears".
YAY YOU GOT THAT. Well, of course you did, for you are clever, but I am glad you mentioned it, because it is lovely to know for sure that you did.
I am so very, very glad you liked it, and that you wrote me such lovely detailed feedback! &hearts
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You must have known I would adore it! I was pretty sure it was by you and I think that possibly comes across a bit in the feedback, it felt like part of our ongoing
hysterical fangirlingserious academic dialoguehysterical academic fangirling. OH YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Of course it is just perfect. And you totally put in all the things you know I love! Ha, no shame in histories fandom. WE ARE DOWN WITH THE BODILY FLUIDS etc. The blood was awesome. Al the blood was awesome. You are great!no subject
But I am glad that you loved it! One of the neat things about tiny fandoms where most people in it are friends is that you know a lot about your recipient's preferences a lot of the time. So, you know. YAY BODILY FLUIDS.
...that sounds incredibly weird. But, you know. Last year's ficathon was dominated largely by vomit.
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ARE YOU KIDDING IT IS A GREAT COMPLIMENT. I'm glad you like it! I didn't even initially set out to make desire for the sovereign such a major part of it, but I guess I cannot help it. That is how kingship works!
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This in particular caught at me:
He remembered Richard's words to him, years ago: for God's love and mine.
It was unbearable to think that at one blow he had lost the hope of both.
Yes. I love that moment of doubt and fear, even after everything that's been so carefully put in place, the way no mirror can even reflect truly, even one that shows Richard's words.
Wonderful!
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That was the line that told me I was going to love this story, and I did! Wonderful observations of these fascinating men.
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Wee!Henry is fun to write, with all his nascent neuroses and terrible, terrible daddy issues.
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This bit:
For another instant, though he knows it will do him no good, he considers proceeding in this effort anyway, seized by the compulsion to know what would happen, to see Henry's remaining control shaken. What else has he to lose?
(The answer that comes to him: everything else.)
makes me glee in my tiny black heart and sad for both of them.
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That is totally the histories in a nutshell. *squishes them*
I am glad you liked it! Thanks for being supportive while I was writing it! :D
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