SONS by theficklepickle

They left Bristol in glorious sunshine with the wind at their backs, having embarked quite privately - from a wharf set apart from all the rest - and even carried their own baggage aboard. Henry preferred to travel with the minimum of fuss and recognition wherever possible, and their departure from Axbridge had been accomplished as quietly as any party of eight might reasonably expect to manage; Henry, Montjoy, their varlets Martin and Ivo, a bodyguard comprising Fluellen, Gower, MacMorris and Williams. The Abbey Guest House had merely provided accommodation for eight passing strangers under the leadership of a certain Captain Gower; no enquiries had been made as to their individual identities and no such information had been offered. The Duke of Exeter's signet on their papers had been all the warrant that they needed for their reception.

The captain of the trow was also kept in ignorance. He knew only that he was transporting a group of the king's men to the royal birthplace of Monmouth, and that they intended to rest overnight at Chepstow on the way. Otherwise he was told nothing except that rudimentary sleeping quarters would be required, and it was a simple enough matter to rig a partition in the cargo hold and throw down a few palliasses. King's men, used to battles and campaigns abroad, would be glad enough of such minimal comforts and if, in addition, arrangements could be made for their meals to be cooked and their bags to be stowed, they would probably consider themselves well enough provided for. It was only for two nights, after all; they would just have to manage the best they could. And it was, as Henry said when he inspected it, better lodging than he had been used to in France, where the boards of a cart as often as not had been his bed.

As they put out from shore the rigid line of his shoulders eased visibly. Within the hour he had discarded his cote and was sitting on the raised pope deck, one arm wrapped around a stanchion, looking contentedly out to sea. Montjoy, less comfortable with the uncontrollable elements of nature, laid his cloak at the base of the mast and sat against the trunk, his legs crossed and a book open in his lap, ostensibly reading but in reality making the minutest observations of his king.

Once inexhaustible, these days it seemed that Henry was always tired. The hours were not long enough for everything he tried to cram into them, and when he also tried to enjoy a private life with Montjoy it was cut into with trivial requests or footling duties which he suspected were being put in his way simply to distract him from his beloved. It had become Montjoy's role to protect him from such minutiae, to lift from him as many as possible of the minor burdens of office and to stand between Henry and annoyance as firmly as he had at Azincourt. He could not hope to shield him from the greater consequences of kingship, however, and when there were hard decisions to be made and cruel choices to be taken he was always available to listen to Henry while he talked - sometimes for hours - or, on occasions late at night, to hold him while he cried.

Lately, however, this was happening far less often. Bedford's marriage to Katharine had temporarily stabilised relations with France, and the Royal party had stayed at Rouen long enough to receive the definite news that Katharine was already with child. The honeymoon, as they had speculated, had obviously been a vigorous one. Then there had come an outbreak of sweating sickness in Northern France, and rather than risk contact with it Henry had given orders for the planned voyage to England to commence immediately. Just travelling had helped to raise his spirits; he enjoyed encountering new vistas and new people, and had particularly relished their brief sojourn with the Fontevrists whilst delivering Marguerite to Amesbury. Since that time they had lived in an idyll; the green woods around Axbridge had yielded dozens of sheltered places where stolen kisses could be exchanged under God's own sky, and they had ridden through lush and productive countryside unmolested, dressed as soldiers, none distinguished as to rank, and huddled together at night without criticism from anyone. Indeed, the journey had been just what Henry needed; he had become stronger and less preoccupied, had turned with greater alacrity to the comfort of Montjoy's arms in bed, had yielded to him more and more frequently as the trip drew on. It was a paradisal time for both of them, and Montjoy wanted it never to come to an end.

No doubt he slept a little, leaning back against the broad timber, because the next time he opened his eyes it was to see Henry standing there barefoot and with his shirt unlaced, his hair a windblown tangle, chuckling in unconcern at something one of the sailors was telling him. To judge from the dirt ingrained into the palms of his hands the king had probably been learning how to operate the ship, and was no doubt already thinking that he might like to have one of his very own for days such as this; there was nothing he enjoyed quite so much as a chance to climb about, to get his hands dirty, to acquire new skills. In most respects, Montjoy sighed inwardly, Henry had never really grown up; he was still a madcap boy testing himself against the world - only now his challenges were greater, his toys were more expensive, and he himself had been hardened in the fires of battle.

"But there are sea monsters!" Henry was saying, in mock outrage.

"Not here, there aren't. Never seen a one." And the dismissive tone of the sailor's voice indicated that he clearly had no idea to whom he was speaking. Montjoy was glad; Henry valued every moment he was able to hide himself amongst ordinary people - that way he learned what they were really thinking and feeling, and not simply what some mealy-mouthed courtier chose to tell him.

"Oh, come; I've seen them on maps! Scaly things with long tails, and women with the bodies of fish, and great creatures with eight legs or a dozen that can crush a ship."

"Too cold for them here," the man said. "Maybe they like the warmer water in the south - where the dog-headed men live and the people whose heads grow below their shoulders."

"Well, that may be true," Henry said, equably. "The water here's certainly cold. But I've seen sharks and porbeagles off the Cornish coast, so maybe monsters could find their way up here, too."

The sailor spat into the sea. "Done a lot of sailing, have you?" he asked, unimpressed.

"I've been to France and back several times," Henry told him. "And I was wrecked once in the Channel. I've never been further abroad than that."

"Hunh. Well, maybe you should, and then you'd know what you were talking about. Sharks and porbeagles, in these waters! Might as well expect unicorns!" And the man turned away, grunting in annoyance, unwilling to engage with Henry's enthusiasm for his trade a moment longer.

Henry drew in a deep breath and slowly let his eyes roam all around the horizon. He turned inward to the boat and saw Montjoy watching him, and smiled his enduring affection; it still felt new, even after so many weeks and months of intimacy, even when they understood each other's bodies as well as their own. Their lives recently had been one long, extended honeymoon, with neither showing any sign of growing tired of the other, and as court life had subtly altered to accommodate them they had grown to feel that their choice of one another had been accepted by most, if not all, of their acquaintance. Yet still in unknown company there was a need for discretion, for disguise, and upon the road they had been obliged to exercise caution. Indeed, it was both easier and safer that way, with demonstrations of affection being reserved only for those occasions when they were undoubtedly among friends; such circumspection had always felt appropriate. As a result they had developed a most exhaustive repertoire of secret glances and gestures which communicated their thoughts as clearly as any words, and the look that passed between them now was no exception. It was full of love and indulgence on both sides, and spoke further of their enormous joy in just being together and away, for this while, from the cares of state.

Henry's lashes lowered briefly on a glance that was as intimate as a kiss, and then moved on, blissfully surveying his territory, as Montjoy's gaze lingered on him. This would never be familiar, this odd exalted sense of being the one, the only, the inevitable choice. For him, Henry had been his destiny, as if every step he had ever taken in his life had brought him inescapably to this place; for Henry, he knew, it had been the same, as if once they had become aware of each other's existence there was nowhere in the world for either of them but with the other.

And he really did not object, when he had nothing better to do, to sitting in the sunshine watching the way Henry's head tilted and his throat tightened and his hair blew in the breeze; if it produced in him a powerful desire to leap to his feet, strip off Henry's clothing and make love to him with uninhibited passion, so much the better. There would be plenty of long, chilly nights ahead when he would be able to do exactly that, and indeed moreover when Henry would expect it of him. Slowly, Montjoy the herald was beginning to learn about the many benefits of carnal lust.

Yet Henry was obviously elsewhere in his mind, not concentrating on the here and now. Dwelling, perhaps, on whales and porpoises, on sea monsters, on the mysteries of the deep ocean. His face had taken on that distant expression that it so often had when he spoke of how the world might one day be different, of how it would be if he could have the ordering of it, and his mouth fell open as though he had seen something in whose existence he could not quite believe.

"Red?" he murmured, almost beneath his breath. "Why red? What's red?"

"Red?" echoed Montjoy, quietly.

But Henry was moving along the deck now, his bare feet gripping surely on the planking, his hands catching at the rigging almost without thought, and he was leaning outward and straining his eyes towards something in the water, something that was only visible from time to time amidst the peaks and troughs of the pearl-green waves. Something red.

He was over the side and swimming vigorously before anyone had a chance to realise what he intended.

"Henri!"

"My god!" Fluellen tore away in alarm from a conversation in Welsh with the captain. "Gower! Gower!"

And Gower, who had been sleeping, stumbled up from below deck with a wild look in his eyes.

"Where?" was all he said, and silently Montjoy indicated the fair head, the scything arms, the steady progress through the current, and Gower used a word that he would never have used in the presence of the king.

"Take a rope," said Fluellen bluntly. He was already uncoiling one from the deck, with the assistance of the sailor Henry had been talking to. Martin, the king's varlet, had rushed up on deck and now threw a supportive arm around Montjoy and said something which neither of them heard. The captain had flung himself at the mast and was busily lowering sail, the way coming off the little vessel almost immediately, and Gower was stripping off his shirt and drawers and wrapping the rope securely around his waist.

"Celi achlesa 'r 'n dlawd ffola!" spat Fluellen, stepping closer and patting the naked man on his thin shoulders. "God with you, brother."

And Gower took one final look out to sea and sprang, and the rope paid out smoothly behind him.

Montjoy almost could not look. He could see something red, now, at a distance, and something black attached to it, and Henry still forging through the water towards it, Gower some way behind and slowed by the rope around his waist but making steady progress. Everywhere aboard the vessel there was sudden bustling activity; men shouted orders to one another or scurried to obey them, the galley fire was stoked, Ivo broke open the party's baggage and scrabbled through for a fresh cote, shirt, drawers and leggings for his king.

"I can't swim," the herald said, numbly. "I nearly drowned when I was a boy and I've always been afraid of the sea."

Then his legs gave out beneath him and he knelt on the deck and could scarcely see Henry - but he could hear him. There was a cry of heart-wrenching agony across the water, a scream of horrible pain, and the shudder that went through Montjoy's narrow body seemed as if it would tear him apart. He had heard men dying with cries like that, men spitted on lances or torn through with barbarous arrows, men whose guts were exposed to the air and whose souls were ripped from their bodies. It sounded like the very last cry of a man's life.

"Merciful God," he said, "don’t take him from me." And with that he began to pray, humbly and earnestly, in the language of his birth.

Gower, naked, thrashed strongly through the cruel waves, his mouth full of salt. When the sea relented briefly he could just make out a pale shape, which seemed at last to have halted some distance away, and his ears were full of a ringing cry of anguish, but of more immediate concern was the icy breeze which blew sharply across the liquid green surface and chilled his blood and turned his fingers and toes to stone. He had known at once why he was being woken; it had been the same on the night of the sinking of the Thomas so many months before, and just as he had done then he had not given it a thought. He had more or less been born knowing how to swim, unlike most of the people he knew who feared the water; he had learned how to dive and to keep himself and other people alive in the most treacherous of elements. At night, in choppy seas, he had made very little headway; the best he had been able to manage then was to bring the fainting Williams, clutching a broken spar, within sight of a safe haven. The two of them had struggled ashore soaked and cold but miraculously still in possession of flint and steel, and they had found a dry shelter left by the summer herdsmen and therein the makings of a fire. As a result, and - as he now thought - selfishly, they had been warm and dry and asleep whilst out in the black water their fellow castaways were still in the act of drowning.

Gower's chief regret, on that occasion, was that he had not been able to save the king. He had not even seen him, after the Thomas struck the rocks, although he had heard a shriek of pain from the herald and suspected that wherever the Frenchman was the king would not be far away. Accurately, as it turned out. Whilst Gower and Williams were scraping along with their hand-to-mouth existence on Weed Island, the king and his bedfellow were establishing themselves in some comfort amongst the brothers on Redmouth. It was not luxurious, certainly, but it was warm and safe and there was more than enough food for everyone.

Not that Gower had a resentful bone in his body, and anyway that was the way God differentiated between kings and other men. A difference that King Henry seemed somehow to reject, since he spent so much time trying to be an ordinary man. It made life easier when they were travelling, certainly, if he could be accommodated in the same rough and ready quarters as the rest of them, and if he did not demand some magnificently caparisoned steed or an escort of white-robed virgin knights or any of the other extravagant trappings of royalty. A king who slept in barns, ate stale bread and didn’t care if he couldn’t change his clothes for a week made a refreshing change, and his down-to-earth attitude had found a ready response in his men. Only the choice of consort had been odd, although those who had watched the attachment develop did not think so. Fluellen had said, and he had heard it from Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester who had been there, that even at the first meeting there had been something in the air between the two of them. Something that had made one or two people a little uncomfortable at the time - Scroop of Masham, in particular. He had been thoughtful afterwards, and when the first word of his betrayal had come through there were people who had looked at one another and said, without further explanation, "The Frenchman."

Gower would have been willing to swear that the king had not consciously rejected Scroop in favour of the French herald, but at the same time there had been an unavoidable moment of comparison in which Scroop had been found wanting. The instant the king had set eyes on Milord Montjoy his soul had no longer been his own, and everyone had been aware of it including himself.

Well, they had somehow found a way of persuading the Council to allow them to be together. There had been no doubting the intention behind their brotherment ceremony; down among the household staff, at least, it had always been talked of as 'the king's marriage', although conveniently most of the lower orders chose to imagine their monarch as the active party and the effete Frenchman as the pathic. Gower was almost certain that the reverse was the case, which would more than explain why the king had been only too glad to hand off the Princess Katharine to his younger brother the Duke of Bedford; she would never have been able to give him what he needed in bed, and if he got that from the Frenchman then so much the better for them both.

But he could wish that Henry was not so impulsive. For all his open-hearted admiration of the man, there were days when he could have seen him in Hell. Jumping into the icy waters of the Severn Sea on a whim was the sort of perilous adventure better suited to a boy than a man with the weight of responsibilities that Henry bore; his chivalrous heart would one day be the death of him.

"Boys," Henry was gasping, as Gower reached him. "Sweet boys."

Gower looked at the bundle in his king's arms, aware that the man was weeping, and in the next moment he knew that he would like to have wept, too.

After what felt like hours, with the water growing colder and colder by the minute, the rope brought them near, and then right under the hull, and Henry's face was frozen and exhausted as he waved away the hands that reached for him.

"The boys," he said, and Ivo and one of the sailors leaned down and brought the two small figures aboard, and then somehow Gower was boosting Henry up into Montjoy's arms, and being hauled out himself by Fluellen and MacMorris, and there was a stunned silence about the deck as they all realised that they were in the presence of a most affecting tragedy.

"They're dead, aren't they?" Henry asked, with the last of his strength.

"My love," said Montjoy calmly, "they are." He was working Henry out of his drenched clothes, folding him into the warmed cloak that Martin had produced, pulling the whole chilled bundle into the tightest embrace he could manage, trying to ignore the juddering of Henry's jaw.

"They're some man's sons. Poor soul, his heart will be broken."

"Hush, I know. But if the Almighty was kind He may have drowned their father along with them. Their mother too, for all we know. Perhaps they are even now reunited in His loving care."

"That would be a mercy," Henry acknowledged shakily, accepting the dry underclothing that he was being helped into. Montjoy was scrubbing the water out of his flat wet hair, chafing warmth back into him any way he could, drawing him down towards the galley fire and the palliasse hastily arranged next to it. That MacMorris and Williams were doing the same office for Gower he was barely aware, except when the other palliasse was similarly occupied by two huddled bodies and the chattering of Gower's teeth became much more audible.

"It must be an awful thing to raise sons to such a tender age and then lose them." Montjoy wrestled with his own clothing, opening his cote, pulling Henry in against what little warmth he had to offer, and Martin threw the sable cloak over the two of them together so that Henry was almost invisible but for the damp tangle of his hair. "If I was that man, I know how much I would suffer." A long, long pause, and then the king continued, quite audibly to everyone in attendance; "Have you never wanted sons of your own?"

"Yes," came the loving response. "Of course. But since the only person I would ever have wished to have them with was not capable of bearing them, I realised that the present is sometimes more important than posterity. Now, mon cher, is all we will ever have."

"You know that I would if I could. I would a thousand times rather be a wife than have one."

"I know. But God had other plans for us. Now, rest, and let me warm you, and in the morning we'll decide what to do for the poor children."

"Yes, my lord," Henry whispered against his neck in resignation, and Montjoy's arms tightened around him and almost unconsciously they adopted the posture in which they most often spent the night, wrapped together with the greatest possible area of contact between them, hearts beating in unison, and Montjoy settled down to the important business of imparting his own warmth into the body of his most beloved king.

Straightening up from seeing Gower similarly bestowed in MacMorris's capable hold, albeit with far less in the way of loving reassurance exchanged, Fluellen was pleased to note that Martin had already dealt with Henry's wet clothing and Ivo and Williams had begun organising food and hot drinks. He walked aft, to where the two small bodies were arranged on the pope deck, and compassionately threw his own cloak over them.

"We'll leave them with the Abbot at Tintern," he said. "He can bury them and make enquiries for the family. English, I suppose."

"No doubt." The captain was looking down at the huddled little figures - boys of about six and ten, one in red and one in black, their skin white and shrivelled and their eyes half-gone, yet still clinging tenaciously to one another. "The youngest fell in first, think you, and his brother tried to save him?"

"So it would seem." Fluellen's face was grey and his eyes were filled with sadness. "You must see this sort of thing a great deal?"

"More rarely than you might expect. And never two together like this." He did not add, because Fluellen knew it as well as he did himself, that they would not normally stop to pick up a floating corpse. It was too much trouble, and the church authorities always expected to be given money towards the burial.

"So, tell me," continued the captain. "That Frenchman and his … friend ... back there. Are they sodomites?"

Fluellen turned towards him, a puzzled frown creasing his face. "Sodomites? I've never asked; it isn’t my business to know. They're legally brothered, that's all that matters to me."

"And the king allows this, among his followers?"

Fluellen glared at him. "I was informed that you had met the king," he said, coldly. "That he had even been aboard your vessel once."

"Aye, I did," the captain shrugged. "When he was prince, him and his brother Clarence, with Sir Thomas Erpingham. They crossed with me one time from Wales to England."

"Ah. That would have been some years ago. How old was Prince Henry when you saw him?"

"I don’t recall exactly. Sixteen, seventeen. All golden hair and blue eyes and full of energy as a pup."

"Well," growled Fluellen, "pups grow. Take our friend over there who so nearly drowned. Once, he was a pup, too - and he also has a brother."

The man stared stupidly at the shivering figure in Montjoy's arms, and the look on his face was one of the most abject incredulity. "No," he said. "I couldn’t spend the whole day with him and not know."

"You could," said Fluellen. "Look again."

"But he's with a Frenchman!" the captain protested. "Our country's enemy!"

"French he may be, but he's certainly no enemy. There never was a man more loyal in all the world than Milord Montjoy to our king. And you know as well as I do, because I'm sure news reaches here eventually, that they were joined at Twelfth Night in front of witnesses." He crossed himself vigorously as he spoke. "Tell me you ever saw a wedded couple more devoted in your life."

"They're men," was the rejoinder. "It's against God's law."

"If it is," snapped Fluellen, "it's God who will judge it, not you. That's why He's Lord of Heaven and you're captain of a Severn trow." He paused, looked askance at the astonished captain, and softened his tone a little when next he spoke. "Are you married?"

"I was. She died in childbed with our fourth. The baby, too."

"Tell me your wife's name."

"Matilda."

"Well, then, suppose that was Matilda grieving, and you trying to comfort her. What would you say to any man who tried to get between the two of you and tell you that it shouldn’t be?"

The captain thought about this for some considerable time. At length, and with reluctance, he was obliged to concede the point. "I would call him an ass and wish him to the Devil," he admitted grudgingly.

"Well, then, captain, I will call you an ass, although I will not wish you to the Devil. Let the king and his companion answer to God for what they are; they never did harm on Earth that I know of, and it's certain they're better together than ever they were apart. That should be enough for you."

The captain was silent for a while. Then he said; "Is it a kingly thing, think you, to jump into the water and bring out dead bodies, and risk his own life in the doing of it?"

"No," said Fluellen. "Not a kingly thing. But it's a manly thing, and that's why those of us who follow him stay loyal. We've never had reason to be ashamed of what he's done, and often we've had cause to be grateful. There have been worse lords before, and no doubt there will be again. His only crime is to love."

"And to be loved by a Frenchman."

"If he was loved by a million more it would be no bad thing," came the crisp response. "But one will do, when this is the result. Let the king have his heart, man! Remember your Matilda and see if you can find it in yourself to part him from what he loves the most. You can't, can you?"

"No," conceded the captain. "As you say, they'll answer to God. Well, then, will we pass Chepstow and make straight for Tintern instead?"

"We will," said Fluellen, firmly, aware that nobody else was in any condition to be making decisions at the moment. "And there's an extra purse for you if you swear never to reveal who you've had aboard, or what has taken place. You and your men. One of us will talk to the Abbot; the king's name will never be mentioned."

"I have seen no king," the captain acknowledged, glancing across towards the tableau by the fire. "Just a foolish young man with more heart than brain, and the sooner he's off my vessel the better it will be for all of us. My crew are my sons; they'll do what I tell them."

"Sons," mused Fluellen. "I trust you give thanks for them every day?"

"I do," came the unexpectedly vehement response. "And after what I have just seen I shall do so all the more."

"Good man," was the sad reply. "You'd be right to do that in my opinion, 'n onest capten, and to keep the memory of this day in your heart for as long as you live, because this was the day when you discovered that you were a wealthy man. Wealthier, indeed, and far more fortunate, in your own way, even than the king of England himself."