Henriad (History Plays, Book 5)

4: he, that wandering knight so fair

Oddcastle

"Tell me, lad, what time is it?" I ask, rubbing my face with my hand. My head is pounding and since there are excessively verbal children here I'm assuming the hour is---no. I have no idea what the hour is. The children's presence tells me nothing.
"You are so drunk, that you have clearly forgotten what you ought to know. I ask you, what the devil, have you to do, with the time of day? Unless hours were wine glasses and minutes shots, and the sun a fair lady whose caught your eye, I see no reason, why you should be so superfluous as to demand the time of day," Harry says, a saucy grin upon his face.
"You have no mercy, that's fine," I say, sighing and rubbing my face again to hide that I want to grin at the boy's sass. This child is nothing but cleverness. And his diminutive father will have none of his enduring cheek, nor will most anyone else tolerate the boy's endless verbal games, especially no one grown up. Adults are to be tricked and bent to his will, so he must always be sweet with them.
I am the rare exception, for I not only allow his sharp tongue, but I give him no grief for it. Something he fails with his father and so he brings it to me harshly, relishing in the reprieve of any real rebuke for his actions. I can't scold him, and he loves it, yet I can know what he's done lately and he need not hide, and at the same time he can endlessly take out all anger for his father upon me. I let it go in that it's arguably hilarious that I should be thought anything like his father. I am old, and a drunkard. His father is like him, perpetually charming with something approximating good looks which the young women of this nation will thank god that the boy lacks. And they are far too alike to do anything like get along. So here I am.
"I have no mercy?" Harry asks, as he strips off his jacket and shirt to a wife beater which clingsto his boney shoulders.
"No, you do not, but we'll leave it, Ned's a good child---"
"It's past noon already," Ned says, before Harry can stop him, "What?" he laughs to his friend.
"What would Oddcastle do if I were not about to remind him of things he well knows?" Harry asks, charmingly, as he goes to ball up his clothes in his locker.
"Probably drink myself to death in peace," I say, standing painfully.
"We're just here to spar," Ned says, as he quietly undresses as well to change into gym things. That's an odd kid. I mean they're both odd, but really. He's got some weird—well they've got a complicated word for it. Harry also has a three hour lecture to not understand about the complicated word you didn't understand. It's a fine time if alcohol is involved.
Anyway. Ned's like Harry, too clever for anyone's good, but he's got some disorder thing, he doesn't like being touched. Our Harry can touch him all right or somebody he knows if it's on like certain parts of his arm or whatever, but other than that it sets him off. I don't know; maybe he isn't mad and does have some legitimate disorder thing. All I know is, there are kids who slyly saunter places, who don't bother to look up and see who's coming in a room when a door slams, because for them nobody bad's ever come in a door. They've not spent years looking up, watching their back for something they didn't know.
I've seen enough young men, to spot it years later, the door slams, a voice raises, they look up, look around, neck stiffens, hands at ready to protect themselves from blows that came far too often. Ned's got that. I gather his dad didn't understand him or whatever. I don't know why you'd try to understand a little quiet gay child like that and not leave it alone places with books like it likes, but anyway. He's one of them, checks everyone who comes in a room, jumps if I raise my voice. Took him years to get near me and realize I wasn't gonna touch him if he didn't want it. Not clap his back, nothing, since he's so damn skittish.
Anyway. I taught him to fight as well figured a little tiny gay thing like him'd need it. He did, and he'll only spar with his Harry. No one else. He won't even take off his usual six layers of clothes around anyone else to work out on his own. He likes the place closed and quiet. So of course Harry bribed or bought or just stole a key from me I don't remember. I wasn't sober. We'll move past that. I don't think that Ned's dad ever hit him. He's never come in with bruises or anything like it. But words can be as bad as blows, I reckon. And the boy's mother has been well rid of the dad for years and he's been happier since.
"You can return to your true love there in the bottle," Harry says, dismissively.
"It's a hangover now it's really fine," I say, wincing, as I limp over to watch them. "Don't you have school? Or is it Saturday?"
"It is Saturday—"
"It is not Harry---it's not Saturday we're just not going," Ned says, climbing in the ring.
"We have discussed his lack of business with the time of day," Harry says, laughing and running a hand through his nearly curly hair. That one, his dad has taken a hand to him a time or two. That sounds really awful, I suppose, for the old man, but it's actually not surprising, the way this boy runs his mouth off. He's never been beaten mind you, but he thinks I don't remember him coming in here angry with a fresh red slap still across his mouth. Again, the way he runs his mouth, it's not honestly surprising. St. Francis or one of them equally patient saints would have done the same. Harry knows no laws but his own. He's one of those boys that all the others can't help but look to. He'll go on forever in their tales and minds, free, untamable, something magnetic about him that they'll never even understand in their own minds. He enjoys it now.
But it burns at me. Everything he does is more than anyone else, and he has never been acquainted with the concept of failure. He refuses to yield to it, even if it means breaking himself. Watching him is like watching a forest fire, you know it's powerful and it could destroy you but ultimately it's burning itself out. And there's nothing you can do to stop it now. Nothing anybody can do but watch.
And one day we're going to be mourning him and he'll be gone, and the tales of him will be greater than him when existed, yet nothing at all like he was because you can't capture that. That's the problem. You can't capture it even to tame it. But don't listen to me. I'm just an old man, whose seen too many young men die. And I see the faces and lives of the dead in far too many of living that I can play their lives out easily as naming the suits of a deck of cards. I may be wrong, I'd rather be. And with the liquor it's easier to think I'm wrong.
"Seriously, what are you doing here when you're intended to be pursuing your education?" I ask, going to get the aforementioned liquor.
"I needed to hit something with my fists so do stop reminding me of yourself," Harry says, as the boys square up in the ring.
"Stop bothering your rotten dad's mistresses! Jesus, boy," I cry, as I realize what's vexing him. "His bastards are no concern of yours."
"They are when they could very well grow to challenge me one day and I'd sooner raise them to be my own agents," Harry growls.
"See, still sounds creepy when you say it. Reasonable sentiment. Sounds creepy," Ned says, ducking his friend's blow.
"Stop bothering that poor woman; it's enough that she had to know your father now you're off harassing her? I said I'd box your ears if you went round again," I would not ever, but he doesn't need to know it.
"You would not," okay so he already knows it. That's not great.
"No, but your dad probably will. Do you not get enough entertainment being cleverer than everyone else and cutting school and doing---"
"You have no idea what it is I do with my time do you?" laughing.
"---you know what? Being cleverer than everyone else just about covered it we're done, seriously, let your dad handle his women," I sigh.
"I would if he didn't insist on getting them bastards," Harry hisses, before knocking his friend clean over.
Now, this whole conversation makes the senior Harry (usually called Henry), sound sort of bad so just let me say he is not more sinful than any other man. The man is only thirty-five years old. From where I'm standing that makes him a young man still young men will tend to have women they find pretty it's what young men do; you can't fault them for it. And he's something like decent looking even if he is a short shit with a temper to match his red beard. He did love our Harry's mum, and I think when she died he started to forget what it was like to remember what good people are like. He's got these kids to deal with. And I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy to have to look this strapping, far too tall, impulsive, scheming, cheeky devil in the eye and know he'd sired him. That's an awful thing for a man to do. The boy exhausts me and I get him a few hours out of the day can't imagine what it must be like living with him having to think that you and a night's passion are responsible for that. Honestly, the man has balls; he knew this one existed and was the way he was then he sired five fucking more of the little devils and they don't strictly get better as they go. I don't pretend to tell them apart, but there are an awful lot of them, couple are girls, all equally verbal and bouncy. I think me managing this one part time is enough of a contribution to the betterment of the human race.
"Now be nice to your old dad, Harry, he's had a rough life," I say.
"And how would you be knowing that when you do not reliably know and worse do not have cause to know, the time of day?" Harry asks, hopping up after his little flowy gay friend knocks him over. I think he let him do it, honestly. Harry's something past six feet and solid muscle cause he punches things when frustrated. It's frustrating to be smarter than everyone. "How would you suppose to know the roughness of my father's life?"
"You're in it," I say. I do expect a reproach for that and he's out of the ring and tackling me to the ground. His mistake is, drunk as I may be, I'm much heavier than him, and he's not the first saucy child to take to a swing at me.
We roll for only a moment before I have him quickly pinned.
"I'm the bigger opponent, use my weight against me, you know I have a bad leg you get me down, and then you don't stop punching. You're not going to flip me off when I'm twice your size," I say, letting him up.
"You've got two bad legs a bad back and a bad brain," Harry says, hopping to his feet much quicker than me. He actually pauses and offers me a hand to pull me up. I think he's taken a swing at his dad before, or punched the wall, or blocked a blow or the like. Every single time he waits for me to be cross, and sometimes he does it to see if I will get cross. I don't. I've been in this world long enough to know sometimes a man needs to hit something with his fist and know it's not gonna break. He can't break me. I got broken a long time ago. And he's only a boy learning how to be a man. Nobody knows how to do that yet, but if anyone will figure it out, it'll be him. Mark my words.
"Everyone's got a bad brain compared to you, boy," I say, messing up his hair. "You want to punch things with your fists? Come on Saturday, there's a fight night. I'd enjoy winning money of people who think that an underfed sixteen year old can't knock down a grown man."
"I can't, my father will be home," Harry says, climbing back in the ring, "Not that you need more money for more wine."
"Your dad back in town then?" I ask. No one looks forward to seeing his father. That's his own fault, though.
"Yeah, tomorrow I expect," Harry says, flatly, as if it's a business trip, and not cancer. I know it's hereditary and all that but I think that losing those kid's mother and then having the whole pack of them on his own is what's killing him. That woman was sunshine and starlight. Nothing calmer or sweeter than her presence. Lancaster's hell spawn followed her around tame as ducklings. Now? They're just sort of lose and he's a devil himself, not like he can inspire peace in the monsters.
"Well, you have the key, let yourself in," I say, going back to sit down and find the wine. This headache is getting worse not better. Hair of the dog.
"Yes, I do, and I may make use of it," Harry says, lightly, but we both know he'll need to get out of the house as soon as his old man is back.
"Or you could—here's an idea---just a suggestion—go to school and be where you're intended to be?"
"Suggestion noted and discarded."
"I go to school," Ned points out.
"I know, but it's so much time. I have more important things to do," Harry sighs, ducking a blow from his friend, "Nothing's going to run itself without me—and father's sick he lets me help him." I don't think his dad wants him doing half of what he is but that's a guess and I'm a drunk so I could be wrong.