Days of the Dead Book 3: The King's Ghost

Afterword

This is kind of a positive book, as it endcaps the entire Last Knights series and the Days of the Dead trilogy. That said, the ending was in keeping with everything I had done. I didn't want to kill off any characters. And I wanted the books to be a force of good, and hope, and happiness. Comfort reading if you will. So that's why it ends where it does and how it does. While in the Days of the Dead series I included slightly more sexual content and profanity than the Last Knights series, we still have no sex scenes and only brief kisses.

As before, please do your own research into the Middle Ages. I did a lot into Henry V particularly, and  again you have to read a lot of accounts to try to get a fair assessment. I feel like his character is fairly in line with the real person, he was highly intelligent, and very sociopathic with regards to his endless wars, and he was also said to be charming in person, and by all accounts he had pleasant relationship with his brothers and his friends.

As for him and Courtenay, I read just so much, that historians are so against any suggestions of Henry V being gay. It got homophobic. But I got really stubborn and I was like 'fine, okay, they're not gay. He just apparently was incredibly close friends with the prettiest man in England, who then died in Henry's arms in in Henry's tent, and Henry had them buried together with his ring on Courtenay's finger, because that's just guys being friends okay'. And to be clear, Henry was highly intelligent and not prone to romance, so it's entirely possible this was an asexual relationship, especially as Henry was highly religious and Courtenay was a bishop. That said when you want to be buried with someone, that's pretty much what love is last time I checked. 

That said in Henry's youth he had several close male friends. Scrope in particular (who he wound up putting to death for plotting against him) was a very close friend who according to some accounts Henry invited him back to his bedroom. Yeah. Very straight of you, Henry. Anyway, when Henry's dad kicked him out of the house for being smarter than him in general, Henry did this little sad-Oscar-Wilde tour of his various young male friends houses hanging out with them playing sad harp music (he could play the harp) and being straight young men who don't associate with women, or something. Yeah no womanizing in Henry's past. So I'm not saying he was inclined to men, but he wasn't inclined to women from what we can tell and it's possible he wasn't overly inclined either way. You know I'm always here for ace rights, he very easily could have few sexual inclinations so he had some platonic bonds with men and that's it.

So anyway, when characterizing Courtenay and Henry I choose to make them act like, two people who have been best friends for forty years, and Courtenay probably assumes they've hooked up while drunk, and Henry has an eight page thesis prepared to ask Courtenay if they're more than friends, but has not gotten around to it yet. So I chose to write them as how I expect two people who wanted to be buried together would act, but not necessarily gay.  And no, they never kiss in any of the eight books. They touch each other's arm, drink out of the same glass, and they tip their heads close to each other but that's it. Courtenay does tell Henry he loves him, but as Henry is his prince and future king, you did pledge your love to your monarch, that was a thing you'd say.

In a lot of the books I read on Henry, it is mentioned that he doesn't change his expression at all. I chose not to include that too much, because I wanted some gauge of what he's thinking. That said, the arrow wound, probably restricted his movement on half his face, so that could be why he had a neutral expression usually. However, it is common in neurodivergent folk to remain 'expressionless', so that's there as well. To be clear, Henry was, a little 'different'. He wrote with Alexander-Hamilton level obsession while on campaign, answering correspondence himself and writing instead of using a scribe, and he would do things like check someone's accounts back three years, while on campaign in his 'free time'. He was very very focused, a bit different, would have to be to achieve what he did but, I tried to work in here a bit his inner nerd, he did love music, even traveling with a musician while on campaign, and he was quite dramatic with his capes and outfits, he wore a jewel encrusted crown at Agincourt, after Agincourt he had a whole costume change before greeting prisoners, like he had quite a bit of pageantry to his performances.  All these character things are very fun, very interesting so I tried to highlight some of his less well known personality traits.