pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

"It's the weapon of cavalry in my day. And useful on foot as well. Common enough for many years."

It's also a weapon of dueling -- less common than the rapier, but more favored by those who fight as soldiers rather than for pure sport -- but Enjolras isn't much a fan of duels. He suspects Percy is rather more favorably inclined, but he'd still prefer to speak of what he considers the more serious matter.

...And then there's what he's learned at Milliways, about the guns (and tanks, and bombs, and more) of later centuries. But, well. That's something Enjolras hasn't quite brought himself to study the practicalities of, yet. Not something Hotspur will know, anyway, he thinks.

"And hast had much cause to practice here?" Harry asks. "I doubt not it is little like the long sword."

Edited 2015-08-16 21:38 (UTC)

"I've never used a long sword. Nor armor, as I think thou wouldst...?"

They're in the stable's wide aisle now. It's well-lit, smelling of straw and clean wood and horses. In France, Enjolras was perfectly comfortable in but not actively drawn to stables. Here, though, so far away from everything else of home, there's a deep and visceral familiarity in every inch of the building.

"But cause, not much. Opportunity, some, but not overmuch. I practice with Bahorel often enough, and other friends somewhat, but barehanded or singlestick more than the blade."

"It has been so long since, I think I can scarce claim the skill still," Harry says with a sigh, though he follows it with a grin. "Single stick I know naught of."

He makes his way down the aisle. Even the horses that he doesn't ride and hardly knows he'll reach out to greet if they seem amenable.

"This is Duncan, who I ride most oft," Harry says, pausing before the stall in question. "And there is another there, a mare, larger than he, that I am told is for the use of any who would have her."

Enjolras lifts his walking stick in silent illustration. He'll explain more -- or demonstrate -- if Hotspur wants, but it seems a side track at the moment.

He joins Harry in looking over the stall door at Duncan, who ambles over to lip hopefully at hands and see if he might get a treat. (Not from Enjolras, but he'll get a rub of the nose and a scratch along his sleek neck.)

"A good fellow."

"Ay, he is," Harry agrees with genuine affection.

"Though," he adds, giving Enjolras an appraising look over. "He would perchance be small for thee, thou couldst well bestride a bigger. The destriers we kept were well muscled, but small. I know not wherefore-- I must beg Feuilly learn of it, and tell me." He grins.

He looks at the walking-stick. "With that? That I would fain learn."

Enjolras nods: he's fairly slim, for all that he's tall, so he and Duncan could manage well enough. (Well, he's tall by the standards of both their eras. By the standards of the 20th and 21st centuries, he's about average.) A bigger horse would be more comfortable for both rider and mount, though.

"This, or longer batons. But a walking stick is more practical." Because it's a standard fashion accessory for gentlemen of his day, and no one will look twice at a man carrying one around. Not to mention the fact that Bar will give them out. "I'll show thee something of it, if thou likest."

Harry gives Duncan's nose a pat.

"I doubt it not," he laughs. "But-- do gentleman yet carry swords in thy-- thy time? Thou dost not, but I took it as the Bar's enforcement and not thy custom."

Welllll, says Enjolras's face.

"Those in the army, yes. Otherwise -- many own one. And there are sword-canes, and similar. Dueling is illegal, but it happens all the same, with swords or pistols, and fencing for sport. But a man wouldn't wear a sword every day, without an immediate cause, unless he were a soldier in full uniform."

"I don't have one here, thou'rt right."

He's gotten practice blades from Bar for sparring, but they're the sort without any kind of an edge, that would be no good whatsoever in a real fight.

Harry nods. Well, there's a wisdom to it, in a city-- he always wondered how people in London stayed out of fights. (By not being you, Harry.)

"I have gained a sword," he says gleefully. It's almost gotten him arrested once already! But he's still excited about it.

Enjolras glances at him inquiringly.

He remembers, with the slight haziness of a dream, being that other self with his soul an eagle; and Harry, called Monmouth then, and Feuilly with his Emilia. Harry had a sword then. The same?

(He remembers Feuilly's smile, and what an unexpected lightening of burdens it was to see a friend happy, then.)

"--I cannot tell exactly how I came by it," he says, and his slightly bewildered tone makes it plain that this is not coyness.

"I think I was-- myself, and not myself, and--" Wait. "And I did see thee, did I not? But knew thee not."

"Yes."

Enjolras pats Duncan's neck absently, looking thoughtfully into the stall, and into his thoughts.

"It's like a dream, but my friends remember the same. I was myself, but different -- from another version of my world. And an earlier year."

He glances over. "I remember thee, dreamlike, and others I met then. Thou wert different, but not in the same way as us."

No daemon. And -- a prince?

But still with the same tentative, earnest attempts to understand republican philosophy that was new to him, and the respect for deeds over blood. He remembers that.

Harry, perhaps oddly, has gone slightly red. "I know not what I was."

(As he's thought about it more-- and he does think, sometimes!-- he thinks he was Monmouth somehow, and yet still himself. But to have had any of that other Harry in himself is a faintly disturbing thought. ...and that's not even starting on how things were with Feuilly, how they could be the same and yet he could conceive of them so entirely differently.)

"But whoe'er I was, I did return into England, and when I woke again to myself, the sword remained." He pauses. "And the dogs."

"Strange."

He means that very much, about the entire thing.

Strange -- baffling -- but not unwelcome. Not with the prospect of an 1830 in which the Amis de l'ABC, even if no other secret societies, could take advantage of the resources and knowledge of Milliways to change things.

With a small smile, "But thou seemest glad of the result."

"Why, so I am. Though I wear it not, nor may not use it, still am I glad but to have it."

The sword and other things, yes. And the hazy half-memories, ehh... well, he's good at ignoring those kinds of things.

He shrugs-- maybe it's a silly thought.

"It is strange, is it not, to have all things so much divorced from their proper purpose? A sword, and no wars. A horse, and no travel."

"Yes."

And this is one reason why he likes Harry Percy, noble or not, hotheaded or not, often thoughtless or not. He has a brain, and his graspings at philosophy are impatient and largely untutored but all the same ardently sincere.

"Yes. All this variety -- so much to learn, so many people to speak with, all worlds and times -- and yet everything unmoored."

Harry is nodding vigorously again. "O, ay, just so! And though I have gained much good of many I have met, I cannot but think 'tis hard to have all to do, and yet no true employment.

"I did fight, not long since," he says after a slight pause. "Out in-- the world, through the door of another. Another's world, time, country. And let me not speak slightingly of it, 'twas a fair fight indeed! But-- returning, I found it had caused my thoughts of wars in England not to abate, but rather to increase."

Yeah. Yeah, it would.

"Didst thou? In what cause?"

He's curious: about this other world, about the battle there, about what that choice will say of Harry Percy.

"Knowest thou Master Rollo?" he asks. "Of those that call themselves Northmen. Once had we met and did not-- we did not accord peacefully." They hit each other. Is what that means. "But some days, or a week past he did come into the bar all bloodied, and told of men who did seize upon the absence of the men from his village to set upon the women and children that did remain."

"It was a fight lost ere it was begun," he adds with a scowl. "And a true shame 'tis, that men should profit by such sneaking cowardice. 'twas Rollo's aim only to see the citizens to safety, and this was mostly done-- but I could wish we had had time and power to see these men paid in kind for their vile cruelty."

Enjolras shakes his head: no, he doesn't know Rollo. He hasn't met any of the Northmen, actually, but he's heard about them (and the moral dilemmas they pose) from friends.

"That's a clear cause."

It is. Enjolras has hesitated to embroil himself in others' worlds, others' causes, blood spilled and death dealt on someone else's word with only one perspective on the parties involved. Killing is too much a line in the sand for him to be easy with that -- although standing aside is another moral choice, and that doesn't sit well either. But seeing women and children to safety from a vile ambush, now, that's clear.

It doesn't matter what the fighting men of the village were doing, for that. Even if they were off to sack Paris -- even then, Enjolras would fight to defend their helpless civilians at home.

"It's good, it's very good, that you could help those villagers so."

"It may be so, I hope-- though well or ill, I suppose I will not know of it." The thought hadn't quite occurred to him, though it's plain he finds it a strange one. "I might inquire of Rollo, but that is not the same."

"That's another Milliways difficulty. Another separation. All one can know of another world is what someone thinks to say of it."

Harry means the ultimate fate of the villagers, Enjolras knows. There's no reason to think that this Rollo would lie about that, or be mistaken. But all the same, Enjolras is going to raise the broader ethical point too.

Harry understands the implication.

"And thinkest thou men will report falsely?"

Enjolras gestures ignorance. "Not in specific. I don't know this Rollo, nor any reason to think him dishonest. And I can't think this would be a matter to cause any man to lie."

"But all I mean is... in Paris, you understand, we knew the ground. Even a man new to the city -- new to France, the newest immigrant -- would be surrounded by people, and know what he'd learned at home. If a man told thee of an urgent matter, thou'dst have context, thou couldst judge his word by what else thou didst know of the situation, his friends, his allegiances. And even the truest man has only one man's eyes. If Bahorel and I tell thee of a conversation, we'll likely agree on the heart of it, but for the details..."

"Here, if a man tells me something of his nation -- where men do magic in every moment, say -- then I know nothing of what other eyes might see in it. No landmarks."

It's a quandary. At least he has friends to ask for second opinions, but still; there's only so much of anyone's character one learns in café chatter, as a rule.