pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

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Bahorel was volubly gleeful at the prospect of learning swordfighting from a genuine medieval English knight who lived and made war with his longsword, and equally gleeful at the prospect of teaching him canne de combat. Enjolras isn't surprised at all by this; it's why he felt comfortable making the offer to Harry Percy in the first place.

This would probably be true even without Bahorel's current level of boredom. As it is, he'd probably leap at the chance to teach canne de combat to a dressmaker's dummy.

(A poor analogy. He's probably already done that, too.)

At any rate, the idea being mutually agreeable and their schedules being largely free, Enjolras and Bahorel and Harry have made their way together to the practice room upstairs.

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Gad, it's like talking to Feuilly. All that dire seriousness. If the lean-to weren't in the way, Bahorel would ruffle Harry's hair.

But at least Feuilly knows not to be so damned respectful with him. Bahorel grins. "No need to be so sober about it; you'd have despised me there. Most of the people I met, I met in bars and cafes; we drank, we gambled, we brawled, we danced. And I loved that, too." That had been part of the whole conversation, the flow and art of Paris herself and the preparations for revolution in particular. Bahorel knows he can argue for it well enough. But he'll give Harry a chance to understand it on his own.

It's a testament to Harry's growing respect for Bahorel that he briefly considers politely lying!

"--no indeed, I would have liked thee not," he agrees. "And yet-- to do such things, and still to fight in a good cause--"

Well, it's not like anyone he's ever known. But he's getting used to that idea with Bahorel. Slowly.

Bahorel can hardly say he's never met anyone who lives with Harry's apparent asceticism-- Enjolras is in the next room, after all. But Enjolras is a particular case, and from a social world that Bahorel understands much better than Percy's England.

"And where else do you meet men, for any cause?" He's studying Percy with something like seriousness now. "Were all your men met in the barracks? Did you never share a drink with them, or sing with them, or share stories before a battle?" Really--how would that even work?

Harry shrugs. "I commanded them, I did not drink with them. And for my fellow commanders, they-- my father and uncle often made one amongst them."

Maybe in France people happily get drunk in front of their fathers, but Harry somehow doubts that is any country's custom.

In Bahorel's considerable familial experience, drinking and singing and playing games are all very much things families do together. But he's pretty sure his and Harry's experience of family is even farther apart than their experience of cities.

He's also not going to push at that, right now. Harry will learn, in time, if he's stuck with them-- and if he's not then it might not all be true, anyway.

"It was different for us, of course. No commanders-- hah, you could say that was the point, in a way. And I for one wouldn't have trusted anyone claiming to fight for the people who wouldn't join us all where we lived-- or how could they have any idea of what was needed? And that was mostly in the cafés and bars, back home. It might well be different in other places-- and I'd expect to see anyone of our cause in with wherever the people there made their lives happen."

"The matter of what was needed was, to us, rather plainer. A village sacked, a castle burned, and so must be defended or answered." Harry's not good at purely intellectual debate: his volume is starting to rise a bit. "They were not battles could be planned in a tavern-- and the debate 'mongst the commanders oft caused delay and strife enough, I cannot think how 'twould be to add the voice of every foot soldier, who know nor the land nor the ways of the enemy."

Oh no, someone is raising their voice at him, a totally unprecedented event in the last five minutes! "Where were your foot soldiers from? Were they recruited like Napoleon's army, from all over the country?"

It's not ceding the point; there's no point of true disagreement yet, though Harry seems to have missed that. But it is gathering information.

"A lord's army is his tenants," Harry says. "He may march with them where'er they are needed, but in the guarding of the borders, we lead men of our own lands."

"Hm, very different from the army of our day. Were these borders and castles very far from your men's homes? Long marches away?" Totally innocent questions, Harry. Just figuring things out.

Harry shrugs. "That would depend upon-- upon the castle, the county, the cause."

No, in fact, it's not a question he's ever considered.

"So the men for any campaign might be men who had never seen the land they're fighting in-- or men who lived in shouting distance of the battle, as the cause demands?"

Just checking on this.

He considers this a moment.

"Yes," he concludes at last. "That is so. Wherefore do you ask it?"

"Ah, it is a matter of cultural difference, that's all, mere curiosity. You see in France a commander often considers that a man with local knowledge might have a useful opinion, even if he is of low birth. Indeed, the opinions of local men are often so sought after that a commander may kidnap one for a guide, if he finds himself without such a fellow in his ranks."

He grins. "That a man in England might not know his own neighborhood enough to have an opinion worth hearing would, I grant, surprise few of my countrymen of any time. --Ah, but you'll say it's down to the greater wisdom of English nobles. Say so! I take no offense at any insult to the nobility of my country.But say how it's gained, too! You have good maps, then, you English commanders? Or do you all know the border so well?"

"We do indeed-- and have maps and knowledge enough to need to no guide. I know that--" He lets out a huff of frustration, more than partly at himself for not quite being able to find the right words to proceed. "I speak naught against the common man. I would not mark the advisings of some high-born gentleman who knows naught of war merely because he was of noble blood. 'tis skill I seek, not status, and the common soldiers have it not because they have learned it not."

Bahorel's smile is hardly even teasing! For him. You're doing okay, Harry.
"Of course--a trained army takes time. And more time away from home, for those who are away from home." Seriously, Harry, you're not on the hook for your entire society. "What do they learn, your common soldiers? --And who makes the maps, along such borders? It must be skilled men, to learn the shape of the land under fire." That's not even a little sarcastic. Maps are hard, even outside a battle zone.

Edited 2015-09-13 20:42 (UTC)

Er.

"Men who-- make maps, I know not. 'tis someone's duty, for some way or other they are made."

Things just happen somehow and are eventually given to you, isn't that how most things paper-based things work?

"But they've never led you astray? You put a good deal of trust in them, these hidden map-makers." It's a dark thought, to consider who Harry trusts, on his own side of the door, and Bahorel . "But if you're not curious, I am; I'll have to see what the Library has on your English maps."

But that's for later! "--But you do speak to your men sometimes, surely--beyond just calling orders."

Harry isn't quite sure if Bahorel is teasing. "Speak to them? On what subject? 'tis a custom, true, to give some words or other ere going into battle, but I am no orator."

No, he's not being teased right now. He's being considered very seriously.

"You talk to all of us well enough, and you're not about to lead us into battle. You don't think we're better than your soldiers." He's sure of that, at least. "Hell, you know them better than I do-- or you should-- and you're smart enough. Think of it yourself, what you might talk to a man about."

He thinks before saying the next, but then, Harry's been so insistent. And there is a chance, after all." I don't know if or when you might have a Door back. But if that comes, and you have time for it, some day, you might try it. If nothing else, you're an easy fellow to like, when you let yourself be, and no man fights less for adding love of a friend to his cause."

Edited 2015-09-14 16:51 (UTC)

It's at this point that Enjolras emerges, hair wet and haphazardly finger-combed into place. Unlike Bahorel -- who's wearing a garment which is probably a kind of sarong, but which looks to Enjolras's tolerantly bemused and ethnocentric eyes as if he stole somebody's curtain to wrap himself in -- Enjolras has opted for a borrowed shirt and actual clothing, even if he's leaving off his coat for now.

He's overheard the end of this conversation, but it's Bahorel's last sentence he's in the room for, and of course it makes him smile.

Harry is slightly relieved to be spared having to fully answer by Enjolras's entrance. He suspects that most men don't particularly like having to make polite conversation with their commander-- but he also suspects that answer would not satisfy Bahorel.

"I shall think on it," he says. He turns to Enjolras to add, "We did speak of soldiers."

It would be a good answer! Not complete, but a start!

"We did! --And maps. I find I'm ignorant of the English art of map-making; I shall have to ask Feuilly about it, and he can rightly be offended at me for not thinking to study it before."

A knock low on the door announces the arrival of their lunch. Bahorel gets up to bring it in, and looks at the three trays with sudden suspicion. Two are full of the sort of food all three of them might recognize, but the third is a smallish covered iron pot. " ...You both may have reason for offense at me before that, I didn't think to change my usual order--" He lifts the iron lid carefully. "--ah, only something with peppers. That's all right, then."

The other trays he sets on one of the tables scattered around the room, for his friends to choose as they will.

Edited 2015-09-14 17:52 (UTC)

"Combeferre knows something of surveying too. He's tried to explain it to me a few times -- the principles make some sense, but if I had to put them into effect..." He shrugs, eloquently. He wouldn't know where to begin.

Bahorel can keep his possibly offensive pot of something with peppers. He's infinitely more adventurous with that kind of thing than Enjolras, who's going to start with some bread and cold meat and sliced fruit.

"What of soldiers and maps?" That's to Harry -- for reasons that are probably obvious to Bahorel, and may or may not be to Harry. Enjolras wants to know what Harry's distillation of the conversation will be, and what he thought of it.

"Oh, how they are are made, what soldiers may know of the land," Harry says as he assembles a little plate of his own, airing very much towards Enjolras's side of the cautious continuum.

Enjolras glances at Bahorel, whose first bite of his mysterious something with peppers is apparently... making him turn purple and wheeze? But also grin, with streaming eyes, and give a CARRY ON I'M FINE kind of handflapping.

Uh.

Okay, Bahorel! If you're sure...?

(Enjolras loves Bahorel dearly, but there are so many ways in which he completely does not understand Bahorel's life choices. And afterlife choices.)

So -- right, Harry's summary, to which he nods. "In thy battles, you fight abroad and by map often? Or near the men's own lands?"

Enjolras knows more than a little about army tactics and strategy, at least for the 18th and 19th centuries. But all his personal experience is with urban warfare, riots and uprisings. They knew the ground by inches, there.