Photographs and Memory

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel stops by Feuilly's room not too long after the weekend he can't remember, a small paper packet held lightly in one hand. He's in a fairly thoughtful mood, so he knocks extra loudly.

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

" Oh, they were probably kind, too. Terrible habits people fall into." Scandalous, really. "-- Does Harry remember any of it?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly smiles. "Some, yes--not very well, I think. He was impressed with my frog-catching. And--oh, he and Harry Monmouth took Duncan out for a ride and fell off, and he broke his arm..."

You know, all about what you'd expect.

And since then, Harry has written a letter to his family--to his unmet son--for Monmouth to deliver, a thought that makes Feuilly bite his lip in fond memory. But that's private to Harry.

[clayforthedevil]

"Ah, another horse theft? He's becoming quite the brigand; you're keeping dangerous company." Bahorel approves! "--Did Monmouth get hit with it too?" There's someone he won't tell about his own forgetfulness--or maybe he will, to see what he makes of it.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"He did. I didn't see him--haven't seen him since. I think he went back to his world as soon as it wore off."

A keen observer, or anyone with an eye or an ear, will notice Feuilly's lack of enthusiasm for the topic. "They were very good friends. Thick as--horse thieves."

[clayforthedevil]

Unenthusiastic, sure, but apparently wanting to say something all the same. " --Maybe the good king hadn't quite become himself yet by then. There's the remains of a person about him." Hmm. Unless--"Or d' you mean now, after they've come back to themselves?"

Come on, Harry. Have better sense than that.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"He's the only person from Harry's world here," Feuilly says defensively. "I can't--I don't want to, to cut that thread. But reading about Monmouth's campaign in France--! Maybe you know all about it--I only looked it up recently--"

Until Harry came back from Agincourt, Feuilly had been avoiding studying that particular bit of history too closely. After their argument, he dived right into the books. "But of course--I don't know how things go in this Monmouth's world, it could be different--"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel nods. " The Shakespeare's different, a bit. Monmouth--" Bahorel shrugs. "For a king in a war he was...fair. Given that he decided on the damn thing, and all."

His smile is more than a little amused."--You know you don't have to like him. You don't want to scold Harry for friendship, that's smart and it's right; but you can flat hate the bastard, if you want. I won't scold."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I haven't read the Shakespeare. I don't plan to."

He'd been looking down at his hands; when he looks up and sees Bahorel's amused smile Feuilly straightens up and scowls. "Oh, believe me, I know I don't have to like him. Come on, Bahorel, do you think I'm that--that far gone? Christ, I don't need you to tell me I'm allowed to hate him. --Does Shakespeare talk about Rouen? The siege? I don't know, maybe it's common knowledge, maybe it's something they cover in school, maybe you know all about it. I hadn't known, and it's--God, the poor turned out to starve in that ditch around the city walls, with Monmouth's army watching on one side and the men inside the city watching from the other side-- oh, Monmouth gave them food on Christmas, and then it was back to starvation again--"

He scrubs his hands through his hair. "That came later than Azincourt, so I doubt Harry knows about it. I don't think he even knows about killing the prisoners at Azincourt."

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel wasn't even considering Feuilly as Far Gone, just generally a crushingly decent and fair-minded man. That immediate denial of an accusation he wasn't even making is pretty funny, though!

But the answering grin disappears as Feuilly goes on, and turns into a scowl as Bahorel tries to remember-- ugh, school. "--The Shakespeare wouldn't answer your questions, anyway. School--" What did he learn in school alone, not reading on his own?" "--wouldn't have told you much. At least not the one I went to; if it wasn't Greek or Roman or Grand Royal Triumphs, we didn't hear too much about it. Oh, of course we learned about terrible Henry, invader, and the names and dates of the main battles, but the details--no. And you can be sure I'd have remembered those!" Terrible murderous crimes committed by an Invading Tyrant? Bahorel would have drawn pictures. He'd have made plays. Very bad plays.

But that was then. " I've done enough reading since to know our Henry--the one in our histories, who isn't the fellow who comes by the Bar, really-- was something of a darling to the Church in his day. So maybe other teachers would have said more about it. But--" he shrugs. " Combeferre isn't wrong, about how little they really tell you, there, for all they talk--or who they tell you about. A few poor townspeople, not even soldiers?" He shrugs again, feeling it want to be a strike. " Hell! You know well enough who they wanted us to forget."

Damn the histories, anyway. He drums his fingers against his leg for a moment, mostly to make his hands unclench. "--I don't see how Harry would know any of it, either, unless he's looked it up since being here."

..Which doesn't seem the most likely, but it could have happened, sure.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"And Caen," Feuilly adds. "What the English did there--" He laughs tiredly. "Well, it was war, is what people say. As if that--"

Feuilly pulls his hands through his hair. "So no, I doubt Harry knows, and I haven't brought myself to tell him." Which isn't like Feuilly, is it. Or he feels that it isn't, anyway. But setting up that dissent between Harry and Harry...or between himself and Harry...

He shakes himself irritably.

[clayforthedevil]

What to say, to people out of time; it's a question that keeps coming up, somehow. "--I'm not exactly throwing the news in his face either. It's not as if we're keeping secrets; he could ask anyone from later in our world, or go to the Library himself-- he reads." At least Harry can.

He's quiet again for a moment. Then, glancing over to Feuilly: "Do you want him to know?" It's a real question, no presumption one way or the other.

[tu_vas_triompher]

It's a real question, and it has Feuilly scrubbing his fingers through his hair again, until it all goes up in spikes. "I...wish that he had been brought up to ask the kind of questions that would tell him about it," he says finally.

That's really the heart of it, isn't it? Well--mostly? Because somehow, even though Feuilly can't quite understand or believe it, some people are able to ask questions of a war, ask questions about half the town starving to death in a ditch or two thousand men and boys executed after the city surrenders, and find the answers adequate. Harry--wouldn't be satisfied with it. Would he?