A/N: This began as- brace yourselves- Prince Hal/Hotspur slash, because... I don't even know. The world was obviously fine without it. However, as it came out it could be vague!slash or just a guilty conscience, whatever you want.
Chimes at midnight
Snap.
That sound was not his. He stands quivering in the dark, only eyes moving, urgent. Someone else is there. He, who prides himself on courage, with the presence of the unknown melts into as flighty a creature as any child at night.
Someone is walking, in heavy boots judging by the weighty crack of the branch- How long is it that thou sawest last thine own knee, Jack?- but with considerable care. There is no more noise after the first. A deer in the woods, Harry. For shame, to be so afraid. Your fears are not half so heavy as all those souls, who at Judgement Day will be waiting for you, and what will you answer them? The questions they will ask. Always more. Why? When did you know you had killed us? What is the time, Jack?
I have not killed them. It is their own volition. A king is not answerable for the ends of his subjects any more than a father for his son. Or a son for his father?
Another sound.
Several steps. This is no wild creature, he wills himself not to think. He knows footfalls well, shod or bare, light or heavy, strong or weak. With little effort he learned individual rhythms; no harder than learning a stranger's voice or recognizing the contours of a friend's hand. Fluellen's were quick and nervous like a goat in the mountains, John's a steady understated murmur, Exeter's a thud of armor plates. The Archbishop of Canterbury's steps shake up waves of dusty, old sound. He barely remembers Richard's walk, but he recalls that of his father: slow, weary, apologizing. With horror he realizes that he recognizes this footfall. It is a pattern imposed where there should be only darkness, where order itself is out of place. A chill dances up his spine.
He had sometimes, as a boy, imagined what he would do hearing noises such as these in a wood such as this. Shouting a challenge and drawing his sword topped the list. Standing huddled into his cloak like a villain had never entered his mind, when he was running under the sun without a care, but then again, there were so many things he would never have expected to do once night fell.
It is a clear night for the most part, one of those blue French nights when too much is visible though one cannot see his own hand for the shadows. Then the moon slips out and illuminates all those corners of the woods that one does not venture into.
But on Judgement Day all the sons shall answer to their Father, and He for Himself to none.
By moonlight he glimpses the maker of the footfalls, or at least the dark outline of it cut out of the silver glow. It is a man, a sleek warlike body armed for combat on horse. This cannot be. I am no madman. I know thee, brother, and would thou wert a shadow of the moon rather than of a man!
He closes his eyes- fall to thy prayers. He does not dare breathe but his lips shake, and perhaps they are praying. He who preys on opportunity prays. Pater noster, qui es in caelis. When he looks again the shadow will be gone and the woods will be silent, all as it is and should be. All is as it should be. Sanctificetur nomen tuum. But who will answer for all those souls? If it was he who fell they would answer for him. Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua...
Shame, eternal shame. He cannot look for shame. Shame that he cannot look. All that he is cannot look.
Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostri.
Who can? Who will?
After the shock comes the desperate need for confirmation; he must know. He looks. The shadow is still there, and though he wills himself not to see it, his will is not enough, nor was it ever. A sound rends the night, his voice crying out the hallowed name of the dead. There is no response.
-Dost thou know me not, sweet Harry? Has it been so long?
Longer, in the life of the soul. For he who believes shall have eternal life, vita aeterna, requiem aeternum, as long as he be remembered. Memory is an odd thing, is it not, sweet wag? I do not remember my mother's face, or Richard's laugh- it had been a terrible moment when he realized he lost that- but the way your life poured out onto the ground is before my eyes even now. Even now, after so many years. (Three? Could it be so few?) Even you, whom I barely knew. If we had had more time, it would have been different, it would have.
-Speak, Harry, speak, I bid thee!
No answer but the shifting of the moonlight, clouds collecting and dispersing. The shadow becomes clear, a clear form, clearly seen. Through his clear non-body the trees behind can be seen.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.
There is a train of events here, and if he could only trace them in their entirety perhaps he could find some understanding. One thing leads to another. Cause and effect. He sees this ghost because he was walking alone at night; he was walking alone at night because he was in doubt; he was in doubt because he is king; he is king because... The sins of the father. Visited on the son. Blood led me here, my father's, and yours and the blood of all those arms and heads and souls who on Judgement Day shall cry against me. As I cry mea culpa, mea culpa.
-O hallowed spirit, hold not my father's sins upon my head! I, who loved thee so. Requisecas in pace, princeps Percium. Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostri. Forgive my father's name, in our Father's name, as I have not the strength to do.
Sed libera nos a malo.
The ghost speaks not a word.
-If thou wilst release not my father from guilt then release me, who would not see thee lost in shadow. Who loves thee...
But who am I to come begging to thee for absolution? Who am I, when all is said and done, to petition you for what I do not deserve? Do not heed me. Do not reach out your hand; the moonlight shines through it. Do not speak; I remember your voice. Look away with your gleaming eyes, look away, do not turn back. For all is said and done, dead and sung over, and the son has risen, though it is a dark night and the sun will not rise for hours.
Quoniam tibi est regnum et potestas et gloria in saecula.
Amen.