Heartless (7 page)

The cat hopped down from the chair and rubbed around the Prince’s ankles, purring and flicking his tail. “Must it be this way, my Prince?”

“Yes.”

“He has not found her yet.” The cat stopped purring, his nose twitching as he considered his words. At length he said, “I’ve become fond of the girl. I’d hate to see her . . .”

“No,” said the Prince quietly.

The cat lashed his tail once, then stalked a few paces away, keeping his ears trained back on Aethelbald. “I know,” he said. “I know you love her more than I could. I just wish . . . I wish I understood.”

“I will do everything I can for her,” Aethelbald said. “Everything.” He looked at the cat, his eyes full of compassion.

The cat felt the expression that he could not see and relaxed under the Prince’s gaze, purring once more. “Do you know what has brought on these nightmares?” he asked.

“Torkom was selling visions in the market today.”

“That old goblin?” The cat bristled. “What’s he doing so far from home?”

“The usual mischief.” Aethelbald’s face became hard. “She touched a dragon scale.”

“Torkom dared sell . . .” His lip curled back in a snarl. “Dragon-kissed fiend!”

Aethelbald turned back to the fireplace. The flames danced and played across his vision, writhing hungrily over the logs. The light shone off his cheekbones and brow but cast his eyes in shadows. “The fire stirs already, Sir Eanrin,” he said in a low voice. “Soon it will wake.”

He closed his eyes and made a quick motion with his hand. “Please return to the princess. Guard her dreams as best you can.”

The cat bowed after the manner of his kind, haughty and respectful at once. Then he whirled and leapt out the window, swallowed by moonlight and darkness.

5

Felix disliked few things in life more than sparring by himself in the practice yard. But his father’s guard never found time to practice with him, and his own attendants were hopelessly inept with a sword, or at least pretended to be whenever they sparred with their prince. Therefore, bright and early in the morning, Felix made his way alone to the barracks yard, his wooden practice sword strapped to his side, and began the basic stretching exercises.

He did not need to come here to practice, of course. Oriana Palace furnished a room where noblemen and their sons could study the arts of fencing and swordplay. But Felix did not feel that it was authentic to learn weaponry surrounded by gold-framed mirrors and stepping on a polished wooden floor. He visited that room only to take lessons with his fencing master, a tight-faced old man who emphasized in a reedy voice that fencing was an
art
.

“What good will
art
do me on the battlefield?” Felix had once demanded.

The fencing master refused to answer. His mouth had squeezed into a severe wrinkled line across his face as he slapped the prince on the wrist with the flat of his sword and told him to assume first position.

Felix never practiced in that room unless absolutely necessary. Much better the dirt and grit of the guards’ practice yard, where real men pitted their skills against those of their peers and learned what it meant to prepare for war and battle and glory and honor. None of which had anything to do with
art
.

But the guards refused to spar with him. Felix suspected that they laughed at him behind his back when he practiced by himself against one of the wooden dummies suspended on poles at intervals across the practice yard.

Felix flexed his fingers and stretched his arms and legs, a scowl souring his face. He’d quarreled with his senior attendant before venturing out to the yard that morning, for the man had once more tried to insist that he should go to the noblemen’s room and practice with one of the barons’ sons or some such nincompoop. Felix had stood his ground, but on his way down to the yard he had been obliged to listen to whispers among his three attendants trailing behind him, and he suspected they were discussing his swordsmanship in unflattering terms.

Felix glared at the dummy before him, drew his wooden sword, and assumed first position before it, saluting first as he’d been trained. A snort of laughter exploded behind him somewhere, and he turned to glower over his shoulder, but none of the off-duty guardsmen in the yard were looking his way. No others were practicing at that moment, though a few men stretched their muscles near the fringes of the yard. Felix faced his inanimate opponent once more, raised his sword, and lunged. The dummy swung around on its pole, its own wooden sword flailing uselessly through the air. Felix jumped away, carrying his leading foot back behind his rear foot and touching on the balls of his feet. He executed the maneuver perfectly, he thought, and wondered if any of his father’s guard would notice.

His attendants, clustered by the small north entrance of the palace, whispered among themselves and refused to look his way. The boy’s scowl deepened until it threatened to form permanent creases across his face. He assumed first position again and advanced, carrying the leading foot forward, toe pointed, setting it down heel first and bringing the rear foot up beside it – planting it ball first, as his master taught him. He lunged again and struck the dummy in the shoulder.

It rocked about, its blank face spinning balefully before him, and Felix suddenly wanted very badly to whack it a few times over the head. His grip tightened on his sword, and he had to force himself to back away and assume first position again rather than take out his frustration on the inoffensive dummy. He wished one of his attendants swung on that pole.

“Bad form.”

Felix jumped and spun to his right. Prince Aethelbald stood a few yards away, his arms crossed over his chest. “What’s that?” Felix asked, frowning at him.

“You presented your exposed back to your opponent,” Aethelbald said. He shook his head, his eyebrows quirked reprovingly. “You are, by all rights, dead. That was no retreat.”

Felix rolled his eyes, swinging his sword through the air as he shrugged. “It’s a dummy.”

“It’s your opponent.”

“I highly doubt he’s going to take a poke at me.” Felix turned from Aethelbald back to his dummy and lunged again. He knocked it squarely in the stomach, and it spun in a complete circle. It was a satisfactory hit, and Felix felt better for it. But when he glanced Aethelbald’s way, the Prince of Farthestshore was still eyeing him critically. “What?” the boy demanded.

“He would have disarmed you.”

“What?”

Aethelbald nodded to the dummy. “Were he alive, he would have disarmed you.”

Felix sneered at him. “Everyone’s a critic.”

“Yes,” Aethelbald said, “but no one else, I gather, has bothered to voice his criticism.”

Both Felix and Aethelbald looked around the practice yard, and once more Felix had the sense that everyone had been watching him but had just in that instant turned away and now pretended otherwise. He glanced toward his attendants, who yawned and leaned against the wall, dozing like so many cows in a pasture.

Felix turned back to Aethelbald and shrugged. “I’ve been trained,” he said. “And by the best fencing master in the kingdom, I’ll have you know.”

“Not a soldier, I would venture,” Aethelbald said with a smile.

“Common soldiers don’t train princes.”

“Common soldiers would advise you not to drop your guard. Unless you wish to be skewered, of course.”

Felix huffed, exasperated, and indicated the dummy with his wooden sword. “It’s not alive. It’s not going to skewer me.”

“Which is why you should practice with someone who might.” Aethelbald uncrossed his arms, and Felix saw that he held a wooden practice sword in one hand. He stepped forward and stood beside the dummy, his arms limp at his sides, no more lithe and mobile than a dummy himself. But his eyes twinkled. “I can see by your face, Prince Felix, that you’re itching to hit me a good one.”

Felix eyed him up and down, his eyes half closed. “You say
my
form is bad. Look to your own!”

Aethelbald shrugged but otherwise stood still. “Hit me,” he said.

Felix adjusted his grip on his wooden sword. “Will you salute first?”

Aethelbald smiled again. “I’m a dummy, Prince Felix. Has a dummy ever saluted you?”

Gritting his teeth, Felix assumed first position. He executed his attack with precision – his feet placed dead on, his arms extended in opposite directions, the point of his sword perfectly parallel to the ground. He was quick as a dart flying toward its mark, and even his fencing master should have been proud.

But an instant later he found himself stumbling forward empty-handed, his arms spinning to catch his balance, and Prince Aethelbald stood behind him, motionless save for his sword arm, which slowly dropped back into place at his side. Felix whirled around and immediately shot glances across the yard. None of the guards looked his way, but who could say how many had watched the engagement? He turned on Aethelbald, trying to mask his anger. “How – ”

“Where is your sword?” Aethelbald asked.

Felix cast about for it and saw it had landed a good three yards away. He ran to fetch it, but Aethelbald called out, “You’re exposed again, prince.”

Felix swept up his sword and stood with it before him, point at the ready. “I was getting my weapon!” he snarled.

“Do you think your opponent will always give you that opportunity?” Once more the Prince of Farthestshore stood like a wooden doll, his feet rooted to the gravel. “Hit me.”

Felix went on guard, his arms extended in a straight line in opposite directions, and lunged again. It was perfect, an artistic movement like a dancer’s performance on stage. Yet at the end of it, he stood disarmed once more, glaring in unconcealed fury.

“Your weapon?” Aethelbald said.

Felix retrieved it and lunged again. A third time he was disarmed. He grabbed up his sword, attacked, and lost. Glaring daggers Aethelbald’s way, he shouted, “You don’t fence by the rules, sir!”

“Neither will your enemy,” Aethelbald replied.

Felix took in the man’s horrible form. Aethelbald’s stance screamed inexperience, yet Felix noticed suddenly something in his posture that hinted otherwise. Though Aethelbald stood like a wooden block, his knees were ever so slightly bent, and something in the set of his shoulders implied strength and quickness. One might not notice such details if one had not experienced, in four successive encounters, being disarmed by a single stroke.

Felix lunged again and was once more disarmed, but this time he snatched up his sword in an instant and attacked without preamble, forcing Aethelbald to move out of his wooden stance and actually engage him. But at the end of the engagement, Felix stood empty-handed.

“What are you doing?” he cried, but now his voice held less anger and more curiosity. “You’re doing something I haven’t seen. What is it?”

Aethelbald smiled, but though Felix looked for it, he detected no smug amusement, only pleasure. “I’ll teach you. Fetch your weapon. Watch your back, prince!” He slapped Felix lightly across the shoulders as he retreated. Felix rolled his eyes and groaned but took up his weapon again and whirled into a defensive stance.

“Teach me,” he said.

–––––––

That morning Una woke freezing. Nurse scolded her, saying it was her own fault for letting in all that unhealthy fresh air when sensible people would have left the windows shut. Monster refused to leave his nest beneath the covers at the foot of the bed, obliging the maid to make the bed around him. Una wished she could join the cat there, keeping the quilts pulled tight over her head all day. She was cranky and ill-rested. Vague impressions of dreams haunted her, but she could remember nothing specific.

It was all Prince Aethelbald’s fault, she was sure. She hoped he burned his tongue on his morning porridge.

No lessons were scheduled for that day due to Prince Aethelbald’s visit. Una planned to while away her time in the gardens, penning odd thoughts in her journal as she thought them. But following a private breakfast and before Una could make an escape to the gardens, Nurse caught her and made her sit down to her tapestry stitching.

“It’ll steady your nerves,” Nurse said.

“I’ll impale myself.” Una’s skill with a needle was feeble at best and worsened by her strong dislike of the pastime.

“Nonsense,” Nurse replied. Against this argument there could be no rebuttal, so Una took her place at one end of the large tapestry – which depicted a gory scene from the epic poem
The Bane of Corrilond
– and Nurse settled at the other end.

A stony silence followed, for they had not yet forgiven each other for yesterday’s argument. With nothing but tedious stitching to occupy her, Una could find no relief for her mind, which skittered back every chance it got to revisit that awful scene at dinner the night before.

I did the best I could,
she told herself over and over.
I handled the situation with the most grace possible. What else could I have done?

Clear as a bell, she heard Felix’s snorting laugh while the rest of the court had exploded in a flurry of whispers, all drumming her ears at once.

Una shook her head, trying to drive out the memory, but she could still see Prince Aethelbald’s face as he’d knelt before her with such hopeful uncertainty in his eyes.

What else could I have done?
she asked herself again, poking violently at her tapestry. She stitched a troop of soldiers and townspeople fleeing the fire of a monstrous red dragon, which Nurse was busy working in the opposite corner. Una’s people looked more like beans stacked on top of each other, with twig arms and legs sticking out on all sides. She stabbed a bean man through the heart with her needle.

She had babbled. In front of everyone, absolutely everyone, she had babbled! All the dukes, all the counts, all the ambassadors had listened to her stammer, “Um, yes . . . well, I mean, I’m sorry.”

With those words she’d had the good sense, thank heaven, to close her mouth, take a deep breath, and try again.

“Thank you, Prince Applebal – Aethelbald.” She had spoken slowly, getting the words out as neatly as possible. “I cannot accept your . . . your kind offer at this time.”

Una winced at the memory.

Aethelbald had risen from his knees, his face unreadable, and bowed again. “Thank you, Princess Una,” he had said. “I hope we shall come to know each other better. Perhaps you will think more kindly of my offer in the future.” With that, he had pulled his chair back up to the table and sipped his wine.

That dinner would go down in history as the longest of all time.

Una huffed through her teeth and yanked at a knot in her thread, which refused to pull through the fabric. She glanced up at Nurse, who was pointedly ignoring her.

“I give up!” Una threw aside her work and marched through the room to her adjacent bedchamber, calling for a maid as she went. “Bring plenty of hot water!”