The Black Prince: Part I (35 page)

They pretended not to notice her.

Isla turned, her arms crossed over her chest. It was cold out here, without a cloak. She was always cold. And this was the first time she’d spoken to Rose since…the incident. “Yes?”

The word came out more harshly than she’d intended, but she didn’t feel comfortable doing this. Or at all. She wanted to be back inside. She wanted, even more than that, to be alone. She felt smothered—by her family, by the impending wedding, by such an awkward and unwanted encounter with her onetime companion.

She wondered, briefly, if Rose knew about her father and that’s what this was about. Maybe she wanted to offer her condolences. Maybe she’d come to regret their last conversation and wanted to apologize.

Maybe not.

“You have to get me out of here.”

“Excuse me?”

“I hate it here. In the kitchens. They’re smelly and dirty and horrible.”

“Rose—”

“They make me scour the floor. And clean vegetables. And pluck feathers!”

Which all sounded reasonable to Isla.

“I have to
wash chamber pots
. And Marcus is mean.”

Everyone had to wash chamber pots. Washing chamber pots was a fact of life. Had Rose really never done any of these things at Enzie? Isla had. And her life now, while certainly more comfortable, was hardly a life of leisure. She had an entire household to manage, as well as representatives from Barghast and vassals of her husband to meet, and entertain, and occasionally to appease. As the lady of the house, it was her job to hear those grievances with which Tristan could not be bothered.

Or, in his absence, to hear them all.

“Marcus is not mean,” she said firmly. “He has expectations.”

“You’re talking to me like a servant.”

“You are a servant.” A chill wind was picking up, and Isla shivered.

“You—we were friends!”

That we were.
“You made a choice, Rose.” She couldn’t believe that she was having this conversation. “What did you think would happen, that I’d allow you to waltz around the castle putting me down? You came here as my companion, at my sufferance. You made it clear, once you’d arrived, that you no longer wished to be my companion. And so.”

“So you’re punishing me for—”

“Punishing you?
Punishing
you? You should be grateful to me.”

“You whispered evil things about me into your husband’s ear and—”

“My husband doesn’t even know you exist. He is the duke. You are a maid. And an ungrateful and stupid one at that. He’d only notice you if he wanted to bed you and, thank the Gods, he doesn’t have such poor taste.” She watched the words cut. And, for once, she didn’t care. Why was she responsible, forever responsible, for the feelings of her enemies?

“You’re still here because of me. If not for my interference on your behalf, Rose, you’d have been out on the street. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was never trying to hurt you. I was trying to
help
you. But if you don’t like your job, I’m sure you have pay saved up.” She wasn’t a bond slave, forced to scrub pots in exchange for her keep. “You can leave.”

And with that, Isla suddenly felt tired.

No, tired wasn’t the right word. She felt as though she hadn’t seen her bed in a solid moon, nor slept for as long. This was a weariness she’d suffered from since the change, one she barely held at bay at the best of times but that invaded her very bones at times like these. Times when she’d stood too long, and hadn’t rested. Times that, not long ago, wouldn’t have phased her at all now brought her as low as if she were recovering from the plague. Which, she supposed, in a manner of speaking she was.

“I…I’m sorry.” She could feel what strength remained draining out of her, like grain from a punctured sack. “I…I have to go.”

Leaving Rose staring after her, she turned and stumbled toward the door.

H
art sat in Tristan’s private gallery, with the other men.

Relaxing in a well-padded chair, one leg crossed over the other and a drink in his hand, he should have been content. But he wasn’t sure that, barring the time his own sister had had to dose him with sulfur because it suddenly hurt when he peed, he’d really ever had less fun.

Tristan’s private gallery was across the great hall from the women’s gallery. Where, presumably, the women were. Doing whatever it was that women did when men weren’t around. Hart didn’t know what that was and, if he was honest with himself, didn’t particularly care. He felt exceedingly fortunate that he and Lissa, for the most part, lived separate lives and thus their time together formed a distinctive event. The best part of time, out of time; like savoring only the choicest cuts of meat, and not the gristle that was daily life. That formed the boredom and resentment of the average relationship.

He didn’t want things with Lissa to sour. Like they seemed to sour so often, and for so many. And he was glad, too, he also had to admit, that she wasn’t being exposed to this nonsense. Although the failings of men were certainly nothing new to her.

And tonight, this group of men was gathered to celebrate Rudolph, who was getting married on the morrow.

That the atmosphere felt more funerary than jovial could, no doubt, be chalked up to the fact that he was marrying the world’s greatest cunt. Hart would be sitting there, poleaxed, too. Then again, this was Rudolph’s choice.

Arvid, at least, was making an attempt to be merry. “When I first bedded my most recent wife,” he said, pouring himself some more wine, “Sigrid, she ran from me, screaming.”

“It was the smell,” Callas advised.

“She said I wasn’t going to put anything that big inside her!”

“Had she never seen her own thumbs before?”

Arvid snorted. “Told me I’d kill her, but she almost ended up killing me. Insatiable, that one. Once she got going.”

“That must have been some wedding night.”

All eyes turned to Rudolph. Who’d finally spoken. And who sounded, for all the world, like a child who’d stumbled into a tavern. Asher, Hart was fairly certain, knew more about girls. Asher whom, thank the Gods, had been put to bed some hours ago.

Rudolph guessed again. “Ah…the next morning?”

Some of the men exchanged looks.

Arvid, was usual, was not tactful. “A full three months before! She hadn’t even agreed to make me the wreath.” In Arvid’s culture, it was the woman who proposed marriage by laying a wreath at a man’s feet. And although some encouragement on the man’s part was usually involved, Hart had heard stories of women chasing men with wreathes halfway across the Northern reaches. “You don’t buy an ox before seeing how he pulls the plow.”

Hart poured himself some more wine.

It was going to be a long night.

Quinn, the dandy from Hardland, was openly staring at Rudolph. He, too, was apparently not a master of tact. Tristan, for his part, said nothing. He didn’t have to. All knew of his love, nay obsession for his bride. It was already the subject of songs. Hart supposed that Tristan must have forsaken his other lovers; he visited Isla so frequently, he couldn’t hardly have the time. Although the existence of Asher proved, if nothing else, that Tristan wasn’t necessarily one to honor the restrictions of the marriage bed. His, or anyone else’s. Maeve had been married to Brandon at the time, had she not?

Callas turned to Quinn. “You’re betrothed now, aren’t you?” Good for Callas, trying to steer the conversation into more normal channels.

“Yes, but just barely. She’s still not too sure about me.”

“Your getups are almost as ridiculous as Rudolph’s.” Although they weren’t. No one’s were. But Callas was trying to be gallant, allowing Rudolph into the same circle as Quinn.

“Yes, well.” Quinn sipped his wine. He was very elegant. Restrained. Under other circumstances, Hart would have been surprised to discover that he liked women. “Since she’s a bit of a prude, I made certain that it was me, this last fall at the harvest festival.”

“You…for what?”

Now things would get awkward.

“I…ah….” Even Quinn’s words had failed him. Perhaps he’d finally realized what the rest of them had, hours before. Or, in Hart’s case, years before. That he was talking to a child. In mind, if not in body. Rudolph was as much a man as Rosie the pig would have been Hart’s choice for the harvest festival.

But, Hart supposed, Rudolph didn’t know. The North had different customs, different views. Especially regarding the fairer sex and sex in general. Views that Hart, for his part, found a good deal healthier. But Rudolph was a Southron, a fact that also just now seemed to dawn on Quinn. Who really wasn’t as stupid as he was acting this night.

“Oh.” Tristan’s tone was bland. “But you were doing so well at your recitation. Please continue.”

Under other circumstances, Hart would have accused the duke of making fun. But Tristan did not
make fun
. Fun and Tristan were entirely alien concepts one from the other.

His eyes, in the low light, were smoldering pits as he regarded his guests. Black, with just the faintest hint of heat within. The kind of gaze that pinned a person like a moth. That made them think things they didn’t want to think. Want things they didn’t want to want. He was dressed in black this evening. Elegant robes befitting his station, well cut but without ornament. The contrast between the wool, his hair, and his marble white skin was startling. He looked like a statue, except when he moved. An event that, in and of itself, couldn’t have been more surprising than if he truly had been carved out of marble.

He, too, held a cup like the other men. But its contents had remained untouched since he’d sat down. He’d just…watched.

Quinn addressed Rudolph. “She, Adela, my betrothed, hadn’t…made much progress on her own. So far as I know, she’d never more than kissed a man and that reluctantly.” A grin, entirely genuine, flashed across his face. “I know, because I’d tried to initiate her several times and each time, although she’d responded enthusiastically enough at first, she’d remembered herself and then run off to her sisters.”

“You…laid hands on her?”

“She’s a woman, not a vase. And of course.”

“That’s disrespectful!” Rudolph seemed shocked.

“Disrespectful to show a woman love?” Arvid, for once, seemed genuinely confused. “But the Gods made us for love.”

“So,” Quinn continued, “it was decided generally that she be put to the cock.”

Now the story was finally getting interesting.

“You mean….”

And then Quinn described a process wherein the girl—or sometimes boy—in question was tricked into spending the evening with her friends, believing them only to be seeking some innocent excitement, but then ending up with her clothing forcibly removed in front of a watching crowd. She was then brought forward, held down on some couch or table, and equally forcibly introduced to the arts of love. Although, from how Quinn told the tale and from Hart’s own experience, he suspected that the reticence was largely for show as most very quickly warmed to the experience.

“I wanted it to be me.” Quinn poured himself more wine. The pitcher on the table before them was quickly emptying. “She could be with another man after, but I wanted to be the first. To claim her, as no other man could, and in a manner she’d never forget. Because, you see, she was mine. And always had been. She just didn’t know it yet.”

Rudolph’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Other men?”

“Within the month. She and I, and a friend of mine. And then she with him and I with a friend—a female friend—of my sister’s.”

Hart was a bit jealous.

“And you’re…marrying her?”

“Why not? I love her.”

“Because she’s—been with other men! She’s been with you!”

“And will be again after we wed. We intend to have children, you know.”

“But—”

“I forget that you’re from the South.” Quinn was obviously working at keeping his composure. Hart didn’t blame him; he’d just been called a pervert, and worse, by a fellow guest in his lord’s home. A fellow guest who had, even more upsettingly, suggested that his betrothed was unmarriageable for being a slut. The only issue Hart saw was that he wasn’t certain he’d want to bed a woman, and certainly not for the first time, in front of an audience. She’d certainly never forget the experience but, then again, what woman did forget her first time? And if Quinn was that bad, an audience wouldn’t help.

Still, Hart was fairly certain at that moment that, if Quinn and Rudolph had been in the stable yard, Quinn would have stabbed him.

“I’m still confused.”

This from Arvid.

Hart glanced at Tristan and while the duke’s expression remained as impassive as ever Hart could have sworn that there was just the merest hint of—something—in those black pits of eyes. Could it be laughter?

“Are you suggesting,” Quinn asked, his voice pitched dangerously low, “that I’m so revolting as to ruin a woman with my touch? Or that I’m so unworthy of my knighthood that I’d put her aside for acquiescing to my own desires? Sir, I can assure you that—”

“So you only like women who…don’t like men?” Arvid’s brow furrowed.

Leaning forward in his chair, the tribesman adopted the patient tone that one might use with a child. A stupid child. “Son,” he said, addressing Rudolph, “shield maidens seek…the company of other shield maidens. It’s a myth that they do so only until a man pulls back the tent flap and announces that he’s come to quench their fires. Something from tavern songs, not real life.” He paused. The silence stretched, painfully. Quinn, meanwhile, was boring a hole into Rudolph with his eyes.