The Black Prince: Part I (46 page)

“Because Maeve is evil.”

“But…it all seems so stupid. Who cares who’s king, or queen? Why can’t we all just work together?”

Rudolph wasn’t talking treason. He was too stupid for that. Instead, he was asking the question of a child: why wasn’t the world a nicer place? Why was power such a corrosive influence, and yet so craved by so many? Didn’t they see what happened to men who had it? Why, why, why. Why, instead of one man hoarding it all, or one woman, couldn’t everyone share and have enough?

“People resist change,” Hart said finally, “even when it could work to their advantage. They prefer, instead, to keep those customs and practices which have grown familiar to them. Over lifetimes, until it’s no longer
what’s right
but simply
what we do
. The reasons, if there ever were real reasons, being lost with time. And replaced, in that same time, with superstitions.

“However unjust or unworkable those customs may be, they’re familiar; and the devil one knows is always more appealing than the devil one doesn’t.”

“But what if change is good?”

“It usually is. But to discover that, a man must first change.”

Rudolph considered this.

“Maeve, and the church, understand fear. And are using it to their advantage.”

“But the church is good.”

“The church is a kingdom in its own right, with a kingdom’s concerns.”

“But the Gods….”

“The Gods, and the men who worship them, are two different things.”

“So you’re saying that the church…doesn’t speak for the Gods?”

“I’m saying that men speak for the interests of men. And when a leader of men, in turn, says that he speaks for the Gods, his followers are more apt to listen.”

“You’re jaded.”

“Wars aren’t fought over honor, but need.”

No man wanted war. War was expensive. And when the bill came due, it was for more than simply lives lost or gold wasted. It was for farms, entire villages burned. Fields churned under time and time again until the soil was spent and nothing would grow. It was for boys who grew up fighting, instead of learning a trade, so that there were no brewers or farriers or blacksmiths.

“How are you going to win?”

“Surprise.”

“Surprise isn’t chivalrous,” Rudolph informed him. “Rather, the leaders of each faction should exchange heralds. And then each should strive to select a battlefield that offers no advantage to his own side, leaving the outcome of the battle to the judgment of the Gods.”

And this was why chivalry was dead.

“I’m not a knight,” Hart reminded him. “I’m a professional soldier.”

“Chivalry is universal.”

“Tell that to the women whose husbands and sons aren’t coming home, because some fop with a banner judged their lives cheaper than his own self-regard.”

“I…I had never considered it like that.”

Hart grunted.

To men like Rudolph, war was all dashing across the open fields to bring justice in the Gods’ names. Justice and honor and all the other things the bards sang about, curse them. But in the real world war was a slog through trees, and a slow one. And these men, most of them, weren’t professional soldiers. They were just men trying to defend their homes, and their king. Many of them had already lost their homes, and had no recourse but to stay in the army. They didn’t have armor; they didn’t have horses.

Armor cost a year’s income, for a knight. A destrier cost twice that. These men had bows if they were lucky, knives if they weren’t. Some had hoes and quarterstaffs. A few had swords. They had the clothes they stood up in, and maybe wallets to carry their food.

And they all wanted to go home.

They’d spend their evenings sitting around their fires, crafting arrows to supplement their quivers. There were only so many fletchers and so many arrows those fletchers could produce. Not that it mattered; survival, for high and low, was about self reliance.

Hart understood these men, because they were what he’d grown up with in Enzie. Simple, decent men. Which was what Rudolph failed to understand: loss might make anger, and anger might make monsters, but it made them of
men
. Men who, if they were lucky, would return to their villages and take up their lives and never again be what they’d been during the war.

Hart’s job wasn’t to teach them manners. It was to keep them alive so they could go home. So they could have dreams, at night, of all they’d done and wished they hadn’t. He wasn’t chivalrous; he was efficient. And he was certain that women like Thomasina Hamel would appreciate the difference. Women who’d rather have their men home, and alive, than hear eulogies rhapsodizing about glory.

He thought again of Lissa.

“But,” Rudolph asked, “won’t you offend the Gods?”

Hart turned. “The Gods help those who help themselves.”

“A
re you certain, brother,” Arvid asked, “that you haven’t caught a disease?”

“Quite certain.”

They rode along, side by side, at the head of the column. Scouts ranged ahead, but there was no particular reason to fear. Yet. They were still in friendly territory. To the extent that any territory, these days, was friendly. But the border of Beaufort was still a week’s ride hence. And even in Beaufort, there must still be loyal king’s men.

Hart hoped.

“That man we killed, he seemed a bit unclean.”

Hart stared into the trees.

“And you’re certain it still…functions as it should?”

“Want to find out?”

“No.”

They called a brief halt for lunch. More to rest the horses than the men. Almost immediately, people began milling about, shouting to each other as supplies were unloaded and hooves checked. Those without horses to tend threw themselves down on the ground for a few minutes’ rest. They’d start marching again soon.

Rudolph came bounding out of the trees. He’d been gone now, Hart realized, for some time. “I did it!” he cried. “I did it!”

Hart stood up from hobbling Cedric. “Did what?”

Arvid made a gesture suggesting that Rudolph had discovered his manhood.

Rudolph held a hare aloft by the ears. A sad, scrawny thing. “This!”

“Now by
did
, you mean….”

“I killed something!”

“A traitor!” someone shouted.

“Aye, let’s see his head!” came another voice.

They were joking, of course. There was nothing else to do but joke. And march, and sleep, and make more arrows.

And wait.

“Every Morvish archer carries twenty traitors’ lives!”

Hart hoped so.

“I’ve never done it before.” Rudolph was suddenly hesitant. “I mean, all on my own.”

“Our boy is growing up.” Arvid gave him a pat on the back that almost sent Rudolph sprawling.

“Well, I’d better show you how to dress it. And then I suppose we can eat it for lunch.”

“I thought…we could eat it for dinner.”

There wasn’t enough there for one person’s lunch, let alone one person’s dinner. “No,” Hart said, “I have something else in mind for dinner.” One of the scouts had told him, earlier that morning, that there was an inn up ahead. Some two miles past the point where the road diverged, on the road they weren’t taking. A town, servicing a fairly good sized town.

Rudolph paled. He probably thought Hart was talking about eating him. But he held his tongue. Maybe Arvid was right, and the boy really was growing up.

He handed Rudolph a knife and showed him where to cut. Rudolph paled even further. “I…don’t think I can.”

“Well you killed it, didn’t you?”

“That was…from a distance.” And then, “how am I ever going to kill anyone in battle if I can’t even gut a rabbit?”

“Hare.”

“What?”

“Look.” Hart took a long pull from his flagon. Just water. He was thirsty. And he needed to piss, but that could wait. They were seated on a small hillock near the side of the road, making the most of the thin sunshine. “It’s different in battle.”

“I’m probably going to die.” Rudolph sounded discouraged.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Death was, after all, the only chivalrous means of escaping Rowena.

“I…no. Not really.” He stared morosely at the dead hare, which now looked more pathetic than ever. “I want to be like you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I want to be brave. And for women to like me. No women ever like me.”

“Probably because you dress like one. Have you thought about, you know, showing them that you’re a man?”

“How, though?”

“No more embroidered bugs. No more embroidered anything. And cut your hair, it’s longer than my sister’s.”

“It’s fashionable.”

“Well, there you go.”

He could debate fashion with women, or he could bed them. He couldn’t do both. The average woman, in Hart’s experience, wasn’t looking for a sensitive and warm-hearted soul to coo over gowns but a man who made her blood sing.

“Rowena doesn’t….” There was silence.

“Rudolph—”

The words came out in a rush. “I know, I’m sorry, I know she’s your sister but I don’t—I mean, there’s no one else I can talk about this with.” Meaning, there were just some things a man couldn’t confess to his priest. “You know about women.”

“I know something,” Hart allowed.

“She refused. She said it hurt too much.”

“It does hurt for a woman, the first time. It’s important to help her relax. A cup of wine or two. A massage that slowly becomes more…interesting. Kiss her breasts. Slide your fingers down over her. Use them to make her come. That that will relax her more. Make her eager. And then use your fingers to stretch her. Just a little at first, and then more.

“But see, that’s the thing. She wouldn’t let me touch her.”

“At all?”

“She said it was sinful.”

“Rudolph, are you…able?”

Rudolph blushed a fiery shade of red. Mortified, no doubt, at this acknowledgment of his differences from Rowena. The church would have men believe that none of them existed below the waist. That down that dark and gloomy path lay perdition.

“Ah, yes. We started, and it went in, but then she made me stop.”

“Was there blood?”

“Ah, yes. And it—she—felt good. I wanted to keep going but she said we were committing a sin. That I was corrupting her. She left, and spent the night in another room.” Rudolph looked to be on the verge of tears. “She wouldn’t even let me kiss her. She doesn’t like it. Like me. I thought she loved me but she doesn’t even like me.”

Rowena had, Hart suspected, gotten married to compete with her sister. And too quickly, and to the wrong man. To the first man, really, who’d presented his case. Because, in Rowena’s mind, marrying the first man who came along was what one was supposed to do. It was what all the princesses did, in all the fables: met, fell in love with, and married Prince Charming. All without any bumps in the road, or certainly any detours.

“You have a husband’s rights,” Hart observed.

“Yes, but I don’t want her if she doesn’t want me.”

Most wives didn’t want their husbands, in Hart’s experience.

Rowena might have been frightened by what happened. Very few women of their class were raised with any knowledge of what happened in the marriage bed, aside from the general idea that there might be a man involved. If Rudolph was persistent, and gentle, then she might be persuaded to try again. Or, if he asserted his rights, not persuaded.

One maiden in the bed was bad enough, but two? This whole sorry situation was proof enough, if any was needed, that the man who went to his marriage bed pure was doing his wife a grave disservice. How could he possibly please her, if he could barely find his cock with both hands? If he’d never experienced true pleasure, himself?

“I don’t know why she married me.”

As though he’d had nothing to do with it.

“There are other women, Rudolph.”

“No there aren’t.”

“So you do love her.”

“No. I mean—what I mean is, she’s my wife. There can’t be any other women.”

“I see.”

Rudolph was one of those hardliners who believed that the marriage pact included vows of celibacy. Although why this should surprise Hart, he didn’t know. Rudolph probably also slept with a copy of the scriptures under his pillow. He’d have a lonely life indeed if he confined himself solely to a woman who didn’t love him. Whose horror of him, or of men in general, prevented her from engaging in even the slightest physical act. Or slightest kindness, if Hart knew Rowena. While most men dreamed of a woman skilled with her tongue, her particular skill set, he’d wager, quite what they had in mind.

Rudolph could end the marriage for refusal, although that might be difficult as he
had
had her. If briefly. Or he could assert himself. Or he could make other accommodations, with a more willing partner. Or partners. But what he could not do was prance around with his head in the clouds, expecting Hart to solve his problems for him.

“The church teaches—”

“The church also teaches that wearing a knotted cord around your waist is supposed to prevent you from committing sin.” Although how, exactly, remained one of its many mysteries. “When are you going to stop listening to the church and start listening to yourself?”