The Black Prince: Part I (9 page)

He dominated her, as he had that first night. As he had since then. She was helpless before him, helpless before the need he’d awakened. She submitted to him willingly, craving his touch. Craving, even more, the confirmation that she
was
his. That he wanted her. Needed her.

She loved the feel of him. The scent of him: cologne mixed with wood smoke and wool and horse. The weight of him pressing down on her as he kissed the hollow behind her ear, her neck. She’d grown accustomed to their lovemaking, as varied as it was. To sharing such intimate space with another person. To being so vulnerable, and before one so terrifying. Because, even now, he terrified her.

Her dark prince of ice and snow, with a heart as cold as that of any corpse beneath the frozen ground.

He slid his hand under her, lifting her, impaling her on him. She gasped, ready but not for the assault. Her fingernails dug into his back. She knew him as well as she knew herself, knew his touch. But he was still so strange, so new. As were the sensations he awoke inside her. The cravings. A need was building deep within her center, radiating out even to her toes as she responded, not to logic but by instinct.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“B
reathe.”

She nodded. She was trying. But these moments still came, when it felt like invisible fingers were crushing her windpipe. Slowly. Inexorably.

“Part of you still fights the change.” Tristan’s tone was calm. “Breathe.”

He lay beside her in the bed, the coverlet tossed casually over his lower half. He wasn’t cold. He never was. Beside him, Isla struggled to find the calm he described. The acceptance. These moments, unexpected as they were, struck terror into her heart. Which raced now, beating against the prison of her ribcage like a prisoner against the bars of his cell.

“In. Then hold the air inside.” He waited. “Then out.”

She something inside begin to ease.

He studied her, black gaze inscrutable. “It will come. In time.”

His very lack of emotion was encouraging. She knew he’d never lead her into the path of harm. Would protect her, as she was part of him now. They shared, as he’d once told her, an aura.

And if they shared more…no one in the castle commented. Isla’s emerald green eyes had attracted more than a few startled glances, as had her skin. Once freckled, now the depthless pale of skimmed milk. But those who made their lives at Caer Addanc knew better than to question the will of their lord. Or, now, of his lady.

Although Isla was far from Tristan’s first wife she was, at least according to Greta, the first true mistress of this castle. At least within living memory. She’d been accepted, completely and immediately, as no other consort ever had. Accepted, both because Tristan himself seemed to view her differently and because the people loved her. She was warm, and kind. Interested in their problems: from those of the highest burgher, or visiting lord, to those of the lowest char girl. Isla had time, and compassion, for them all.

Unnatural though she might be, so was their lord.

“You bring warmth to this place,” Tristan said. But he was now staring off into the distance, his mind on other matters. And then, “Greta pleases you?”

Greta was the daughter of a minor vassal, east in Darkling Reach. She’d come to the castle at her father’s request. He, quite rightly, saw his daughter’s taking service with Isla as a tremendous coup. Bumpkins like Rose might scoff at servitude as being beneath them, but among the nobility it was recognized as the highest honor. For therein lay advancement. As Isla’s lady in waiting Greta would be exposed to people, places and things that she would never normally have the chance to encounter. She’d meet more and better men, too, greatly increasing her chances for a good marriage.

Isla nodded. She did like Greta. And Greta, unlike Rose or even her sister, Rowena, was a relaxing companion. She felt no competition with Isla, only gratitude. A viewpoint no doubt encouraged by her being set apart as Isla’s special companion. Ladies in waiting—and, so far, Isla had only taken the one—had the advantage in almost every area of court life. And while Tristan’s might be a subdued court, a court it still was.

After awhile, Tristan left the bed and poured himself another drink. This time, he poured a second cup for Isla. Bringing it to her, he still seemed lost in thought.

She accepted the offering. Tristan had never lost his habit of waiting on her. An oddly sweet thing, such a powerful man being so solicitous. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by others, either. Tales of Tristan’s devotion to his young wife were widespread and even, now, as bards and their supporters alike were snowed in, the subject of songs.

But, despite his attentions, there was something on his mind.

“The boy,” he said.

Asher.

He settled himself comfortably on the bed. He had no shame in his form, making no attempt to cover it as some men did. And why should he?

Isla pulled herself into a sitting position, wrapping one of the blankets about her shoulders. She waited, sipping her wine. Mulled with spices and undiluted, it was heady. Rich. Before she’d come north she’d never tasted such a thing, never had more than the cheap swill her father near bathed in. She hadn’t realized that wine could be as rich and smooth as velvet, the cardamom and cloves warming her from the inside out and giving her a renewed sense of wellbeing.

She didn’t mind the snow piling up outside, when it meant being trapped in such warm and pleasant environs. Cozy in her covers, clean and pleasant from her bath and still luxuriating in the warm glow of repletion, she felt more than capable of tackling whatever it was that Tristan wished to discuss.

Which, although the bond was silent on the subject, she had an idea.

“I cannot give you children” he said abruptly.

She waited for half a beat, and then nodded. She knew this. Had known it since before they were married. Accepting the limitation had been a sacrifice, although her feelings for her husband made any other choice impossible. Even so, she’d felt the loss as that door closed. She’d always pictured herself as a mother. Had spent her life thus far, indeed, caring for others. To do otherwise seemed unnatural.

But Asher…. He’d been such a sad child, when she met him. Was still. She helped him with his studies and helped him to talk over his problems and didn’t tell on him when she caught him being naughty. Although they both knew that Tristan knew.

“His presence in our lives,” she said, “more than compensates for the sacrifice.”

“I require an heir. I wish to recognize him as such.”

“He is your child.”

This was a relationship that, long before she knew of Tristan’s true nature, she’d never doubted. One had only to see them together. That he hadn’t participated directly in Asher’s conception meant naught. Not that, she reflected with some amusement, anyone would believe that he hadn’t.

“A formal adoption requires your name.”

But not, she knew, her consent. As a mere woman, Isla had no legal standing in any part of Morven. That Tristan was discussing the issue with her at all was merely polite. The ultimately empty gesture of a concerned husband, who wished his wife to feel included.

“I love him,” she said simply. But there was something that worried her. Although she was certain that Tristan had considered the problem. “He’d no longer be a hostage.”

Tristan sipped his wine. Snow-laden gusts of wind battered the windows. Outside, rare would be the man who could see much beyond his nose. “This is true,” he said finally. “But this is a matter on which I’ve expended considerable thought. Maeve has proven herself willing to sacrifice the child, time and time again.” There had been more than one plot against the boy, discovered at the last possible moment. And, Isla feared—they all feared—that there would be more.

“She ever sought to use him for her own advantage,” he continued. “That he might be worth more, as a creature in unto himself, has undoubtedly never occurred to her.”

Isla nodded, slowly.

“That she moves against us now, even into the North, knowing full well that the child is here….” He trailed off. “She has played her hand,” he said. His tone was speculative. “She, the dim-witted sow that she is, has shown us that diplomacy is pointless.”

Isla nodded again. If Maeve was willing to sacrifice her child’s life—for Asher’s was, by the terms reached at Ullswater Ford, now forfeit—for the speculative benefit of stealth, she truly had no conscience. Not even a messenger, not even a raven, for her child’s life. Rather, Maeve no doubt imagined that her men were even now moving infiltrating the villages north of the passes. Preparing to sweep down on in a tide on her son’s home.

Men that Tristan had sent Hart to deal with.

For Maeve, there would be no mercy.

“Asher has greater worth to me than to Maeve, and greater worth as my son than hers.”

“Will there be war?”

Tristan was silent for a long time. And then, “yes.”

“Oh.” Isla’s voice was small.

“Unless Maeve can be stopped.” He shook his head. A slight movement. “She cannot win. Not in the long run. She simply does not have the resources. But she’s too vain, and those who follow her too stupid, to acknowledge this. Instead, they’ll fight. And continue to fight. And take this kingdom down with them in a storm of swords and hellfire before old age or bankruptcy ends them. Or simple bad luck. The wise man sees reason, and picks his battles, but the fool never stops—regardless of the terror he causes. He destroys what he claims to covet, all in the service of keeping it from the next man.”

“I’m afraid.”

Tristan pulled her to him, and held her. “Don’t be.”

“When do you plan to acknowledge Asher?”

“Soon. As soon as Hart returns from Molag.”

“S
ummer child.” The man snorted.

If
man
could even be considered the proper term.

He wasn’t a man, he was a mountain.

Bjorn Treesinger was two score hands if he was an inch, wrapped in furs and with flame red hair in every direction. His skin was so pale as to be translucent and his eyes, his eyes were the flat yellow of a wolf’s. He wore a bizarre collection of totems around his neck and woven into his beard. His most prized possession, judging from how he fondled it, was a necklace that appeared to be made from human teeth.

Bjorn’s own teeth had been filed down into points.

He grinned.

Hart cast a flat look in his direction, but said nothing. He turned his attention back to the road. Or, rather, to the gap in the trees that signaled its presence. His horse labored to break through drifts that, when he dismounted, came up to Hart’s waist. There had been no other travelers this way. That they, themselves had passed would be obvious.

Hart worried.

Their plan was to ride for another hour and then make camp, rising long before dawn to approach Molag. The hour of the wolf: that hour when a man’s life’s ebb was at its weakest. They’d attack and, as the sun rose over the mountains, Molag would burn.

That was, of course, if they hadn’t been spotted. If the rebels didn’t have intelligence just as good as theirs. If the local chief’s intelligence was good in the first place.

So many if’s.

“Still missing your mother’s teat, no doubt.” Bjorn’s tone was jovial.

Around them, the world was a mute white. There were no birds. Frozen pine boughs shook, dumping snow on them as they passed. Hart hadn’t seen another animal, of any kind, for hours.

He glanced up at the sun, calculating the time. “No,” he said, his mind still elsewhere, “missing
your
mother’s.”

Bjorn, who didn’t seem at all perturbed by the silence, let out a roaring laugh. He clapped Hart so hard on the back that Hart, unprepared, almost flew from his saddle. “The summer child speaks!”

Summer child
was, Hart had gathered, a derogatory term for those who’d grown up in the South. Or, if they’d grown up in the North, those who’d experienced no true hardship. The term also encompassed men who enjoyed being buggered by other men, Bjorn had pointed out helpfully. And men who moisturized.