The Black Prince: Part II (2 page)

If Lissa were here, she’d urge him to rest. And he needed rest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really and truly slept, without one eye open and his hand on his weapon. But he could rest after he’d won. Or when he was dead.

In the meantime, he had work to do.

The good news was that, while he might not have the world at his disposal, he was still an educated man. He’d read a great deal about the tactics—successful and otherwise—of the great leaders. And, too, since coming to Caer Addanc, about the leaders of the East as well. One of whom in particular he’d found inspiring, and whom he found himself considering now.

Along with the first inklings of a plan.

He wondered what Lissa was doing, and if she’d enjoyed her present. He only wished that he’d been able to present it to her, himself. And, in return, enjoy her expressions of gratitude.

He felt his cock stir. He, too, was going without. A man should never ask more of his men than he was willing to ask of himself. And Hart, if the truth be told, had no interest in the kind of women who sought employment with an army such as his. For employment it was, although these sad remnants of women were paid in food as often as coin. Food, or sometimes drink. Or any one of the myriad preparations, made from plants, that the miserable took to ease their suffering.

They were the lowest of the low, robbing from men while they lived and then robbing them again after they died. They could be spotted after most battles, picking through the personal effects of the corpses. Relieving some, even, of their flasks and daggers and personal mementos, while they still moaned and cried for aid. For the men themselves, war might represent opportunity—if only for revenge. But for the average camp follower, bent and broken by years of self-abuse in the form of drug and alcohol addiction, it was the end of the road.

He wondered if they knew.

Was anyone given a sense of their own demise or were they all cursed to forge on, believing themselves on the side of right, until they collapsed?

T
he queen was with child.

All around Isla, the castle was celebrating. And of course she was pleased. This was what the kingdom needed and, according to those who knew her, what the queen had so desperately wanted since almost the first night of her marriage. Her union with Piers had been a love match, as well as a fortuitous one. Uniting North and South, it gave the promise of peace. A peace that was now threatened. Which explained, Isla supposed, the frenetic quality to the revelry: people needed to forget.

Did war still loom, or had war come?

Maeve still denied involvement in the skirmishes that picked up and died off over the land, like so many isolated brushfires. Claimed that they were just that: isolated. If Piers inspired discontent as a king, then whose fault was that? Certainly not hers; she’d retired, she maintained, to her estate.

Tristan had urged Piers to kill her when he’d had the chance; but then she’d escaped and, after Ullswater Ford, there had been peace. And with it, a general amnesty issued for those who’d taken up arms against the crown. Because Piers understood that without it, old resentments would fester forever. There had to be an end. A definitive end, after which everyone—on both sides—could rebuild. After Maeve had reappeared, he’d argued that it was too late: executing her now would seem like breaking his own truce. If she swore fealty, he’d let her go.

And she had, although all—including Piers—knew that her words meant nothing. She had no sense of honor, no belief in the ancient traditions that were her own best claim to the throne. She wanted, not to protect Morven, or the church, as she claimed, but power.

Piers could only hope, as all right-minded men and women could only hope, that his own administration of the kingdom proved deft enough that none would have cause for complaint. But rebuilding took time. Too many farms still sat abandoned, their fields turned fallow. And while Piers sought to create new economic and social initiatives, fighting tooth and nail with a hidebound aristocracy that refused to initiate them, Maeve promised everyone—noble and peasant alike—the world. And overnight, if they’d only take up arms for her.

She never explained how she’d achieve these miracles, and she didn’t need to; she had priests from the Southern Isles to Barghast singing her praises, sometimes literally during the mass. Not all the church supported Maeve, of course, but enough did that many felt she all but represented the Gods.

But Piers
had
brought peace. If only for a time. Many, still mourning their losses, had no desire to lose even more. And Piers was king. And now, if the Gods were good, Piers would have an heir.

Maeve had no heir. Rumors still persisted about Asher, but if he was her son then why had she let him go? The average mind couldn’t grasp such a concept. And Tristan had legitimized him, making no claims as to his maternal parentage. Now, the susurrus of rumor went, Asher’s mother must have been a serving girl. Or the daughter of a merchant. Not Isla’s; she was too young. Although Asher had her coloring. And Tristan’s.

Not Brandon’s. Brandon had been fair. Perhaps, some argued—and Isla had overheard this, herself—the boy had merely been confused for Brandon’s son. If a true son had ever existed. And wasn’t Maeve’s claim to the throne through Brandon? What mattered it who Asher’s mother was, if, as seemed so clearly obvious, Brandon had not been his father?

Isla wouldn’t be surprised if Maeve claimed that her union with Tristan had come of a forest wedding, reframing her claim as to flow through him instead.

She stared at her goblet. A beautiful thing, intricately carved from fine pewter. Each of the four framed panels featured a different scene.

Tristan had lain with Maeve. She knew that. Although she knew, too, that it shouldn’t bother her. Tristan was no celibate, and never had been. And she’d been—she’d been barely above seven or eight winters when their affair had begun. Both of which facts she reminded herself over and over. Hoping that, this time, logic would win out over fancy.

Tristan loved her. Except he didn’t—not really. Didn’t,
couldn’t
, love anyone. Which, a soft and unpleasant voice informed her, meant that his loyalty was purely a thing of theory. How could she trust his heart, when he didn’t have one?

She felt his gaze on her, and looked up. A burning cold, like ice against one’s skin. A killing cold.

He couldn’t keep her warm at night, save with the blood of other men. Couldn’t truly promise her that he’d never feel for another what he felt for her, because he felt nothing. And couldn’t give her children. She’d never feel what the queen was feeling right now, never know the pain of childbirth or the even more exquisite pain of holding her child in her arms and knowing she’d gladly give her life in exchange for—hers? His? Who knew.

The queen hoped for a boy. All the realm hoped for a boy. And what did Isla want?

She didn’t know if Tristan would have spoken because, in that moment, he was engaged in conversation by Quinn. Who, having returned from dancing, had thrown himself into an open chair and now sat sprawled to the four winds. A chair that was empty, because it was normally occupied by Hart. Who’d gone to fight in a war that wasn’t a war.

A peace that required blood.

Half the rest of the hall was still dancing a quadrille. Popularized by Gideon the Conqueror, it seemed to mostly involve large numbers of couples maintaining elaborate patterns and poses. Isla had declined to participate. She didn’t see the point. She’d sit here, as long as she had to to be polite, and then she’d excuse herself and go to bed. Everyone else, she knew, would still be dancing into the wee hours and a few would be up and about, when she rose, because they hadn’t yet sought their beds. They’d be laughing, and that pretending all was well, and for them it might be.

There was a pause, and then the dancing began anew with a different song.

Tristan stood. “I believe, darling, that we should dance.”

His tone was cold. Flat. Isla looked up, startled. She could hardly refuse, especially now that all the table’s eyes were upon her. Quinn, and Callas, who did dance on occasion but who, vexingly, had returned to the table for refreshment and further conversation and whose expression was unreadable. Those others fortunate enough to have been offered a place at the main table. It was a rotating cast of characters, Tristan being wise enough never to display too much favoritism or for too long.

The longer she waited, the more awkward things became. Someone coughed. She stood.

He held his hand out to her, palm up. She placed her fingertips against his cold, hard skin and felt the vise of his fingers closing around them. She swallowed.

He led her onto the open floor, about which the tables had been arranged for best viewing. Theater in the round, and she the presentation. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. And like, instead of just one table’s, the world’s eyes were watching. But all those eyes together had nothing to the weight of Tristan’s, which held hers as securely as he held her hand.

The musicians in the gallery above stopped, seeing that the duke was taking the floor, and then began again.

Tristan and Isla faced each other.

He cut an imposing figure in the black he favored. His surcoat was well tailored, drawing attention to his broad, muscled shoulders and to how his equally muscled chest tapered to a trim waist. It hit him just below the knee, and yet managed to hide nothing of his grace or indeed of his raw athleticism. There could surely be no woman in all of Morven who, seeing him right now, would not feel her heart beat faster. Wonder, despite her better judgment, how his hands would feel on her skin. His lips. Whether he’d be a forceful lover or a gentle one. Whether he’d coax her moans from her, slowly, or pull them from her almost against her will in a rush of passion.

He dropped his hand to his side. They each took two steps back. The other couples did the same.

The music began again.

Tristan took one step forward and bowed, a brief half bow with one hand at his belt. Then he took one step back, and another. Isla, after a beat, took one step forward and sank down into an equally brief curtsey. The battle lines had been drawn.

Tristan made the same movement again but, this time, he offered her his hand in a stylized gesture. She accepted and let him lead her forward one step, and another. And then back one step, and another.

They separated, repeating the process again and, this time, when they came together and he offered her his hand, he led her around in a slow circle. One hand in the air, the other held at an angle against his back, his eyes bored into hers in the low light. Like embers, she’d first thought when she met him. And they were embers still, burning with something she didn’t understand and yet was scarcely contained. Every line of his body fairly sang, like a thousand taut bowstrings.

They paused, parted, came together and reversed direction.

Back one step and then forward, each hand meeting its opposite.

And then back, and again.

All the while their eyes locked, lover and beloved engaged in a contest of minds where no words were spoken.

This time, when they came together, instead of a light touch on her back as the dance dictated, as they moved forward through the stylized phases of courtship that the dance represented, he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. His fingers dug into the small of her back. And continued to move, gracefully and deliberately, as though nothing were amiss. Three turns to the right and then three turns widdershins.

If the world was watching them, if there were even other couples on the floor, Isla didn’t care.

And neither, clearly, did Tristan.

“You’re mine.” The words were harsh.

“Because you own me?” Her return jibe was quick, cutting.

They separated.

The couples split, pairing and repairing, as they made their way around the square. Isla accepted the next man’s hand, favoring him with her most dazzling smile. He, in turn, blushed a dazzling shade of red. To be so favored by the duchess was a thing indeed. Isla didn’t even know who he was. Someone from the merchant council, she thought. He was on the younger side of middle age, with a slight paunch. They exchanged no words.

And then she was on to a new partner. She and Tristan were now facing each other from across the square. He was a consummate dancer, bringing refinement and elegance to even the smallest movements. As though each were the product of his own mind, spontaneous rather than choreographed.

He danced with one woman after another, pleasing them all, showing none particular favor. She sensed nothing through the bond. Indeed he was completely closed off to her, as though the bond didn’t exist. Had she truly angered him that much?

She didn’t want to hear that he owned her; she wanted to hear that she owned him. That he needed her. That she mattered. As more than simply an object, like a horse or a bow. What was she to him? Truly? She needed to know. But, as she moved through her paces and he through his, she knew nothing. Only that he was nodding slightly, and exchanging what appeared to be pleasantries with some other councilman’s wife. Isla couldn’t hear their words from so far off and over all the noise—the music, the chattering of plates, and of course the laughter—but only make guesses from their body language. Why not that woman, instead of her?