The Black Prince: Part II (3 page)

What, to Tristan, was truly the difference?

They came together again. His eyes, as he studied her, were hard. She didn’t think of it often, how much taller than she he was. How, even as a man, he would have been able to crush her without a second thought. He’d spent his life training with both longbow and broadsword, as was evident from the barest glance. A child under this tutelage developed differently, his growing body responding to the strains placed upon it. No man, picking up weapons in adulthood, could hope to gain such strength. Or even a fraction of it.

Tristan had been almost…created for war.

She shivered.

“My touch repulses you?”

“What makes me different?”

They reversed direction.

“If you must ask yourself that,” he replied coolly, “then I have failed.”

The dance ended.

They returned to their seats.

Tristan helped Isla to sit. He called for more wine for their shared cup. More food was also presented. He cut it for her. Roast boar and a dozen little pastries, making use of the cellar’s last root vegetables. Early spring was always the leanest time, with winter stores depleted and the ground still cold. But a feast was in the laughter, Hart had told her once, not the eating. And this was still more food than she’d ever seen at home in Enzie.

Tristan was still studying her, his expression still inscrutable.

“You should eat.” The words, when they came, were surprisingly soft.

She nodded. She should. “As should you.”

“I plan to.”

Leek pasties had appeared on her plate. One of her favorites. She took a bite.

Asher had moved to the far end of the table where he sat, engrossed, between his tutor and his father’s personal physician. Who were taking turns regaling him with truly disgusting tidbits of life in the army. Slogging through trenches half filled with mud and shit, toes rotting off, men’s cocks rotting off from the exotic diseases brought in by camp followers. Rats, frogs, and lice.

Asher positively glowed with happiness.

“And then,” Quentin continued, “let me tell you about the itching.”

Isla wondered where Apple was. Probably, she supposed, in her rooms; she’d rarely left them since the earl’s passing. Which Isla didn’t understand. Her stepmother had hardly been a devoted wife, during the course of her marriage. She might, Isla supposed, be worried about her own future. What came next for a woman with no land, no family, and no title? And, far worse than those three lacks combined, no friends?

Isla could never forgive Apple, she didn’t think, for what she’d done to Hart. But she couldn’t help, at the same time, pitying her. As she’d pity any animal that was suffering.

Rowena, on the other hand, could rot. She’d sat down next to Callas and was gazing up at him as though he were the most interesting man in the world. Her back was all but turned to her companion on the other side. Quinn, who appeared rather deep in his cups, appeared also not to care. Was probably congratulating himself, came the dour thought, on escaping Rowena’s attentions.

Callas, for his part, looked slightly pained.

One of the pages stepped forward to refill Quinn’s cup.

“It’s so astonishing to me,” Rowena cooed, “that you’re not married.”

“Not to me,” Callas replied.

“I want to be married,” Quinn chimed in. “Only half a year more. Although I’ll probably spend most of that time here, guarding you people, instead of at home where I belong.”

Rowena ignored him.

“Your betrothed,” Isla said, because someone had to say something, “is fortunate in your affections.”

“No,” Quinn corrected, “I am the fortunate one and she, I believe, rather less. If at all, as the end game in all this is that she’s stuck with me. I had to woo her for
years
, because the truth was I didn’t deserve her and we both knew it. But I worked hard to make myself more deserving and, in the end, convinced her to give me a chance. Which she did, if grudgingly.”

“She agreed to marry you.”

“That she did. She claims she loves me, although I don’t know that I believe her.”

“You don’t?”

“That she should feel for me a tenth of what I feel for her would be a miracle so profound as to call down the armies for judgment.”

Isla’s smile was small, but warm.

“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Rowena turned. “Is she fair?”

“No,” Quinn replied, turning, “she’s brilliant. She reads and speaks three languages, including that awful, meandering thing they use in Chad. And she’s a wit. She can reduce any man to tears.”

“But is she thin? Fat?”

Quinn seemed confused by the question. “Who cares?” He burped. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not marrying her tailor. And besides, all women are fat after they bear children.”

Rowena sniffed.

“Speaking of which,” Quinn added, “a woman ripe with child is very appealing. Something about the fact that she’s creating new life. And then there’s that glow.” He sighed. “I plan to get Adela with child many times. As many as she’ll let me. The getting, you know, is just as fun as the receiving. Well, not the birth itself. I don’t envy women that. But then you get a baby!”

He seemed quite taken with this idea. He was, Isla decided, well and truly in his cups. It was no small thing, giving birth.

“That’s awful.” This from Rowena.

“No it isn’t.” He turned to Isla. “And besides, women want children. Right?”

Isla didn’t respond.

“Well I don’t.” Rowena sniffed. “And I
certainly
don’t want to marry a man who doesn’t appreciate my beauty.”

“Which is good,” Isla said acidly, “as you’re already married.”

Rowena’s eyes widened. Then, unfortunately for all of them, she changed the subject. “Speaking of sex, the rumor certainly is that the queen has many lovers.” Gods above, Rowena was trying to sound clever. “Which begs the question, how can she—or the king—be certain of the child’s parentage? For surely, it could be any one of a dozen men.”

Quinn burped again. “He only lets them bugger her in the ass.”

Rowena’s head whipped around. “What?”

“You know….” Quinn trailed off. Rowena had managed to embarrass him, thus achieving a feat that Isla hadn’t thought possible. And without Arvid to offer a tutorial, the conversation died quickly. Quinn turned to the man next to him, and they began discussing something.

Rowena seemed, if anything, put out. She glanced at Isla, and then at Tristan. Finally she turned to Callas. “What…does Quinn mean?” She managed to make her voice sound almost childlike. Fearful. As though Quinn had hinted at some dark sorcery.

Making Callas an odd choice for a champion, Isla thought, but no matter.

Callas, unlike Quinn, felt no compunctions about embarrassing a lady. But nor was he Arvid, to enter a conversation uninvited. He studied her in the low light, one hand on his cup and the other resting on the arm of his chair. He seemed relaxed. Not at all intimidated by the woman gazing up at him. Nor, indeed, by her obvious—and rather sudden—interest. It was as if, the literal minute Rudolph rode through the main gate, Rowena had sought for a new target.

And settled on the person who was, arguably, the most eligible bachelor in the castle after her own brother.

He sipped his wine. His nails were clean and well-manicured. “He means that the king only allows his companions to make use of his wife’s other entrance.”

“What other entrance?”

“There are three, from which a man—and a woman—might derive pleasure.”

Rowena blinked.

Callas’ tone was almost indulgent. “Her mouth, her cunt, and her other—rear—entrance.”

“What entrance? Where is there another one?”

“The eliminating orifice. From whence one’s night soil comes.”

“The fornicating engine—goes there?”

There was silence, while Rowena digested this new and terrifying news. And then, at the worst possible moment, Asher laughed. “She said fornicating engine,” he informed his father.

Isla couldn’t help it. She started laughing, too. The look on Rowena’s face was just priceless.

“For what reason,” she demanded, “would a woman do this?”

Callas put down his cup. “Ask a woman.”

Rowena turned to Isla. “Well?”

Asher seemed entirely too interested in her answer. This was, undoubtedly, the best dinner he’d had in months. Tristan, too, seemed interested. Isla could only thank the Gods that the entire table wasn’t in on the conversation. Most were head to head with their dining partners, or had returned to the floor to dance. A slightly livelier jig was playing now.

Isla decided to take this bull by the horns. It was either that or hide beneath the table until Freja granted her the power of invisibility. “As he enters you,” she said, her eyes on her sister’s, “you enter that strange land between pleasure and pain.” She sipped her own wine. “The land where addiction lies.” She paused, as though considering the issue. “The more well-endowed the man, of course, the greater the challenge. Time is required. And patience, and trust. Both must be in heat and both, too, must be prepared.”

Like all acts that could wound, when done correctly it was euphoric. The trust involved in sublimating oneself to another’s will was so profound that
trust
no longer seemed like even the right term. Isla never felt more connected to Tristan than when she was completely and utterly in his power.

“Although,” she added, her tone one of perfect innocence, “taking large cocks in any orifice might not be a skill in which you’re practiced.”

Rowena’s mouth fell open. “That is disgusting.”

“You have to hold your breath,” Isla advised. “Because, in that moment, you’re always certain that your body doesn’t have room for both air and his cock. But once he’s rooted firmly within you, the pleasure radiates throughout your entire body. Even to your fingertips.”

“Your husband’s a fortunate man,” said Quinn, who’d started listening again.

“Like being gently and benignly disemboweled.” Isla smiled.

Rowena shot him a withering look. “You
would
think so.”

“Almost as fortunate as I am.”

“I truly do not envy your betrothed.”

But Quinn only smiled in his own turn. “You should.”

Asher was grinning happily. Isla was mortified at herself for letting him participate in this conversation. Although she didn’t know why she should be; he spent half the day with the grooms and, even worse, the guards in the practice yard. In a few more years he’d be having his own dalliances. Here he was, still a boy and the serving girls were already giggling in his direction.

“Another benefit being that it avoids getting the woman with child.” This directed at Asher. Quinn was now eating some sort of seed cake, slathered with butter and jam. “Which, trust me, helps her enjoy it all the more. Women crave pleasure for pleasure’s sake, just as much as men.”

“You are corrupting him.” Rowena pressed her lips together in a grim line. “Filling his head with vile notions about…the kind of women with whom you consort.”

“You mean my betrothed?”

“Ruining him to proper women, with…normative expectations.”

“All this corrupting and ruining sounds delightful.” Quinn burped again.

“I disagree.” Callas’ tone was cool. “A man should possess that knowledge, which is necessary to his controlling his own destiny.”

Asher was now practically fainting from happiness to have been called a man.

Rowena sniffed.

Someone stood and announced another drunken toast to the queen.

And Isla, once again, felt the heat of her husband’s gaze upon her.

A
fter the final course was served, Isla absented herself on the pretext of needing to use the garderobes. In truth, she merely needed fresh air. Even a great hall so large as Caer Addanc’s grew close with smoke and sweat after hours of feasting. The myriad different food smells, too, were giving her a headache.

She’d have to return soon, but even a few minutes of fresh air would be a blessing. And as she stepped outside, she felt a rush of cool and it was, truly, like being reborn. Her skin tingled and the knot of tension around her heart began to ease. There was nothing out here, only the night noises of those small animals which inhabited the gardens and the occasional step of a guard. Muffled words, passing between them, as they passed each other on watch far above. They’d spend the night staring out into nothing, so that she could stand here and pretend that she was alone.

Beeswax candles and the oils in which food had been fried and with which the guests had rubbed themselves all clung to the wool of her skirts like memories, but all began to dissipate into the night air as she walked. Memories of a feast she’d just as soon forget, wherein nothing good had happened. She’d angered her husband and embarrassed herself in front of him and her adopted son, and for what? She might be a duchess now but in so many ways she still felt like a child.

And, like a child, she wanted not to sit there like some doll but scream and stamp her foot. Not to take pleasure in others’ good fortune but to rail against the inequities in her own. The queen had everything.
Everything
. All of which she’d gotten without having to compromise at all. Not her morals and not her humanity. The queen shared the king’s proclivities, all knew that. They loved each other, and their escapades had only brought them closer.