The Black Prince: Part II (13 page)

“I was supposed to come with men but—I couldn’t. Things didn’t go as planned, you see. You’re still alive.”

This was worse than playing priest to the castellan.

“I am,” Hart agreed.

“So I was afraid. Of Maeve. Of….” His eyes grew wide. “Balzac.”

“And yet you came here.”

“There was nowhere else to go! I couldn’t remain in the North! Everyone there wanted my blood!” He sounded quite self-pitying. “Literally every hand was turned against me. Every one! As though I hadn’t led them, fought for them, for fully half my life!”

“The blood of their sons is on your hands.” Hart’s voice was low. Dangerous.

“We can’t win.” He shook his head, liberating more lice. “Not against Maeve. And what if Chad allies with her? She has friends there, you know.”

Hart did know. He also knew that they most certainly couldn’t win if their staunchest allies refused to fight by their side. Indeed, defected for no reason other than their own fear. And, he was sure, greed. What had Silverbeard expected? That his former neighbors would congratulate him?

Hart took a step back. “Stand up.”

The other man’s eyes grew wide. “Please, don’t kill me.”

Hart waited.

“I beg of you, let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll never cause trouble again, I swear. Just let me go. I’ve been…I’ve been trapped here for so long now. They didn’t want me here, either,” he repeated. “I think they took me in for fear of Maeve. But it was only a matter of time before they realized that she hated me—hates me—as much as they.”

This. This had cost the lives of his friends. Of those villagers. Of that baby. This cowering, sniveling wretch.

“If I could hand you over to the people whose lives you destroyed I would. But they’re in the North, mourning. And we’re here.”

There was a footstep behind Hart.

Silverbeard’s eyes widened. “It’s him! It’s him!” He looked—and spoke—like he’d just seen the specter of his grandfather’s haunting spirit. “He’s the one who tried to poison me!”

Hart spoke without turning. “Did you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you use?” He was rather interested.

“Hemlock. In his parsnips. They taste the same.”

“Poison is a woman’s weapon, you know.”

“And yet we’ve both failed to kill him.”

Silverbeard was shaking. “Evil! Evil!”

“Evil,” the castellan said, “is leaving a pit of murdered children behind to come here and eat my cheese.”

Well, Silverbeard could rise and face his punishment like a man or he could die on the jakes. Hart didn’t care which. He cared only that Silverbeard had been alive long enough and that men like him, if let live, never stopped. They used their forked tongues to hiss in others’ ears, escaping justice even against all odds. The fates never seemed to catch up with them.

And what would Silverbeard do? Not retreat into the forest, as he promised, to live a life of quiet contemplation. He’d run straight to Maeve, telling her all about how the castle had fallen. A fact she wouldn’t otherwise learn for some time. Until her army ran out of supplies, Hart hoped, and no more were forthcoming.

He thrust his sword through Silverbeard’s throat.

Blood sprayed, coating the walls to either side and Hart. He blinked it out of his eyes as he pulled his sword free, and spit. Silverbeard slumped forward, as though he’d fallen asleep, and then pitched off the bench altogether. There was a sickening noise as his nose broke.

Well, he didn’t care.

“My robes are ruined.” The castellan shook himself off. Such an oddly prissy gesture. And then, “my name is Caen,” he said. “Caen Bossard.”

“How pleasant for you.”

“You hadn’t asked.”

“I hadn’t cared.”

Hart returned to the bedroom, and began cleaning his sword on some of the linens.

“I would like a bath,” the castellan announced.

“And I would like a pint of ale and a willing cunt.”

The castellan sniffed.

There was a pounding on the door. “Brother!” came the roar. “Are you in there?”

Hart made quick work of the distance and threw the bar. “Yes,” he said, revealing himself to Arvid.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you trying a new beauty treatment?”

The castellan stopped at the far door and stood, gape-mouthed. “It’s a giant.”

“It’s a troll!”

“This,” Hart explained, “is Caen Bossard. Our new castellan.”

Arvid burped. “You and your women-men. Start a brothel.”

“I prefer women,” Bossard announced. “Thank you very much.”

“Yah, but I doubt they prefer you.” Arvid took a step inside, Bossard dismissed as he concentrated on giving his report.

“There were barely a score of men in the castle. Fighting men. Once we made the gate we took them quickly enough. Those survivors are waiting in the chapel for your justice.” He shook his head. “I interviewed”—and Hart knew what his lieutenant meant by
interviewed
—“several of them and all of them seemed to be of the same opinion, which was that no one expected an attack. Apparently,” he added, “the earl felt that since he’d sent most of his fighting men away there was no reason for you to come here.”

Which made no sense at all. House Salm’s strategic importance remained unchanged, regardless of how it was guarded. Hart had won his first great victory, it seemed, not because he was such a legendary warrior but because his opponent was the world’s biggest fool.

“He expected,” Bossard cut in, “that you’d come and leave.”

“And that’s the problem.” Arvid paused. “The earl…no one can find him. Nor his son. Nor his daughters.”

Daughters, plural? There had been no mention of a second daughter. Hart digested this.

“Has the castle been searched?”

“We’re in the process of doing so now. So far we’ve routed a few servants out of closets but that’s about all.”

“They’re in the solar.”

Hart and Arvid both turned.

“The earl’s apartments are against the southeast tower. Left of the great hall. There’s a private gallery that overlooks it. The minstrel’s gallery is on the other side, and past that are the pantries and kitchens. They can’t get out but through this hall, past us, or by jumping over the railing.”

“What about out the tower?”

“It doesn’t go anywhere. The tower itself is the earl’s study, on this floor. It’s reachable from below by a separate staircase, but those are within the family’s private sitting room. The only access is into the great hall. The third story isn’t accessible from within at all, only by ladder from the ramparts. You see, there’s an archer’s nest up there.”

“Pointed away from the road.”

Bossard shrugged. “I’m not the architect.”

“What now, brother?”

Hart considered. “We go to reacquaint ourselves with an old friend.”

T
hey’d barred the door.

Hart had his men cut it through the age-darkened oak. A pity, a door-less bedroom would be a bit of an inconvenience on his wedding night. But he didn’t he have the time—or inclination—to starve them out. If they were even still inside. Although there had been no reports, just yet, of swan dives from the gallery. He’d assigned a few men to keep watch, however, just in case.

Nor was anyone taking a dip in the moat. All thousand men weren’t needed to subdue a garrison no larger than the average schoolroom, so half had been reassigned to to patrol the immediate area. They’d come out relatively unscathed, suffering a score or so of casualties of which six so far were fatalities. They were still counting, though.

And Rudolph was still missing.

Many were. On both sides. They wouldn’t know, for certain, what was what until at least the following morning. Until then, those who were accounted for, and able-bodied enough to do so, could only press forward. Their fellows would be dead, or they wouldn’t; sitting around waiting to find out wouldn’t change anything, save everyone’s long term chances for survival.

Because the truth was, a relief force
might
show up. Hart hadn’t spotted them, but that didn’t mean that a single raven hadn’t escaped before the cages were seized. Or that no one had been paid for information. A thousand men meant a thousand different hearts, holding a thousand different intentions. Odds alone secured the presence of a traitor.

And the sooner these traitors were dealt with, the sooner Hart and his own men could turn their efforts to other, more pressing matters: like restocking the pantries. And the armory.

Three men with axes made short work of the problem. Behind the door, though, stood a small mountain of furniture. A chest of drawers, a six-sided chest, a set of nesting tables stacked one atop another and a chair. The two chests were heavy enough, but Hart couldn’t imagine what the rest was supposed to do. Drive him away with horror at the earl’s bad taste?

The man who must Balzac stood before the fireplace, waving a candelabra in his direction. It wasn’t, fortunately, lit. “Back!” he cried.

“We meet again.” In a manner of speaking, at least.

Balzac’s eyes were fire.

“Where is your father?” Hart stepped into the room, trailing his fingers over the top of the chair. Ornately carved, and by a deft hand. A master’s hand. And, unfortunately, hideous. “And your sister?”

“Not here.”

“Oh, I very much doubt that.”

“So what are you going to do? Fight me?”

Balzac’s eyes blazed. With a horde at his back, he’d been confident. And he was, or so the rumors went, a blademaster in his own right. But no amount of skill could compensate for the loss of the greatest weapon of all, which was courage. Alone and waving his candelabra, Balzac was like a magician stripped of his props.

Hart shook his head. They’d already had their duel. If by proxy. And Hart, at least, had nothing left to prove. Tonight, he’d sleep in these rooms. “No. I’m here to take you into custody. In the name of the king, whose justice you shall meet shortly.” He stepped forward, Arvid and four other guardsmen at his side. They had the chains at the ready and his onetime nemesis didn’t struggle.

“Balzac d’Ecouis, of House Salm,” Hart recited, his tone even, “you are hereby under arrest for the dual crimes of treason in your own person against the king and providing aid to an enemy of the king in time of war. For this, your title and lands and those of your father are forfeit to the crown.”

“You can’t! You can’t do this!” He glared at Hart, his wrists manacled behind his back. A guard held each elbow. “These lands are mine, through my father, by divine right! And you, you nameless son of a whore, have no business deciding otherwise!”

“How fortunate then,” Hart responded coolly, “that I rely on the king’s writ and not the kindness of the Gods.”

“You—”

Hart waved a dismissal. “Lock him up.”

And then there was only one. The father. They found him under his bed and it took two guardsmen, one grasping each ankle, to drag him out. The room was littered with evidence to suggest that both father and son had been drinking. For how long, who knew. Maybe through the entire siege. Balzac’s breath had been sour. His father’s was far worse, and he slurred his speech. He, too, didn’t put up much of a fight. Although he asked to use the garderobes and almost fell down doing so. His minders had to hold him up.

Hart recited the same speech.

Henri d’Ecouis and Balzac d’Ecouis, the last remaining scions of House Salm, were now just Henri and Balzac. Two unfortunate men facing an uncertain fate. Their names, like those born by most in Chilperic and, indeed, Beaufort, were Chadian. A heritage of when the two kingdoms had both been smaller, each in their own ways, and had shared ties.

Even after Gideon the Conqueror had sailed the dividing channel, those ties had remained strong enough. But with continued consolidation came new prides. New fears. And then came anarchy. A seemingly ceaseless string of battles that caused one priest to write in his chronicles that
the Gods have abandoned us
.

Chad supported Maeve because Maeve, through her husband, could trace a lineage back to Gideon. Back to Chad. And Chad had ever been hungry for Morven’s rich soil.

But the earl and his son had thrown their lot in with the witch not because they felt some kinship to their ancestral home but for greed. Hart felt no sympathy for them. If they’d loved Chad so much, they could have returned there. To place where, undoubtedly, neither spoke the language.

“Please,” the earl said. “I can help you.”

“Oh?”

“I’m certain that the queen could be persuaded to pardon you.”

Hart realized, suddenly, how tired he was.

He walked over to the window, not bothering to watch as the earl was led away. Instead he studied the horizon. The sun was rising, the band of light behind the hills a threatening red. And still no sight of Solene. Nor of this other sister. Was she within the chapel? Surely someone would have noticed. Unless she’d disguised herself as a servant. Had she escaped somehow? Hart suspected not, if she was anything like her menfolk. The most worthy opponent he’d met so far in this house of charades was a servant and likely an eunuch.

He stood there for a long time. He might have fallen asleep on his feet because he was surprised when, seemingly from nowhere, Arvid’s hand tapped his shoulder. He turned. “Yes?”