The Black Prince: Part II (14 page)

The sun was now full risen.

What had he been thinking about? He didn’t even know. About brides and mothers in law and couches. And blue eyes and how very badly he wanted to see a certain pair.

“She’s in the dungeons,” Arvid said.

Lissa? No, he meant the other one. “Still?”

“It’s a…delicate situation, brother. One I judged best that you should handle.”

“I see.”

“This family.” Arvid chuckled.

“And Rudolph?”

The tribesman shook his head. “Still no sign.”

But Hart just had to put the matter from his mind. Again. “Fine,” he said. “Lead me.”

They left behind a room in shambles. While Hart and his men had struggled overland through rivers of rain and, later, while they’d surrounded the walls outside, those charged with the castle’s protection had collectively drunk themselves into a stupor. Leaving one castellan and one chamberlain in charge. What guardsmen there were had been ill-prepared. Not that it would have mattered.

How long since this place had seen leadership? Hart now understood the mystery of why it was so clean. Bossard had kept it clean. Bossard, and his little helper. But, scrub as he might, there was only so much he could do against the greater problem. He’d sworn allegiance to a liar and a fool just like, undoubtedly, his father before him. And he’d done his duty. More than done. Even if he’d been the only one. How long ago had he realized, and the chamberlain beside him, that his master was doomed? How long after the awful truth had bloomed to full flower in his mind had he kept on scrubbing? Tallying the books? Ensuring that the bottler made sufficient butter?

How long had he been serving them in their chambers, along with Silverbeard, while they drowned their individual sorrows in a shared bath of mulled wine?

Hart had taken the castle so easily because, as had become apparent early on, it had been besieged from within far longer than it had been besieged from without. The people here were exhausted. As exhausted as Hart. They didn’t want battle; they didn’t want Maeve. They wanted something, anything, that would bring their lord out of his chambers and convince him to start doing his job.

The halls were now empty, the dregs of the household having been rounded up for counting.

And thus did Hart, once of Enzie Hall, where he’d been little more than a groom, lately of Caer Addanc and now of House Salm, which he planned to rename, go to meet his bride.

T
he entrance to House Salm’s dungeons was near the stables, so reaching them necessitated first going downstairs and then outside, and traversing the courtyard to the opposite side of the castle. Hart was stopped so many times, and with so many different and apparently pressing questions, that he and Arvid reached it long after the prisoners. Because while the chapel might be a fine enough holding tank for the cooking staff, it wasn’t for their former lords.

Of the castle’s inhabitants, only Bossard walked around free. Hart had ordered that some lengths of cloth be cut from whatever was available and tied around the castellan’s upper arm, indicating—if not his position, then his loyalties. Black and red, which Hart had chosen for his House colors. Black for Tristan and House Mountbatten, indicating both his loyalties and his heritage. And red for Lissa. Because she loved red roses, and seeing them made him think of her.

House Draca. The House of the Viper. Draca being the Attic word.

There was nothing from his previous life that Hart wanted to remember.

Hart would make the formal announcement, about his new home, after he revealed the fate of the traitors.

In the meantime, it seemed that the women in their family were the only ones with any true cods at all.

The courtyard was for the most part smoothly paved, but with a rectangle of neatly mown grass to the south. Nearer to the stables was the drilling area, where the men could practice. It was small by no means, and the token nod to nature was as large at least as the average village green.

Between the stables and the blacksmith was a narrow, recessed passage. Like an alley, in a larger city, and equally as dismal. An arched doorframe revealed stairs that led down into blackness. There was no true door but an iron grille, like a miniature of the portcullis at the main entrance. Only this wasn’t raised by a winch; it was pulled open on hinges.

Several lengths of chain held it closed, secured by a padlock. Arvid produced the key. He muttered something about dungeons being a pretty conceit for those too foolish to dispatch their enemies.

The grille swung open. It might seem like too little of a protection but, Hart knew, its purpose was practical. Grilles allowed for the passage of fresh air, a commodity in short supply in the average dungeon. But was necessary, not simply because men breathed air but because foul air spread disease. On this score the church was right. Although air contaminated by the leavings of a man’s chamber pot was just as foul as the air enclosed in what was, to all intents and purposes, a tomb.

Leprosy was the worst risk. But there were other illnesses, too, that left men staring sightlessly at the ceiling or coughing up blood. None of which were part of a true torture kit, but only rather evidence of an amateur at the helm. In a well-run dungeon, prisoners died only when they were meant to.

The men began began their descent.

Arvid explained the layout: at the base of the stairs was the main guardroom and then, off of that, three halls. The right led to, on one side a meeting chamber and on the other an armory. The central hall stretched the full length of the dungeon, and opened onto the individual cells. Of which there were apparently ten. They were large, each a good four paces across. Enough to hold several prisoners each, without overcrowding. They, too, were secured with grilles rather than doors.

The cells themselves were empty, at the moment, save for the former earl and his disgraced son.

The torture chamber was not.

Manacles, brazier, saws. Tongs and other tools lining the walls. Specific devices, the very name of which loosened a man’s bowels. The pear of anguish. The iron chair. The head crusher. A rack and several cages of rats, none of which were fed regularly. Various brands. The oubliette.

And the women of the castle. Solene, her ladies in waiting, and her sister. They’d barricaded themselves in, and the first man who’d tried to pull them out had suffered the loss of a finger. They were all, it seemed, armed. Solene most of all, with a broadsword.

Which she apparently knew how to use.

Hart stepped forward. There were other guardsmen down here, preventing Solene from staging a revolt should she attempt to do so but not engaging her directly. They were, particularly the Southrons, keenly aware of her station. She was a lady and they nothing. At least in their own eyes.

But Hart was a gentleman.

How little, then, that title meant.

“Lady.” He kept his tone even. Solicitous. “The castle has fallen. Please put down your weapon and come out, that no more blood might be shed.”

“No!”

She was beautiful. Not as pale as Lissa but pale, with hair and skin that he suspected would have warm and honeyed tones in the sunlight. Her hair had been pulled back, at some point, but had mostly escaped into loose waves that tumbled down her back. Lit only by the light of the torches behind her, she seemed ethereal. Like a Valkyrie come to bring justice.

Her gown was white, embroidered with gold thread. Her kirtle bore so much gold as to resemble armor more than clothing. He wondered who had taught her to use a sword, or if she’d just come with the knowledge. Somehow. Arriving on this plane fully formed, her consciousness plucked from that of Bragi whose helper she was.

“No harm will come to you. Or your women.”

Behind her, some of the women exchanged glances.

“You lie.” Her words were a hiss. “I know who you are. You’re a rapist and a murderer, and your men are rapists and murderers.”

Accurate enough, so Hart didn’t disagree. He’d meant what he said, though, both when he’d arrived at the castle and the moment before: that if the castle fell before the morning of the third day, then the women and children would be spared. He was, even if he possessed no other redeeming characteristics, a man of his word.

“You trapped my brother in the mountains and would have killed him, but for his heroism in mounting an escape. You slew women and children there.”

“Ah. It was rather the reverse.”

Her eyes widened.

“Now. Lady. There is no recourse for you. Please come out.”

“I would rather die.” And she meant that, too, he thought.

“Fine.” Once again, he conceded the point. “But at least let your women go. Or give them the option to decide for themselves whether to go or to remain. Then you and I might speak.” He paused, his eyes on hers. Let her see that he, too, meant his words. “You may keep your sword.”

“My women aren’t fools, and they aren’t traitors. They’re as committed to Maeve and her cause as I. Committed to her and against men like you, who think that a cock is the only requirement to rule.”

But then a voice spoke up. “We won’t be harmed? Truly?”

“No. You have my word.” Hart spotted the source of the question, an older woman wearing blue. “Alas, I cannot let you leave until the castle is fully secured. But after that you can resume your duties as before, or quit these walls and go where you please.”

“Resume her duties?” Solene’s eyes flashed. “Under what lord?”

“Me.”

“You are
not
the lord of this castle.”

“Then,” said her lady in waiting, “I think I’d like to go.”

Solene turned, but she didn’t drop her sword. “What? Jeanette, no!”

But Jeanette moved forward. Another woman joined her, this one thin and quite young. Little more than a girl, really, with hair the color of walnuts. And then another stood, and another. Solene watched in stunned disbelief. That anyone might defect, and for any reason, had apparently not occurred to her. But soon they were nearly all risen.

“What—what are you doing?”

The one called Emma turned. “Solene I love you, you know that I do.” She spoke well. The child of a neighboring potentate, perhaps, sent here to learn the learn the running of a household. “But what did you expect, that we’d live out our days in the dungeon? We came down here for protection. Which we now have.”

“He’s a liar and a usurper. You’re a fool to trust him.”

“That might be so.” Emma sounded sad. “But what choice do we have?”

“The choice to fight!”

Emma shook her head. “I’m not betraying you.”

“No, you’re betraying everything!” Solene’s exclamation was raw, broken. Almost a sob. Hart could taste her pain.

Emma let Hart’s men lead her out. Soon there was only Solene and a few women and soon there was only Solene. And someone else Hart hadn’t seen before. Someone who’d been hidden, because she’d been sitting on an iron-banded chest with her legs tucked up under her. A young and somewhat ill-nourished looking person, with wide eyes and who hadn’t released a single peep. She might as well have been her own shadow, fading into those that climbed the walls.

Solene moved protectively in front of her.

Ah. Hart understood. So this, then, was the sister.

“You can’t have her.”

“This is no place for a child. Surely even you can see that.”

Solene’s expression grew disbelieving. “Even I? Even I? How dare you—”

“Let her go, and we can talk.”

“I won’t let my sister become your child whore. I’ll kill her first, before I let—”

“Please.” Hart had had about enough. “Control yourself. These are no words for tender ears.”

“You speak as though you care.”

“I do.” His tone was bland. “I hope to be a father, myself, one day. As well as I hope that never, should I be so blessed, would I place the demands of my own pride above their wellbeing.”

“Oh! I—”

“I like him,” came a small voice. The child had turned her head, in very birdlike fashion, and was looking up at her sister. “You need to stop being so mean.”

Solene looked at her sister, and then at Hart. He didn’t think he’d ever seen another creature so broken, so hopeless, in that moment. He would have pitied her, he thought, if that had been an impulse of which he was capable. Solene, alone of all her family, had tried to do the right thing. To protect the women of her household from murder and, from the church’s perspective, the worse crime of rape. An unchaste woman, taught the Mediator, couldn’t pass through the gates of Paradise.

“What do you intend to do with her?”

Not rape her. Not kill her. She looked to be quite a bit younger than Asher. A precocious eight winters, he’d guess. Although if Solene worried so much for her sister’s health, he wondered at her apparent condition. She had something of the same hunted expression that Asher was only just now learning to leave behind. What had her life—hers and Solene’s—been like before he came?

Hart had thought that her father and brother making merry behind closed doors while leaving her to face her fate at the hands of marauders described the whole problem. But perhaps not. He of all people knew that families were roots where rot ran deep. Even when the flower above still bloomed.