The Black Prince: Part II (18 page)

Arvid subsided, grumbling.

Hart let the surgeon lead him inside. The chamberlain wouldn’t mind that his room had been commandeered; he was among the fallen. Had been discovered about an hour before Rudolph, but in the kitchens. No one knew how he’d ended up in there or who’d killed him. He might have been hungry or he might have been hiding.

There had been too much of
might
, of late.

The surgeon turned to him. “No loud noises. Give him the milk of the poppy if he asks, but no more than a spoonful. There, in the stoneware bottle. He was given a good amount earlier, along with some watered wine, to help him through the surgery. More would be fatal. And don’t talk to him about things that are upsetting.”

Hart nodded.

“Give him water, too, if he asks. And if he doesn’t ask. More water makes more blood.” And Rudolph needed more blood. Hart understood. “If he keeps the water down, then he can have bone broth.”

First a priest, now a nursemaid.

He studied Rudolph.

The surgeon closed the door quietly behind him, leaving them alone.

Hart walked over to the bed and sat down on the stool beside it. Rudolph was almost lost in a sea of white: sheets, pillows, bandages. His arms lay atop the coverlet, both little more than linen-encased mitts. Under the coverlet, Hart was certain that he looked no better. But his head was the worst.

It was his left eye, that he’d lost. And that side of his head was invisible now. As though someone had begun wrapping his death shroud and then been distracted. The flesh around his remaining eye was purple. The bruise extended down the right side of his nose, like a badly applied cosmetic.

His lips were puffy and cracked. He looked little better than when Hart had found him. With all the blood and gore washed away, his and others’, it was obvious just how much abuse he’d taken.

The eye flickered open. “I’m…ugly now.” His lips turned up in a faint smile.

“Girls love scars.”

Rudolph winced, then sighed.

“How’d it happen?”

“A…spiked gauntlet. I think. I don’t…really remember.”

“You fought well.” Hart held a cup of water to Rudolph’s lips, and Rudolph sipped. It hurt him to swallow, Hart could see. They could all only hope that Rudolph hadn’t suffered some damage internally. Damage that could be neither seen nor treated.

He replaced the cup on the bedside table. “All here owe you a debt of gratitude. Especially myself. Ask for whatever it is you’d have and, if it’s in my power to grant, it’s yours.”

For a long time Rudolph was silent, and Hart thought he’d gone back to sleep. He needed sleep. And Hart was content to sit by his bedside. He had a great deal to think on, and appreciated the opportunity the silence afforded. That, and he knew that no one would bother him in here. Whereas even in the garderobes, he wasn’t safe from alternate begging and demands.

“I would…stay with you. I know that I am…useless. But I could be the…keeper of the wardrobe.” That smile was back. So small, just the faintest ghost of an expression. But there. “Or a minstrel. I can make people laugh…without…even trying.”

“What about your own estate?”

The smile vanished. “There is…nothing for me there.”

“I see.”

“My father has…other sons, whom he favors more.”

Hart thought he understood. He, too, hadn’t liked what he’d seen in the mirror when he’d lived in Ewesdale. Returning there, for Rudolph, meant returning to being the well-fed and well-dressed fool notorious for monologues on the scriptures even more tedious than his poetry. Of which he’d always been so proud. It meant a life apart from the only true friends he’d ever known, the target of Rowena’s searing resentment.

His father’s barony was mid-sized, a hundred acres or so of farmland. And as his serfs farmed it on his behalf, paying so much of each season’s crop in taxes, so did he in turn govern it for his liege lord. A complex system, theirs, where no one really owned anything. In the South, regardless of whose sword brought justice, the majority land owner was the church.

“I have no need of minstrels. I prefer my halls dark, and joyless. Moreover,” he continued, “that is a position for which you are over-qualified. Your face might be a ruin, but your mind is undamaged.” He studied Rudolph in the waning light. “What I need is a sheriff.”

Rudolph’s one eye widened fractionally.

“You understand Southrons, as I do not. And the people here are more Eamont than Barghast, despite our location. Their hearts are Southron hearts; their ways are Southron ways. They need to see justice, not in the form of a faceless evil from the North but a man like themselves.

“Chilperic’s sheriff has defected to Maeve. There is no one here to administer writs, on behalf of the king. Or of me. No one to root out criminals and deliver them to the local courts. Nor to administer those courts. And you are incorruptible.”

Rudolph’s eye drifted closed. His last words that evening were, “I…accept.”

I
sla turned Asher’s hand over in hers. “Wash these, please.”

“Hand washing is stupid.” And besides, the water in the basin was cold.

“There is little hope of self-improvement with no manners,” Isla replied. “Instead of forging bonds of friendship with those boys—and men—destined to be your future companions, you’ll have them running from the table. And certainly no woman would want to share a trencher with a man whose hands most resemble the paws of a wolf.”

Isla’s tone was warm but Asher still glared.

He was sharing his lunch with his parents this afternoon. Had, indeed, been excused from his lessons to do so. His tutor seemed to think that it was important. Although he’d compared Asher’s manners to those of a boar with water fearing sickness. Also kindly, but Asher couldn’t help the feeling that he was being laughed at. He
knew
what he was supposed to do. For the most part. He just didn’t see the point. And the truth was…yes. Sometimes he forgot. It was different, being a page. All he’d had do do then was serve others. He’d eaten his own meals in the kitchen, where manners hardly mattered. Except to that evil jötun, Magnus.

They were in their own private dining room, adjacent to his parents’ solar. It was a smallish room, but pleasant, with a table that could be made to fit twelve and a sideboard. His father was seated at the head, his back to the fireplace. Asher was seated on his right. Isla, when she finally took her seat, would be across from Asher on his father’s left.

Realizing that she wasn’t going to relent, he got up. She released his hand, but he didn’t thank her. Instead he stalked out through the door, down the hall, and into his own room.

He poured some water out of the pitcher on his dresser into the matching bowl. And then, feeling aggrieved, he gritted his teeth and plunged his hands in. He might have…sprinkled some water on them before. He wasn’t a
complete
savage. But apparently results counted around here more than effort. This time he made sure to use the nail brush. The one with the boar bristles, that threatened to remove his skin along with the dirt.

He dried his hands off.

He supposed there was an argument that he should trim his nails, too. But if Isla cared that much, she could trim them. He inspected them for a minute, all the same, wondering if she
would
object.

But he was hungry.

So he turned around and went back.

His parents had their heads together, Isla was smiling a small, secret smile as his father whispered something in her ear. Or kissed it. Asher couldn’t tell which, from where he stood. He was torn between pride that his parents were so fond of each other and a keen wish for them to just
stop
.

According to John, a person’s parents liking each other at all was fairly uncommon. John’s own parents weren’t on especially good terms, but nor did they hate each other as, according to John, about half of all married couples did. They got married, sometimes because they wanted to but mostly because they had to, for one reason or another, and then they loudly resented each other for a few years until they switched to silently resenting each other. After which they both commenced having affairs. Which was how John had ended up with a younger sister whose coloring suspiciously matched that of one of the lustier grooms and why John’s father spent so much time with Bette who worked in the kitchens.

Asher’s own father straightened. His expression remained cool, as ever. “I am so gratified, child, that you’ve consented to join us. At long last.”

Asher hadn’t taken
that
long washing his hands.

“Now please sit.”

He sat.

Lunch was served: meat pies and cheese. There was wine, too. Asher got his well watered.

He didn’t know what kind of cheese this was. Some of it was the color of parsnips and some of it was more white-ish. He preferred the kind flecked with herbs but that didn’t seem to be on offer. There was gravy for the meat pies.

He took the small fork from the cheese plate and stabbed at one of the cubes on his own.

“Asher,” Isla warned, “a fork is a serving utensil. Not an eating utensil.”

“But they’re so convenient!”

“They’re gauche. You might as well lick the gravy up from your plate with your tongue.”

“Is that an option?”

Isla’s lips quirked in a smile.

He put his elbows on the table, then remembered that he wasn’t supposed to do that, either.

“Elias tells me that you’re progressing well with your Attic.”

Asher glanced up. His father’s expression was appraising. He didn’t understand the purpose of learning Attic at all, since he’d never met a single person who spoke it, but he didn’t dare voice such an opinion at present. His father could be a man of unlimited patience, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Nor his son, acting like one. So instead Asher just nodded.

“Attic is a fine language. The language of logic.”

“Asher,” Isla prompted gently, “each bite is cut, speared with the knife, and then removed with one’s fingertips. We do not lick at our knives, nor risk swallowing them.”

And salt was removed from the salt bowl by using one’s knife blade.
After
wiping it. One couldn’t dip one’s fingers directly in, nor dip one’s food directly in either. One couldn’t leave the serving spoon—or fork—in the dish after serving oneself and one shouldn’t make too many selections at one time. Because then, according to the adults in his life, his dinner would look like an excavation and that was uncouth. Bread should be cut, not broken, the upper crust offered to the guest. The choicest morsels, too, offered and not hoarded. And blah, blah, blah.

“This cheese,” his father informed him, “is a gift from Hardland.”

Asher didn’t like it.

“What is the proper gift in return?”

“Harem girls?” He’d recently learned about these wonderful creatures, from John. Whose older brother had found a book. With illustrations.

Isla laughed.

“I see. More lessons are required.”

“No, no. Um.” Asher thought furiously for a moment. Now he’d put his foot in it. “Hardland’s specialty is cheese, right? Cheese and pewter working, right? Because pewter is made from tin that’s mined in the mountains.” He was amazed at himself for remembering all this. Even more amazed when his father nodded.

“So we should send them indigo.”

“And if they’d sent us salted fish?”

“It would depend on if we were insulted. If we accepted the gift as a worthy tribute, regardless of its value in gold, we’d send back something of equivalent value. To us. Like beaver fur.”

“Or….”

“If we
were
insulted, then no gift.”

Tristan nodded. “Correct.”

Asher couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. Maybe there was something to this learning thing, after all. But more than knowing the answer, he’d pleased his father. Memorizing all the stupid Attic, and protocol, and numbers in the world was worth that.

And maybe, he conceded to himself, he could work just a little bit harder.

He began telling them about George, and how that training was going, while trying at the same time to remember all the rules about how he was supposed to eat. It was impossible, really! And it took forever! How anyone finished any meal, however small, in under half a day he couldn’t fathom.

“I plan to ride, next week, to East Ord, to hear a grievance.” East Ord was one of the towns along the main road between Barghast and Bearn. I might be gone overnight, depending on how soon this thing is settled.” His father put down his cup. “Would you care to come?”

“Yes!” Asher was so overwhelmed with excitement that he completely forgot to not act like a child at Solstice. He felt like jumping up and down. He, being treated like a real adult! He wouldn’t be making any decisions, of course, but he’d get to go along and not as a servant but as his father’s son and sit next to him and hear everything that was happening. Because he was the heir!

Isla turned to his father. Some message seemed to pass between them. He placed his hand over hers.

Asher had finally finished his lunch. He wanted to go to the stables, to visit George. And then watch the men in the practice yard. He fidgeted, waiting for someone to remember that he was there, so he could ask to be excused. Remember that he was there, so he could not be there. Manners really did make no sense.