The Black Prince: Part II (21 page)

Unfortunately, where that was, neither of them genuinely seemed to know.

Nor did they seem to know—or care—of her plans. Or really anything about her. Yet still she was preferable.

Now that their joint execution loomed near, the two men seemed…regretful of their earlier bravado. If their struggles were any indication. Hart watched as they were brought out to a chorus of screams and jeers. Someone threw dung, which hit Balzac just left of the mouth. Let Solene watch, and learn. It seemed not all of their subjects had been willing participants in their war of attrition.

Hart had opened the gates, for the event. All were welcome, from all over Chilperic, to see him and to see justice done. The time and date had been announced, via herald, in the village. Along with information about the change in power. Hart was from the North. Hart was brother in law to the true king. Hart wished only to see the people of Chilperic prosper in peace. Solene, the earl’s eldest daughter, sensing his nobility in this matter, had offered her hand in marriage.

The trickle had begun at dawn, swelling to a stream by mid-morning. The guards’ rote announcement of
no blades, no bows
repeated for hours as each newcomer was checked and, having been cleared, passed through. There were guardsmen in the crowd, yes, to keep the peace, and a few of those household members who’d elected to remain. But nearly all of the swelling crush came from without. From the town, and from surrounding villages.

Word had spread quickly.

Along with the principal traitors, others would also meet their fate this afternoon.

Bossard touched his elbow. The time was upon them. On his other side, Solene continued to stare fixedly at nothing. She’d screamed herself red in the face that morning but now she shed no tear and said no word. Hart could have pitied her if she’d asked for mercy on her family’s behalf. But she’d shown no true understanding of her situation, or his.

Or her family’s.

What did she think of this crowd? Of the cries that the earl was weak and Balzac a monster, that they were traitors? Of the mother restrained by guards as she tried to charge him, to bring him her own justice, screaming that he’d left her son to die in the frozen North? Hart pitied that woman. Her life was beyond her control. He pitied them all a ruling house who’d abandoned their true duty long ago. These people didn’t want Maeve. They didn’t want Piers. They wanted peace.

They wanted their children back.

There were catcalls, too. And more flights of dung. Soon the platform was littered with it.

Hart waited until all those who were to be executed had been lined up facing the crowd.

He held up a hand. Saw fingers pointing in the crowd below. He was about to address them. Their new lord. The man whom none had ever seen, until this moment. The man whose reputation had preceded him in hushed whispers all over Beaumont. The Viper.

“Friends. Morvish. Loyal subjects of the king.

“I am honored to be among you.” He paused, surveying the crowd. Letting his first words sink in. “I come from the North, this is true. From Barghast, like our king. The man who demands my homage, as he demands yours. For we are all one kingdom, North and South. And we all want one thing: peace.

“I and my men, we are no different. We have families. And we wish, like you, to give an honest day’s work before going home to see them.” He paused again. “And so we come, not to conquer you but to live among you. As fellow Morvish. As equals. To share your trials, side by side. To help you rebuild. To defend this place, our new home and you, our new neighbors, should the need arise. But though we would gladly lay down our lives for you, we would rather help you till your fields. Sow your crops, and harvest them. See our children play together.”

One of the traitors kicked his assigned guard and was rewarded with a cuff to the head.

“Henri d’Ecouis and his son, Balzac d’Ecouis, have confessed, of their own free will and in public, to treason. Their bodies, as you can see, bear no marks of torture. They have not been harmed since their arrest. Beside them stand those members of their household, who failed to accept an offered pardon. For yes, a pardon was offered: to all those who took up arms against the me, and against the king, during the siege.

“For the king is generous. I am generous.”

The crowd below was almost silent now.

“Those who swore fealty were allowed to leave. Or to remain in their positions, whichever they saw fit.” He gestured to Bossard, without turning from the crowd. He had them, and wouldn’t risk losing them. “You see the evidence before you, in the person of my castellan. He is one of you, as I am now one of you. And I trust him. As I trust you.

“Tomorrow, I have the privilege of taking, as my wife, the beautiful Solene. That you may see my commitment to her, and to my new home.”

Solene’s expression hardened. He saw it from the corner of his eye. Her hands, clasped before her, were white.

“Her course is not easy. None of ours is, healing as we are from years of conflict. All here have lost. All here bear grudges, and with good reason. I am not so foolish as to believe that there will be no mistrust. That there will be no anger. That there will be no hate. All I ask of you, my people, is that you do your best to move forward.”

Now they were come to it.

“You see before you men who would keep us from healing. Keep us at war forever.”

Another chorus of jeers. A scream. More dung.

“They have chosen their paths. Like you have. Like I have. And they are no better than you or I. They—we—are all mere men, subject to the laws of men. There is no one in this kingdom, now, who is above the law; no one whose peculiar facts of birth sets him apart from justice. Rapists, murderers, men who burn down each others’ houses and cause mayhem to those tools, which they need to practice their trade. Those who commit treason against the crown and, in so doing, also bring harm to their neighbors. All choose their paths. All face the headsman’s axe.”

They’d sworn an oath, the earl and his son. To support the king. To uphold his writ.

They’d broken their oaths, and they’d face the natural consequences like men.

Or not.

The earl fell to his knees, then, weeping. He pitched himself, prostrate, onto the fresh cut wood. Hart couldn’t hear his words but he could guess, as the older man clutched at Arvid’s boot. Arvid studied him, as though he’d just uncovered a particularly interesting form of slug.

At a gesture, the earl was hauled upright.

“I can’t watch this,” Solene said. Her words were pitched for Hart alone.

“You can, and you will.”

“He’s my father.”

Hart didn’t respond, only stared ahead. They were all trapped here. Women like her talked a good game about equality. Well, this was equality.

They wanted swords and honor when it suited them, but the minute it didn’t they wanted to be women again. Delicate flowers, retiring to their fainting couches. Fleeing the field of battle as soon as trumpets gave way to blood. They wanted, not to share the burdens that men shouldered, in war and in peace, but to have their own way. Because they thought, in their ignorance, that that was what men had.

Solene had wanted to declare for Maeve, when it was fun. When it meant nothing more than lecturing her women on politics, in the comfort of her own chamber. That the natural consequence of
her
choices was this balcony, at this moment, seemed unfair to her. Not because it truly was unfair but because it wasn’t what she’d intended for herself.

Hart wanted to marry Lissa. To carry her, laughing, over the threshold to their chamber. To raise children with her, and to sleep in bed with her at night. But he’d marry Solene, sacrificing his own happiness, because that was what his station demanded. That was what the state of their kingdom demanded. He’d be an adult, and damn well so could she be.

Arvid called the names of the men.

The headsman stepped forward. He wore black, with a black hood over his head. Not to, as some believed, somehow protect him from knowledge of his own crimes but to conceal his true identity from those aggrieved family members who might want to seek revenge.

The first of the unrepentant guardsmen was brought forward. The former earl and his son would be executed last. Neither of them seemed to much care that ten other men were being killed in their shared name, for their cause. Balzac was sobbing now and Henri had his arms raised in what looked like some kind of appeal to heaven.

The man rested his head on the chopping block without being prompted.

If he’d asked for a pardon, at that moment, Hart would have been inclined to grant it. He wished to confirm his claim, that he was generous. And he had offered each of the men a pardon the morning before. Of the original two score of able-bodied men, sixteen had survived. Most had died directly, a few from injuries that could not be helped. And of those men, six had taken the pardon. One of whom, thank the Gods, was the cook. Who’d dispatched a number of Hart’s men with an axe. In such a creative manner that Hart couldn’t wait to see how he dressed a duck.

The others were the cook’s assistant and four guardsmen.

The chopping block was a massive thing cut from the trunk of an old elm and high enough that bending down to it put the man’s legs and back at even angles.

The axe whistled in the air, and his head rolled free.

After the executions were complete, the heads would be tarred and spiked, left to decorate the castle walls as a grim reminder of the cost of treason.

The bodies would be burned.

The next man was led forward.

“I think,” said Bossard, “that this is going rather well. Your speech was excellent.”

“Odious little man.” This from Solene.

Bossard’s answering smile was serene.

And then, finally, it was down to Balzac.

He showed none of the reserve that his men had, flailing from side to side as he tried to escape his captors. And go where, Hart couldn’t begin to guess. This was good, though: let the people of Chilperic see him for the coward he was. Let them see how he couldn’t face the same death he’d ordered for so many of his men. For so many of
their
men. Had he urged the now-headless guardsmen to take the pardon? Of course not. And he’d been given the opportunity to do so.

“Let me go!” he screamed. “Please!”

Solene put a hand to her mouth.

“You can’t do this!”

But they could.

“I am a child of House Salm! I am better than all of you rabble. Peasants,” he added, as though that were the worst insult in the world. “Scum!” As though the two were synonymous. And then, directly at Hart, “I have gold. I can give you gold.”

“Ah,” Bossard said to Hart. “But the king’s justice is priceless.”

There was such a distinct note of satisfaction in his tone that Hart had to wonder what the lordling had done. To Bossard and, undoubtedly, to others that had been trapped within these walls and subject to what this family called
care
. He had no doubt that, if he’d given the castellan the opportunity, he would have ripped Balzac’s head off with his own hands.

It took four guardsmen to hold Balzac down: one on each shoulder and one again on each knee.

For the eleventh time, the axe whistled.

A young woman in the crowd began to cheer.

The earl was next.

“W
hat are you thinking, brother?”

“That I don’t envy any of us tomorrow’s festivities.”

Hart was sitting in a chair, in what was now his private office. The tower room would offer an incredible view indeed, were there more than arrow loops for windows. And were it not full night. Although, given the current state of affairs in the kingdom, enlarging them wasn’t on his list of projects just yet. And there was an actual list. He’d worked on it during dinner, which he’d taken alone.

Only a few minutes before had he moved from the desk to near the fireplace, settling into the cushions someone—probably Balzac—had thoughtfully provided and putting up his feet on the hearth bench. He’d been staring into the flames, an untouched cup of wine in his hand, when Arvid found him.

Arvid sat now in the other chair, his hands resting on his stomach. He burped. A knot in one of the logs popped.

The first order of business would have to be to start excavating a tunnel under the moat. Hart had no intention of ever being caught here, like Balzac. Not that he’d have sent off almost his entire garrison and then retired to his bed to begin drinking. But it was the principle of the thing: he needed an escape route. And there was the building of a proper barbican.

There was, he’d realized as he contemplated the needs of the project, no bailiff to oversee such work. Another item on the list. Along with discovering, and making overtures to, the local mason’s guild. The masons were a powerful entity, in Morven and throughout the world. And, as educated men, they supported the king. He’d have to bring them presents. Find out what they needed, in terms of aid in return from the crown, and give it to them.

Arvid stood up and, walking behind Hart to the sideboard, poured himself some wine.