The Black Prince: Part II (44 page)

“Well?” she asked, straightening.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to help me know?”

“No,” he said, adjusting himself.

“But you—”

“I promised you nothing.” His cock safely within his breeches, he buckled his belt. “You should have remembered the second half of the phrase, dear. Those who dance with the Dark One don’t change the Dark One.” His gaze, on hers, was impassive. “The Dark One changes them.” And the Dark One, too, decided when the dance ended. If it ever did.

“You tricked me,” she hissed.

“No,” he corrected her. “You attempted to trick me.” He sat down on the edge of his desk, where she’d been mere moments before. Now she was standing there, naked, looking ridiculous. It was the expression on her face, he thought, that struck him most of all. Made him almost want to smile.

Had he still been human, he thought he might have enjoyed this moment.

“Or, rather,” he said, “ensorcel me with your cunt. To what end, I can’t fathom. Although in your overheated mind, replete as it is with your overblown view of your own charms, I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought I’d leave my wife. But, sadly, no cunt—nor pair of breasts—has that power.”

“How dare you!”

“Love is created in the mind.”

“I’ll tell everyone that you raped me.”

“I wish you luck in that endeavor.”

“Isla will know.”

“Isla will know, regardless. I have every intention of confessing this infidelity and begging her forgiveness. But,” he added, “by all means. Publicize your own indiscretion. For while my wife loves me, and trusts me, and will absolve me, eventually, Rudolph neither loves nor trusts you.”

“I hate you!”

Grabbing her robe, she turned and stormed toward the door.

Tristan waited until she’d almost gotten there to speak again. “Oh, and Rowena.”

She turned.

“You’ve been a guest here, not a permanent resident. A fact you seem to have overlooked, at least so my servants tell me. They’re growing rather tired, you see, of being ordered around and by their mistress’ charity project.” Who, according to his castellan, seemed woefully unable to appreciate her own place. Nor how grateful she should be to have it.

“I, too, am growing rather tired. I expect you gone by the end of the week.”

“W
here am I supposed to go?”

“Go with your husband!”

The fight was in full swing, and Isla looked like she’d been crying. And like she hadn’t slept all night. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffed. Rowena, meanwhile, looked remarkably well.

“I can’t!” She dashed another cup against the wall for emphasis, coating the plaster with wine. If she kept this up for much longer, they’d be out of cups. She turned. “That you all lack such sympathy for my plight is appalling. I wouldn’t tell you to go a man, if he were abusing you. Simply because I was too selfish, and self-interested, to bother caring how you suffered.”

“Rudolph is only abusing you by being a commoner.”

“I find him loathsome!”

Isla rounded on her. “Then he’s the only man you do!”

Rowena stopped. Blinked. Evidently this reaction was a surprise to her.

Asher, watching from his hiding place, felt as though he might be missing some crucial bit of information. And wished very much that he knew what it was. This was like opening a book at the midpoint and trying to make sense of the story. What had Rowena done now?

“So you know.”

“I know.”

Knew what?

“I can’t help it,” Rowena said archly, “if men prefer me.”

Asher felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned, his momentary fright dissolving into annoyance at having been interrupted. He wondered, too, how anyone had found him up here. He was kneeling on the colonnade that ran along the keep’s wall, peering through the window at his adopted mother and aunt. He liked climbing into places, and spying on people.

Such subterfuge was, he’d decided, his only means of learning anything.

He found himself face to face, now, with the strange new person Hart had brought. From the South. Aveline. At least she looked a little better than she had, scrubbed clean and in a dress of peach-colored flax. More like a fellow human being and less like a grossly underweight piglet.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh,” he hissed. “And keep your head down.”

Obediently, she obliged. Well, that was something. Adopting an almost perfect replica of his crouching pose, she, too, stared through the window.

But then she ruined it by speaking again. “Okay, what are
we
doing.”

“We are doing nothing. Now be quiet!”

“You’re not being quiet. And I’m just asking a simple question.”

“Buyer’s remorse isn’t rape!” Isla yelled.

Aveline’s eyes widened. She exchanged a quick glance with Asher. Well, he’d been here longer than she had and he still couldn’t figure things out. Although he might have missed a critical piece of information when she
wouldn’t stop talking
.

“He hates you,” Isla continued, “and he’s always hated you.”

“He does not!”

“He could have married you. But he didn’t. He married me. After, believing he had every intention of murdering you, you very much sent me to him.” Isla gestured at the window, and for a terrifying moment Asher was certain she’d see him. Her eyes, though, were still on her sister. “So there goes your earlier promise!”

“You stole him from me!”

Aveline turned again. “They’re talking about your father.”

“How do you know?”

Aveline shoved him. “Is there anyone
else
your mother is married to?”

At least she was whispering.

“Of course I know,” Isla was saying. “He is my husband and we have no secrets from one another. Not even concerning you.” Her tone softened. Asher could still hear her through the window, though, because the bottom segment had been left open a crack. And because he had very good hearing. “And as upset as I am, and as repulsed as I am, more from imagining possible contagion than anything else, I forgive him. I even forgive you, although I agree with him that you have to leave. And should leave with Rudolph.”

“But why?”

“Your own church has made you one flesh.”

“No.” Rowena shook her head. “Not that. The other.”

“Because that’s what people who love each other do.”

Rowena put on her sad act again. She could change faster than the weather on the lake. “I suppose I wouldn’t know. Nobody loves me.”

“And who do you love?”

Rowena blinked. Still surprised, after all this time, that her histrionics no longer worked. But they wouldn’t work in a child of Asher’s age; why would they be any more appealing, or effective, in a grown woman? That Rowena acted like a child didn’t make her into one. In any mind, at least, but her own.

“If you want someone to love you,” Isla said coldly, “then go and beg for your husband’s forgiveness.”

And with that she was gone.

Asher decided that they had better be gone, too. Getting caught out by Isla was one thing but getting caught out by Rowena was quite another. Isla would merely be annoyed. Whereas Rowena was…not safe. He didn’t have time, though, to convince Aveline of this so instead he took her hand and ran.

Only after they were inside did he remember that he was touching her and pull his own hand back, wiping it on his breeches. As though she had plague. He felt his face flame.

She, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did she didn’t care. She was very strange. “She reminds me of my sister,” she said.

“Whom we might cross as well, if we remain here.”

“Well where can we go?”

He bristled a bit. He didn’t like this
we
. But he answered anyway. “There’s the library, I suppose. Or the observatory, in the far tower. Except I’m not really allowed in there. And you might not find it interesting. Being a girl.”

“What do girls find interesting?”

“I don’t know! I’m not one. Or,” he added, “there’s the stables.”

“Let’s go to the stables, then. I like animals.” She paused. “Or am I not allowed to like animals, because I’m a girl.”

It took him a minute to realize that she was teasing him.

They walked together to the stables.

The sun was bright overhead and the air was, if not warm, then warm enough. The whole castle seemed to be out and about, doing everything from rolling barrels to beating out rugs. The grooms though, predictably, were dicing. Asher ignored them. They ignored him.

The sudden gloom was disorienting. He paused, blinking, to restore his vision. George, seeing him, whickered. “That’s my horse,” he told Aveline. With some degree of pride, he had to admit. George was a magnificent horse.

“He’s very nice.” She turned. “Did you bring him a snack?”

“No.”

He rubbed George on the nose. It wasn’t that the idea hadn’t occurred to him; honestly, he hadn’t wanted to brave the kitchens. Rowena was probably heading there right now, if she hadn’t already. She ate a
lot
. And drank a lot.

“Do you need to brush him?”

“Maybe.”

“I can help.”

Asher turned.

She shrugged. “I know how.”

He didn’t know why he should be surprised. Isla could do things, too. And told him, with some regularity, that women were just as capable as men. And just as smart. Not a view he’d experienced, much, in his earlier life. But, then again, not much about that life was worth remembering.

He climbed up onto a hay bale.

Aveline stood below him, waiting. Which surprised him, a little. She’d seemed so confident, before. But she wasn’t, of course. She was new here. Just like he’d been.

After a few moments, he motioned her up.

She was remarkably nimble, climbing the wall of hay as easily as a spider. Then, crossing her legs, she adjusted her skirts. Every inch the lady. It was a remarkable transformation.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Nine winters.” She paused. “I think.”

“You think?”

She hunched her shoulders defensively. “How old are you?”

“Twelve winters.”

He was, suddenly, quite proud of that fact. He enjoyed the feeling of, for once, being older and wiser. There were things he knew, that Aveline didn’t. Things he could maybe help her to understand. Like an older brother. And she was, he had to admit, a lot more fun to hang around with than John. Even if she was a girl.

And the barn was, he had to admit also, a pretty nice place to just sit. Sunlight filtered in through the windows, which were high and rectangular. Dust motes danced, looking like tiny pixies. The air, warmed, smelled of hay and horse. A little bit of manure, too. But all of these were comforting smells. The smells of a kind of home that both of them could only really imagine.

“So Rowena reminds you of your sister?”

She nodded. “My sister isn’t very nice, either.” She shook her head. “No one thinks I know that she wants to poison me. So I can’t grow up here, and become a Northerner. But I do.”

“She wants to poison you?”

That defensive hunch again.

“No,” Asher said. “I believe you. I just don’t understand.”

“Oh. Well. Nobody ever believes me.”

“I know the feeling.”

She turned. “Really?”

“Of course! Nobody ever believes me, either. Because I’m just stupid. And a child. And therefore extra stupid.” He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

“But you’re older and…a boy.”

“You’d think that would count for something, wouldn’t you.”

Aveline giggled.

“My mother—my real mother—doesn’t like me much, either. Although I wish she did.”

“Your real mother?”

“Isla,” he explained, “is my adopted mother.” He pulled a piece of hay free and began to chew it. “I came here as a hostage, too. But then I was adopted, later. I’m a bastard,” he added helpfully. “Just like the Viper.” He was quite proud of that fact. After his father, he idolized Hart the most.

“He killed my uncle and my father.”

“He’s my uncle.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry,” Asher said, feeling awkward.

“Don’t be.” Aveline was staring at her lap, now. She looked quite morose and, until she spoke again, Asher thought himself to blame. Then, “I don’t miss them,” she said. Her voice was small. “Even if I’m going to hell for admitting that.”

“There is no hell.”

“Really?”

“Warriors—and the girls they want to have sex with. Unless,” he considered, “they are girl warriors, in which case I suppose the boys they want to have sex with—go to feat with Bragi. Everyone else just sort of hangs around and does whatever they please. Except for truly evil people, but there aren’t many of those. Mostly just weak, ineffective people, according to my father. But anyway, truly evil people get their feet chewed off by a giant dragon.”

“What about my sister?” Aveline definitely sounded worried now. “I don’t want her to get her feet chewed off. She doesn’t…she doesn’t always know what she’s doing.”

Rowena did. So that was one difference between them. “So she wouldn’t be truly evil.”

“So she’d…?”

“Do whatever makes her happy, I guess.”