by P. J. Fox
And besides, again, his father’s prowess was legendary.
He’d left a slew of lovers in his wake, most of whom, despite being cast aside at some point because the duke had grown bored, still yearned for his bed. If there had been no other children—at least, that Asher knew of—that had only been because he’d been careful. Asher knew, for a fact, that his father could have children. He was here, wasn’t he?
Even so, none of that was relevant. He hoped Isla had many children, because she wanted them—at least, according to what Hart had told Callas, no one ever discussed these things with Asher—and because he thought it might be nice to have a little sister. Someone to watch over, and protect. But whether Isla had no children or twenty, Asher was still the firstborn. Still the heir.
He had to be worthy.
Especially since he had a lot to prove.
It was one thing to suspect a thing and quite another to have it confirmed. And quite another again to have it proved to the entire world. Tristan wanted him. Unlike his mother. His real mother. And unlike the man he’d grown up believing was his father. Brendan Terrowin had never had time for anyone except himself. Which, Asher supposed, was why Maeve had fallen into Tristan’s arms at the first opportunity. Brandon had also not been…famed for his prowess. Which, according to court gossip, might have been the product of inbreeding.
Sitting there in the cold, Asher chewed his lip.
But if everyone had thought him, not a page but a bastard, then what difference would recognition make? That was his fear, and what had made him so irritable since shortly after his morning bath when the thought had first occurred. Those who’d been inclined to accept him still would, while those who judged children by their parentage would also still do so.
No one talked to him directly of course, not about anything important, because he was still just a child. But he’d heard the comments directed at Hart. Heard something of Hart’s tale before coming North. He’d also heard the comments directed at himself. No one in that horrible Highlands dump had batted an eyelash when Rowena was so horrible. That must, he’d concluded then and still very much believed, be how they all thought.
Everyone except Isla.
But she was a Northerner now, so she didn’t count.
He wondered who he’d marry. She probably hadn’t even been born yet. Most of the men he knew had married women far younger than themselves. Isla was, he thought, about ten winters younger than his father but he wasn’t sure. Isla’s stepmother was certainly much younger than the earl; he was ancient. He must be a hundred winters or more. Asher wasn’t certain he could count that high.
He sighed.
He was about to get up and go about his business—he didn’t relish another thrashing from Brom—when he heard a familiar voice.
“Well if it isn’t the wicket.”
Asher eyed the castellan’s son. John was, apparently, as stupid and unpleasant as ever. Asher had managed to avoid him until now, because John had been kept inside with his mother with his arm in a sling. Probably carding wool or something, with the girls.
“Don’t call me that.”
“You broke my arm!”
“You bit me.” Asher’s glare intensified.
“You bit me, too!” John sniffed. “I have a scar.”
Good. But he was supposed to be chivalrous. As befitted his station. “Girls find scars attractive,” he allowed generously. “My father says so.”
“Yes, about that.” John, suddenly, seemed uncertain. “My father says I have to be nice to you.”
Inside, Asher perked up a bit. Perhaps things were changing after all. “You can start,” he replied, “with not referencing my mental state.”
“Your…huh?”
“Don’t call me crazy.”
“But….” John trailed off.
“Or I’ll break your arm again.” Asher tried to look extra tough.
John lifted up his tunic. There was a perfect half crescent of teeth marks on his abdomen. There was still scabbing and the skin around them looked red. But from healing, not infection. If the wound had become contaminated, John would already be dead.
A slow smile spread across Asher’s face.
Hurriedly, John dropped his tunic. “So, um…yes. One bite was enough. Please don’t take any more.”
Asher licked his lips. He looked up. “What?”
“I…I won’t call you…I’ll call you whatever you want.”
Asher waited.
“I’m sorry.”
I bet you are. His little performance had been entirely for John’s benefit. In truth he had no memory of biting him there and had been surprised to see how much damage he’d done. He was privately a little glad he hadn’t done worse. It wasn’t that he was precisely opposed to murder; he wanted, after all, to be a knight and knights killed people all the time. It was that he didn’t want to begin his career by killing the son of his father’s ally.
“Girls really do like scars. Hart, too, is covered with scars—he has one on his stomach and it’s much bigger than yours—and he gets all the girls.”
“You…really think so?” John seemed hopeful.
Well, John certainly wouldn’t be getting the girls based on his fine looks or winning personality. “Yes. Scars are a mark of honor, my father says: they prove that you were, and are, stronger than whatever tried to hurt you. So, the more scars you have, the tougher you are. Plus you can tell the girls your war stories. About how you got your wounds.”
“They…like that?”
“They love it.” This based, too, on what he’d overheard of conversations between Hart and the other men. All of whom seemed full of suggestions on how to attract women. Which, if they were all such experts, why did they need each others’ help? But Asher decided to keep things simple. Besides, with someone like John, the idea of a girl, any girl, would undoubtedly remain theoretical for years to come.
He stood up. And not because he was vaguely worried that John would push him into the well. “I have to get going.”
“Where?”
“I’ll get in trouble if I’m caught doing nothing.”
John gaped at him. “Really?”
Gods. “Yes, really.”
“But don’t you have…I mean…a whipping boy or something? Now that you’re, I mean. Now that you’re…?”
“No. Of course not.” That was just in fairy tales. And in Chad. Where, according to his tutors, they also wore powdered wigs and put rouge on their lips. The men, too. “And even if I did it wouldn’t matter; a true knight never asks others to take responsibility for his mistakes and that’s what I intend on being.”
He picked up his bucket and began to walk.
John fell in beside him.
Asher was beginning to wish he’d broken John’s leg.
“So….”
“So if I get caught doing piss all I’ll get a thrashing from Brom.
“You could just bite him.”
Really?
“So,” John said again, “I was thinking….”
Shocker.
“Maybe you could teach me how to curry a horse. I mean, the way you do it.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Lissa walked alone, under the shadows of Barghast’s tall buildings.
She was draped from head to foot in gray wool, a heavy weight that barely moved as the wind whipped around her. The hood of her cloak was pulled forward, demurely covering her hair and leaving her face in shadow. Her hands were warm, snugged deep inside a padded roll of fur. On her heart line finger, she wore the ring of a married woman. Although she wasn’t married. But she was taken.
She could have brought her maid along for the trip, but she preferred to go alone. She liked her space and, after so long, regarded it as a luxury. Even before coming to Barghast, she wasn’t sure that she’d ever really experienced true privacy. Not outside of the occasional snatched moment, for which she usually got in trouble. She’d had chores, and however many she did there were always mor
e. All of which had irritated her greatly until they’d lost their farm; for the next few years, she’d looked back on struggling out to the barn in darkness to milk the cows as a halcyon time of freedom.
At the inn, when she wasn’t servicing some man she was doing chores. Sewing dresses for the other girls or pouring candles. Marcus was, he’d liked to remind them, generously providing them with food and shelter. Some food, and little shelter. But they owed him.
It wasn’t that Lissa minded, precisely. She’d never shied away from hard work. What bothered her wasn’t the chores themselves but the fact that they meant nothing to her. She didn’t get to keep the fruits of her labor; didn’t benefit from them in any way.
She wanted someone to be proud of her for making the best candles, and the most of them in the shortest amount of time. For figuring out how to scent them with lavender, and honeysuckle, so the inn’rooms smelled fresh even in the dead of winter. She would have liked to have kept a candle for herself, to use at her bedside.
Now she was free.
As free as she’d ever been. More. Hart had filed her papers; she was a citizen of Morven, a freely sworn subject of the king just like those walking the streets beside her, and she could come and go as she pleased. She could sleep when she wanted, eat what she wanted. Wear what she wanted. Hart visited her, and expected her full attention during those times, but her life outside of them was her own.
He wanted her loyalty, not her servitude. A fact that still amazed her, every time she considered it. As did the existence of her maid. The maid had come with the suite of rooms that Hart had rented, as fine a city dwelling as she’d ever heard described. She was a little thing, and terrified of Hart. Of Lissa, too, although that at least seemed to be changing. If slowly.
A sharp gust cut the air. It was warming now, but spring was still a harsh time in this place. Lissa was deeply grateful for her cloak, and her muff, and for the clothes beneath them. She’d never had clothes that were warm before, first because her family couldn’t afford them and then, later, because Marcus had expected a certain style of dress from his girls. But now Lissa didn’t have to entice anyone but Hart and, when he’d first given her a purse and told her to go shopping, he’d made it clear that he expected her to dress modestly. She’d given no response, accepting this iteration of his views in silence. But secretly she’d been pleased.
That he felt possessive of her. That it mattered to him, whether other men’s eyes rested on her charms. Some women she’d known had left the inn, to live in private houses. But mostly to continue on as they had before: dressing, living, and acting like playthings, to entertain the man in question and usually also his friends. Some, she knew, hadn’t wanted that but some had. They liked the feeling of power it gave them, touring the streets half naked as objects of lust. Convincing themselves that they were controlling men with their wiles when, in truth, they were being controlled.
Lissa might have lived in Barghast now for several years but she was still a farm girl. She was conservative. She wanted to be conservative. Growing up, she’d had no other dream but to marry a man who cared for her and bear his children.
She didn’t know if, if she’d met him back then, she would have married Hart. Of course she’d been too young to marry anybody, despite her mother’s claims to the contrary. But, whatever her age, she didn’t know if she would have appreciated him. She would have been terrified. But she was, still, at times, terrified now. She wouldn’t, though, she thought, have seen through to what was underneath. Wouldn’t have understood on the same instinctual level that he was a deeply flawed man, cruel at times, but still a man who laughed and wanted and dreamed. And needed.
She could care for his needs, such as they were, and even if he never grew to feel for her as she’d come, so quickly, to feel for him…that was enough. Not because of the rooms, or the clothes, or his seemingly unlimited store of funds but because he was hers. The first thing in her life that was. She’d have been equally as content if he’d been a fisherman, living in one of those tiny crofts at the edge of the lake. Because he was hers.
She opened the door to the shop. A sign above proclaimed that this was Barghast’s finest scent shop, with words and a painted carving of a hand-blown glass bottle containing some sort of amber liquid. Lissa couldn’t read the longer words, but she was starting to sound some of the shorter ones out.
The proprietor sat behind the counter, an enormous thing built upon rows and rows of tiny drawers. Each of which, Lissa saw, had a tiny pull. Carved bone. And, beneath that, more words. The shelves on all four walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with various bottles and jars and boxes. Weak light filtered in through the single window, and dust motes danced in the beam.
Lissa shut the door, shutting out the wind.
“Good afternoon.”
There was one other shopper, attempting to discern the difference between two boxes. Judging from her pose, she’d been at the task for some time. She looked up at Lissa’s entrance, as did the proprietor. Both were women, also, but older.
“My Lady.”
Lissa still hadn’t gotten used to being addressed as such. It was only a formality, of course; she wasn’t a lady. But societal conventions tended to dictate that one be addressed as one appeared. And, of course, it was always best to err on the side of caution.
Lissa, lowering her hood, favored the woman with a quick smile. As happy as she was to be free of Marcus, she was still getting used to her new life. And notoriety.
People knew who she was. Or, rather, knew who she was connected to. Mostly it just got her quick service at the butcher’s stall. The butcher was convinced that, if Lissa was displeased, Hart would put a hex on him. Hart’s supposed powers, like his reputation, grew in the telling. And, truthfully, Lissa didn’t know how much of it she believed. She only knew what other people believed, and saw the fear in their eyes. And, sometimes, the derision. As they whispered behind raised hands.
Lissa tried to tell herself that she was used to it. That it didn’t matter. Even in a society as tolerant as theirs, there were limits. And a whore, for the most part, existed outside of those limits. She’d never be a lady and she didn’t want to be one. But she did want to be accepted. To be the same nondescript girl she’d been before.
“She’s no lady.” The other shopper turned, still holding the boxes.
“You’re right.” Lissa spoke quietly, but clearly. “I’m not.”
Her antagonist was pale, with her equally pale hair skinned back in a bun. She seemed taken aback by Lissa’s acceptance, but recovered herself quickly enough. “So you admit it.”
Lissa shrugged, a slight shift of the shoulders. “Of course.”
The other shopper turned to the proprietor. “Well?”
“Well what?” The older woman’s tone was bland.
“You’re not going to let her shop here, are you?”
The proprietor shrugged.
“That’s the Viper’s woman.”
The loathing in those words made Lissa recoil a little, inside.
“Aye, that’s so. And her coins weigh as much as any woman’s.”
“But she’s disgusting. He’s disgusting.” That last was added almost as an afterthought. “She’s nobody.” People criticized Lissa, she supposed, because they didn’t dare criticize Hart. Lissa wouldn’t slit their throats. “She’s a whore.”
“Aye.” But something had crept into the proprietor’s eyes. “I’ll wager, though, that she knows the duke better than you do.”
The other customer’s jaw dropped.
“The duke’s loyal to the king, and so’s me and my husband. We’re a good king’s family. So I’ll put my faith where he does, thank you very much. The duke’s the king’s brother and the Viper’s one of the duke’s favorite. And all the realm knows it. And anyone whom the duke favors and anyone that person calls kin is welcome here. I’m honored to have their custom.” She nodded at the boxes. “You can get those down the street, at Flossie’s sh
op. With the green and white out front.”
And with that, Lissa’s detractor was dismissed.
A long minute later, after an indignant noise, she took the hint and left.
Lissa sighed, feeling the tension drain out of her. “Thank you.” You have no idea how much. Words were simply inadequate.
“Happens to you often, doesn’t it.”
“Yes.”
“Aye well.”
Lissa found herself studying the dust motes.
“If the name ‘wife’ seems more sacred and more sound,” the proprietor began to recite in a soft voice, “sweeter to me always is the word ‘mistress’ or, if it does not offend you, concubine or whore, so that the more I humbled myself for your sake, more I would win your gratitude.”
“That’s…lovely.” And very, very strange. “But what does it mean, exactly?”
“It’s from a letter to her lover, penned by the Abbess Eloise.”
“Lover?” Lissa frowned. “Abbess?”
“Well yes. Just because you’re not supposed to doesn’t mean you don’t.”
This was true.
“She fell in love with her confessor. And what she’s saying is that, ultimately, it’s friendship she wants. Not material advantage or, indeed, worldly reputation.”
“She just wants him.”
“Yes.”
That, Lissa understood. Eloise’s love was pure. So pure and so strong that it, in and of itself, was enough to sustain her. Which it had to be if Eloise, like so many others, was denied marriage and family. Lissa wondered how she’d come to be a nun, if she so obviously didn’t want to be one. Probably, she concluded, by a similar route to how Lissa herself had become a whore. There was little enough place in the world for a woman on her own.
“I was my husband’s lover for twenty years before his wife finally died and he married me.”