The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1)

by P. J. Fox

  His housekeeper, who had mysteriously become pregnant with Jasmine by an unknown man after living in the parish house for about two years, had moved away after his death. Isla didn’t know how to track her down, even if the woman would talk to her—which Isla doubted. And she must be very old by now. Jasmine, if she’d lived, would be almost fifty; which made her mother seventy at least.

  The priest had been in his forties or fifties when he met Jasmine’s mother, who’d been in her early twenties—or so Isla thought. She wasn’t sure, and doubted if even Hart knew. Jasmine had never talked much about her family, to anyone. Including, or perhaps most especially, to the man she loved. Her erstwhile father, Father Leo, had died when he was almost ninety. A good many men, and women, lived a long time; but one couldn’t count on either extended years or firmity of mind. Especially not in a world where going into town meant taking your life in your hands.

  Farmers had been attacked while bringing their produce into town from outlying farms, sometimes only outlying by a distance of a few miles—and in broad daylight, too. As Lord of Enzie, it was Peregrine’s job to police the roads and see that they were kept safe. That he wasn’t up to the task, anyone could see; especially the bandits who plagued their forests.

  Robin of the Hood, Isla thought darkly, referring back to the old fairy tale, where are you now.

  She paged through the book, being careful to only touch the edges of the stiffened vellum. And finally, near the middle of the enormous tome, she found what she wanted: House Mountbatten. Their king, King Piers, was something of an upstart and his house, while old, had always been obscure. Until Piers had burst onto the scene a few years ago, sword in hand, and abruptly put an end to the civil war. No one, even if they remembered the name, remembered much about House Mountbatten, although in recent years there had been speculation about the source of its vast fortune. Wool…someone had made a fortune in wool…or something.

  And in any case now Piers was the king so it hardly mattered where his ancestors had come from. He was a good king, if hard, and people of all classes were beginning to feel cautiously optimistic. He hadn’t been married long, so there was as yet no heir, but he was young and virile and had no shortage of female company. That he was enamored of his wife and visited her constantly was well known, even in a backwater like Enzie.

  Isla blushed faintly, still turning the pages.

  And then, eyes narrowing, she traced a finger down the page. One of the advantages of their books were that they were old books, begun long before anyone had even conceived of the current political situation. Often, she knew from her other reading, records of all kinds, especially those dealing with ah, more sensitive topics, were edited after the fact to preserve a certain…continuity, for lack of a better term. Illegitimacies and other embarrassments were fixed. Isla was sure that, whatever books of this kind said closer to the capital, they reflected the king’s will more than the truth.

  But whatever poor monk had first put pen to page about House Mountbatten in Enzie had done so years ago, before Isla was even a thought in her mother’s mind. And so perusing these pages was, in a sense, like opening a time capsule.

  Piers Mountbatten was listed as being the son of John and Celine Mountbatten, his legal wife. The only son. There was no mention of any other children, although that in and of itself wasn’t unusual. Hart, after all, hadn’t put in an official appearance either. But to Isla’s knowledge, Tristan Mountbatten wasn’t illegitimate. As frightened as people were of the man, news like that didn’t stay quiet for long—no matter what. Isla was enough of a realist to know that, one advantage to having grown up poor with a bastard brother. If there had been even the merest breath of scandal, news would have spread.

  John Mountbatten’s parents were listed as Devon and Georgiana Mountbatten; his wife being the youngest daughter of a baronet from Perth, in the south. Devon’s parents were listed, in turn, as Spencer and Maude. Reading closely, and then rereading, Isla went back. And back. There were a smattering of siblings, all of whom had married and produced in turn. None of them had produced a Tristan. There were even a few natural births listed, as politer tongues were wont to call them. Those few men brave enough to take credit for their illegitimate offspring rarely did so more than dispassionately, but a few claimed them as openly and cheerfully as their other children. Often with a doting wife’s enthusiastic cooperation.

  Isla couldn’t imagine living in such a happy home. Trying to picture how things might be different, she felt a brief pang of anguish. Oh, well. She redoubled her focus on her current project.

  And, a few minutes later, wished she hadn’t. Her heart thudded in her chest. She blinked, rereading the last line. That can’t be right, she told herself. She just—what she was looking at wasn’t possible. She counted on her fingers, and then counted on her fingers again. No.

  She sat back on her bench, wide-eyed and staring at nothing as she absorbed this new information. The average man had children when he’d reached about thirty winters or, at least, thirty was a safe number to use for calculation purposes. A nobleman rarely got married much younger than that, and he did sometimes get married a great deal older.

  Flipping through the book, she rechecked ages and dates. Even accounting for a second marriage…except no, what she was seeing still wasn’t possible. There was just no way…

  She’d found Tristan, eventually. Or a Tristan. The only Tristan listed as having been born to House Mountbatten. Ever. Since Gideon the Conqueror first stepped ashore from his longboat and waded through the retreating tide while proclaiming his kingship over Morven.

  Tristan Mountbatten had been born to Borin Mountbatten and his wife Sienna in the year 1217. Which would make him almost 140 years old. That Tristan—it couldn’t possibly be the same Tristan, next unicorns would be landing on the roof—would be the….

  She figured on her fingers. The great-great-great uncle of Piers Mountbatten. Tristan—Tristan, son of Borin—had been the older brother of Morin, who’d gone on to marry and produce Spencer. There was no record of Tristan marrying, or producing any children. Legitimate or otherwise.

  Or dying.

  Tristan, indeed, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the world.

  Until now.

  Isla, feeling as though her brain were breaking apart into a million fragments that she couldn’t quite hold together, sat amongst the swirling dust motes in the silence of the library and tried to figure out a logical explanation. Someone else, someone not related to the king, had set himself up as the king’s brother. With the king’s cooperation. Had backed him in a palace coup and provided financing for the reconstruction that followed. Or, more likely—to the extent that any of this was likely—Tristan was the illegitimate son of John by some mother other than Celine and Piers had adopted him as a full brother when he’d taken the throne. When he’d started to fight for it, rather; Tristan had been in the picture as long as Isla remembered. At ten years her senior, he’d been fighting since before she’d begun braiding her hair.

  Ten years her senior?

  A hundred and twenty nine years her senior? More? Her calculation of his age—if indeed this was the same man, which it obviously wasn’t—had been more of a rough estimate. She’d only rounded up to each decade as she’d counted, scarcely believing what she was doing even as she did it. What lunacy was she indulging in, here?

  Piers was thirty-two. Tristan was—supposedly—twenty-nine. Some said twenty-seven. That no one seemed entirely clear on how many winters the man had no longer surprised her in the least.

  If he was this old…she didn’t let herself complete the thought.

  If he was this old, then he wasn’t human. As simple as that. And the idea that the man she’d pledged to marry wasn’t human…was impossible. Despite, she realized now, all the rather obvious evidence to the contrary.

  She’d refused to consider the rumors about him as anything more than at worst ridiculous and at best exaggeration. The products of o
verheated minds, people jealous of the king. And, Isla had reasoned, there was logic enough in calling a man who’d murdered two wives monster. She had no difficulty in believing that he worshipped the Dark One, either—but many a flesh and blood man did that as well. There was, sadly enough, nothing especially unusual about evil. The potential for it lurked in the hearts of all men, and she didn’t need to believe in the supernatural to see the truth of the world’s fallen state all around her. Men who beat their wives, men—and women—who beat and even murdered their own children. Starvation. Disease. Poverty. Those, she’d always thought, were the true demons; the others were nothing more than a collective effort to explain the unexplainable. Why people—regular, mortal people—did such terrible things.

  And yet…?

  Isla stood up, pushing her bench back and, after a minute, reaching for the book to reshelve it. Her first and strongest impulse had been to leave the now evil-seeming tome where it lay and quit the room as fast as she could, but a more rational part of her wanted to hide the evidence. From whom, she didn’t know. Gritting her teeth against the wave of revulsion that swept through her, she restored the book to its spot on the shelf and pushed the bench back into position. Would that she could sprinkle some dust over the worn spine.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, and thought. She needed help. And there was only one person capable of giving her the kind of help she needed.

  FIFTEEN

  She saddled her horse, Piper, with jerky movements as she glanced constantly at the door. She was terrified of who she might see framed in the rectangle of light. Strong noontime light, now; she’d been at her research longer than she’d thought, and had little time left to complete her other task. Not that, if she stayed out all night, she’d mind—or give a fig for the consequences.

  All that mattered, at this moment, was getting out of here without being detected. The stable yard wasn’t busy, which was a small blessing. A few flies droned over stalls that hadn’t been mucked, the boy responsible for the task asleep in the loft above. His friend, who should have been helping Isla saddle her horse, was outside on a bench in the weak sun. He’d half-raised his hand in a desultory wave when she passed him.

  She checked Piper’s girth, giving the strap a quick tug. Horses had a tendency to puff themselves out when they were being saddled, to keep the straps loose. They were smart animals and some, like Piper, had a nasty sense of humor.

  A few of the other horses watched interestedly from the shadows, their boredom making them jealous. Most of the stalls were empty, this being a workday. The duke’s evil-looking destrier was gone, which gave Isla some hope that he wasn’t about to appear. Unless, of course, he’d gone out for an early morning ride and decided to return here for lunch.

  Isla wore a fitted gray coat over red divided riding skirts. She swung herself into the saddle in a single fluid motion, her ease of mounting the result of long practice. Her skirts hung down on either side of her. Rowena and Apple, being more traditional ladies, rode side-saddle. Isla refused; the gait was all wrong and riding at much beyond a sedate trot was dangerous. Then again, proper ladies weren’t supposed to actually go anywhere. Real travel necessitated the use of a coach.

  Which, after a particularly obnoxious hand of cards, the earl had lost to Rudolph’s father.

  Rowena had been taught to ride by some put-upon groom. Isla had been taught to ride by Hart. She didn’t miss their lost carriage; she’d never liked riding cooped up in a box in the first place. She wanted to see the countryside, to experience everything there was to experience of her journey—however long or short. And since she’d been a child, she’d roamed over most of their domains at one time or another. She loved looking down on the rolling fields, or moving quietly through the glades, or lying on her back by the side of a burbling stream and staring up at the sky while Piper chewed placidly beside her.

  Piper was a spirited but fond mare, and almost four years old. She’d been a gift from Hart, herself won in a card game. Normally, such a fine specimen would have been beyond their budget but Piper’s previous owner hadn’t known her worth when he’d put her up to cover his bets and Hart possessed a keen eye for horseflesh. He’d accepted the wager readily, knowing that whether at home or on the auction block Piper was worth easily triple what the young lordling owed.

  And because Hart knew how to count cards.

  Which was, alas, a skill that the earl had never learned. He considered such tactics beneath him. Despite Hart’s argument that no dishonesty was involved, merely the ability to figure. Figuring, the earl had replied archly, was unchivalrous. As were a great many things, apparently, especially if they gave one any sort of advantage. The earl was firmly of the camp that taught, even despite a series of grievous defeats, that the use of tactics on the battlefield was frowned on by the Gods. A true knight never sought advantage; riding out onto the battlefield, he chose the spot least commodious to himself and then blew a trumpet to announce his presence.

  All this coming out of trees, as Piers had done, was wrong. Piers had, famously, won one battle by having his men build twice as many campfires as they needed and then quit the campsite altogether—leaving them lit. When the enemy came into investigate, in the dead of night but still blowing their trumpets, Piers and his men swept in from behind and massacred the whole lot. The earl, reading about the battle in a dispatch—he’d sent men to fight, as his oath of fealty required, but for the wrong side—had declared Piers to be of the devil.

  The unchivalrous Piers had, after ascending the throne, offered pardons to those who’d opposed him. Another move that the earl declared vile. A true knight wouldn’t be so flexible in his principles! A true knight, the earl insisted, accepting his pardon, would have killed the lot of them to prove a point.

  The duke was right. Chivalry was stupid. Finding herself agreeing with that man on anything made Isla’s blood run cold, and she quickly dismissed the thought. She was tired, was all. She’d had another difficult night, tossing and turning and unable to clear her mind of a thousand and one unwanted thoughts about everything she’d ever done wrong and everything that ever had gone wrong and—him. She wished, now, that she’d never agreed….

  Except Rowena was so happy. Isla instantly hated herself. She’d walked into this with eyes open; who was she to renege? If Hart were called to war, he’d go; could Isla, the great champion of equal rights, do any less, simply because she was afraid? Equal rights meant equal responsibilities, she lectured herself. Hart had confided to her, once, that he’d been afraid before the few occasions when he’d been called to fight. Once or twice, their father being useless, he’d gathered a group of men together and gone after the worst of the brigands plaguing Ewesdale.

  I can do this, Isla told herself.

  And she was on her way to get help, besides. She cantered down the beaten track that served as their main road, a mostly straight shot through the practice yards and some of the smellier work sheds—she passed the tanning sheds on her right, positioned over a small stream that carried away the worst of the refuse—and out the front gate. There was no especial reason that Isla shouldn’t leave; she was a grown woman, free to come and go as she chose. Her father had never refused her that right. Isla’s own paranoia was what made her heart beat faster. Her fear was that this time, when she needed to leave, something would stop her. Simply because she did need to leave.

  On her left, the flat expanse of the parade ground had been set up with targets for the archers to practice. The duke’s men were among her father’s own; he’d brought an enormous retinue. Isla studied them now, openly, for the first time. No one was paying her the slightest attention. The earl’s men were a decent lot, if on the older side, as many had left to seek their fortunes elsewhere. That, Isla supposed, might change. Peregrine Cavendish would remain Lord of Enzie, of course, but only in name.

  The duke’s men were far younger, for the most part, and far better equipped. And even though they laughed and joked together lik
e any soldiers, Isla saw clearly that they were also far more disciplined. Their clothing was all in shades of green, ranging from a true loden green to a green so dark it seemed like night. Attached to their overtunics, the bowmen wore the broad hoods of longbowmen. Their breeches appeared well-fitting, suggesting that even if these were standard issue uniforms a competent tailor had seen to their alteration. Their boots were of exceptionally high quality, although currently caked with mud.

  And they all did have longbows, she saw; unlike her father’s men, many of whom still carried the less efficient crossbow. Less efficient, but in some hands more practical. A longbow was expensive to produce and difficult to use, requiring tremendous skill on the part of both bowyer and archer. Most longbows were made of yew, although some were made of ash or even elm. Elm produced the heaviest draw weight and, therefore, the longest range. But few men, however fit, were capable of its use. Typically, a yew bow had a draw weight of anywhere between sixty and ninety pounds. Elm had a draw weight of a hundred pounds or more. She’d heard rumors that the duke’s bow had a draw weight of fully 125 pounds and stood near as high as he.

  Hart’s bow, which was yew, had a draw weight of 85 pounds—and that was, by most, considered impressive. To learn the longbow, one had to begin training at a very young age. Before six was preferable; after eight or nine or so, training was considered impossible. One’s muscles had to be schooled virtually from birth, accommodating the demands of the bow as they grew. A boy, if his parents had sufficient funds to support such training, had his bows brought to him according to his age and strength and, as he increased in each, new bows were made.