by P. J. Fox
Had he begun to see himself more clearly, in the twilight of his years?
“I wouldn’t care if Tristan had nothing,” she said softly. “You must know that his wealth matters little to me.”
“Then all the more reason to spare a little kindness for Rowena, eh?”
Isla threw up her hands in disgust. “I’ve run this manor—for you—for years now without support. I’ve given everything to you, to her, to everyone who asked it of me and what have I asked in return?” She’d asked for nothing, as they both knew; her question was rhetorical. “I’m sick of being treated like your sacrificial lamb! Do this, don’t do that, study this, don’t study that, be more ladylike, be less ladylike, run the manor while simultaneously singing and dancing and becoming an expert in tapestry weaving, find a husband.
“Stand aside so the prettier daughter can marry the rich man; no, on second thought, marry the rich man so the prettier daughter can be happy. After all, who cares if has a penchant for killing off his wives? Then send me off, for all you know to my death, with the advice that I should be a little sweeter to my dear sister, martyr that she is, for having the misfortune to be marrying the same man she claims to have been in love with since she was twelve. No! I think I’ll pass!”
She stood up. “I came in here to tell you about the new overseer but now I wish I hadn’t bothered.”
The earl settled back in his chair, apparently unmoved. “Yes, I know about him. Hart told me, this morning. He says the man seems very nice. He promises to raise the estate’s revenues, so we really can’t complain. What, you don’t like him?”
“Is that all you care about?” Isla stared at him, aghast. “Revenue?”
The earl finished his second brandy. “You’re unwell, and should rest.”
“That’s your answer for everything: drink and sleep.”
“Isla, that’s enough.”
“I hate you!”
“You should consider your position,” he replied, a new coldness creeping into his voice. “As a woman, and as—”
“My position?” she repeated. “My position?” She shook her head slightly. What was she to her father, exactly? A bargaining chip? What was Rowena? How much did he care about either of them, and how much had he ever? He’d hardly defended himself against the charge that he was sending her to her death. For all he knew, he was; for all she knew, he was. She wanted to believe that Tristan loved her, after his own fashion, but she’d wanted to believe a lot of things over the years. “Tristan cares for me,” she told him, partly to convince herself. And at any rate, he wasn’t going to not marry her simply because she’d displeased her father. If Peregrine Cavendish thought that anyone cared what he thought, he’d gravely mistaken his own significance to the situation. Whatever he might tell himself, Tristan didn’t care what the old man thought.
He examined his empty cup, and then looked up. His eyes were rheumy around the edges, but sharp. “That, my dear,” he said, “is because he doesn’t know what you’re really like.”
Isla opened her mouth to reply and then shut it again without speaking. She and her father stared at each other for a long moment. The fire continued to crackle merrily in the grate. Something was ending. Had ended, she clarified to herself. Something that, maybe, had never really begun. She smiled slightly; she couldn’t have said why, even to herself.
And then she turned on her heel and left.
She walked and walked without really knowing where she was going and without any clear sense of how much time had passed and eventually found herself sitting on the same wall where she’d sat with Asher without any clear idea of how she’d gotten there. Nor, in her present state of mind, did she care. She was too tired and angry and just plain discouraged.
She swung her feet back and forth, ignoring the cold that had begun creeping into her toes. Somewhere, that same crow was still croaking.
Now that she had time to think, she didn’t know what she thought. That Rowena had seen them shocked her, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have. Of course Rowena had followed her. Rowena was nothing if not curious, and the phrase none of your business had ever meant little. If anything, she’d interpreted the words as a challenge. Isla could easily picture Rowena sneaking out into the night after her and then following her at a safe distance until she saw….
What had Rowena seen? Isla wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done but, at the same time inexperience had made her shy. She didn’t want people to think she was a tramp, or just plain disgusting. And now she was second-guessing herself: what if Tristan thought less of her? She was still a maid, but many married women never did more than let their husbands lift their nightgowns barely high enough to do the deed.
The implication in her father’s warning had been clear: Tristan wouldn’t want a disobedient woman. But that wasn’t true and, in any case, who would want to be married to a man who couldn’t command himself and those around him? Isla had ever lacked sympathy for men who felt threatened by her outspoken nature, which was why she was still single. She had absolutely no intention of curtailing her natural instincts to make life easier for some man, now or ever. If he wasn’t strong enough to stand on his own two feet, that was his problem. She’d been made responsible for other people’s problems for long enough!
She sniffed. She wasn’t upset. She wasn’t.
What was her relationship with her father right now? Did she even have one? Or had they, as she suspected, finally acknowledged what had been true all along and gone their separate ways? That they lived in the same house together had never meant more than that they saw each other at meals. Unlike many men, who bucked convention and treated their daughters with as much love and interest as their sons, the earl had ever been disinterested. Even his joviality had a forced, impersonal air.
But, misogyny aside, her father was hamstrung by an even worse flaw: that he couldn’t let go of how life was supposed to be. He had a vision, and that vision hadn’t come true. Rather than making the best of what he had and recognizing that, in fact, he had a great deal, he’d squandered everything while whiling away his days in a stupor of alcohol and complaint.
A leaf spiraled down from the tree above and landed on Isla’s knee. Picking it up, she examined its gossamer-thin tracery of veins. And then she heard booted feet crunching in the leaves. She looked up. It was Asher.
She smiled wanly. “Welcome back,” she said. And then, “why aren’t you out at the lists?” Hart and most of the other men were taking advantage of the day’s clear and relatively windless weather to practice their archery and Isla had assumed that that was where the page would be.
“Lord Tristan had to meet with a business associate, in town.” He meant the town attached to the manor, probably. Also called Enzie, it was little more than a crossroads but it was also the nearest sign of civilization and had an inn. “He left me home.” Asher made a face.
“Well that’s no fun.”
“So I decided to find you, instead.”
“What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Reading. I hate reading. Reading is for girls.” Which was, in the mind of a boy his age, probably the worst indictment imaginable. Isla, who of course was a girl, loved to read. But she knew that most men would agree with Asher in considering that learning one’s letters was a waste of time. Men fought; they didn’t ruin their eyesight peering at parchment.
“Tristan reads,” she pointed out equably.
“He needs to read.” Asher made a grand gesture. “So he can ensorcel people.”
“Where did you learn that word?”
Asher shrugged. “Nowhere.” He joined her on the wall. The leaves continued to spiral down and he lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Isla twirled the stem of her leaf in her fingers, feeling sad. “I watched it happen, you know,” he said finally. He was, she realized after a moment, talking about his father. She listened in silence, afraid of saying the wrong thing and stopping him before he’d even begun. “From the command tent,” he con
tinued.
Somewhere far off, a man shouted. Isla supposed they were still digging the well. Just one of many improvements she’d never see; she wondered if she’d ever come back here, after she left. She’d known more than one woman who, after getting married, had never seen her childhood home again. Would she miss Enzie Moor? Would, after she’d finally left, she start remembering all the things she’d loved about it? Would she sit by the window, staring out at the snow and remembering all the wonderful times she’d had here, growing up?
Or would her memories fade with time, until her childhood home was nothing more than an ill-remembered dream?
“What Rowena said was right.” Asher bit his lip. “I loved my father, but he was a bad man. He…hurt people. He begged for his life, but I’d seen him make people beg for theirs. He…hurt my mother and he hurt me. I didn’t want him to die but….” Asher drew in a breath. “I’m not sorry that he’s dead,” he finished defiantly. They shared the silence for a few minutes. Hesitantly, he looked up at Isla. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“I won’t miss my father, either,” Isla replied.
Which was perfectly true. If she’d ever loved him, she didn’t now. She’d long felt that she was supposed to love him, and she certainly felt sorry for him, but she realized now that all she’d felt for a long time was pity. Asher was the first person she’d told, and he was a small child. She placed her hand on his for a brief minute before withdrawing it.
FIFTY-ONE
Tristan was coldly unpleasant at dinner, ignoring Isla completely and staring into the fire as he sipped his wine. Except for the bare minimum of speech that was required by civility, and to procure food, he said little. He replied only when spoken to and then with the biting commentary for which he’d become famous. He was vicious enough to leave his companions staring in shock and yet ambiguous enough to leave them wondering whether they’d really been insulted or were merely being oversensitive. And into this framework of doubt, he poured more venom. More than one person had, after sharing a meal with Tristan, left with their self-regard in shreds.
If he cared, he gave no sign. Isla had never seen him be so unpleasant but, at the same time, his manners were as courtly as ever. No one could fault him in that regard, or point to a single thing he’d said that was outright improper. And still….
Isla glanced quickly up at him, and away. She’d gotten used to his coldness, or at least she thought she had, but she’d never seen him like this. She was seeing, for the first time, the man who’d calmly poisoned his wife at the dinner table—a woman who, whatever flaws she’d possessed, had shared his bed—and finished a bottle of port while she died. Even when he’d killed Father Justin, he hadn’t been so…disinterested was the only word that fit.
Had she done something to displease him? She’d barely seen him lately. He’d been gone on business for the king, business he hadn’t discussed. She’d tried not to take it personally but now…she wondered. A vulnerable, insecure part of her wondered if her father was right. Did men truly only want women who had no minds of their own? Had her father said something? Or perhaps he’d heard that their meetings had become, at least in some quarters, public knowledge. That horrifying thought made her skin flame. She swallowed. He hadn’t said anything, done anything to indicate that he was upset with her but she knew that something was wrong all the same.
Overhead and to the left, a shrieking noise emanated from the minstrel’s gallery. The band of players had arrived that afternoon, requesting food and shelter for the night in exchange for their services. Minstrels and even bards were usually wanderers, coming and going as their fancy took them. Sometimes a performer might, if he pleased his host, stay on for weeks or even months. Sometimes he was granted a permanent position at the court. But for the most part, he arrived in the afternoon and left with the dawn.
A bard, unlike a minstrel, was educated. To claim the title, he had to first study and train and then pass a rigorous examination. Most who presented themselves before the so-called college of bards, the examining board made up of top bards throughout the kingdom, failed. At least the first time. Some never succeeded, despite trying all their lives. Bards knew letters and numbers, and the crafting of instruments; they could sing in high chant and plain, as well as memorize local lore and recite histories.
These performers were assuredly not bards. One of the quartet hit an off note and Isla’s teeth clenched. On the other side of the table, her father attacked his plate with a hearty appetite. Apple, sitting beside him, looked pained. Every once in awhile she cast a glance at the man she’d sworn to honor and Isla saw the disgust there. Apple might not be a pleasant woman, or a kind one, but she wasn’t weak.
“Well I say.” The earl signaled for more wine, and Apple’s pet eunuch stepped forward to pour it for him. “This trio is pretty good, eh? The Lies of Loch Lorne, that’s the tune.” They were, in fact, playing The Ballad of the Maid; although Isla didn’t fault her father for the confusion. “I remember it from when I was a boy.” He burped.
“It’s a quartet,” Apple said softly.
“A what?”
“A quartet,” she repeated.
“A what?”
“There are four of them!” she shouted, exasperated.
The earl blinked. “No need to get testy, darling.”
One of the quartet hit another jangling high note. It sounded like cats were being killed up there. No, they might have been playing The Lies of Loch Lorne or I Tupped the Miller’s Daughter Thrice and no one would have been any the wiser.
Absently, Isla wondered why millers’ daughters were always portrayed as sluts. No one ever sang about blacksmiths’ daughters. Probably, she reflected, because they hadn’t lived to. She didn’t envy the first poor fool who made a pass at Adon’s daughter, Tammy; his arms were as wide around as tree trunks and as hard and he made sure that anyone who even thought of courting his daughter first paid a visit to him at the forge. Where he could see, by watching the instructive example of metal being tempered and flattened, what would happen to him if he made precious Tammy cry. So far Tammy, at seventeen winters, was still footloose and fancy free—and, much to her chagrin, in no danger of being otherwise.
Alice, on the other hand, was a miller’s daughter…and she’d taken more than one enterprising young groom up into the hay loft. Isla had seen how she looked at Tristan. A girl like Alice couldn’t realistically hope for marriage with someone of his station, but Isla suspected that she harbored fantasies of being swept off her feet by some handsome prince—or she might settle for an earl—just desperate to possess her.
Isla picked at her food.
“Tristan, don’t you agree?” The earl smiled engagingly.
Tristan’s eyes flashed, but he made no comment on his host’s familiar tone. And then, in that aristocratic drawl of his, “truly, you have the Pure One’s ear for music.” The Pure One, also known as His Holiness Leo II, the head of the church, was a fat man with a reputation for flatulence. He suffered from a terrible, disfiguring gout and it was said that the stench of his ankles alone could set a man back ten paces.
“But His Holiness is deaf!” Apple protested.
Tristan said nothing.
Thinking his comment through, Apple’s face crimsoned with embarrassment. Her husband, meanwhile, ate on. Rowena, seated on Apple’s other side, eyed Isla across the table. She’d been chatting with Rudolph most of the night, their heads close together as they exchanged words meant for the other alone. Once or twice, Rudolph’s eyes had widened.
Rowena smiled sweetly. “How nice that you’ve put on cosmetics for once,” she told Isla.
“Rowena.” Tristan put down his cup, addressing her directly for the first time in a week. “That’s quite a fetching gown.” Rowena’s belladonna-enhanced eyes twinkled as she drank in the praise. Her gown was lovely; Isla had helped to design it, and had cut out all the pieces of fabric as well as purchased the trim. “It’s the same gown you wore the night we
met, yes?”
“Indeed it is!” Rowena’s smile deepened. “You have an excellent memory.”
“Then tell me, why does it look so much smaller on you tonight?”
Rowena bit back a startled exclamation. Rudolph, making matters considerably worse, laughed. Rowena transferred her glare to him. Her smile was gone, as if it had never been. In her narrowed eyes, Isla saw the woman she’d eventually become. Bitterness would make her old before her time as those lines settled in around her eyes, her mouth.
“Well,” the earl said bracingly, “I agree with Rowena. You should make more of an effort with your appearance. You look so nice when you do. And besides,” he added, “I don’t want people to think I raised you poorly!” Laughing at his own joke, he signaled yet again for more wine. Isla chewed her lip, silently wishing that the floor beneath her feet would break apart in a yawning chasm and swallow her whole. The worst part was that Tristan, uncharacteristically, made no move to defend her.
She threw back the dregs in her cup. Hart started in on some long, pointless yarn about a pair of singularly incompetent bandits that had been caught and brought into town for trial, which under other circumstances she would have undoubtedly found humorous. She ignored him, staring into the fire as Tristan had done and bracing herself to wait until she could be excused.
By the end of the interminable exercise that had been dinner, Isla couldn’t decide whether she was more frustrated or furious: with Tristan, with her father, with Rowena, and with herself. Even Hart had gotten on her nerves. Tristan left the table abruptly, as soon as the last course was cleared, issuing a general good evening to the table but saying nothing to Isla in particular. She was left alone, bored and tired and self-pitying and uneasy.