by P. J. Fox
After a brief conversation with Hart, wherein he asked her to go hawking with him the next morning and she demurred, she excused herself to seek her bed. She wasn’t tired, but nor did she want to be around others. Dinner had left her with a disquieting and profoundly discouraging feeling of emptiness. One minute Tristan was loving; the next he was cold. She didn’t understand, and couldn’t help but wonder if their love affair had been all in her mind. Was she lying to herself, about his affections? Seeing only what she wanted to see? He’d told her, plainly enough, that his emotions weren’t hers.
All of a sudden, she wanted to sob.
FIFTY-TWO
She found him in the colonnade, where they’d first spoken. And just like that first night, she hadn’t known where she was going until she got there. She hadn’t known that he’d be there, either; wasn’t consciously looking for him. But when she saw the outline of his form against the night, she knew instinctively why she’d come.
He waited, as motionless as ever, surveying the world at their feet. She came up to him, her slippers silent on the flagstones, and put her hand on his arm. When he didn’t respond, or acknowledge her in any way, she began to withdraw. If this was how he felt, fine.
Isla knew how she felt: cheap, and used. Horribly, the idea had been growing on her throughout dinner that maybe Rowena was right. Maybe he had used her and, having gotten what he wanted—or at least part of it—had cast her aside. Maybe the fact that she hadn’t pushed him away with protestations of protecting her virtue had made him decide he didn’t want her after all. As Rowena had pointed out often enough, no true lady was that…enthusiastic. Was he rejecting her, then, for a woman who more closely conformed to his expectations?
He might have been with her these past few days, for all Isla knew; he’d left now several times on business, but he hadn’t revealed what that business was.
As quick as lightning, his hand closed on hers. She stiffened, surprised. He held her in place, his cool fingers like a vice. “No,” he said quietly. “Don’t go.”
She waited. Somewhere, an owl screeched. She’d gotten used to his voice, but it still unsettled her sometimes. The sound of dry leaves, blowing across the marble tiles of a mausoleum floor. And yet there was something in there…something she didn’t quite understand. A need. He pulled her to him and held her there. She leaned against him, limp, her head against his chest.
After what felt like a long time, he pulled back slightly. He stroked a finger down the side of her face as his eyes searched hers. They were black in the moonlight, but she thought she saw a hint of red in their depths. His expression was unreadable. She could see him well enough; the moon was waxing again, and the night was clear. Pale silver light shone down, outlining the branches of the almost bare trees and casting handfuls of sparkling diamonds on the water. Predators hunted and prey hid. The wind had died down, leaving a world that was damp and still and silent.
She leaned into his touch. His palm was as cold as marble. Just the other night, it had been warm.
“Isla,” he said, “there’s something I need to show you.”
“What?” she asked.
“Something that might…end this, after tonight.”
She frowned slightly, trying to understand. “You don’t want me?” she ventured. She was too boring; too plain; too stupid. Too willful. All the things her father—and her sister—had always told her she was. And now her worst fears were coming true: he did want to leave her.
“It’s not that,” he said. “It could never be that.”
Her thoughts lurched back into focus as she felt the ground tilt beneath her feet. He hadn’t said it. Miraculously, he hadn’t. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been steeling herself against the inevitable until it hadn’t occurred.
She’d convinced herself, utterly, during the course of a single evening that he didn’t want her. But he’d been acting so strange. She loved him, but she couldn’t convince herself that he felt anything in return. That he could possibly want her as much as she wanted him; or at all. How could he?
“What, then?” she asked. She felt a little more curious now, because she was a little more hopeful. This wasn’t him rejecting her; this was something different.
He seemed to sense something of her thoughts. “When I told you I wanted you, it wasn’t a lie. I do. More than you know. But you might not want me, after you see what I have to show you.” He paused. “You have to understand who and what I really am.”
“I don’t understand,” she faltered.
“I know.” His tone was soft.
He considered her for a long moment. Part of her was thrilled at what he’d said and part of her was scared at what he might say next. She loved him and, in that moment, she knew she always would. She could only hope that whatever he planned to tell her—or show her—wouldn’t break her heart.
“Isla,” he said, “I want you to have a chance at happiness. A chance at a normal life. You’re a grown woman, and I’m going to let you make up your mind on your own.” He paused again and when he continued, his words held a harsh note that she couldn’t quite interpret. “I’m too selfish to be noble. If you want to be with me, I won’t fall on my sword and refuse you.”
“But—why?” If he wanted to be with her as much as he claimed, then why would he try to frighten her off? She understood now that the reason she’d seen so little of him since he’d returned from his latest assignation and the reason he’d been so quiet at dinner was because he’d been working himself up to this—whatever this was.
“Because it’s what the man I was would have done.”
She considered his words. She still didn’t understand the relationship between host and demon, and wasn’t sure she ever would. There was more he wasn’t telling her, she knew that. Had intuited it, really; his few comments on the subject seemed both to suggest that Tristan—the original Tristan—was long dead and that the being he was now was a strange amalgam of the two. Tristan had, certainly, taken on many of his host’s attitudes and loyalties. But whether purposefully or because the entity that had been a formless demon had somehow been changed in the process of acquiring a corporeal form, she wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that, either way, this was who she wanted.
Slowly, she nodded. “Alright.”
“Isla….” He caressed her face again. His hand moved slowly, as though he were committing the experience to memory. As though they might never touch again. At the thought, a knife twisted in her heart. “If I were a good man,” he said quietly, “I’d leave. I wouldn’t do this to you.”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” she said, equally quietly.
“I don’t want to, either.”
“Why?” she asked again. Why her? Of all the women in the world, most of whom had far more to recommend them than mousy little Isla Cavendish, what could he possibly see in her? In Isla’s own eyes, she was nothing special: a thin, not particularly beautiful girl who had too many ideas and wanted too much control over her own life. She wasn’t charming, like Rowena, and she didn’t give a damn about chivalry. She valued her independence and she’d never make any man an ideal wife. Tristan, on the other hand, could have any woman he wanted. So why her?
“I told you.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a small, mirthless smile. “Because you’re beautiful. Inside and out.”
“And if…whatever this is…if I can’t stomach it, you’ll leave?”
“I’ll let you leave. Yes.”
She turned. If this was some sort of test, then she wanted to get it over with. If he was going to test her, judging her by some criteria that he hadn’t explained and that she didn’t understand, and possibly leave her over the results—promises notwithstanding—then she wanted to find out now. She wanted to get it over with. There was no sense in prolonging the pain.
He moved silently. He didn’t offer her his arm and she didn’t reach for it of her own accord. Instead, she followed him through the manor and outsid
e into the garden. Discolored rectangles marked where tapestries had once hung; tapestries that had been pawned or outright sold to cover her father’s debts. Now chill air blew through the tiny chinks in the stone, cutting her like a thousand miniscule daggers. As lovely as many of their tapestries had been to look at, they also served a purpose in that they functioned as insulation.
Snores drifted from the great hall. It was late, and in the country people rose with the dawn. Most had gone to bed straight after dinner. There weren’t candles enough to read by, anyway. Only in the wealthiest homes could anyone afford to read or play music into the wee hours.
A bench creaked as someone rolled over in their sleep. There was a rustle, and a giggle issued from a different quarter of the massive open space. Close quarters meant far less expectation of privacy. In the city, Isla had heard, things were different even for the middle class. She wondered what that must be like.
Isla hated the Highlands. Ballads made the windswept moors out to be romantic, but they weren’t. Those who didn’t live inside the manor’s walls lived in squalor: one or two roomed huts dug halfway into the ground for warmth and thatched with sod. Chilblains; the flux; toes burning and itching and then finally turning black and rotting off from that infamous Highlands condition known as bog foot.
Tristan opened the door and she slipped out into the night.
They walked through the garden and, passing through the far gate, into the woods. They didn’t walk for all that long, but to Isla the journey felt like it took ages. She had no idea where they were going and time always passed more slowly when one felt like one was lost. The smells of the forest drifted on the night air and, mixed among them, the acrid-sweet smell of burning peat. Peat was an euphemistic term for the accumulations of partially decayed vegetation that could be found in moors all over the world. It was abundant and it burned easily. Cottagers dug it out of the mire and formed it into blocks, which were then dried on frames woven from willow shoots. Once dried, the blocks were stored for later use or, sometimes, if the cottager were particularly adept at his craft, sold.
And then they arrived.
Tristan stopped just at the edge of the glade. Isla spared a quick glance up at him, and was surprised to see him watching her. His expression was, once again, inscrutable. She chewed her lip, nervous. Whatever it was, this was it.
Isla looked around; she saw no one, and heard nothing. Even the usual sounds of night seemed muted. Tristan touched her shoulder one last time and then stepped through the trees, into the small clearing on the other side. Taking a deep breath, she followed him. She looked around. At first, she still didn’t see anything. The moon shone down on the ferns, silvering them. The atmosphere was one of peace, and Isla barely noticed the chill air.
Shadows loomed black in the night. The trees wore them like cloaks. Isla started as one of the shadows began to move. Detaching itself, it stretched and grew and became another person.
It was Alice.
She saw Tristan first, and smiled. She had one of those faces, all dimples. Even meeting a virtual stranger for a midnight assignation, even with the knowing glint in her eye, she managed to look pure and virginal. “Just when I thought you’d never come,” she purred, her tone heavy with meaning. She brushed her fingertips down the length of his arm.
Isla let out an involuntary gasp. Alice turned, and their eyes met. “My Lady,” she stammered, “I had no idea…that you…I mean….”
The guilt, and embarrassment, in her eyes said more than any amount of words—or touches. Alice was meeting Tristan in the woods, and possibly not for the first time, and she’d been found out. By the woman that he was betrothed to marry.
Isla felt her stomach twist with sudden nausea. Was this what she’d been brought here to see? The man she loved, with another woman? Somehow, as upset as she was, she couldn’t quite credit that idea. That Tristan was no virgin could hardly constitute news, and Isla knew Morvish society viewed fidelity as a malleable concept—but still!
Alice glanced up at Tristan and, seeing no answering shock in his own eyes, back at Isla. Isla, in turn, could see the maid’s mind working. Were Tristan’s tastes…perverse? Had he brought Isla here, expecting some group communion?
Isla stood still, waiting. She, too, had no idea what was going on.
Alice must have realized that, because she turned back to Tristan. “Your Grace,” she ventured, “would it please you that the lady and I…?”
“It would please me,” Tristan replied coldly, “that you die.”
FIFTY-THREE
Alice screamed and tried to run.
Tristan’s arm shot out and he pulled her to him. He moved so quickly that he didn’t appear to move at all. Alice twisted back and forth like a cat caught in a trap. Tristan remained calm, as though restraining her took no effort at all. And perhaps for him it didn’t; he was very strong.
Isla watched, transfixed. She didn’t believe it possible that she’d heard him right. His eyes met hers. Alice, he ignored entirely.
“You need to understand what I am,” he said again. His face was expressionless and his voice held no emotion but there was something in his eyes. From any other man she would have called it a mute appeal.
“Let me go!” Alice demanded.
But Tristan didn’t. Turning slightly, he ran a single finger down the hollow of Alice’s neck. There was a fascination there that Isla had never seen before. This wasn’t how he touched Isla; this was how Isla touched her breakfast after coming in from a long morning in the dairy, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees and helping Rose lift the cheese onto the shelves. She came back to the kitchen sweaty and exhausted and ravenous.
Alice swallowed. “What are you going to do to me?” she breathed, trembling.
“I’m going to eat you.” His tone was almost instructive.
Alice started screaming again. “Why?” The word held a raw, hysterical edge. “I never did anything to you! I thought—you said—”
“I said nothing,” Tristan corrected her. He was perfectly calm. His tone held no revulsion, and no relish. Isla had never seen a man address his dinner before, and she was both horrified and sickly fascinated. “I asked you to meet me here, and you agreed.”
“But…I’m a good girl…I have a family…I don’t want to die,” she pleaded. “I’m too young and I…I haven’t done anything yet. I’ve never left this stupid bog, never seen the world.” She choked back a sob. “Please, let me go,” she begged. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I’ll go straight home and never leave my room again only please…I want to live.”
Tristan didn’t respond. His eyes met Isla’s. Isla said nothing.
“Why?” Alice whimpered again, sagging a little. “Why me?”
“Because I have to.” Tristan—or the thing masquerading as Tristan—spoke the words almost gently, as he caressed her cheek. Almost like a lover might. But not quite. “To survive.” His words weren’t an apology, but an explanation. He—it—was enjoying this.
Alice began to sob, and to shake slightly, like a slender young tree in a high wind. Her words had degenerated into a single incoherent plea that she repeated over and over. She turned to Isla, silently begging her for help. Isla stared back, transfixed.
She spoke no word, and made no move to help. She’d never been so scared in her life, but that wasn’t why. She was no coward, and fear had never prevented her from doing what she thought was right. She’d been terrified the night Hart’s mother died, terrified the night her own mother died, and terrified of Apple when she’d come to live with them. But she’d made her peace with Apple, proving herself to be no threat by never voicing her concerns. And Apple had seen and, in time, the danger had broken up and passed away like storm clouds. She’d been almost too frightened to move the night she’d gone to Tristan, offering herself to him in exchange for her sister’s life.
But this was different. This was the test. He’d brought her here to see this, tonight. And to see what she wou
ld do. She realized now that she hadn’t understood; Tristan wasn’t judging her.
He was waiting for her to judge him.
Isla stared into Alice’s eyes, now bright with terror. She swallowed. Despite the other girl’s obvious interest in Tristan, Isla liked Alice. She always had. They weren’t close. Thank the Gods, she thought, that he hadn’t picked Rose. She wasn’t sure that she could’ve stood watching her friend die. As it was, Isla felt ill. What kind of a person was she?
She’d known what he was when she asked him to marry her; knew what he was when she’d accepted his gifts, and returned his advances. Knew what he was when she fell in love with him. But she’d been a coward then, far more than now. Because she could, she’d ignored what she knew about him. She’d wanted to see him as a man, not as a monster. And so she had. She didn’t have to cope with the fact that he ate people, if she stayed home and embroidered while he did it. She’d been lying to herself this whole time, and the realization was a bitter one.
The only question left to her was: how honest was she going to be with herself, in the end?
Was she going to keep pretending, only pretending now that she didn’t love him and was revolted? Or was she going to acknowledge the truth: that she did still love him and always would. That she, in that sense, was as sick as he. However she might like to imagine herself, she was no dainty miss to shy away from his touch. She found his…his otherness alluring. She felt safe around him. She’d been glad when he killed Father Justin. She’d known he was a killer, and a ruthless one, from the night they’d met and it hadn’t stopped her from falling in love with him. From wanting to fall in love with him.