by P. J. Fox
She’d marry him either way, she had to…but would she be happy with him?
Were he a better man, he’d explore that question to its natural conclusion and ask himself, as he should, whether he should let her go. But he was too selfish; he loved her, and he wanted her, so he convinced himself that he could make her happy if only he were given the chance to do so. Make her happy and convince her that he was still the man she’d fallen in love with. Still capable of being that man. Even though, in the deepest recesses of his heart, he wondered. But he thought that, at least when he was around her, he could be. For her. Because, even now, she humanized him. Gave him hope.
He sat back in his chair, his legs propped up on the table in front of him. He was in the small council chamber with Simon, his tutor. Simon, at once his savior and the man responsible for ruining his life.
No, Tristan corrected himself; he could have just as easily turned Simon away. Just as easily told Simon that certain things came at too high a price. No matter what they were. Instead, he’d invited Simon in and begged him to do…this. To help him become the kind of man he needed to become, to save his people. The kind of monster.
He regarded the other man across the long table, without speaking. He and Simon were alone this afternoon, as usual. Few of Tristan’s councilors wished to share space with the shrunken, shriveled wreck. Tristan himself had been hesitant at first, but that was before he’d sold his soul to Satan. Before he’d started performing perverse acts on a demon.
He folded his long fingered hands together, one over the other in his lap. They were thin and finely boned, the hands of an aristocrat, and yet made strong by hours of work with both sword and bow. A fine network of scars told of countless accidents in the practice yard and, once, a close call in the woods when he’d been hot on the trail of some bandits.
Simon did the same. Simon’s hands were old and gnarled. His eyes were rheumy and glowed with a sort of low cunning. Like a toad’s. They sat in loose, rheumy pouches of flesh, two orbs that held no emotion whatsoever except for perhaps a faint trace of contempt. This, this was Tristan’s teacher. The man to whom he’d entrusted all.
A wreck of a thing, Simon’s skin was covered with lesions and sores. His white hair grew thinly from a liver-spotted scalp, and when he sat down he seemed to spread out into his chair until he filled it entirely. As he was doing now. His rumpled robes hung on him, making him look like a sack of old potatoes. He smelled, too.
But he wasn’t a man that Tristan would cross willingly, even so. He was far, far too powerful and Tristan was—if not afraid, then cautious. Simon had never challenged his power but Tristan wondered, sometimes, if that was because he’d never given the old man cause. And what would happen if Simon did turn against him? Tristan remembered hearing an old proverb, when he was small: something about how, if you grab a tiger by the tail you’d better be prepared to hold on. He’d never seen a tiger before, although he’d seen illustrations. Tigers were portrayed variously as outsized housecats and as wingless gryphons.
Simon’s physical condition was a mark of his power. Like all necromancers, he’d suffered the consequences of holding death too close and for too long. A man wasn’t meant to tangle with certain forces, or see too far beyond the veil. He was meant to live out his life and then pass into oblivion. Whether to be reborn, as the church taught, or whether to simply cease, his span was a finite one. All mortal beings were so; and like all mortal beings, mankind was meant for his own plane. Not the demon’s plane, and not the plane beyond. Simon’s studies had left him little more than a husk—a husk that was horridly, brightly aware. Brenna was right, Tristan thought; Simon, if cast out, would not die.
And that scared Tristan most of all.
“A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny,” Simon said mildly.
“Are you calling me the tyrant,” Tristan demanded, “or the king?”
Simon shrugged.
“The king is wrong!” Tristan thundered. “He’s wrong to continue this war—and he’s wrong, most of all, not to consider the proposed peace. Has he no sense of the toll this constant fighting has taken on the kingdom? Of how many will die this winter from simple lack of food?”
He mastered himself, but only with great effort. Who was meant to be sowing the fields, or plowing them, Tristan had asked himself time and time again, when all the able-bodied men were at war? And when the fields themselves had become battlegrounds? His heart ached for his own people, suffering as they did. Suffering, because of the king.
“I’m no tyrant,” he added more quietly.
“What do you think will happen,” Simon asked, “when you move against the king?”
“I haven’t said—”
“Don’t mistake me for a fool.” Simon’s eyes glittered. “You propose betrayal.”
“I propose nothing of the sort. I propose common sense.”
“Which you would achieve, then, by treating with your liege lord’s enemy behind his back.”
“Not behind his back.”
“How then?”
In truth, Tristan didn’t know. He knew only that the king’s policies, if carried out to their natural conclusion, would cost him—cost them all—the kingdom. He hoped his logic was inspired by more than simply love for Brenna; but if the war ended, they could be married. He could put aside this…this thing. There would be no need for it then, no need for the power it brought. He’d be free, and so would she, and they could begin their life together as they’d intended. And she’d see that he was still the man she loved.
And he’d make her happy. He knew it.
FOUR
Caer Addanc had been home to House Mountbatten for hundreds of years, and its great hall bore the stamp of those men who’d built and maintained its towering bulk. The dressed stone walls were lined with tapestries depicting scenes from the battles in which they’d fought, along with the trophies they’d claimed: weapons and armor claimed from slain enemies, the occasional banner. Tristan, claiming his seat at the head of the main table, represented only the latest in a long line of warriors. Men who’d sacrificed all that House Mountbatten might continue. That mere mention of its name might forever strike terror into the hearts of its enemies.
The words of House Mountbatten were victory or death; a simple statement that conveyed so much.
Their commitment—to themselves, to their cause, and to honor—was what had ever made them fearsome foes. Tristan had heard stories of vengeance stretching down over years and even generations, his ancestors content to wait until the proper moment.
Tristan glanced at Brenna, seated beside him. She smiled wanly, and turned back to her cup. Behind them, the fire roared.
The great hall, for all its vast size, was a warm and comfortable place. Its decorations, however morbid their origins, gave it a lived-in air that more than one visitor had remarked reminded him of a simpler dwelling. Candles lit the lower part of the hall, holding back the gloom that hovered near the rafters and hid a ceiling that in daylight was resplendent with crimson and gold. Interlocking quatrefoils formed a series of coffered arches; in the center of each were smaller and more elaborate carvings. Both fireplaces were massive affairs carved of marble that bore Tristan’s house crest.
Fragrant juniper wood burned in them, as well as in braziers lit around the room. All were warm at dinner, even on the coldest of nights. Tristan was a rich man and he had access to wood aplenty. The strewing rushes on the floor were changed every week. Their aroma mixed with that of the wood smoke, perfuming the air with a subtle fragrance.
Tristan sipped his wine. Before him, barely touched, lay the smoked salmon that had made up his second course. Conversation at the table was stilted; despite the recent victories in the South and the relative plenty of life inside the castle, a pall had fallen over them. The sounds of chewing seemed too loud; the occasional clink of metal against metal a bow shot. Tristan’s page refilled his cup, and then stepped back quickly. Tristan said nothing.
He forced himself from that line of thought.
On his other side, Simon ate on as if nothing ailed him. And perhaps nothing did. Whatever fire still powered his wasted and crippled form still needed fuel. His tutor signaled for more wine, and served himself another piece of fish.
Tristan tapped his fingertips against the table, lost in thought. He only stopped when he realized that everyone was looking at him. Everyone except Simon, who was busy sucking a bone. Tristan met their eyes in turn and then, deliberately, began tapping them again. Below the salt, no one paid much attention. But at this table, at which it was supposedly a boon to sit, everyone stared. Someone swallowed, and someone else took a sip of wine. More of a gulp, really.
“Tristan,” Brenna whispered.
He turned slightly. “What?”
“Please stop.”
“Stop what?” He spoke in the aristocratic drawl common to all of his kind, and in a few simple words managed to convey his utter boredom—with her nerves and with this senseless fear. He wasn’t doing anything. And he’d be damned if he’d admit that he was. Brenna pressed her lips together and turned; her hand trembled on her cup, as she held it to her lips.
“So,” one of the men said heartily, “we have good news to celebrate!” His false cheer rang hollow; he was speaking, of course, of the recent battle that had been won by the king. News that, when it had reached Tristan, had rocked him to his core. He’d been counting on the king’s failure, and on that failure forcing him to sue for peace. That the king couldn’t win in the long term, all wise men knew. And still they fought—and for what? The only question they had to ask themselves was how much of the country would burn.
One of the servants added wood to the fire behind him. These luxuries would run out before long. Even a place as wealthy as Darkling Reach, a keep as well stocked as Caer Addanc, couldn’t exist in a vacuum. The whole of the kingdom needed to function, for one part of it to. And as the world around them continued to crumble and trade continued to stagnate, Caer Addanc would fall. Tristan knew this, even if no one else did.
He knew this and, for the first time in his life, he was scared.
He wasn’t used to the feeling. He had an abstract concept of things like death, but he’d never before encountered a situation that he couldn’t control; at least not so directly. In battle, the outcome was far from fixed. This was true. But one could still hedge one’s bets with good strategy and, most of all, quick thinking. The war, however, was and had been, from the beginning, beyond his control. The king’s so called enemies were really just disenfranchised lords—fellow Morva—from the West. They’d made demands on the king that the king, in turn, had refused on principle. And however valid that principle had been, no principle was worth the bloodshed that had stained this land.
“We should hold a service of thanksgiving,” the priest said. Father Alan was, as priests went, a fair enough example of the breed. He was small and fat and his currant-in-dough eyes glittered with good humor. Right now he seemed nervous, his hands twisting in his lap beneath the table as his gaze flickered to Tristan.
“You’re welcome to do so,” Tristan said blandly.
“And”—the priest summed himself up—”will you be attending?” For all that the priest served a powerful peer, Caer Addanc’s parish was a parish like any other. Father Alan was used to counseling widows and young boys. He had no experience of politics; had he wished to carry a sword, he would have enlisted.
Tristan half-admired his bravery in broaching the topic, and half-wanted to throw him into the fire. Brenna seemed fond of the man and had undoubtedly gone to him for support, confessing her childish dreams in the sanctity of his office and smiling as he absolved her of some imaginary sin.
“I wouldn’t think,” Tristan observed dryly, “that I’d be wanted. Aren’t you concerned about the chapel caving in around your ears?”
A few brave souls twittered at the jest. A log broke apart, showering sparks, and Brenna jumped in her seat. She put a hand over her heart, and then quickly returned it to her lap.
“Well I think,” began the first man, a seneschal from a minor holding, “that the king is quite wise to pursue this course. In fact—”
“The king has no heir,” Tristan cut in smoothly. He didn’t raise his voice; he had no need to. Conversation stopped, as soon as he spoke. “The king gambles with his life, and the lives of his subjects, in suppressing a disagreement that could be solved with words.”
“The king is right to do so,” the seneschal objected.
“The West was right to protest the new tax, a tax levied to support the expansion of a kingdom that even now the king cannot hold.”
“The king agreed with me when I—”
“Ah but in politics, stupidity is rarely a handicap.” Tristan smiled thinly.
“Do you propose treason?” another man asked, scandalized.
“No,” Tristan said coldly. “I propose common sense.”
“Tristan,” Brenna began, “I think—”
“Silence.” When he wanted a woman’s opinion, he’d ask for it. He was furious at Brenna for rejecting him and more furious with himself for holding such a thing against her. He’d fallen in love with her innocence, her charm; could he now punish her for exhibiting those traits? He placed a hand over hers and she twitched, startled, but she didn’t withdraw.
FIVE
Tristan threw himself down in the chair opposite Simon. “Is that all chivalry is? A set of lies agreed upon?”
“Now you come closer to the mark.” The decrepit old man sipped his drink, the cup clutched tightly in one diseased hand. His skin had the dry, flaky consistency of sycamore bark.
“I gave my word to my father that I would uphold the king’s policies—”
“The best way to keep your word,” his tutor interrupted, “is not to give it.”
“I dislike oppression.”
“Indeed.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.”
Tristan leaned forward, his eyes flashing. “Am I an oppressor, now, too?”
“Your people live under martial law. The penalties for flouting curfew are harsh, and tell me, what happened to that family? The one that was denied entrance to the city after dark?” All over Darkling Reach, a curfew was in force—and brutally. That such measures were necessary was, indeed, regrettable. But it made them no less necessary. At least in Tristan’s mind.
As Tristan had pointed out to his so-called advisors often enough, a gaggle of scared little girls in men’s clothing who jumped at shadows, the night was alive with danger. Strange, hooded figures had been seen traveling abroad. A series of grizzly murders in the capital had necessitated the introduction of street lights and even so the city watch was stretched beyond its limit. Still, Simon spoke of these things with a certain relish that even Tristan found hard to ignore.
Tristan, meanwhile, saw the measures as, if evil, then a necessary evil. He took no pleasure from seeing good men die, much less women and children. But his hand had been forced by an event that occurred several months previous: a group of men from the South had gained admittance to the neighboring and smaller city of Bearn. They’d used the oldest trick in the world, and played on the gatekeeper’s heartstrings by sending forth some camp follower in the guise of an injured woman. She’d stood on the hard-packed ground, in rags, her children beside her and begged admittance. Her tale of woe was all too common, and the gatekeeper agreed to admit her. Once he’d gotten the gate open, he was overpowered by the armed and armored soldiers waiting in the shadows. Bearn had burned.
The family
who’d begged admission to the capital had been killed by bandits, huddling against the walls as they cried out for aid. They had, it seemed, been everything they’d claimed. Because of course families dispossessed by violence were not rare. Not in the least.
“Better one family die,” Tristan said, “than ten. Or ten thousand.”
“Their fate means so little to you.” Simon sipped his drink. His words held no rebuke, only interest. His eyes, as they studied Tristan’s, were very knowing and very cold. “You’ve grown more like me than you think.” Tristan didn’t respond; he knew in his heart of hearts that the old necromancer was right. Still, he shook his head. He wasn’t like the old man. He’d done what he had to, to protect his people and his home. He wasn’t evil.
“Men like you seek power for its own sake,” he said.
“And men like you are more dangerous,” Simon countered, “after their fashion.” He put down his cup and sat back in his chair. “Men like you convince yourselves that your hearts are still good, because you fancy your intentions to be noble. You turn a blind eye to your own greed for power.”
“If I hadn’t done what I’d done, I’d be dead! And Brenna—”
Simon waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes, they’d all be dead. How tragic. But what you fail to grasp is that for some, death is a pleasanter alternative than selling one’s soul. You’re still alive, because your power makes it so. Power you’ve craved since you and I first met…some time ago now, as I recall. Did I force you to adopt this path?” His eyes glittered again, briefly, this time with something very like humor. “I merely presented you with the option. You could have said no. Many do. You chose the left hand path.”