The White Queen: The Black Prince Trilogy, Book 2

by P. J. Fox

  She heard a step, and then another. And then nothing. Rousing herself into more of a sitting position, she turned.

  And there was Rose.

  She hadn’t seen Rose since before her wedding, and precious little of her at all since she’d arrived at Caer Addanc. Rose regarded her now with a strange look that Isla had never seen before. At least on Rose’s features. But she had, she realized, seen it on someone else’s.

  Rowena’s.

  “Hello, Rose,” she said.

  “They were right,” Rose replied.

  “Who was right?” Isla made an effort to use her most measured tone.

  “Everyone.” Rose’s tone was accusing. “I thought they were just being mean, that you were being forced into this marriage or maybe—or maybe you were just too stupid to see what he was really like. The duke, I mean. There were rumors that you’d fallen in love with him, but I never believed that. I mean, not really. How could anyone love a monster?

  “But they were right. You knew exactly what he was. You were his whore.”

  “Rose, you asked to come with me.”

  “Because I thought things would be different! I thought that, at least, life here would be glamorous. A real court. And I’ve heard about courts! About the feasts and the dances and the intrigue. The king hosts ten orgies a day!” Which he didn’t, but that was beside the point. “But this…this is boring. Nothing happens here. All anyone does is work.

  “And I’m expected to work…and work, and work! And that Luci is—horrible! Always looking over my shoulder, and breathing down my neck. Do you know, she’s already docked my pay twice? And I didn’t even do anything!” Her eyes narrowed, two ill-intentioned slits in her once pretty face. “I hate it here. And I hate you. You should have told me!”

  “Told you what?”

  “That—that—that you’re evil!”

  Isla swallowed.

  “Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?”

  “I’m still the same person.”

  “I repeat: have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You look like the very Devil from Hell. Like a corpse. Like him. And here you are: lounging about, doing nothing, while people slave away in the kitchens and people are—are sacrificed!”

  “Rose, you forget yourself.”

  “We’re not friends.”

  “No, we’re not. You’re a servant. I’m the lady of this house.”

  The answer was obvious, of course: they’d been friends, when they’d been equals. Isla had been an aristocrat in nothing but name, doing twice the work of her father’s so-called servants. Rose had looked down on her, if kindly: for not being a woman of the world, for having no real place in the world. Rose had been more sophisticated, then. But a great deal had changed since then. Neither of them would be going back to Enzie, a truth that Rose had finally seemed to realize. Isla wondered, idly, what had occasioned her to do so.

  It didn’t matter, of course; what mattered was that Rose didn’t want to wait on Isla or anyone; hadn’t imagined herself cast into the role of a true servant. Perhaps her feelings for Hart had been deeper than she’d let on; perhaps she’d believed that, once here, in the frozen wastelands of the North, they’d be equals.

  Her station wouldn’t have mattered to Hart, if he’d loved her; but she didn’t know that.

  “I thought, all this time, that people were being mean to you.”

  “They were.” The words came out stiffly, Isla’s mouth set in a firm line.

  “No. They were just telling the truth.”

  “Go, then.”

  “Go where?” Rose gestured at the window. “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Then perhaps you should have thought of that, before coming in here with no other purpose than to castigate me! Go outside. Go wherever! But go out of my sight. And quickly,” she added, her eyes on her former handmaiden’s. “For your own sake.”

  Rose laughed. “As if anyone would ever believe you. You’re as useless here as you were in Enzie. More useless; cheesemongers are harder to replace than whores.” She left the last part unsaid: that cheesemongering was skilled labor, whereas anyone could spread their legs. Which wasn’t true, of course; lovemaking was a skill in its own right, and one at which few women excelled. Isla knew that from her bond with Tristan, as she also knew that while his other wives and lovers had shared his bed, they’d shared nothing else.

  No, Rose wasn’t having the intended effect of causing Isla to doubt her place in her lord’s household; she was merely doing her part to convince Isla that friendships, for the most part, were disposable. The old axiom about how you found out who your friends are when you were down and out was true enough, she supposed; but a far truer axiom was that you found out who your friends were when you succeeded. Many were the men and women who enjoyed lending a helping hand to those beneath them; few and far between were those whose hearts held the capacity for genuine joy at others’ joy.

  “I mean it, Rose. For your own sake. Go.”

  “For my own sake?” Something flashed in the other woman’s eyes. Not fear, but something. “Why, because you’re going to what—tell on me? Run to your husband and tell him that I was mean to you? How do you know that he’ll care?” And then, just seeking to be unpleasant, to punish Isla for not being the mistress she’d wanted, “how do you know that he isn’t sharing my bed, too?”

  “Because I know,” Isla said. And she did. His thoughts were her thoughts; if she was hearing this, then so was he. Isla didn’t believe that Rose had meant it, when she said she hated her; but she knew, just as well, that Tristan wouldn’t agree—or care. He was tolerant, or tolerant enough, of many things; disobedience wasn’t one of them.

  Unable to take more, Isla turned back to the window.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  “Hello, there.”

  Isla cracked an eye open. She hadn’t moved since Rose had left, an hour before. “Go away,” she said. “Don’t you know that I’m a pariah?”

  Hart smiled. “We can be pariahs together.”

  “I’m almost surprised to see you sitting here.”

  “I’m almost surprised, myself.” Hart smiled, a little ruefully.

  She wasn’t the only one who looked different. He’d exchanged his own clothing for the black and green of Tristan’s personal guard. His gambeson had been expertly tailored. The fabric was quilted, and studded with some kind of metal that had been oxidized to match the black. He’d blend in well in the forest, with nothing reflective to give him away. Which, Isla was sure, had been the intent. He wore fine breeches, too, buckled with an equally new belt. Even his boots were new. The only remnant of his life before was the sword buckled at his side. It had been made a long time ago, by a master bladesmith. Hart had…liberated it from an outlaw, the summer before.

  He was scrubbed clean, too, a sight she’d never thought she’d see, and his hair had been cut short after the manner of Northmen.

  “You look different.”

  “So Rose tells me.”

  “Ah, Rose.” Hart shook his head slightly. “She should never have come.”

  “Should we?”

  “It’s too late to wonder that now, isn’t it.”

  “Too late for me, maybe. But not for you.”

  Hart didn’t respond for a long time. “It’s too late for me, too, Isla. Too late for a lot of things.”

  “I thought that, maybe, you’d leave with them.”

  “I thought that, maybe, I might.” He was staring out at the snow, now, too. Isla couldn’t even begin to estimate how much had fallen. Surely not as much as it appeared; there couldn’t be so much snow in all the world. Five or six inches qualified as a blizzard in the Highlands; the snows rarely amounted to more than half a hand, even when the cold was very bad.

  “But then something happened and….”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  Isla wondered what that thing had been, but Hart seemed disinclined to tell her. All she knew
was that he looked different, too, and not just in his manner of dress. There was a gravity, a sense of…almost regret, that hadn’t been there before. Her brother wasn’t the man who’d left Enzie, either. They’d both changed into people that neither of their former selves would have recognized. They at least had that in common.

  “I’m worried about them.”

  “They’ll be fine. Rowena won’t let Rudolph off that easy.”

  Isla laughed mirthlessly. “Luci said something very similar, you know.”

  “I like Luci.”

  “Have you bedded her?” Isla asked, with casual interest.

  “No. She’s engaged to the cook. She was married before, you know; her husband died.”

  Isla hadn’t known. “I’m sorry.”

  “In the war.”

  “Oh.”

  “Many of the people here are refugees.”

  Which explained their unwavering loyalty to Tristan, and willingness to look the other way. A refugee’s life was usually pitiless and short. What seemed like a thousand lifetimes later, Isla still remembered the woman that she and Hart had encountered in the road. The woman who’d asked them to spare her dead baby. By the look on Hart’s face, he remembered too. Most men spent their lives in service to their lords; they had no say in his politics, or in his alliances. And, in the end, they paid for his mistakes.

  If his lands or accounts were confiscated, then there was no recourse; and if their cottages were burned, then there was nowhere to go. The North had ever been a destination for refugees, a fact that confused most Southerners. Why would any sane man want to, as they saw it, throw himself into the wolf’s mouth? Life in the North was famously hard, its rulers famously harder. But Isla, over the past few weeks and particularly over the past few days, thought that she was beginning to understand why.

  Was beginning to understand a lot of things.

  “Hart,” she asked, “what did you do?”

  “I sold my soul,” he replied, without emotion.

  “You can’t sell what isn’t yours to sell.” Her words were soft, but carried conviction.

  “Believe that if it gives you comfort,” he said, not unkindly. He thought for awhile. “They”—their father, Apple, Rowena, the others—”will undoubtedly take refuge with some farmer, making his life miserable until the roads clear. Which, at this point, might be spring.” He smiled, although the expression seemed a little forced. “Who knows, the fair Rowena might meet and fall in love with some strapping farm lad and entirely save her betrothed from the problem. Then he can marry someone he actually loves, as opposed to someone he’s only convinced himself that he should love.”

  “So you think that, too.”

  “I always have.”

  “Do you hate me now, like Rowena?” Like Rose. Like her own father. Like the whole world.

  “Of course not.” Hart seemed surprised at the suggestion, which warmed her. “Isla, I—I love you. You know that. You’re my sister. And, more than that, you’re my friend. My best friend,” he added, “if truth be told. Although it’s embarrassing, telling that to a woman. Even your own sister. Or perhaps,” he mused, “especially your own sister. I don’t…like feelings much, you know. But I have them.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I think that, now that we’re here, things will get better.”

  Isla hoped so. She devoutly hoped so. But she didn’t know. War was coming again; whether this spring or next, or ten years from now, she wasn’t sure it mattered. A storm was brewing; wasn’t that what Luci had said? And gnomes had ways of knowing things. Even half-gnomes. Eir had seemed on edge, too. Isla missed Eir, now; her erstwhile tailor had made her feel safe. She missed Asher, too, whom she’d seen only that morning when he’d come in to greet her before meeting with his tutor. He was too serious for his age, a burden only made worse by his obvious intelligence. But Isla loved Asher, she knew that now. Loved him like a younger brother, or perhaps a child.

  She wondered if she was trying to replace Rowena; she’d thought she shared that bond with Rowena, a fantasy of which she’d been sorely disabused. Rowena hadn’t ever returned her love, not truly. Isla wasn’t entirely certain that Rowena was capable of returning anyone’s love. Or that she understood what the term meant.

  The idea of that happening again was more humiliating even than acknowledging its having happened the first time. Asher didn’t need her; he’d had a mother, and the last thing he needed was her or anyone pretending to be that mother. She wondered, again, if she and Tristan would have children of their own and knew at the same time that even if they did, she’d still love Asher the same. Still wish that he were hers.

  What a depressing thought.

  The mystery of Asher’s true parentage would have to be addressed at some point; if only because the growing rumors concerning it were becoming almost as dangerous to him as the notion that he was Brandon Terrowin’s heir. Either way, he was valuable—to someone’s agenda. Either way, he was a pawn in the wrong hands. Hands that would be coming for him.

  And what had Hart done?

  What had she done? To herself? What was she becoming, and what had she already become?

  What would happen to Rose?

  What would happen to her family?

  What would happen to all of them?

  A storm.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Tristan sat in his office, going over dispatches.

  A fire crackled merrily in the hearth behind his desk. His chair was hard and uncomfortable, a fact that didn’t particularly bother him. His desk had belonged to his grandfather, and was still in excellent repair although the wood was beginning to crack in some places. The dry heat of too many fires, combined with the thin air of the mountains. The gargoyles holding up the desk’s surface had all been given harelips, rendering them even more unpleasant to gaze upon.

  He sat back in his chair, his brother’s letter still in his hand. And then, turning, he fed it into the fire. After which he sat, in silence, for a long time.

  Hart was telling Isla a story that, in turn, he’d heard from Callas: a story taken from one of the northern fables, about a woman who lost her husband in battle. He was brought, broken and unresponsive, back to his tent where his wife immediately began guarding him and refusing to let anyone—even his physician—enter. After four days and four nights, her husband’s men came to her and begged her to release him, so that he might be buried.

  Others say that he is dead, she replied, but he is not dead.

  Lady, they pleaded, he stinks.

  He does not stink. To me, he does not stink.

  Tristan tuned out the rest of the conversation. He didn’t care. It was good for Isla that she had someone to speak with. She needed a friend. And although Rose had been the beneficiary of Isla’s kindness now for some years, Rose was not that friend. Rose was…expendable. Which Isla knew, of course, and which was why she’d tried to warn Rose off. All but told her to run, before it was too late. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had, but Rose was too stupid a chit to listen.

  Tristan had contemplated reprimanding Isla for her disobedience, but had ultimately come to the conclusion that Isla meant no offense. Probably hadn’t even considered the issue. Still, he’d have to teach her; there were certain things she could not do. And warning people, however obliquely, that he might eat them was one of those things. She was still…very independent-minded. Very much an individual. But that would change.

  He thought briefly of Cariad, and of her supposed concern for Isla. Her questioning if Isla knew what he was going to do. Isla didn’t, of course; and still didn’t. But that was for the best—for her. And he truly was thinking of her, whether she knew that or not.

  His lips curved in a small, bloodless smile. Cariad, with her false feminism; Cariad, who’d presented herself as Isla’s protector while secretly leeching from her like some bloated, terrible bug. Cariad, whose corpse lay moldering on the flagstone floor of her neat, compact cottage. He’d gotten
the information he’d wanted from her and left, but not before teaching her one final lesson about what happened to those who crossed him.

  Who knew; the cottage might already be occupied again, Cariad’s body dragged into the woods and left to rot. He doubted very much that even the meanest scavengers would touch her. Perhaps a family had moved in, or perhaps a new contestant for the position of woods witch. He hoped it was the former. The cottage was too pleasing, too useful for a single woman—or man—living alone. Children deserved such a place.

  Asher walked in, bowed slightly, and handed him another dispatch. He thanked the child and dismissed him, his mind still elsewhere. Asher was pleased enough to go; mid-week, if Tristan didn’t need him, he had the afternoon free for his own pursuits. Which, lately, seemed wholly to be pestering the arms master.

  Asher would grow into quite the soldier. And quite the ladies’ man. As it was, all the serving girls couldn’t stop squealing over how adorable he was. And he far past the age to be considered adorable. Then again, Tristan reflected, children appeared to grow more slowly in this time. A hundred years ago, many were the children Asher’s age who’d already made their first kill. That Asher was behind in some respects wasn’t his fault; his father hadn’t done much to provide for the child’s education, and he was only just now learning his letters. Although he learned quickly, and well, and had already almost mastered them. He had a facile mind. But still, the household couldn’t keep coddling him or he’d grow as soft as that corpulent old earl.

  Cavendish was indeed weathering the storm at someone’s farm; Tristan’s scrying mirror had told him that. But Rowena wasn’t falling in love with the prosperous yeoman’s son but, rather, making his life a misery with her constant tales of how life was so much better in the Highlands. The Highlands, where men stank like pigs and fucked them, too.

  He hoped that Rowena would enjoy her wedding.