The Black Prince: Part I (17 page)

There had been no need for it. A babe in arms couldn’t fight back. Neither, for that matter, could its mother. Hart wondered, with an unwanted stirring of desire, if the women had been violated before death.

Gods, he truly was a monster.

They rode on in silence.

A silence that lasted for hours.

A light snow began to fall.

“You should have children, brother.”

Hart didn’t respond.

“I find it astonishing,” Callas continued, “that you have none. Considering your heroic exploits.” He paused. “Surely you are fit?”

I might not be now.
“I’m careful,” was what he said.

“You should be less careful.”

“I don’t want children.”

“All men want children. And besides,” Callas added, “as you intend to take a wife, you do realize that such an act will necessitate bedding her as the Gods intended.”

Although Hart wasn’t so sure about that. If it was his wife, he could do as he wanted. The law made a woman her husband’s property, unable to even testify in court against him. And he did intend to do as he wanted, in the bedroom and otherwise; although in his deepest fantasies, he had to admit, his wife wanted this.

She’d have the same appetite for…alternate pleasures as he. There was more than one access to pleasure, in a woman’s body. And even if one went the more usual route, a little self-control was all that was required. For the seed to quicken, it had to spill inside. Hart had, admittedly, undergone a few scares when he was younger but as he’d matured into manhood he’d learned.

Women often didn’t want children, but were too afraid to say so. Or they
did
, and were too afraid to say so. A man had to be responsible. No momentary pleasure was worth cursing some hapless woman with a child, a woman he neither looked on with particular affection nor had any desire to support. And, more and more, he had to ask: what child deserved him as a father?

Women shrunk in terror from him.

Lissa hadn’t.

But he’d paid her.

The Viper of the North, the Witch Duke’s dreaded henchman. A silent figure who pulled men from their beds in the wee hours, doing the Gods knew what with them. A man who, since coming to Darkling Reach, had discovered an aptitude for—and a pleasure in—torture.

He was lost in these familiar and unpleasant thoughts when he heard an equally familiar voice.

Equally familiar, and equally unpleasant.

At first, he thought he must be suffering a delusion brought on by the extremis of stress.

But then Callas reined in his horse and Hart realized that Callas heard it too.

Heard it, and saw it.

Hart blinked.

“That,” Callas said blandly, “is your sister.”

“Your talent for stating the obvious, brother, is heart-rendingly beautiful.”

They sat side by side, watching Rowena struggle up the path. She was waving. Having ridden on ahead of the others, Hart and Callas were alone. Had planned to make the trip alone, sharing a camp and their thoughts. To see Rowena and, behind her, the rest of his family…Hart couldn’t have been more surprised if Bjorn Treesinger had risen from the dead.

“I know.” Callas sounded pleased with himself.

“Well aren’t you going to help me?” Rowena, waddling through hip-deep snow, looked about as graceful as a sow. Her cloak was soiled, and so was the dress beneath. She, her hair dull as straw and wrapped around her head in a peasant’s plait, looked nothing like the smooth operator he remembered. The one who captivated every room she entered, with her artificial beauty.

A change for which Hart was oddly grateful and that Rowena didn’t seem to recognize. She was, charm or no charm, as imperious as ever. Despite presumably not knowing that he—or anyone—was within a hundred leagues until a few moments ago, she now expected immediate service.

“Where is your horse?” he asked.

“It died.” Rowena stopped. “Well?”

What Hart was supposed to do, he didn’t know. He swung down, landing easily. In his time here, he’d learned the art of moving through the rugged winter landscape. A time that seemed decades long, until confronted with proof of his recent arrival. Proof he scarcely credited, even to himself. Seeing Rowena was like seeing a nightmare come to life. A nightmare wherein everything he’d built for himself was brushed away in seconds and he was forced to return south. To
his
old life. A life that no longer seemed to belong to him.

A sister who no longer seemed to belong to him.

Had he really only seen her months ago?

Rowena peered up at him, a hand shading her eyes from the glare. The sun would set in a few hours but it was strong now. “You look older,” she said.

It wasn’t a compliment. She looked older, too. He said nothing.

“We should make camp.”

Rowena whirled to face Callas. “No! Absolutely
not
. I want to go
home
.”

“This is a fair campsite,” Callas said reasonably, “the fairest we have a hope of reaching before sundown.” He gestured at the sky. “Which comes soon in the mountains. You can rest, while we give our men a chance to catch up with us. Then we can reapportion the gear.”

Rowena’s eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. “You—you’re seriously—do you know who I am? I refuse to ride some—some dirty pack animal!”

Hart had to process this for a moment. “Of course I do,” he said finally, “you’re my sister.”

Rowena made an exasperated noise. A winter in the North hadn’t softened her. “I’m betrothed to the son of a baron!”

“Who cares?” Come to think of it, she looked like a pack animal. Although admitting as such would be an insult to the pack animal. Even his long ago pet pig had worn less straw in her hair. Rowena’s eyes were pig-like, though. Small and scheming.

“Now, children.” Hart could hear the humor in Callas’ voice. Curse the man.

“I refuse to be treated like—”

“Then walk!” Hart bellowed.

The rest of his family had joined them. Family that Hart, if he were being honest with himself, had fully anticipated never seeing again. And with no small degree of satisfaction. But here was his father, looking ten years older. Beside him, Apple looked even more sour than usual. She, too, had—if not aged then hardened even further. Hart wondered, briefly, what their winter had been like. Truly.

Well, they were alive.

“Be sweet, Rowena.” The earl patted her arm. Then, turning his limpid gaze up to Hart, “so good of you to meet us.”

Hart spoke before he could stop himself. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What?”

“Language!”

“I’ll show you language, you little twat.”

“You are,” Callas cut in, “ah, somewhat off the beaten path.”

Hart and Rowena glared at each other.

The earl looked bewildered. “What? We’re ten leagues north of Hardland.”

Hart’s eyes widened fractionally.

“You’re a good twice that—or more—north of Barghast.”

The earl’s mouth dropped open, his lip as pendulous and soft as a slug and quivering as though he might commence to weeping at any second. He blinked once, then twice. “But—”

“I
told
you we should have waited.”

The earl shrank visibly from his wife’s wrath.

“We can’t wait.” Rowena stamped her foot. She actually stamped her foot. “We need to get home and prepare for
my wedding
. I
have to marry Rudolph
. He probably thinks I’m dead and is preparing to marry someone else, even as we speak.” Now
she
looked on the verge of tears.

Hart, who’d had no patience to begin with, glanced up at the sky to gauge the time. A sky from which the morning’s bright blue had been leeched, leaving behind an ominous gray. The flurries were a harbinger of something worse, then. Potentially.

“If so,” he replied, not bothering to look at her, “then he isn’t too ardent. Now is he.”

Rowena, praise the Gods, didn’t respond.

Apple was still ranting, but Hart had tuned her out. His thoughts were all on getting home. Rowena could have her wedding. Or not. He could not have possibly cared less.

They had to get home.

“We camp,” he said, in a tone that brooked no conflict. Callas was right. There wasn’t a better spot within safe traveling distance. He’d do no one, least of all his lord and master, any favors by driving his newly enlarged party—none of whom were good riders and several of whom were noticeably ill—ahead of him into the darkness. He, himself might have cleared another few leagues but even riding all night he wouldn’t reach Caer Addanc before morning. And that was if he didn’t manage to kill his own horse.

Or himself.

Ignoring the outburst that followed, he stalked off into the woods to relieve himself.

He unlaced his breeches. The wool was well made, and warm. He didn’t wear a codpiece; he didn’t need one. Men like Rudolph used them as purses, presuming themselves safe from robbery. But what man thought about one set of coins, while a beautiful woman—or man—was cupping the other?

He unlaced his braies. He wondered briefly who had sewn them. In a small manor such as Enzie, that answer was obvious: the lady of the house, and her ladies. But Hart could hardly imagine Isla sewing his underclothes. He didn’t want her hands, directly or indirectly, on the women with whom he kept company. He pressed his eyes shut for a moment, in an attempt to erase the image.

Standing knee deep in a snow drift, his hand on his cock, thinking about his sister.

He sighed.

The release of his bladder felt magical. He’d always enjoyed his comforts, both large and small. That was the mistake most made in assessing the hedonist: assuming that he craved only overblown, foolish pleasures. The rarer and pricier the better. When the truth was that he enjoyed everything. He was a creature of sensation. The soft touch of a woman’s fingertips, the warm, inviting crevices of her flesh. That first swallow of water after a long march. The clean, honest smell of fresh hay. It was all equal.

And all good.

Finishing, he took a moment to collect himself.

Rowena shouldn’t be here.

What was she doing here?

It was almost as if….

But no, that couldn’t be right.

He heard a twig snap behind him. “Fuck you.”

“You offering?”

Hart turned. He shrugged. Sometimes he wondered. “Stop being so pleasant to Rowena or you’ll end up fucking her.”

Callas shook his head. “Your father wouldn’t care for that much.”

Gods, his father? “My father wouldn’t notice.”

“Rudolph, then.”

He’d met the man, hadn’t he? Rudolph hadn’t come searching for Rowena—at least, not that anyone knew—and that, to Hart’s mind, was telling. He tried to tell himself that Rudolph was simply weak; that weak men loved as other men. But Hart’s father had loved his mother, too. If life had taught him anything, it was that love was a blood sport.

“They claim to have gotten turned around.”

Hart took a pull from his flask. Clear, sweet water. He liked being outside of the city, where fear of contagion didn’t demand the sour aftertaste of wine in everything.

“It’s possible,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “A night or two with Rowena would be more than most men could stand. Or women,” he added, as an afterthought. How Isla had ever stood Rowena, he didn’t know. Stood her? Loved her, even.

Rowena wanted her fairy tale but she’d had it. She’d had it all along. Hart knew why he’d thrown away what he had but Rowena? Which brought him back to wondering why she was here and what it was about his sister that he didn’t know.

And when he’d find out.

He stood there, staring at nothing, for a very long time.

When he returned to the clearing, camp had been made and his erstwhile family were all huddled around the fire. Hart thought about disappearing into his tent but in the end forced himself to join them. Callas was there. A second fire, further off, kept the enlisted men warm. Hart had been hoping they wouldn’t catch up until later; that he’d made better time than he had. He settled onto an overturned log, between Callas and Apple. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, with danger all around, the demarcation between a leader and his men had to be preserved.

That fear, that sense of
other
was everything.

He wondered if they’d fear him if they knew he’d once had a pet pig.

He added more wood to the fire from a small pile that had been collected.

“It’s cold.” Rowena sniffed.

“It’s winter.”

Dinner was distributed.

“What’s this?” Apple stared at hers suspiciously. As though she’d been dining on the finest of everything all winter, and had just now seen a strip of dried meat for the first time.

“Dinner.”

“Well I won’t eat it.”

“Then don’t.” Hart wasn’t upset. He didn’t care.

Dusk was upon them. Night would come soon. Perhaps Rowena would be savaged by a dire wolf. He enjoyed his own dinner, more of the same leather tough venison accompanied by an oat cake and some well watered wine. He planned to take the first watch, and didn’t need too much warmth in his veins making him drowsy.

A log popped. A shadow flickered near to the fire and was gone. A bat. Rowena jumped.

“You left,” Callas remarked, “shortly after the wedding.”

“Ah.” The earl shifted position slightly. “About that.”

He looked old. As Hart studied him across the fire in the fading light, it occurred to him that he
was
old. He’d fallen in on himself, somehow. The furrows in his brow and around his mouth were deeper. He was, indeed, one of those in the party who looked distinctly ill. His skin had taken on a pale, almost translucent cast that couldn’t be explained away by mere alcoholism.

This was the wretch, of whom he’d been so afraid?

“We did indeed depart the morning after,” the earl said. “But then a storm came and trapped us in a small hamlet of some sort. A fair enough place. Torup.”

Hart knew the place by reputation. A farming community. Loyal to the duke and without excitement. Fifty or so families whose crofts disturbed a well-watered countryside. Barley, he thought he remembered hearing. That’s what they grew.