The Black Prince: Part I (42 page)

“But you
are
going.”

“Do you think I’d wish this life, what I am, on another?” Hart shook his head. “Rudolph, stay home.”

“You were allowed to make a choice.” Rudolph met his gaze levelly.

Which was right. He had been. It was possible, Hart supposed, that apart from hating his wife Rudolph had simply grown sick of being the walking, talking butt of a joke. That he wanted to serve his kingdom. Do something more meaningful with his life than try on outfits. Everyone, Apple used to say, had to grow up sometime.

As to the rest, he’d bear it somehow.

“Fine.” He led Cedric past Rudolph, through the barn door and into the courtyard. “But you’ll have to meet me on the road. There’s one last thing I have to do, before I can leave.” He turned. Waiting, in the square of dark, was the man who’d be a soldier. Wearing a light blue tunic and a doublet embroidered with bumblebees.

“And for the Gods’ sake, find some real clothes.”

“A
h.” Arvid breathed deeply. “This air is very bracing.”

“Arvid,” Hart asked, “do you miss your wives?”

If Arvid was surprised by the sudden change in topic, he gave no sigh. “Sigrid, yes. But when I left, she was with child and too round to travel. Like a gigantic egg.” He grinned.

“And the others?”

“Aja is mean-spirited, and Astrid is stupid. But I miss them both, yes. If a bit less. I miss how Aja screams and pulls my hair, and chases our thralls around with her eating knife. And I miss how Astrid laughs. Blessedly for her, she has a sweet disposition.”

“Isn’t there a fourth?”

“Yes. Borghild. But she lives now in the hall of her ancestors.” Meaning that she was no longer with them. “She passed into shadow, giving me my firstborn. Arfast. A good boy.” The tribesman’s expression grew serious. “She was my first wife. How I yearned for her to make me the wreath.” He swung into his saddle, an astonishing feat considering his bulk. Like watching a sack of onions fly through the air. Now his eyes were level with Hart’s, blue to green. “I honor her still.”

“I mourn with you, brother.”

“I don’t know if, had she lived, I would have taken the other wives.”

“There are reasons, other than love, that a man marries.”

They set off through the first of the main gates, and through the shadow of the guardhouse that loomed over head, and out onto the bridge connecting Caer Addanc to the mainland.

“Yes. Which lies at the heart of my question, brother.”

“Yes?”

Around them, birds swooped and cried. The snow was still melting, but the North was coming alive. Before long, crops would be planted, farmers struggling in the knee deep mud. Planted, and then harvested. Life went on.

“Why not marry them both?”

“You know the answer to that question.”

“It is sometimes the case,” Arvid began, “that a clan chief has a particularly ugly daughter. Or perhaps she is reasonably attractive, with milk white teats and a nice round rump, but the sour disposition of a goat. A he-goat, or a wether.

“It is understood, as well, that she must be married.”

Arvid might have the moral sensibilities, not to mention the personal hygiene standards, of a deranged brown bear but he was smarter than he looked.

“Now anyone smart enough to become chief knows this, too. About his own daughter, yes.” Arvid tapped the side of his head. “No blind spots, even toward family. That is how Goddard son of Goddard became chief.” For a horrible minute, Hart was sure that Arvid was about to embark on some hours long lecture in clan history. One of his favorite topics. But he didn’t. Instead of learning about Goddard son of Goddard—again—Hart learned something new.

“Still, the chief does not say, my daughter is hideous. And no man would agree if he did. Unless he wished to be force fed his own balls. A man loves his children, even the wretched ones. You know?”

Hart didn’t, but he could imagine.

“So someone with sufficient strength of mind to bear the challenge, it is maybe suggested to him by the chief, or a friend of the chief’s, that he would like to get to know the girl a little better. And maybe, down the road, she can be persuaded to make him the wreath.

“And he does his husbandly duty by her, and wins her many pretty furs, and her father rewards him with several strong new ox. This being the understanding, that he is to have reward other than, you know, her glorious good looks or even her charming personality. Because she is not one from whom he would normally accept the wreath, yah?”

“But men—Morvish men—are rewarded.”

Arvid waved his hand dismissively. “Any chief who suggested that he marry
only
that girl would not be chief for long. No matter the other prizes.”

Hart sighed.

“So you marry this fat cow, and also marry Lissa. Now maybe ugly wants to be the first wife, that happens. Yah, that is okay. The other wives defer to her, which makes her happy. And it is good to make women happy, even if they are terrible. Makes your life so much easier. She can have the biggest bedroom, the most furs. Give her children first, too. Then she has something no one else has, to make her feel even.”

“Tristan claims that Solene is quite beautiful.”

“And what’s he going to say? That she’s hideous? That every Southron suitor runs from her, weeping, and that’s why she’s still unmarried? That no amount of ox are enough?”

Hart laughed, in spite of himself.

“Money is good. Land is good. But a warm bed is better.”

“I don’t intend to give her up.”

They were entering the city proper now.

“She doesn’t know, though.”

Sometimes, Hart did wish that Arvid was a bit stupider. Not that stupidity was a quality he looked for in a friend. Or certainly a lieutenant. But it would come in handy, now and then. “No,” he agreed finally. “She doesn’t.”

Arvid snorted. “Down this path lies tears.”

“But,” Hart replied, “they’re tears for another day.”

“Yah.” Arvid perked up. “We kill someone now?”

Hart nodded.

“Oh, good.”

Oh, good indeed.

He led the way through Barghast’s clean, neatly laid streets. Arvid rode beside him confidently, asking no questions. He knew that Hart knew where they were going, and that was enough. And he knew, too, that he’d find out more when they arrived. All Hart had told him was that there was a small matter to be taken care of, before they could leave. A small matter of justice.

Arvid had taken the announcement in stride, asking no questions other than would his usual weapons be enough or should he bring extra.

Hart smiled slightly.

Around him, Barghast was alive with activity: people walking to and from their homes, anxious to get under cover before the threatened rain fell. Some were carrying food for dinner, while others walked self-importantly along with servants trailing behind. Scullery maids and merchants, all thronged streets hemmed in on both sides by the buildings rising above. Dressed stone, all variants of the same gray as the sky above. Leaden. Lowering.

Later, there’d be flowers in the window boxes and fruit in the stalls. But for now Barghast’s only color came from the paint on its shutters, and the occasional door and, as they moved into and through one of the larger commercial districts, signs competing with one another to make the goods they represented seem the most appealing.

They were almost at their destination.

It hadn’t taken much. Not to find out where their target spent their free time, or when that time was. Hart had friends in the city watch, some of whom he paid for information. He didn’t tell them why he wanted to know and they didn’t ask. He was the Viper and that was enough.

A viper, as a hunter, was among the best.

Only a fool got in its way, as it pursued its target.

Hart stopped before a low wall, which fronted an inn. An interesting fact about the viper was that it struck at its prey and then waited. Often, the prey, merely suffering a small bite, believed that it had escaped. Sometimes hours, or even days passed before it began to feel the effects of the venom. While, all the while, the viper waited.

He entered through the gate, with Arvid following behind. Not broad enough for two men to pass abreast, nor for a carriage. The Emerald Drum, while tidy enough, wasn’t that kind of establishment. Its clientele were mainly working class, journeymen and the like. Which explained why it was deserted now, after the lunch hour.

A boy rushed out. Hart swung down from the saddle and handed over the reins. “Be careful,” he said. “He bites.”

The boy paled.

Arvid, beside him, was more casual. He nuzzled his mare, scratching her between the ears. “Who’s a good girl, Freja? You’re a good girl.”

Hart arched an eyebrow.

Arvid looked up. “What?”

Hart didn’t like leaving his horse. He preferred Cedric to most people, he felt with good cause. But it couldn’t be helped. Cedric would be alright, he told himself. Even with this ham-fisted excuse for a groom. And if he wasn’t…well.

Inside, it was easy to locate his target. The common room was small and Oliver Bonel was the only man present. He sat at a table near the fire, staring morosely into a tankard of ale as though trying to see his fortune.

The common room, although small, was pleasant. Dressed stone walls toward the bar, plaster elsewhere. A flagstone floor. Plain but sturdy squared off beams held aloft a railed gallery, off of which were the inn’s half dozen or so rooms. Behind the bar were stacked barrels. A bored-looking barmaid wiped out tankards with a rag.

Above her head, a row of tankards hung. All pewter, all well made, and all alike. To be used by those who hadn’t brought their own. As many did in the North. Whether from custom or fear of contagion—or spells—depended on the individual. Hart didn’t care. If someone wanted to poison him, or curse him, then let them try.

The barmaid hung up another tankard.

Watch Captain Bonel was a man who’d risen to a certain rank and then risen no further. Joining him at his table, Hart immediately understood why. The sun was still overhead and this man, middle aged and fat, was half in his cups. He’d been promoted, Hart suspected, for reasons other than his talent. Which happened, even in the best administered of places. Children of powerful fathers and over-indulgent mothers often grew to manhood mistaking others’ charity for their own achievement. And, in turn, believing that nothing was ever their fault.

“Haven’t I met your father?” Hart asked.

“If you did,” Bonel replied, and quite rudely in Hart’s opinion, “it was awhile ago. He died.”

“He was the head of….” Hart was guessing. He knew nothing about the man’s father, only that presumably he’d had one. But, much like fortune tellers, torturers relied on their victims’ own stupidity to make it seem like they knew more than they did. A series of well-placed guesses, based on likelihoods, followed by a close monitoring of the varying reactions. A skilled torturer could make himself seem nigh on omniscient, even if he’d never so much as passed his victim in the street before that morning.

“The spicer’s guild.” A powerful merchant’s guild. But Bonel didn’t seem too impressed with his father’s achievement. Rather bored, really. He struck Hart as the type who found life boring. He continued to stare into his ale.

“Ah, yes. A fortunate man.”

Bonel looked up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Death comes to us all, sadly. But he achieved so much, in his time.”

Bonel snorted. And then, “wait, you’re….”

Hart smiled. “I am.”

“Must be nice. Having the freedom to do what you will in the middle of the day.”

“And yet here you sit.”

Bonel didn’t respond.

“Would you like more ale?” Hart’s tone was solicitous.

“Alright.”

Hart raised a finger and the barmaid, who’d been watching them while pretending not to, came over. Reaching into his vest, Hart produced a single guilder and laid it on the table. It glinted in the weak light. The barmaid’s eyes widened fractionally. Hart didn’t imagine that they saw much gold at The Emerald Drum. “Bring us something,” he said casually.

The coin disappeared and so did she.

“So it’s true.” This from Bonel. “You are rich.”

Of gold, at least, he sounded admiring.

Food and drink arrived, and Bonel went to work on it. Greedy men, Hart had also noticed, rarely stopped to examine the hand that fed them. And to examine, perhaps, the body to which it was attached.

Leek pasty, salt pork, more ale.

Hart and Arvid exchanged a glance across the table. Nor did Bonel wonder why Hart had sat down across from him but Arvid next to him. Let alone why a man capable of paying for his lunch in gold would choose to eat it—or not—at a place like this.

All of which was just as well.

Hart removed his gloves. Black-dyed leather. Finely tanned. Incredibly soft. A nobleman’s dream. Bonel, noticing this, once again looked up from his plate.

“Do you like them?”

Bonel took the proffered glove. They wouldn’t fit him, of course. Hart’s hands were well-shaped. A nobleman’s hands, long and thin-fingered. Bonel’s were broad and flat, his fingers like overstuffed sausages. “Yes,” he said. “Extraordinary workmanship.”