The Rebel Prince (13 page)

‘I shall retire to Razi’s tent,’ murmured Wynter, staring at the little child, her mind still filled with his story.

Alberon sighed. ‘I don’t know, Wyn. I do not think that such a good idea. This is a camp of army men. They have army minds and army tongues in their heads. There have already been scurrilous associations alluded to in court. Regardless of the time you’ve spent alone on the trail, I do not think it wise to risk affirming the gossips by making poor Razi your chaperone here in camp.’

‘Good God,’ said Razi, jolted from his sad contemplation of the little boy, ‘you cannot
surely
think that Wynter and I . . . ? That we . . . ?’

Alberon winced in disgust. ‘Brother! Don’t be foul! I’m simply trying to preserve what little reputation Wyn has left in court.’ He pushed himself to his feet, staggered, then nudged Anthony with his toe. ‘Up, little mankin.’

Anthony climbed slowly to his feet.

‘Listen, Razi,’ said Alberon. ‘If Wyn has any hope at all of making a suitable match, we must be very careful to restore her character. Sleeping alone in the tent of the man already suspected of being her lover will do nothing for her future. She has already become . . .’

Alberon’s voice went on, his intentions admirable, his words vile. With them, court life fell down on Wynter again with all its crushing weight of complexities, all its labyrinthine meanings, all its watchfulness. She stood silently listening, too swamped in tiredness to react; too filled with sorrow. She looked out into the night. It was blotted into nothing by the dancing firelight. She was too tired for this. She was too
tired
. She wanted Christopher. She wanted to stagger down the hill to him, to find him standing in the dark, to rest her head on his shoulder. She wanted him to chuckle and call her ‘lass’. She wanted him to kiss her hair and not to give a damn.

Razi and Alberon were arguing over the wisdom of Wynter sleeping the night in Alberon’s tent. For some reason, Alberon did not see that as a compromise to her virtue at all. Razi, however, was insisting that were she to sleep in
his
tent she would at least not be alone in his company, as Christopher Garron would also be there. Alberon found this so ludicrous that he laughed loudly. Unheeded, Anthony swayed by the Prince’s side, his eyes closing already.

‘There are women,’ mumbled Wynter.

The men swivelled as one. ‘
What?
’ they snapped, irritated that she should interrupt their debate.

‘Women,’ she said, ‘among the Merron. Women. They can be my defence against scandal.’

She began to stagger down the hill, heedless of the men’s protests. Alberon was saying something about Merron women being as bad as the men. Razi was telling him to keep his voice down. Wynter passed from firelight into pitch dark. Stones gritted beneath her boots as she made her way blindly, not caring. Alberon said something about the blue tent and Razi said, ‘Tomorrow, damn it, Albi. Just leave it till tomorrow.’

Wynter didn’t care. Leave them to it.

It was cold, very cold, but the air felt pleasant on her tired face. She reached the base of the hill and someone stepped to her side, quiet as a cat. She smiled at the familiar, spicy scent of him.

‘Hello, lass,’ he murmured.

‘You waited.’

‘Did you doubt me?’

‘Not for a moment.’

His arms closed warm around her and she leaned in, her head finding his shoulder in the dark. ‘Let us to bed,’ she whispered.

‘Alone?’

Wynter sighed. How lovely it would be, in the midst of all these complications, to find themselves alone. To simply take each other’s hand and walk through the brooding maze of the tents and out into the forest; to lay their cloaks on a fragrant bed of pine, to undo the laces on each other’s clothes and to press together, skin to skin in the dappled moonlight. It would be so good to finally allow themselves the gift of being together. It would be
so good
. It would be such a simple – such an honest – joy.

The thought of it made Wynter squeeze her eyes shut and tighten her arms, pulling Christopher’s slim body in against hers. He tightened his hold on her and they stood clenched together, their bodies so close, holding each other so tight that it felt as if their hearts were beating side-by-side with just the barest breadth of skin between.

I want you so badly
, thought Wynter.
I want so badly to keep
you. Please. Please. Can’t I have this one thing? Just this one thing
for my own?

Her hair had fallen a little loose from its binding and, as he held her, Christopher ran his fingers through the stray locks at the nape of her neck. His touch sent delicious fire tingling down Wynter’s body. It made her ache. He lowered his forehead to her shoulder. She touched her lips to his neck.

He groaned.

‘We ain’t doing ourselves any favours, lass.’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘we are not.’

‘We need to let go, before neither of us has the strength.’

‘I know.’

Still he held her, quiet and motionless, pressed close in the velvet dark, until finally she broke away and he took her hand. ‘Come on,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I will find us some company.’

‘Christopher?’ Wynter murmured, not certain if he was awake. ‘Thank you for the
scòns
. They were delicious.’

Christopher squeezed her waist in silent reply and Wynter shifted her head against his shoulder, gazing out into the gloom of the tent. Across the gentle rise and fall of his chest she could just make out Frangok’s back, and a tuft of Soma’s pale hair. Somewhere beyond that again, Hallvor snored softly.

At Christopher’s whispered request, the three Merron women had wordlessly risen from their beds, stumbled into Razi’s tent, flung their covers onto the ground and lain straight back down again. Wynter suspected that they had barely even woken from their sleep to do so. She was so painfully grateful to them that she hardly knew how to express it. But, despite their presence and despite her very great tiredness, she found it no easier to be with Christopher without wanting to kiss him, without wanting to touch him, and she lay tensely by his side, longing to run her hand beneath his shirt, just to feel the warmth of his bare stomach beneath her palm.

Christopher lay on his back, Wynter’s head on his shoulder, her arm curled on his chest. He seemed perfectly happy just to have her by his side, and was idly running his thumb across the twisted woollen bracelet she wore around her wrist.

He spoke softly, his voice a gentle vibration beneath her cheek. ‘What do you wish for, Protector Lady? When this is all over and our lives are our own. What is it that will make you happy?’

The answer to this unexpected question was so clear and sudden and complete that it almost brought tears.
A cottage
shaded by walnut trees
, she thought.
Beside a river filled with trout.
A workshop, spicy with wood shavings and resin. Somewhere that
I can make good things, strong enough to last a lifetime.

Christopher waited patiently for her reply, but Wynter did not answer. She might as well just say
why wish for the
impossible
, and leave it at that. Her desire for Christopher faded slowly beneath the terrible knowledge that everything else she had hoped for was lost. In the softly breathing silence, she closed her hand around a fistful of Christopher’s shirt and tried to figure what it might be that he would wish for. Wynter had an awful feeling that everything he had ever truly wanted had already been irretrievably stolen from him by Wolves. Still she turned her head and whispered, ‘What is it would make
you
happy, love?’

‘Oh, you know,’ he said softly, ‘all the good things – a big shiny palace, solid gold servants, diamond-studded concubines.’

Wynter chuckled. That was so utterly
not
what he wanted. ‘You’re a menace.’

‘Oh, aye,’ he murmured, ‘I am that.’

There was a moment’s silence, during which Christopher’s scarred hand closed gently around Wynter’s wrist. She felt him relaxing into sleep.

‘Christopher,’ she whispered. ‘We should talk. There are things we should discuss about court life. Things that we—’ ‘No.’ Spoken softly, the gentlest of sounds.

‘No?’

‘I know all I need to know.’

‘Chris—’ ‘Protector Lady. I know all that I need to know.’

She lay in uncertain silence for a moment, then went to speak once more.

Christopher tilted his head. His whisper caressed her cheek. ‘Settle your head down, lass, and stop your fretting. Razi will be here soon.’

Wynter settled her head back onto his shoulder. Frowning, she tightened her fingers in his and watched as their joined hands rose and fell with the easy motion of his chest. Eventually his steady breathing lulled her, her blood slowed to a peaceful rhythm, and she slept.

A ROAR OF SMOKE

W
YNTER STOOD
in the main thoroughfare of the camp and listened to the silence. The road was a humpbacked ribbon of moonlight stretching away to the deserted barricades. Behind her, Alberon’s tent slept beneath the wide-eyed moon.

Why was it so quiet? Where were all the subtle noises of a night-time camp? Wynter listened in vain for the discreet tramp and murmur of the sentries, the snores, the sighs, the coughs of sleeping men. There was none of that – just a low creaking, like a heavy sack swinging idly from a pulley rope. She looked up and down the road, but could find no source for the sound.

Alberon’s voice drifted from the tent above, his words clear, though softly spoken.

‘You are on my side, brother?’

Wynter turned and looked up the hill, waiting for Razi’s reply. None came. She knew Razi was standing up there, gazing at Alberon, his face as unreadable as a starless sky. She took a step forward, her intention to climb the hill, but that creaking noise distracted her again, and she glanced back over her shoulder.

For the first time she noticed the scaffolds that had been erected all through the camp. There were at least two for every tent, their crisscrossed timbers stark against the moon-washed brilliance of the sky. Men hung from them in sets of five, their lifeless bodies swaying in the gentle breeze. There were so many of them. How could they have escaped her attention before now? The thick ropes from which the men were suspended groaned against the wood of the scaffold bars, the source of that heavy creaking sound. Wynter blessed the shadows that hid the details; she had never been able to stomach the bloated spectacle of a hanged man’s face.

So this is why the camp is so quiet
, she thought.
I had best deliver
this news to Alberon. I’m sure he’ll want to know that his men are dead.

A chill wind blew from nowhere, casting grit into Wynter’s face. She flung up her hands to save her eyes, gagging on the stench of gunpowder and rot. The ground vibrated beneath her feet, the familiar warning rhythm of an approaching horse, and a ghost-rider broke from the dark of the trees. As he shot through the barricades and up the road towards her, Wynter recognised him as the soldier from the ford, the man that Razi could not save. He was barely clinging to his saddle, his transparent face creased with agony. He was shouting, his mouth opening and closing in silent desperation as he galloped through the camp.

He advanced at tremendous speed. Wynter had barely time to stagger back and he was upon her. Horse and rider passed through her in a blast of icy cold. The gale from their passage howled within her, screaming in her ears, snatching the hair back from her forehead and temples, stealing the breath from her lungs. Her eyes were blinded with swirling milky light. The soldier’s voice roared in her mind,
He will
betray you! He will betray you! My Prince! It is a trap!

Then he was gone, and Wynter fell to her knees in the dust, her hands clawed, her eyes staring, her heart clogged in her throat.

Razi bellowed ‘no’, and Wynter turned just in time to see him fling himself between Alberon and the horse. Razi threw up his arms, turned his face away, and the messenger hit him full force.

Rider and horse exploded into cloud and dust, scattering the air with particles of light. Razi was flung into his brother’s arms, his coat and his hair beaded in phosphorescence. As Alberon staggered under Razi’s weight, Wynter saw his eyes lift to the barricades. His face fell, and Wynter spun once more to face the trees, seeking to find the source of his despair.