The black prince part ii, p.2
The Black Prince: Part II, page 2
part #4 of Hraban Chronicles Series
The queen hoped for a boy. All the realm hoped for a boy. And what did Isla want?
She didn’t know if Tristan would have spoken because, in that moment, he was engaged in conversation by Quinn. Who, having returned from dancing, had thrown himself into an open chair and now sat sprawled to the four winds. A chair that was empty, because it was normally occupied by Hart. Who’d gone to fight in a war that wasn’t a war.
A peace that required blood.
Half the rest of the hall was still dancing a quadrille. Popularized by Gideon the Conqueror, it seemed to mostly involve large numbers of couples maintaining elaborate patterns and poses. Isla had declined to participate. She didn’t see the point. She’d sit here, as long as she had to to be polite, and then she’d excuse herself and go to bed. Everyone else, she knew, would still be dancing into the wee hours and a few would be up and about, when she rose, because they hadn’t yet sought their beds. They’d be laughing, and that pretending all was well, and for them it might be.
There was a pause, and then the dancing began anew with a different song.
Tristan stood. “I believe, darling, that we should dance.”
His tone was cold. Flat. Isla looked up, startled. She could hardly refuse, especially now that all the table’s eyes were upon her. Quinn, and Callas, who did dance on occasion but who, vexingly, had returned to the table for refreshment and further conversation and whose expression was unreadable. Those others fortunate enough to have been offered a place at the main table. It was a rotating cast of characters, Tristan being wise enough never to display too much favoritism or for too long.
The longer she waited, the more awkward things became. Someone coughed. She stood.
He held his hand out to her, palm up. She placed her fingertips against his cold, hard skin and felt the vise of his fingers closing around them. She swallowed.
He led her onto the open floor, about which the tables had been arranged for best viewing. Theater in the round, and she the presentation. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. And like, instead of just one table’s, the world’s eyes were watching. But all those eyes together had nothing to the weight of Tristan’s, which held hers as securely as he held her hand.
The musicians in the gallery above stopped, seeing that the duke was taking the floor, and then began again.
Tristan and Isla faced each other.
He cut an imposing figure in the black he favored. His surcoat was well tailored, drawing attention to his broad, muscled shoulders and to how his equally muscled chest tapered to a trim waist. It hit him just below the knee, and yet managed to hide nothing of his grace or indeed of his raw athleticism. There could surely be no woman in all of Morven who, seeing him right now, would not feel her heart beat faster. Wonder, despite her better judgment, how his hands would feel on her skin. His lips. Whether he’d be a forceful lover or a gentle one. Whether he’d coax her moans from her, slowly, or pull them from her almost against her will in a rush of passion.
He dropped his hand to his side. They each took two steps back. The other couples did the same.
The music began again.
Tristan took one step forward and bowed, a brief half bow with one hand at his belt. Then he took one step back, and another. Isla, after a beat, took one step forward and sank down into an equally brief curtsey. The battle lines had been drawn.
Tristan made the same movement again but, this time, he offered her his hand in a stylized gesture. She accepted and let him lead her forward one step, and another. And then back one step, and another.
They separated, repeating the process again and, this time, when they came together and he offered her his hand, he led her around in a slow circle. One hand in the air, the other held at an angle against his back, his eyes bored into hers in the low light. Like embers, she’d first thought when she met him. And they were embers still, burning with something she didn’t understand and yet was scarcely contained. Every line of his body fairly sang, like a thousand taut bowstrings.
They paused, parted, came together and reversed direction.
Back one step and then forward, each hand meeting its opposite.
And then back, and again.
All the while their eyes locked, lover and beloved engaged in a contest of minds where no words were spoken.
This time, when they came together, instead of a light touch on her back as the dance dictated, as they moved forward through the stylized phases of courtship that the dance represented, he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. His fingers dug into the small of her back. And continued to move, gracefully and deliberately, as though nothing were amiss. Three turns to the right and then three turns widdershins.
If the world was watching them, if there were even other couples on the floor, Isla didn’t care.
And neither, clearly, did Tristan.
“You’re mine.” The words were harsh.
“Because you own me?” Her return jibe was quick, cutting.
They separated.
The couples split, pairing and repairing, as they made their way around the square. Isla accepted the next man’s hand, favoring him with her most dazzling smile. He, in turn, blushed a dazzling shade of red. To be so favored by the duchess was a thing indeed. Isla didn’t even know who he was. Someone from the merchant council, she thought. He was on the younger side of middle age, with a slight paunch. They exchanged no words.
And then she was on to a new partner. She and Tristan were now facing each other from across the square. He was a consummate dancer, bringing refinement and elegance to even the smallest movements. As though each were the product of his own mind, spontaneous rather than choreographed.
He danced with one woman after another, pleasing them all, showing none particular favor. She sensed nothing through the bond. Indeed he was completely closed off to her, as though the bond didn’t exist. Had she truly angered him that much?
She didn’t want to hear that he owned her; she wanted to hear that she owned him. That he needed her. That she mattered. As more than simply an object, like a horse or a bow. What was she to him? Truly? She needed to know. But, as she moved through her paces and he through his, she knew nothing. Only that he was nodding slightly, and exchanging what appeared to be pleasantries with some other councilman’s wife. Isla couldn’t hear their words from so far off and over all the noise—the music, the chattering of plates, and of course the laughter—but only make guesses from their body language. Why not that woman, instead of her?
What, to Tristan, was truly the difference?
They came together again. His eyes, as he studied her, were hard. She didn’t think of it often, how much taller than she he was. How, even as a man, he would have been able to crush her without a second thought. He’d spent his life training with both longbow and broadsword, as was evident from the barest glance. A child under this tutelage developed differently, his growing body responding to the strains placed upon it. No man, picking up weapons in adulthood, could hope to gain such strength. Or even a fraction of it.
Tristan had been almost…created for war.
She shivered.
“My touch repulses you?”
“What makes me different?”
They reversed direction.
“If you must ask yourself that,” he replied coolly, “then I have failed.”
The dance ended.
They returned to their seats.
Tristan helped Isla to sit. He called for more wine for their shared cup. More food was also presented. He cut it for her. Roast boar and a dozen little pastries, making use of the cellar’s last root vegetables. Early spring was always the leanest time, with winter stores depleted and the ground still cold. But a feast was in the laughter, Hart had told her once, not the eating. And this was still more food than she’d ever seen at home in Enzie.
Tristan was still studying her, his expression still inscrutable.
“You should eat.” The words, when they came, were surprisingly soft.
She nodded. She should. “As should you.”
“I plan to.”
Leek pasties had appeared on her plate. One of her favorites. She took a bite.
Asher had moved to the far end of the table where he sat, engrossed, between his tutor and his father’s personal physician. Who were taking turns regaling him with truly disgusting tidbits of life in the army. Slogging through trenches half filled with mud and shit, toes rotting off, men’s cocks rotting off from the exotic diseases brought in by camp followers. Rats, frogs, and lice.
Asher positively glowed with happiness.
“And then,” Quentin continued, “let me tell you about the itching.”
Isla wondered where Apple was. Probably, she supposed, in her rooms; she’d rarely left them since the earl’s passing. Which Isla didn’t understand. Her stepmother had hardly been a devoted wife, during the course of her marriage. She might, Isla supposed, be worried about her own future. What came next for a woman with no land, no family, and no title? And, far worse than those three lacks combined, no friends?
Isla could never forgive Apple, she didn’t think, for what she’d done to Hart. But she couldn’t help, at the same time, pitying her. As she’d pity any animal that was suffering.
Rowena, on the other hand, could rot. She’d sat down next to Callas and was gazing up at him as though he were the most interesting man in the world. Her back was all but turned to her companion on the other side. Quinn, who appeared rather deep in his cups, appeared also not to care. Was probably congratulating himself, came the dour thought, on escaping Rowena’s attentions.
Callas, for his part, looked slightly pained.
One of the pages stepped forward to refill Quinn’s cup.
“It’s so astonishing to me,” Rowena cooed, “that you’re not married.”
“Not to me,” Callas replied.
“I want to be married,” Quinn chimed in. “Only half a year more. Although I’ll probably spend most of that time here, guarding you people, instead of at home where I belong.”
Rowena ignored him.
“Your betrothed,” Isla said, because someone had to say something, “is fortunate in your affections.”
“No,” Quinn corrected, “I am the fortunate one and she, I believe, rather less. If at all, as the end game in all this is that she’s stuck with me. I had to woo her for years, because the truth was I didn’t deserve her and we both knew it. But I worked hard to make myself more deserving and, in the end, convinced her to give me a chance. Which she did, if grudgingly.”
“She agreed to marry you.”
“That she did. She claims she loves me, although I don’t know that I believe her.”
“You don’t?”
“That she should feel for me a tenth of what I feel for her would be a miracle so profound as to call down the armies for judgment.”
Isla’s smile was small, but warm.
“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Rowena turned. “Is she fair?”
“No,” Quinn replied, turning, “she’s brilliant. She reads and speaks three languages, including that awful, meandering thing they use in Chad. And she’s a wit. She can reduce any man to tears.”
“But is she thin? Fat?”
Quinn seemed confused by the question. “Who cares?” He burped. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not marrying her tailor. And besides, all women are fat after they bear children.”
Rowena sniffed.
“Speaking of which,” Quinn added, “a woman ripe with child is very appealing. Something about the fact that she’s creating new life. And then there’s that glow.” He sighed. “I plan to get Adela with child many times. As many as she’ll let me. The getting, you know, is just as fun as the receiving. Well, not the birth itself. I don’t envy women that. But then you get a baby!”
He seemed quite taken with this idea. He was, Isla decided, well and truly in his cups. It was no small thing, giving birth.
“That’s awful.” This from Rowena.
“No it isn’t.” He turned to Isla. “And besides, women want children. Right?”
Isla didn’t respond.
“Well I don’t.” Rowena sniffed. “And I certainly don’t want to marry a man who doesn’t appreciate my beauty.”
“Which is good,” Isla said acidly, “as you’re already married.”
Rowena’s eyes widened. Then, unfortunately for all of them, she changed the subject. “Speaking of sex, the rumor certainly is that the queen has many lovers.” Gods above, Rowena was trying to sound clever. “Which begs the question, how can she—or the king—be certain of the child’s parentage? For surely, it could be any one of a dozen men.”
Quinn burped again. “He only lets them bugger her in the ass.”
Rowena’s head whipped around. “What?”
“You know….” Quinn trailed off. Rowena had managed to embarrass him, thus achieving a feat that Isla hadn’t thought possible. And without Arvid to offer a tutorial, the conversation died quickly. Quinn turned to the man next to him, and they began discussing something.
Rowena seemed, if anything, put out. She glanced at Isla, and then at Tristan. Finally she turned to Callas. “What…does Quinn mean?” She managed to make her voice sound almost childlike. Fearful. As though Quinn had hinted at some dark sorcery.
Making Callas an odd choice for a champion, Isla thought, but no matter.
Callas, unlike Quinn, felt no compunctions about embarrassing a lady. But nor was he Arvid, to enter a conversation uninvited. He studied her in the low light, one hand on his cup and the other resting on the arm of his chair. He seemed relaxed. Not at all intimidated by the woman gazing up at him. Nor, indeed, by her obvious—and rather sudden—interest. It was as if, the literal minute Rudolph rode through the main gate, Rowena had sought for a new target.
And settled on the person who was, arguably, the most eligible bachelor in the castle after her own brother.
He sipped his wine. His nails were clean and well-manicured. “He means that the king only allows his companions to make use of his wife’s other entrance.”
“What other entrance?”
“There are three, from which a man—and a woman—might derive pleasure.”
Rowena blinked.
Callas’ tone was almost indulgent. “Her mouth, her cunt, and her other—rear—entrance.”
“What entrance? Where is there another one?”
“The eliminating orifice. From whence one’s night soil comes.”
“The fornicating engine—goes there?”
There was silence, while Rowena digested this new and terrifying news. And then, at the worst possible moment, Asher laughed. “She said fornicating engine,” he informed his father.
Isla couldn’t help it. She started laughing, too. The look on Rowena’s face was just priceless.
“For what reason,” she demanded, “would a woman do this?”
Callas put down his cup. “Ask a woman.”
Rowena turned to Isla. “Well?”
Asher seemed entirely too interested in her answer. This was, undoubtedly, the best dinner he’d had in months. Tristan, too, seemed interested. Isla could only thank the Gods that the entire table wasn’t in on the conversation. Most were head to head with their dining partners, or had returned to the floor to dance. A slightly livelier jig was playing now.
Isla decided to take this bull by the horns. It was either that or hide beneath the table until Freja granted her the power of invisibility. “As he enters you,” she said, her eyes on her sister’s, “you enter that strange land between pleasure and pain.” She sipped her own wine. “The land where addiction lies.” She paused, as though considering the issue. “The more well-endowed the man, of course, the greater the challenge. Time is required. And patience, and trust. Both must be in heat and both, too, must be prepared.”
Like all acts that could wound, when done correctly it was euphoric. The trust involved in sublimating oneself to another’s will was so profound that trust no longer seemed like even the right term. Isla never felt more connected to Tristan than when she was completely and utterly in his power.
“Although,” she added, her tone one of perfect innocence, “taking large cocks in any orifice might not be a skill in which you’re practiced.”
Rowena’s mouth fell open. “That is disgusting.”
“You have to hold your breath,” Isla advised. “Because, in that moment, you’re always certain that your body doesn’t have room for both air and his cock. But once he’s rooted firmly within you, the pleasure radiates throughout your entire body. Even to your fingertips.”
“Your husband’s a fortunate man,” said Quinn, who’d started listening again.
“Like being gently and benignly disemboweled.” Isla smiled.
Rowena shot him a withering look. “You would think so.”
“Almost as fortunate as I am.”
“I truly do not envy your betrothed.”
But Quinn only smiled in his own turn. “You should.”
Asher was grinning happily. Isla was mortified at herself for letting him participate in this conversation. Although she didn’t know why she should be; he spent half the day with the grooms and, even worse, the guards in the practice yard. In a few more years he’d be having his own dalliances. Here he was, still a boy and the serving girls were already giggling in his direction.
“Another benefit being that it avoids getting the woman with child.” This directed at Asher. Quinn was now eating some sort of seed cake, slathered with butter and jam. “Which, trust me, helps her enjoy it all the more. Women crave pleasure for pleasure’s sake, just as much as men.”
“You are corrupting him.” Rowena pressed her lips together in a grim line. “Filling his head with vile notions about…the kind of women with whom you consort.”
