Beast

by Abigail Barnette

  She kissed his cheek and bade him be careful as they stood in the courtyard below the tower. “I do not trust Lord Fueil. Father did not trust him, either.”

  “That was the old lord. This is his son,” Wilhelm reminded her.

  “And the son is like to be as greedy and vain as the father. Look at you, Wilhelm, you’re so much like our father that it pains me to look on you at times.” Johanna laughed with him, but icy dread had frozen her insides. “I merely caution you. Be careful. We don’t know that Philipe isn’t…playing us false, because we are an easily exploited target.”

  “Because he is Albart’s son?” Wilhelm smiled. “If you believe I am so like father, then trust that I will act with his wisdom. And do not worry over me, sister. I will return.”

  She went back to the tower and watched from the window as Wilhelm cleared the castle gates and galloped away across the valley. She could sit all day, if she liked, and watch as he crossed the miles spread below the mountains. He would be but a black speck in a sea of white that would sear her eyes, though, and she had told him she would trust him. She turned away and wiped her tears on her sleeve beneath her veil.

  “The porridge smells like it might burn,” Philipe said gently.

  “Eat moldy bread, for all I care!” she snapped, but she went to the pot. She would do her duty as her brother had bid her, and trusted he would do his.

  Chapter Four

  There was a single chicken left, scrawny, with sparse feathers. Johanna had planned to save him to cook upon her brother’s return, but a week had passed without word from him. She’d hoped to rise that morning to a dark speck against the blazing white horizon, as she had hoped for the past three days. The trip to Lord Fueil’s manor was only a day’s ride. Even if he’d been pressed to spend a second night, as Lord Fueil’s hospitality sometimes required, for he did not like to drink his wine alone, Wilhelm should have returned by now, at least.

  It was Philipe’s fault, she thought angrily as she chased the pathetic chicken all about the castle yard. Wilhelm had promised to act with her father’s wisdom, but she should have known better than to set store by such a promise. Her father’s wisdom had brought them nothing but fire and pain. Likely it had landed Wilhelm in Fueil’s dungeon, branded a traitor.

  What a fine existence it would be here, alone, with no man to barter for supplies with traders, or cut wood. She would freeze before the end of winter, for she would not be brave enough to put flint and spark to tinder herself. Wilhelm always did that.

  She was not alone yet, she reminded herself. Perhaps Philipe would see to her care. He must have a bevy of lords in his pockets, with wives who would prefer an ugly, scarred chambermaid.

  That was the fate of the daughter of Köneig. Nearly a princess, she would end as a servant, if her erstwhile fiancé looked upon her kindly enough to help.

  A fig for his help. She could not bring herself to be civil enough to him that he would bother to stick a dagger in her heart before he rode away. Not that he deserved better treatment, after what he’d done to her.

  She caught the bird on her third try, and wrung its neck, grateful that her veil kept the feathers out of her nose as it flapped and squawked. The bones of its neck crunched, and still the animal ran about when she dropped it, its head fallen dead to the side while the body fought for escape. It ran a pitiable circle and fell over as Johanna looked about for the scalding pot.

  With a curse she realized that she’d forgotten the fire, to boil the water over. She groaned and wiped her hands on her gown, forcing herself to adopt a light tone when she called out, “Philipe! Might you help me with something?”

  He leaned out of the tower window, holding the flap of heavy cloth back with one dripping arm. “What, this very second?”

  “Are you bathing again?” As if they had all the water in the world, his royal highness had seen fit to not just wash every morning, but strip completely and pour bucket after bucket of perfectly clean water over his head. He’d used nearly all the soap she had Wilhelm had for the year. She hoped he brought more back with him, or that the prince gifted them with pounds of the stuff in repayment for their troubles.

  “I’ll keep bathing for as long as you complain about my stink,” he retorted.

  Resolving to never again use “stinking”, “reeking,” or “disgusting” to refer to him, lest he empty their cistern and boil all the snow off the mountain in his vain quest, she made herself calm. “I need a fire, to scald the chicken.”

  His brow crumpled. “What did the chicken do to you?”

  Gods, could royalty be so sheltered? “It’s going to feed me, and you, if you like. But not unless you come down and help me. I don’t wish to pluck it inside, when I’ll have to clean up the mess.”

  “Pluck it?” his confusion became even more visibly pronounced, and then clarity dawned bright as sunlight. “I’ll dress and be right down.”

  She sat on the chopping block and covered her face with her hands. She had promised to be civil, to do her duty as father would have wanted her to. But when the prince was such an idiot, it was very difficult not to comment on it.

  He came down the stairs, hair still wet, the patched arm of his shirt hanging strangely over his bandage. He held his arm stiffly, and it concerned her, but only for a moment, because he opened his mouth and told her, “You know, when you said ‘pluck’ the first thing I thought was—”

  “No, Philipe. I am not so desperate as to fuck a chicken.” Though she’d said the words in anger, she could not hold back the shocked laugh that exploded from her lips.

  Philipe’s bark of laughter was like to bring down the snow from the mountains. “How did you know I wasn’t going to say ‘a harp’? No, you chose defloration, quick as lightning, didn’t you?”

  “It is lonely on this mountain,” she said, hearing something of the flirtatious girl she’d once been. She hated the girl, hated the way she mocked her from the past. “Over there, if you please. It doesn’t need to be a bonfire, just enough to boil some water.”

  “As my lady commands.” Philipe went to the wood pile. He could not cover his grimace as he tried, unsuccessfully, to not involve his wounded side in the carrying.

  “Let me.” Johanna took the split log from him and tucked another under arm. “Don’t strain yourself.”

  “I am not strained. I know you think of me as some spoiled prince who cannot lift a finger to help himself, but I assure you—”

  “You’re wounded. What good will Fueil’s help be, should he grant it, if you are dead?”

  Philipe did not argue further, letting her stack the kindling without a word. He took the flint from his pocket and set to striking up sparks against the dried pine boughs she’d added to start the flames. When the first tiny, infernal flame leapt up, quickly setting the boughs alight beneath the split logs, he stood and said with satisfaction, “There, then. At least I know how to build a fire. Who’s spoiled now?”

  “I know how,” she admitted, gritting her teeth in a vain attempt to bite back the rest of her explanation. “I am afraid to.”

  “As anyone would be, in your position.” There was no mocking to his words, no gentle humor about them. Long ago, he’d hid behind his words even when the true answer hadn’t mattered. Perhaps he had changed.

  “If that’s all, then,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly, “I’m back up to my sick bed. If I sleep, wake me for dinner.”

  She waited until he was up the stairs, into the tower before she spit on his path.

  * * * *

  She woke him for dinner, and the anger that had simmered along with the stewpot had not yet come to full boil, so she didn’t bother to converse with him. The silence of the day stretched into night. Though her eyes ached and her head drooped on her shoulders, Johanna would not allow herself to sleep. If she slept, she might miss the first sound of Wilhelm’s boots on the stair, or his shouts from the courtyard. Or his cries for help, as Philipe had cried out upon his arrival. If W
ilhelm hadn’t heard him…

  She shuddered to think of it, but not for Philipe’s sake. Her concern extended only as far as her brother. The fate she imagined for Philipe was the one she dreaded for Wilhelm.

  So, she stayed awake, despite the rhythm of her sewing that did its best to lull her. The needle thunked through the tightly drawn fabric, the string whispered against the fibers, and it repeated, again and again, until her hand could raise no more and her eyes drifted shut of their own accord.

  A cracking log in the hearth sent up long, snatching fingers of embers, and Johanna hissed an indrawn breath between her teeth. Fully awake in a heartbeat, she drew her skirts back with a sharp movement of her legs. She heard Philipe’s breath, too, and imagined it was one of agitation. “I am sorry if my shyness of fire bores you, Your Highness. It is not something that I can overcome.”

  When he answered her, his voice was a whisper. A whisper, yes, but it held anger in it that even she could hear. “Why would you say such a thing to me?”

  “You are a prince, are you not?” With her stiff, melted fingers, she pushed the needle back through the fabric, laying down a line of red. It should have been the edge of a rose, but all too easily it became a line across Wilhelm’s throat, his blood on the snow.

  “You know I am,” Philipe rasped. He lifted his cup to his lips, grimacing at the taste of the plain water.

  Her lips twitched in satisfaction at his pained expression. Honeyed wine would have been a drink fit for a prince, but they had none, and his discomfort pleased her. It pleased her still when she replied innocently, “I’m sure, then, that there are a great many apologies made to you for things people cannot themselves change. I beg your pardon for my detestation of fire, which you are sure to find disagreeable.”

  “I do not think you disagreeable for loathing fire.” His gaze flicked up to her face for one of those furtive glances. “I very much loathe it myself.”

  He still could not look into her eyes when he spoke to her. Did he avoid seeing her so that he could imagine her as she had been all those years before? So that he could absolve himself of his guilt over what she had become? She wouldn’t forgive him with a smile, as the pretty maid she had once been would have. “You say you loathe it, but it seems to me it has caused relatively little inconvenience to you.”

  “Little inconvenience?” He made a noise that sounded like sarcasm and disbelief running into each other headlong.

  She would not give him the benefit of his regret. “You lost nothing from the fire that ravaged our home. Indeed, you gained much. My father’s death secured the North for your crown.”

  “Keep the damned North!” Philipe raged, coming to his feet. “I am not my father, the size of my kingdom doesn’t concern me.”

  “I’m glad to know that our pain is nothing to you.” She could still play the courtier, twisting words to her own end, and would gladly, so long as this spoiled prince intruded upon her home. “For my pains, I lost everything I held dear.”

  “Your looks?” he supplied for her.

  When she responded simply, “My brother,” his expression froze. He was not so triumphant now, his iron gaze softening to something horrified. She looked back to her sewing. “My father lived, you know. For a few weeks. I could hear him screaming from my sickroom in the tower. He was burned worse than I, though I never saw it. Wilhelm once told me that father’s chin had melted to his neck, so he was unable to speak, but for to scream. He might have survived his burns. It was the choking that killed him. His lungs were so clogged with smoke, he would cough up great, black chunks like pine tar–“

  “I won’t listen to this a moment more.” Philipe went to the door, and it took every ounce of the hatred in her heart to call him back.

  And words, words she’d sworn in her deepest heart that she would never repeat to anyone. “My brother took longer.”

  Only those words, and he stopped, hand splayed against the blackened wood, his shoulders tight beneath the simple sackcloth shirt.

  “He lasted a few weeks,” she told him, forcing her voice to steady. “We shared our sickroom, so nurse could be with us both. And in the dark at night, while she slept, I could hear him praying for death. No matter what potions she gave him, no matter what salves they used to ease the pain, for weeks, he prayed that death would take him.”

  Philipe turned, his expression unreadable as ever. Perhaps a slash of feigned caring, bolstered by self-importance, went into this mask of seeming grief. “My loss may not have been as tragic. Every day I resent my father’s decision to leave when there was so much unrest, to leave you all to bear the fire. He should have offered you help. He should have taken you, at least you and your brothers, into his protection at the palace. I pleaded with him, but I was just a boy, Johanna. I am still a boy, in many ways, unable to speak out to my father.

  “You lost much in the fire. I will not claim to have suffered more, for only a fool would.” He met her eyes finally, tearing his gaze from the flames in the hearth to capture her in an expression far more honest than any she’d though him capable of. “But I did lose something that night. Something so dear to me that I may never stop mourning that loss.”

  She let him go this time, and waited for the tears that would crumple her face painfully in defiance of her stiff flesh. They never came. Perhaps she had no more tears left to cry for the boy prince.

  Outside, the winds lashed against each other, east blaming west for the trap they’d met in the valley. It did not matter, she wanted to tell them. Once something entered this valley, it would never leave. The mountains, once safe friends, had revealed themselves as jailers. The wind, the snow, the light, her despair, all would die imprisoned at Hazelhurn.

  Lifting the edge of the cloth that held off the night air, she slipped her hand outside, against the winter-cold stone. Wilhelm rode through that biting cold, to help the man who had done nothing as they had faced grave danger. The son of the man who had destroyed their happiness, stolen their youth. What did he see that she did not? Politics? Politics were a poor salve for a wounded heart.

  When she pulled her hand back, flecks of white fluff lay against her palm. It snowed in the valley. She hoped that wherever Wilhelm lay tonight, he was warm and safe.

  “Be with him, Jacob,” she implored the deceased twin, conjuring his face in her mind. “Protect him.”

  Chapter Five

  The mornings were always the worst, Philipe found. After a night alone with his thoughts and irrational fears, he always woke to a new and prickly dawn, uncertain of what he might say or do that would unintentionally wound Johanna. This day was no different, as he dressed and washed for the day. The stubble on his cheeks had become more pronounced, almost beard-like. He wasn’t sure he liked that. Beards were for old men. He wasn’t an old man. He was a young, dashing prince.

  A young, dashing prince who likely couldn’t charm a mirror out of his hostess. With every passing day, Johanna grew angrier with him, though he hadn’t imagined himself capable of doing anything to deepen her seemingly bottomless well of hatred for him. Still, it was worth trying. “You don’t by chance have a mirror, do you?”

  “What would I want with a mirror?” she asked, never looking up from her sewing.

  He took a patience-restoring breath. “I have want of one. I’d like to scrape off some of these whiskers.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t have at least one with you in your saddle bags,” she commented tartly. But she said no more.

  He sat on the bench and rolled his shoulder, biting back a pained sound. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he expected sympathy. Something wasn’t right with the wound, though, a pulsing, insistent flame burned deep in it. She’d dressed and bathed the wound the night before, and she’d remarked on how well it had looked. More to the point, she’d said, “Looks like you’ll be gone from us in a few days.”

  Though he’d let that pass without comment at the time, he could no longer stand her sharp replies and s
tiff posture. “I won’t leave you alone, you know.”

  Her needle hovered above the fabric, but still she did not look up. With a breath, she resumed her stitching. “You left me alone before, easily enough. We’ve established that.”

  “We have.” He had no desire to undergo the same torturous conversation again. “This is different.”

  “I see no difference, for me. At the beginning, we lost two, sometimes three survivors a year, to death or to the lure of an easier life under some fatter lord. I will survive without my brother, as I survived with him.” Her bored affectation was that, and no more. A mask that no more tricked him into believing she would be fine on her own than it tricked him into believing a common peasant was a dragon.

  He would let her have her pride, for now. “If you need anything, you know you may always turn to me.”

  “I did not, but now I do.” She made a derisive little snort of laughter. “Very generous of you to offer when you’re on the run from the crown.”

  From the window, he saw the valley spread out beneath the full moon’s light. Empty, undisturbed snow lay for miles. “He might not come back, Johanna.”

  “I know.” There was no fight left in her answer, and when he turned back to her, her shoulders had sagged, her embroidery forgotten in her lap.

  Though his arm throbbed and he knew he would likely receive a shriek or a slap for his troubles, he went to her and knelt beside her chair. “When I vowed that I would help, I meant it.”

  She took his hand in hers and squeezed it, soundless tears splashing down on her knuckles.

  This was not the outcome he’d planned for. He’d not imagined she would give him leave to actually comfort her. Now, he didn’t know what to do. “He might be all right. Perhaps the narrows to the valley became impassible. When my arm heals, I will ride out in search of him.”