The Scholar's Heart (Chronicles of Tournai Book 3)

by Antonia Aquilante

  Morning in the city swirled around him as he rode, and he let it seep into him, calm him. He might not be listening to his common sense and turning back for home or the warehouse at the port where he really should be headed, but he was still aware he shouldn’t arrive at the palace looking visibly angry. No need to make the royal guards nervous.

  Security was tighter at the palace than it had been on his first visit a little over two years ago, left over from a time when Amory had been the target of several assassination attempts. But Tristan’s name was on a list of people allowed admittance to the palace at any time, something he knew was an honor, and that humbled him. But Amory would never abandon a friend even after marrying a prince. Even if the prince had every reason to be wary of someone who had once been slightly more than a friend to Amory. The guards waved him through the gates, and he rode to the stables, leaving his horse there in the care of the palace stable hands.

  He cut across the courtyard to the nearest palace entrance and slipped inside, making his way confidently through the corridors. He had learned his way around much of the palace since Amory’s marriage, but he tried not to abuse the hospitality of his hosts by wandering around too much. By this time of the morning, he assumed Etan would be working, so he headed for Etan’s office. If Etan wasn’t there, Tristan would find a servant to ask about his whereabouts. He was annoyed, but he wouldn’t barge in on anything he shouldn’t. That type of behavior wouldn’t be polite to either Amory or Philip, and no matter his mood, Tristan would not disrespect either his friend or his friend’s husband.

  It surprised him sometimes how comfortable he was navigating the palace. He’d never expected such a thing would happen. On his first visit, he’d been nervous about seeing Amory for the first time since he’d begun a relationship with the prince and overwhelmed by the soaring architecture, the marble floors and graceful stained glass windows, the priceless paintings and sculptures. That day, he’d been led through the palace first by servants, then by Amory himself, and he couldn’t have found his way out again on his own if his life depended on it. That had changed rather quickly.

  He strode directly to Etan’s office, the one he shared with Cathal. Tristan didn’t know exactly what Cathal and Etan did for Philip and Amory. He knew they were involved in the government of Tournai but not what their actual positions were. He’d thought of asking Etan, back when they were getting closer, but he hadn’t wanted to overstep his bounds. Normally his curiosity would have taken over, but this involved governing Tournai.

  When he knocked at the office door, no one answered. Hesitantly, he tried the door, but it was locked. What he would have done if it had opened and he’d walked into something he shouldn’t interrupt, he didn’t know; checking the door had been a ridiculous thing to do. He turned from the door, indecisive about what to do next. His plan had been to find a servant and ask after Etan, but he wondered if he should try Etan’s suite first or maybe the library. But, from everything he’d heard, he would have thought Etan was too busy these days to spend as much time there as he used to.

  Tristan set off in that direction, still trying to decide, and found Amory before he managed to. Amory was standing in a corridor with Flavian watching as a large painting was being hung by three of the palace servants. Amory must have heard him because he turned his head, smiling when he saw Tristan.

  “Good morning. Come look at this painting and tell us what you think.”

  He greeted both Amory and Flavian and forced his attention to the painting and away from his purpose in the palace with some difficulty. Not only because he was so focused on his task, but also because he had never known much about art. Amory was a talented amateur artist, and he had tried to teach Tristan for years. Tristan hadn’t retained much of it, he hated to say, but art would never be something that interested him the way it did Amory. Humoring Amory, he studied the painting and tried to find something intelligent to say about it.

  He knew nothing of technique, but he could tell the artist was skilled just from looking at the effect produced on canvas. The painting depicted the palace in the moonlight from the vantage point of somewhere in the back of the garden. The moonlight silvered the colors of the garden, making the lush flowers and foliage seem just a bit mysterious and moody. The palace rose up behind it, towers reaching for the swirling black-and-blue sky, white stone glowing a bright contrast to the dark garden.

  Amory laughed and Tristan turned to glare at him. “What?”

  “You’re concentrating so hard,” Amory said through his laughter. “I just asked for an opinion not a dissertation on technique and how the painting fits into the history of art in Tournai.”

  “Well, good because I certainly can’t give you that.”

  Amory smiled and looked to Flavian. “Tristan is not a student of art.”

  He laughed. “No, I’m not. Far from it, but I do like this if that’s what you’re asking. Very atmospheric, a little mysterious. And even I can tell that the artist is a master.”

  “Thank you,” Flavian said from Amory’s other side.

  “It’s one of yours?” Perhaps he should have expected it. Flavian was an artist, and a good one by all accounts. He’d become a very popular painter at court and, despite the expectations of some at his marriage to a royal duke, refused to give up his painting, not that Cathal had asked him to as far as Tristan knew. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Thank you. I wanted it to be those things you said—a little mysterious, a little fanciful.”

  “You succeeded.” He looked at the painting for another moment, but impatience to get on with the morning’s mission plagued him.

  Amory seemed to see it. “What brings you here this morning?”

  “I’m looking for Etan. I tried his office, but no one was there. Do you know where he might be?”

  “The library.” Flavian said it along with Amory and they both laughed.

  Amory continued, “He’s probably in the library. He has the morning free, and that’s where he is when he has free time.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Reading, research. He has a guest lecture soon at the university so he might be preparing for that.” Amory must have read the surprise on Tristan’s face. “He’s a scholar at heart. I think he would still be at the university, studying, perhaps teaching, if Philip hadn’t needed him here.”

  “I didn’t know that.” And now he wondered how little he really knew about Etan. Oh, he’d known Etan was bookish and blindingly intelligent, but he hadn’t known the extent of his activities apparently.

  “Didn’t you? We have to drag him away from his books and out of the library to get him to do anything else. Well, except his duties to Philip and me. He wouldn’t shirk those.”

  Flavian was nodding. “I haven’t known him as long, but Cathal says he’s always been that way.”

  “Really? I’ve never had to drag him away to get him to do something else.”

  “Hmm.” Amory regarded him closely, an odd expression on his face. Knowing, perhaps, but a bit sad, and Tristan had no idea what it meant. Before he could ask Amory what he was thinking, Amory said, “Try the library if you need him. Do you remember the way?”

  “Yes, I’ve been there before.” Looking for Amory once or twice, but mostly with Etan. Now that he thought of it, Etan had often been in the library when Tristan went looking for him, but he usually left when Tristan asked him to do something else. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Of course.”

  Tristan walked away, feeling their eyes on him all the way down the corridor until he finally turned a corner.

  Chapter 5

  ETAN HAD woken out of sorts, and nothing changed as the morning wore on, except that he’d grown angrier about how out of sorts and tired he was. And it was all because of last night—well, because of Etan’s stupidity over last night. It was supposed to be a pleasant evening. He’d thought it would be, had been looking forward to it for days, even.

  Then
he went and ruined it himself.

  It was Piet’s birthday, and Etan and some of their friends from the university decided to take him out to celebrate. They started with dinner at the Quiet Magpie, an eating house near the university, and then moved on to a show performed by two sorcerers who possessed Talents that could produce powerful illusions. Etan had seen the show already when the man and woman performed at the palace, but it hadn’t been any less impressive the second time, and the others enjoyed it immensely.

  After the show, they were laughing and almost giddy with high spirits in a way that only serious scholars who usually focused on their studies to the exclusion of all else could be when they let loose. They made their way to a tavern Stefan liked for drinks and conversation. Which really meant far more laughter, and Etan’s sides were beginning to hurt from it. They reminisced about pranks from their student days after several stories from Piet about the pranks a group of his students had perpetrated. Vita laughed right along with them, though as one of only a small number of female students—and now scholars—at the university, she was far more likely to have a prank pulled on her. But she surprised them with one story of a clever trick she and a few of her fellow female students played in their last year on a group of students who had tormented them for years.

  The story had Etan laughing near enough to fall out of his chair, and the others were similarly afflicted. Something about both the story and that it had come from such a demure-looking lady made it all the funnier.

  Then he looked up and saw Tristan.

  He hadn’t realized Tristan was there. The tavern was a good one, and therefore popular, and was crowded that evening. He wouldn’t have seen Tristan at all if the man hadn’t walked near their table. Walked near their table with his hand clasped in that of a handsome young man who was leading Tristan toward the front door. The stranger’s intent was clear as glass from the look on his face, and Etan knew Tristan well enough to recognize the same intention in Tristan’s body language, even if Etan had never really seen it directed at himself.

  Tristan and the stranger were leaving together, heading to a bed or some other convenient surface.

  All the laughter drained out of him, and suddenly Etan was furious. Furious and disdainful and a host of other things he hadn’t been able to name as he watched Tristan leave with another man. Then Tristan had seen him, and Tristan’s surprise only made it worse. He should be grateful the stranger got Tristan moving again or Etan might have done something stupid. But then he would have to be grateful they were leaving together, and he couldn’t do that. Not even after reminding himself repeatedly that he didn’t love Tristan anymore. Didn’t want him. Had no claim on him to begin with.

  It didn’t matter. Etan was still furious.

  And he knew he was being ridiculous, which made him all the angrier. Only most of his anger was directed at himself this morning because he was being ridiculous. The only time he ever acted so irrationally was in relation to Tristan, and he hated himself for it, knew it needed to stop. He’d thought he’d done fairly well putting aside Tristan, their friendship, and the hopes he’d had for more. Until last night and the—he could admit it—jealousy and anger at seeing Tristan choose to leave with some other man, as he’d chosen to marry a woman, when Etan had been by his side for so long, building a friendship with him, giving Tristan every indication he wanted more than that if Tristan did as well. But Tristan had loved Amory and Etan had waited to say anything because he didn’t just want a tumble with Tristan. He’d wanted more, so he waited, strengthening the bond he’d thought they had. He’d waited for so long—only for Tristan to marry someone else and now carry on with some other man. He wondered if it was serious between Tristan and the handsome stranger.

  He’d done his best to let his irrational feelings go when Tristan left the tavern. He refused to ruin a friend’s evening by being in less than a celebratory mood. He thought he’d done a fairly good job of it too, until he’d found himself alone with Stefan. The two of them walked Vita home from the tavern late—or early in the morning, depending on point of view. They’d been some of the last people in the tavern, and the streets were quiet, nearly empty, by the time they left. Etan had tried to slip away and let Stefan walk Vita home on his own, not because he didn’t want to do it, but because he thought he might have seen some flirtation between them earlier, and even as annoyed as he was, he wouldn’t get in the way of a potential budding romance.

  But they wouldn’t let him sneak away, towing him along through the empty streets as they continued their merry conversation. They kept to the well-lit main roads until they reached the warren of streets surrounding the university. Both Vita and Stefan kept rooms in the university quarter, so the three of them plunged off the main road onto a narrow, winding lane. The street lights were mounted on the front of the buildings here, most of which were nearly touching. Their footsteps echoed on the old, uneven cobbles that paved the lane. They didn’t meet another person the entire time they followed that lane to Vita’s doorstep.

  She parted ways from them with a kiss on the cheek for each of them and thanks that were sincere if a little wry. Vita could take care of herself; she had strong Talent for offensive and defensive magics, something that often confounded many of her male colleagues, but there were enough senior scholars in the university who respected her Talent and mind that her position there was secure. She could also knock a man into a wall with a wave of her hand. Stefan often joked when they went anywhere with her, that she could protect them.

  Once she was inside behind a locked door—because both Etan and Stefan were considerate enough to wait even if she could take care of herself—they turned together without a word and walked in the direction of Stefan’s lodgings. Walking with Stefan didn’t take Etan out of his way in his return to the palace, so he walked with his friend.

  They hadn’t gone far when Stefan spoke. “Do you want to tell me what happened back there at the tavern?”

  “Hmm? What do you mean?”

  Stefan raised both eyebrows in an expression of exaggerated incredulity. “Are you really going to pretend with me?”

  He shouldn’t bother. Though Stefan presented himself as perpetually relaxed and easy-going, escaping the university to go hunting and fishing every free moment he had, he was really quite sharp and observant. “Nothing happened. Nothing that mattered.”

  But irrational anger and jealousy still bubbled and simmered underneath the surface.

  “It didn’t look like nothing,” Stefan said, his voice mild. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

  Etan sighed. That was the other thing about Stefan—he made merry and had a wickedly sharp tongue, but he was a good friend. “I will be. Tristan was there, at the tavern.”

  “Ah.” Stefan said nothing else, just slung a companionable arm over Etan’s shoulders and left it there until they parted. Stefan knew only that Etan’s friendship with Tristan had ended badly, but he probably inferred much more.

  His friend’s quiet support soothed Etan enough for him to walk back to the palace and manage a little sleep, but not enough to put him in his usual frame of mind in the morning, not with how angry he was at himself. He was grateful he had no obligations that morning. The free hours gave him time to get over his ludicrous snit without having to interact with anyone. And the best way he knew to force himself back into a calm, normal outlook was to bury himself in the library and his books until the feelings he hated went away.

  So that was where he went, and he felt better for just stepping into the room, just breathing in the scent of the lemony wax the servants used to polish the wooden railings and furniture and, most of all, of books, that leather and paper perfume he loved. The library felt like home. The main room was lit by two windows flanking a large, ornate fireplace. The rest of the walls held books, reaching floor to ceiling, some of them only accessible from a balcony that ran around three sides of the room. Thick, jewel-toned rugs covered the marble floor, and furni
ture that seemed to invite a person to sink into its cushions was placed around the room. But Etan didn’t stop; he continued through a small doorway into the rest of the library, a warren of various-sized rooms, each unique and charming in its way and each filled with books.

  The sun was barely up when he settled at the table in the small room he often claimed as his own. It was tucked away in the middle of the rooms that made up the bulk of the palace library. It was cozy in chilly months from its own small fireplace and bright from a large window that let in the sunlight. Another thick rug covered most of the polished wood floor, and bookcases filled with books of history lined three of the walls. A small, plush couch sat near the hearth, a place he often read if he didn’t want to do so in his own book-filled suite, and a table, wood polished to a gleam and inlaid in patterns, occupied the center of the room.

  He sighed when he sat there, letting himself sink into the leather back of his chair, letting himself breathe in the calming scent of the library and take in the tranquil view out the window.

  Then he turned to his books.

  He was lecturing at the university on the history of Tournai’s royal family, something he did occasionally, though the topic was not always the same. He was young for it, but he’d studied hard and long, entering university early and throwing himself into his studies, taking on far more than most students did at once, let alone most noble students who weren’t destined for employment. He had been happy at the university, but he was happy at the palace too, especially since his studies hadn’t ended, only become more informal.

  This morning, he had to prepare his lecture, but the upset he still felt made organizing his thoughts more difficult than it should have been. Instead of writing, he pulled a book from his stack of research material, leaned back in his chair, and began to read. He even had trouble falling into the book, but finally he was swept away, and everything except the words on the page disappeared. Just what he wanted, just what he needed.