by P. J. Fox
So here they were, celebrating.
Father Justin, meanwhile, waited on a slab in the dairy until an emissary from the Earl of Strathearn could be summoned to retrieve him. Isla wondered if her father would tire of waiting and accept Tristan’s offer to pay for the burial. There was, after all, a great deal of cheese to be made and cheese was one of the estate’s main sources of income. At the thought of making cheese now and, even worse, attempting to pass it off as edible, Isla smiled. She only contained herself with great effort, and thoughts of all the toasts she’d have to sit through later that evening.
“The weather is, if unseasonable, not cold enough.” The mellifluous voice in her ear belonged to Tristan. She startled. She hadn’t heard him approach and thought she was alone. “Ah, Maximus,” he said, greeting the hound more pleasantly than he did the average human being. “I see you’ve found someone willing to indulge you.”
“Men like to be the center of attention,” Isla said primly.
Tristan chuckled dryly. “Perhaps.” He handed her a cup of mulled wine.
She looked up at him. His choice of attire was as subdued as ever, but where Rudolph would have looked underdressed in such simple robes, Tristan looked regal. He needed no ornament to indicate his position. Isla was curious about the rings he wore, but hadn’t yet found the courage to ask about their significance. She hardly dared ask him anything, partly because of how he’d reacted the last time she’d indicated an interest in his true nature and partly because she was afraid of what she might learn.
He gazed back at her, his black eyes unreadable as always. His hair was neat and trim, so unlike the red and yellow manes of the highlanders. Isla had seen men of the tribes who prided themselves on actually being able to keep live creatures housed in their matted tangles. A local chieftain who paid homage to her father had come for dinner once and some sort of mouse-like creature had peeped right out, demanding bread.
“Things are…different in the capital,” he said. “And at Caer Addanc.”
“How do you do it?” she asked, thinking of his comment just now and of the one he’d made minutes before. “How do you read my mind?” He’d exhibited this alarming ability to know what she was thinking several times, now, and each time she felt a thrill of fear.
“Not your mind,” he corrected. “Your face.” When she only stared, confused, he continued. “You’ve yet to learn the art of schooling your expression,” he explained. “To one who knows you, the indications are all there.” Then no one must know her very well, she concluded, since she was considered by most in her household to be as inscrutable as her betrothed.
“Please tell me you don’t dance,” she said.
“No.” A faint moue of disgust twisted his lip and was gone.
She smiled slightly at this shared moment between them. Overhead in the gallery, the minstrels broke into another tune. One was barely distinguishable from another, but Rowena seemed happy. She beamed at her guests, many of whom stood as audience, as Rudolph led her around the room. He, too, seemed to have recovered some of his enthusiasm.
“I like Maximus,” Isla told Tristan, sipping her wine. It was nigh on undrinkable, as always. Maximus looked up at hearing his name, still smiling his lazy, doggy smile. His tongue lolled out. His stumpy tail padded the floor, briefly. He, at least, didn’t mind the smell of the over-used rushes—probably loved it, in fact. The worse the smell, the more their own hounds wanted to roll around in its source.
“Although,” Tristan mused, his tone thoughtful, “there are certain things I’d like to know.”
About her? She colored, flustered. “What?” she asked, her voice small.
But before Tristan could answer, they were joined by a fat, jovial personage of short stature who in his crimson robes looked like nothing so much as Father Winter. He smiled broadly, making a surprisingly graceful bow over his paunch. “Hullo!” he cried, in a voice that sounded exactly like his son’s. “It’s not often that we’re graced by such an august presence as yours, Your Grace! Welcome to Ewesdale!”
Tristan nodded in acknowledgment, the barest movement of his head. “The Most Honorable Baron of Ahearn, I presume?”
Rudolph’s father laughed. “Indeed! Where are my manners?” He transferred his apparently genuine smile to Isla briefly, and then back to Tristan. “But please, do call me Jacob!” Every word out of the man’s mouth seemed to be an exclamation, and all made with equal fervor. “Considering as how we’re family, now!”
Tristan’s face was a blank as he absorbed this announcement. Clearly, he lacked Jacob’s enthusiasm for the operation. “Indeed,” he said stiffly.
“Well I think it’s wonderful,” Isla said determinedly.
Rudolph’s mother appeared. She was a thin, spare woman with a hawk nose over which unpleasant eyes glittered. A white streak ran through her dark hair. The smile she turned on her husband was thin-lipped and icy. He wilted. This, Isla knew immediately, was the power behind the throne. She’d often wondered how Rudolph’s family’s estates managed to do so well. She’d met Rudolph’s father before, but never his mother. Now she had her answer.
Madam Bengough greeted Tristan with surprising warmth, pressing her hand into his and letting it linger there. If Tristan’s lack of response disappointed her, she gave no sign. Beside her, her husband grinned happily. Isla wondered if this would be Rowena, a middle aged witch of a woman clinging desperately to what beauty she still possessed. Flirting with others as her husband looked on; as Rudolph himself had done the other night. Jacob, like his son, had probably been quite the catch in his time. She thought back, suddenly, to her father’s advice that she, and not Rowena, might end up with the better end of the bargain. That conversation seemed like a long time ago now. A very long time ago.
“And of course you’re acquainted with my betrothed,” Tristan said.
Rudolph’s mother withdrew her hand. “Hello, child.” She sniffed.
The hours passed in a blur as Isla found herself drawn into conversation, first with her sister’s new in-laws and then with one successive person after another. Tristan made her leave the comfort of her corner, leading her around as though she were a trained pet like Maximus. Once or twice, she thought she saw a glint of humor in his eye at her discomfort.
She heard about failing crops and strange weather patterns and the king’s failure to produce an heir. Until he did so—and there was every belief that he would, he’d only been married a short time—his brother was his appointed successor. A position in which Tristan seemed to have no interest. He deflected some rather pointed questions about his brother’s sex life with ease, showing none of the discomfort that Isla would have in his position.
Eventually, almost in self-defense, she started participating.
She offered her own opinions about the effect of wheat blight on meat prices—bad—and the effect of so much rain on woad—good. Moreover, if their immediate neighbor across the channel, the Most August Kingdom of Chad, did decide to run a blockade as a possible precursor to war then prices for domestically produced indigo and other luxury materials would only go up. Not merely due to lack of trade with the East but because other kingdoms, those to the west, would trade with Morven rather than risk losing their merchant cogs to state-sponsored piracy. She could almost hope that Chad did run the blockade, but for the possible loss of life in Morven.
Whether Isla’s fellow conversationalists were impressed with her logic or simply stunned by the idea that a woman might possess some, she seemed to make a rather good impression. Several men—none of whom she knew, really, or had spoken with on any sort of intimate terms before—congratulated Tristan on his good fortune in finding such a capable bride. Which Isla found singularly annoying. What, precisely, was Tristan doing to earn praise and congratulations? The notion that the man might have to prove himself in any fashion—beyond proving that he could ride a horse, swing a sword and sheathe his sword in whatever happened along—was utterly alien to Morvish society.
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Isla forced herself to smile. The expression felt false and uncomfortable on her face, stretching her muscles and making them ache. She’d had too much wine again, terrible as it was, and her head was beginning to swim. She hadn’t eaten much, either; food hadn’t held much savor for her since the…incident.
“And now,” Tristan said, nodding slightly to the man they were with, “if you’ll be so kind as to excuse us.”
He turned and, without waiting for a response, led her through the great hall. The minstrels still played and many still danced, including Rowena. Her high, crystalline laugh echoed behind them as they passed under the arched door and into the central hall that bisected the manor.
Away from the press of people, the air was noticeably cooler—and fresher. A room, however large, full of heavily perfumed and unwashed bodies was often a difficult experience. Especially when, due to the exertion of so much dancing and drinking, many of those bodies were also rank with sweat.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “I need some air,” she said.
“Yes,” was all he responded.
He offered her his arm, and she took it. They walked down the hall alone, arm in arm, and for a moment it almost felt like being a real couple. She had to remind herself that she barely knew him; that she’d only met him the previous fortnight. And that she disliked him—didn’t she? Because even in such a short amount of time, they’d developed an easy familiarity with one another. He understood her and she thought, sometimes, that she understood him as well. She couldn’t quite pinpoint when it had begun to feel natural, settling her fingertips into the crook of his elbow and leaning against his arm.
Tristan’s boot heels echoed on the flagstones; birds fluttered in the eaves. The sounds of revelry drifted out from the great hall behind them. Isla was shocked to see, when they reached the door, that the strong afternoon sun had been replaced by twilight. There were no windows in the great hall, save for a few high up that were really more ventilation slits than actual sources of information on the outside world. Those endless rounds of conversation had taken longer than she’d thought.
At the door, she hesitated. The faintest breath of late summer roses drifted in on the air, undercut with the damp smell of decay. She swallowed.
Tristan paused, his form, when not actively engaged, reduced to the still form of a statue. Or a corpse. His cloak settled around him, his cloak that she hadn’t remembered him having a moment ago. “Yes?” he asked.
She swallowed again, and chewed her lip in an unconscious expression of anxiety. They were alone. A sudden gust blew through the door and raised gooseflesh on her exposed forearms and chest. She felt her nipples harden. What else she felt…she didn’t know.
“How?” was all she managed.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “The seeds of an eastern fruit, the strychnos nux vomica. In small doses, it can be used to stimulate the heart or sometimes to treat a certain stomach complaint. In larger doses….” He made a small, dismissive gesture.
“You killed him so easily.”
“He would have hurt you.”
“Have you so little regard for human life?” she asked, her throat dry, aware that the man so disturbingly close to her was not in fact human. Her heart raced.
“He could have left,” Tristan pointed out, quietly and without apology. “He chose to remain, in full knowledge of the consequences that such a choice would bring. Should I have let him live?”
“I….” Isla shook her head, confused.
She didn’t know. She balled her fists up in a small, hopeless gesture and released them. She didn’t know anything, anymore, except that she was confused and that the man in front of her frightened her in ways she couldn’t define. Everything frightened her, now, where nothing had before. She’d grown up as an independent girl, first, then woman, confident of her place in the world and cowed by nothing. But now….
“Come outside,” Tristan said. “And then we eat.”
She let her betrothed, the Demon of Darkling Reach, lead her out into the night. Like a small child. Or a lamb to slaughter. She looked back, once, at the rearing walls of Enzie Hall, and saw nothing familiar. The faint strains of merriment rang discordant in her ears, music and laughter that sounded brittle and false. She wondered where she was going, and what the night would bring.
THIRTY-FOUR
“There are rumors, you know, about your home.” Isla picked daintily at the plate in front of her, partaking of her second picnic in as many days. Full dark had fallen, and she was seated with Tristan next to the lichen-covered monument where they’d had their first real conversation.
“Oh?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Yes.” She sipped her wine, well diluted again. Almost all water was served with some alcohol mixed in; the alcohol made it safe to drink. People washed their clothes, and themselves, in the same water they used for everything else—including to piss and shit in. And although some manors were more urbane than others, the same standards of sanitation ruled everywhere. The more fastidious sometimes tried to teach the less fastidious, but one couldn’t govern the personal habits of several thousand people simultaneously.
She and Tristan had left the manor, walking through the gardens and out into the same patch of woods where Isla had spent so much time as a child and that Tristan seemed to like as well. They hadn’t talked much; Isla was too fraught with nerves and still gripped by the same sense of unreality that had plagued her off and on for days—and that had gotten so much worse since her encounter with Father Justin. She thought of him lying, moldering on a slab in the dairy and shuddered. As cold and unmoving as Tristan, whose iron grip had the feel of rigor mortis.
She’d been surprised, and a little intimidated when he’d suggested stopping here. Or, rather, informed her that they would. She hadn’t forgotten his calm assertion that the tomb she’d been fascinated with since childhood was protected by a curse. And now she was sitting next to it, wondering once again who was buried there and what, precisely, the nature of this curse might happen to be.
Because while Isla had never believed in curses before, she did now.
But the determinedly prosaic nature of their encounter proved an antidote to even the worse fears. Sitting here, a blanket shielding her from the dew-damp grass as crickets chirped in the gloom, nibbling on a small piece of mushroom puff…it was all too normal to inspire terror.
Tristan’s retainers had served them without remark, and departed. She’d seen no sign of Asher and wondered at that, but supposed even hostages must have bedtimes. So far, she’d seen no sign of the little page being mistreated. Although, if the rumors could be believed, a great deal about Tristan’s life—and home—was hidden.
She glanced up. He was watching her. She blushed. Something about him made her so nervous, something that went beyond the simple fact of his nature. It wasn’t that he was a demon, or that he practiced magic, it was…him.
She let her eyes drop. “Well,” she said, feeling suddenly shy again, “the name, for one.” Caer Addanc meant Castle Addanc. Addanc was a word from one of the tribal tongues in the North that described a particular kind of evil, fresh water-dwelling sprite. In legend, the addanc lured travelers away from the safety of the road with a glowing ball of flame.
Even the name of Isla’s future home evoked a premonition of doom; a massive fortress in the mountains surrounded by mist.
“Caer Addanc is built on a cliff overlooking a lake of the same name.” Darkling Reach was a region sometimes referred to as the inland coast, because its craggy climes were spotted with lakes. A handful of them were enormous, regarded as oceans by local inhabitants. Although filled with freshwater, their tides were controlled by the phases of the moon just like true saltwater oceans. Many regarded this phenomenon as evidence of dark magic. “Loch Addanc is beautiful,” he said. “There are thousands of different fish and other creatures, and some of the populated islands are large enough to be considered towns in their own right. Loch
Addanc, too, is what separates us from our less friendly neighbors in the North.”
“How far?” she asked.
“Some hundred leagues. Several days’ journey, with a favorable wind. Which,” he added, “we rarely ever get. The weather changes rapidly, strong gales blowing up from a seemingly dead calm. A fact of life that”—he sipped his wine, far less watered than hers—“adds significantly to our prestige as a place of magic.”
“So it’s all folklore and superstition?” she challenged.
“I didn’t say that.” He balanced his cup on the edge of the marble plinth serving as a base for the tomb. “Now tell me about these rumors. Perhaps some of them are even true.” Tristan remained, as always, maddeningly calm. And his cool, unblinking gaze sent chills up her spine. She felt pinned under the weight of it, not glamoured as she’d been before but mesmerized as she might have felt mesmerized by the eyes of a timber viper.
“That”—she hesitated—”that Caer Addanc is huge, and entirely built from black stone that carries special enchantments. That those enchantments are woven down even into the foundations, and prevent trespassers from entering…as well as, ah, certain guests from leaving.
“That fog surrounds the cliff, night and day, the mist rising up from the ground to wreathe the keep and that the mist itself is a miasma of evil.” And lost souls, captured by the necromancer and held prisoner. “That every time, the road in is slightly different and that beautiful young virgins disappear near the borders. The forests are dark, even at high noon, and filled with terrifying creatures known nowhere else. Unnatural creatures…and that some of the virgins….” She trailed off, chewing her lip.
