The White Queen: The Black Prince Trilogy, Book 2

by P. J. Fox

  Yes. He was Tristan Mountbatten, Earl of Draugr and heir to the vast forest kingdom that was Darkling Reach. This was his life, now.

  He smiled slightly, his eyes cold.

  His transformation was complete.

  FOURTEEN

  “Don’t take life so seriously,” Brom advised him around a mouthful of apple. “It’s not like you’re getting out alive.” The juice dribbled down his chin, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand.

  Tristan arched an eyebrow.

  “You need to lighten up.”

  The practice yard was busy, even on a frigid morning like this one. The snow had been cleared, shoveled into great drifts that leaned against the storehouse walls. Jansen’s manor had good storehouses, solidly built of dressed stone and kept well repaired. No vermin would be getting in through cracks in the mortar or a gap under the door. One of the doors opened at that moment and a young woman came out, carrying a bundle. The door, iron-banded and with a stout lock, was painted green to match the roof. Or, rather, the color the roof would be in late summer. The roofs of most of the outbuildings were sod, which had excellent heat retention and was cheap. Thatch caught fire too easily and fire, when the available water sources were frozen nearly half the year, was hard to put out. Caer Addanc had slate roofs; but Caer Addanc was wealthy where Jansen’s family was merely prosperous.

  Jansen, like most country lords, took his livestock into his great hall in winter. No amount of rushes could cure that stench, however freshly laid, or do anything to dampen the bellowing of the cows and the bleating of the goats. Tristan hated goats, and so he’d come outside for a little peace. And found Brom instead.

  Brom was leaning against the fence bounding the practice yard, cleaning his nails with his dagger. The blade needed sharpening. Behind him, men sparred with each other using quarterstaffs. One had to know how to fight without one’s weapon of choice. To be resourceful. The man who relied too heavily on horse, blade or armor—or even tactics—during battle was opening himself up to any number of disasters. Horses were killed; weapons were lost. Armor was punctured. People were…betrayed.

  One of the guardsmen exhaled like a bellows, sinking to his knees and clutching his stomach. His opponent laughed, twirling his quarterstaff. Brom cheered loudly.

  There were a few women watching the men, and the page. George, that was his name. Tristan had been staying with his friend now for almost a week and had yet to hear the child speak. He seemed unable to cope with the specter of his own shadow, let alone that of a houseguest already rumored to possess powers. Tristan had caught the boy staring at him the other night at dinner, and had favored him with a thin-lipped smile. George had nearly burst into tears. Jansen, ever affable, had shrugged. He didn’t know what to do, either.

  “I thought I’d go into town,” Brom said. “Look at horses.”

  “Horses?”

  “You need one, don’t you?”

  “Have you assigned yourself to be my personal factotum, now?”

  Brom glanced up, eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. It was very bright, on the snow. He was, as usual, coarse but direct. “You got anyone else in mind?”

  Brom was, despite outward appearances, not a stupid man. What a shame, then, that he’d never been educated. Tristan doubted that he could spell his own name, let alone form the letters to write it. But Brom undoubtedly did know horseflesh. This was an errand that he could be trusted to undertake. Even so, Tristan decided to go with him. He could use the fresh air and the walk into the village, as short as it was, would give them time to talk. Tristan wished to discuss his plans with the other man. He conveyed as much.

  Brom nodded, and pushed himself away from the fence. His dagger disappeared into his jerkin. Tristan turned and, in a single fluid motion, moved toward the road. Brom followed him. The manor was fortified with a stout stone wall. Stout, if not high; most walls weren’t, despite the descriptions given by bards. The typical wall was about thirty hands thick, or about two thirds of a rod, and a hundred hands high. Which, given the fact that the average bedroom ceiling was fifty hands or so, didn’t mean much.

  The gatehouse was built like an elongated tunnel, spanning the thickness of the twin towers it connected. There were two guardrooms, both of which were accessed from doors inside the tunnel. Each had been set directly into the tunnel wall, one facing the other, making the guardrooms mirror images. They looked out over the drawbridge and moat and onto the world through twin viewing portals, but the bulk of surveillance was conducted from the ramparts. Guards walked back and forth from tower to tower, all around the outer bailey. Tristan, who was known, passed without challenge.

  From the drawbridge stretched the road, a straight shot into the village that both served the manor and served as what passed for local civilization. Tristan didn’t turn to see the men who paused, watching him in silence as he departed. Then, remembering their duties, they turned back to pacing the ramparts and gazing into the distance. With Tristan’s departure, a collective sigh seemed to issue from the manor. His presence, for all that he was unfailingly courteous, leant a chill to the air.

  For, though courteous he might be, he radiated an aura of evil. Not the unhinged, unpredictable damage of a storm that men sometimes called evil; but the thoughtful, calculating evil of the true predator. His every movement drew the eye, deliberate and graceful.

  He’d avoided Jansen’s wife, out of respect for Jansen. But he’d sampled several of the other women available. And, meanwhile, he made plans to retake his home. He’d use Jansen’s men to do it, as well as those of his own who were still loyal. His biggest obstacle at this point wasn’t manpower but the same fear that had infected his friend’s home: fear of the unknown and, most of all, of the church. Fear was a powerful motivator.

  Unfortunately for the church, there was more than one thing to fear.

  Brom, seemingly unaffected, spat out the core of his apple. Man and demon walked side by side in silence. No one had cleared the road, but hooves had trampled the snow into slush. As so often happened, the storm had been followed by a spate of unseasonably warm days. Glorious days, bright and clear. The kind of days that made people want to move to the North, where every contour of the mountains was perfectly visible from miles away and the sky above was as blue as sapphires. In another day or so, the cold weather would return and this slush would freeze into an uneven ice field and men would fall and break their necks as they struggled to market.

  “Why?” Tristan asked, eventually.

  Brom considered the question. “I’m from here,” he said finally. “Not like some of these fools, who come from the South. Southrons.” He spat. “Church is full of them.” And for awhile, that charming explanation appeared to be the only one on offer. But then he continued. “My family claims to be descended from gnomes. Or, rather, from one gnome and one man.” He smiled slightly. “My grandmother swore up and down until the day she died that it was true. Now, I never seen a gnome, but it might be true. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Tristan said nothing.

  “The point is,” Brom continued, “I have respect for the old ways.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t hold with the church.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Tristan thought the church ridiculous.

  “You might be…different, but you’re no more different than my grandmother. Or that hag, Mother Guenna.” Brom smiled again. He was relentlessly unbothered by his master’s nature. He’d looked on blandly as Tristan tormented the other members of his host’s household and indeed lured several of them into the woods, saying nothing. Brom, unlike those who sought refuge in their unbelief, knew that Tristan was a demon. He didn’t shut his eyes and pretend, telling himself that he couldn’t be seeing what he was. He just didn’t care. Whether Tristan wooed women, or raped them, or ate them made no never mind to him. He, himself killed as easily as he unlaced his breeches to piss.

  “Mother Guenna,” Tristan mused, “would undoubted
ly be missed.”

  Brom snorted.

  FIFTEEN

  The two men regarded each other across the table.

  It was a smallish table, meant to sit four comfortably, and it had been positioned by some artistic hand near the window. Probably the wife’s; women had little enough to work with, in keeps like these, but they tried their best. And it was still a keep, not a true manor like the sprawling piles that dotted the South. The North, so close to the border, had never given in to the southern fantasy that peacetime was a permanent condition. Even a home as small as Jansen’s was fortified, and well. Jansen’s wife would do what she could to soften the edges but this was, first, and foremost, a fortress.

  Tristan had had ample opportunity to consider fortresses, lately, as he planned on how to retake his own. Caer Addanc was massive, and widely regarded as impregnable. Which it was, to those who didn’t know its secrets. He tapped his fingers on the scarred and pitted wood, and said nothing. A bowl of withered apples sat in the center, next to a candlestick. Although winter had returned with a vengeance overnight and the air outside was bitterly cold, sunlight poured in through the window and lent the room an illusion of warmth.

  Someone had brought lunch: too-moist barley bread, hard cheese, and more of the same withered apples served with pickles and chutney. Jansen was eating; had set to with a vengeance as soon as the platter hit the table. It was a wooden platter, Tristan saw, well proportioned and well made but plain. He, himself, did not eat. He had no need to, and no need to pretend in this company. Jansen raised an eyebrow at his companion’s forbearance, but said nothing. He, like Brom, was willing to take certain things on faith.

  Finally, he sat back and wiped his mouth. He leaned back in his chair, his hands on the table. They were sitting in the family’s private dining room, a cozy space with a decent-sized hearth if few furnishings. Jansen took pride in his home, and was not in the least intimidated by Tristan’s greater wealth. He coveted only what he’d earned, and he knew that this manor was his. Here, he was master. And his security in his position gave him confidence.

  He sighed. “I have something to tell you.”

  Tristan waited. Whatever it was, Jansen clearly took no relish in his position as herald. He looked, rather, like a man about to face the headsman. He sighed again. Turning, he gazed out the window. Beneath them, the practice yard spread out. At Caer Addanc, the private dining room—which was also on an upper floor, for safety—looked out over the castle’s private gardens. Jansen’s home had no private gardens, only kitchen gardens. Kept in good heart and beautiful to look at, to be sure, but useful. There was no wasted space, here.

  “It’s Brenna.” Jansen poured himself some more wine. “She’s getting married.”

  He clearly expected this announcement to produce some sort of effect, but Tristan might as well not have heard. He remained motionless, his gaze fixed on some far point through the window. Only the fleeting gleam in his eye gave any indication that he had heard.

  But he had, of course.

  He considered the implications of this news. News that, if truth be told, didn’t entirely surprise him—as much as he wished it did. Brenna had, it seemed, found love again rather quickly. This time with one of his southern neighbors, the Duke of Ancar.

  Ancar. Tristan turned the name over in his mind as he studied his goblet before him. The wine that filled it sat untouched. The contents were a deep, almost purple red. A lovely color, really; like amethysts soaked in blood. He liked blood. If he poured them out onto the snow, they’d be black. Like the woodsman’s blood. Or the bandits’. He’d eaten them all that night, in the cave, all but one. That one he’d dragged outside to finish off under a sliver of moon that deepened the shadows and edged the world in silver.

  A night that seemed so long ago, now.

  And now here he was, a demon, sitting at table with a dead man’s childhood friend.

  He returned his gaze to the window, and the prosaic scene spreading beneath them. Beneath him, metal rang out on metal as men clashed in the practice yard. Someone howled, and someone else laughed. For these men, Tristan knew, who was in charge mattered little. So long as they got their pay on time, and had a place to drink it away and pass out after, they were content. Some dreamed of owning a little farm, somewhere; others dreamed of women. Very few questioned the motives of those over them; those few either died, or became officers. They’d cheer for Tristan, if he got married; forget that he’d ever been betrothed if he didn’t, make jokes at his expense about his manhood and hope for an heir, as all men hoped for an heir—even another man’s. They wanted the world to continue; a world that was, for them, fleeting.

  The Duke of Ancar wanted an heir, to be sure. And Brenna was a lovely vehicle to bear one. Tristan had heard a famous general remark, once, that a woman was nothing but a womb and there’d been a time when he’d rejected such opinions as hopelessly embittered. He sipped his wine, wine he no longer needed or wanted. It tasted odd on his tongue.

  He wished it were blood.

  Ancar was a staunch ally of the church. Geographically, yes, the province might be part of the North, but its habits were purely southern. The old gods held no sway in Ancar, where priests were little less than gods themselves. Tristan loathed the place and avoided it at all costs. He didn’t understand how a northern woman could want to live in such a hellhole. Except he did. Brenna was no true northerner. And no true southerner, either; she’d go wherever the furs were the warmest and the jewels the largest. Tristan didn’t know Ancar himself, the man; he’d met him once or twice, on opposite sides of the bargaining table. He seemed decent enough, for a man who spent so much time on his knees.

  Tristan returned his cup to the table with careful, elegant fingers. Jansen wasn’t a dull man; he knew, as Tristan did, that the suddenness of Brenna’s betrothal suggested a certain degree of, ah…preparation on her part. For Ancar to have arrived in Darkling Reach so quickly, she had to have written to him before the fire. Before she rejected Tristan for a demon. Which, of course, should have been impossible. All the world knew her to be betrothed, and to a man she loved. For awhile, Tristan had supposed himself the last man in all the world to know her secret but Jansen had been just as surprised as he. As had the handful of others he’d spoken with, who’d come by dead of night to the manor to plot with him by firelight.

  Tristan wondered if the little page was involved somehow. He’d become quite interested in Enzie, over the past week. Simon, his onetime tutor, had been from Enzie. An eldest son, it seemed, cast out of his home for witchcraft. But not before he’d produced an heir. That man, Tristan guessed, was George’s father. Which meant that George, as hard as the idea might be to credit, had the same blood running in his veins. And thus the same potential for power. If George were to marry…Tristan let the thought drop. He had other and more important things to consider. Still, the notion of a magical line was…enticing.

  Jansen finished his wine. “The wedding is to take place inside the month.”

  Within the month. And not at Caer Addanc, Tristan was certain. Even with his home currently overrun by church hirelings, Tristan didn’t imagine that Brenna would be so bold. Or Ancar so anxious to incur the wrath of any possible claimants to the throne of the North. Morin was, after all, still unaccounted for. As was Tristan, himself. Which, as irrelevant as the fact appeared to Brenna, must surely count in the eyes of his onetime ally.

  He imagined, rather, that Ancar would choose to formalize the union at one of his friends’ houses. Perhaps in Enzie, even. Which meant that she’d be leaving Caer Addanc soon, if she hadn’t already. And in the confusion of such a large party departing…much could be done.

  “Then,” Tristan said, “we’d best reclaim the castle.”

  And they did.

  Far later, Tristan would remember back on that time in his life and be struck by how vitally important it had seemed then and how profoundly unimportant it seemed now. A group of men, like ants, running around their
ant hill as though someone had kicked it. Waving their swords and shouting their families’ war cries and blathering on about honor—a concept that meant nothing. They’d fight, and die, and then forget. Some, because they’d gone on to other things and some because the doings of wartime simply ceased to matter once those who’d fought were safely home in their beds. Men sang songs about dying for each other on the battlefield, then went back home and kept right on gossiping against each other and stealing each others’ livestock.

  They learned nothing and, on a long enough timeline, it all fell to nothing. Those same houses they’d fought for crumbled into dust, regardless of who had won. Some had sons to carry on their names and some didn’t, but those sons grew old and died in their time. Weeds grew over graves, and then trees, as the graves themselves were forgotten. Nobody cared.

  What were these lives and loves and honor? What was the point of a man’s life if it ended? Regaining Caer Addanc had seemed so important, then. When Jansen was still alive and the world was new. When Brenna was still alive. When Tristan walked down the streets of the northern capital and recognized faces.

  He thought back, too, to that moment of watching Jansen across the table. Jansen, who was happily married—for most of his marriage, at least. Who’d had a good, long life.

  A bear of a man, he grew older and fatter but died with as much vigor as he’d had when he was a squire. He’d taken his last breath, in fact, while bellowing something about how he intended to gut the doctor who’d denied him wine. Tristan never saw the Jansen of sixty winters in his memory, only the young, virile Jansen who’d helped him to retake the castle. The Jansen whose happiness had, with the passage of the years, become irrelevant. His children, and then his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren visited his tomb and acted appropriately respectful and knew next to nothing about him. What had seemed so important to him and to Tristan then, all those years ago, was nothing—less than nothing—when cast into the great sea of time.