The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) (39 page)

A
sher and Isla sat across from each other on the blanket, enjoying the surprisingly warm autumn sun. A chill, overcast morning had given way to one of those few handfuls of truly glorious autumn afternoons. The leaves were just beginning to change in earnest, but the breeze was soft like summer. Isla sipped her cider, poured from a barrel of the previous season’s stock, and regarded the page.

He, in turn, regarded her. His gaze was solemn. He was a handsome little boy, or would be if he smiled.

His skin was pale, not as pale as hers but still unusual in most of Morven. His hair, though, was the same mousy brown that most Morva had inherited from their tribal ancestors. He could have passed for a Southerner, indeed, except for his eyes: they were a depthless pale gray, and marked him as having at least some northern ancestry.

Isla recalled now that there had been rumors, at the time of his uncle’s capture, about who Asher’s father really was. His mother, obviously, was his uncle’s niece and, more to the point in Isla’s opinion, no woman ever looked at the child she’d just borne and questioned whether she was in fact the mother. Asher’s father was ostensibly the so-called true heir to the throne, one of the few scions of House Terrowin to survive the civil war. He was gone now, of course, which she supposed rendered the question of Asher’s paternity moot.

But Isla recalled too that his ostensible father, Brandon Terrowin, had had brown eyes.

“It’s very good of you to keep me company,” she told him.

“I want to go home,” he replied.

“Oh?” she asked, confused about what he meant.

“At home I have my own pony and hawk and chess set and the food is better.”

Isla barely concealed her surprise that he apparently considered Darkling Reach to be his home. He was Tristan’s captive, although Tristan referred to him as a page. That a boy of Asher’s age and station would serve as a page was a given; but families chose the other families with which their children would take service.

A page was an apprentice to a knight, taking service in his household around the same time that a boy of a lower class would apprentice to a tradesman. And while the kingdom’s future blacksmiths and bakers learned their trade, the future knight learned his. Knighthood was a class of the lower nobility, in that any man could be knighted for valor and thus raised above his humble beginnings, but it was also a title in and of itself that had nothing to do with lands or ranks and everything to do with military prestige. A knight was a soldier, and a leader. Most, but not all, of the higher nobility were knights, having gained the distinction through years of training. A title was hereditary, whereas a knighthood, like a certification as a master craftsman in any art, was earned.

Isla’s father was not a knight. Although he’d served as a page and, eventually, as a squire, he’d returned home shortly thereafter and never taken the holy orders that both granted him special privileges and obligated him specially to the king.

Tristan was a knight, as well as a duke, although Isla had no knowledge of the specific order to which he belonged. There were several, some created by the king and some created by the church. Some, too, were more prestigious than others. Tradition held that a boy entered the same order as his father, but with Asher’s father having died in disgrace Isla doubted very much that such would occur here. Perhaps he’d take Tristan’s order.

Knighthood and, indeed, the foundations of Morvish society were founded on the ideal that to earn the service of others one must first serve. A boy who’d one day inherit a title and thus rule over others was expected to learn, first, how to be ruled. Only then would he truly understand the mind of his subjects, and govern them successfully. At least, so was the thought. And but for the corruption, laxity, and disinterest that pervaded their system it might even work. Few knights showed the keen interest that Tristan did, an irony that was not lost on Isla and that she doubted was lost on Asher.

Until the age of about seven or so, sons of noble families learned at home. They received training in manners and basic literacy from their mothers, if their mothers were literate, otherwise manners from their mothers and literacy from their tutors. And then, at the age of eight, and sometimes earlier or later, if the boy in question were particularly precocious or particularly dense, he was sent to another estate to complete his training.

The host was usually a friend of his father’s, or at least an acquaintance; sometimes, as was the case here, the host was a jailor. Although Asher, staring morosely into his cider as he told Isla all about his horse, didn’t seem to regard himself as particularly jailed.

The boy would then serve as a page for the next seven years. His duties consisted of running messages, serving his master at table, cleaning his garments and weapons and performing the hundred other little chores that daily life required. He would also learn the basics of armed combat, as well as receive some degree of further schooling. Not all houses were equally keen on this idea; some regarded reading and writing as womanish activities, suitable only for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight. Personal service of this nature wasn’t considered demeaning to the page, as it occurred within the context of their shared noble status. A page was not a servant, and was not treated as such.

“When I’ve reached fourteen winters,” Asher said, “I can become a squire. And then I can have a destrier. I’ve already decided that I’m going to call him George.”

“But you might meet him,” Isla replied, “and realize that he doesn’t seem like a George. Perhaps he’ll seem more like a Fred, or a Thomas.” Isla had never heard of a horse—of
any
description—with such a name, but then again she had no idea where the page had come up with
George
.
Here comes George
was hardly designed, as a warning, to strike fear into any heart. Perhaps Asher was hoping that his enemies would run off the battlefield laughing.

Asher rolled his eyes. “You’re such a
girl
. Fred isn’t a warhorse name.”

“And what will you do when you become a squire?”

“Kill people.”

“Oh.”

“Only people who deserve to die, of course,” Asher reassured her. He rolled his mug around on the blanket. A squirrel came over to investigate, and he fed it a piece of his apple. “Bad people, people who want to hurt the king or ravish pretty ladies and rob them of their virtue.”

“What about ugly ladies?”

Asher considered this proposition for a minute. “Them, too.”

“Well that’s good to know.”

“A true knight is always nice to ugly ladies.”

“Is he, now?” Isla fought down her amusement.

“Yes. Lord Tristan says so.”

“Does he.” Isla arched an eyebrow.

“But don’t worry, you’re not ugly.”

“Thank you for the compliment!” Isla laughed.

The squirrel, claiming its apple piece, darted away.

“You’re welcome.” Asher smiled benevolently.

“And then what?” she prompted. “Become a knight?”

“Yes!” His face fell. “I’ll have to, since I have no title anymore, of my own.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean—”

They were interrupted then by the arrival of Apple, trailing an unpleasant-looking Rowena.

At exactly the wrong moment, Isla thought with chagrin. She felt terrible; she hadn’t meant to bring up a sore subject and, indeed, found it altogether too easy to forget the true nature of Asher’s circumstances. His own acceptance, at least of Tristan, proved strangely seductive. But he
was
a captive, and the king had locked up his uncle probably for the rest of his life. Moreover, Asher’s uncle having been stripped of his earldom and Derwent lands having reverted to the crown, Asher could inherit on neither his mother’s side nor his father’s. House Terrowin, too, was defunct. Asher was, in the truest sense of the word, an orphan—without parents, or parentage, without title or name or future but for what the king chose to grant him. Or Tristan.

Given which, it struck Isla as remarkable how well the two seemed to get along. Asher was an astute child; he must know that Tristan had been largely responsible for his father’s death. Tristan had all but engineered the coup that put his brother Piers on the throne, and had planned the strategy of the war that followed. The Battle of Ullswater Ford, where Brandon Terrowin and thousands of other men had died, had been entirely of Tristan’s making.

The two women sat down. Rowena arranged her skirts neatly around her. Apple gestured at one of the servants to bring her more cider. She was wearing an expensive gown of light green wool; where she’d gotten her hands on enough money for such an extravagant purchase, Isla had no idea. And, quite frankly, didn’t want to. “Some of the duke’s men are
very
handsome.” Apple grinned wickedly. “And quite…enthusiastic. I am simply exhausted from all the excitement. Last night….”

She nattered on, telling some story involving one or two or maybe even ten of the duke’s men, Isla wasn’t listening. She stared off into the glade, wondering where Tristan was now and how the hunt was faring. The light had begun to change, reflecting the slow passage of the sun across the sky. Noon had given way to afternoon. Soon, this lunch would be more of a supper. Which suited Isla just fine; she wanted the time to pass quickly, so she could speak with Tristan again. She was still, despite his earlier actions, unsure of where she stood with him. Of what he truly wanted.

She wondered how many women he’d been with. That Tristan Mountbatten was no celibate had been more than obvious. Did he have other women, even now? He’d said he didn’t keep a mistress, at least, not that she’d recognize as such. Which suggested that there was a woman—or perhaps many women. And why shouldn’t there be, she reasoned with herself: he was a grown man who, until very recently, hadn’t known her to trip over. He was who knew how old and, for at least the last hundred or so years, he’d had the same needs as any man. She could hardly hold what he’d done before he knew of her existence against him. And she didn’t, not really; it would be enough, she thought, to know what his intentions were. He’d told her he wanted her to be his but…what did that mean? From him, what did that mean?

She wondered, too, where Father Justin’s catamite had disappeared to—really. Tristan’s explanation had suggested that he’d somehow been complicit in the murder and Isla could well believe such a thing. She didn’t think she’d care to be treated so by a lover, cherished in private and ridiculed in public. Father Justin publicly condemned the love of a man for another man, urging all faithful churchgoers to accept that participation in such sinful behavior was the shortest route to Hell.

Resentment, yes, Isla understood resentment; but enough resentment to kill? She’d like to think no but, the truth was, she didn’t know. She’d never been in that desperate of a position. She
did
know, however, what it felt like to be trapped. She would have cheerfully killed Father Justin to escape him, if only she’d had the strength and skill to do so. And she’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t fantasized about doing something horrible to her father. To be let down, and so badly, by someone one had trusted….

“Isla, you’re woolgathering again!” Rowena’s exclamation was cheerful enough, but held more than a note of reproach. Clearly, she thought Isla should have attended the conversation with bated breath. A conversation that, from the brief snatches that Isla had caught, seemed to have been mainly about dresses and food and the stupidity of men.

“I was saying,” Rowena repeated without being asked, “that men are all idiots and need women to care for them. Otherwise, they’d live in squalor and probably perish from starvation sitting in the larder and waiting for a meal to appear.”

“Perhaps,” Isla said, feeling unaccountably irritated by Rowena’s never-ending and near mindless banter, “the problem is that such an attitude only attracts men willing to be thought foolish.”

Asher laughed. Rowena glared at him. Apple, meanwhile, looked thoughtful as she sipped her drink. “You have a point, there,” she said finally. She turned to Asher. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” She introduced herself, and Asher responded with a surprising grace. Someone had taught him manners, after all. Apple smiled, pleased. “You, Sir, are a knight already.”

“I intend to take my vows at twenty-one,” the page replied seriously. Twenty-one was the earliest that a man might do so, and many were not knighted until much later—if at all. Asher’s plan was ambitious. “At the Solstice,” he added.

“And what order will you pledge to?” Apple asked.

“The Order of the Dragon. Like Lord Tristan.”

Each chivalric order served a slightly different purpose, and some were harder to obtain than others. Membership in the Order of the Dragon was granted by the king and no other, and only to those members of the nobility who’d already proved their worth to both crown and kingdom. It was one of the oldest orders in the kingdom; Tristan, Isla realized, must have joined before…he changed. Asher confirmed this suspicion a minute later, when he explained to Apple that Tristan himself had been knighted at the incredibly young age of twenty-one after successfully defending Darkling Reach against an enemy incursion.

The purpose of the order was both to defend the kingdom against outside threat and to achieve domestic cohesion. Its members were diplomats, peacemakers, and other architects of change. Sometimes rough change, like at Ullswater Ford where Asher’s father was captured and executed on a cold and rain-swept field by a river run high and overflowing with the mangled dead.

Although the specific list of mutual obligations between knight and king were known only to those parties themselves, Isla knew that members swore an oath of loyalty directly to the king—as well as to the queen, and to their future sons. They were an institutionalized royal faction, decried by some as nothing more than a group of thugs who got rewards and favors in return for doing the king’s dirty work. But whatever honors were heaped upon them, and however justly, the order was powerful and membership in it was almost a guarantee of political success.