Chapter Four: The Savage Ways of Royals

Carnen Gristhm was a man in desperate need of a victory. He was the eldest son of the royal house, since his older brother, Drago, had died of a lung infection three year past. That death shamed their father, because the Gristhm clan was supposed to be strong, unparalleled in their perfection. If sons were to die, they died valiantly in battle. They did not succumb to sickness, and they did not sell themselves off in marriage to a snobbish stranger, Carnen had tried to argue to his father when that letter from Duke Marseir had been couriered to their newly claimed court two weeks past. That appeal to King Yuri’s pride, that this marriage would be seen as bending to the demands of an arrogant enemy refusing to admit defeat, had worked for a time. Then the reports had come of the approach of the Arakesh fleet closing in on their coast, and Yuri had beaten his son soundly for swaying his mind with such poor council. Carnen would go to Duke Marseir and accept the engagement to his daughter, but he would make it clear, his father ordered, that the Gristhm were the ones in control. “Kill a few servants and burn their manor,” Yuri had instructed. “That arrogant old fool will no longer have need of such space once his only child has moved out to the capital, and he needs to see penalty for his treacherous sabotage of our rule. Stop short of killing either him or the girl, but do whatever else you please.”

What Carnen pleased of course was to leave the manor fully intact and Duke Marseir completely unharmed. The man was going to be his father in law, and burning his entire estate was just going to cause more riots among their populace, as Carnen could most clearly anticipate, so he told himself his father’s tactics had been a suggestion and not an order. He let his men burn a few shops of expensive but useless baubles in their capital. Then he scared Duke Marseir solidly into line and snatched up his daughter without dealing a single death or destroying a single room.

Charlotte still seemed utterly terrified though, being dragged off like that, so he had gone out of his way to comfort and console her once they were in private. Carnen had never actually been with a woman before. He had only just turned eighteen. His voice hadn’t even dropped before they’d left the homeland, and there had been a decided lack of appealing wenches on the four year long sailing expedition that had landed them here in Stalis. Still, he had seen from his father and his officers exactly how one was supposed to interact with a beautiful woman, and Carnen was of course a stunning specimen of pure northern stock, so the lady would surely be nothing but grateful for whatever affection he showed.

Instead, she’d gone off like a school matron of the old country’s church, berating him for daring lay hands upon his own fiance. He found being rebuked like that stirred very strange feelings within him. He certainly preferred it to her crying, and his impulse to hold her down and kiss her grew just that much stronger. But you will come begging to me for that. He reminded himself sternly. A man of Gristhm did not make polite plea. They were power and perfection, and any woman was fortunate to be given their attention. Charlotte would come around and be begging for it just as badly as Queen Clara simpered to his father.

For the moment though, Charlotte was sitting aloof and staring stonily out the window. Those big dark eyes were so hard yet expressive. They did not have the armor of cold indifference that he could paint in his own expression. They seemed an open window right into the girl’s soul, and that soul was all resentment and hellfire from the look of her right now, as she stared at the charred buildings of the capital blurring by the steel-shuttered window of their carriage. She was taking his men’s punishment of these treacherous merchants as some kind of personal affront, even though that sentence had been merciful and just. “I suppose you would call armed conspirators planning an attack upon their king patriots to this country?” he drawled, and those eyes snapped over to fix on him. “They were serving the will of your father after all.”

Those big eyes widened and all the rage and hardness melted away, as Charlotte innocently replied, “Whatever are you talking about? My father is your loyal servant, even after your father so brutally cut down my uncle, this country’s true king. Still, a dead man has no further presence on this earth, and thus no need to be avenged. My father, in all his wisdom, seeks only to keep the peace, for the good of this country and its citizens. These citizens have suffered such brutal destruction of their livelihoods and dignity this day, and that will surely only stoke their independent will to see your father supplanted. Still, perhaps once we are married and there is legitimate Stalis blood in that castle, their outrage will be soothed, and all the violence can end.”

“My blood is far purer and more royal than yours,” Carnen retorted, because no matter who a Gristhm took as consort, the genes of the father were the dominant ones and the child was considered a child of the pure north. The Stalis way of marrying cousins from a tangled pool of inbreeding was far more savage and backward than the ways of his family. “The lands of the Gristhms span triple the size of this sad little nation.”

“Your sad little nation,” Charlotte pointed out archly. My but she had a wicked smile. This patronizing cockiness was starting to feel far more genuine than her initial meek tears. Still, this sheltered girl was only pretending to be strong, he reminded himself. She was using her pride and her conjured indignity to crush down her terror, the same way he used anger and pride to dull the pain of his father’s beatings. Carnen could set her back to stuttering and sobbing if he wished. His father would have done so in an instant if this were his insolent bride, maybe struck her if she pushed him.

“This is my country,” he enforced. “It was weak and soft just like its former ruling family, but your new conquering king, your rightful and deserved ruler, will make it strong. Then I will keep it strong, and my son will be a true, untainted Gristhm, and he will carry on that tradition. You might be permitted to birth that heir and sit pretty by my side, but not if you keep up this sharp tongued insolence. My father would cut out that tongue in fact. He likes his women silent.”

There was the expected glimmer of fear in her lovely gaze, the quivering lip, and he wanted instantly to comfort her again, pull her into his arms and stroke her hair. That was acceptable he assured himself. That was seduction. But damn it, he had resolved not to touch her until she begged for it. Right. Hands back to his sides. Right now.

Her fear wavered with a flash of smug superiority again, though it gave way in an instant to blank-eyed innocence as she noted sadly, “Your father sounds awfully frightful, and that makes me ever so nervous, my prince, especially since I can see what poor self-control your family has.” She looked pointedly to his rigidly restrained hands. “Why, I believe you were making a move just now toward groping me again.”

“I was simply thinking that I would never cut out your tongue, my dear,” he responded airily. “I know far too well the proper uses of a woman’s tongue, and I’m sure you will employ yours to its fullest potential the night we are wed.”

Her lips pressed together in a tight little line and her cheeks reddened in blush. Now that was an expression he favored. He wanted to put his tongue between those lips and force them apart. He could already picture the little gasp she would give as he did so, what other sounds she would make…

Their carriage jostled over a broken bit of cobblestone and Charlotte was flung from her seat, falling right into his lap, as he made the rather poor decision to put his hands out and catch her before she could drop any lower. “And there goes your self control, my dear, falling right into my arms. We need not wait for the wedding night, you know.” He pulled her right against him and forced his voice to steady, whispering in her ear, “You just have to say the words--” His seductive whisper cut out with a startled hiss, as she thrust her hands into his chest. She was simply pushing herself back from him, but it had so much force to it that it knocked out his breath.

She dropped back into her seat, and her hand flew to her mouth in astonishment. “Oh, I am so very flustered, and this is such a very uncomfortable, bumpy ride. Though on that last pot hole you appear to have taken most of the shock, my prince. Are you alright? Have you lost your breath? You certainly look in distress.”

“From you! You did that,” he groaned, prodding at his bruised rib cage. “How did you do that?”

“When I shoved back from your most uninvited embrace you mean?” she mused. “Oh no, good sir, that could not have injured you so severely, now could it have?”

It shouldn’t have. Though he had felt a certain firmness to those deceptively bony arms of hers when steering her out of her father’s house. “Were you trained in the sword by chance?” he prodded. He knew it was tradition among the noble houses here to give lifelong lessons to their sons in fencing, but he had not thought the women would be trained that way. It was a far more reasonable theory though than his initial instinct that this girl had been trained in hand to hand combat.

“Of course not.” She laughed, and it was true. He turned over her palm and it was soft and uncalloused. She ripped back her hand, chest heaving with indignation. “And you resort yet again to improper contact. Still, you have surely felt there that I know nothing of weapons. I would be nervous to even touch either gun or sword.” She put a finger to her cheek, head cocking in speculation. “I do however read such heavy books sometimes, and lying back on my chaise lounge, holding them up overhead, why that does develop some small bit of muscle I suppose. But oh dear, is that unbecoming of a lady? Have I turned off your attractions by showing the barest bit of strength? Why that would be just dreadful.”

“Lift your books all you like. I could still hold you down and take you if I pleased,” he insisted. “But I don’t please to. Not yet. You must make most serious apology and plea to me first.”

“Apology for what?” She gave him those doe eyes of pure innocence. “I pushed you but lightly when you overstepped. If you are in pain now, it is surely the jostling of the carriage you have to blame for it, as I said. That or you have exceptionally fragile little bird bones, bruised by the merest nudge.”

He flushed in rage and could not think of any suitable retort to salvage his savaged pride, other than the stuttered words “I am… most offended by that, and I am stronger than you.”

“But of course.”

Curse this woman. He did not want to sleep with her, and certainly not as his first. He would surely just humiliate himself, and she would never let him live it down. He needed some form of experience or practice first to regain his confidence. Then he would woo her with ease, and she would give most serious apology and serve him in every way he wished.

He snatched up his breastplate and gauntlets and began most aggressively strapping on his armor as Charlotte turned her patronizing gaze back to the slitted views of the city outside. The carriage rattled to a stop finally, and Carnen banged his way out the door and stepped into the pouring rain of the palace courtyard with features schooled in an expression of haughty boredom.

“Did you have an enjoyable ride, my lord?” General Grice asked with a suggestive smile.

“Most average, I must say,” Carnen retorted. “Though it did leave both the lady and myself rather sore.”

The men laughed and headed off to stable their horses, but the general just shook his head, pitching his voice lower for Carnen’s ears alone. “They indulge you, but they heard most clearly that it was all talk in there, boy.”

“Well, what sounds might they have heard over the rain and the rumbling wheels?”

“At least with the look of her you might sell it,” Grice conceded, looking pointedly to Charlotte, stepping out from the carriage with arms folded protectively across her chest, even with the armor of Carnen’s cloak wrapped tight about her shoulders. “No real man could believe you could just sit and talk in privacy for an entire hour of travel with a woman like that. Don’t be all talk, Carnen.” He patted him on the back. “Your father requires that you man up already.”

“You overstep your bounds,” the prince rebuked him, with eyes cold and savage.

“Yet that glare of yours instills no fear, most concerning.” Grice walked off without another word, and Carnen tried hard to keep the slump from his shoulders.

He did not want to marry, and he did not want his entire life to become the pressured work of carrying on his father’s kingdom. He wanted to set out sailing and discover more lands, take something for his own. He wanted to go charging into deadly confrontation, fight tooth and nail to survive, and prove himself that way.

At least Charlotte was pretty though, he reminded himself, far different from the inbred idiot he had envisioned. He would do his duty, and he would do it in a manner that gave him satisfaction. “She’ll be begging for it by the end of the week,” he murmured beneath his breath, and both his father and his men would envy him his good fortune.