Free The Black Prince: Part II by P. J. Fox Page A

except his father. Who seemed to take even Hart’s most minor successes as personal insults. But what those who praised him hadn’t known was that he’d greatly enjoyed, not simply dispatching these outlaws to the Gods but catching, holding, and torturing them first.
    Not always, of course. Sometimes doing so was impractical. But there was a strange kind of pressure that built up inside him, leaving him feeling as stretched and bloated as an overfilled bladder. One that would burst, unless the pressure was released.
    He had rules. He didn’t hurt children. Or women. Not truly. Not beyond whatever minor pain might—in regard to the women—enhance his pleasure, and theirs. Back in Enzie, he hadn’t hunted those bandits with families to support. Most of them weren’t violent, anyway, cadging the occasional ham from a supply cart rather than engaging in open conflict. They were no true threat to the roads. A man who lost his dinner might lose his dignity, but if he was paying so little attention to it in the first place that the opportunity arose for it to be stolen, then he wasn’t going to starve without it.
    So Hart let them have their hams, and feed their children. Not all who were declared outlaw were truly evil. Many had committed sins only in the eyes of the church, or theirs were the kinds of sins that Hart’s father feared: speaking out against injustice, demanding their fair share, and otherwise rising above their station. Besides, Hart knew full well that without a father most children would starve. Or be forced, as Lissa had been, into a life where starvation might even seem the better fate.
    Hart courted, rather, those men who—in his opinion—courted death. Rapists. Kidnappers. Those who slew pilgrims. Those who, like him, needed blood. So he made himself death and came to them, teaching them the true nature of those delights they’d thought they wanted. What was a man, to give and not receive? Hart had known pain. Enough pain that no pain frightened him now.
    Save perhaps one.
    The first thing he was going to do, he decided, was build a proper barbican on that stupid little island. He wondered if the lord’s apartments were old style or new. He couldn’t have Lissa share his apartments but nor would he house her outside of the castle. Ideally there would be adjoining apartments. And, if there weren’t, he supposed he might have to create some. Nor did he intend to share his apartments with his wife. They could each have their private chamber. An allowance for which, he was certain, she’d be grateful.
    He was engaged in these mostly pleasant thoughts, his eyes closed, when the flap of his tent burst open.
    He sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and his hand on the hilt of his sword.
    Arvid. “A surrender?” No clashing of swords filled the air, nor humming of arrows as they sped to their targets. There were no screams, no cries. Only the sounds of the camp. The castle hadn’t attacked. Although still might, at any moment. Hart wasn’t fool enough to believe that because they hadn’t, they couldn’t.
    Arvid shook his head. “You’d better come with me.”
    It couldn’t be serious, or Arvid wouldn’t look so hangdog. And he’d have his own sword out. Hart got up and, cursing the fact that he’d spent the last hour thinking instead of sleeping, followed the tribesman through the camp and into the line of trees that shaped its back quarter.
    Where Rudolph was standing over the body of the knight, Dunkirk.
    Dunkirk was most assuredly dead. He could not have been deader if he’d already lain in that spot for a week. His eyes, glazing, stared up at the sky. His arms and his legs stuck straight out from his body. His face and hands were pale and unless he’d favored unusually tight trousers, his legs had swollen.
    Ignoring Rudolph, Hart knelt down and felt for the nonexistent pulse. Dunkirk’s mouth was slightly open, and a black fly landed on his lower lip. Black flies were thought by most to be