But the watchtowers were empty.
‘It’s a trap,’ said Nikandros.
Damen ordered a small group to peel off from the main army and take the first tower. He watched from the hillside. They cantered towards it, then dismounted, took up a wooden ram, and forced the door. The watchtower was a weird block shape against the horizon, with no activity in it; lifeless stone that should have habitation, and instead had none. Unlike a ruin, reclaimed by nature to form part of the landscape, the empty watchtower was incongruous, a signal of wrongness.
He watched his men, small as ants, enter the watchtower without resistance. There was a strange, eerie silence of minutes in which nothing happened. Then his men came out, mounted, and trotted back to the group to report.
There were no traps. There were no defences. There were no faulty floors to hurtle them downwards, no vats of heated oil, no hidden archers, no men with swords springing out from behind doors. It was simply empty.
The second tower was empty, and the third, and the fourth.
The truth was dawning on him, as his eyes passed over the fort itself, the lower walls of thick grey limestone, the fortifications above in mud brick. The low, two-storey tower was tile-roofed, and built to house archers. But the arrow slits were dark and did not fire. There were no banners. There were no sounds.
He said, ‘It’s not a trap. It’s a retreat.’
‘If it is, they were running from something,’ said Nikandros. ‘Something that had them terrified.’
He looked out at the fort atop its rise, and then at his army stretching behind him, a mile of red alongside dangerous, glittering blue.
‘Us,’ said Damen.
They rode past the jagged rocks, up the steep knoll to the fort. They passed unimpeded through the open forecourt gateway, which itself was four short towers, looming above them in a silent cul-de-sac. The short towers were designed to rain down enfilading fire, trapping an army on their approach to the gate. They were still and quiet as Damen’s men applied the wooden ram, and broke open the great doors into the main fort.
Inside, the unnatural quality of the quiet increased, the columned atrium was deserted, the still water of the simple, elegant fountain no longer running. Damen saw an abandoned overturned basket, lolling on the marble. An underfed cat darted across the wall.
He was not a fool, and he warned his men against traps, and contaminated stores, and poisoned wells. They progressed systematically inward, through the empty public spaces, to the private residences of the fort.
Here the signs of retreat were more evident, furnishings disordered, contents hurriedly taken, a favourite hanging gone from the wall here while another remained there. He could see in the disrupted living areas the final moments, the desperate war council, the decision to flee. Whoever had ordered it, the attack on the village had backfired. Instead of turning Damianos against his general, it had forged his army into a single powerful force and sent fear of his name sweeping across the countryside.
‘Here!’ called a voice.
In the innermost part of the fort, they had found a barricaded door.
He signalled his men to caution. It was the first sign of resistance, the first indication of danger. Two dozen soldiers gathered, and he gave the nod, approving them to proceed. They took the wooden ram, and splintered the doors open.
It was a light, airy solar still adorned with its exquisite furnishings. From the elegant reclining couch with its scrolling carved base to the small bronze tables, it was intact.
And he saw what was waiting for him in the empty fort of Karthas.
She sat on the reclining couch. Around her, she had seven women in attendance, two of them slaves, one an elderly maidservant, the others of good birth, part of her household. Her brows had risen at the crash as at some minor, distasteful breach of etiquette.
She had never made it to the Triptolme to give birth. She must have planned the attack on the village to stop him or stall him, and when it had backfired, she had been left behind, abandoned. The birth had come on her too soon. Sometime very recently, judging by the faint sepia smudges under her eyes. It would explain, too, why she had been left behind, too weak to travel while the others fled, with only those of her women willing to stay with her.
He was surprised to see that there were so many women. Maybe she had coerced them: stay, or have your throat slit. But no. She had always been able to inspire loyalty.
Her blonde hair fell in a coil over her shoulder, her lashes were pressed, her neck was as elegant as a column. She was a little pale, with slight new creases on her forehead, which did nothing to harm its high, classical perfection, and seemed only to enhance her, like the finish on a vase.
She was beautiful. As ever with her, it was something you noticed initially and then forcefully discarded because it was the least dangerous aspect of her. It was her mind, deliberate, calculating, that was the threat, regarding him from behind a pair of cool blue eyes.
‘Hello, Damen,’ said Jokaste.
He made himself look at her. He made himself remember every part of her, the way she had smiled, the slow approach of her sandalled feet as he had hung in chains, the touch of her elegant fingers against his bruised face.
Then he turned to the low-level foot soldier to his right, delegating a trivial task that was beneath him, and now meant nothing.
‘Take her away,’ he said. ‘We have the fort.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE FOUND HIMSELF in the women’s solar, with its light, airy fittings and the reclining couch, carved with a simple design, now standing empty. The window had a view of the approach all the way to the first tower.
She would have watched his army arrive from here, cresting the far hill and drawing nearer, watched every step of its progress to the fort. She would have watched her own people depart, taking food and wagons and soldiers, fleeing until the road was empty, until stillness descended, until the second army appeared, far enough away to be silent, but drawing closer.
Nikandros came to stand beside him. ‘Jokaste is confined in a cell in the east wing. Do you have further orders?’
‘Strip her and send her to Vere as a slave?’ Damen didn’t move from the sill.
Nikandros said, ‘You don’t really want that.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I want it to be worse.’
He said it with his eyes on the horizon. He knew he would not allow her to be treated with anything less than respect. He remembered her picking her way across cool marble towards him in the slave baths. He could see her hand in the attacks on the village, in the framing of Makedon.
‘No one is to speak with her. No one is to enter her cell. Give her every comfort. But do not let her get a hold on any of the men.’ He was not a fool anymore. He knew her abilities. ‘Put your best soldiers on her door, your most loyal, and choose them from among those who have no taste for women.’
‘I’ll post Pallas and Lydos.’ Nikandros nodded, and departed to do his bidding.
Familiar with war, Damen knew what came next, but still felt a grim satisfaction when the first of his alerts from the watchtowers began to sound, the entire warning system flaring to life: horns in the inner towers sounding, his men shouting orders, taking up positions on the battlements, streaming out to man the gates. Right on schedule.
Meniados had fled. Damen had control of both this fort and of a powerful political prisoner in Jokaste. And he and his armies were on their way south.
The Regent’s heralds had come to Karthas.
* * *
He knew what Veretian eyes saw when they looked at him: a barbarian in savage splendour.
He did nothing to lessen the impression. He sat on the throne in armour, his thighs and arms heavy with bared muscle. He watched the Regent’s herald enter the hall.
Laurent sat beside him on an identical twin throne. Damen let the Regent?
??s herald see them—royalty flanked by Akielon soldiers in warlike armour made for killing. He let him take in this bare stone hall of a provincial fort, bristling with the spears of soldiers, where the Akielon prince-killer sat beside the Veretian Prince on the dais, dressed in the same crude leather as his soldiers.
He let him see Laurent too, let him see the picture they presented, royalty united. Laurent was the only Veretian in a hall filled with Akielons. Damen liked it. He liked having Laurent beside him, liked letting the Regent’s herald see that Laurent had Akielos alongside him—had Damianos of Akielos, now in his favoured arena of war.
The Regent’s herald was accompanied by a party of six, four ceremonial guards and two Veretian dignitaries. Walking through a hall of armed Akielons had them nervous, though they approached the thrones insolently, without bending a knee, the herald coming to a halt at the steps of the dais and arrogantly meeting Damen’s eyes.
Damen settled his full weight into the throne, sprawled on it comfortably, and watched all of this happen. In Ios, his father’s soldiers would have taken the herald by the arm and forced him down, forehead to the floor, with a foot atop his head.
He slightly lifted his fingers. The imperceptible gesture halted his men from doing the same now. Last time, Damen vividly recalled, the Regent’s herald had been received in a flurry in a courtyard, Laurent white-faced, pounding in on horseback, wheeling his mount to face his uncle’s herald down. He remembered the herald’s arrogance, his words, and the hessian sack pinned to his saddle.
It was the same herald. Damen recognised his darker hair and complexion, his thickened eyebrows and the embroidered pattern on his laced Veretian jacket. His party of four guards and two officials came to a halt behind him.
‘We accept the Regent’s surrender at Charcy,’ said Damen.
The herald flushed. ‘The King of Vere sends a message.’
‘The King of Vere is seated beside us,’ said Damen. ‘We do not recognise his uncle’s false claim to the throne.’
The herald was forced to pretend that those words had not been spoken. He turned from Damen to Laurent.
‘Laurent of Vere. Your uncle extends his friendship to you in good faith. He offers you a chance to restore your good name.’
‘No head in a bag?’ said Laurent.
Laurent’s voice was mild. Relaxed on the throne, one leg extended out in front of himself, a wrist draped elegantly on the wooden arm, the shift in power was evident. He was no longer the rogue nephew, fighting alone on the border. He was a significant, newly established power, with lands and an army of his own.
‘Your uncle is a good man. The Council has called for your death, but your uncle will not hear them. He will not accept the rumours that you have turned on your own people. He wants to give you the chance to prove yourself.’
‘Prove myself,’ said Laurent.
‘A fair trial. Come to Ios. Stand before the Council and plead your case. And if you are found innocent, all that is yours will be returned to you.’
‘‘All that is mine’,’ Laurent repeated the herald’s words for the second time.
‘Your Highness,’ said one of the dignitaries, and Damen was startled to recognise Estienne, a minor aristocrat from Laurent’s faction.
Estienne had the good manners to sweep off his hat. ‘Your uncle has been fair to all those who count themselves your supporters. He simply wants to welcome you back. I can assure you that this trial is only a formality to appease the Council.’ Estienne spoke with his hat held earnestly in his hands. ‘Even if there have been some . . . minor indiscretions, you only need to show repentance and he will open his heart. He knows just as your supporters know that what they are saying about you in Ios is not . . . cannot be true. You are no traitor to Vere.’
Laurent only regarded Estienne for a moment, before he turned his attention back to the herald. ‘‘All that is mine will be returned to me”? Were those his words? Tell me his exact words.’
‘If you come to Ios to stand trial,’ said the herald, ‘all that is yours will be returned to you.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘If you refuse, you will be executed,’ said the herald. ‘Your death will be a public traitor’s death, your body displayed on the city gates for all to see. What is left will receive no burial. You will not be entombed with your father and brother. Your name will be struck from the family register. Vere will not remember you, and all that is yours will be cast asunder. That is the King’s promise, and my message.’
Laurent said nothing; an uncharacteristic silence, and Damen saw the subtle signs, the tension across his shoulders, the muscle sliding in his jaw. Damen turned the full weight of his gaze on the herald.
‘Ride back to the Regent,’ said Damen, ‘and tell him this. All that is rightfully Laurent’s will return to him when he is King. His uncle’s false promises do not tempt us. We are the Kings of Akielos and Vere. We will keep our state, and come to him in Ios when we ride in at the head of armies. He faces Vere and Akielos united. And he will fall to our might.’
‘Your Highness,’ said Estienne, his grip on the hat now anxious. ‘Please. You can’t side with this Akielon, not after everything that’s said about him, everything he’s done! The crimes he’s acccused of in Ios are worse than your own.’
‘And what is it I am accused of?’ said Damen with utter scorn.
It was the herald who answered, in clear Akielon and a voice that carried to every corner of the hall.
‘You are a patricide. You killed your own father, King Theomedes of Akielos.’
As the hall dissolved into chaos, Akielon voices shouting in fury, onlookers leaping up from their stools, Damen looked at the herald and said in a low voice, ‘Get him out of my sight.’
* * *
He thrust up from his throne and went to one of the windows. It was too small and thick-glassed to see anything more than a blurry view of the courtyard. Behind him, the hall had cleared on his order. He tried to control his breathing. The shouts of the Akielons in the hall had been shouts of furious outrage. He told himself that. That no one could think for a moment that he would—
His head was pounding. He felt a furious powerlessness at it, that Kastor could kill their father, and then lie like this, poison the very truth, and get away with—
The injustice of it took him in the throat. He felt it like the final tearing of that relationship, as though somehow before this moment there had been some hope that he could reach Kastor, but that now what was between them was unsalvageable.Worse than making him a prisoner, worse than making him a slave. Kastor had made him into his father’s killer. He felt the Regent’s smiling influence, his mild, reasonable voice. He thought of the Regent’s lies spreading, taking hold, the people of Ios believing him a murderer, his father’s death dishonoured and used against him.
To have his people mistrust him, to have his friends turn from him, to have the thing that had been most dear and good in his life twisted into a weapon to hurt—
He turned. Laurent was standing alone, against the backdrop of the hall.
With sudden double vision, Damen saw Laurent as he was, his true isolation. The Regent had done this to Laurent, had whittled away his support, had turned his people against him. He remembered trying to convince Laurent of the Regent’s benevolence in Arles, as naive as Estienne. Laurent had had a lifetime of this.
He said, in a steady, measured voice, ‘He thinks he can provoke me. He can’t. I am not going to act in anger or in haste. I am going to take back the provinces of Akielos one by one, and when I march into Ios, I will make him pay for what he has done.’
Laurent just kept watching him with that slightly assessing expression on his face.
‘You can’t be considering his offer,’ said Damen.
Laurent didn’t answer immediately. Damen said, ‘You can’t go to Ios. Laurent, you won’
t get a trial. He’ll kill you.’
‘I’d get a trial,’ said Laurent. ‘It’s what he wants. He wants me proven unfit. He wants the Council to ratify him as King so that he can rule with his claim wholly legitimised.’
‘But—’
‘I’d get a trial.’ Laurent’s voice was quite steady. ‘He’d have a parade of witnesses, and each one would swear me a traitor. Laurent, the debauched shirker who sold his country to Akielos and spread his legs for the Akielon prince-killer. And when I had no reputation left, I’d be taken to the public square and killed in front of a crowd. I’m not considering his offer.’
Looking at him across the gap that separated them, Damen realised for the first time that a trial might have some kind of seductive appeal to Laurent, who must wish, somewhere deep inside himself, to clear his name. But Laurent was right: any trial would be a death sentence, a performance designed to humiliate him, and then end him, overseen by the Regent’s terrifying command of public spectacle.
‘Then what?’
‘There’s something else,’ said Laurent.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that my uncle doesn’t hold out a hand for someone to knock it aside. He sent that herald to us for a reason. There’s something else.’ Laurent’s next words were almost unwilling. ‘There’s always something else.’
There was a sound from the doorway. Damen turned to see Pallas in full uniform.
‘It’s the Lady Jokaste,’ said Pallas. ‘She’s asking to see you.’
* * *
The whole time that his father was dying, she and Kastor had been pursuing their affair.
That was all he could think as he stared at Pallas, his pulse still beating hard from the accusation, from Kastor’s treachery. His father, growing weaker with every breath. He had never talked of it with her—he had never been able to bear talking of it with anyone—but sometimes he had come from his father’s sickbed to see her, to take solace, wordlessly, in her body.