* * *
And in the cool evening air, he let himself face it, in a way he had not allowed himself to face it before.
Home.
Home lay right on the other side of Ravenel. The moment when he would leave Vere was approaching.
Like his own heartbeat, he knew the steps in his return. Escape would take him across the border to Akielos, where any blacksmith would willingly take the gold from his wrists and neck. The gold would buy him access to his northern supporters, the strongest of whom was Nikandros, whose implacable animosity towards Kastor was of long standing. Then he would have the force to ride south.
He looked at Laurent’s tent of silks, the pennants unfurled in the breeze, their starbursts undulating. The distant voices of the men swelled briefly, then dropped away. It would not be like this. It would be a systematic campaign moving southwards towards Ios, building on the support he had from the kyroi factions. He would not be stealing out of camp at night to spin mad plans, to dress in unfamiliar clothes and forge alliances with rogue clans, or to fight alongside pony-riding warriors, capturing bandits improbably in the mountains.
It would not be like this again.
* * *
Laurent was seated with an elbow on the table, studying a map, when Damen came into the tent. Braziers warmed the space; lamps illuminated with the gleam of flame light.
‘One more night,’ said Damen.
‘Keep the prisoners alive, keep the women on side, keep my men from the women,’ said Laurent, as though reciting from a checklist. ‘Come over here and talk geography.’
He came as he was bid, and took a seat opposite Laurent, across the map.
Laurent wished to discuss—again, and in meticulous detail—every inch of land between here and Ravenel, as well as along the northeastern section of border. Damen called on all he knew, and they talked for several hours, drawing comparisons in quality of slopes and ground with the country they had just ridden through.
The camp outside had fallen into the quiet of deep night when Laurent finally detached his attention from the map and said, ‘All right. If we do not stop now, we will go all night.’
Damen watched him rise. Laurent did not tend to show any of the usual outward signs of fatigue. The control that he asserted and maintained over the troop was an extension of the control with which he ruled himself. A few tells existed. The words, perhaps. Laurent’s jaw was bruised, a sphaleritic print where the clan leader had struck him. Laurent had the kind of fine, overbred skin that bruised like soft fruit to the touch. Lamplight played over Laurent as he absently lifted his hand to his wrist to begin unfastening the lacing there.
‘Here,’ said Damen. ‘Let me.’
Habit—Damen rose himself and stepped in, let his fingers make work with the laces at Laurent’s wrists, then at his back. The jacket split open like a pea shell, and he pushed it off.
Released from the weight of the jacket, Laurent rolled his shoulder, as he did sometimes after a long day in the saddle. Instinctively, Damen brought his hand up to squeeze Laurent’s shoulder gently—and then stopped. Laurent went very still, as Damen became aware of what he had just done, and that his grip was still on Laurent’s shoulder. He felt the locked muscles like hard wood beneath his hand.
‘Stiff?’ said Damen, casually.
‘A little,’ said Laurent, after a moment in which Damen’s heart knocked twice against the inside of his chest.
Damen brought his other hand up to Laurent’s other shoulder, more to keep Laurent from turning unexpectedly, or dislodging him. He stood behind Laurent, and kept his matter-of-fact grip as impersonal as he could make it.
Laurent said, ‘The soldiers in Kastor’s army are trained in massage?’
‘No,’ said Damen. ‘But I think the rudiments are easy to master. If you like.’
He applied a gentle pressure with his thumbs. He said, ‘You brought me ice, last night.’
‘This,’ said Laurent, ‘is a little more—’ It was a word of sharp points: ‘—intimate,’ he said, ‘than ice.’
‘Too intimate?’ Damen said. Slowly, he was kneading Laurent’s shoulders.
He did not usually think of himself as someone with suicidal impulses. Laurent did not relax at all, just stood unmoving.
And then, at the apsis of his thumbs, a muscle shifted beneath pressure, unlocking a sequence all the way down Laurent’s back. Laurent said, unwillingly, ‘I . . . There.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
He felt Laurent subtly give himself up to his hands; yet as with a man closing his eyes on the edge of a cliff, it was an act of continuous tension, not surrender. Instinct kept Damen’s movements undeviating, utilitarian. He breathed carefully. He could feel the entire framework of Laurent’s back: the curvature of his shoulder blades, and between them, under Damen’s hands, the unyielding planes that, when Laurent used a sword, would be working muscle.
The slow kneading continued; there was another shift in Laurent’s body, another slight, half-repressed reaction.
‘Like this?’
‘Yes.’
Laurent’s head had dropped forward a little. Damen had no idea what he was doing. He was distantly aware that he had had his hands on Laurent’s body once before, and couldn’t believe it, because it felt so impossible now; yet that moment felt connected to this one, even if only in contrast, his current caution against the unguarded way he had let his hands slide down over Laurent’s wet skin.
Damen looked downwards and saw the way that the white fabric shifted slightly under his thumbs. Laurent’s shirt hung on his body, a containing layer. Then Damen’s eyes travelled up along the balanced nape, to a wick of golden hair tucked behind an ear.
Damen let his hands move only enough to seek out new muscles to unknot. In Laurent’s body, always, that flickering tension.
‘Is it so hard to relax?’ said Damen, quietly. ‘You only have to walk outside to see what you’ve accomplished. Those men are yours.’ He didn’t pay attention to the signs, the slight stiffening. ‘Whatever happens tomorrow, you’ve done more than anyone could—’
‘That’s enough,’ said Laurent, pushing himself away unexpectedly.
When Laurent turned to face him, his eyes were dark. His lips were parted uncertainly. He had lifted his hand to his own shoulder, as though chasing a ghost touch there. He did not look exactly relaxed, but the movement did look a little easier. As if realising that, Laurent said, almost awkwardly, ‘Thank you.’ And then, in wry acknowledgement: ‘Getting tied up leaves an impression. I didn’t realise being captured was so uncomfortable.’
‘Well, it is.’ The words sounded close to normal.
‘I promise I’ll never tie you to the back of a horse,’ said Laurent.
There was a pause in which Laurent’s mordant gaze was on him.
‘That’s right, I’m still captured,’ said Damen.
‘Your eyes say, “For now,”’ Laurent said. ‘Your eyes have always said, “For now.”’ And then: ‘If you were a pet, I would have gifted you enough by now to buy out your contract, many times over.’
‘I’d still be here,’ said Damen, ‘with you. I told you that I would see this border dispute through to its finish. Do you think I’d go back on my word?’
‘No,’ said Laurent, almost as if he was realising it for the first time. ‘I don’t think you would. But I know you don’t like it. I remember how much it maddened you in the palace, to be bound and powerless. I felt yesterday how badly you wanted to hit someone.’
Damen found he’d moved without realising it, his fingers lifting to touch the bruised edge of Laurent’s jaw. He said, ‘The man who did this to you.’
The words just came out. The warmth of skin under his fingers in that moment took all his attention, before he became aware that Laurent had jerked back and was staring at him, blue eyes
huge with pupil.
Damen was suddenly aware of how out of control he was—he felt—and called violently on his faculties to try to put a stop to—this.
‘I’m sorry. I . . . know better than that.’ He forced himself a step back too. He said, ‘I think . . . I had better report to the watch. I can take a shift tonight.’
He turned to leave, and made it all the way to the tent’s entrance. Laurent’s voice caught him with his hand parting the canvas.
‘No. Wait. I . . . wait.’
Damen stopped, and turned. Laurent’s gaze was edged with indecipherable emotion, and his jaw was set at a new angle. The silence stretched out for such a long time that the words, when they came, were a shock.
‘What Govart said about my brother and I . . . it wasn’t true.’
‘I never thought it was,’ said Damen, uneasily.
‘I mean that whatever . . . whatever taint exists in my family, Auguste was free of it.’
‘Taint?’
‘I wanted to tell you that, because you,’ said Laurent, as though he was forcing the words out, ‘You remind me of him. He was the best man I have ever known. You deserve to know that, as you deserve at least a fair . . . In Arles, I treated you with malice and cruelty. I will not insult you by attempting to atone for deeds with words, but I would not treat you that way again. I was angry. Angry, that isn’t the word.’ It was bitten off; a jagged silence followed.
Laurent said steadily, ‘I have your oath that you will see this border skirmish through to its end? Then you have mine: stay with me until this thing is done, and I will take off the cuffs and the collar. I will release you willingly. We can face each other as free men. Whatever is to fall out between us can do so then.’
Damen stared at him. He felt a strange pressure in his chest. The lamplight appeared to wave and flicker.
‘It’s not a trick,’ said Laurent.
‘You’d let me go,’ said Damen.
This time it was Laurent who was silent, gazing back at him.
Damen said, ‘And—until then?’
‘Until then, you are my slave, and I am your Prince, and that is how it is between us.’ Then, with a return to his more usual tone, ‘And you don’t need to take watch,’ said Laurent. ‘You sleep prudently.’
Damen searched his face, but found nothing in it that he could read, which, he supposed, as he lifted his hands to the laces of his own jacket, was typical.
CHAPTER 15
Long before dawn, he was awake.
There were duties to be performed, inside the tent and out of it. Before he got up and performed them, he lay for a long time with an arm on his forehead, his shirt strewn open, the bedding on his pallet loose around him, staring up at long, hanging folds of twilled silk.
Outside, when he went outside, any signs of activity were not yet those of waking, but an extension of work that continued in a camp throughout the night: men tending to torches and campfires, the silent pacing of the watch, scouts dismounting and reporting to their night-commanders, who were also awake.
For himself, he began his early work readying Laurent’s armour, laying out each piece, pulling hard on each strap, checking each rivet. The intricate worked metal with its fluted edges and decorative borders was as familiar to him as his own. He had learned how to handle Veretian armour.
He turned to the inventory he must make of weapons: check each blade was immaculately free of nicks and marks; check the hilts and pommels were smooth of anything that could catch or impede; check that there was no change in balance that could even for a moment disconcert the man wielding it.
Returning, he found the tent empty. Laurent had left on some early business. The camp around him was still dark-shrouded, with closed tents, in blissful sleep. The men, he knew, were anticipating riding into Ravenel to the same kind of approbation with which Laurent had ridden into their own camp: cheers for the men who brought in the offenders on a rope.
Truthfully, Damen found it difficult to imagine how exactly Laurent would use his prisoners to coax Lord Touars down from a fight. Laurent was good at talking, but men like Touars had very little patience for talking. Even if the Veretian border lords could be persuaded, Nikandros’s commanders were rattling their swords. More than rattling them. There had been attacks on both sides of the border, and Laurent had seen the movements of the Akielon forces with his own eyes, as Damen had.
A month ago, he would have expected, much like the men, that the prisoners would be dragged before Touars, the truth loudly proclaimed, the Regent’s dealings exposed before all. Now . . . Damen could just as easily envisage Laurent denying any knowledge of the culprit, letting Touars find his own way to the Regent—could practically see Laurent’s blue-eyed feigned concern for the truth, followed by his blue-eyed feigned surprise when it was revealed. The search itself would work as a delaying tactic, would draw things out, would take its own time.
Deception and double dealing; it seemed sufficiently Veretian. He even thought, if Laurent held to his purpose, it could be done.
And then? The exposure of the Regent, culminating in the night Laurent came to him and freed him with his own hands?
Damen found himself past the edges of the tent rows, with Breteau forever silent behind him. Soon the dawn would come, the first sounds from the throats of birds, the sky growing lighter, the stars fading as the sun came up. He closed his eyes, feeling his chest rise and fall.
Because it was impossible, he allowed himself to imagine, just once, what it would be like to face Laurent as a man . . . if there had been no animosity between their countries, Laurent journeying to Akielos as part of an embassy, Damen’s attention superficially caught by the blond hair. They’d attend banquets and sports together, and Laurent . . . he had seen Laurent with those he cultivated, charming and edged without being lethal; and he was honest enough with himself to admit that if he had encountered Laurent in that mode, all golden lashes and needling remarks, he might well have found himself in some danger.
His eyes came open. He heard the sound of riders.
Following the sound, he pushed through the trees and found himself right on the edge of the Vaskian camp. Two women riders had just pounded in on lathered horses, and another was leaving. He remembered that Laurent had spent some time in negotiations and dealings with the Vaskians last night. He remembered that no men were supposed to come here, just as a spearpoint appeared in his path, held steady.
He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. The woman holding the spear didn’t run him through with it. Instead, she gave him a long speculative look, then gestured him forward. Spear at his back, he came into the camp.
Unlike Laurent’s camp, the Vaskian camp was active. The women were already awake, and were seeing to the business of untying their fourteen prisoners from their nighttime bonds and retying them for the coming day. And something else was occupying their attention. Damen saw that he was being taken towards Laurent, deep in dialogue with the two riders who had dismounted and were standing beside their exhausted horses. When Laurent saw him, he concluded his business, and approached. The woman with the spear had vanished.
Laurent said, ‘I’m afraid you don’t have time.’
The tone was limpid. Damen said, ‘Thank you, but I came because I heard the horses.’
Laurent said, ‘Lazar said he came because he took a wrong turning.’
There was a pause, in which Damen discarded several replies. Eventually, matching Laurent’s tone, ‘I see. You prefer privacy?’
‘I couldn’t if I wanted to. A batch of blond Vaskians really would get me disinherited. I’ve never,’ said Laurent, ‘with a woman.’
‘It’s very pleasurable.’
‘You prefer it.’
‘For the most part.’
‘Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and
I would read books. I was . . . nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence.’
On the verge of a reply, Damen stopped. That Laurent could talk, endlessly, like this, he knew. It wasn’t always apparent what was behind the talking, but sometimes it was.
Damen said, ‘You can rest easy. You are ready to face Lord Touars.’
He watched Laurent stop. The light was dark blue now rather than pitch, and growing lighter; he could make out Laurent’s fair hair, though not his face.
Damen found there was something that, for a long time, he had wanted to ask.
‘I don’t understand how your uncle has you backed this far into a corner. You can outplay him. I’ve seen you do it.’
Laurent said, ‘Maybe it seems that I can outplay him now. But when this game began I was . . . younger.’
They reached the camp. The first calls came from the tent lines. The troop, in the grey light, began waking.
Younger. Laurent had been fourteen at Marlas. Or . . . Damen moved months around in his head. The battle had been waged in early spring, Laurent reached his maturity in late spring. So, no. Younger. Thirteen, on the cusp of fourteen.
He tried to picture Laurent at thirteen, and experienced a total failure of imagination. It was just as impossible to imagine him fighting in battle at that age as it was to imagine him trailing around after an older brother he adored. It was impossible to imagine him adoring anyone.
The tents came down, the men swung up into their saddles. Damen’s view was of a straight back and a blond head lighter in colour than the rich gold of the prince he had faced all those years ago.
Auguste. The one honourable man on a treacherous field.
Damen’s father had invited the Veretian herald into his tent in good faith. He had offered the Veretians fair terms: surrender their lands, and live. The herald had spat on the ground and said, Vere will never surrender to Akielos, even as the first sounds of a Veretian attack had come from outside. Attack under the guise of parley: the ultimate affront to honour, with kings on the field.