‘Jord,’ said Laurent, ‘this is why he fucked you. This moment.’
‘I know that,’ said Jord.
‘Orlant,’ said Laurent, ‘didn’t deserve to die alone on the sword of a self-serving aristocrat he thought was a friend.’
‘I know that,’ said Jord. ‘I’m not asking you to let Aimeric go free or to forgive him what he’s done. It’s just that I know him, and that night, he was . . .’
‘I should make you watch,’ said Laurent, ‘while he’s stripped down for every man in the troop to have him.’
Damen stepped forward. ‘You don’t mean this. You need him as a hostage.’
‘I don’t need him continent,’ said Laurent.
Laurent’s face was perfectly smooth, his blue eyes cool and untouchable. Damen felt himself recoil slightly from that callous look, the surprise of it. He realised that he had fallen out of step with Laurent at some crucial point. He wanted to send everyone away, so that he could find his way back.
And yet this must be dealt with. The situation here was spiralling into something unpleasant.
He said, ‘If there’s to be justice for Aimeric, then let it be justice, reasonably decided, publicly applied, not the men taking matters into their own hands.’
‘Then by all means,’ said Laurent, ‘let us have justice. Since you’re both so eager for it. Drag Aimeric away from his admirers. Bring him to me in the south tower. Let us have everything out in the open.’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
Damen found himself stepping forward as Guymar bowed briefly and left, and the others followed him, making for the south tower. He wanted to reach out, if not with a hand, then with his voice.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘When I said there should be justice for Aimeric, I meant later, not now, when you’re . . .’ He searched Laurent’s face. ‘When we . . .’
He hit a look like a wall, and the uncaring lift of golden brows.
Laurent said, ‘If Jord wants to get down on his knees for Aimeric, he should know exactly who he’s crawling for.’
* * *
The south tower was crowned by a platform and a parapet pierced through not with useful rectangular slits but with slim, pointed arches, because this was Vere and there must always be some flourish. Below the platform was the room where Damen, Laurent and Jord gathered, a small round space connected to the parapet by straight stone stairs. During a fight—during any attack on the fort—the room would be an assembling point for archers and swordsmen, but now it functioned as an informal guards’ room, with a stout wooden table, and three chairs. The men who would usually be on watch, both here and above, had cleared out at Damen’s orders.
Laurent, supremely puissant, ordered that not only Aimeric should be brought, but also refreshments. The food arrived first. Servants battled up to the tower laden with plates of meats, and bread, and pitchers of wine and of water. The goblets they brought were gold, and carved with an image of a deer, mid-hunt. Laurent sat in the high-backed wooden chair by the table and crossed his legs. Damen hardly supposed that Laurent was going to sit across from Aimeric with his legs crossed and make small talk. Or perhaps he was.
He knew that expression. His sense of danger, highly attuned to Laurent’s moods, told him that Aimeric was better off downstairs with a half dozen men than he was up here with Laurent. Laurent’s lids were smooth over a cool gaze, his posture straight-backed, his fingers poised on the rim of the goblet.
I kissed him, thought Damen, the idea unreal here in this small circular stone room. The warm, sweet kiss had been broken in a moment of promise: the first slight parting of lips, the hint that Laurent had been on the cusp of allowing the kiss to deepen, though his body had been singing with tension.
When he closed his eyes, he felt how it might have happened: slowly, Laurent’s mouth opening, Laurent’s hands lifting hesitantly to touch his body. He would have been careful, so careful.
Aimeric was dragged in by two guards. He resisted, his hands lashed behind his back, his arms gripped by his guards. He had been stripped of his armour; his undershirt was streaked with dirt and sweat and it hung partially open in a mess of laces. His curls looked more pulped than polished, and there was a cut across his left cheek.
His eyes retained their defiance. There was an intrinsic antagonism in Aimeric’s nature, Damen knew. He liked a fight.
When he saw Jord, he turned white. And said, ‘No.’ His guard shoved him inside.
‘The loving reunion,’ said Laurent.
When Aimeric heard that, he gathered his defiance to himself. The guards took up their hold again, roughly. Though his face was still white, Aimeric lifted his chin.
‘Have you brought me here to gloat? I’m glad I did what I did. I did it for my family, and for the south. I’d do it again.’
‘That was pretty,’ said Laurent. ‘Now the truth.’
‘That was the truth,’ said Aimeric. ‘I’m not afraid of you. My father’s going to crush you.’
‘Your father has ridden to Fortaine with his tail between his legs.’
‘To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. Spreading for your brother isn’t the same thing as family loyalty.’ Aimeric’s breathing was shallow.
‘That reminds me,’ said Laurent.
He stood, the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with calm brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face.
Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted on his cheekbone with a sick, solid sound. It left him reeling in the arms of his guards. Jord made a violent move forward, and Damen felt his whole body come under strain as, instinctively, he pushed in to halt him.
‘Keep your mouth off my brother,’ said Laurent.
In the first burst of movement, Damen had flung Jord ungently back, then held him off in a restraining grip. Jord had gone still but the strain of muscle was still there, his breathing harsh. Laurent replaced the goblet, with exquisite precision, on the table.
Aimeric just blinked with glazed, stupefied eyes; the contents of the goblet had sprayed outward, wetting Aimeric’s stunned, slack face. There was blood on his lips, where something was bitten or split, and a red brand on his cheekbone.
Damen heard Aimeric say, thickly, ‘You can hit me as much as you like.’
‘Can I? I think we’re going to enjoy each other, you and I. Tell me what else I can do to you.’
‘Stop this,’ said Jord. ‘He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, he’s not old enough for this, he’s scared. He thinks you’re going to wreck his family.’
Aimeric turned his bruised, bloody face to the words, in disbelief that Jord was defending him. Laurent turned to face Jord at the same time, his golden brows arching. There was disbelief in Laurent’s expression too, but it was colder, more fundamental.
It took Damen a moment to understand why. Uneasiness swept over him as he looked from Laurent’s face to Aimeric’s, and realised suddenly and for the first time how close Laurent and Aimeric were in age. There was six months’ difference between them, at most.
‘I am going to wreck his family,’ said Laurent. ‘But it’s not his family he’s fighting for.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Jord. ‘Why else would he betray his friends?’
‘You can’t think of a reason?’
Laurent’s attention had returned to Aimeric, drawing close to him, so that they faced one another. Like a lover, Laurent smiled and touched a stray curl, tucking it behind Aimeric’s ear. Aimeric flinched, violently, then repressed the flinch, though he wasn’t able to control his breathing.
Tenderly, Laurent drew a fingertip through the blood that welled from Aimeric’s split lip.
‘Pretty face,’ said Lauren
t. Then his fingers dropped back to brush Aimeric’s jaw, tilting it up as though for a kiss. Aimeric made a choked sound in response to pain; the bruised flesh under Laurent’s fingers was white. ‘I bet you were a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. How old were you when you fucked my uncle?’
Damen went still, everything in the tower went very still, as Laurent said, ‘Were you old enough to come?’
‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.
‘Did he tell you you’d be together again, if you’d just do this one thing? Did he tell you how much he missed you?’
‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.
‘He was lying. He wouldn’t take you back. You’re too old.’
‘You don’t know,’ said Aimeric.
‘Thick-voiced and rough-cheeked, you’d make him sick.’
‘You don’t know anything—’
‘With your ageing body, your overripe attentions, you’re nothing but—’
‘You’re wrong about us! He loves me!’
Aimeric flung the words out defiantly, they came out over-loud. Damen felt the bottom fall out of his stomach, a feeling of total wrongness passing over him. He found he had let go his grip on Jord, who, beside him, had taken two steps back.
Laurent was looking at Aimeric with curling contempt.
‘Loves you? You paltry little upstart. I doubt he even preferred you. How long did you hold his attention? A few fucks while he was bored in the country?’
‘You don’t know anything about us,’ said Aimeric.
‘I know he didn’t bring you to court. He left you in Fortaine. You never asked yourself why?’
‘He didn’t want to leave me. He told me,’ said Aimeric.
‘I bet you were easy. A few compliments, a little attention, and you gave him all the naive pleasures of a country virgin in his bed. He would have found it diverting. At first. What else is there to do in Fortaine? But the novelty wore off.’
‘No,’ said Aimeric.
‘You’re pretty enough, and you were obviously hot for it. But used goods are not appealing unless they are something worth using. And the cheap wine you drink in a backwater tavern is not the kind that you serve at your own table, given choice.’
‘No,’ said Aimeric.
‘My uncle is discriminating. Not like Jord,’ said Laurent, ‘who’ll take a middle-aged man’s sloppy seconds and treat it like it’s worth something.’
‘Stop it,’ said Aimeric.
‘Why do you think my uncle asked you to whore yourself out to a common armsman before he’d deign to touch you? That’s what he thought you were good for. Screwing my soldiers. And you couldn’t even do that right.’
Damen said, ‘That’s enough.’
Aimeric was crying. Ugly, wracking sobs that shook his whole body. Jord was ashen-faced. Before anyone else could act or speak, Damen said, ‘Get Aimeric out of here.’
‘You cold-blooded son of a bitch,’ Jord said to Laurent. His voice was shaky. Laurent rounded on him, deliberately.
‘And then of course,’ said Laurent, ‘there’s you.’
‘No,’ said Damen, stepping between them. His eyes were on Laurent. His voice was hard. ‘Get out,’ Damen said to Jord. It was a flat order. He didn’t turn around to look at Jord to see whether or not his order had been obeyed. To Laurent, in the same voice, he said, ‘Calm down.’
Laurent said, ‘I wasn’t finished.’
‘Finished what? Reducing every man in the room? Jord isn’t any kind of match for you in this mood, and you know it. Calm down.’
Laurent gave him the kind of look a swordsman gives as he decides whether or not to slice his unarmed enemy in half.
‘Are you going to try it with me? Or do you only take pleasure in attacking those who cannot defend themselves?’ Damen heard the hardness in his own voice. He held his ground. Around them, the tower room was empty. He had sent everyone else out. ‘I remember the last time you were like this. You blundered so badly you gave your uncle the excuse he needed to have you stripped of your lands.’
He was almost killed, for that. He knew it and stayed where he was. The atmosphere rose, hot, thick and deadly.
Abruptly, Laurent turned away. He put the heels of his palms on the table, gripping its edge, standing with his head down, his arms stiffly braced, tension across his back. Damen watched his ribcage expand and deflate, several times.
Laurent was still for a moment, then, sharply, he swept his forearm across the table, a sudden, single movement that sent gilt plates and their contents crashing to the floor. An orange rolled. Water from the pitcher dripped from the table’s edge onto the floor. He could hear the sound of Laurent’s unsteady breathing.
Damen allowed the silence in the room to stretch out. He didn’t look at the wrecked table, with its spilled meats, its scattered plates and overturned, fat-bellied pitcher. He looked at the line of Laurent’s back. As he had known to send the others out, he knew not to speak. He didn’t know how much time passed. Not long enough for the tension in Laurent’s back to unwinch.
Laurent spoke without turning around. His voice was unpleasantly precise.
‘What you are saying is that when I lose control, I make mistakes. My uncle knows that, of course. It would have been an amusing pleasure for him to send Aimeric to work against me, you’re right. You, with your barbaric attitudes, your brutish, domineering arrogance, are always right.’
Laurent’s hands on the table were white.
‘I remember that trip to Fortaine. He left the capital for two weeks, then sent word he was extending it to three. He said it was his business with Guion that needed more time.’
Damen took a step forward, called by the tone in Laurent’s voice.
Laurent said, ‘If you want me to calm down, get out.’
CHAPTER 19
‘Captain.’
Damen was three steps out of the tower room when Guymar greeted him with a hail and the clear intention of making for the room himself.
‘Aimeric is back under guard and the men have settled. I can report to the Prince and—’
He found he had put himself bodily in Guymar’s way. ‘No. No one goes in.’
Anger, irrationally, blossomed. Behind him was the closed door to the tower rooms, a barrier to disaster. Guymar should know better than to barge in and make Laurent’s mood worse. Guymar should have known better than to cause Laurent’s mood in the first place.
‘Are there orders for what should be done with the prisoner?’
Throw Aimeric off the battlements. ‘Keep him confined in his rooms.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
‘I want this whole section kept clear. And Guymar?’
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘This time, I want it actually kept clear. I don’t care who is about to get molested. No one is to come here. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Captain.’ Guymar bowed and retreated.
Damen found himself with his hands braced on the stone crenellation, in unconscious echoing of Laurent’s pose, the line of Laurent’s back the last thing he had seen before he had put the heel of his palm to the door.
His heart was pounding. He wanted to make a barrier that protected Laurent from anyone who would intrude on him. He’d keep that perimeter clear, if it meant stalking these battlements and patrolling it himself.
He knew this about Laurent. That once he gave himself time alone to think, the control returned, reason won out.
The part of him that didn’t want to drop Aimeric with a punch recognised that both Jord and Aimeric had just been put through the wringer. It was a mess that needn’t have happened. If they’d just—steered clear. Friends, Laurent had said, high on the battlements. Is that what we are? Damen’s hands drew into fists. Aimeric was an inveterate troublemaker with terrible timing.
He found himself at the base o
f the stairs, giving the same order to the soldiers there that he had given to Guymar, emptying out the section.
It was long past midnight. A feeling of fatigue, of heaviness came over him, and Damen was suddenly aware of how few hours there were before morning. The soldiers were clearing out, the space emptying around him. The idea of stopping, allowing himself a moment to think, was terrible. Outside, there was nothing, just the last hours of darkness, and the long ride in the dawn.
He caught one of the soldiers by the arm before he realised it, holding him back from following the others.
The man stopped, held in place.
‘Captain?’
‘Watch over the Prince,’ he heard himself say. ‘Anything he needs, make certain he has it. Take care of him.’ He was aware of the incongruity of the words, of his hard grip on the soldier’s arm. When he tried to stop, his grip only tightened. ‘He deserves your loyalty.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
A nod, followed by acquiescence. He watched the man go upstairs in his place.
* * *
It took a long time to finish his preparations, after which he found a servant to show him to his rooms. He had to pick his way across the ends of the revelry: discarded wine cups, a snoring Rochert, a few overturned chairs, thanks to a fight or some overly vigorous dancing.
His rooms were excessive because Veretians were always excessive: through doorway arches, he could see at least two other rooms, with tiled floors and low, lounging couches typical of Vere. He let his eyes pass over the vaulted windows, the table well supplied with wine and fruits, and the bed, overhung with rose-coloured silks that fell in folds so long they pooled out over the floor.
He dismissed the servant. The doors closed. He poured himself a cup of wine from a silver jug and drained it off. He placed the cup back on the table. He rested his hands on the table and his weight on his hands.
Then he lifted his hand to his shoulder, and unpinned his Captain’s badge.