by C. S. Pacat
‘Your Majesty,’ said Paschal, surprised.
‘How is he?’ He said it into the odd silence, facing Paschal in the light from the torches.
‘Bruising, a broken rib,’ said Paschal. ‘Shock.’
‘No, I meant—’
He broke off. After a long moment, Paschal said, slowly, ‘He is well. The knife wound was clean. He lost a lot of blood but there is no permanent damage. He has healed quickly.’
‘Thank you,’ said Damen. He heard himself continue, ‘I don’t expect—’ He stopped. ‘I know that I betrayed your trust, and lied to you about who I am. I don’t expect you to forgive me for that.’
He could feel the incongruity of the words, falling awkwardly between them. He felt strange, his breathing shallow.
He said, ‘Will he be able to ride tomorrow?’
‘You mean to Marlas?’ said Paschal.
There was a pause.
‘We all do what we have to,’ said Paschal.
Damen said nothing. Paschal continued after a moment.
‘You should prepare yourself, too. It’s only deep in Akielos that you’ll be able to confront the Regent’s plans.’
A cool night breeze passed over his skin. ‘Guion claimed not to know what the Regent plans to do in Akielos.’
Paschal looked at him with his steady brown eyes.
‘Every Veretian knows what the Regent plans to do in Akielos.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Rule,’ said Paschal.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE FIRST MILITARY coalition of Vere and Akielos launched from Fortaine in the morning, after the execution of Makedon’s men. There were very few problems, the public killings having been good for the soldiers’ morale.
They hadn’t been good for Makedon’s morale. Damen watched the general swing himself into the saddle, then tug hard on a rein. Makedon’s men were a line of red cloaks stretching across fully half the length of the column.
The horns sounded. The banners went up. The heralds took up their position. The Akielon herald was to the right, the Veretian herald to the left, their banners carefully matched to be the same height. The Veretian herald was named Hendric and he had very strong arms, because banners were heavy.
Damen and Laurent were to ride alongside one another. Neither one of them had the better horse. Neither one of them had the more expensive armour. Damen was taller, but nothing could be done about that, Hendric had said with an impenetrable expression. Hendric, Damen was learning, had something in common with Laurent, in that it was never a simple matter to tell when he was joking.
He brought his horse alongside Laurent’s at the head of the column. It was a symbol of their unity, the Prince and the King riding side by side, as friends. He kept his eyes on the road.
‘At Marlas, we’ll stay in adjacent chambers,’ said Damen. ‘It’s protocol.’
‘Of course,’ said Laurent, his eyes also on the road.
Laurent showed no sign of distress, and sat upright in the saddle, as though nothing at all had happened to his shoulder. He spoke charmingly to the generals and even made pleasant conversation in response to Nikandros, when Nikandros spoke to him.
‘I hope the injured boy was returned to you safely.’
‘Thank you, he returned with Paschal,’ said Laurent.
For a salve? Damen opened his mouth to say, and didn’t.
Marlas was a day-long ride, and they set a good pace. The air was loud with sound, a line of soldiers, outriders ahead, servants and slaves behind. When the column passed near, the birds took off, a herd of goats fled over the side of the hill.
It was afternoon when they reached the small checkpoint manned by Nikandros’s soldiers and overseen by an Akielon signal tower. They rode through.
The landscape on the other side looked no different; rich grass fields, green from a spring of generous rain, bruised at the edges from their passing. In the next moment, the horns rang out, triumphant and lonely at the same time, the pure sound absorbed by the sky and the wide open landscape around them.
‘Welcome home,’ Nikandros said.
Akielos. He drew in a breath of Akielon air. In months of captivity he had thought of this moment. He couldn’t help glancing next to him at Laurent, his posture and expression easy.
They rode through the first of the villages. This close to the border, larger farms had rudimentary outer walls of stone, and some were like improvised forts, with lookouts or well-tried defence systems. The passing of the army wouldn’t be a surprise, and Damen was prepared for the people of his country to react to it in various ways.
He had forgotten that Delpha had become an Akielon province only six years ago, and that before that, for the span of their entire lives, these men and women had been citizens of Vere.
The silent faces gathered, women and men, children, in doorways, under awnings, standing together as the army passed.
Tense, afraid, they had come out of their homes to watch the first Veretian banners flying here in six years. One of them had fashioned a crude starburst, with sticks. A child held it up, like the image she saw.
The starburst banner means something here on the border, Laurent had said.
Laurent said nothing, riding straight-backed at the head of the column. He did not acknowledge his people, with their Veretian language, customs and allegiances, making their small living on the border. He was riding with an army of Akielons who wholly controlled this province. He kept his gaze ahead; so did Damen, feeling the everlasting pressure of their destination with every step.
* * *
He remembered exactly how it had looked, and that was why he didn’t recognise it at first: the forest of broken spears was gone, and there were no gouged ruts in the earth, no men face down in the churned mud.
Marlas was now a tumble of grass and wildflowers in the blowy, sweet summer weather, shifting back and forth in the gentle air. Here and there an insect droned, a drowsy sound. A dragonfly dipped and darted. Their horses waded, fording long grass. They joined the wide road, sunlight dappling their path.
As their column crossed the fields, Damen found himself searching for some mark of what had happened. There was nothing. No one remarked on it. No one said, It was here. It got worse as they got closer, as though the only evidence of the battle was the feeling in his chest.
And then the fort itself came into view.
Marlas had always been beautiful. It was a Veretian fort in the grand style, with high-flung battlements and crenelles, its elegant arches presiding over green fields.
It still looked like that, from a distance. It was an outline of Veretian architecture, promising an interior of high open galleries, banded in carving, filigree gilt and decorative tile.
Damen remembered, suddenly, the day of the victory ceremonies, the cutting down of the tapestries, the slashing of the flags.
Akielons thronged near the gates, men and women straining for a glimpse of their returned King. Akielon soldiers filled the inner courtyard, and Akielon banners hung from every vantage, gold lions on red.
Damen looked at the courtyard. The parapets were broken down and reshaped. The stonework hacked off. The stone itself carted off for use in new building, the splendid rooftops and towers levelled into an Akielon style.
Damen told himself he thought Veretian ornamentation wasteful. In Arles, his eyes had begged for relief; he had wished daily for a stretch of plain wall. All he could see now was the empty floor with its tiles pulled up, the ruined ceiling, the bare, painfully stripped stone.
Laurent swung down from his horse, thanking Nikandros for the welcome. He walked past the rows of Akielon soldiers in flawless formation.
Indoors, the fort’s household gathered, excited and proud, to meet and serve their King. Damen and Laurent were jointly presented to those household officials who would serve th
em during their time here. They moved from the first set of rooms to the second, rounding the corner and coming into the viewing hall.
Lining the hall were two dozen slaves.
They were arrayed in two rows, prostrated, their foreheads to the floor. All were male, ranging in age from perhaps nineteen to twenty-five, with different looks and different colouring, their eyes and lips accentuated by paint. Beside them, the Keeper of Slaves stood waiting.
Nikandros frowned. ‘The King has already made his preference for no slaves known.’
‘These slaves are provided for use of our King’s guest, the Prince of Vere.’ Kolnas, the Keeper of Slaves, bowed respectfully. Laurent strolled forward.
‘I like that one,’ said Laurent.
The slaves were dressed in the northern style, in light gauzy silks that threaded through the link on their collar and covered very little. Laurent was indicating to the third slave to the left, a dark, bowed head.
‘An excellent choice,’ said Kolnas. ‘Isander, step forward.’
Isander was olive-skinned and lithe as a fawn, with dark hair and eyes: Akielon colouring. He shared that with Nikandros; with Damen. He was younger than Damen, nineteen or twenty. Male, either in deference to Veretian customs, or to suit Laurent’s assumed preferences. He looked like Nikandros’s best, Damen thought. It was probably rare that he was given out to guests. No; he was new, unbedded. Nikandros would never offer royalty anything less than a slave’s First Night.
Damen frowned. Isander was flushing deeply with the honour of being chosen. Shyness radiating from him, he rose, and then went to his knees a body length in front of the others, offering himself with all the sweet grace of a palace slave, too well trained to place himself ostentatiously in front of Laurent.
‘We will have him prepared and brought to you this evening for his First Night,’ Kolnas said.
‘First Night?’ said Laurent.
‘Slaves are trained in the arts of pleasure, but they do not lie with another until their First Night,’ Kolnas said. ‘Here we use the same strict, classical training that is used in the royal palace. Skills are learned through instruction, and practised with indirect methods. The slave remains wholly untouched, kept pure for the first use of the Exalted.’
Laurent’s eyes lifted to Damen’s.
‘I never did learn how to command a bed slave,’ said Laurent. ‘Teach me.’
‘They cannot speak Veretian, Your Highness,’ Kolnas explained. ‘In the Akielon language, using the plain form of address is appropriate. To command any act of service is to honour a slave. The more personal the service, the greater the honour.’
‘Really? Come here,’ said Laurent.
Isander rose for the second time, a faint tremor in his body as he came as close as he dared before dropping to the ground again, his cheeks bright red. He looked a little dazed by the attention. Laurent extended the tip of his boot.
‘Kiss it,’ he said. His eyes were on Damen.
His boot was beautifully turned, his clothing immaculate even after the long ride. Isander kissed the toe tip, then the ankle. Damen thought, that’s where skin would be if he was wearing a sandal. Then, in a moment of unspeakable daring, Isander leaned in and rubbed his cheek against the leather of the boot at Laurent’s calf, a sign of exceptional intimacy and the desire to please.
‘Good boy,’ said Laurent, reaching down to pet Isander’s dark curls, while Isander’s eyes closed and he flushed over.
Kolnas preened, pleased that his selection was appreciated. Damen could see that the fort’s household around them was also pleased, having gone to great lengths to make Laurent feel welcome. They had considered with intense thoughtfulness Veretian culture and Veretian practices. All the slaves were highly attractive, and all were male, so that the Prince might use them in bed without offending Veretian custom.
It was pointless. There were two dozen slaves here, while the number of times Laurent had had sex in his life could probably be counted on one hand. Laurent was just going to be dragging twenty-four young men back to his rooms to sit around doing nothing. They wouldn’t even be able to unlace Veretian clothing.
‘Can he also serve me in the baths?’ said Laurent.
‘And at the feast for the bannermen this evening when they give their pledge, if that pleases you, Your Highness,’ said Kolnas.
‘It pleases me,’ said Laurent.
* * *
Home was not supposed to have felt like this.
His squires wrapped him in the traditional garment. Cloth wound around his waist and over his shoulder, the sort of ceremonial Akielon garb that you could unreel from a person by taking hold of one end and pulling while they rotated. They brought sandals for his feet and the laurel for his head, performing the ritual motions in silence while he stood still for it. It was not appropriate that they speak or look at his person.
Exalted. He could feel their discomfort, their need to debase themselves; this sort of proximity to royalty permitted only the extreme submissiveness of slaves.
He had sent away the slaves. He had sent them away as he had sent them away in the camp, and after he had stood in the silence of his suite waiting for his squires.
Laurent, he knew, was rooming in the adjoining suite, separated from him by a single wall. Damen was in the King’s chambers, which any lord who built a fort installed, in the hope the King would stop there. But even the former lord of Marlas’s optimism had not stretched to the idea that the heads of two royal families would visit simultaneously. To preserve their arrangements of scrupulous equality, Laurent was in the Queen’s chambers, beyond that wall.
Isander was probably tending him, gamely doing his best with the laces. He would have to unhook the lacings on the back of the neck of Laurent’s riding leathers before drawing them through their eyelets. Or Laurent had taken Isander into the baths, to be undressed by him there. Isander would be flushed with pride at being chosen for the task. Attend me. Damen felt his hands curl into fists.
He turned his mind to political matters. He and Laurent would now meet the smaller northern provincial leaders in the hall, where there would be wine and feasting and Nikandros’s bannermen would come, one by one, to make their pledge, swelling the ranks of their army.
When the last laurel leaf was arranged, the last piece of fabric wound into place, Damen proceeded with his squires into the hall.
Men and women reclined on couches, amid scattered low tables or on low, cushioned benches. Makedon leaned, selecting a slice of peeled orange. Pallas, the handsome officer-champion, reclined with the easy posture that spoke to his aristocratic blood. Straton had hitched his skirts up and drawn his legs onto the couch, crossing them at the ankles. Everyone whom rank or office entitled to be here was assembled, and with every northerner of standing gathered to give their pledge, the hall was packed full.
The Veretians present were mostly vertical, standing awkwardly in small groups, one or two perched gingerly on the edge of a seat.
And all through the hall, there were slaves.
Slaves in hip cloths carried delicacies on small platters. Slaves fanned reclined Akielon guests with woven palm leaves. A male slave filled a shallow wine cup for an Akielon nobleman. A slave held out a finger bowl of rose water, and an Akielon woman dipped her fingers in it without even glancing at the slave. He heard the plucked strings of a kithara, and glimpsed the measured steps of a slave’s dance, just for a moment, before he walked through the doors.
When Damen entered, the hall fell silent.
There was no trumpet flourish or herald’s announcement, as there would have been in Vere. He just walked in, and everyone went to the floor. Guests rose from their couches, then dropped, foreheads to the stone. Slaves went to their stomachs. In Akielos, kings did not elevate their status. It was up to those around him to lower themselves.
Laurent didn’t rise. He wasn
’t required to. He just watched from his reclining couch, as the hall prostrated itself. He had cultivated an elegant sprawl, with his arm draped over his couch back, and his leg drawn up, revealing the arc of an exquisitely clad thigh. His fingers dangled. Silk rucked around his knee.
Isander was prostrated, an inch from Laurent’s casually draped fingertips, his lithe body bare. He wore a brief garment like a Vaskian man’s cloth. His collar fit him like a second skin. Laurent sat relaxed, every line of his body arranged tastefully against the couch.
Damen made himself stroll forward through the silence. Their twin couches were next to each other.
‘Brother,’ Laurent said, pleasantly.
The eyes of everyone in the hall were on him. He felt their gazes, their underfed curiosity. He heard the murmurs—it really is him, Damianos, alive and here—accompanied by the brazen looks, looking at him, looking at the gold cuff on his wrist, looking at Laurent in his Veretian clothes like an exotic ornament—so that is the Veretian Prince. And beneath that the speculation that was never spoken aloud.
Laurent was scrupulously correct in the face of it, his behaviour immaculate, even his use of the slave was an act of unimpeachable etiquette. In Akielos it pleased the host for a guest to make use of his hospitality. And it pleased the Akielon people for their royal family to take slaves, a sign of virility and power, and a cause of great pride.
Damen sat, too aware of Laurent beside him. He could see the sweep of the hall from this vantage, a sea of bowed heads. He gestured, indicating that the hall should rise from their prostrations. He saw Barieus of Mesos, the first of the bannermen after Makedon, a man in his forties with dark hair and a close-cut beard. He saw Aratos of Charon, who had come to Marlas with six hundred men. Euandros of Itys, here with a small cadre of archers, stood with his arms folded across his chest at the back of the hall.
‘Bannermen of Delpha. By now, you have seen the evidence that Kastor killed the King, our father. You know of his alliance with the usurper, the Regent of Vere. Even now, the Regent has troops stationed in Ios, ready to take Akielos. Tonight, we call for your pledge to fight them alongside us, and alongside our ally, Laurent of Vere.’
