by C. S. Pacat
Damen felt the hard ache of it. ‘Admiring your handiwork?’
‘You’re due back in the stands.’
‘I’ll join you after I’ve dressed. Unless you want to step closer. You can help stick in the pin.’
‘Do it yourself,’ said Laurent.
* * *
The course for the okton was almost fully marked out by the time they returned, seating themselves side by side, wordlessly.
The fever pitch of the crowd was bloodthirsty. The okton brought that out in them, the danger, the threat of maiming. The second of two targets was hammered onto its struts, and the attendants gave the all clear. In the heat of the day, anticipation was an insect buzz, rising to a commotion on the south-western side of the field.
Makedon’s arrival, mounted, armed, with a cadre of men behind him, caused a burst of activity in the stands. Nikandros was half rising from his seat, three of his guards placing their hands on the hilts of their swords.
Makedon wheeled his horse in front of the stands, to face Damen directly.
Damen said, ‘You missed the javelin.’
‘A village was attacked in my name,’ said Makedon. ‘I want the chance for requital.’
Makedon had a voice made for generalship that echoed across the stands, and he used it now, making sure he was heard by every spectator gathered for the games.
‘I have eight thousand men who will fight with you in Karthas. But we won’t fight under a coward or a green leader who has yet to prove himself on the field.’
Makedon looked across at the course laid out on the field for the okton, and then he looked right back at Laurent.
‘I will pledge,’ said Makedon, ‘if the Prince will ride.’
Damen heard the reaction of those around him. The Veretian Prince was, at a glance, Damen’s athletic inferior. Certainly, he avoided the training fields. No Akielon had ever seen him fight, or take exercise. He had not participated in any of today’s contests. He had done nothing more than sit, elegant and relaxed, as now.
‘Veretians do not train in the okton,’ said Damen.
‘In Akielos, the okton is known as the sport of kings,’ said Makedon. ‘Our own King will take the field. Does the Prince of Vere lack the courage to ride against him?’
Humiliating as it was to refuse, it would be worse to accept—to have his inadequacy made explicit on the field. Makedon’s eyes said that was exactly what he wanted: his return to the fold conditional on the discrediting of Laurent.
Damen waited for Laurent to sidestep, to evade, to find, somehow, the words to extricate himself from the situation. The flags fluttered loudly. The stands were silent, to a man.
‘Why not?’ said Laurent.
* * *
Mounted, Damen faced the course, holding his horse ready at the starting line. His mount shifted, fractious, eager for the horn that would signal his start. Two horses down from his own, he could see Laurent’s bright head.
Laurent’s spears were tipped in blue. Damen’s in red. Of the other three competitors, Pallas, already triple-crowned, carried spears tipped in green. Aktis, who had won the spear throwing on the flat, had white. Lydos black.
The okton was a competitive display in which spears were thrown from horseback. Called the sport of kings, it was a test of marksmanship, athleticism, and skill with the horse: competitors must ride between two targets in a constant figure eight, throwing spears. Then, amid the deadly flash of hooves, each rider must bend seamlessly to pick up new spears, launching back in for another circuit without stopping—riding eight circuits in total. The challenge was to achieve as many bullseyes with the spear as possible, while evading the flying spears of the other riders.
But the true challenge of the okton was this: if you missed, your spear might kill your opponent. If your opponent missed, you were dead.
Damen had ridden the okton often as a boy. But the okton was not something that you simply vaulted onto a horse and attempted, no matter how good you were with a spear. He had practised with instructors for months on horseback in the training arena before he had been allowed to compete on the field for the first time.
Laurent, he knew, was good at riding. Damen had seen him race over uneven countryside. He had seen him turn his horse on air in battle, while killing with precision.
Laurent could also throw a spear. Probably. The spear wasn’t a Veretian war weapon, but it was the weapon Veretians used in boar hunting. Laurent would have thrown a spear from horseback before.
But all of that meant nothing in the face of the okton. Men died during the okton. Men fell, men suffered permanent injury—from a spear; from hooves after a fall. Out of the corner of his eye, Damen could see the physicians, including Paschal, who waited on the sidelines, ready to patch and sew. There was a great deal at stake for the lives of the physicians, with royalty from two countries on the field. There was a great deal at stake for everyone.
Damen could not aid Laurent in the contest. With two armies watching, he must win to defend his own status and position. The other three Akielon riders would have even fewer scruples, likely wanting nothing more than to beat the Veretian Prince at the sport of kings.
Laurent took up his first spear and faced the course with a calm aspect. There was something intellectual in the way he assessed the field, and it set him apart from the other riders. For Laurent, physical pursuits were not instinctive, and for the first time it occurred to Damen to wonder if Laurent even enjoyed them. Laurent had been bookish as a boy, before he had re-formed himself.
There was no time to think more than that. The starts were staggered, and it was Laurent who had drawn first. The horn sounded; the crowd hollered. For a moment Laurent was racing alone across the field, with the eyes of every spectator on him.
It was quickly apparent that if Makedon had hoped to prove Veretians inferior, in this, at least, he had hoped in vain. Laurent could ride. Slender and balanced, the beautiful proportions of his body were in effortless communication with his horse. His first spear soared, blue-tipped: a bullseye. Everyone screamed. And then the second horn sounded, and Pallas was off, riding hard behind Laurent, and then the third, and Damen flung his own horse into a gallop.
With royalty from rival countries on the field, the okton became one of the noisiest events imaginable. In his peripheral vision, Damen glimpsed the arc of a blue spear (Laurent taking his second bullseye), and a green (Pallas likewise). Aktis’s spear landed to the right of centre. Lydos’s throw was short, spearing the grass, forcing Pallas’s horse to swerve.
Damen avoided Pallas expertly, his eyes on the field; he didn’t need to watch his own spears land to know that they were hitting dead-centre. He knew the okton well enough to know he must keep his attention on the field.
By the end of the first circuit, it was clear where the true competition lay: Laurent, Damen and Pallas were hitting bullseyes. Aktis, practised on the flat, did not have the same ability from horseback; nor did Lydos.
Reaching the apex, Damen dipped to snatch up his second set of spears without slowing. He risked a glance at Laurent, saw him take his horse inside Lydos’s to take his shot, ignoring Lydos’s own throw as it passed a half-foot from him. Laurent dealt with the danger of the okton by simply behaving as though it did not exist.
Another bullseye. Damen could feel the excitement of the crowd, tension rising with every throw. It was rare for anyone to ride a perfect okton, let alone three riders in the same match, but Damen, Laurent and Pallas had yet to miss a throw. He heard the thud as a spear hit the target to his left. Aktis. Three more circuits. Two. One.
The course was a stream of surging horseflesh, of deadly spears and hooves that flung up turf. They thundered into the final circuit, buoyed by the elation, the ecstasy of the crowd. Damen, Laurent and Pallas were dead-even in score, and for a moment it seemed flawless, balanced, as though they were all part of a single
whole.
It was a mistake anyone might have made. A simple miscalculation: Aktis threw his spear too early. Damen saw it; saw the spear leave Aktis’s hand, saw its trajectory, saw it hit with a sickening thunk not the target, but the crucial support strut that was holding the target up.
At galloping speed, all five riders had a momentum that could not be halted. Lydos and Pallas loosed their spears. Both throws were straight and true, but the target, swaying and collapsing without its strut, was no longer there.
Lydos’s spear, shearing through air on the other side of the course, was going to hit either Pallas, or Laurent, who was riding alongside him.
But Damen could do no more than shout a warning that was whipped from his mouth by the wind, because the second spear, Pallas’s spear, was aimed right for him.
He couldn’t dodge it. He didn’t know where the other riders were positioned, couldn’t risk his own evasion causing the spear to harm one of them.
Instinct reacted before thought. The spear was driving towards his chest; Damen caught it out of the air, his hand closing hard around the shaft, the momentum of it wrenching his shoulder back. He absorbed it, tightening his grip with his thighs to keep himself in the saddle. He caught a flash of Lydos’s stunned face beside him, heard the cries of the crowd. He was barely thinking of himself or what he had done. All his attention was on the other spear, flying towards Laurent. His heart jammed in his throat.
On the other side of the course, Pallas was frozen. In that stricken moment of choice, Pallas could only decide whether to dodge and risk his cowardice killing a prince, or stand his ground and receive a spear to the throat. His fate was tied to Laurent’s, and unlike Damen, he had no recourse for what to do.
Laurent knew it. Like Damen, Laurent had seen it early—had seen the strut collapse, had judged the outcome. In the handful of extra seconds that this afforded him, Laurent acted without hesitation. He released his reins—and as Damen watched, as the spear flew right for him—he jumped, not out of the way, but into the path of the spear, leaping from his horse to Pallas’s, dragging them both to the left. Pallas swayed, shocked, and Laurent bodily kept him down low in the saddle. The spear sailed past them and landed in the tufted grass like a javelin.
The crowd went wild.
Laurent ignored it. Laurent reached down and neatly filched Pallas’s last spear for himself. And, keeping Pallas’s horse at a gallop—as the sounds of the crowd swelled to a crescendo—he threw it, sending it flying right into the centre of the final target.
Completing the okton one spear ahead of Pallas and of Damen, Laurent drew his horse up in a little circle, and met Damen’s gaze, his pale brows rising, as if to say, ‘Well?’
Damen grinned. He hefted the spear he had caught, and from where he was on the far side of the course, threw; let it go sailing over the full, impossible length of the field, to thunk into the target alongside Laurent’s spear, where it rested, quivering.
Pandemonium.
* * *
After, they crowned each other with laurels. They were borne to the dais by the thronging crowd, surrounded by cheers. Damen dipped his head to receive the prize from Laurent’s fingers. Laurent eschewed his gold circlet in favour of the ring of leaves.
Drink flowed. The new camaraderie was a heady ambrosia, and it was too easy to get carried away by it. There was a warmth in his chest whenever he looked at Laurent. He didn’t look often for that reason.
As the afternoon deepened into evening, they moved inward, to end the day to the accompaniment of shallow cups of Akielon wine and the soft sounds of a kithara. There was a fragile feeling of fellowship solidifying among the men, which they had needed from the beginning, and which gave him hope—real hope—for tomorrow’s campaign.
The games had been a success and that had meant something, at least. Their men would ride out unified, and if there was a crack down the centre, no one knew about it. He and Laurent were good at pretending.
Laurent took his place on one of the lounging couches like he was born to it. Damen sat alongside him. The new-lit candles illuminated the expressions of the men around them, and the evening lighting faded the rest of the hall into a pleasant, hazy gloom.
Out of the gloom came Makedon.
He was flanked by a small retinue, two soldiers in their notched belts, and an attending slave. He came straight across the hall, and stopped right in front of Laurent.
The whole room went silent. Makedon and Laurent faced one another. The silence stretched out.
‘You have the mind of a snake,’ Makedon said.
‘You have the mind of an old bull,’ said Laurent.
They stared at one another.
After a long moment, Makedon waved at the slave, who came forward with a fat-bellied bottle of Akielon spirits and two shallow cups.
‘I will drink with you,’ said Makedon.
Makedon’s expression did not change. It was like the offer of a door from an impermeable wall. Shock rippled over the room, and every eye in the hall turned to Laurent.
Damen knew the amount of pride that Makedon had swallowed to make this offer, a gesture of friendship to an indoor princeling half his age.
Laurent glanced at the wine that the slave had poured, and Damen knew with absolute certainty that if it was wine, Laurent wasn’t going to drink.
Damen braced himself for the moment when every scrap of goodwill that Laurent had garnered for himself was thrown away—as every tenet of Akielon hospitality was insulted, and Makedon swept forever out of the hall.
Laurent picked up the cup in front of him, drained it, then returned it to the table.
Makedon gave a slow nod of approval, lifted his own cup, downed it.
And said, ‘Again.’
* * *
Later, when a great many overturned cups scattered the low table, Makedon leaned forward and told Laurent he must try griva, the drink from his own region, and Laurent downed it and said it tasted like swill, and Makedon said, ‘Ha, ha, true!’ Later, Makedon told the story of his first games, when Ephagin won the okton, and the bannermen grew misty-eyed, and everyone had another drink. Later, everyone roared when Laurent was able to balance three empty cups on top of each other, while Makedon’s cups fell over.
Later, Makedon leaned in and gave Damen this serious advice: ‘You shouldn’t judge the Veretians so harshly. They drink well.’
Later, Makedon took Laurent by the shoulder and told him about the hunting in his own region, where there were no longer lions as in days of old, but still great beasts befitting a king’s hunt. Hunting reminiscences went on for several more cups and brought out a great deal of fellow feeling. Everyone was toasting lions by the time Makedon clasped Laurent by the shoulder again in a way that indicated his farewell, and rose, making for bed. The bannermen followed him, weaving.
Laurent maintained a scrupulous posture until they were all gone, his eyes dilated, his cheeks slightly flushed. Damen spread his arm over the back of his own seat and waited.
After a long moment, Laurent said, ‘I’m going to need some help standing up.’
* * *
He wasn’t expecting to receive Laurent’s full weight, but he did, a warm arm slung around his neck, and he was suddenly breathless with the feeling of Laurent in his arms. His hands came up to steady Laurent’s waist, his heart behaving strangely. It was sweetly, impossibly illicit. He felt the ache in his chest.
Damen said, ‘The Prince and I are retiring,’ and waved the lingering slaves out.
‘It’s this way,’ said Laurent. ‘Probably.’
The hall was strewn with the last bits of the gathering, wine cups and empty couches. They passed Philoctus of Eilon, sprawled out on one of them, his head on his arms, sleeping as deeply as if in his own bed. He was snoring.
‘Is today the first time you’ve been beaten in an okton?’
&nbs
p; ‘Technically, it was a draw,’ said Damen.
‘Technically. I told you I was quite good at riding. I used to beat Auguste all the time when we raced at Chastillon. It took me until I was nine to realise he was letting me win. I just thought I had a very fast pony. You’re smiling.’
He was smiling. They stood in one of the passages, wells of moonlight from the open archways to their left.
‘Am I talking too much? I can’t hold alcohol at all.’
‘I can see that.’
‘It’s my fault. I never drink. I should have realised I’d need to, with men like these, and made an effort to . . . build up some sort of tolerance . . .’ He was serious.
‘Is that how your mind works?’ said Damen. ‘And what do you mean, you never drink? I think you’re protesting a little much. You were drunk the first night I met you.’
‘I made an exception,’ said Laurent, ‘that night. Two and a half bottles. I had to force myself to get it down. I thought it would be easier drunk.’
‘You thought what would be easier?’ said Damen.
‘“What”?’ said Laurent. ‘You.’
Damen felt the hairs rise over his whole body. Laurent said it softly, and as though it was obvious, his blue eyes a little hazy, his arm still around Damen’s neck. They were gazing at one another, halted in the half-light of the passage.
‘My Akielon bed slave,’ said Laurent, ‘named for the man who killed my brother.’
Damen drew in a painful breath. ‘It’s not much further,’ he said.
They went through passages, past the high archways and the windows along the northern side with their Veretian grilles. It wasn’t unusual for two young men to wander the halls together, swaying, after a revel—even among princes—and Damen could pretend for a moment that they were what they seemed to be: brothers in arms. Friends.
