by C. S. Pacat
You fight them, his father had said. You don’t trust them. His father had been right. And his father had been ready.
Veretians were cowards and deceivers; they should have scattered when their duplicitous attack met the full force of the Akielon army. But for some reason they hadn’t fallen at the first sign of a real fight, they had stood firm, and shown metal, and, for hour upon hour, they had fought, until the Akielon lines had begun to slip and falter.
And their general wasn’t the King, it was the twenty-five year old Prince, holding the field.
Father, I can beat him, he’d said.
Then go, his father had said, and bring us back victory.
* * *
The field was called Hellay, and Damen knew it as a half-inch of a familiar map, studied in lamplight across from a bent golden head. Discussing the quality of the ground here with Laurent last night he had said, ‘It has not been a harsh summer. It will be grass fields, gentle for riders if we need to depart from the road.’ It turned out to be true. The grass was thick and soft on either side of them. Hills rolled out before them, flowing one into another, and there were hills also to the east.
The sun climbed the sky. They had ridden from a pre-dawn departure, but by the time they reached Hellay there was plenty of light to differentiate rise from flat, grass from sky—sky from what lay under it.
The sun was shining down on them when the crest of the southern hill detached itself: a moving line that thickened and began to glint with silver and red.
Damen, riding at the head of the column, reined in and to one side, and Laurent beside him did the same, his eyes never leaving the southern hill. The line was no longer a line, it was shapes, recognisable shapes, and Jord was calling for a troop-wide halt.
Red. Red, the colour of the Regency, scrawled over with the iconography of the border forts, growing, fluttering. These were the banners of Ravenel. Not only the banners, but men and riders, flowing over the hilltop like wine from an over-full cup, staining and darkening its slopes, and spreading.
By now, columns were visible. It was possible to roughly estimate numbers, five or six hundred riders, two lots of hundred-and-fifty-man infantry columns. Judging from what Damen had seen of the lodgings at the fort, this was in fact Ravenel’s full contingent of horse, and a lesser but substantial portion of its infantry. His own horse moved skittishly under him.
In the next moment, it seemed, the slopes to their right also grew figures, much closer—close enough to recognise the shape and livery of the men. It was the detachment that Touars had sent to Breteau, who had, a day ago, departed. Not gone, but here, waiting. Add another two hundred to the number.
Damen could feel the nervous tension of the men behind him, surrounded by colours that half of them down to their bones distrusted, and outnumbered ten to one.
Ravenel’s forces on the hill began to split into a widening v-shape.
‘They’re moving to flank us. Have they mistaken us for an enemy troop?’ said Jord, confused.
‘No,’ said Laurent.
‘There is still a path open to us, to the north,’ said Damen.
‘No,’ said Laurent.
A parcel of men detached itself from Ravenel’s main column, and began making right for them.
‘You two,’ said Laurent, and dug his heels into his horse.
Damen and Jord followed, and they rode out over the long fields of grass, to meet Lord Touars and his men.
In form and protocols, from the beginning, it was wrong. It happened sometimes between two forces that there was some parley between messengers, or meeting between principals, for final discussion of conditions or posturing before a fight. Galloping across the field, Damen felt down to his bones unease at the assertion of wartime arrangements, made worse by the size of the party they rode to meet, and the men it contained.
Laurent reined in. The party was led by Lord Touars, beside him Councillor Guion, and Enguerran, the Captain. Behind them were twelve mounted soldiers.
‘Lord Touars,’ said Laurent.
There was no preamble. ‘You have seen our forces. You will come with us.’
Laurent said, ‘I take it that since our last meeting, you have received word from my uncle.’
Lord Touars said nothing, as impassive as the cloaked, armoured riders behind him, so that it was Laurent, uncharacteristically, who had to break the silence and speak.
Laurent said, ‘Come with you to what purpose?’
Lord Touars’s scarred face was cold with contempt. ‘We know you have paid bribes to Vaskian raiders. We know you are in thrall to the Akielon, and that you have conspired with Vask to weaken your country with raids and border attacks. The good village of Breteau fell to one such raid. At Ravenel, you will be tried and executed for treason.’
‘Treason,’ said Laurent.
‘Can you deny that you have under your protection the men responsible for the attacks, and that you have coached them in an attempt to throw blame onto your uncle?’
The words fell like the blow from an axe. You can outplay him, Damen had said, but it had been long weeks since he had faced the power of the Regent. It occurred to him, chillingly, that the captured men could indeed have been coached for this moment, just not by Laurent. Laurent, who had therefore brought Touars the very rope that would hang him.
‘I can deny anything I like,’ said Laurent, ‘in the absence of proof.’
‘He has proof. He has my testimony. I saw everything.’ A rider pushed out intrusively from behind the others, shoving back the hood of his cloak as he spoke. He looked different in an aristocrat’s armour, with his dark curls primped and brushed, but the pretty mouth was familiar, like the antagonistic voice and the bellicose look in his eyes.
It was Aimeric.
Reality tilted; a hundred innocuous moments showing themselves in a different light. As understanding came like a cold weight to Damen’s stomach, Laurent was already moving—not to make some kind of polished retort—but wrenching his horse’s head around, planting his mount in front of Jord’s, and saying, ‘Go back to the troop. Now.’
Jord’s skin was blanched, as though he had just suffered a blow from a sword. Aimeric watched with his chin up, but gave Jord no particular attention. Jord’s face was stripped raw with betrayal and stricken guilt as he dragged his gaze from Aimeric and met Laurent’s hard, unrelenting eyes.
Guilt—a breach of faith that cut to the heart of their troop. How long had Aimeric been missing, and how long, out of misplaced loyalty, had Jord been covering up for him?
Damen had always thought Jord a good Captain, and he was still, in that moment: white-faced, Jord made no excuses, and demanded none from Aimeric, but did as he was ordered, in silence.
And then Laurent was alone, with only his slave beside him, and Damen felt the presence of every sword edge, every arrow tip, every soldier arrayed on the hill; and of Laurent, who lifted his cold blue eyes to Aimeric as if those things didn’t exist.
Laurent said, ‘You have me as an enemy for that. You are not going to enjoy the experience.’
Aimeric said, ‘You go to bed with Akielons. You let them fuck you.’
‘Like you let Jord fuck you?’ said Laurent. ‘Except that you really let him fuck you. Did your father tell you to do that, or was it your own inspired addition?’
‘I don’t betray my family. I’m not like you,’ said Aimeric. ‘You hate your uncle. You had unnatural feelings for your brother.’
‘At thirteen?’ From his frigid blue eyes to the tips of his polished boots, Laurent could not have looked less capable of feelings for anyone. ‘Apparently I was even more precocious than you.’
This seemed to infuriate Aimeric further. ‘You thought you were getting away with everything. I wanted to laugh in your face. I would have, if it hadn’t turned my stomach to serve under you.’
Lord Touars said, ‘You will come with us willingly, or you will come after we have subjugated your men. You have a choice.’
Laurent was silent at first. His eyes passed over the arrayed troops, the contingent of horse flanking him on two sides, and the full complement of infantry, against which his own small band, their numbers never meant for waged battle.
A trial pitting his word against Aimeric’s would be a mockery, for among these men Laurent had no good name with which to defend himself. He was in the hands of his uncle’s faction. In Arles, it would be worse, the Regent himself muddying Laurent’s reputation. Coward. No accomplishments. Unfit for the throne.
He was not going to ask his men to die for him. Damen knew that, as he knew, with a feeling like pain in his chest, that they would, if he asked them. This rabble of men, who not long ago had been divided, shiftless and disloyal, would fight to the death for their Prince, if he asked them.
‘If I submit to your soldiers, and give myself up to my uncle’s justice,’ said Laurent, ‘what happens to my men?’
‘Your crimes are not theirs. Having committed no wrongs except loyalty, they will be given their freedom and their lives. They will be disbanded, and the women will be escorted to the Vaskian border. The slave will be executed, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Laurent.
Councillor Guion spoke. ‘Your uncle would never say this to you,’ he said, reining in beside his son Aimeric. ‘So I will. Out of loyalty to your father and your brother, your uncle has treated you with leniency you never deserved. You have repaid him with scorn and contempt, with negligence in your duties, and with wanton disregard for the shame you bring to your family. That your selfish nature has led you to treason does not surprise me, but how could you betray your uncle’s trust, after the kindness that he has lavished on you?’
‘Uncle’s immoderate kindness,’ said Laurent. ‘I promise you, it was easy.’
Guion said, ‘You show no remorse at all.’
‘Speaking of negligence,’ said Laurent.
He lifted his hand. A long way behind him, two Vaskian women detached themselves from his troop and began to ride forward. Enguerran made a movement of concern, but Touars motioned him back—two women would hardly make a difference here one way or the other. At the halfway mark of their approach, you could see that one of the women’s saddles was lumped, and then you could see what it was lumped with.
‘I have something of yours. I’d chide you on your carelessness, but I’ve just had a lesson in the ways that the detritus of a troop can slip from one camp to another.’
Laurent said something in Vaskian. The woman dumped the bundle from her horse onto the dirt, as one shaking unwanted contents from a pack.
It was a man, brown-haired and lashed at the wrists and ankles like a boar to a pole after a hunt. His face was caked in dirt, except near the temple, where his hair was clumped with dried blood.
He wasn’t a clansman.
Damen remembered the Vaskian camp. There were fourteen prisoners today, when yesterday there had been ten. He looked sharply at Laurent.
‘If you think,’ said Guion, ‘that a fumbling final play with a hostage will stop or slow us from delivering to you the justice that you deserve, you are mistaken.’
Enguerran was saying, ‘It’s one of our scouts.’
‘It’s four of your scouts,’ said Laurent.
One of the soldiers leapt down from his horse and went down on one armoured knee beside the prisoner, as Touars, frowning at Enguerran, said, ‘The reports are delayed?’
‘From the east. It’s not unusual, when the terrain is this broad,’ said Enguerran.
The soldier sliced open the bindings on the prisoner’s hands and feet, and as he pulled at the gag, the prisoner lurched into a sitting position with the stupefied movements of a man fresh out of harsh bindings.
Thick-tongued, ‘My lord—a force of men to the east, riding to intercept you at Hellay—’
‘This is Hellay,’ said Councillor Guion, with sharp impatience, as Captain Enguerran looked at Laurent with a different expression.
‘What force?’ Aimeric’s sudden voice was thin and edged.
And Damen remembered a chase across a rooftop, dropping laundry on the men below while the sky above wheeled with stars—
‘Your rabble of clan alliances, or Akielon mercenaries, no doubt.’
—remembered a bearded messenger falling to his knees in an inn room—
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ said Laurent.
—remembered Laurent murmuring intimately to Torveld on a perfumed balcony, gifting him with a king’s ransom in slaves.
The scout was saying, ‘—carrying the Prince’s banners alongside the yellow of Patras—’
An ear-splitting note from the horn of one of the Vaskian women drew a returning sound, like an echo, a distant, mournful note that rang out once and then again, and again, from the east. And cresting the sprawling eastern hill, the banners appeared, along with all the glinting weapons and livery of an army.
Alone of all the men Laurent did not lift his eyes to the hilltop, but kept them trained on Lord Touars.
‘I have a choice?’ said Laurent.
You planned this! Nicaise had flung the words at Laurent. You wanted him to see!
‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘if you threw down a challenge to fight, I would not accept it?’
The Patran troops filled the eastern horizon, bright under the noonday sun.
‘My scorn and contempt,’ said Laurent, ‘are not in need of your leniency. Lord Touars, you face me in my own kingdom, you inhabit my lands, and you breathe at my pleasure. Make your own choice.’
‘Attack.’ Aimeric was looking from Touars to his father; his knuckles, clutching the reins, were white. ‘Attack him. Now, before those other men arrive, you don’t know him, he has a way of—twisting out of things—’
‘Your Highness,’ said Lord Touars. ‘I have received my orders from your uncle. They carry the full authority of the Regency.’
Laurent said, ‘The Regency exists to safeguard my future. My uncle’s authority over you is dependant on my subsequent authority over him. Without that, your duty is to break from him.’
Lord Touars said, ‘I need time to consider, and to speak again with my advisors. An hour.’
‘Go,’ said Laurent.
An order from Lord Touars, and the greeting party streamed back over the field towards their own ranks.
Laurent whirled his horse to face Damen.
‘I need you to captain the men. Take the command from Jord. It’s yours. It should have been you,’ said Laurent, ‘from the start.’ The words were hard as he spoke of Touars: ‘He is going to fight.’
‘He was wavering,’ said Damen.
‘He was wavering. Guion will hold him firm. Guion has hitched his cart to my uncle’s train, and he knows that any decision that ends with me on the throne ends with his head on the block. He will not allow Touars to back down from this fight,’ said Laurent. ‘I have spent a month playing battle games with you over a map. Your strategy in the field is better than mine. Is it better than that of the border lords of my country? Advise me, Captain.’
Damen looked again at the hills; for a moment, between two armies, he and Laurent were alone.
Laurent, with his Patran troops flanking from the east, had equal numbers and superior position. Ultimate ascendancy was a matter of holding those positions, and not falling to overconfidence, or any one of various reversal strategies.
But Lord Touars was here, exposed on the field, and Damen’s Akielon blood beat hard within him. He thought of a hundred different Akielon discourses on the impossibility of prising Veretians from their forts.
‘I can win you this battle. But if you want Ravenel . . .’ said Damen. He felt his battle instincts rise within
him at the audacity of it, to take one of the most powerful forts on the Veretian border. It was something not even his father had dared, had ever dreamed possible. ‘If you want to take Ravenel, you need to cut them off from the fort, no one in or out, no messengers, no riders, and a swift, clean victory without the disintegration of a rout. Once Ravenel gets word of what’s happened here, the defences go up. You will need to use some of the Patrans to create a perimeter, depleting the main force, then break the Veretian lines, ideally those closest to Touars himself. It will be harder.’
‘You have an hour,’ said Laurent.
‘This would have been easier,’ said Damen, ‘if you had told me earlier what to expect. In the mountains. At the Vaskian camp.’
‘I didn’t know who it was,’ said Laurent.
Like a dark flower, those words unfolded in his mind.
Laurent said, ‘You were right about him. He spent his first week here starting fights, and when that didn’t work, he got in bed with my Captain.’ His voice was inflectionless. ‘What was it, do you think, that Orlant found out, that got him skewered on Aimeric’s sword?’
Orlant, thought Damen, and suddenly felt sick.
But by that time Laurent had his heels in his horse and was galloping back to the troop.
CHAPTER 16
The mood was tense when they returned. The men were on edge, surrounded by the Regent’s banners. An hour was no time at all to make preparations. No one liked it. They released the carts, the servants, the extra horses. They armed and took up shields. The Vaskian women, whose allegiance was tentative, retreated with the carts—except two, who stayed to fight on the understanding that they would receive the horses of any men they killed.
‘The Regency,’ said Laurent, addressing the troop, ‘thought to take us outnumbered. It expected us to roll over without a fight.’
Damen said: ‘We will not let them cow us, subdue us or force us down. Ride hard. Don’t stop to fight the front line. We are going to smash them open. We are here to fight for our Prince!’
