by C. S. Pacat
* * *
Clothes were difficult. Laces eluded him. He decided, after a few attempts, that he did not require his shirt. It was taking all his attention to hold his pants up.
Laurent was asleep when Damen found his way to the correct tent, but he stirred in the furs when the tent flap opened, his golden lashes fluttering, then lifting. When he saw Damen, he pushed himself up on one arm and gave a single wide-eyed blink.
Then, soundlessly, behind the press of a hand, he started helplessly laughing.
Damen said, ‘Stop. If I laugh, I’ll fall over.’
Damen squinted at a separate fur pile near Laurent’s, then made his best attempt: he wove, reached and then collapsed down onto it. This seemed the pinnacle of accomplishment. He rolled over on his back. He was smiling.
‘Halvik had a lot of girls,’ he said.
The words came out sounding like he felt, sated and sex-drenched, exhausted and happy. The furs were warm around him. He was blissfully drowsy, moments away from sleep.
He said, ‘Stop laughing.’
When he turned his head to look, Laurent was lying on his side, head propped on one hand, gazing at him, eyes bright.
‘This is instructive. I’ve seen you put half a dozen men in the dirt without breaking a sweat.’
‘Not right now, I couldn’t.’
‘I can see that. You’re relieved of your regular duties in the morning.’
‘That’s nice of you. I can’t get up. I’ll just lie here. Or did you need something?’
‘Oh, how did you know?’ said Laurent. ‘Take me to bed.’
Damen groaned and found himself laughing after all, in the moment before he pulled the furs over his head. He heard a final sound of amusement from Laurent, and that was all he heard before sleep reached up and claimed him.
* * *
The ride back through the dawn was easy and pleasant. The sky was clear of clouds, and the rising sun was bright; it was going to be a beautiful day. Damen was in good spirits and happy to ride in contented silence. They were abreast, part-way to Acquitart before he thought to ask:
‘Your negotiations went well?’
‘We certainly left in possession of a great deal of new goodwill.’
‘You should do business with the Vaskians more often.’
His cheerfulness shone in this statement. There was a pause. Eventually, and with an odd hesitancy, Laurent asked, ‘Is it different than with a man?’
‘Yes,’ said Damen.
It was different with everyone. He didn’t say this aloud; it was self-evident. For a moment he thought Laurent was on the verge of asking him something more, but Laurent just kept looking at him, a long, unselfconsciously studying look, and said nothing at all.
Damen said, ‘Are you curious about it? Isn’t it supposed to be taboo?’
‘It is taboo,’ said Laurent.
There was another pause.
‘Bastards curse the line, and sour the milk, ruin the crops, and drag the sun out of the sky. But they don’t bother me. I pick all my fights with true-born men. You should probably bathe,’ said Laurent, ‘when we return.’
Damen, who agreed wholeheartedly with this last statement, went to do so as soon as they got back. They entered Laurent’s chamber by means of a part-hidden passage that was so narrow, Damen had to put a great deal of effort into squeezing himself through. When he pushed out of the door to Laurent’s rooms and into the hallway, he found himself face to face with Aimeric.
Aimeric stopped short and stared at Damen. Then he looked at Laurent’s door. Then back at Damen. Damen realised he was still radiating his good mood, and probably looked as if he had fucked all night and then crawled through a passage. He had.
‘We knocked and there was no answer,’ said Aimeric. ‘Jord sent men to find you.’
‘Is there some delay?’ said Laurent, appearing in the doorway.
Laurent was coolly immaculate from top to toe; unlike Damen, he looked fresh and well rested, with not a hair out of place. Aimeric was staring again.
Then, gathering his attention back together, Aimeric said, ‘The news came an hour ago. There’s been an attack on the border.’
CHAPTER 11
Ravenel was not built to be welcoming to strangers. As they rode through the gates, Damen felt its might and its power. If the stranger was a shirker-prince who was gracing the border only because he’d been prodded and poked there by his uncle, it was less welcoming still. The courtiers who had gathered on the dais in Ravenel’s great courtyard had the same stony outward appearance as Ravenel’s repelling crenellations. If the stranger was Akielon, the reception was hostile: when Damen followed Laurent up the dais steps, the wave of anger and resentment at his presence was almost palpable.
He had never in his life thought that he would find himself standing inside Ravenel, that the huge portcullis would lift, the massive wooden doors would be unlatched and thrown open, allowing him to pass inside the walls. His father Theomedes had instilled in him respect for the great Veretian forts. Theomedes had ended his campaign at Marlas; to take Ravenel and push north would have meant an extended siege, an enormous allocation of resources. Theomedes had been too wise to embark on an expensive, drawn-out campaign that could lose support from the kyroi, destabilising his kingdom.
Fortaine and Ravenel had remained untouched: the dominant military powers of the region.
Conspicuous and powerful, they required that their Akielon counterparts be equally armed and constantly buffered in numbers. The result on the border was a tense bristle of garrisons, and an abundance of fighters who were not technically at war, but who had never been truly at peace. Too many soldiers and not enough fights: the gathering violence was not diffused by the minor raids and skirmishes that each side disavowed. It was not diffused by the formal challenges and fights, organised and official, with rules and refreshments and spectators that allowed both sides, smilingly, to kill each other.
A prudent ruler would want a seasoned diplomat overseeing this fraught standoff, not Laurent, who had arrived like a wasp at an outdoor feast, annoying everybody.
‘Your Highness. We were expecting you two weeks ago. But we were glad to hear that you enjoyed the inns of Nesson,’ said Lord Touars. ‘Perhaps we can find you something equally entertaining to do here.’
Lord Touars of Ravenel had the shoulders of a soldier and a scar that ran from the corner of one eyelid all the way down to his mouth. He stared at Laurent flatly as he spoke. Beside him, his eldest son Thevenin, a pale, pudgy boy of perhaps nine years, was staring at Laurent with the same expression.
Behind that, the rest of the courtly greeting party stood unmoving. Damen could feel the eyes on him, heavy and unpleasant. These were border men and women, who had been fighting Akielos their whole lives. And each of them was charged with the news that they had heard this morning: an Akielon attack had destroyed the village of Breteau. There was war in the air.
‘I am not here to be entertained, but to hear the reports of the attack that crossed my borders this morning,’ said Laurent. ‘Assemble your captains and advisors in the great hall.’
It was usual for arriving guests to first rest and change out of their riding clothes, but Lord Touars made an acceding gesture, and the gathered courtiers began to progress inwards. Damen made to leave with the soldiers, and was surprised by Laurent’s curt order: ‘No. Follow me inside.’
Damen glanced again at the armoured walls. It was not the time for Laurent to exercise his tendentious instincts. At the entrance to the great hall a liveried servant stepped into their path, and with a shallow bow said, ‘Your Highness, Lord Touars prefers that the Akielon slave does not come into the hall.’
‘I prefer that he does,’ was all Laurent said, pacing forward, and leaving Damen no choice but to follow.
It had not been an entry into a town such as a p
rince would usually make, with a parade, and entertainments and days of feasts hosted by the lord. Laurent had ridden in at the head of his troop without any other spectacle, though people had come into the streets nonetheless, craning for a glimpse of a bright gold head. Any antipathy the commons might have felt towards Laurent had disappeared the moment they saw him. Ecstatic adoration. It had been that way in Arles, in all of the towns they had passed through. The golden prince was at his best when viewed from sixty paces, out of spitting range of his nature.
Since the entry, Damen’s eyes had been on Ravenel’s fortifications. Now he took in the dimensions of the great hall. It was massive, and built for defence, its doors two storey high, a place in which the whole of the garrison could be called together to receive orders and from which they could rapidly be directed simultaneously upon every point of the enceinte. It could also function as a point of retreat, if the walls were forced. Of troops stationed in this fort, Damen guessed there were perhaps two thousand in total. It was more than enough to crush Laurent’s contingent of one hundred and seventy-five horse. If they had ridden into a trap, they were already dead.
The next shoulder that interposed itself in his path had an armoured shoulderpiece and a cape attached to it. The cape was of an aristocrat’s quality. The man who wore the cape spoke.
‘An Akielon has no place in the company of men. Your Highness will understand.’
‘Is my slave making you nervous?’ said Laurent. ‘I can understand that. It takes a man to handle him.’
‘I know how to handle Akielons. I don’t invite them indoors.’
‘This Akielon is a member of my household,’ said Laurent. ‘Step back, Captain.’
The man stepped back. Laurent took his seat at the head of the long wooden table. Lord Touars sat in the lesser position to his right. Damen knew some of these men by reputation. The man in the armoured shoulderpiece and cape was Enguerran, Lord Touars’s troop commander. Further down the table was the advisor Hestal. The nine-year-old son Thevenin was joining them also.
Damen was not given a seat. He stood behind Laurent and to the left, and watched as another man entered—a man Damen knew very well, though this was the first time Damen had ever faced him standing, having been trussed up on every other occasion.
It was the Ambassador to Akielos, who was also Councillor to the Regent, Lord of Fortaine, and Aimeric’s father.
‘Councillor Guion,’ said Laurent.
Guion did not greet Laurent, but simply let the distaste on his face show plainly as his eyes passed over Damen.
‘You have brought a beast to the table. Where is the Captain your uncle appointed you?’
‘I stuck my sword through his shoulder, then had him stripped and run out of the company,’ said Laurent.
A pause. Councillor Guion regrouped. ‘Your uncle knows of this?’
‘That I spayed his dog? Yes. I think we have more important things to speak of?’
As the silence stretched out, it was Captain Enguerran who simply said, ‘You are correct.’
They began to discuss the attack.
Damen had heard the first reports alongside Laurent in Acquitart that morning. Akielons had destroyed a Veretian village. That was not what had made him angry. The Akielon attack was retaliation. The day before, a border raid had swept through an Akielon village. The familiarity of being angry with Laurent had sustained him through several exchanges. Your uncle paid raiders to cut down an Akielon village. ‘Yes.’ People are dead. ‘Yes.’ Did you know this would happen? ‘Yes.’
Laurent had said to him calmly, ‘You knew my uncle wanted to provoke conflict at the border. How else did you think he was going to do it?’ At the end of those exchanges, there had been nothing left to do but get on his horse and ride to Ravenel, spending the ride with his gaze fixed on the back of a yellow head that was infuriatingly not to blame for these attacks, no matter how much he wanted to think so.
In those initial reports at Acquitart, they had not been told the size and extent of the Akielon retaliation. It had begun before dawn. It was no small band of attackers, nor was it a strike that tried to disguise itself. It was an Akielon troop, full sized, armed and armoured, claiming retribution for a raid on one of their own villages. By the time the sun rose, they had slaughtered several hundred in the village of Breteau, among them Adric and Charron, two members of minor nobility who had detoured their small retinue from a camp a mile or so off to fight to protect the villagers. The Akielon raiders lit fires, they killed livestock. They killed men and women. They killed children.
It was Laurent who, at the end of the first round of discussion, said, ‘An Akielon village was also attacked?’ Damen looked at him in surprise.
‘There was an attack. It was not of this scale. It was not done by us.’
‘Who was it done by?’
‘Raiders, mountain clans, it hardly matters. Akielons will take any excuse to spill blood.’
‘So you have not tried to find out the perpetrator of the original attack?’ said Laurent.
Lord Touars said, ‘If I did find him, I would shake his hand, and send him on his way with my thanks for his killings.’
Laurent tipped his head back on the chair and looked at Touars’s son Thevenin.
‘Is he that lenient with you?’ Laurent said to Thevenin.
‘No,’ said Thevenin, incautiously. And then he flushed, finding his father’s black eyes on him.
‘The Prince is light in his manner,’ said Councillor Guion, with his eyes on Damen, ‘and does not seem to like to blame Akielos for any wrongdoing.’
‘I don’t blame insects for buzzing when someone kicks their hive over,’ said Laurent. ‘I find myself curious about who it is that wants to see me stung.’
Another pause. Lord Touars’s gaze flickered coldly to Damen, then back again. ‘We will not discuss this further in the presence of an Akielon. Send him out.’
‘Out of respect to Lord Touars, leave us,’ said Laurent, without turning around.
Laurent had made his point earlier. Now he had more to gain by asserting his authority in Damen’s direction. This was a meeting that might spark a war—or stop one, Damen told himself. This was a meeting that might determine the future of Akielos. Damen bowed, and did as he was told.
* * *
Outside, he walked the length of the fort, throwing off the sticky feel of the Veretian web of politics and manoeuvring.
Lord Touars wanted a fight. Councillor Guion was openly warmongering. He tried not to think that the future of his country now came down to Laurent, talking.
He understood that these border lords represented the heart of the Regent’s faction. They were of his generation. They would have spent the last six years receiving his favours. And with land here on the border they had the most to lose from the uncertain leadership of a young, untried prince.
As he walked, he let his eyes pass over the walls of the fort. Ravenel’s Captain had them manned in meticulous formation. He saw excellent sentry postings and well-organised defences.
‘You. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m part of the Prince’s Guard. I’m returning to the barracks on his orders.’
‘You’re on the wrong side of the fort.’
Damen let his brows rise on a wide-eyed expression, and pointed. ‘That’s west?’
The soldier said, ‘That’s west.’ A gesture to one of the soldiers nearby. ‘Escort this man to the barracks where the Prince’s men are stationed.’ In the next moment, a firm grip on his upper arm.
He was steered with personal attention all the way to the entry to the barracks, where he was deposited in front of Huet, who was on watch. ‘Keep him from wandering off again.’
Huet grinned. ‘Lose your way?’
‘Yes.’
The grin continued. ‘Too tired to concentrate?’
‘I see.’ Grin.
And, of course, there was this. From Aimeric, growing in the retelling since this morning, had risen a very particular tale. Damen had been receiving grins and slaps on the back all day. Laurent was the recipient meanwhile of newly appreciative looks. Laurent had risen yet another notch in the esteem of the men, now that they understood that whatever they had previously assumed of his habits in bed, the Prince clearly galloped his barbarian slave under a tight rein.
Damen ignored it. It was not the time for trivial matters.
Jord looked surprised to see him returned so quickly, but said that Paschal had asked for someone to be assigned to him, which should suit Damen, since the Prince would likely be all night, knocking sense into hard border heads.
He should have realised, before he walked into the long room, what he’d been sent to do.
‘Jord sent you?’ said Paschal. ‘He has a sense of irony.’
‘I can go,’ said Damen.
‘No. I asked for someone with strong arms. Boil some water.’
He boiled water and brought it to Paschal, who was engaged in the business of holding men together after they had been cut apart.
Damen kept his mouth shut and simply performed the tasks as Paschal directed. One of the men had his clothes folded open over a wound to his shoulder, too near the neck. Damen recognised the diagonal downward slice that Akielons practised to take advantage of limitations in Veretian armour.
Paschal talked as he worked.
‘A few lowborn survivors from Adric’s retinue were recognised, and brought back. A journey of miles bouncing around on a litter. It brought them the services of the fort physicians, who have done, as you can see, very little. The lowborn who are not soldiers get the least patching. Bring me that knife. Is your stomach as strong as your arms? Hold him down. Like this.’
Damen had seen physicians at work before. As a commander he had done the rounds of the injured. He had also some rudimentary field knowledge of his own, taught to him in case he should ever find himself wounded and separated from his men, which as a boy had been a thrilling prospect, though it had not, in those days, ever been likely. Tonight was the first night he had ever worked alongside a physician trying to keep life inside of men. It was ceaseless, involved and physical.
