She said, ‘We are waiting. Ancel will perform. He is popular, “in fashion.” You’ve had him.’ She didn’t wait for him to confirm this statement. ‘How was he?’
Well instructed
. Damen’s mind supplied the answer, sly as a suggestion murmured in his ear. He frowned at it. He said, ‘Adequate.’
Talik said, ‘His contract with Lord Berenger ends soon. Ancel will seek a new contract, a high bidder. He wants money, status. He is foolish. Lord Berenger may offer less money, but he is kind, and never puts pets into the ring. Ancel has made many enemies. In the ring, someone will scratch his green eyes out, an “accident.”’
Damen was drawn in against his will. ‘That’s why he’s chasing royal attention? He wants the Prince to—’ He tried out the unfamiliar vocabulary. ‘—offer for his contract?’
‘The Prince?’ said Talik, scornfully. ‘Everyone knows the Prince does not keep pets.’
‘None at all?’ said Damen.
She said, ‘You.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Perhaps the Prince has a taste for men, not these painted Veretian boys who squeal if you pinch them.’ Her tone suggested that she approved of this on general principle.
‘Nicaise,’ said Damen, since they were speaking of painted Veretian boys. ‘I was looking for Nicaise. Have you seen him?’
Talik said, ‘There.’
Across the room, Nicaise had reappeared. He was speaking into the ear of Ancel who had to bend almost in half to reach the little boy’s level. When he was done, Nicaise made straight for Damen.
‘Did the Prince send you? You’re too late,’ said Nicaise.
Too late for what?
was the reply in any court except this one.
He said, ‘If you’ve hurt any one of them—’
‘You’ll what?’ Nicaise was smirking. ‘You won’t. You don’t have time. The Regent wants to see you. He sent me to tell you. You should hurry. You’re keeping him waiting.’ Another smirk. ‘He sent me ages ago.’
Damen stared at him.
‘Well? Off you go,’ said Nicaise.
It was possibly a lie, but he couldn’t risk the offense if it wasn’t. He went.
It wasn’t a lie. The Regent had summoned him, and when he arrived, the Regent dismissed all those around him, so that Damen was alone at his chair. At the end of the softly lit hall, it was a private audience.
Around them, heavy with food and wine, the noise of the court was warm and loosened. Damen made all the deferences that protocol required. The Regent spoke.
‘I suppose it excites a slave to plunder the treasures of a prince. You have taken my nephew?’
Damen stayed very still; he tried not to disturb the air when he breathed. ‘No, Your Highness.’
‘The other way around, perhaps.’
‘No.’
‘Yet you eat out of his hand. The last time I spoke to you, you wished him flogged. How else do you account for the change?’
You won’t like my riposte
, Laurent had said.
Damen said, carefully, ‘I’m in his service. I have that lesson written on my back.’
The Regent gazed at him for a while. ‘I’m almost disappointed, if it’s no more than that. Laurent could benefit from a steadying influence, someone close to him with his best interests at heart. A man with sound judgement, who could help guide him without being swayed.’
‘Swayed?’ said Damen.
‘My nephew is charming, when he wishes it. His brother was a true leader, he could inspire extraordinary loyalty from his men. Laurent has a superficial version of his brother’s gifts, which he uses to get his own way. If anyone could have a man eating from the hand that struck him, it’s my nephew,’ said the Regent. ‘Where is your loyalty?’
And Damen understood that he was not being asked a question. He was being given a choice.
He badly wanted to step across the chasm that separated the two factions of this court: on the other side was this man who had long since won his respect. It was grittily painful for him to realise that it was not in his nature to do that—not while Laurent was acting on his behalf. If Laurent was acting on his behalf . . . even if Laurent was acting on his behalf, he had so little stomach for the drawn out game that was being played tonight. And yet.
‘I’m not the man you want,’ he said. ‘I don’t have influence over him. I’m not close to him. He has no love for Akielos, or its people.’
The Regent gave him another long, considering look.
‘You are honest. That is pleasing. As for the rest, we will see. That will do for now,’ said the Regent. ‘Go and fetch me my nephew. I prefer him not to be left alone with Torveld.’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
He wasn’t sure why it felt like reprieve, but it did.
A few inquiries made of other servants, and Damen learned that Laurent and Torveld had retreated once again to one of the balconies, escaping the stifling crush inside the palace.
Reaching the balcony, Damen slowed. He could hear the sound of their voices. He looked back at the thronging court chamber; he was out of sight of the Regent. If Laurent and Torveld were discussing trade negotiations, it would be better to delay a little, and give them whatever extra time they might need.
‘—told my advisors that I was past the age to be distracted by beautiful young men,’ he heard Torveld say, and it was suddenly eminently clear that they were not discussing trade negotiations.
It was a surprise, but on reflection, it had been happening all night. That a man of Torveld’s honourable reputation would choose Laurent as the object of his affections was difficult to swallow, but perhaps Torveld admired reptiles. Curiosity blossomed. There had been no topic that engendered more speculation than this one among courtiers and members of the Prince’s Guard alike. Damen paused, and listened.
‘And then I met you,’ said Torveld, ‘and then I spent an hour in your company.’
‘More than an hour,’ said Laurent. ‘Less than a day. I think you get distracted more easily than you admit.’
‘And you not at all?’
There was a slight pause in the rhythm of their exchange.
‘You . . . have been listening to gossip.’
‘Is it true, then?’
‘That I am—not easily courted? It can’t be the worst thing you heard about me.’
‘By far the worst, from my perspective.’
It was said warmly, and won a breath of insubstantial amusement from Laurent.
Torveld’s voice changed, as though they stood closer together. ‘I have heard a great deal of gossip about you, but I judge as I find.’
Laurent said, in the same intimate voice, ‘And what do you find?’
Damen stepped forward determinedly.
Hearing his footfall, Torveld started and looked round; in Patras, affairs of the heart—or of the body—were usually private. Laurent, reclined elegantly against the balustrade, did not react at all except to shift his gaze in Damen’s direction. They were indeed standing close together. Not quite kissing distance.
‘Your Highness, your uncle has sent for you,’ said Damen.
‘Again,’ said Torveld, a line appearing in the middle of his forehead.
Laurent detached himself. ‘He’s overprotective,’ he said. The line disappeared when Torveld looked at Laurent.
‘You took your time,’ Laurent murmured as he passed Damen.
He was left alone with Torveld. It was peaceful out here on the balcony. The court sounds were muted, as though they were very distant. Louder and more intimate were the sounds of insects in the gardens below, and the slow back and forth of greenery. At some point it occurred to Damen that he was supposed to have lowered his eyes.
Torveld’s attention was elsewhere.
‘He is a prize,’ said Torveld, warmly. ‘I’ll wager you never thought a prince could be jealous of a slave. Right now I would exchange places with you in a heartbeat.’
You don’t know him,
thought Damen.
You don’t know anything about him. You’ve known him one night.
‘I think the entertainment will begin shortly,’ Damen said.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Torveld, and they followed Laurent back to the court.
Damen had, in his life, been required to sit through many spectacles. In Vere ‘entertainment’ had taken on new meaning. When Ancel came forward holding a long stick in his hands, Damen readied himself for the kind of performance that would make the Patran delegation faint. Then Ancel touched each end of the stick to the torch in the wall bracket, and they burst into flame.
It was a kind of fire dance in which the stick was thrown and caught, and the flame, tossed and twirled, created sinuous shapes, circles and ever-moving patterns. Ancel’s red hair created a pleasing aesthetic alongside the red and orange fire. And even without the hypnotic movement of the flame, the dance was beguiling, its difficulties made to look effortless, its physicality subtly erotic. Damen looked at Ancel with new respect. This performance required training, discipline and athleticism, which Damen admired. It was the first time that Damen had seen Veretian pets display skill in anything other than wearing clothes or climbing on top of one another.
The mood was relaxed. Damen was back on the leash, being used very possibly as a chaperone. Laurent was acting with the carefully bland manners of one trying politely to manage a difficult suitor. Damen thought with some amusement: boxed in by your own cleverness. As Damen watched, Torveld’s servant produced a peach, then a knife, then cut a slice at Torveld’s instruction, offering it to Laurent, who blandly accepted. When he had finished the morsel, the servant brought forth a little cloth from his sleeve with a flourish for Laurent to clean his immaculate fingers. The cloth was transparent silk, edged in gold thread. Laurent returned it crumpled.
‘I’m enjoying the performance,’ Damen couldn’t resist saying.
‘Torveld’s servant is better supplied than you are,’ was all Laurent said.
‘I don’t have sleeves to carry handkerchiefs in,’ said Damen. ‘I wouldn’t mind being given a knife.’
‘Or a fork?’ said Laurent.
A ripple of applause and a small commotion forestalled a reply. The flame dance was finished, and something was happening at the far end of the room.
Baulking like a green colt at the rein, Erasmus was being dragged forward by a Veretian handler.
He heard a girl’s fluting voice say, ‘Since you like them so much, I thought we could watch one of the slaves from Akielos perform.’
It was Nicaise, here on the small matter of an earring.
Torveld was shaking his head, congenially enough. ‘Laurent,’ he said. ‘You’ve been swindled by the King of Akielos. That can’t be a palace slave. He isn’t showing form at all. He can’t even sit still. I think Kastor just dressed up some serving boys and shipped them off to you. Although he is pretty,’ said Torveld. And then, in a slightly different voice, ‘Very pretty.’
He was very pretty. He was exceptional even among slaves chosen to be exceptional, handpicked to be served up to a prince. Except he was clumsy and graceless and was showing no sign of training. He had finally dropped to his knees, but he looked like he was staying there only because his limbs had seized up, his hands clenched as though cramped.
‘Pretty or not, I can’t take two dozen untrained slaves back with me to Bazal,’ Torveld was saying.
Damen took Nicaise by the wrist. ‘What have you done?’
‘Let go! I haven’t done anything,’ said Nicaise. He rubbed his wrist when Damen released it. To Laurent: ‘You let him speak to his betters like that?’
‘Not to his betters,’ said Laurent.
Nicaise flushed at that. Ancel was still lazily twirling the fire stick. The flickering of the flames cast an orange light. The heat, when it came near, was surprising. Erasmus had turned white, as though about to vomit in front of everyone.
‘Stop this,’ said Damen to Laurent. ‘It’s cruel. That boy was badly burned. He’s afraid of the fire.’
‘Burned?’ said Torveld.
Nicaise said, quickly, ‘Not burned, branded. He has the scars all over his leg. They’re ugly.’
Torveld was looking at Erasmus, whose eyes were glassy and showed a kind of stupefied hopelessness. If you knew what he thought he was facing, it was hard to believe he was kneeling down waiting for it.
Torveld said, ‘Have the fire put out.’
The sudden acrid smell of smoke drowned out the Veretian perfumes. The fire was out. Summoned forward, Erasmus managed a slightly better prostration, and seemed to calm further in the presence of Laurent, which made little sense until Damen recalled that Erasmus had thought of Laurent as ‘kind’.
Torveld asked Erasmus several questions, which Erasmus answered in Patran with shy but improving form. After that, Torveld’s fingers somehow found their way to rest for a moment protectively on the top of Erasmus’s head. After that, Torveld asked Erasmus to sit beside him during the trade negotiations.
After that, Erasmus kissed Torveld’s toe, then ankle, his curls brushing against Torveld’s firm calf muscle.
Damen looked at Laurent, who had simply let all of this unfold before him. He could see what had made Torveld transfer his affections. There was a superficial resemblance between the Prince and the slave. Erasmus’s fair skin and burnished hair were the closest thing in the room to Laurent’s gold and ivory colouring. But Erasmus had something Laurent lacked: a vulnerability, a need for caring, and a yearning to be mastered that was almost palpable. In Laurent there was only a patrician coolness, and if the purity of Laurent’s profile drew the eye, Damen had the scars on his back to prove that one could look, but not touch.