‘How far did you get?’
‘Not far. A brothel somewhere in the southern quarter.’
‘Had it really been that long since Ancel?’
The gaze had taken on a lazy quality. Damen flushed.
‘I wasn’t there for pleasure. I did have one or two other things on my mind.’
‘Pity,’ said Laurent, in an indulgent tone. ‘You should have taken your pleasure while you had the chance. I am going to lock you up so tightly you won’t be able to breathe, let alone inconvenience me like this again.’
‘Of course,’ said Damen, in a different voice.
‘I told you you shouldn’t thank me,’ said Laurent.
And so they took him back into his small, familiar, over-decorated room.
It had been a long, sleepless night, and he had a pallet and cushions on which to rest, but there was a feeling in his chest that prevented sleeping. As he looked around the room, the feeling intensified. There were two arched windows along the wall to his left, with low wide sills, each covered with patterned grilles. They looked out on the same gardens as Laurent’s loggia, which he knew from the position of his room in Laurent’s apartments, not from personal observation. His chain would not stretch far enough to give him a view. He could imagine below the tumbled water and cool greenery that characterised Veretian interior courtyards. But he could not see them.
What he could see, he knew. He knew every inch of this room, every curl of the ceiling, every frond-curve of the window grille. He knew the opposite wall. He knew the unmovable iron link in the floor, and the drag of the chain, and its weight. He knew the twelfth tile which marked the limit of his movements when the chain pulled taut. It had all been exactly the same each and every day since his arrival, with a change only in the colour of the cushions on the pallet, which were whisked in and out as though from some inexhaustible supply.
Around mid-morning, a servant entered, bearing the morning meal, left him with it, and hastened away. The doors closed.
He was alone. The delicate platter contained cheeses, warm flaking breads, a handful of wild cherries in their own shallow silver dish, a pastry artfully shaped. Each item was considered, designed, so that the display of food, like everything else, was beautiful.
He threw it across the room in an expression of total violent impotent rage.
He regretted this almost as soon as he’d done it. When the servant reentered later, and white-faced with nerves began creeping around the edges of the room picking up cheese, he felt ridiculous.
Then of course Radel had to enter and view the disorder, fixing Damen with a familiar look.
‘Throw as much food as you like. Nothing will change. For the duration of the Prince’s stay at the border, you will not leave this room. The Prince’s orders. You will wash here, and dress here, and remain here. The excursions you have enjoyed to banquets, to hunts and to the baths are ended. You will not be let off that chain.’
For the duration of the Prince’s stay at the border. Damen closed his eyes briefly.
‘When does he leave?’
‘Two days hence.’
‘How long will he be gone?’
‘Several months.’
It was incidental information to Radel, who spoke the words oblivious to their effect on Damen. Radel dropped a small pile of clothing onto the ground.
‘Change.’
Damen must have shown some reaction in his expression, because Radel continued: ‘The Prince dislikes you in Veretian clothing. He ordered the offense remedied. They are clothes for civilised men.’
He changed. He picked up the clothes Radel had dropped from their little folded pile, not that there was much fabric to fold. It was back to slave garments. The Veretian clothing in which he’d escaped was removed by the servants as though it had never been.
Time, excruciatingly, passed.
That one brief glimpse of freedom made him ache for the world outside this palace. He was aware, too, of an illogical frustration: escape, he had thought, would end in freedom or death—but whatever the outcome, it would make some kind of difference. Except now he was
back here
.
How was it possible that all of the fantastical events of last night had affected no change in his circumstances at all?
The idea of being trapped inside this room for several months—
Perhaps it was natural, trapped like a fly in this filigree web, that his mind should fixate on Laurent, with his spider’s brain under the yellow hair. Last night, Damen had not given much thought to Laurent or the plot that centred on him: his mind had been filled with thoughts of escape; he’d had neither the time nor the inclination to muse on Veretian treachery.
But now he was alone with nothing to think about except the strange, bloody attack.
And so, as the sun climbed its way from morning to afternoon, he found himself remembering the three men, with their Veretian voices and Akielon knives.
These three men attacked the slave,
Laurent had said. Laurent needed no reason to lie, but why deny he’d been attacked at all? It helped the perpetrator.
He remembered Laurent’s calculating cut with the knife, and the struggle after, Laurent’s body hard with resistance, the breath in his chest drug-quickened. There were easier ways to kill a prince.
Three men, armed with weapons from Sicyon. The Akielon gift-slave brought in to be blamed. The drug, the planned rape. And Laurent, winnowing around talking. And lying. And killing.
He understood.
He felt, momentarily, as though the floor was sliding out from under him, the world rearranging itself.
It was simple and obvious. It was something he should have seen straight away—would have seen, if he had not been blinded by the need to escape. It lay before him, dark and consummate in design and intent.
There was no way out of this room, so he had to wait, and wait, and wait, until the next gorgeous platter. He gave all his thanks that the silent servant was accompanied by Radel.
He said, ‘I have to talk to the Prince.’
The last time he had made a request like this Laurent had appeared promptly, in court clothes, with brushed hair. Damen expected no less now, in these urgent circumstances, and he scrambled up from the pallet when the door was pushed open no more than an hour later.
Into his room, alone, dismissing the guards, came the Regent.
He entered with the slow strolling walk of a lord touring his lands. This time there were no councillors, no retinue, no ceremony. The overwhelming impression remained one of authority; the Regent had an imposing physical presence, and his shoulders wore the robes well. The silver shot through his dark hair and beard spoke to his experience. He was not Laurent, lounging idly on the throne. He was to his nephew as a warhorse to a show pony.
Damen made his obeisance.
‘Your Highness,’ he said.
‘You’re a man. Stand,’ said the Regent.
He did so, slowly.
‘You must be relieved that my nephew is leaving,’ said the Regent. It was not a good question to answer.
‘I’m sure he’ll do honour to his country,’ said Damen.
The Regent gazed at him. ‘You are quite diplomatic. For a soldier.’
Damen took a steadying breath. This high, the air was thin.
‘Your Highness,’ he said, submissively.
‘I wait for a real answer,’ said the Regent.
Damen made the attempt. ‘I’m—glad he does his duty. A prince should learn how to lead men before he becomes a king.’
The Regent considered his words. ‘My nephew is a difficult case. Most men would think that leadership was a quality that ran naturally in the blood of a king’s heir—not something that must be forced on him against his own flawed nature. But then, Laurent was born a second son.’
So were you
, came the thought, unbidden. The Regent made Laurent feel like a warm up. He was not here for an exchange of views, whatever it might look like. For a man of his status to visit a slave at all was unlikely and bizarre.
‘Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?’ said the Regent.
‘Your Highness. You already have the story from your nephew.’
‘Perhaps, in the confusion, there was something my nephew misunderstood, or left out,’ said the Regent. ‘He is not used to fighting, as you are.’
Damen was silent, though the urge to speak dragged at him like an undertow.
‘I know your first instinct is to honesty,’ said the Regent. ‘You will not be penalised for it.’
‘I—’ said Damen.
There was movement in the doorway. Damen shifted his gaze, almost with a guilty start.
‘Uncle,’ said Laurent.
‘Laurent,’ said the Regent.
‘Did you have some business with my slave?’
‘Not business,’ said the Regent. ‘Curiosity.’
Laurent came forward with the twinned deliberation and disinterest of a cat. It was impossible to tell how much he had overheard.
‘He isn’t my lover,’ said Laurent.
‘I’m not curious about what you do in bed,’ said the Regent. ‘I’m curious about what happened in your rooms last night.’
‘Hadn’t we settled that?’
‘Half settled. We never heard the slave’s account.’
‘Surely,’ said Laurent, ‘you wouldn’t value a slave’s word over mine?’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ said the Regent. ‘Even your tone of surprise is feigned. Your brother could be trusted. Your word is a tarnished rag. But you can rest easy. The slave’s account matches yours, as far as it goes.’
‘Did you think there was some deeper plot here?’ said Laurent.
They gazed at each other. The Regent said, ‘I only hope your time on the border will improve and focus you. I hope you will learn what you need as the leader of other men. I don’t know what else I can teach you.’
‘You keep offering me all these chances to improve myself,’ said Laurent. ‘Teach me how to thank you.’
Damen expected the Regent to reply, but he was silent, his eyes on his nephew.
Laurent said, ‘Will you come to see me off tomorrow, uncle?’
‘Laurent. You know I will,’ said the Regent.
‘Well?’ said Laurent when his uncle had left. The steady blue gaze was on him. ‘If you ask me to rescue a kitten from a tree, I’m going to refuse.’
‘I don’t have a petition. I just wanted to speak with you.’
‘Fond goodbyes?’
‘I know what happened last night,’ said Damen.
Laurent said, ‘Do you?’
It was the tone he used with his uncle. Damen drew a breath.
‘So do you. You killed the survivor before he could be interrogated,’ said Damen.
Laurent moved to the window, and sat, arranging himself on the sill. His pose was side-saddle. The fingers of one hand slid idly into the ornate grillework that covered the window. The last of the day’s sunlight lay on his hair and face like bright coins, shaped by the fretted openings. He gazed at Damen.
‘Yes,’ Laurent said.
‘You killed him because you didn’t want him interrogated. You knew what he was going to say. You didn’t want him to say it.’
After a moment: ‘Yes.’
‘I assume he was to say that Kastor sent him.’
The scapegoat was Akielon, and the weapons were Akielon: every detail had been carefully arranged to throw the blame southward. For verisimilitude, the assassins would also have been told they were agents of Akielos.
‘Better for Kastor to have friend uncle on the throne than nephew prince who hates Akielos,’ said Laurent.
‘Except that Kastor can’t afford war now, not with dissent among the kyroi. If he wanted you dead, he’d do it secretly. He’d never send assassins like this: crudely armed with Akielon weapons, announcing their provenance. Kastor didn’t hire those men.’
‘No,’ agreed Laurent.
He’d known, but to hear it was another matter, and the confirmation sent a shock down into him. In the warmth of the late afternoon, he felt himself turn cold.
‘Then . . . war was the aim,’ he said. ‘A confession like that—if your uncle heard it, he would have no choice but to retaliate. If you’d been found—’ Raped by an Akielon slave. Murdered by Akielon knives. ‘Someone is trying to provoke war between Akielos and Vere.’
‘You have to admire it,’ said Laurent, in a detached voice. ‘It’s the perfect time to attack Akielos. Kastor is dealing with factional problems from the kyroi. Damianos, who turned the tide at Marlas, is dead. And the whole of Vere would rise up against a bastard, especially one who had cut down a Veretian prince. If only my murder weren’t the catalyst, it’s a scheme I would wholeheartedly support.’
Damen stared at him, his stomach churning in distaste at the casual words. He ignored them; ignored the final honeyed tones of regret.
Because Laurent was right: the timing was perfect. Pit a galvanised Vere against a fractured, feuding Akielos, and his country would fall. Worse, it was the northern provinces that were unstable—Delpha, Sicyon—the very provinces that lay closest to the Veretian border. Akielos was a powerful military force when the kyroi were united under a single king, but if that bond dissolved, it was no more than a collection of city states with provincial armies, none of which could stand against a Veretian attack.