ew strained, the pain spreading out from his back and consuming all his body, then invading his mind, which was left with no barriers or partitions that could hold against it. He forgot where he was, and who was watching him. He was unable to think, or feel anything other than his own pain.
Finally the blows stopped.
Damen took a while to realise it. Someone was untying the gag and freeing his mouth. After that, Damen became aware of himself in stages, that his chest was heaving and his hair was soaking. He unlocked his muscles and tested his back. The wave of pain that washed over him convinced him that it was much better to be still.
He thought that if his wrists were released from the restraints he would simply collapse onto his hands and knees in front of Laurent. He fought against the weakness that made him think that. Laurent. His returned awareness of the existence of Laurent arrived at the same moment that he realised that Laurent had come forward, and was now standing a single pace away, regarding him, his face wiped clean of any expression.
Damen recalled Jokaste pressing cool fingers against his bruised cheek.
‘I should have done this to you the day you arrived,’ said Laurent. ‘It’s exactly what you deserve.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Damen said. A little roughened, the words just came out. There was nothing left to keep them in check. He felt raw, as though a protective outer layer had been stripped away; the problem was that what had been exposed was not weakness but core metal. ‘You are cold-blooded and honourless. What held back someone like you?’ It was the wrong thing to say.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Laurent, in a detached voice. ‘I was curious what kind of man you were. I see we have stopped too early. Again.’
Damen tried to brace himself for another strike, and something in his mind splintered when it did not, immediately, come.
‘Your Highness, I’m not certain he’ll survive another round.’
‘I think he will. Why don’t we make a wager?’ Laurent spoke again in that cold, flat voice. ‘A gold coin says he lives. If you want to win it from me, you’ll have to exert yourself.’
Lost to pain, Damen could not have said for how long the man exerted himself, only that he did. When it was over, he was well beyond further impertinence. Blackness was threatening his vision, and it took all he had to keep it back. It was a while before he realised that Laurent had spoken, and even then for the longest time the emotionless voice didn’t connect to anything.
‘I was on the field at Marlas,’ said Laurent.
As the words penetrated, Damen felt the world reshape itself around him.
‘They wouldn’t let me near the front. I never had the chance to face him. I used to wonder what I’d say to him if I did. What I’d do. How dare any one of you speak the word honour? I know your kind. A Veretian who treats honourably with an Akielon will be gutted with his own sword. It’s your countryman who taught me that. You can thank him for the lesson.’
‘Thank who?’ Damen pushed the words out, somehow, past the pain, but he knew. He knew.
‘Damianos, the dead Prince of Akielos,’ said Laurent. ‘The man who killed my brother.’
CHAPTER 4
‘OW,’ SAID DAMEN, through gritted teeth.
‘Be still,’ said the physician.
‘You are a clumsy, poking lout,’ said Damen, in his own language.
‘And be quiet. This is a medicinal salve,’ said the physician.
Damen disliked palace physicians. During the last weeks of his father’s illness, the sickroom had thronged with them. They had chanted, muttered pronouncements, thrown divining bones into the air, and administered various remedies, but his father had only grown sicker. He felt differently about the pragmatic field surgeons who had worked tirelessly alongside the army on campaign. The surgeon who had tended him at Marlas had sewn up his shoulder with a minimum of fuss, restraining his objection to a frown when Damen got on a horse five minutes later.
The Veretian physicians were not of this ilk. It was admonitions not to move and endless instructions and dressings that were continually being changed. This physician wore a gown that reached to the floor, and a hat shaped like a loaf of bread. The salve was having absolutely no effect on his back that Damen could discern, though it smelled pleasantly of cinnamon.
It was three days since the lashing. Damen did not clearly remember being taken down off the flogging post and returned to his room. The blurry impressions that he had of the journey reassured him that he had made the trip upright. For the most part.
He did remember being supported by two of the guards, here, in this room, while Radel stared at his back in horror.
‘The Prince really . . . did this.’
‘Who else?’ Damen said.
Radel had stepped forward, and slapped Damen across the face; it was a hard slap, and the man wore three rings on each finger.
‘What did you do to him?’ Radel demanded.