‘Shall I let him run wild, wrecking treaties, destroying lives? Warmongering? This is my fault. I have been too lenient.’
‘You have my support,’ said Guion.
Audin was nodding slowly. ‘The Council will stand behind you, when they hear word of this. But perhaps we should discuss these matters elsewhere?’
Damen watched the men depart. Long term peace with Akielos was obviously something that the Regent was working hard to bring about. The part of Damen that did not wish to raze to the ground the cross, the ring, and the palace containing them, reluctantly acknowledged that goal as admirable.
The physician returned, and fussed, and servants came to make him comfortable, and then departed. And Damen was left alone in his rooms to think about the past.
The battle of Marlas six years ago had ended with twinned, bloody successes for Akielos. An Akielon arrow, a stray lucky arrow on the wind, had taken the Veretian King in the throat. And Damen had killed the Crown Prince, Auguste, in single combat on the northern front.
The battle had turned on Auguste’s death. The Veretian forces had quickly fallen into disarray, the death of their prince a staggering, dispiriting blow. Auguste had been a beloved leader, an indomitable fighter and an emblem of Veretian pride: he had rallied his men after the death of the King; he had lead the charge that decimated the Akielon northern flank; he had been the point on which wave after wave of Akielon fighters had broken.
‘Father, I can beat him,’ Damen had said, and receiving his father’s blessing he had ridden out from behind the lines and into the fight of his life.
Damen hadn’t known that the younger brother had been on the field. Six years ago, Damen had been nineteen. Laurent would have been—thirteen, fourteen? It was young to fight in a battle like Marlas.
It was too young to inherit. And with the Veretian King dead, and the Crown Prince dead, the King’s brother had stepped in as Regent, and his first act had been to call parley, accepting the terms of surrender, and ceding to Akielos the disputed l
ands of Delpha, which the Veretians called Delfeur.
It was the reasonable act of a reasonable man; in person, the Regent seemed similarly levelheaded and sensible, though afflicted with an intolerable nephew.
Damen did not know why his mind was returning to the fact of Laurent’s presence on the field that day. There was no fear of discovery. It was six years ago, and Laurent had been a boy, who by his own admission had been nowhere near the front. Even if that were not the case, Marlas had been chaos. Any glimpse of Damen would have been early in the battle, with Damen in full armour, including helm—or if by some miracle he had been seen later, shield and helm lost, by that time Damen had been covered in mud and blood and fighting for his life as they all had been.
But if he were recognised: every man and woman in Vere knew the name of Damianos, prince-killer. Damen had known how dangerous it would be for him if his identity were discovered; he had not known how near to discovery he had come, and by the very person who had the most cause to want him dead. All the more reason why he had to get free of this place.
You have a scar, Laurent had said.
‘What did you tell the Regent?’ Radel demanded. The last time Radel had looked at him like that, he’d lifted his hand and hit Damen, hard. ‘You heard me. What did you tell him about the lashing?’
‘What should I have told him?’ Damen gazed back at him calmly.
‘What you should have done,’ said Radel, ‘is shown loyalty to your Prince. In ten months—’
‘—he will be King,’ said Damen. ‘Until then, aren’t we subject to the rule of his uncle?’
There was a long, cold pause.
‘I see it has not taken you long to learn how to make your way here,’ Radel said.
Damen said, ‘What has happened?’
‘You have been summoned to court,’ said Radel. ‘I hope you can walk.’
With that, a parade of servants entered the room. The preparations that they began eclipsed any Damen had experienced, including those that had been made before the ring.
He was washed, pampered, primped and perfumed. They carefully skirted his healing back but oiled everywhere else, and the oil they used contained gold pigment, so that his limbs gleamed in the torchlight like those of a golden statue.
A servant approached with a series of three small bowls and a delicate brush, and brought his face close to Damen’s, gazing at his features with an expression of concentration, the brush poised. The bowls contained paint for his face. He had not had to suffer the humiliation of paint since Akielos. The servant touched the paint-wet brush-tip to skin, gilt paint to line his eyes, and Damen felt the cold thickness of it on his lashes, and cheeks, and lips.
This time Radel did not say, ‘No jewellery,’ and four enamelled silver caskets were brought into the room and thrown open. From their gleaming contents, Radel made several selections. The first was a series of fine, near-invisible strings, on which hung tiny rubies spaced at intervals; they were woven into Damen’s hair. Then gold for his brow and gold for his waist. Then a leash, snapped onto the collar. The leash was gold too, a fine gold chain, terminating in a golden rod for his handler, the cat carved at one end holding a garnet in its mouth. Much more of this and he was going to clank as he walked.
But there was more. There was a final piece; another fine gold chain looped between twin gold devices. Damen didn’t recognise what it was until a servant stepped forward and snapped the nipple clamps in place.
He jerked away—too late, besides which it only took a jab to his back to send him to his knees. As his chest rose and fell, the little chain swayed.
‘The paint’s smudged,’ said Radel to one of the servants, after assessing Damen’s body and face. ‘There. And there. Reapply it.’