It was not an even match at all. It was a lesson in abject public humiliation. But the one teaching the lesson, the one effortlessly outclassing his opponent, was not Govart.
‘Pick it up,’ said Laurent, the first time Govart lost his weapon.
A long line of red was visible along Govart’s sword arm. He’d given up six steps of ground, and his chest was rising and falling. He pick
ed up his sword slowly, keeping his eyes on Laurent.
There were no more anger-driven blunders, no more wrong-footed attacks or wild swings. Necessity made Govart take stock of Laurent, and face him with his best swordwork. This time when they came together, Govart fought seriously. It made no difference. Laurent fought with cool, relentless purpose, and there was an inevitability to what was happening, to the line of blood blossoming this time down Govart’s leg, to Govart’s sword lying once more in the grass.
‘Pick it up,’ said Laurent again.
Damen remembered Auguste, the strength that had held the front for hour after hour, and against which wave after wave had broken. And here fought the younger brother.
‘Thought he was a milksop,’ said one of the Regent’s men.
‘Think he’ll kill him?’ another speculated.
Damen knew the answer to that question. Laurent was not going to kill him. He was going to break him. Here, in front of everyone.
Perhaps Govart sensed Laurent’s intention, because the third time he lost his sword, his mind snapped. Throwing aside the conventions of a duel was preferable to the humiliation of a drawn-out defeat; he abandoned his sword and simply charged. This way, it was simple: if he carried the fight to the ground, he’d win. There was no time for anyone to intervene. But for someone of Laurent’s reflexes, it was enough time to make a choice.
Laurent lifted his blade and drove it through Govart’s body; not through his stomach, or chest, but through his shoulder. A slice or a shallow cut was not going to be enough to stop Govart, and so Laurent braced the hilt of his sword against his own shoulder and used the whole weight of his body to drive it in harder and stop Govart’s motion. It was a trick used in boar hunting when the spear wounded but did not kill: brace the blunt end of the spear against the shoulder, and keep the impaled boar at bay.
Sometimes a boar broke free, or snapped the wood of the spear, but Govart was a man run through with a sword and he went to his knees. It took a visible effort of muscle and sinew for Laurent to pull the sword out.
‘Strip him,’ said Laurent. ‘Confiscate his horse and his belongings. Turn him out of the keep. There is a village two miles to the west. If he wants to badly enough, he’ll survive the journey.’
He said it calmly into the silence, addressing two of the Regent’s men, both of whom moved without hesitation to obey his orders. No one else moved.
No one else. Feeling as though he was coming out of a kind of daze, Damen looked around himself at the gathered men. He looked first to the Prince’s men, instinctively expecting to see his own reaction to the fight mirrored on their faces, but instead they showed gratification coupled with a total lack of surprise. None of them had been concerned that Laurent might lose, he realised.
The response among the Regent’s men was more varied. There were signs of both satisfaction and amusement: they had perhaps enjoyed the spectacle, admired the show of skill. There was a hint of something else too, and Damen knew they were men who associated authority with strength. Perhaps they were thinking differently about their Prince and his pretty face now that he had displayed some of it.
It was Lazar who broke the stillness, tossing Laurent a cloth. Laurent caught it and wiped off his sword as a kitchenhand would wipe a carving knife. Then he sheathed it, abandoning the cloth, now bright red.
Addressing the men in a voice that carried, Laurent said: ‘Three days of poor leadership have culminated in an insult to my family’s honour. My uncle can’t have known what lay in the heart of the Captain he appointed. If he had, he would have put him in the stocks, not given him leadership over men. Tomorrow morning, there will be change. Today, we ride hard to make up wasted time.’
Noise broke out into the silence as the milling men began to speak. Laurent turned away to attend to other business, pausing by Jord and transferring to him the captaincy. He placed a hand on Jord’s arm and murmured something too quiet to hear, after which Jord nodded and began giving orders.
And it was done. Blood pumped from Govart’s shoulder, reddening his shirt, which was stripped from him. Laurent’s unsparing commands were carried out.
Lazar, who had thrown Laurent the cloth, didn’t look as though he was going to be mouthing off about Laurent again. In fact, the new way he was looking at Laurent reminded Damen unmistakably of Torveld. Damen frowned.
His own reaction had him feeling oddly off balance. It was just that it was—unexpected. He had not known this about Laurent, that he was trained like this, capable like this. He wasn’t sure why he felt as though something, fundamentally, had changed.
The brown-haired woman picked up her heavy skirts, walked over to Govart, and spat on the ground beside him. Damen’s frown deepened.
The advice of his father came back to him: never to take your eyes off a wounded boar; that once you engaged an animal in the hunt, you must fight it to the finish, and that when a boar was wounded, that was when it was the most dangerous animal of all.
That thought nagged at him.
* * *
Laurent sent four riders galloping to Arles with the news. Two of the riders were members of his own guard, one was of the Regent’s men, and the last was an attendant from Baillieux Keep. All four had witnessed with their own eyes the events of the morning: that Govart had insulted the royal family, that the Prince, in his infinite goodness and fairness, had offered Govart the honour of a duel, and that Govart, having been fairly disarmed, had broken the rules of engagement and attacked the Prince intending to do him harm, a vile act thick with treason. Govart had been justly punished.
In other words, the Regent was to be informed that his Captain had been well and truly turned off, in a manner that could not be painted as a revolt against the Regency, or as princely disobedience, or as lazy incompetence. Round one: Laurent.
They rode in the direction of Vere’s eastern border with Vask, which was bounded by mountains. They would make camp in the foothills at a keep called Nesson, and after that they would turn and make their wiggly way south. The combined effects of the cathartic violence of the morning and Jord’s pragmatic orders were already reverberating through the troop. There were no stragglers.