And just as he feared the worst, just as all that he had not let himself believe for the long ride began to push itself to the front of his mind, Damen saw him, drawn out of one of the mostly intact tents not six steps away, and gone still at the sight of Damen.
He was not wearing the woollen cap. His newly minted hair was uncovered, and he looked as fresh as he had emerging from the baths the night before, as he had waking beneath Damen’s hands. But he had resumed the cool restraint, his jacket laced, his expression disagreeable from the haughty profile to the intolerant blue eyes.
‘You’re alive,’ Damen said, and the words came out on a rush of relief that made him feel weak.
‘I’m alive,’ said Laurent. They were gazing at one another. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come back.’
‘I came back,’ said Damen.
Anything else that he might have said was forestalled by the arrival of Jord.
‘You missed the excitement,’ said Jord. ‘But you’re in time for the clean up. It’s over.’
‘It’s not over,’ said Damen.
And he told them what he knew.
* * *
‘We don’t have to ride though the pass,’ said Jord. ‘We can detour and find another way south. These mercenaries may have been hired to lay ambush, but I doubt they’ll follow an army through the heart of its own lands.’
They sat in Laurent’s tent. With the damage of the insurgency still awaiting his attention outside, Jord had reacted to Damen’s warning of an ambush as to a blow; he had tried to hide it but he was surprised, demoralised. Laurent had shown no reaction whatsoever. Damen tried to stop looking at Laurent. He had a hundred questions. How had he escaped his pursuers? Had it been easy? Difficult? Had he suffered any injury? Was he all right?
He could ask none of them. Instead Damen forced his eyes down to the map spread out on the table. The fight took precedence. He passed a hand over his face, sweeping away any weariness, and oriented himself in the situation. He said, ‘No. I don’t think we should detour. I think we should face them. Now. Tonight.’
‘Tonight? We’ve barely recovered from the bloodshed this morning,’ said Jord.
‘I know that. They know that. If you want to have any chance of taking them by surprise, it has to be tonight.’
He had heard from Jord the short, brutal story of the uprising within the camp. The news was bad but it was better than he had feared. It was better than it had appeared when he had first ridden into the camp.
It had begun mid-morning, in Laurent’s absence. There had been a small handful of instigators. To Damen, it seemed obvious that the uprising was planned, that the instigators were paid, and that their plan had relied on the fact that the rest of the Regent’s men, rabble-rousers, thugs and mercenaries looking for an outlet, would take the first excuse to lash out at the Prince’s men, and join in.
They would have, two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, the troop had been a rabble split into two factions. They had not developed the fledgling camaraderie that now held them together; they hadn’t been sent to their sleeping rolls night after night exhausted from trying to outdo one another at some mad, impossible exercise; finding to their surprise after they had stopped cursing their Prince’s name, how much they had enjoyed themselves.
If Govart had been in charge, it would have been pandemonium. It would have been faction against faction, the troop splintered, fractured and bearing grudges, and captained by a man who did not wish the company to survive.
Instead, the uprising had been swiftly thwarted. It had been bloody but brief. No more than two dozen men were dead. There was minor damage to tents and stores. It could have been far, far worse.
Damen thought of all the ways that this might have played out: Laurent dead, or returned to find his troop in tatters, his messenger cut down on the road.
Laurent was alive. The troop was intact. The messenger had survived. This day was a victory, except that the men didn’t feel it. They needed to feel it. They needed to fight something, and to win. He pushed the sleep-fog from his mind and tried to put that into words.
‘These men can fight. They just—need to know it. You don’t have to let the threat of attack chase you halfway across the mountains. You can stand and fight,’ he said. ‘It’s not an army, it’s a group of mercenaries small enough to camp in the hills without being noticed.’
‘They’re big hills,’ said Jord. And then: ‘If you’re right, they’re camped and watching us with scouts. The second we ride out, they’ll know it.’
‘That’s why our best chance is to do it now. We’re not expected, and we’ll have the cover of night.’
Jord was shaking his head. ‘Better to avoid the fight.’
Laurent, who had allowed this argument to develop, now with a slight gesture indicated that it should cease. Damen found that Laurent’s gaze was on him; a long, impenetrable look.
‘I prefer to think my way out of traps,’ said Laurent, ‘rather than use brute force to simply smash through.’
The words had the air of finality to them. Damen nodded and began to rise when Laurent’s cool voice stopped him.