‘Women,’ said Laurent.
Damen said, ‘He must find it difficult to negotiate with the Empire.’
‘Vannis is our delegate. He needs her, and he resents that he needs her, and she knows it,’ said Laurent.
‘It’s been two days,’ said Damen. ‘The news that you survived Nesson won’t have reached him yet.’
‘This wasn’t his end game,’ said Laurent. ‘That will happen at the border.’
‘You know what he’s going to do,’ said Damen.
‘I know what I would do,’ said Laurent.
* * *
Around them, the landscape started to change.
The townships and villages that they passed, speckling the hills, took on a different aspect: long, low rooftops and other architectural hints that were unmistakably Vaskian. The influence of trade with Vask was stronger than Damen had expected. And this was summer, Jord told him. The trickles of trade swelled in the warmer months, drying up in winter.
‘And the mountain clans ride these hills,’ said Jord, ‘and there’s trade with them too. Or sometimes they just take things. Everyone that rides this stretch of road takes a guard.’
The days were getting hotter, and the nights were hotter as well. They rode south, making steady progress. They were a neat column now, the front riders efficiently clearing the road, leading the occasional wagon to one side to let them ride by. They were two days out from Acquitart, and the people in this region knew their Prince, and sometimes came out to line the roads, greeting him with warm and happy expressions, which was not the way that anyone who knew Laurent greeted him.
He waited until he saw that Jord was alone, and approached him, sitting beside him on one of the scooped-out logs near the fire.
‘Have you really been a member of the Prince’s Guard for five years?’ Damen asked him.
‘Yes,’ said Jord.
‘Is that how long you’d known Orlant?’
‘Longer,’ said Jord, after a pause. Damen thought that was all he was going to say, but: ‘It’s happened before. The Prince has chucked men out of the Guard before, I mean, for being the eyes for his uncle. I thought I was used to the idea that money trumps loyalty.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s hard when it’s someone you know—a friend.’
‘He tried to put you out that one time,’ said Jord. ‘He probably figured that with you out of the way it would be easier to get to the Prince.’
‘I’d wondered about that,’ said Damen.
There was another pause.
‘I don’t think I realised until the other night that this was a killing game,’ said Jord. ‘I don’t think half of the men have realised it. He’s known, though, this whole time.’ Jord pointed his chin in the direction of Laurent’s tent.
That was true. Damen looked across at the tent.
‘He keeps close council. You shouldn’t blame him for that.’
‘I don’t. I wouldn’t fight under anyone else. If there’s anyone alive who can strike a blow that will bloody the Regent’s nose, it’s him. And if he can’t—I’m angry enough now that I’m well pleased to go out fighting,’ Jord said.
* * *
The second Vaskian woman rode into camp the following evening, and this one did not come to deliver a dress.
Damen was given an inventory of items to retrieve from the wagons, wrap up in cloth and place into the woman’s saddlebags: three finely detailed silver drinking bowls, a casket filled with spices, bolts of silks, a set of women’s jewellery and finely carved combs.
‘What are these?’
‘Gifts,’ Laurent had said.