‘Yes,’ said Damen.
It was different with everyone. He didn’t say this aloud; it was self-evident. For a moment he thought Laurent was on the verge of asking him something more, but Laurent just kept looking at him, a long, unselfconsciously studying look, and said nothing at all.
Damen said, ‘Are you curious about it? Isn’t it supposed to be taboo?’
‘It is taboo,’ said Laurent.
There was another pause.
‘Bastards curse the line, and sour the milk, ruin the crops, and drag the sun out of the sky. But they don’t bother me. I pick all my fights with true-born men. You should probably bathe,’ said Laurent, ‘when we return.’
Damen, who agreed wholeheartedly with this last statement, went to do so as soon as they got back. They entered Laurent’s chamber by means of a part-hidden passage that was so narrow, Damen had to put a great deal of effort into squeezing himself through. When he pushed out of the door to Laurent’s rooms and into the hallway, he found himself face to face with Aimeric.
Aimeric stopped short and stared at Damen. Then he looked at Laurent’s door. Then back at Damen. Damen realised he was still radiating his good mood, and probably looked as if he had fucked all night and then crawled through a passage. He had.
‘We knocked and there was no answer,’ said Aimeric. ‘Jord sent men to find you.’
‘Is there some delay?’ said Laurent, appearing in the doorway.
Laurent was coolly immaculate from top to toe; unlike Damen, he looked fresh and well rested, with not a hair out of place. Aimeric was staring again.
Then, gathering his attention back together, Aimeric said, ‘The news came an hour ago. There’s been an attack on the border.’
CHAPTER 11
Ravenel was not built to be welcoming to strangers. As they rode through the gates, Damen felt its might and its power. If the stranger was a shirker-prince who was gracing the border only because he’d been prodded and poked there by his uncle, it was less welcoming still. The courtiers who had gathered on the dais in Ravenel’s great courtyard had the same stony outward appearance as Ravenel’s repelling crenellations. If the stranger was Akielon, the reception was hostile: when Damen followed Laurent up the dais steps, the wave of anger and resentment at his presence was almost palpable.
He had never in his life thought that he would find himself standing inside Ravenel, that the huge portcullis would lift, the massive wooden doors would be unlatched and thrown open, allowing him to pass inside the walls. His father Theomedes had instilled in him respect for the great Veretian forts. Theomedes had ended his campaign at Marlas; to take Ravenel and push north would have meant an extended siege, an enormous allocation of resources. Theomedes had been too wise to embark on an expensive, drawn-out campaign that could lose support from the kyroi, destabilising his kingdom.
Fortaine and Ravenel had remained untouched: the dominant military powers of the region.
Conspicuous and powerful, they required that their Akielon counterparts be equally armed and constantly buffered in numbers. The result on the border was a tense bristle of garrisons, and an abundance of fighters who were not technically at war, but who had never been truly at peace. Too many soldiers and not enough fights: the gathering violence was not diffused by the minor raids and skirmishes that each side disavowed. It was not diffused by the formal challenges and fights, organised and official, with rules and refreshments and spectators that allowed both sides, smilingly, to kill each other.
A prudent ruler would want a seasoned diplomat overseeing this fraught standoff, not Laurent, who had arrived like a wasp at an outdoor feast, annoying everybody.
‘Your Highness. We were expecting you two weeks ago. But we were glad to hear that you enjoyed the inns of Nesson,’ said Lord Touars. ‘Perhaps we can find you something equally entertaining to do here.’
Lord Touars of Ravenel had the shoulders of a soldier and a scar that ran from the corner of one eyelid all the way down to his mouth. He stared at Laurent flatly as he spoke. Beside him, his eldest son Thevenin, a pale, pudgy boy of perhaps nine years, was staring at Laurent with the same expression.
Behind that, the rest of the courtly greeting party stood unmoving. Damen could feel the eyes on him, heavy and unpleasant. These were border men and women, who had been fighting Akielos their whole lives. And each of them was charged with the news that they had heard this morning: an Akielon attack had destroyed the village of Breteau. There was war in the air.
‘I am not here to be entertained, but to hear the reports of the attack that crossed my borders this morning,’ said Laurent. ‘Assemble your captains and advisors in the great hall.’
It was usual for arriving guests to first rest and change out of their riding clothes, but Lord Touars made an acceding gesture, and the gathered courtiers began to progress inwards. Damen made to leave with the soldiers, and was surprised by Laurent’s curt order: ‘No. Follow me inside.’
Damen glanced again at the armoured walls. It was not the time for Laurent to exercise his tendentious instincts. At the entrance to the great hall a liveried servant stepped into their path, and with a shallow bow said, ‘Your Highness, Lord Touars prefers that the Akielon slave does not come into the hall.’
‘I prefer that he does,’ was all Laurent said, pacing forward, and leaving Damen no choice but to follow.
It had not been an entry into a town such as a p
rince would usually make, with a parade, and entertainments and days of feasts hosted by the lord. Laurent had ridden in at the head of his troop without any other spectacle, though people had come into the streets nonetheless, craning for a glimpse of a bright gold head. Any antipathy the commons might have felt towards Laurent had disappeared the moment they saw him. Ecstatic adoration. It had been that way in Arles, in all of the towns they had passed through. The golden prince was at his best when viewed from sixty paces, out of spitting range of his nature.
Since the entry, Damen’s eyes had been on Ravenel’s fortifications. Now he took in the dimensions of the great hall. It was massive, and built for defence, its doors two storey high, a place in which the whole of the garrison could be called together to receive orders and from which they could rapidly be directed simultaneously upon every point of the enceinte. It could also function as a point of retreat, if the walls were forced. Of troops stationed in this fort, Damen guessed there were perhaps two thousand in total. It was more than enough to crush Laurent’s contingent of one hundred and seventy-five horse. If they had ridden into a trap, they were already dead.
The next shoulder that interposed itself in his path had an armoured shoulderpiece and a cape attached to it. The cape was of an aristocrat’s quality. The man who wore the cape spoke.
‘An Akielon has no place in the company of men. Your Highness will understand.’