CHAPTER 15
Long before dawn, he was awake.
There were duties to be performed, inside the tent and out of it. Before he got up and performed them, he lay for a long time with an arm on his forehead, his shirt strewn open, the bedding on his pallet loose around him, staring up at long, hanging folds of twilled silk.
Outside, when he went outside, any signs of activity were not yet those of waking, but an extension of work that continued in a camp throughout the night: men tending to torches and campfires, the silent pacing of the watch, scouts dismounting and reporting to their night-commanders, who were also awake.
For himself, he began his early work readying Laurent’s armour, laying out each piece, pulling hard on each strap, checking each rivet. The intricate worked metal with its fluted edges and decorative borders was as familiar to him as his own. He had learned how to handle Veretian armour.
He turned to the inventory he must make of weapons: check each blade was immaculately free of nicks and marks; check the hilts and pommels were smooth of anything that could catch or impede; check that there was no change in balance that could even for a moment disconcert the man wielding it.
Returning, he found the tent empty. Laurent had left on some early business. The camp around him was still dark-shrouded, with closed tents, in blissful sleep. The men, he knew, were anticipating riding into Ravenel to the same kind of approbation with which Laurent had ridden into their own camp: cheers for the men who brought in the offenders on a rope.
Truthfully, Damen found it difficult to imagine how exactly Laurent would use his prisoners to coax Lord Touars down from a fight. Laurent was good at talking, but men like Touars had very little patience for talking. Even if the Veretian border lords could be persuaded, Nikandros’s commanders were rattling their swords. More than rattling them. There had been attacks on both sides of the border, and Laurent had seen the movements of the Akielon forces with his own eyes, as Damen had.
A month ago, he would have expected, much like the men, that the prisoners would be dragged before Touars, the truth loudly proclaimed, the Regent’s dealings exposed before all. Now . . . Damen could just as easily envisage Laurent denying any knowledge of the culprit, letting Touars find his own way to the Regent—could practically see Laurent’s blue-eyed feigned concern for the truth, followed by his blue-eyed feigned surprise when it was revealed. The search itself would work as a delaying tactic, would draw things out, would take its own time.
Deception and double dealing; it seemed sufficiently Veretian. He even thought, if Laurent held to his purpose, it could be done.
And then? The exposure of the Regent, culminating in the night Laurent came to him and freed him with his own hands?
Damen found himself past the edges of the tent rows, with Breteau forever silent behind him. Soon the dawn would come, the first sounds from the throats of birds, the sky growing lighter, the stars fading as the sun came up. He closed his eyes, feeling his chest rise and fall.
Because it was impossible, he allowed himself to imagine, just once, what it would be like to face Laurent as a man . . . if there had been no animosity between their countries, Laurent journeying to Akielos as part of an embassy, Damen’s attention superficially caught by the blond hair. They’d attend banquets and sports together, and Laurent . . . he had seen Laurent with those he cultivated, charming and edged without being lethal; and he was honest enough with himself to admit that if he had encountered Laurent in that mode, all golden lashes and needling remarks, he might well have found himself in some danger.
His eyes came open. He heard the sound of riders.
Following the sound, he pushed through the trees and found himself right on the edge of the Vaskian camp. Two women riders had just pounded in on lathered horses, and another was leaving. He remembered that Laurent had spent some time in negotiations and dealings with the Vaskians last night. He remembered that no men were supposed to come here, just as a spearpoint appeared in his path, held steady.
He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. The woman holding the spear didn’t run him through with it. Instead, she gave him a long speculative look, then gestured him forward. Spear at his back, he came into the camp.
Unlike Laurent’s camp, the Vaskian camp was active. The women were already awake, and were seeing to the business of untying their fourteen prisoners from their nighttime bonds and retying them for the coming day. And something else was occupying their attention. Damen saw that he was being taken towards Laurent, deep in dialogue with the two riders who had dismounted and were standing beside their exhausted horses. When Laurent saw him, he concluded his business, and approached. The woman with the spear had vanished.
Laurent said, ‘I’m afraid you don’t have time.’
The tone was limpid. Damen said, ‘Thank you, but I came because I heard the horses.’
Laurent said, ‘Lazar said he came because he took a wrong turning.’
There was a pause, in which Damen discarded several replies. Eventually, matching Laurent’s tone, ‘I see. You prefer privacy?’
‘I couldn’t if I wanted to. A batch of blond Vaskians really would get me disinherited. I’ve never,’ said Laurent, ‘with a woman.’
‘It’s very pleasurable.’
‘You prefer it.’
‘For the most part.’
‘Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and
I would read books. I was . . . nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence.’
On the verge of a reply, Damen stopped. That Laurent could talk, endlessly, like this, he knew. It wasn’t always apparent what was behind the talking, but sometimes it was.
Damen said, ‘You can rest easy. You are ready to face Lord Touars.’
He watched Laurent stop. The light was dark blue now rather than pitch, and growing lighter; he could make out Laurent’s fair hair, though not his face.