‘That wasn’t a play against my uncle. That was a play against Nicaise. Boys are easy. At thirteen,’ said Laurent, ‘you could have led me around by the nose.’
‘I can’t believe you were ever easy.’
‘Think of the greenest innocent you’ve ever tumbled,’ said Laurent. And then, when Damen didn’t answer: ‘I forgot, you don’t fuck boys.’
Across the hall there was a muted burst of laughter at some distant minor antic. The hall was a hazy background of sounds and shapes. The light was a warm torch glow.
Damen said, ‘Men, sometimes.’
‘In the absence of women?’
‘When I want them.’
‘If I’d known that, I might have felt a frisson of danger, lying next to you.’
‘You did know that,’ said Damen.
There was a pause. Laurent pushed himself away from the wall eventually.
‘Come and eat,’ Laurent said.
Damen found himself at the table. In Veretian parlance, it was a relaxed affair, people already eating bread with fingers and meat from knife points. But the table was arrayed with the best the kitchens could provide at short notice: spiced meats, pheasant with apples, birds stuffed with raisins and cooked in milk. Damen reached unthinkingly for a sliver of meat, but Laurent’s grip on his wrist stopped him, drawing his arm back from the table.
‘Torveld tells me that in Akielos, it’s the slave who feeds the master.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then you can’t have any objection,’ said Laurent, picking up the morsel, and lifting it.
Laurent’s gaze was steady, with no demure lowering of his eyes. He was nothing like a slave, even when Damen allowed himself to imagine it. Damen remembered Laurent shifting inwards on a long wooden bench in the inn at Nesson to fastidiously eat bread from his fingers.
‘I don’t have any objection,’ said Damen.
He stayed where he was. It was not the role of a master to strain after food held at arm’s length.
Golden brows arched slightly. Laurent shifted in, and brought the meat to Damen’s lips.
The act of biting felt deliberate. The meat was rich and warm, a delicacy with southern influences, very like the food of his homeland. Chewing was slow; he was over-aware of Laurent watching him. When Laurent picked up the next sliver of meat, it was Damen who leaned in.
He took a second bite. He didn’t look at the food, he looked at Laurent, at the way he held himself, always so controlled, so that all of his reactions were subtle, his blue eyes difficult to read, but not cold. He could see that Laurent was pleased, that he was enjoying the acquiescence for its rarity, its exclusivity. It felt like he was on the edge of understanding, as though Laurent was coming into view for the first time.
Damen drew back, and that was the right thing to do too, allowing the moment to be easy: a small, shared intimacy at table, one that passed largely unnoticed by the other diners.
Around them, the conversation shifted to other things, news from the border, moments of the battle, discussion of tactics on the field. Damen kept his eyes on Laurent.
Someone had brought a kithara, and Erasmus was playing, soft, unobtrusive notes. In Akielon performances—as in all things Akielon—restraint was prized. The overall effect was one of simplicity. In the quiet between songs, Damen heard himself say, ‘Play the Conquest of Arsaces,’ speaking the request to the boy without thinking. In the next moment, he heard the first familiar stirring notes.
The song was old. The boy had a lovely voice. Notes pulsed, winding through the hall, and though the words from his homeland would be lost on the Veretians, Damen recalled that Laurent could speak his language.
They are surely gods who speak to him
With steady voices
A glance from him drives men to their knees
His sigh brings cities to ruin
I wonder if he dreams of surrender