On a bed of white flowers
Or is that the mistaken hope
Of every would-be conqueror?
The world was not made for beauty like his
The song ended softly, and despite the unfamiliar language, the unassuming performance of the slave had changed the mood in the hall a little. There was a smattering of applause. Damen’s attention was on Laurent’s ivory and gold colouring, the overfine skin, the last traces of bruising from where he’d been tied up and hit. Damen’s gaze travelled, inch by inch, taking in the proud lift of his chin, the uncooperative eyes, the arch of his cheekbone, and dropping back down to his mouth. His sweet, vicious mouth.
The pulse of desire, when it came, was a throb that re-formed blood and flesh, and transformed awareness. He stood, unthinking. He left the hall, walking out into the great courtyard.
The fort was a dark, torchlit mass around him. The walls were now manned by their own men, and the occasional shout came from the sentries on its walls; though tonight every gate-lamp was lit, and sounds mingled, laughter and raised voices flowed from the direction of the great hall.
Distance should have made it easier, but the ache only increased, and he found himself on the thick walls of the battlements, dismissing the soldiers who were manning that section, bracing his arms against the stone and waiting for the feeling to subside.
He would leave. It was for the best that he would leave. He would ride out early, would be across the border before midday. There would be no need to leave word: when his absence was noticed, Jord would bring report of his departure to Laurent. Veretians would take over the duties and the structures he had set up here at the fort. He had created them to ensure that.
Everything would be simple in the morning. Jord, he thought, would give him time to get beyond Laurent’s scouts before he brought word to Laurent that his Captain, irrevocably, was gone. He focused on the pragmatic realities: a horse, supplies, a route that would avoid scouts. The intricacies of Ravenel’s defence were now matters for other men. The fight they faced over the coming months was not his own. He could put it behind him.
His life in Vere, the man he was here, he could put all of it behind him.
A sound on the stone steps; he lifted his head. The battlements stretched towards the south tower, a stone walkway with toothed crenellation to the left, and torches lit at intervals. Damen had ordered the section cleared. Cresting the circular stone stairs was the only person who could have disobeyed that command.
Damen watched as alone, unattended, Laurent had left his own banquet to find him, to follow him here, up the worn steps out onto to the battlements. Laurent fitted himself next to him, a comfortable, unobtrusive presence that took up room in Damen’s chest. They stood on the edge of the fort they had wo
n together. Damen tried for a conversational tone.
‘You know, the slaves you gifted to Torveld are worth almost the same as the men that he’s given you.’
‘I would say exactly that much.’
‘I thought you helped them out of compassion.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Laurent.
The breath that escaped him was not quite like laughter. He looked out at the darkness beyond the torches, the unseen expanse of the south.
‘My father,’ he said, ‘hated Veretians. He called them cowards, deceivers. It’s what he taught me to believe. He would have been just like these border lords, Touars and Makedon. War hungry. I can only imagine what he would have thought of you.’
He looked over at Laurent. He knew his father’s nature, his beliefs. He knew exactly the reaction that Laurent would have provoked, if he’d ever stood before Theomedes at Ios. If Damen had argued for him, had tried to make him see Laurent as . . . he would not have understood. You fight them, you don’t trust them. He’d never stood against his father for anything. He’d never needed to, so closely had their values aligned.
‘Your own father would be proud today.’
‘That I picked up a sword and put on my brother’s ill-fitting clothes? I’m sure he would be,’ said Laurent.
‘You don’t want the throne,’ Damen said after a moment, his eyes passing carefully over Laurent’s face.
‘I want the throne,’ said Laurent. ‘Do you honestly think, after all you’ve seen, that I’d shy from power or the chance to wield it?’
Damen felt his mouth twist. ‘No.’
‘No.’
His own father had ruled by the sword. He had forged Akielos into one nation, and used the new might of that country to expand its borders, fiercely proud. He had launched his northern campaign to return Delpha to his kingdom after ninety years of Veretian rule. But it was not his kingdom any longer. His father, who would never stand inside Ravenel, was dead.
‘I never questioned the way my father saw the world. It was enough for me to be the kind of son he was proud of. I could never bring shame to his memory, but for the first time I realise I don’t want to be . . .’
His kind of King.