‘Something to say?’ said Laurent.
Jord was holding off from them. The same stubborn distaste was in his voice. ‘Not with him here.’
‘He’s your Captain,’ said Laurent.
‘He knows well enough he should go.’
‘While we compare notes on spreading for the enemy?’ said Laurent.
This silence was worse. Damen felt the distance between himself and Laurent with his whole body, four endless steps across the battlements.
‘Well?’ said Laurent.
Jord’s eyes had turned to Damen, full of bloody-mindedness. But, He is Damianos of Akielos, Jord didn’t say, though he looked strained to his limits with repulsion at what he had just seen, and the silence stretched out, thick and tangible with what lay underneath.
Damen stepped forward. ‘Maybe—’
More sound on the stairs, the clatter of several urgent footsteps. Jord turned. Guymar and another of the soldiers were coming to the section he had ordered cleared.
Damen passed a hand over his face. Everyone in the fort was coming to the section he had ordered cleared.
‘Captain. I apologise for the breach in your orders. But there is a situation developing downstairs.’
‘A situation?’
‘A group of the men have it into their minds to make sport with one of the prisoners.’
The world was not going away. The intrusive world was returning its concerns, the issues of discipline, the mechanisms of captaincy.
‘The prisoners are to be well treated,’ said Damen. ‘If some of the men are too full of drink, you know how to keep them at bay. My orders were clear.’
There was a hesitation. Guymar was one of Enguerran’s men, a career soldier, polished and professional. Damen had promoted him for exactly those qualities.
‘Captain, your orders were clear, but . . .’ said Guymar.
‘But?’
‘Some of the men seem to think that His Highness will support their actions.’
Damen gathered his mind. From the way Guymar said it, it was obvious what type of sport he meant. They had been weeks on the road without camp followers. Yet he had believed that the men capable of actions such as this had been weeded out of the troop.
Guymar’s face was impassive, but his faint disapproval was tangible: these were the actions of mercenaries, dressed up in the Prince’s livery. The Prince’s men were showing their inferior quality.
Like an archer fixing on his target, Laurent said precisely, deliberately, ‘Aimeric.’
Damen turned. Laurent’s eyes were on Jord, and Damen saw in a rush from Jord’s expression that Laurent was right, and of course it was for Aimeric’s sake that Jord had come here.
Under that dangerous, steady gaze, Jord went to his knees.
‘Your Highness,’ said Jord. He wasn’t looking at anyone, but at the dark stones beneath him. ‘I know I’ve done wrong. I’ll accept any punishment for that. But Aimeric was loyal to his family. He was loyal to what he knew. He doesn’t deserve to be handed around the men for that.’ Jord’s head was bowed, but his hands on his knees were fists. ‘If my years of service to you are worth anything at all, let them be worth that.’
‘Jord,’ said Laurent, ‘this is why he fucked you. This moment.’
‘I know that,’ said Jord.
‘Orlant,’ said Laurent, ‘didn’t deserve to die alone on the sword of a self-serving aristocrat he thought was a friend.’
‘I know that,’ said Jord. ‘I’m not asking you to let Aimeric go free or to forgive him what he’s done. It’s just that I know him, and that night, he was . . .’