Damen opened his mouth to speak but Laurent cut him off in a whiplash order to Damen’s escort: ‘I told you to get him out of here.’ And he put his heels in his horse, and drove it past Damen’s, up the steps to the dais, where he dismounted in one fluid motion, and headed in the direction of Aimeric’s rooms.
Damen found himself facing Jord. He didn’t need to look up to see the position of the sun.
‘I’m going to stop him,’ said Damen. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘It’s noon,’ said Jord. The words sounded harsh, like they hurt his throat.
‘He needs me,’ said Damen. ‘I don’t care if you tell the world.’
And he rode his horse past Jord, onto the dais.
Dismounting as Laurent had done, he tossed his reins to a nearby soldier and followed Laurent into the fort, taking the stairs up to the second level two at a time. Aimeric’s guards stepped back for him without question, and the door was already open.
He brought up short after a single step inside.
The rooms, of course, were beautiful. Aimeric wasn’t a soldier, he was an aristocrat. He was the fourth son of one of the most powerful Veretian border lords, and his rooms matched his station. There was a bed, and a lounging couch, patterned tiles and a high arched window with a second seat cut into it, tumbled with cushions. There was a table on the far side of the room, and Aimeric had been given food, wine, paper and ink. He had even been given a change of clothing. It was a careful arrangement. Where he sat at the table, he no longer wore the dirt-streaked undershirt he’d worn under his armour. He was dressed like a courtier. He had bathed. His hair looked clean.
Laurent stood still two steps from him, all the lines of his body rigid.
Damen pushed himself forward until he stood alongside Laurent. His was the only movement in the silent room. With half his mind, he noticed little things: the broken pane of glass in the bottom left-hand corner of the window; last night’s meat uneaten on the plate; the bed not slept in.
In the tower, Laurent had struck Aimeric across the right side of his face, but the right side of his face was hidden by his pose—his tousled head resting on his arm—so that all that Damen saw was intact. There was no swollen eye or grazed cheek or blurred mouth, just the unmarred line of Aimeric’s profile, and a shard of glass from the broken window lying by his outflung hand.
Blood had soaked into his sleeve, had pooled out over the table and the tiled floor, but it was old. He had been like this for hours, long enough for the blood to darken, for his movements to cease, for a stillness to invade the room, until it was as still as Laurent, staring at him with sightless eyes.
He’d been writing; the paper was not far from the curl of his fingertips, and Damen could see the three words he’d written. That he had neat handwriting shouldn’t have been a surprise. He had always striven to perform his duties well. On the march he had worn himself into the ground trying to keep up with stronger men.
A fourth son, thought Damen, waiting for someone to notice him. When he wasn’t trying to please, he was baiting authority, as though negative attention could substitute for the approval that he sought—that he had been given, once, by Laurent’s uncle.
I’m sorry, Jord.
They were the last words anyone would have from him. He had killed himself.
CHAPTER 21
The room where Aimeric lay was quiet. He had been taken from his suite to a smaller cell and laid out on stone, his body covered by fine linen. Nineteen, thought Damen, and quiet.
Outside, Ravenel was preparing for war.
It was a fort-wide undertaking, from the armoury to the storehouses. It had begun when Laurent had turned from the ruined table and said, ‘Saddle the horses. We ride for Charcy.’ He had knocked Damen’s hand off his shoulder when Damen had tried to stop him.
Damen had attempted to follow, and had been prevented. Laurent had spent an hour giving brief orders, and Damen hadn’t been able to get near him. After that, Laurent had retired to his rooms, the doors firmly closed behind him.
When a servant had made to enter, Damen had bodily stopped him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No one goes in.’
He had put a two-man guard on the door with those same orders, and cleared out the section—as he had done once before, at the tower. When he had been certain that Laurent had sufficient privacy, he had left to learn all he could about Charcy. What he had learned had made his stomach sink.
Lying between Fortaine and the northern trade routes, Charcy was perfectly positioned for two forces to trap a third. There was a reason the Regent was taunting Laurent out of his fort: Charcy was a death trap.
Damen had pushed the maps from himself in frustration. That had been two hours ago.
Now he stood in the quiet of this small, cell-like room of thick stone that housed Aimeric. He lifted his eyes to Jord, who had summoned him.
‘You’re his lover,’ said Jord.
‘I was.’ He owed Jord the truth. ‘We . . . it was the first time. Last night.’
‘So you told him.’