The thrower of the spear turned, his taunting expression changing to one of shock and disbelief. All five of them stopped and flattened themselves to the ground.
‘Stand,’ said Damen, ‘like the men you think you are.’
He was angry. The men, standing, perhaps did not recognise that. They didn’t know the slow way that he came forward, or the calm tone of his voice.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what it is you are doing here.’
‘Practising for the okton,’ said a voice, and Damen looked them over but couldn’t see who had spoken. Whoever it was had paled after he said it because they were all pale, and nervous-looking.
They wore the notched belts that marked them as Makedon’s men—one notch for each kill. They might even have expected to get approbation from Makedon for what they had done. There was an uneasy expectancy in their postures, as though they were uncertain of their King’s reaction, and had some hope they might be praised, or let off with no admonishment.
He said, ‘Do not speak again.’
He went to the boy. The boy’s shirt sleeve was pinned to the tree by a spear. His head was bleeding where a second spear had grazed it. Damen saw the boy’s eyes darken in terror as he approached, and anger was like acid in his veins. He wrapped his hand around the spear between the boy’s legs and pulled it out. Then he pulled out the spear by his head, and the one pinning his shirt sleeve. He had to draw his sword to cut the boy’s ropes, and at the sound of metal, the boy’s breathing went high and strange.
The boy was badly bruised, and he could not stand under his own weight once the ropes were cut. Damen lowered him to the ground. More had been done to him than target practice. More had been done to him than a beating. They had put an iron cuff around his left wrist, like the gold cuff around his own—like the gold cuff around Laurent’s. Damen knew with a sickening feeling in his stomach exactly what had been done to this boy, and why.
The boy didn’t speak Akielon. He had no idea what was happening, or that he was safe. Damen began to speak to him in Veretian, slow, calming words, and after a moment the boy’s glazed eyes focused on him with something like understanding.
The boy said, ‘Tell the Prince I didn’t fight back.’
Damen turned and said in a steady voice to one of the men, ‘Bring Makedon. Now.’
The man went. The other four stood in place while Damen went to one knee and addressed the boy on the ground again. In a soft, low voice Damen kept him talking. The other men didn’t watch because they were too low-ranked to be allowed to look a king in the face. Their eyes were averted.
Makedon did not come alone. Two dozen of his men came with him. Then came Nikandros, with two dozen men of his own. Then a stream of torchbearers, turning the dim clearing into orange light and leaping flame. The grim expression Nikandros wore showed that he was here because Makedon and his men might need a counterweight.
Damen said, ‘Your soldiers have broken the peace.’
‘They will be executed.’ Makedon said it after a cursory glance at the bleeding Veretian boy. ‘They have dishonoured the belt.’
That was genuine. Makedon didn’t like Veretians. He didn’t like his men dishonouring themselves in front of Veretians. Makedon wanted no whiff of Veretian moral superiority. Damen could see that in him, as he could see that Makedon blamed the Veretians for the attack, for the behaviour of his men, for being called to account by his King.
r /> The orange torchlight was unsparing. Two of the five men struggled, and were taken from the clearing unconscious. The others were roped together with pieces of the tough fibrous rope that had bound the Veretian boy.
‘Take the boy back to our camp,’ Damen said to Nikandros, because he knew exactly what would happen if Akielon soldiers bore the bleeding, bruised boy back to the Veretians. ‘Send for Paschal, the Veretian physician. Then inform the Prince of Vere what has happened here.’ A sharp nod of obedience. Nikandros departed with the boy and a section of the torches.
Damen said, ‘The rest of you are dismissed. Not you.’
The light receded, and the sound, disappearing through the trees until he was alone with Makedon in the night air of the clearing.
‘Makedon of the north,’ said Damen. ‘You were a friend to my father. You fought with him for almost twenty years. That means a great deal to me. I respect your loyalty to him, as I respect your power and need your men. But if your soldiers harm a Veretian again, you will face me at the end of a sword.’
‘Exalted,’ said Makedon, bowing his head to hide his eyes.
‘You walk a fine line with Makedon,’ Nikandros said, on his return to camp.
‘He walks a fine line with me,’ said Damen.
‘He is a traditionalist, and supports you as the true King, but he will only be pushed so far.’
‘I’m not the one pushing.’
He didn’t retire. He took himself instead to the tent in his camp where the Veretian boy was being tended. He dismissed the guards there, too, and waited outside for the physician to come out.
At night the camp was quiet and dark, but this tent was marked by a torch flaming outside, and he could see the lights from the Veretian camp to the west. He was aware of the oddness of his own presence—a king waiting outside a tent like a hound for its master—but he stepped forward quickly when Paschal emerged from the tent.
‘Your Majesty,’ said Paschal, surprised.