Laurent leaned in. He twined a finger around a curl of Isander’s hair and allowed himself to be fed, grape by grape, a prince with a new favourite. Across the hall, Damen saw Straton tap the shoulder of the slave serving him, a signal that Straton wished to discreetly retire, and enjoy the slave’s attentions in private.
He lifted the wine blindly. The cup was empty. Straton wasn’t the only Akielon departing with a slave; men and women throughout the hall were availing themselves. The wine, and the slaves enacting the battle were breaking down inhibitions. Akielon voices grew loud, emboldened by wine.
Laurent leaned in further to murmur something intimately into Isander’s ear, and then, as the recitation reached its climax, the clash of swords like the hammering in his chest, Damen saw Laurent tap Isander’s shoulder, and rise.
I’d wager you never thought a prince could be jealous of a slave. At this moment I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat. Torveld’s words.
He said, ‘Excuse me.’
The entire court around him rose as he pushed up from his couch-throne. Trying to follow Laurent out, he got tangled in ceremony, the hall a stifling press of bodies and noise, and, as a blond head disappeared towards the doorway, he was stopped by party after party blocking his path. He ought to have brought a slave of his own, then the crowd would have melted away, understanding: the King wished privacy.
The corridor was empty when he strode out into it. His heart was pounding. He turned the first corner into a section of the passage, half expecting to catch Laurent’s retreating figure. Instead, he saw a stark, empty arch with all its Veretian lattice s
tripped away.
Under the arch was Isander, standing with his fawn eyes, looking confused and abandoned.
His confusion was such that for a moment he just stared at Damen with wide eyes before he seemed to understand what was happening, and folded to the floor, forehead to the stone.
Damen said, ‘Where is he?’
Isander was well trained, even if nothing was happening as he had expected tonight; and even if, rather mortifyingly, he was being asked to report this fact to his King.
‘His Highness of Vere has gone for a ride.’
‘A ride where?’
‘At the stables a handler might know his destination. This slave can inquire.’
A ride, at night, alone, leaving a feast in his honour.
‘No,’ said Damen. ‘I know where he’s gone.’
* * *
At night, nothing looked the same. It was a landscape of memory. Of old stone and ancient hanging rock, of fallen kingdoms.
Damen left the castle and rode out to the field that he remembered, where ten thousand Akielon men had faced the Veretian army. He guided his horse carefully where the ground dipped and swelled. A listing stone slab, a fragment of stairs; strewn across Marlas were the ruins of something older; older than the battle, a silent witness of broken arches and crumbled, moss-covered walls.
He remembered these stone blocks that were half part of the earth, he remembered the way that fronts had had to ford and split around them. They predated the battle, and they predated Marlas, the remnants of a long-dead empire. They were a lodestar to the memory, a marker of the past on a field that might have erased everything.
Closer; the approach was difficult because it was sharp with memory. Here was the place where their left flank had fallen. Here was the place where he had ordered men to attack the lines that would not fall, the starburst banner that did not falter. Here was the place where he had killed the last of the Prince’s Guard, and come face to face with Auguste.
He dismounted from his horse, looping its reins over the cracked stone column of an overgrown pillar. The landscape was old, and the pieces of stone were old; and he remembered this place, remembered the torn soil and the desperation of the fight.
Clearing a last jut of stone, he saw the curve of a shoulder in the moonlight, the white of a loose shirt, his outer garments stripped, all wrists and exposed throat. Laurent was sitting on a stone outcrop. His jacket was discarded uncharacteristically. He was sitting on it.
A stone slid under his heel. Laurent turned. For a moment, Laurent looked at him wide-eyed, young, and then the look in his eyes changed, as though the universe had fulfilled an ineluctable promise. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘perfect.’
Damen said, ‘I thought you might want—’
‘Want?’
‘A friend,’ said Damen. He used Jord’s word. His chest felt tight. ‘If you’d prefer me to leave, I will.’
‘Why cavil?’ said Laurent. ‘Let’s fuck.’
He said it with his shirt unlaced, the wind teasing the opening there. They faced each other.