‘I don’t lie. We lay together,’ said Laurent, ‘at my behest. I ordered him to my bed. Damianos is innocent of all the charges brought against me. He suffered my company only under force. He is a good man, who has never acted against his own country.’
‘I’m afraid the guilt or innocence of Damianos is for Akielos to decide, not Vere,’ said the Regent.
Damen could feel what Laurent was trying to do, and his heart ached at it, that even now, Laurent was trying to protect him. Damen let his voice carry, cutting across the hall.
‘And what am I accused of? That I have lain with Laurent of Vere?’ Damen’s eyes raked the Council. ‘I have. I found him honest and true. He stands before you wrongly accused. And if this is a fair trial, you will hear me.’
‘This is insupportable!’ Mathe said. ‘We won’t hear testimony from the prince-killer of Akielos—’
‘You will hear me,’ said Damen. ‘You will hear me, and if when you have heard me you still find him guilty, then I will meet my fate alongside him. Or does the Council fear the truth?’
Damen found himself with his eyes on the Regent, who had re-ascended the dais of four shallow steps and now sat, enthroned beside Kastor, supremely comfortable. His gaze rested on Damen in turn.
The Regent said, ‘By all means, speak.’
It was a challenge. To have Laurent’s lover in his power pleased the Regent, as a demonstration of his larger power. Damen could feel that. The Regent wanted Damen to entangle himself, wanted a victory over Laurent that was total.
Damen drew in a breath. He knew the stakes. He knew that if he failed, he would die alongside Laurent, and the Regent would rule in Vere and in Akielos. He would have given over his life and his kingdom.
He looked around at the columned hall. It was his home, his birthright, and his legacy, more precious to him than anything. And Laurent had given him the means to secure it. At the Kingsmeet he could have left Laurent to his fate and ridden back to Karthas and his army. He was undefeated on the field, and not even the Regent would have been able to stand against him.
Even now, all he had to do was denounce Laurent and he could face Kastor with a real chance of taking back his throne.
But he had asked himself the question in Ravenel, and now he knew the answer.
A kingdom, or this.
‘I met the Prince in Vere. I thought as you did. I didn’t know his heart.’
It was Laurent who said, ‘No.’
‘I came to learn it slowly.’
‘Damen, don’t do this.’
‘I came to learn his honesty, his integrity, his strength of mind.’
‘Damen—’
Of course Laurent wanted everything done his own way. But today it was going to be different.
‘I was a fool, blinded by prejudice. I didn’t understand that he was fighting alone, that he had been fighting alone for a very long time.
‘And then I saw the men he commanded, disciplined and loyal. I saw the way his household loved him, because he knew their concerns, cared for their lives. I saw him protect slaves.
‘And when I left him, drugged and without friends after an attack on his life, I saw him stand up in front of his uncle and argue to save my life because he felt he owed me a debt.
‘He knew that it might cost him his life. He knew he’d be sent to the border, to ride into the very same plot to kill him. And he still argued for me. He did it because it was owed, because in the very private code with which he ran his life, it was right.’
He looked at Laurent, and he understood now
what he had not understood then: that Laurent had known who he was that night. Laurent had known who he was and had still protected him, out of a sense of fairness that had somehow survived what had happened to him.
‘That is the man you face. He has more honour and integrity than any man I have ever met. He is dedicated to his people and his country. And I am proud to have been his lover.’
Damen said it with his eyes on Laurent, willing him to know how much he meant it, and for a moment Laurent just gazed back at him, his eyes blue and wide.
The Regent’s voice interrupted. ‘A heartfelt declaration is not evidence. I am afraid to say that there is nothing here to change the Council’s decision. You offered no proof, only accusations of an unlikely plot against Laurent, with no hint as to who the architect of it might be.’