‘So why join the Guard?’
‘Because if the Regent and the Prince are feuding, you ally yourself with the man who’ll win, then hedge your bets by sending your disposable son to fight with the other.’
Aimeric flushed. It was the first thing that he had said to Jord that wasn’t deferential, or a compliment. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t—’
‘You’re not disposable.’ Jord said, ‘You work harder than any man here. The Prince wants you in this troop.’
‘It’s not the Prince I’m trying to impress.’
There was a silence, as those words stretched out. The fire popped and sparked, and the night around them seemed to draw closer.
‘I want you in this troop,’ said Jord.
‘And out of it?’
‘You’re Councillor Guion’s son.’
‘I don’t care about rank.’ said Aimeric.
‘You should.’
‘Why? Do you?’ said Aimeric.
‘I’m your Captain,’ said Jord.
‘So you’re the one who outranks me.’
‘Knock it off,’ said Jord, but with a smile as he took back the flask and took his own swig.
‘I think about you,’ Aimeric said.
Jord coughed the spirits. He felt something spill in the air between them, and the way his pulse sped up made him feel foolish. Aimeric wasn’t flustered talking like that with a lowborn guard captain—wasn’t tongue tied or awkward the way Jord suddenly felt.
‘Do you think of me even a little?’ said Aimeric. ‘Or are you like the Prince?’
He indicated with his stubborn chin at the Prince, whose blond head identifiable across the camp even in the dim light. Jord was too conscious of him, and of the men in the camp around them, as if what was passing between himself and Aimeric was private, yet at the same time, as if it must be obvious to onlookers; witnessed by everyone.
If Aimeric were a stablehand, Jord would have tumbled him, but Aimeric was closer in rank to a king than to Jord. Aimeric had power and influence far above Jord’s station. Aristocrats didn’t dally with lowborn guard captains, or if they did, it was an unpredictable whim. Turning an aristocrat down—that was bad enough. Taking an aristocrat into the sheets was worse. Councillor Guion wouldn’t let a man like Jord sit at his table, let alone bed his son.
He looked at Aimeric’s aristocratic face, his full lips, the irrepressible curl on his forehead, that he wanted to reach out and tuck away.
‘You know I think well of you,’ Jord said. He felt his cheeks heating.
‘“Well of me”,’ said Aimeric.
‘Even the Prince is a man,’ said Jord.
‘You’re the only one who thinks that,’ said Aimeric. ‘He’s a statue. He doesn’t feel anything.’
Jord looked back at the Prince. It was true that he was a martinet. It had been a day of unsparing orders, coupled with the Prince’s bloodless lack of sympathy for those who could not match the pace he set.
Jord heard himself say, ‘I’ve fought under him since he was fifteen.’
‘So you didn’t have a choice either.’
As a rule, Jord kept to himself what he thought of his betters. He knew that to Aimeric the Prince’s Guard was a demotion: that Aimeric was alone; that he had no one of his own rank to mix with. A councillor’s son might easily have become a boyhood companion to the Prince. But this Prince was a friendless son of a bitch. Rebuffed by the Prince, Aimeric was relegated to the company of lowborn soldiers. He probably sought out their Captain because Jord was the closest thing in the troop to a man of his own rank.
He wouldn’t understand what an honour it was for a man of Jord’s birth to be offered a chance to wear a Prince’s star, let alone to ascend to a captaincy.