Kings Rising (4 page)

‘I know who you are, Damianos,’ said Laurent.

Damen heard it, as the interior of the tent seemed to change, so that all of the objects in it took on a different shape.

‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘I wouldn’t recognise the man who killed my brother?’

Each word was an ice chip. Painful, sharp; a shard.
Laurent’s voice was perfectly steady. Damen stepped back blindly. His thoughts swam.

‘I knew in the palace, when they dragged you in front of me,’ said Laurent. The words continued, steady, relentless. ‘I knew in the baths when I ordered you flayed. I knew—’

‘At Ravenel?’ said Damen.

Drawing breath with difficulty, he faced Laurent while the seconds passed.

‘If you knew,’ said Damen, ‘how could you—’

‘Let you fuck me?’

His own chest hurt, so that he almost didn’t notice the signs of it in Laurent, the control, the face, pale at any time, now white.

‘I needed a victory at Charcy. You provided it. It was worth enduring,’ Laurent spoke the terrible, lucid words, ‘your fumbling attentions for that.’

It hurt so much it took the breath from his throat. ‘You’re lying.’ Damen’s heart was pounding. ‘You’re lying.’ The words were too loud. ‘You thought I was leaving. You practically threw me out.’ He said it, as the realisation blossomed inside him. ‘You knew who I was. You knew who I was the night we made love.’

He thought of Laurent surrendering, not the first time, but the second, the slower, sweeter time, the tension in him, the way he had—

‘You weren’t making love to a slave, you were making love to
me
.’ And he couldn’t think that through clearly but
he could catch a glimmer of it, a glimmer of the edge of it. ‘I thought you wouldn’t, I thought you’d never—’ He took a step forward. ‘Laurent, six years ago, when I fought Auguste, I—’

‘Don’t you say his name.’
The words were forced out of Laurent. ‘Don’t you ever say his name, you
killed my brother
.’

Laurent was breathing shallowly, almost panting as he spoke, his hands rigid on the edge of the table behind him.

‘Is that what you want to hear, that I knew who you were and I still let you fuck me, my brother’s killer, who cut him down like an animal on the field?’

‘No,’ said Damen, his stomach clenching with cramp, ‘that isn’t—’

‘Shall I ask you how you did it? What he looked like when your sword went in?’

‘No,’
said Damen.

‘Or shall I tell you about the illusion of the man who gave me good counsel. Who stood by me. Who never lied to me.’

‘
I
never lied to you.’

The words were awful in the silence that followed them.

‘“Laurent, I am your slave”?’ said Laurent.

He felt the breath forced out from his lungs.

‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘talk about it like—’

‘Like?’

‘Like it was cold-blooded; like I controlled it. Like we didn’t both close our eyes and pretend I was a slave.’ He made himself say the exposing words. ‘I was your slave.’

‘There was no slave,’ said Laurent. ‘He never existed. I don’t know what manner of man stands before me now. All I know is that I am facing him for the first time.’

‘He is here.’ His flesh ached as if he had been prised open. ‘We are the same.’

‘Kneel then,’ said Laurent. ‘Kiss my boot.’

He looked into Laurent’s excoriating blue eyes. The impossibility of it was like a sharp pain. He couldn’t do it. He could only gaze at Laurent across the distance between them. The words hurt.

‘You’re right. I’m not a slave,’ he said. ‘I am the King.’ He said, ‘I killed your brother. And now I hold your fort.’

As he spoke, Damen drew out a knife. He felt rather than saw all of Laurent’s attention swing to it. The physical signs were small: Laurent’s lips parted, his body tensed. Laurent didn’t look at the knife. He kept his eyes on Damen, who looked right back at him.

‘So you will parley with me as with a king, and you will tell me why you called me here.’

Deliberately, Damen tossed the knife onto the floor of the tent. Laurent’s eyes didn’t follow its path. His gaze held steady.

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Laurent. ‘My uncle is in Akielos.’

‘L
AURENT,’ HE SAID,
‘what have you done?’

‘Does it bother you to think of him hurting your country?’

‘You know it does. Are we playing now with the fate of nations? It won’t bring your brother back.’

There was a violent silence.

‘You know, my uncle knew who you were,’ said Laurent. ‘He spent this whole time waiting for us to fuck. He wanted to tell me who you were himself, and watch it wreck me. Oh, had you guessed that? You just thought you’d fuck me anyway? Couldn’t help yourself?’

‘You ordered me to your rooms,’ said Damen, ‘and pushed me down on the bed. I said,
“Don’t do this”
.’

‘You
said
, “Kiss me”,’ said Laurent, each word enunciated
clearly. ‘You said, “Laurent, I need to be inside you, you feel so good, Laurent,”’ He switched to Akielon, as Damen had, at the climax, ‘‘it’s never felt like this, I can’t hold on, I’m going to—’’

‘Stop
,
’
said Damen. He was breathing in quick, shallow breaths, as he might after heavy exertion. He stared at Laurent.

‘Charcy,’ said Laurent, ‘was a distraction. I have it from Guion. My uncle sailed for Ios three days ago, and by now he has made landfall.’

Damen moved three steps away, to let that information sink in. He found himself with his hand braced on one of the tent poles.

‘I see. And my men are to die fighting him for you, the way that they did at Charcy?’

Laurent’s smile was not pleasant. ‘On that table is a list of supplies and troops. I will give it to you, in support of your campaign to the south.’

‘In exchange for,’ said Damen, steadily.

‘Delpha,’ said Laurent in the same tone.

He felt the shock that made him remember that this was Laurent, and not any other young man of twenty. The province of Delpha belonged to Nikandros, his friend and supporter, who had pledged to him in trust. It was valuable in its own right, richly fertile, with a strong seaport. It had symbolic value too, as the site of Akielos’s greatest victory, and Vere’s greatest defeat. Its return would strengthen Laurent’s position, but weaken his own.

He had not come here prepared to negotiate. Laurent had. Laurent was here as the Prince of Vere facing the King of Akielos. Laurent had known who he was all along. The list, written in Laurent’s own hand, had been prepared before this meeting.

The thought of the Regent in his country was a danger that was almost sickening in its intensity. The Regent already controlled the Akielon palace guard, which had been his gift to Kastor. Now the Regent himself was in Ios, his troops poised at any moment to take the capital on his command—and Damen was here, hundreds of miles away, facing Laurent and his impossible ultimatum.

He said,
‘Did you plan this from the beginning?’

‘The hard part was getting Guion to let me into his fort.’ Laurent said it steadily, the private edge to his voice a little more private than usual.

Damen said, ‘In the palace you had me beaten, drugged, whipped. And you ask me to give up Delpha? Why don’t you tell me instead why I shouldn’t simply hand you over to your uncle, in exchange for his aid against Kastor?’

‘Because I knew who you were,’ said Laurent, ‘and when you killed Touars and humiliated my uncle’s faction, I sent the news of it echoing to every corner of my country. So that if you ever crawled back onto your throne there would be no possibility of an alliance between you and my uncle. Do you want to play this game against me? I will take you apart.’

‘Take me apart?’ Damen said deliberately. ‘If I opposed you, the remaining scrap of land you hold would have a different enemy on each side, and your efforts would be split in three directions.’

‘Believe me,’ said Laurent, ‘when I say that you would have my undivided attention.’

Damen let his eyes pass over Laurent slowly, where he stood.

‘You’re alone. You don’t have allies. You don’t have friends. You’ve proven true everything your uncle ever said about you. You made deals with Akielos. You even bedded an Akielon—and by now, everyone knows it. You’re clinging to independence with a single fort and the tatters of a reputation.’

He gave every word its weight. ‘So let me tell you the terms of this alliance. You will give me everything on this list, and in return I will aid you against your uncle. Delpha remains with Akielos. Let’s not pretend you have anything here worth a bargain.’

There was a silence after he spoke. He and Laurent stood three paces from one another.

‘There’s something else I have,’ said Laurent, ‘that you want.’

Laurent’s cool blue eyes were on him, his pose relaxed where he stood, with all the filtered light of the tent in his lashes. Damen felt those words working on him, his body reacting almost against his will.

‘Guion,’ said Laurent, ‘has agreed to testify in writing to
the details of the deal that he brokered between Kastor and my uncle during his time as Ambassador.’

Damen flushed. It was not what he had expected Laurent to say, and Laurent knew it. For a moment, what was unsaid hung thickly between them.

‘Please,’ said Laurent, ‘insult me further. Tell me more about my tattered reputation. Tell me all the ways that bending over for you has damaged my position. As if being fucked into the mattress by the King of Akielos could be anything other than demeaning. I am dying to hear it.’

‘Laurent—’

‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘that I would come here without the means to enforce my terms? I hold the only proof of Kastor’s treachery that extends beyond your word.’

‘My word is enough to the men that matter.’

‘Is it? Then by all means, reject my offer. I will execute Guion for treason and hold the letter over the nearest candle.’

Damen’s hands became fists. He felt fundamentally outmanoeuvred—even as he could see that Laurent was bargaining alone, with very little, for his political life. Laurent had to be desperate to propose fighting alongside Akielos; alongside Damianos of Akielos.

‘Are we going to play another kind of pretend?’ Damen said. ‘That it never happened?’

‘If you are concerned it will go unmentioned between us, never fear. Every man in my camp knows that you served me in bed.’

‘And that is how it is to be between us?’ said Damen. ‘Mercenary? Cold?’

‘How did you think it would be?’ said Laurent. ‘You’d take me to your bed for the public consummation?’

It hurt. Damen said, ‘I won’t do this without Nikandros, and he won’t give up Delpha.’

‘He will when you give him Ios.’

It was too neat. He hadn’t thought as far as Kastor’s defeat, or who would become kyros in Ios, the traditional seat of the King’s closest adviser. Nikandros was the ideal candidate.

‘I see you’ve thought of everything,’ said Damen, bitterly. ‘It didn’t have to be—you could have come to me, and asked for my help, I would have—’

‘Killed the rest of my family?’

Laurent said it standing straight-backed before the table, his gaze unwavering. Thickly, Damen remembered running his sword through the man he’d believed was the Regent; as if killing the Regent would be his expiation. It wouldn’t.

He thought of all Laurent had done here, every piece of impersonal leverage, to control this meeting, to ensure it played out on his terms.

‘Congratulations,’ said Damen. ‘You’ve forced my hand. You have what you want. Delpha, in exchange for your aid in the south. Nothing given freely, nothing done out of feeling, everything coerced, with bloodless planning.’

‘Then I have your agreement? Say it.’

‘You have my agreement.’

‘Good,’ said Laurent. He took a step back. Then, as if a pillar of control had finally collapsed, Laurent surrendered his full weight to the table behind him, his face drained of all colour. He was trembling, his hairline pricked with the sweat of injury. He said: ‘Now get out.’

*   *   *

The herald was speaking to him.

Damen heard it as if from very far away and understood, at length, that there was a small party of his own men here to ride with him back to his camp. He spoke words to the herald, or thought he did, because the herald went away and left him to mount his horse.

He put his hand on the saddle before he mounted, and for a moment closed his eyes. Laurent had known who he was, and had still made love to him. He wondered what mix of yearning and self-delusion had allowed Laurent to do that.

He was battered by what had happened, bruised and aching, his whole body throbbed. He had not felt the blows struck against him in battle until now, when they all came together. The unsteady physical exhaustion of the melee was on him; he couldn’t move; he couldn’t think.

If he’d imagined it, it was as a single, cataclysmic event, an unmasking that, whatever followed, would be over. Violence would have been both punishment and release.
He had never imagined that it would instead go on and on; that the truth had been known; that it had been painfully absorbed; that it would be this crushing pressure that wouldn’t leave his chest.

Laurent had tamped down the smothered emotion in his eyes, and would endure an alliance with his brother’s killer, though he felt nothing but aversion. If he could do it, Damen could do it. He could make impersonal negotiations, speak in the formal language of kings.

The ache of loss didn’t make sense, because Laurent had never been his. He had known that. The delicate thing that had grown between them had never had a right to exist. It had always had an end date, the moment that Damen reassumed his mantle.

Now he had to return with these men to his own camp. The ride back was brief, less than a half mile separated their armies. He made it, with his duty firm in his mind. If it hurt, it was fitting; it was simply kingship.

*   *   *

There was still one thing that he had to do.

When he finally dismounted, an Akielon city of tents had risen up to mirror the Veretian one, on his orders. He slid down from the saddle and passed off his reins to a soldier. He was very tired by now in a purely physical way that he felt as an effort of concentration. He had to put aside the tremor in his muscles, in his arms and legs.

On the eastern side of the camp was his own tent, which offered sheets, a pallet, a place to close his eyes, and rest. He didn’t enter it. He called Nikandros to the command tent instead, raised in the centre of the army encampment.

It was now night, and the entrance of the tent was lit by torch posts that flamed orange at waist height. Inside, six braziers made jumping shadows out of the table, the chair set to face the entrance, an audience throne.

Even making camp so close to a Veretian troop had the men on edge. They had superfluous patrols and galloping hornsmen with every nerve on alert. If a Veretian threw a pebble, the entire army would launch into action.

They didn’t know yet why they were making camp here; they had simply obeyed his orders. Nikandros would be the first to hear the news.

He remembered Nikandros’s pride the day that Theomedes had given him Delpha. It had meant more than the bestowal of lands, or stone and mortar. It had been proof to Nikandros that he had honoured the memory of his father. Now Damen was going to take it from him, in a piece of cold-blooded statesmanship.

He waited, not turning away from what it meant, now, to be King. If he could give Laurent up, he could do this.

Nikandros came into the tent.

It wasn’t pleasant, the offer or the price. Nikandros couldn’t completely hide the hurt as he searched for understanding that he didn’t find. Damen gazed back at him,
unbending and unflinching. They had played together as boys, but now Nikandros faced his King.

‘The Veretian Prince is to be given my home, and he is to be your primary ally in this war?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have made up your mind?’

‘I have.’

Damen remembered hoping for a homecoming where it could be between them as it was in the old days. As if friendship of that kind could survive statesmanship.

‘He’s playing us against each other,’ said Nikandros. ‘This is calculated. He is trying to weaken you.’

Damen said, ‘I know. It’s like him.’

‘Then—’ Nikandros stopped, and turned away in frustration. ‘He kept you as a slave. He
left us
at Charcy.’

‘There was a reason for that.’

‘But I am not to know it.’

The list of supplies and men Laurent was offering them lay on the table. It had been more than Damen would have expected, but it was also finite. It was roughly the size of Nikandros’s contribution, equal to the addition of another kyros, perhaps, to his side.

It was not worth Delpha. He could see that Nikandros knew it, as Damen had known it.

‘I would make this easier,’ said Damen, ‘if I could.’

Silence, while Nikandros kept his words in check.

Damen said, ‘Who will I lose?’

‘Makedon,’ said Nikandros. ‘Straton. The northern bannermen, maybe. In Akielos, you’ll find your allies less helpful, the commoners less welcoming, even hostile. There will be problems with troop cohesion on the march, and more problems in battle.’

He said, ‘Tell me what else.’

‘The men will talk,’ said Nikandros. He was pushing the words out with distaste, he did not want to say, ‘About—’

Damen said, ‘No.’

And then, as though Nikandros couldn’t help the words that came out next, ‘If you would at least take off the cuff—’

‘No. It stays.’ He refused to lower his eyes.

Nikandros turned away and put his palms flat on the table, resting his weight there. Damen could see the resistance in Nikandros’s shoulders, bunched across his back, his palms still flat on the table.

Into the painful silence, Damen said, ‘And you? Will I lose you?’

It was all he allowed himself. It came out in a steady enough voice, and he made himself wait, and say nothing more.

As though the words were coming up from the depths of him, against his will, Nikandros said, ‘I want Ios.’

Damen let out a breath. Laurent, he realised suddenly, wasn’t playing them against one another. He was playing to Nikandros. There was a dangerous expertise in all of this; in knowing how far Nikandros’s loyalty might be stretched,
and what would keep it from snapping. Laurent’s presence in the room was almost tangible.