The clothes, when Damen lifted them from the bed, were soft under his hands, dark like the clothing worn by the nobility, and of the same quality.
He changed. It took a long time, as it always did with Veretian clothing, though at least these were riding clothes and not court clothing. Still, it was fussier than anything Damen had ever worn in his life, and by far the most luxurious clothing he had been given to wear since his arrival in Vere. This wasn’t soldiering gear, this was the clothing of an aristocrat.
It was, he now learned first hand, much more difficult to lace when you were the one wearing it than it was when you were tying the laces on somebody else. When he was done, he felt overdressed and strange. Even the shapes of the clothes were different, they changed him into something foreign, something that he had never imagined himself being, more so than the armour, or the crude clothing of the soldiers that he had worn.
‘This doesn’t suit me,’ he said, meaning that it didn’t suit him to wear them.
‘No. It doesn’t. You look like one of us,’ said Laurent. He looked at Damen with his intolerant blue eyes. ‘It’s dusk. Go and tell Jord to expect my return mid-morning, and to carry on as usual in my absence. Then meet me by the horses. We leave as soon as you’re done.’
*
The problem with tents was that you couldn’t knock. Damen leaned his weight on one of the poles and called out.
The delay from within was pronounced. Finally Jord appeared, shirtless and wide-shouldered. Rather than waste time tying laces, he was holding his pants up with a casual hand.
The raised tent flap showed the source of the delay. Pale-limbed, tangled in bedding, Aimeric had pushed himself up on one elbow, flushed from his chest all the way up past his neck.
‘The Prince has business away from the camp,’ said Damen. ‘He plans to return mid-morning. He wants you to captain the men as usual while he’s gone.’
‘Whatever he needs. How many men is he taking with him?’
‘One,’ said Damen.
‘Good luck,’ was all Jord said.
*
The ride to the town of Nesson-Eloy was neither long nor difficult, but when they reached the outskirts they had to give up the horses.
They left them tied off the road, knowing there was a good chance the horses were not going to be there come morning, human nature being the same everywhere. It was necessary. Where the holdings around the keep had dwindled away, the town of Nesson-Eloy, closer to the traversable mountain pass, had grown. It was a tangle of close-built houses and paved streets, and the ringing of hooves on cobblestones would awaken the world. Laurent insisted on silence, and discretion.
Laurent claimed to know the town, since the nearby keep was a common stopping place on the journey between Arles and Acquitart. He seemed sure of directions, and kept them to smaller streets and unlit paths.
But, in the end, the precautions did little good.
‘We’re being followed,’ said Damen.
They were walking along one of the narrow streets, above them balconies and upper-storey juttings of stone and timber that sheltered the street and sometimes arched across it.
Laurent said, ‘If we’re being followed, they don’t know where we’re going.’
He took them sideways down a street that was part hidden by overhangs, then sideways again.
It wasn’t quite a chase, because the men following them kept their distance and only gave themselves away here and there with slight sounds. In daylight, it might have been a game played in thronged streets full of ample distractions, the town active and murmuring and covered with a haze of wood smoke. At night everything was conspicuous. The dark streets were thinning of people, and they stood out.
The men following them—it was more than one—had an easy task, no matter how many detours Laurent took. They couldn’t shake them.
‘This is getting irritating,’ said Laurent. He had stopped in front of a door with a circular symbol painted on it. ‘We don’t have time for cat and mouse games. I’m going to try your trick.’
‘My trick?’ said Damen. The last time Damen had seen a symbol like that on a door, it had opened to expel Govart.
Laurent raised his fist and applied it to the door. Then he turned to Damen. ‘I assume that’s right? I have no idea how one usually proceeds. This is your arena, not mine.’
The viewing slit on the door slid open, Laurent held up a gold coin, the viewing slit shut with a slam that was followed by the sound of bolts being thrown open. Fragrance billowed out of the doorway. A young woman appeared, her brown hair brushed to a high gloss. She eyed Laurent’s coin, then she eyed Damen, then she appended a murmur about Damen’s size to a demurring comment about fetching the Maitresse, and they stepped through the doorway and into the perfumed brothel.