Rochert agreed. ‘Yeah. I couldn’t get it up. You see a panther opening its jaws, you don’t get your dick out.’
That was the consensus, with a breakaway dispute: ‘If he’s frigid and doesn’t fuck, there’d not be any fun in it. A cold-blooded virgin makes for the worst ride.’
‘Then you’ve never had one. The ones that are cold on the outside are the hottest once you get in.’
‘You’ve served with him the longest,’ said Aimeric to Jord. ‘Has he really never taken a lover? He must have had suitors. Surely one of them talked.’
‘You want court gossip?’ said Jord, sounding amused.
‘I only came north at the beginning of this year. I lived at Fortaine before that, my whole life. We don’t hear anything there—except about raids and wall repairs and how many children my brothers are having.’ It was his way of saying: yes.
‘He’s had suitors,’ said Jord. ‘Just none who got him into bed. Not for lack of trying. You think he’s pretty now, you should have seen him at fifteen. Twice as beautiful as Nicaise, and ten times more intelligent. Trying to tempt him was a game everyone played. If any of them had landed him, they’d have crowed about it, not kept quiet.’
Lazar made a good-natured sound of disbelief. ‘For real,’ he said to Damen. ‘Who gets a leg over, you or him?’
‘They’re not fucking,’ said Rochert. ‘Not when the Prince took his back off just for feeling him up in the baths. Am I right?’
‘You’re right,’ said Damen. He stood up then, and left them to the campfire.
The company was in peak condition after Nesson. The wagons were repaired, and Paschal had patched up the cuts, and Laurent was not smashed by a rock. More than that. The mood from last night had carried over into the day; adversity had drawn these men together. Even Aimeric and Lazar were getting along. After a fashion.
No one mentioned Orlant, not even Jord and Rochert, who had been his friends.
The pieces were all set. They would arrive at the border intact. There would follow an attack, a fight, much as there had been at Nesson, but probably bigger, uglier. Laurent would either survive, or he would not, and after that Damen, having discharged his obligation, would return to Akielos.
It was everything Laurent had asked for.
Damen stopped on the outskirts of the camp. He leaned his back against the trunk of one of the crooked trees. He could see the whole of the camp from here. He could see Laurent’s tent, lamp-lit and streaming flags; it was like a pomegranate, its rich excesses on the inside.
Damen had woken from a cocoon of sleep this morning to the sound of a lazy, amused, ‘Good morning. No, I don’t need anything.’ And then: ‘Dress and report to Jord. We ride out when repairs are done.’
‘Good morning,’ was all Damen had said, after sitting up and passing a hand over his face. He’d found himself simply gazing at Laurent, who was already dressed in riding leathers.
Laurent had raised his brows and said, ‘Shall I carry you? It’s at least five paces to the tent flap.’
Damen felt the solid bulk of the tree trunk at his back. The sounds of the camp carried in the cool night air, the sounds of hammering and the last of the repairs, the murmured voices of the men, the raising and lowering of hooves to earth from the horses. The men were experiencing camaraderie in the face of a common enemy, and it was natural that he was feeling it too, or something similar, after a night of chases and escapes and fighting alongside Laurent. It was a heady elixir, but he must not get swept up in it. He was here for Akielos not for Laurent. His duty only extended so far. He had his own war, his own country, his own fight.
*
The first of the messengers came the next morning, solving at least one mystery.
Since the palace, Laurent had dispatched and greeted riders in a steady stream. Some bore missives from the local Veretian nobility, offering resupply or hospitality. Some were scouts or messengers carrying information. This very morning Laurent had sent a man flying back to Nesson, with money and thanks, to return Charls his horse.
But this rider was nothing like that. Dressed in leathers with no sign of crest or livery, riding a good but plain horse, and most surprising of all—pushing back a heavy cloak—she was a woman.
‘Have her brought to my tent,’ said Laurent. ‘The slave will act as chaperone.’
Chaperone. The woman, who was perhaps forty and had a face like a crag, did not look at all amorous. But the Veretian distaste for bastardry and the act that sired it was so strong that Laurent could not speak with any woman in private without an escort.
Inside the tent, the woman made obeisance, offering a cloth-wrapped gift. Laurent nodded for Damen to take the parcel, and place it on the table.