They were not the first to arrive at Breteau.
Lord Touars had sent out a contingent of men to protect what remained, and to bury or burn the bodies, so that they would not attract disease or scavengers looking for carrion.
They were a small group of men. They had worked hard. Each of the barns, huts and outbuildings had been checked for survivors, and those few there were had been taken into one of the physician’s tents. The quality of the air was thick with the smell of burnt wood and straw, but there were no smouldering patches of ground. The fires had been put out. The pits were already half dug.
Damen’s eyes passed over a deserted hut, a broken spear-shaft protruding from a lifeless form, the remains of an outdoor gathering with knocked-over cups of wine. The villagers had fought. Here and there, one of the fallen Veretians was still clutching a hoe or a rock, or a pair of shears, or any of the crude weapons that a villager could muster at short notice.
Laurent’s men gave the respect of quiet hard work, clearing methodically, a little gentler when the body was that of a child. They didn’t seem to remember who and what Damen was. They gave him all the same tasks and worked alongside him. He felt awkward, conscious of the obtrusiveness, the disrespect of his presence. He saw Lazar draw a cloak over a woman’s body and make a small gesture of farewell, such as was used in the south. He felt all the way down to his bones how unprotected this place had been.
He told himself that this was an eye-for-an-eye retaliation for a raid on Akielos. He even understood how and why it might have happened. An attack on an Akielon village demanded retribution, but the Veretian border garrisons were too strong to target. Not even Theomedes, with all the might of the kyroi behind him, had wanted to challenge Ravenel. But a smaller party of Akielon soldiers might cross the border between the garrisons, might penetrate into Vere, find a village that was unprotected, and smash it.
Laurent had come to stand beside him.
‘There are survivors,’ said Laurent. ‘I want you to question them.’
He thought of the woman, struggling in his arms. ‘I shouldn’t be the one who—’
‘Akielon survivors,’ said Laurent, shortly.
Damen drew in a breath, not liking this at all.
He said, carefully, ‘If Veretians had been captured after this kind of attack on an Akielon village, they would have been executed.’
‘They will be,’ said Laurent. ‘Find out what they know about the raid on Akielos that provoked this attack.’
There were no restraints such as he had briefly supposed, but as he drew close to the pallet in the dark hut he saw how little need the Akielon prisoner had for them. In and out, his breathing was audible. The wound to his stomach had been tended. It was not of the sort that could be healed.
Damen sat down by the pallet.
It was no one he knew. It was a man with thick curling dark hair and dark eyes with heavy lashes; the hair was sweat-tangled, and sweat filmed his brow. The eyes were open, and watching him.
In his own language, Damen said, ‘Can you speak?’
The man gave a rattling, unpleasant breath and said, ‘You are Akielon.’
Under the blood, he was younger than Damen had first thought. Nineteen or twenty.
‘I’m Akielon,’ said Damen.
‘We have—retaken the village?’
He owed this man honesty; he was a countryman and close to the end. He said, ‘I serve the Veretian Prince.’
‘You dishonour your blood,’ said the man, in a voice thick with hate. He flung the words with all his remaining strength.
Damen waited for the spasm of pain and effort that wracked him after that to pass, for his breathing to return to the laboured rhythm it had had when he entered the sickroom. When it did, he said, ‘A raid on Akielos provoked this attack?’
Another breath, in and out. ‘Did your Veretian master send you to ask that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell him—his coward’s attack on Akielos killed less than we did.’ Proudly.
Anger was not useful. It came over him in a wave, and so for a long time he didn’t speak, just stared at the dying man, flatly.
‘Where was the attack?’
A breath like bitter laughter, and the man closed his eyes. Damen thought he wasn’t going to say more, but: ‘Tarasis.’
‘It was clan raiders?’ Tarasis lay in the foothills.
‘They pay raiders.’
‘They rode through the mountains?’
‘What does your master care for—this?’
‘He is trying to stop the man who attacked Tarasis.’
‘Is that what he told you? He’s lying. He’s Veretian. He will—use you for his own ends—as he uses you now, against your own people.’
The words were growing more laboured. Damen’s eyes passed over the haggard face, the sweat-drenched curls. He spoke in a different voice.
‘What’s your name?’