Ice. It was ice wrapped in cloth, pressed steadily to the bruising on his left side. His ribcage rose and fell with his breath. Laurent held it firm. After the initial discomfort, Damen felt the ice start to draw out the heat of the bruising, spreading cool numbness, so that the tense muscles around it began to relax as the ice melted.
Laurent said, ‘I told the clansmen to make it hurt.’
Damen said, ‘It saved my life.’
After a pause, Laurent said, ‘Since I can’t throw a sword.’
Damen took hold of the cloth himself, as Laurent withdrew. Laurent said:
‘You know by now that these were the same men who attacked Tarasis. Halvik and her riders will escort ten of them with us to Breteau, and from there to Ravenel, where I will use them to try to lever this border deadlock open.’ Adding, almost apologetically: ‘Halvik receives the rest of the men, and all of the weapons.’
He followed that thought to its conclusion. ‘She has agreed to use the weapons raiding Akielos to the south, rather than anywhere inside your borders.’
‘Something like that.’
‘And at Ravenel, you mean to expose your uncle as the sponsor of the attack.’
‘Yes,’ said Laurent. ‘I think . . . things are about to become very dangerous.’
‘“About to become,”’ said Damen.
‘Touars is the one who needs convincing. If you hated Akielos,’ said Laurent, ‘more than anything, and you’d been given one chance to hit them as never before, what would stop you? Why would you put down your sword?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Damen. ‘Maybe if I was angrier at someone else.’
Laurent let out a strange breath, then looked away. Outside, the drums were ceaseless, but seemed like something distant, apart from the quiet space in the tent.
‘This is not the way I planned to spend the eve of war,’ said Laurent.
‘With me in your bed?’
‘And in my confidences,’ said Laurent.
Laurent said it as his eyes returned to Damen’s. For a moment it seemed as if he would say something more, but instead of speaking he pushed the cloak out of the way, and lay himself down. The shift in position signalled the end of the conversation, though Laurent drew his wrist to his forehead, as though still locked in thought.
He said: ‘Tomorrow will be a long day. Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. We should sleep.’
The ice had melted, leaving a wet cloth. Damen removed it. There were droplets of water on the planes of his torso; he wiped them off, then tossed the cloth to the far end of the tent. He was aware that Laurent was looking at him again, even as Laurent lay relaxed, his pale hair mingling with the soft fur, a line of very fine skin visible all the way down the loose opening of his Vaskian bedclothes. But after a moment Laurent turned his eyes elsewhere, and then closed them, and they both made their way to sleep.
CHAPTER 14
‘Your Highness!’ Jord, on horseback, was hailing them. He was accompanied by two other riders with torches, lighting up the dark. ‘We’d sent out scouts to find you.’
‘Call them back,’ said Laurent.
Jord reined in, nodding.
Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. It had taken twelve hours, a slow plodding trip with the men swaying and struggling in the saddles, occasionally clubbed into stupefied obedience by the women. Damen remembered what that felt like.
It had been a long day with an abstemious beginning. He had woken stiff, with his body protesting any change in position. Beside him, a pile of markedly empty furs. No Laurent. All signs of recent occupancy had been a handspan away from his own body, suggesting a night spent in close but not transgressive proximity: some kind of self-preservation had apparently prevented Damen from rolling inward during the night; from throwing his arm over Laurent’s torso and drawing them together to make the small tent seem larger than it was.
As a result, Damen was in possession of all his limbs, and even had his clothing restored to him. Thank you, Laurent. Nosing down steep declines on horseback was not something he preferred to do in a loincloth.
The day’s ride that had followed had been almost unsettlingly uneventful. They had reached gentler slopes by mid-afternoon, and—for once—there had been no ambushes or interruptions. The spreading rise and fall of the hillside had been quiet, stretching out to the south and the west, the only break in its peace the unlikeliness of their own procession: Laurent riding at the head of a band of Vaskian women on shaggy ponies, escorting his ten prisoners, roped and tied, and lashed to their horses.
Now it was nightfall, and the horses were exhausted, dropping their necks, some of them, and the prisoners had long since stopped struggling. Jord fell into formation beside them.
‘Breteau is cleared,’ Jord was saying. ‘Lord Touars’s men rode back to Ravenel this morning. We chose to stay on and wait. There has been no word from any direction—the border or the forts or—yourself. The men were starting to get twitchy. They’ll be glad of your return.’
‘I want them ready to ride out at dawn,’ said Laurent.
Jord nodded, then glanced helplessly at the band and its prisoners.