‘Yes, they are the men who caused these border attacks,’ said Laurent, answering the question that had not been asked.
‘They don’t look Akielon,’ said Jord.
‘No,’ said Laurent.
Jord nodded grimly, and they crested the last rise to see the shadows and the points of light of the nighttime camp.
*
The embroidery came later, in the retelling, as the story was told again and again by the men, taking on its own character as it passed over camp.
The Prince had ridden out, with only one soldier. Deep in the mountains, he had chased down the rats responsible for these killings. Had ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one, at least. Had brought them back thrashed, lashed and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.
In the men’s eyes the feat was reflected as the wild, impossible thing it was—their Prince vanishing for two days, then appearing out of the night with a sackful of prisoners thrown over his shoulder, tossing them at the feet of his troop and saying: You wanted them? Here they are.
‘You took a beating,’ said Paschal, later.
‘Thirty to one, at least,’ said Damen.
Paschal snorted. Then he said, ‘It’s a good thing you’re doing, standing with him. Staying with him, when you have no love for this country.’
Instead of accepting the invitations to the campfire, Damen found himself walking the edges of the camp. Behind him, the voices grew distant: Rochert saying something about blond hair and temperament. Lazar reliving Laurent’s duel with Govart.
Breteau looked very different to the last time Damen had seen it. Instead of piles of burning wood, there was cleared ground. The half-open pits were filled in. The broken spears and the signs of fighting were gone. Dwellings that were damaged beyond repair had been neatly stripped down for materials.
The camp itself was a series of ordered geometric tents pitched west of the village. Sloping canvas was pulled taut in rigorous lines, and at the far end of the camp stood Laurent’s tent, which had been prepared for him despite his absence. Between the ranked columns, men proceeded in friendlier, less rigid paths to and from the campfires.
It was not a victory. Not yet. They were still a day’s ride out from Ravenel. That meant their absence would be four days, at least. Assuming good horses and good roads, the Regent’s messenger would certainly have arrived by then, beating them to Ravenel by at least a day.
It had probably happened this morning, while Damen was waking to an empty tent—the messenger pounding into the fort’s dwarfing open courtyard, being quickly ushered into the great hall, and all the lords of Ravenel gathering around to hear his message. This, in the absence of the wastrel prince who had flitted off during a crisis and not returned as he had promised, missing the moment when he most needed to be taken seriously, to forge decisions and shape events. In that sense, they were already too late.
But today’s unlikely procession through the hills was planning on a level he had not previously attributed to Laurent. Laurent had negotiated the counterstrike with Halvik the evening before hearing the first news of attacks on his border. The messages and bribes that had flowed from Laurent to Halvik’s clan had begun days earlier than that. Laurent must have guessed the way in which his uncle would trigger a border conflict, and begun his own preparations to counter it, well in advance.
Damen remembered the first night at Chastillon, the sloppy work, the fights, the poor standard of soldiering. The Regent had thrown his nephew a chaotic rabble of men, and Laurent had stamped it into ordered lines; had given him an ungovernable captain, and Laurent had vanquished him; had unleashed a dangerous force on the border, and Laurent had brought it back, neutered and strapped down. Check, check, and check, as each element of disorder was brought under Laurent’s monumental control.
Heart, body and mind, these men belonged to the Prince. Their hard work and discipline were evident in every part of the camp and the surrounding village.
Damen let the cool evening air pass over him, and let himself feel down to his bones the virtuosity of this journey he was a part of, and just how far they had come.
*
And in the cool evening air, he let himself face it, in a way he had not allowed himself to face it before.
Home.
Home lay right on the other side of Ravenel. The moment when he would leave Vere was approaching.