‘No,’ said Laurent. And then, ‘It was provoked.’
Another hesitation. It was clear that the two soldiers did not know what to make of what they had walked into. The air of violence was heavy in the room, where their Prince stood in front of a ruined table, with blood welling from his lip.
‘I said let him go.’
It was a direct order from their Prince, and this time it was obeyed. Damen felt the hands release him. Laurent’s gaze followed the soldiers out as they bowed, then left, the doors closing behind them. Then Laurent transferred his gaze to Damen.
‘Now get out,’ Laurent said.
Damen pressed his eyes closed briefly. He felt raw with thoughts of his father. Laurent’s words pushed at the inside of his eyelids.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t go to Charcy. I need to convince you of that.’
Laurent’s laugh was a strange, breathless sound. ‘Didn’t you hear anything that I just said to you?’
‘Yes,’ said Damen. ‘You tried to hurt me, and you have. I wish you would see that what you have just done to me is what your uncle is doing to you.’
He saw Laurent receive that like a man at the very ends of his endurance being given another hit. ‘Why,’ said Laurent, ‘do you—do you always—’ He stopped himself. The rise and fall of his chest was shallow.
‘I came with you to stop a war,’ said Damen. ‘I came because you were the only thing standing between Akielos and your uncle. It’s you who’ve lost sight of that. You need to fight your uncle on your own terms, not on his.’
‘I can’t.’ It was a raw admission. ‘I can’t think.’ The words were torn out of him. Wide-eyed in the silence, Laurent said them again in a different voice, his blue eyes dark with the exposure of the truth. ‘I can’t think.’
‘I know,’ said Damen.
He said it softly. There was more than one admission in Laurent’s words. He knew that too.
He knelt, and scooped up the glimmer of Nicaise’s earring from the floor.
It had been a delicate thing, and well made, a handful of sapphires. Rising, he set it down on the table.
After a time, he moved back from the place where Laurent leant, fingers curled around the table edge. He drew a breath, made to take another step back.
‘Don’t go,’ said Laurent, quietly.
‘I’m just clearing my head. I already told my escort I wouldn’t need them until morning,’ said Damen.
And there was another awful silence, as Damen realised what Laurent was asking him.
‘No. I don’t mean—forever—just—’ Laurent broke off. ‘Three days.’ Laurent said it as though producing from the depths the answer to a painstakingly weighed question. ‘I can do this alone. I know I can. It’s only that right now I can’t seem to . . . think, and I can’t . . . trust anyone else to stand up to me when I’m . . . like this. If you could give me three days, I—’ He forcibly cut himself off.
‘I’ll stay,’ said Damen. ‘You know I’ll stay for as long as you—’
‘Don’t,’ said Laurent. ‘Don’t lie to me. Not you.’
‘I’ll stay,’ said Damen. ‘Three days. After that, I ride south.’
Laurent nodded. After a moment, Damen came back to rest against the table beside Laurent. He watched Laurent find his way back to himself.
Eventually, Laurent began to talk, the words precise and quite steady.
‘You’re right. I killed Nicaise when I left it half done. I should have either stayed away from him, or broken his faith in my uncle. I didn’t plan it out, I left it to chance. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking about him like that. I just . . . I just liked him.’ Underneath the cold, analytical words, there was also something bewildered.
It was awful. ‘I should never have—said that. Nicaise made a choice. He spoke up for you because you were his friend, and that is not something you should regret.’
‘He spoke up for me because he didn’t think my uncle would hurt him. None of them do. They think he loves them. It has the outward semblance of love. At first. But it isn’t love. It’s . . . fetish. It doesn’t outlast adolescence. The boys themselves are disposable.’ Laurent’s voice didn’t change. ‘He knew that much, deep down. He always was smarter than the others. He knew that when he got too old, he would be replaced.’
‘Like Aimeric,’ said Damen.
Into the long silence that stretched out between them, Laurent said: ‘Like Aimeric.’
Damen recalled Nicaise’s blistering verbal attacks. He looked at Laurent’s clear profile and tried to understand the strange affinity between man and boy.
‘You liked him.’
‘My uncle cultivated the worst in him. He still had good instincts sometimes. When children are moulded that young, it takes time to undo. I thought . . .’
Softly, ‘You thought you could help him.’
He watched Laurent’s face, the flickering of some internal truth behind the careful lack of all expression.