It had never really had the stamp of Kastor. Kastor was capable of anger, of brutality, but his actions were straightforward. This kind of imaginative cruelty belonged to someone else.
‘My uncle plans everything,’ said Laurent, as though reading Damen’s thoughts. ‘He plans for victory and he plans for defeat. It was you who never quite fit . . . You’ve always been outside of his schemes. For everything that my uncle and Kastor planned,’ said Laurent, as Damen felt himself grow cold, ‘they had no idea what they did when they gifted me with you.’
*
Outside, when he pushed outside, he heard the sound of men’s voices, and the chink of bridles and spurs, the rattle of wheels on stone. He was breathing unsteadily. He put a hand on the wall to take some of his weight.
In a fort full of activity, he knew himself a game piece, and was only beginning to be able to glimpse the scope of the board.
The Regent had done this, and yet he had done this too, he also was responsible. Jord was right. He had owed Laurent the truth, and he hadn’t given it to him. And now he knew what the consequences of that choice might be. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret what they had done: last night had been bright in a way that resisted tarnishing.
It had been right. His heart beat with the feeling that the other truth must somehow change to make it right, and he knew that it wouldn’t.
He imagined himself nineteen again, knowing then what he knew now, and he wondered if he would have let that long-ago battle fall to the Veretians—let Auguste live. If he would have ignored his father’s call to arms altogether, and instead found his way to the Veretian tents and sought out Auguste to find some common ground. Laurent would have been thirteen but in Damen’s mind’s eye he would have found him a little older, sixteen or seventeen, old enough that Damen’s nineteen-year-old self could have begun, with all the exuberance of youth, to court him.
He could do none of that. But if there was something that Laurent wanted, he could give it to him. He could deal the Regent a blow from which he wouldn’t recover.
If the Regent wanted Damianos of Akielos standing alongside his nephew, he would get him. And if he couldn’t give Laurent the truth, he could use everything else he had to give Laurent a definitive victory in the south.
He was going to make these three days count.
*
The blue-eyed self-control was firmly back in place when Laurent came out onto the courtyard dais, armed and armoured and ready to ride.
In the courtyard, Laurent’s men were mounted and waiting for him. Damen looked at the hundred and twenty riders, the men he’d ridden with from the palace to the border, the men he’d worked alongside and shared bread and wine with in the evenings by the campfires. There were some notable absences. Orlant. Aimeric. Jord.
The plan had taken shape over a map. He’d put it to Laurent simply. ‘Look at Charcy’s location. Fortaine will be the launching point for troops. Charcy will be Guion’s fight.’
‘Guion and all his other sons,’ Laurent had said.
‘The strongest move you can make right now is to take Fortaine. It will give you full control of the south. With Ravenel, Fortaine and Acquitart you’ll hold Vere’s southern trade routes to Akielos as well as to Patras. You already hold the southern routes to Vask, and Fortaine gives you access to a port. You’ll have everything you need to launch a northern campaign.’
There had been a silence, until Laurent had said, ‘You were right. I haven’t been thinking about it like this.’
‘Like what?’ said Damen.
‘Like war,’ said Laurent.
Now they faced one another on the dais and words rose to Damen’s lips, personal words.
But what he said was, ‘Are you sure you want to leave your enemy in charge of your fort?’
‘Yes,’ said Laurent.
They gazed at one another. It was a public goodbye, in full view of the men. Laurent extended his hand. He did it not, as a prince might, for Damen to kneel and kiss, but as a friend. There was acknowledgement in the gesture, and as Damen took his hand, in front of the men, Laurent held his gaze.
Laurent said, ‘Take care of my fort, Commander.’
In public, there was nothing he could say. He felt his grip tighten slightly. He thought of stepping forward, of taking Laurent’s head in his hands. And then he thought of what he was, and all he now knew. And he forced himself to release his grip.
Laurent was nodding to his attendant, mounting his horse. Damen said, ‘A lot depends on timing. We have a rendezvous in two days. I—Don’t be late.’
‘Trust me,’ said Laurent with a single bright glance, straightening his horse out with the tug of a rein in the moment before the order was called, and he and his men moved out.