*
Risk of laming was high, and they made slow progress along the stream bed because they had to protect the wagons. Riders went ahead to ensure the stream didn’t deepen or quicken in current, and that the stream bed remained a gentle shale with enough purchase for the wheels.
Damen called the halt. They pulled up onto a bank, where an outcrop of rock could disguise a small fire. There were granite ruins here too, which would also provide cover. Damen recognised the shapes, having seen them in Acquitart and more recently at Marlas, though here the ruins were only the remains of a wall, the stones worn and covered in undergrowth.
Pallas and Aktis put their skills to work and speared fish, which they ate baked and flaky wrapped in leaves, drinking fortified wine. It was a sweet-tasting supplement to their usual road fare of bread and hard cheese. The horses, tied for the night, grazed a little, whuffling the ground gently. Jord and Lydos took first watch, while the others came to sit in a semicircle around their small fire.
When Damen came to sit too, everyone suddenly scrambled up and stood, awkwardly. Earlier, Laurent had tossed Damen his bedroll and said, ‘Unpack this,’ and Pallas had almost challenged him to a duel for the insult. Sitting down and eating cheese casually with their King was not something that they knew how to do. Damen poured a shallow cup of wine and passed it to the soldier beside him (Pallas), and there was a long silence in which Pallas stood obviously garnering every piece of courage that he had to reach out and take it.
Laurent strolled up to the impasse, threw himself down on the log next to Damen, and in an expressionless voice launched into the story of the brothel adventure that had earned him the blue dress, which was so unabashedly filthy it made Lazar blush, and so funny it had Pallas wiping his eyes. The Veretians asked frank questions about Laurent’s escape from the brothel. This led to frank answers and more eye wiping, as everyone had opinions about brothels that were translated and mistranslated hilariously. The wine was passed around.
Not to be outdone, the Akielons told Laurent about their escape from Kastor’s soldiers, the crouching in the stream bed, the race in slow wagons, the hiding behind tree fronds. Pallas did a decent impression of Paschal’s riding. Lazar watched Pallas with lazy admiration. It wasn’t the impression he was admiring. Damen bit into the apricot.
When Damen rose a while later, everyone remembered again that he was the King, but the stiff formality was banished, and he went rather pleased to the bedroll that he had dutifully unpacked, and lay down on it, listening to the sounds of the camp preparing itself to sleep.
It was with a little shock that he heard footsteps, and the faint sound of a bedroll hitting the earth beside him. Laurent stretched out, and they lay alongside one another under the stars.
‘You smell of horse,’ said Damen.
‘It’s how I got past the dog.’
He felt a throb of happiness, and said nothing, just lay on his back and looked up at the stars.
‘It’s like old times,’ said Damen, though the truth was, he had never really had times like this.
‘My first trip to Akielos,’ said Laurent.
‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s like Vere, with fewer places to have a bath,’ said Laurent.
When he looked sideways, Laurent was lying on his side looking back at him; their postures echoed each other.
‘The stream is right there.’
‘You want me wandering around the Akielon countryside naked at night?’ And then, ‘You smell just as much of horse as I do.’
‘More,’ said Damen. He was smiling.
Laurent was a pale shape in the moonlight. Beyond him was the sleeping camp, and the ruins in granite that would crumble over time and fall away forever into the water.
‘They’re Artesian. Aren’t they? From the old empire, Artes. They say it used to span both our countries.’
‘Like the ruins at Acquitart,’ said Laurent. He didn’t say, And at Marlas. ‘My brother and I used to play there as boys. Kill all the Akielons and restore the old empire.’
‘My father had the same idea.’
And look what happened to him. Laurent didn’t say that either. Laurent’s breathing was easy, as though he was relaxed and sleepy, lying beside Damen. Damen heard himself say it.
‘There’s a summer palace in Ios outside the capital. My mother designed the gardens there. They say it’s built on Artesian foundations.’ He thought of the meandering walks, the delicate, flowering southern orchids, the sprays of orange blossom. ‘It’s cool in summer, and there are fountains, and tracks for riding.’ His pulse beat with uncharacteristic nerves, so that he felt almost shy. ‘When all this is over . . . we could take horses and stay a week in the palace.’ Since their night together in Karthas, he hadn’t dared to speak about the future.
He felt Laurent holding himself carefully, and there was a strange pause. After a moment, Laurent said, softly, ‘I’d like that.’
Damen rolled onto his back again, and felt the words like happiness as he let himself look up again at the wide sweep of stars.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS TYPICAL of their luck that the wagon, which had held together for five days in a stream bed, broke down as soon as they rejoined the road.
It sat like a truculent child in the middle of the dirt, the second wagon crowded uncomfortably behind it. Lazar, emerging from under the wagon with a smudge on his cheek, pronounced it a broken axel. Damen, who as a prince of the blood did not excel at wagon repairs, nodded knowledgeably, and ordered his men to fix it. Everyone dismounted and got to work propping up the wagon, cutting down a young tree for wood.
That was when a squadron of Akielon soldiers appeared on the horizon.
Damen held out his hand for silence—total silence. The hammering stopped. Everything stopped. There was a clear view across the plain all the way to the trotting squadron in tight formation: fifty soldiers, travelling north-west.
‘If they come this way—’ said Nikandros in a low voice.
‘Hey!’ Laurent called out. He was pulling himself up from the front wheel onto the wagon top. He had a swathe of yellow silk in his hand, and he stood on the wagon waving it colourfully at the squadron. ‘Hey you! Akielons!’
Damen’s stomach clenched, and he took an impotent step forward.
‘Stop him!’ said Nikandros, making a similar movement forward—too late. On the horizon, the squadron was wheeling like a flock of starlings.
It was too late to stop it. Too late to grab at Laurent’s ankle. The squadron had seen them. Brief visions of strangling Laurent weren’t helpful. Damen looked at Nikandros. They were outnumbered, and there was nowhere to hide on this wide, flat plain. The two of them subtly squared off towards the approaching squadron. Damen judged the distance between himself and the nearest of the approaching soldiers, his chances of killing them, of killing enough of them to even the odds for the others.
Laurent was clambering down from the wagon top, still clutching the silk. He greeted the squadron with a relieved voice and an exaggerated version of his Veretian accent.
‘But thank you, officer. What could we have done if you hadn’t stopped? We have eighteen bolts of cloth to deliver to Milo of Argos, and as you can see Christofle has sold us a defective wagon.’
The officer in question was identifiable by his superior horse. He had short dark hair under his helmet, and the kind of unyielding expression that only came with extensive training. He looked around for an Akielon, and found Damen.
Damen tried to keep his own expression bland and not look at the wagons. The first was full of cloth, but the second was full of Jokaste, with Guion and his wife also crammed in there. The moment the doors were flung open, they would be revealed. There was no blue dress to save them.
‘You are merchants?’
‘We are.’
‘What name?’ said the officer.
‘Charls,’ said Damen, who was the only merchant he knew.
‘You are Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant?’ said the officer sceptically, as if this was a name well known to him.
‘No,’ said Laurent, as if this was the most foolish thing in the world. ‘I am Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant. This is my assistant. Lamen.’
In the silence, the officer tracked his gaze over Laurent, then over Damen. Then he looked at the wagon, taking in every dent, every fleck of dust, every sign of long-distance travel, in minute detail.
‘Well, Charls,’ he said, eventually. ‘It looks like you’ve got a broken axel.’
‘I don’t suppose your men could aid us in our repairs?’ said Laurent.
Damen stared at him. They were encircled by fifty mounted Akielon soldiers. Jokaste was inside that wagon.
The officer said, ‘We’re patrolling for Damianos of Akielos.’
‘Who’s Damianos of Akielos?’ said Laurent.
His face was utterly open, his blue eyes unblinking, upturned to the officer on his horse.
‘He’s the King’s son,’ Damen heard himself saying, ‘Kastor’s brother.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lamen. Prince Damianos is dead,’ said Laurent. ‘He is hardly the man to whom this officer is referring.’ Then, to the officer: ‘I apologise for my assistant. He doesn’t keep up with Akielon affairs.’
‘On the contrary, it’s believed Damianos of Akielos is alive, and that he crossed into this province with his men six days ago.’ The officer gestured to his squadron, waving them forward. ‘Damianos is in Akielos.’
To Damen’s disbelief, he was waving them forward to mend the wagon. One of the soldiers asked Nikandros for a wooden block to brace the wheel. Nikandros passed it to him wordlessly. Nikandros had the slightly stupefied look that Damen remembered from several of his own adventures with Laurent.
‘When your wagon is repaired, we can ride with you to the inn,’ said the officer. ‘You’ll be quite safe. The rest of the garrison is stationed there.’
He used the same tone that Laurent had used when he had said, ‘Who’s Damianos?’
It was suddenly obvious that they were not free from suspicion. A provincial officer might not feel comfortable confronting a well-known merchant on the road and searching his wagons. But at an inn, he could set his men to investigate the wagons at his leisure. And why risk a fight with a dozen guards on the road, when you could simply escort them back to the waiting arms of your garrison?
‘Thank you, officer,’ said Laurent without hesitating. ‘Lead on.’
The officer’s name was Stavos, and when the wagon was fixed, he rode alongside Laurent, everyone trotting upright in their saddles towards the inn. Stavos’s air of confidence got stronger as they rode, which brought every sense Damen had of danger to life. Yet any reluctance was a sure mark of guilt. He could only ride onwards.
The inn was one the larger hostelries in Mellos, equipped for powerful guests, and its entrance was a set of great gates through which wagons and carriages could pass into a central courtyard that contained ample yards for plodding beasts of burden, and stalls for good horses.
Damen’s sense of danger grew as they passed through the gates and into the bumpy courtyard. There was a sizeable barracks, the inn obviously used as a waypoint for military in the region. It was a common enough arrangement in the provinces: merchants and travellers of good birth appreciated and even subsidised a military presence, which elevated an establishment over the usual public houses where not even a slave, if they possessed a shred of respectability, would risk eating. He counted a hundred soldiers.
‘Thank you, Stavos. We can take it from here.’
‘Not at all. Let me escort you inside.’
‘Very well.’ Laurent showed no sign of hesitation whatsoever. ‘Come, Lamen.’
Damen followed him in, acutely aware that he was being separated from his men. Laurent simply walked into the inn.
The inn had a high ceiling in the Akielon style, and a gigantic spitfire in the hearth, the spit briefly overwhelming the room with the scent of its roasting beef. There was only one other group of guests, half visible through an open walk-through, sitting around a table, in animated discussion. To the left, there was a stone staircase leading up to the second-floor sleeping rooms. Two Akielon soldiers had taken up position at the entry, another two were posted at the far door, and Stavos himself had brought a small escort of four soldiers in with him.
Damen thought, absurdly, that the unrailed stairs could be high ground in a fight—as if they could take on an entire garrison, just the two of them. Perhaps he could overwhelm Stavos. He could negotiate some kind of exchange, Stavos’s life for their freedom.
Stavos was introducing Laurent to the innkeeper.
‘This is Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant.’
‘That isn’t Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant.’ The innkeeper looked at Laurent.
‘I can assure you that I am.’
‘I can assure you. Charls the renowned merchant is already here.’
There was a pause.
Damen found himself looking at Laurent as at the man stepping to the mark in a spear-throwing competition after the last competitor has thrown a perfect bullseye.
‘That is impossible. Call him out here.’
‘Yes, call him out here,’ said Stavos, and everyone waited while a serving boy retreated to the party of guests in the next room. A moment later, Damen heard a familiar voice.
‘Who is this impostor claiming to be m—’
They came face to face with Charls the Veretian cloth merchant.
Charls had changed very little in the months since they had seen one another, his expression merchant-serious, like his clothing, a heavy, expensive-looking brocade. He was a man in his late thirties, with an eager nature tempered by the kind of presence that developed over years of trading.
Charls took one look at the unmistakable blue eyes and blond hair of his Prince, who he had last seen in Damen’s lap dressed as a pet in a tavern at Nesson. His eyes widened. Then, with a truly heroic effort:
‘Charls!’ said Charls.
‘If he is Charls, then who are you?’ said the officer to Charls.
‘I,’ said Charls, ‘am—’
‘He is Charls, I have known him these eight years,’ said the innkeeper.
‘That’s right. He is Charls. I am Charls. We are cousins,’ said Charls, gamely, ‘named after our grandfather. Charls.’
‘Thank you, Charls, this man believes I am the King of Akielos,’ said Laurent.
‘I simply meant that you might be an agent of the King,’ said Stavos irritably.
‘An agent of the King when he has raised taxes and threatens to bankrupt the entire cloth industry?’ said Laurent.
Damen put his eyes somewhere where they wouldn’t meet Laurent’s, while everyone else stared at him—at his blond face, with its pale, arched brows, spreading his hands, a Veretian gesture to go with his Veretian accent.
‘I think we can all agree he isn’t the King of Akielos,’ said the innkeeper. ‘If Charls vouches for his cousin, that must satisfy the garrison.’
‘I certainly do vouch for him,’ said Charls.
After a moment, Stavos made a stiff bow. ‘My apologies, Charls. We are taking every precaution on the roads.’
‘There is no need to apologise, Stavos. Your vigilance does you credit.’ Laurent gave a stiff little bow of his own.
Then he drew off his riding cloak and passed it to Damen to carry.
‘In disguise again!’ Charls said sotto voce as he drew Laurent over to his table by the fire. ‘What is it this time? A mission for the Crown? A secret rendezvous? No fear, Your Highness—it’s my honour to keep your secret.’
Charls introduced Laurent to the six men at the table and they each expressed their surprise and delight at meeting Charls’s young cousin in Akielos.
‘This is my assistant Guilliame.’
‘This is my assistant Lamen,’ said Laurent.
That was how Damen found himself at a table full of Veretian merchants in an inn in Akielos, discussing cloth. There were six men in Charls’s party in total, all merchants. Laurent found a seat close to Charls and the silk merchant Mathelin. Lamen was relegated to a small three-legged stool at the table end.
Servants brought out flatbreads dipped in oil, olives, and meats shaved from the spit. Red wine was decanted into mixing bowls and drunk with shallow cups. It was decent wine and there were no flutists or dancing boys, which was the best one could hope for at a public inn, Damen thought.
Guilliame came to talk to him, since they were the same rank.
‘Lamen. That’s an unusual name.’
‘It’s Patran,’ said Damen.
‘You speak very good Akielon,’ he said, loudly and slowly.
‘Thank you,’ said Damen.
Nikandros had to stand awkwardly by the end of the table when he arrived. He frowned when he realised he had to give his report to Laurent. ‘The wagons are unpacked. Charls.’
‘Thank you, soldier,’ said Laurent, adding expansively to the group, ‘We usually operate in Delfeur, but I’ve been forced to come south. Nikandros is completely useless as the Kyros,’ Laurent said, loudly enough for Nikandros to hear him. ‘He doesn’t know the first thing about cloth.’
‘That is so true,’ agreed Mathelin.
Charls said, ‘He disallowed trading in Kemptian silk, and when I tried to sell silk from Varenne he taxed it at five sols a bolt!’
This was greeted with the exclamations of disapproval that it deserved, and the conversation moved on to the hardships of border trading and the unrest plaguing supply trains. If it was true that Damianos had returned in the north, Charls expected this to be his last consignment before the roads closed. War was coming, and they could expect lean times.
The speculation was on the price of grain in wartime, and of the impact on producers and growers. No one knew much about Damianos, or why their own Prince had allied with him.
‘Charls met the Prince of Vere once,’ Guilliame said to Damen, lowering his voice to the conspiratorial, ‘in a tavern in Nesson, disguised as a,’ lowering it further, ‘prostitute.’
Damen looked over at Laurent, who was deep in conversation, letting his eyes pass slowly over every familiar feature, the cool expression tipped with gold in the firelight. He said, ‘Did he?’
‘Charls said, think of the most expensive pet you’ve ever seen, then double it.’
‘Really?’ said Damen.
‘Of course, Charls knew who he was right away, because he couldn’t hide his princely style, and nobility of spirit.’
‘Of course,’ said Damen.
Across the table, Laurent was asking questions about cultural differences in trade. Veretians liked ornate fabrics and dyes, weavings and ornamentations, Charls said, but Akielons had a sharper focus on quality, and their textiles were in truth more sophisticated, every aspect of the weave revealed by their deceptively simple styles. In some ways, it was harder to trade here.
‘Maybe you could encourage Akielons to wear sleeves. You’d sell more cloth,’ said Laurent.
Everyone laughed politely at the joke, and then speculative looks crossed one or two faces, as if this young cousin of Charls’s might have stumbled by accident onto a good idea.