Damen realised that he didn’t know how tall his mother really was. He had never asked about it, and had never been told.
Laurent made a formal Akielon gesture that matched his chiton and the gardens, but was different to his habitual Veretian manners. Damen felt his skin prickle with strangeness. It was part of Akielon courtship to seek permission from a parent. If things had been different, Damen might have knelt in the great hall in front of King Aleron, asking for the right to court his youngest son.
It was not that way between them. All their family was dead.
‘I’ll take care of your son,’ said Laurent. ‘I’ll protect his kingdom as if it were my own. I’ll give my life for his people.’
Above them, the sun was high and bright, and encouraged a retreat to the shade line. The boughs of the trees around them were heavy with scent. Laurent said, ‘I won’t let him down. I promise you.’
‘Laurent,’ said Damen, as Laurent turned back from the statue to face him.
‘In Arles, there’s a place… The statue doesn’t look that much like him, but my brother is buried there. I used to go there sometimes and talk to him... talk to myself. If I was having trouble in practice. Or to tell him how I hard I was trying to win the respect of the Prince’s Guard. The sort of things he used to like hearing about. If you like, I’ll take you there when we visit.’
‘I’d like that.’ Because the loss of family was so close between them, Damen pushed the words out. ‘You’ve never asked about it.’
After a long moment: ‘You said it was quick.’
He had said that. Laurent had said, Like gutting a pig? Laurent sounded different now, as if he had held that one small piece of information close, all this time.
‘It was.’
Laurent moved away, to a place where the shifting shade once again opened out into a view of the sea. After a moment, Damen came to stand beside him. He could see the patterns of light and shadow on Laurent’s face.
‘He didn’t let anyone else intervene. He thought it was fair, between princes. Single combat.’
‘Yes.’
‘He was tired. He’d been fighting for hours. But the man he fought wasn’t. It was Kastor on the front at Marlas. Damianos had stayed back to protect the King. He rode from behind the lines.’
‘Yes.’
‘He was honourable, and when he drew first blood, he gave Damianos time to recover. He wouldn’t let anyone else intervene. He thought—’
‘—he thought it was right. He stepped back and let me pick up my sword. I didn’t know what to do. It had been two years since anyone had disarmed me. When we fought again, he drove me back. I don’t know why he cut too far to the left. It was the only mistake he made. I took the chance it wasn’t a feint, and when he couldn’t draw himself back into position, I killed him. I killed him.’
‘Why?’ said Laurent, quietly. It came out like a throb, a child’s question, that couldn’t be answered.
The sun above them felt too exposing. Damen found that couldn’t look away from Laurent. He thought of his father and mother, of Auguste, of Kastor. It was Laurent who spoke.
‘The night you told me about this place, it was the first time that I ever thought about the future. I thought about coming here. I thought about... being with you. It meant something to me that you suggested it. What we had on the ride to Ios, it was already more than I... At the trial, I thought it was enough. I thought I was ready. And then you came.’
‘In case you wanted me,’ said Damen.
‘I thought, I have lost everything and gained you, and I would almost make the trade, if I didn’t know it had happened that way for you, too.’
It was so close to his own thoughts—that everything he knew was gone, but that this was here, in its place, this one bright thing.
He had not understood that it was like this for Laurent until it was like this for him too. He wanted to talk about his own brother in some small way, because as children they had come here together—or rather, Damen had been a child and Kastor had been a young man. Kastor had carried him on his shoulders, had swum with him, wrestled with him. Kastor had brought him a conch shell, once, from the sea.
He said, ‘He would have killed us both.’
‘He was your brother,’ said Laurent.
He felt the words touch that place inside him. He had not spoken about Kastor, except on the night after he had recovered enough to leave his bed and attend the viewing. He had sat with his head in his hands for a long while, his mind a tangle of conflicting thoughts. Laurent had said, quietly, Put him in the family crypt. Honour him as I know you want to.
Laurent had known, when he hadn’t known himself. Damen felt the same bewildered acknowledgement now, even as he wondered what other parts of himself Laurent might touch and open, what other closed doors waited. His mother, his brother.
Laurent said, ‘Let me attend you.’
Bright and open, the baths of Lentos were in sunny atriums, and the water was of different temperatures, warm in some, cool in others. Each bath was a sunken rectangle, with steps carved into the marble leading down into the water. A few of the more private baths were under shaded colonnades, others were open to the sky, and parts of the bowered gardens.
It was a pretty summer spot, different to the maze-like descent into marble of the slave baths in Ios, or the oversteamed tile of the royal baths in Vere. Attendants had already opened and readied the baths in case royal whim desired to use them, elegant pitchers, soft cloths and towels, soaps and oils, and the baths filled with exquisitely clear water.
He was glad that these baths were not underground.
He remembered the sole occasion that he had been called to attend Laurent in the baths in Vere, Laurent’s cool voice baiting him as his hands moved over Laurent’s skin. Laurent had hated him then. Laurent had been inhabiting a private reality in which he had been allowing his brother’s killer to put hands on his naked body.
Knowing that did nothing to lessen his own memories of that time, the claustrophobic overripe palace, the debaucheries, and his own fixed hatred of the Prince, his captor. Damen remembered the baths, and what had happened after, and he understood that there was one more closed door that he didn’t want to open.
‘You served me,’ said Laurent. ‘Let me serve you.’
In Akielos as in Vere it was customary to be washed by bath attendants before entering the soaking bath. He thought—surely they were not going to do that together? If they were, it would be in the traditional fashion: as King and Prince they would be undressed and washed by dedicated bath attendants, then descend to soak and talk. That was common enough among nobles in Akielos, where nudity was not taboo and bathing could be a social pastime.