You have a scar,
Laurent had said.
‘What did you tell the Regent?’ Radel demanded. The last time Radel had looked at him like that, he’d lifted his hand and hit Damen, hard. ‘You heard me. What did you tell him about the lashing?’
‘What should I have told him?’ Damen gazed back at him calmly.
‘What you should have done,’ said Radel, ‘is shown loyalty to your Prince. In ten months—’
‘—he will be King,’ said Damen. ‘Until then, aren’t we subject to the rule of his uncle?’
There was a long, cold pause.
‘I see it has not taken you long to learn how to make your way here,’ Radel said.
Damen said, ‘What has happened?’
‘You have been summoned to court,’ said Radel. ‘I hope you can walk.’
With that, a parade of servants entered the room. The preparations that they began eclipsed any Damen had experienced, including those that had been made before the ring.
He was washed, pampered, primped and perfumed. They carefully skirted his healing back but oiled everywhere else, and the oil they used contained gold pigment, so that his limbs gleamed in the torchlight like those of a golden statue.
A servant approached with a series of three small bowls and a delicate brush, and brought his face close to Damen’s, gazing at his features with an expression of concentration, the brush poised. The bowls contained paint for his face. He had not had to suffer the humiliation of paint since Akielos. The servant touched the paint-wet brush-tip to skin, gilt paint to line his eyes, and Damen felt the cold thickness of it on his lashes, and cheeks, and lips.
This time Radel did not say, ‘No jewellery,’ and four enamelled silver caskets were brought into the room and thrown open. From their gleaming contents, Radel made several selections. The first was a series of fine, near-invisible strings, on which hung tiny rubies spaced at intervals; they were woven into Damen’s hair. Then gold for his brow and gold for his waist. Then a leash, snapped onto the collar. The leash was gold too, a fine gold chain, terminating in a golden rod for his handler, the cat carved at one end holding a garnet in its mouth. Much more of this and he was going to clank as he walked.
But there was more. There was a final piece; another fine gold chain looped between twin gold devices. Damen didn’t recognise what it was until a servant stepped forward and snapped the nipple clamps in place.
He jerked away—too late, besides which it only took a jab to his back to send him to his knees. As his chest rose and fell, the little chain swayed.
‘The paint’s smudged,’ said Radel to one of the servants, after assessing Damen’s body and face. ‘There. And there. Reapply it.’
‘I thought the Prince didn’t like paint,’ said Damen.
‘He doesn’t,’ said Radel.
It was the custom of the Veretian nobility to dress in subdued splendour, distinguishing themselves from the garish brightness of the pets, on whom they lavished their greatest displays of wealth. It meant that Damen, cast in gold and escorted through the double doors at the end of a leash, could be mistaken for nothing but what he was. In the crowded chamber, he stood out.
So did Laurent. His bright head was instantly recognisable. Damen’s gaze fixed on him. Left and right, the courtiers were falling silent and stepping back, clearing a path to the throne.
A red carpet stretched from the double doors to the dais, woven with hunting scenes and apple trees and a border of acanthus. The walls were draped in tapestries, where the same rich red predominated. The throne was swathed in the same colour.
Red, red, red. Laurent clashed.
Damen felt his thoughts scattering. Concentration was keeping him upright. His back ached and throbbed.
He forcibly detached his gaze from Laurent, and turned it to the director of whatever public spectacle was now about to unfold. At the end of the long carpet, the Regent sat on the throne. In his left hand, resting across his knee, he held a golden sceptre of office. And behind him, in full robes of state, was the Veretian Council.
The Council was the seat of Veretian power. In the days of King Aleron, the Council’s role had been to advise on matters of state. Now the Regent and Council held the nation in stewardship until Laurent’s ascension. Comprised of five men and no women, the Council was arrayed in a formidable backdrop on the dais. Damen recognised Audin and Guion. A third man he knew from his extreme age to be Councillor Herode. The others must therefore be Jeurre and Chelaut, though he could not tell one from the other. All five wore their medallions around their necks, the mark of their office.
Also on the dais standing slightly back from the throne, Damen saw Councillor Audin’s pet, the child, done up even more garishly than Damen. The only reason Damen outdid him in sheer volume of gilt was because, being several times the little boy’s size, he had substantially more skin available to act as canvas.
A herald called out Laurent’s name, and all of his titles.
Walking forward, Laurent joined Damen and his handler in their approach. Damen was starting to view the carpet as an endurance trial. It was not just the presence of Laurent. The correct series of prostrations before the throne seemed specifically designed to ruin a week’s worth of healing. Finally it was done.
Damen knelt, and Laurent bent his knee the appropriate amount.
From the courtiers lining the chamber, Damen heard one or two murmured comments about his back. He supposed that set against the gold paint, it looked rather gruesome. That, he realised suddenly, was the point.
The Regent wanted to discipline his nephew, and, with the Council behind him, had chosen to do it in public.
A public flogging
, Damen had said.
‘Uncle,’ said Laurent.
Straightening, Laurent’s posture was relaxed and his expression was undisturbed, but there was something subtle in the set of his shoulders that Damen recognised. It was the look of a man settling in for a fight.
‘Nephew,’ said the Regent. ‘I think you can guess why we are here.’
‘A slave laid hands on me and I had him flogged for it.’ Calmly.
‘Twice,’ said the Regent. ‘Against my orders. The second time, against the advice that it might lead to his death. Almost, it did.’
‘He’s alive. The advice was incorrect.’ Again, calmly.
‘You were also advised of my order: that in my absence the slave wasn’t to be touched,’ said the Regent. ‘Search your memory. You’ll find that advice was accurate. Yet you ignored it.’
‘I didn’t think you’d mind. I know you are not so subservient towards Akielos that you would want the slave’s actions to go unpunished just because he is a gift from Kastor.’
The blue-eyed composure was faultless. Laurent, Damen thought with contempt, was good at talking. He wondered if the Regent was regretting doing this in public. But the Regent did not look perturbed, or even surprised. Well, he would be used to dealing with Laurent.
‘I can think of several reasons why you should not have a King’s gift beaten almost to death immediately after the signing of a treaty. Not the least because I ordered it. You claim to have administered a just punishment. But the truth is different.’
The Regent gestured, and a man stepped forward.
‘The Prince offered me a gold coin if I could flog the slave to death.’
It was the moment when sympathy palpably swung away from Laurent. Laurent, realising it, opened his mouth to speak, but the Regent cut him off.
‘No. You’ve had your chance to make apologies, or give reasonable excuses. You chose instead to show unrepentant arrogance. You do not yet have the right to spit in the face of kings. At your age, your brother was leading armies and bringing glory to his country. What have you achieved in the same time? When you shirked your responsibilities at court, I ignored it. When you refused to do your duty on the border at Delfeur, I let you have your way. But this time your disobedience has threatened an accord between nations. The Council and I have met and agreed we must take action.’
The Regent spoke in a voice of unquestioned power that was heard in every corner of the chamber.
‘Your lands of Varenne and Marche are forfeit, along with all troops and monies that accompany them. You retain only Acquitart. For the next ten months, you will find your income reduced, and your retinue diminished. You will petition to me directly for any expenses. Be grateful you retain Acquitart, and that we have not taken this decree further.’
Shock at the sanctions rippled across the assembly. There was outrage on some faces. But on many others there was something quietly satisfied, and the shock was less. In that moment, it was obvious which of the courtiers comprised the Regent’s faction, and which Laurent’s. And that Laurent’s was smaller.
‘Be grateful I retain Acquitart,’ said Laurent, ‘which by law you cannot take away and which besides has no accompanying troops and little strategic importance?’
‘Do you think it pleases me to discipline my own nephew? No uncle acts with a heavier heart. Shoulder your responsibilities—ride to Delfeur—show me you have even a drop of your brother’s blood and I will joyfully restore it all.’
‘I think there is an old caretaker at Acquitart. Shall I ride to the border with him? We could share armour.’
‘Don’t be facile. If you agreed to fulfil your duty you would not lack for men.’
‘Why would I waste my time on the border when, at Kastor’s whim, you roll over?’
For the first time, the Regent looked angry. ‘You claim this is a matter of national pride, but you are unwilling to lift a finger to serve your own country. The truth is that you acted out of petty malice, and now you’re smarting at discipline. This is on your own head. Embrace the slave in apology, and we are done.’
Embrace the slave?
Anticipation among the gathered courtiers winched tighter.
Damen was urged onto his feet by his handler. Expecting Laurent to baulk at his uncle’s order, Damen was startled when, after a lingering look at his uncle, Laurent approached, with soft, obedient grace. He hooked a finger in the chain that stretched across Damen’s chest, and drew him forward by it. Damen, feeling the sustained pull at twin points, came as he was bid. With cool detachment, Laurent’s fingers gathered rubies, inclining Damen’s head down far enough to kiss him on the cheek. The kiss was insubstantial: not a single mote of gold paint transferred itself to Laurent’s lips in the process.
‘You look like a whore.’ The soft words barely stirred the air by Damen’s ear, inaudible to anyone else. Laurent murmured: ‘Filthy painted slut. Did you spread for my uncle the way you did for Kastor?’
Damen recoiled violently, and gold paint smeared. He was staring at Laurent from two paces away, revolted.
Laurent lifted the back of his hand to his cheek, now streaked with gold, then turned back to the Regent with a wide-eyed expression of injured innocence. ‘Witness the slave’s behaviour for yourself. Uncle, you wrong me cruelly. The slave’s punishment on the cross was deserved: you can see for yourself how arrogant and rebellious he is. Why do you punish your own blood when the fault lies with Akielos?’
Move, and counter move. There was a danger in doing something like this publicly. And indeed, there was a slight shift of sympathy within the assembly.
‘You claim the slave was at fault, and deserved punishment. Very well. He has received it. Now you receive yours. Even you are subject to the rule of Regent and Council. Accept it gracefully.’
Laurent lowered his blue eyes, martyring himself. ‘Yes, uncle.’
He was diabolical. Perhaps this was the answer to how he won loyalty from the Prince’s Guard; he simply wrapped them around his finger. On the dais, the elderly Councillor Herode was frowning a little, and looking at Laurent for the first time with troubled sympathy.
The Regent ended proceedings, rose, and departed, perhaps for some awaiting entertainment. The councillors left with him. The symmetry of the chamber broke down as courtiers unlocked themselves from their positions on either side of the carpet and began to mingle more freely.
‘You may hand me the leash,’ said a pleasant voice, very close.
Damen looked up into a pair of pellucid blue eyes. Beside him, the handler hesitated.
‘Why do you delay?’ Laurent held out his hand and smiled. ‘The slave and I have embraced and are joyously reconciled.’
The handler passed him the leash. Laurent immediately drew the chain taut.
‘Come with me,’ Laurent said.
I
T WAS A
little too ambitious of Laurent to think that he could extricate himself, easily and discreetly, from a court gathering of which his own censure had been the centrepiece.
Damen, held at the end of a leash, watched as Laurent’s progress was thwarted again and again by those who wished to commiserate. There was a press of silk and cambric and solicitude. For Damen, it was not a reprieve, just a delay. He felt at every moment Laurent’s hold on the leash, like a promise. Damen felt a tension that wasn’t fear. Under different circumstances, without guards or witnesses, he might relish the chance to be alone in a room with Laurent.