by S. U. Pacat
He had tried to escape.
He had been transported inside a locked wagon under heavy guard to a house on the edge of the city. He had been pulled from the wagon into a closed courtyard and . . . he remembered bells. The courtyard had filled with the sudden sound of bells, a cacophony of sound from the highest places in the city, carrying in the warm evening air.
Bells at dusk, heralding a new King.
Theomedes is dead. All hail Kastor.
At the sound of the bells, the need to escape had overwhelmed any urge to caution or subterfuge, part of the fury and grief that came upon him in waves. The starting of the horses had given him his opportunity.
But he had been unarmed, and surrounded by soldiers, in a closed courtyard. The subsequent handling had not been delicate. They had thrown him into a cell deep in the bowels of the house, after which, they had drugged him. Days had bled into one another.
Of the rest he recalled only brief snatches including—his stomach sank—the slap and spray of salt water: transportation aboard a ship.
His head was clearing. His head was clearing for the first time in—how long?
How long since his capture? How long since the bells had rung? How long had he allowed this to go on? A surge of will drove Damen from his knees onto his feet. He must protect his household, his people. He took a step.
A chain rattled. The tiled floor slid under his feet, dizzily; his vision swam.
He struck out for support and steadied himself, one shoulder against the wall. With an effort of will, he did not slide back down it. Holding himself upright, he forced the dizziness back. Where was he? He made his hazy mind take inventory of himself and his surroundings.
He was dressed in the brief garments of an Akielon slave, and from head to toe he was clean. He supposed this meant he had been tended, though his mind could supply him with no memory of it happening. He retained the gold collar and the gold cuffs on his wrists. His collar was chained to an iron link in the floor by means of a chain and a lock.
Thin hysteria threatened for a moment: he smelled faintly of roses.
As for the room, everywhere he looked his eyes were assaulted with ornamentation. The walls were overrun by decoration. The wooden doors were delicate as a screen and carved with a repeated design that included gaps in the wood; through them you could glimpse shadowy impressions of what lay on the other side. The windows were similarly screened. Even the floor tiles were parti-coloured and arranged in a geometric pattern.
Everything gave the impression of patterns within patterns, the twisty creations of the Veretian mind. It came together then, suddenly—Veretian voices—the humiliating presentation to Councillor Guion, ‘Are all the new slaves bound?’—the ship—and its destination.
This was Vere.
Damen stared around himself in horror. He was in the heart of enemy territory, hundreds of miles from home.
It didn’t make sense. He was breathing, without holes, and had not suffered the regrettable accident he might have expected. The Veretian people had good reason to hate Prince Damianos of Akielos. Why was he still alive?
The sound of a bolt being thrown back jerked his attention to the door.
Two men strode into the room. Watching them warily, Damen indistinctly recognised the first as a Veretian handler from the ship. The second was a stranger: dark-haired, bearded, wearing Veretian clothing, with silver rings on each of the three joints of every finger.
‘This is the slave that is being presented to the Prince?’ said the ringed man.
The handler nodded.
‘You say he’s dangerous. What is he? A prisoner of war? A criminal?’
The handler shrugged a, Who knows? ‘Keep him chained.’
‘Don’t be foolish. We can’t keep him chained forever.’ Damen could feel the ringed man’s gaze lingering on him. The next words were almost admiring. ‘Look at him. Even the Prince is going to have his hands full.’
‘Aboard the ship, when he made trouble, he was drugged,’ said the handler.
‘I see.’ The man’s gaze turned critical. ‘Gag him and shorten the chain for the Prince’s viewing. And arrange an appropriate escort. If he makes trouble, do whatever you have to.’ He spoke with dismissive words, as though Damen was of minimal importance to him, no more than a task on a checklist.
It was dawning on Damen, through the clearing drug-haze, that his captors did not know the identity of their slave. A prisoner of war. A criminal. He let out a careful breath.
He must stay quiet, inconspicuous. Enough presence of mind had returned to him to know that as Prince Damianos he would be unlikely to last a night alive in Vere. Better by far to be thought a nameless slave.
He allowed the handling. He had judged the exits, and the quality of the guards in his escort. The quality of the guards was less significant than the quality of the chain around his neck. His arms were lashed behind his back and he was gagged, the collar chain shortened to only nine links, so that even kneeling, his head was bowed, and he could barely look up.
Guards took up position on either side of him, and on either side of the doors, which he faced. He had time then to feel the expectant silence of the room, and the tightening string of heartbeats in his chest.
There was a sudden flurry of activity, voices and footsteps approaching.
The Prince’s viewing.
The Regent of Vere held the throne for his nephew, the Crown Prince. Damen knew almost nothing about the Prince except that he was the younger of two sons. The older brother and former heir, Damen well knew, was dead.
A scattering of courtiers was entering the room.
The courtiers were nondescript except for one: a young man with an astonishingly lovely face—the kind of face that would have earned a small fortune on the slave-block in Akielos. Damen’s attention caught and held.
The young man had yellow hair, blue eyes and very fair skin. The dark blue of his severe, hard-laced clothing was too harsh for his fair colouring, and stood in stark contrast to the overly ornate style of the rooms. Unlike the courtiers who trailed in his wake, he wore no jewellery, not even rings on his fingers.
As he approached, Damen saw that the expression that sat on the lovely face was arrogant and unpleasant. Damen knew the type. Self-absorbed and self-serving, raised to overestimate his own worth, and indulge in petty tyrannies over others. Spoilt.
‘I hear the King of Akielos has sent me a gift,’ said the young man, who was Laurent, Prince of Vere.
‘An Akielon grovelling on its knees. How fitting,’ said Laurent.
Around him, Damen was aware of the attention of courtiers, gathered to witness the Prince’s receipt of his slave. Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult. Damen’s view, half-truncated by the short chain at this neck, had been enough to see that. But Laurent’s expression had shuttered quickly.
That he was only one of a larger consignment of slaves was something Damen had guessed, and the murmurs from the two courtiers nearest to him confirmed it, gratingly. Laurent’s eyes were passing over him, as though viewing merchandise. Damen felt a muscle slide in his jaw.
Councillor Guion spoke. ‘He’s intended as a pleasure slave, but he isn’t trained. Kastor suggested that you might like to break him at your leisure.’
‘I’m not desperate enough that I need to soil myself with filth,’ said Laurent.
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
‘Break him on the cross. I believe that will discharge my obligation to the King of Akielos.’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
He could feel the relief in Councillor Guion. Handlers were quickly motioned to take him away. Damen supposed that he had presented rather a challenge to diplomacy: Kastor’s gift blurred the line between munificent and appalling.
The courtiers were making to leave. This mockery was over. He felt the handler bend to the iron link in the floor. They were going to unchain him to take
him to the cross. He flexed his fingers, gathering himself, his eyes on the handler, his single opponent.
‘Wait,’ said Laurent.
The handler halted, straightening.
Laurent came forward a few paces to stand in front of Damen, gazing down at him with an unreadable expression.
‘I want to speak to him. Remove the gag.’
‘He’s got a mouth on him,’ warned the handler.
‘Your Highness, if I might suggest—’ began Councillor Guion.
‘Do it.’
Damen ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth after the handler released the cloth.
‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ said Laurent, not quite pleasantly.
He knew better than to answer any question posed in that saccharine voice. He lifted his eyes to Laurent’s. That was a mistake. They gazed at each other.
‘Perhaps he’s defective,’ suggested Guion.
Pellucid blue eyes rested on his. Laurent repeated the question slowly in the language of Akielos.
The words came out before he could stop them. ‘I speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart.’
His words, carrying only the barest trace of an Akielon accent, were intelligible to all, which earned him a hard blow from the handler. For good measure, a member of the escort pushed his face right down to the floor.
‘The King of Akielos says, if it pleases you, call him “Damen,”’ said the handler, and Damen felt his stomach drop.
There were a few shocked murmurs from the courtiers in the chamber; the atmosphere, already prurient, became electric.
‘They thought a slave nicknamed for their late Prince would amuse you. It’s in poor taste. They are an uncultured society,’ said Councillor Guion.
This time Laurent’s tone didn’t change. ‘I heard that the King of Akielos may marry his mistress, the Lady Jokaste. Is that true?’
‘There was no official announcement. But there was talk of the possibility, yes.’
‘So the country will be ruled by a bastard and a whore,’ said Laurent. ‘How appropriate.’
Damen felt himself react, even restrained as he was, a hard jerk aborted by chains. He caught the self-satisfied pleasure on Laurent’s face. Laurent’s words had been loud enough to carry to every courtier in the room.
‘Shall we have him taken to the cross, Your Highness?’ said the handler.
‘No,’ said Laurent, ‘Restrain him here in the harem. After you teach him some manners.’
The two men entrusted to the task went about it with methodical and matter-of-fact brutality. But they had a natural reluctance to damage Damen totally beyond repair, being that he was the Prince’s possession.
Damen was aware of the ringed man issuing a series of instructions, then departing. Keep the slave restrained here in the harem. The Prince’s orders. No one is to come in or out of the room. The Prince’s orders. Two guards at the door at all times. The Prince’s orders. Don’t let him off the chain. The Prince’s orders.
Though the two men lingered, it seemed that the blows had stopped; Damen pushed himself up slowly to his hands and knees. Gritty tenacity made something of the situation: his head, at least, was now perfectly clear.
Worse than the beating had been the viewing. He had been more shaken by it than he would admit. If the collar-chain had not been so short—so impossibly secure—he might have resisted, despite his earlier resolve. He knew the arrogance of this nation. He knew how the Veretians thought of his people. Barbarian. Slave. Damen had gathered all his good intentions about himself and endured it.
But the Prince—Laurent’s particular blend of spoilt arrogance and petty spite—had been unbearable.
‘He doesn’t look much like a pet,’ said the taller of the two men.
‘You heard. He’s a bed slave from Akielos,’ said the other.
‘You think the Prince fucks him?’ Sceptically.
‘More like the other way around.’
‘Pretty sweet orders for a bed slave.’ The taller’s mind stuck on the subject as the other grunted noncommittally in reply. ‘Think what that’d be like, getting a leg over the Prince.’
I imagine it would be a lot like lying down with a poisonous snake, thought Damen, but he kept the thought to himself.
As soon as the men left, Damen reviewed his situation: getting free was not yet possible. His hands were untied again, and the collar chain had been lengthened, but it was too thick to separate from the iron link in the floor. Nor could the collar be opened. It was gold, technically a soft metal, but it was also too thick to manipulate, a constant, heavy weight around his neck. It struck him how ridiculous it was to collar a slave with gold. The gold wrist-cuffs were even more foolish. They would be a weapon in a close fight and currency on the journey back to Akielos.
If he stayed alert while pretending to compliance, opportunity would follow. There was enough length in the chain to allow him perhaps three steps of movement in every direction. There was a wooden carafe of water well within reach. He would be able to lie comfortably on the cushions and even relieve himself in a gilt copper pot. He had not been drugged—or bludgeoned all the way to unconsciousness—as had happened in Akielos. Only two guards at the door. An unbolted window.
Freedom was attainable. If not now, then soon.
It must be soon. Time was not on his side: the longer he was kept here, the longer Kastor would have to cement his rule. It was unbearable not to know what was happening in his country, to his supporters, and to his people.
And there was another problem.
No one had yet recognised him, but that didn’t mean that he was safe from discovery. Akielos and Vere had had few dealings since the decisive battle of Marlas six years ago, but somewhere in Vere there would surely be a person or two who knew his face, having visited his city. Kastor had sent him to the one place where he could expect to be treated worse as a prince than he was treated as a slave. Elsewhere, one of his captors, learning his identity, might be convinced to help him, either out of sympathy for his situation, or for the promise of a reward from Damen’s supporters in Akielos. Not in Vere. In Vere, he couldn’t risk it.
He remembered the words of his father on the eve of the battle of Marlas, warning him to fight, never to trust, because a Veretian would not keep his word. His father had been proven right that day on the battlefield.
He would not think of his father.
It would be best to be well rested. With that in mind, he drank water from the carafe, watching the last of the afternoon light slowly drain from the room. When it was dark, he lay his body, with all its aches, down on the cushions, and, eventually, he slept.
And woke. Dragged up, a hand on his collar chain, until he was on his feet, flanked by two of the faceless, interchangeable guards.
The room was flaring into brightness as a servant lit torches and placed them in the wall-brackets. The room was not over-large, and the flickering of the torches transformed its intricate designs into a continuously moving, sinuous play of shape and light.
In the centre of this activity, regarding him with cool blue eyes, was Laurent.
Laurent’s severe dark blue clothing fitted him repressively, covering him from toe to neck, and was long sleeved to his wrists, with no openings that weren’t done up with a series of tight intricate ties that looked like they would take about an hour to loosen. The warm light of the torches did nothing to soften the effect.
Damen saw nothing that did not confirm his earlier opinion: spoilt, like fruit too long on the vine. Laurent’s slightly lidded eyes, the slackness around his mouth, spoke of a night wasted in a dissolute courtier’s overindulgence in wine.
‘I’ve been thinking about what to do with you,’ said Laurent. ‘Break you on a flogging post. Or maybe use you the way Kastor intended you be used. I think that would please me a great deal.’
Laurent came forward, until he stood just four paces away. It was a carefully chosen distance: Damen judged that if h
e strained the chain to its limit, pulling it taut, they would almost, but not quite, touch.
‘Nothing to say? Don’t tell me you’re shy now that you and I are alone.’ Laurent’s silken tone was neither reassuring nor pleasant.
‘I thought you wouldn’t soil yourself with a barbarian,’ said Damen, careful to keep his voice neutral. He was aware of the beat of his heart.
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Laurent. ‘But if I gave you to one of the guards, I might lower myself as far as watching.’
Damen felt himself recoil, couldn’t keep his reaction off his face.
‘You don’t like that idea?’ said Laurent. ‘Maybe I can think of a better one. Come here.’
Distrust and dislike of Laurent roiled within him, but Damen recalled his situation. In Akielos, he had thrown himself against his restraints and they had grown ever tighter as a result. Here, he was just a slave, and a chance to escape would come, if he did not ruin it with hot-headed pride. He could endure Laurent’s juvenile, pin-prick sadism. Damen must get back to Akielos, and that meant that for now, he must do as he was told.
He took a wary step forward.
‘No,’ said Laurent, with satisfaction. ‘Crawl.’
Crawl.
It was as though everything ground to a halt in the face of that single order. The part of Damen’s mind that told him he must feign obedience was drowned out by his pride.
But Damen’s reaction of scornful disbelief only had time to register on his face for a split second before he was sent sprawling onto his hands and knees by the guards, after a wordless signal from Laurent. In the next moment, again responding to a signal from Laurent, one of the guards drove his fist into Damen’s jaw. Once, then again. And again.
His head rang. Blood from his mouth dripped onto the tile. He stared at it, forcing himself, with an effort of will, not to react. Take it. Opportunity would come later.
He tested his jaw. Not broken.
‘You were insolent this afternoon, too. That is a habit that can be cured. With a horse whip.’ Laurent’s gaze tracked over Damen’s body. Damen’s garments had loosened under the rough hands of the guards, baring his torso. ‘You have a scar.’