by S. U. Pacat
Damen saw the Regent’s eyes narrow. It was an expression that reminded him of Laurent. But the Regent said only, ‘I expect appropriate behaviour,’ before preceding them to the entertainments, displaying far more patience than Laurent deserved. Laurent didn’t follow him immediately; his gaze stayed on his uncle.
‘Your life would be a lot easier if you stopped baiting him,’ said Damen.
This time coldly, flatly, ‘I told you to shut up.’
CHAPTER 8
EXPECTING A SLAVE’S inconspicuous place on the sidelines, Damen was surprised to find himself seated beside Laurent, albeit with a cool distance of nine inches interposed between them, not half in his lap, like Ancel and his master across the way.
Laurent sat consciously well. He was dressed as always severely, though his clothing was very fine, as befitting his rank. No jewellery except for a fine gold circlet on his brow that was mostly hidden by the fall of his golden hair. When they sat, he unclipped Damen’s leash, wound it around the handler’s rod, then tossed it to one of the attendants, who managed to catch it with only a slight fumble.
The table stretched out. On the other side of Laurent sat Torveld, evidence of a small coup for Laurent. On the other side of Damen was Nicaise. Possibly also evidence of a coup for Laurent. Nicaise was separated from Councillor Audin, who sat elsewhere, close by the Regent; Nicaise didn’t seem to have a master anywhere near him.
It seemed like a blunder of etiquette to have Nicaise at the high table, considering the sensibilities of the Patrans. But Nicaise was dressed respectably, and wore very little paint. The only flash of pet gaudiness was a long earring in his left ear; twin sapphires dangled, almost brushing his shoulder, too heavy for his young face. In every other way, he could be mistaken for a member of the nobility. No one from Patras would suppose that a child catamite sat at table alongside royalty; Torveld would likely make the same incorrect assumption that Damen had made, and think that Nicaise was somebody’s son, or nephew. Despite the earring.
Nicaise also sat well. His beauty at close range was striking. So was his youth. His voice, when he spoke, was unbroken. It had the clear fluting tone of a knife tapped against crystal, without cracks.
‘I don’t want to sit next to you,’ said Nicaise. ‘Fuck off.’
Instinctively, Damen looked around to see if anyone from the Patran delegation had heard, but no one had. The first course of meat had arrived, and the food had everyone’s attention. Nicaise had picked up a gilt three-pronged fork, but had paused before sampling the dish in order to speak. The fear he’d shown of Damen at the ring seemed to still be there. His knuckles, clenched around the fork, were white.
‘It’s all right,’ said Damen. He spoke to the boy as gently as he could. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
Nicaise stared back at him. His huge blue eyes were fringed like a whore’s, or like a doe’s. Around them, the table was a coloured wall of voices and laughter, courtiers caught up in their own amusements, paying them no attention.
‘Good,’ said Nicaise, and stabbed the fork viciously into Damen’s thigh under the table.
Even through a layer of cloth, it was enough to make Damen start, and instinctively grab the fork, as three drops of blood welled up.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Laurent said smoothly, turning from Torveld to face Nicaise.
‘I made your pet jump,’ said Nicaise, smugly.
Not sounding at all displeased: ‘Yes, you did.’
‘Whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to work.’
‘I think it will, though. Bet you your earring.’
‘If I win, you wear it,’ said Nicaise.
Laurent immediately lifted his cup and inclined it towards Nicaise in a little gesture sealing the bet. Damen tried to shake the bizarre impression that they were enjoying themselves.
Nicaise waved an attendant over and asked for a new fork.
Without a master to entertain, Nicaise was left free to prick at Damen. He began with a stream of insults and explicit speculation about Damen’s sexual practices, pitched in a voice too quiet for anyone else to hear. When, at length, he saw that Damen was not rising to this bait, he turned his commentary on Damen’s owner.
‘You think sitting at the high table with him means something? It doesn’t. He won’t fuck you. He’s frigid.’
This subject was almost a relief. No matter how crude the boy was, there was nothing he could say about Laurent’s proclivities that Damen had not already heard speculated about extensively and in coarse language by bored guards on indoor duty.
‘I don’t think he can. I think it doesn’t work, what he has. When I was younger, I used to think he’d had it cut off. What do you think? Have you seen it?’
When he was younger?
Damen said, ‘He hasn’t had it cut off.’
Nicaise’s eyes narrowed.
Damen said, ‘How long have you been a pet in this court?’
‘Three years,’ said Nicaise, in the sort of tone that said: You won’t last here three minutes.
Damen looked at him and wished he hadn’t asked. Whether he had a ‘child’s mind’ or not, physically Nicaise had not yet crossed over from child to adolescent. He was still prepubescent. He looked younger than any of the other pets Damen had seen at this court, all of whom had at least passed puberty. Three years.
The Patran delegation continued oblivious. With Torveld, Laurent was on his best behaviour. He had apparently—incredibly—divested himself of malice and washed his mouth out with soap. He talked intelligently about politics, and about trade, and if every now and then a little edge glimmered, it came across as wit—not barbed, just enough to say: You see? I can keep up.
Torveld showed less and less inclination to look at anyone else. It was like watching a man smile as he surrendered himself to drown in deep water.
Thankfully, it did not go on too long. In a miracle of restraint, there were only nine courses, served ribboned and artfully arranged on jewelled plates by attractive pages. The pets themselves ‘served’ not at all. Sitting nestled alongside their owners, some of them were hand fed, and one or two of them even brazenly helped themselves, playfully filching choice morsels from their masters, like pampered lapdogs who have learned that whatever they do, their doting owners will find them charming.
‘It’s a shame I haven’t been able to arrange for you to view the slaves,’ said Laurent, as the pages began to cover the table with sweets.
‘You don’t need to. We saw palace slaves in Akielos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen slaves of that quality, even in Bazal. And I trust your taste, of course.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Laurent.
Damen was aware that beside him, Nicaise had started intently listening.
‘I’m sure my uncle will agree to the exchange if you push for it strongly enough,’ said Laurent.
‘If he does, I will owe it to you,’ said Torveld.
Nicaise got up from the table.
Damen bridged the nine chilly inches at the first opportunity. ‘What are you doing? You were the one who warned me about Nicaise.’ He spoke in a low voice.
Laurent went very still; then he deliberately shifted in his seat and leaned in, bringing his lips right to Damen’s ear. ‘I think I’m out of stabbing range, he’s got short arms. Or perhaps he’ll try to throw a sugar plum? That is difficult. If I duck he’ll hit Torveld.’
Damen gritted his teeth. ‘You know what I meant. He heard you. He’s going to act. Can’t you do something about it?’
‘I’m occupied.’
‘Then let me do something.’
‘Bleed on him?’ said Laurent.
Damen opened his mouth to reply, and found his words stopped by the startling touch of Laurent’s fingers against his lips, a thumb brushing his jawline. It was the sort of absent touch that any master at the table might give to a pet. But from the shocked reaction that rolled over the courtiers at the table, it was clear that Laurent did not do this sort of th
ing often. Or ever.
‘My pet was feeling neglected,’ Laurent apologised to Torveld.
‘He’s the captive Kastor sent you to train?’ said Torveld, curiously. ‘He’s—safe?’
‘He looks combative, but he’s really very docile and adoring,’ said Laurent, ‘like a puppy.’
‘A puppy,’ said Torveld.
To demonstrate, Laurent picked up a confection of crushed nuts and honey and held it out to Damen as he had at the ring, between thumb and forefinger.
‘Sweetmeat?’ said Laurent.
In the stretched-out moment that followed, Damen thought explicitly about killing him.
Damen leaned in. It was sickly sweet. He didn’t let his lips touch Laurent’s fingers. A great many people were looking at them. Laurent washed his fingers fastidiously in the gold washing bowl when he was done, and dried them on a little square cloth of silk.
Torveld stared. In Patras, slaves fed masters—peeling fruit and pouring drinks—not the other way around. It was that way also in Akielos. The conversation recovered from its pause and turned to trivial matters. Around them the creations of sugar and candied spices and glazed pastries in fantastical shapes were slowly being demolished.
Damen looked around for Nicaise, but the boy had gone.
In the relaxed end-of-meal lull before the entertainments, Damen was given free rein to wander about, and went to find him. Laurent was occupied, and for the first time there were not two guards looming perpetually over him. He could have walked out. He could have walked right out of the palace doors and from there into the surrounding city of Arles. Except he couldn’t leave this place until Torveld’s embassy departed with the slaves, which was of course the only reason he was off the leash at all.
He didn’t make very good progress. The guards might be gone, but Laurent’s caress had bought Damen another type of attention.
‘I predicted when the Prince brought him to the ring that he was going to become quite popular,’ Vannes was saying to the noblewoman beside her. ‘I saw him perform in the gardens, but it was almost a waste of his talents, the Prince wouldn’t let him take an active role.’
Damen’s attempts to excuse himself had no impact on her at all.
‘No, don’t leave us just yet. Talik wished to meet you,’ Vannes told Damen. She was saying to the noblewoman, ‘Of course, the idea of one of us keeping males is grotesque. But if one could—don’t you think he and Talik would make a good matched pair? Ah. Here she is. We’ll give you two a moment together.’ They were departing.
‘I am Talik,’ the pet declared. Her voice carried the strong accent of Ver-Tan, the eastern province of Vask.
Damen recalled someone saying that Vannes liked pets who could sweep the ring competitions. Talik was almost as tall as Damen, her bare arms well muscled. There was something slightly predatory about her gaze, her wide mouth and the arc of her brows. Damen had assumed that pets, like slaves, were sexually submissive to their masters, as was the custom in Akielos. But he could only guess at the arrangements between Vannes and this woman in bed.
She said, ‘I think a warrior from Ver-Tan would easily kill a warrior from Akielos.’
‘I think it would depend on the warrior,’ he said, carefully.
She appeared to consider him along with his answer, and, eventually, to find both acceptable.
She said, ‘We are waiting. Ancel will perform. He is popular, “in fashion.” You’ve had him.’ She didn’t wait for him to confirm this statement. ‘How was he?’
Well instructed. Damen’s mind supplied the answer, sly as a suggestion murmured in his ear. He frowned at it. He said, ‘Adequate.’
Talik said, ‘His contract with Lord Berenger ends soon. Ancel will seek a new contract, a high bidder. He wants money, status. He is foolish. Lord Berenger may offer less money, but he is kind, and never puts pets into the ring. Ancel has made many enemies. In the ring, someone will scratch his green eyes out, an “accident.”’
Damen was drawn in against his will. ‘That’s why he’s chasing royal attention? He wants the Prince to—’ He tried out the unfamiliar vocabulary. ‘—offer for his contract?’
‘The Prince?’ said Talik, scornfully. ‘Everyone knows the Prince does not keep pets.’
‘None at all?’ said Damen.
She said, ‘You.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Perhaps the Prince has a taste for men, not these painted Veretian boys who squeal if you pinch them.’ Her tone suggested that she approved of this on general principle.
‘Nicaise,’ said Damen, since they were speaking of painted Veretian boys. ‘I was looking for Nicaise. Have you seen him?’
Talik said, ‘There.’
Across the room, Nicaise had reappeared. He was speaking into the ear of Ancel who had to bend almost in half to reach the little boy’s level. When he was done, Nicaise made straight for Damen.
‘Did the Prince send you? You’re too late,’ said Nicaise.
Too late for what? was the reply in any court except this one.
He said, ‘If you’ve hurt any one of them—’
‘You’ll what?’ Nicaise was smirking. ‘You won’t. You don’t have time. The Regent wants to see you. He sent me to tell you. You should hurry. You’re keeping him waiting.’ Another smirk. ‘He sent me ages ago.’
Damen stared at him.
‘Well? Off you go,’ said Nicaise.
It was possibly a lie, but he couldn’t risk the offense if it wasn’t. He went.
It wasn’t a lie. The Regent had summoned him, and when he arrived, the Regent dismissed all those around him, so that Damen was alone at his chair. At the end of the softly lit hall, it was a private audience.
Around them, heavy with food and wine, the noise of the court was warm and loosened. Damen made all the deferences that protocol required. The Regent spoke.
‘I suppose it excites a slave to plunder the treasures of a prince. You have taken my nephew?’
Damen stayed very still; he tried not to disturb the air when he breathed. ‘No, Your Highness.’
‘The other way around, perhaps.’
‘No.’
‘Yet you eat out of his hand. The last time I spoke to you, you wished him flogged. How else do you account for the change?’
You won’t like my riposte, Laurent had said.
Damen said, carefully, ‘I’m in his service. I have that lesson written on my back.’
The Regent gazed at him for a while. ‘I’m almost disappointed, if it’s no more than that. Laurent could benefit from a steadying influence, someone close to him with his best interests at heart. A man with sound judgement, who could help guide him without being swayed.’
‘Swayed?’ said Damen.
‘My nephew is charming, when he wishes it. His brother was a true leader, he could inspire extraordinary loyalty from his men. Laurent has a superficial version of his brother’s gifts, which he uses to get his own way. If anyone could have a man eating from the hand that struck him, it’s my nephew,’ said the Regent. ‘Where is your loyalty?’
And Damen understood that he was not being asked a question. He was being given a choice.
He badly wanted to step across the chasm that separated the two factions of this court: on the other side was this man who had long since won his respect. It was grittily painful for him to realise that it was not in his nature to do that—not while Laurent was acting on his behalf. If Laurent was acting on his behalf . . . even if Laurent was acting on his behalf, he had so little stomach for the drawn out game that was being played tonight. And yet.
‘I’m not the man you want,’ he said. ‘I don’t have influence over him. I’m not close to him. He has no love for Akielos, or its people.’
The Regent gave him another long, considering look.
‘You are honest. That is pleasing. As for the rest, we will see. That will do for now,’ said the Regent. ‘Go and fetch me my nephew. I prefer him not to be left alone with Torveld.’
‘Yes,
Your Highness.’
He wasn’t sure why it felt like reprieve, but it did.
A few inquiries made of other servants, and Damen learned that Laurent and Torveld had retreated once again to one of the balconies, escaping the stifling crush inside the palace.
Reaching the balcony, Damen slowed. He could hear the sound of their voices. He looked back at the thronging court chamber; he was out of sight of the Regent. If Laurent and Torveld were discussing trade negotiations, it would be better to delay a little, and give them whatever extra time they might need.
‘—told my advisors that I was past the age to be distracted by beautiful young men,’ he heard Torveld say, and it was suddenly eminently clear that they were not discussing trade negotiations.
It was a surprise, but on reflection, it had been happening all night. That a man of Torveld’s honourable reputation would choose Laurent as the object of his affections was difficult to swallow, but perhaps Torveld admired reptiles. Curiosity blossomed. There had been no topic that engendered more speculation than this one among courtiers and members of the Prince’s Guard alike. Damen paused, and listened.
‘And then I met you,’ said Torveld, ‘and then I spent an hour in your company.’
‘More than an hour,’ said Laurent. ‘Less than a day. I think you get distracted more easily than you admit.’
‘And you not at all?’
There was a slight pause in the rhythm of their exchange.
‘You . . . have been listening to gossip.’
‘Is it true, then?’
‘That I am—not easily courted? It can’t be the worst thing you heard about me.’
‘By far the worst, from my perspective.’
It was said warmly, and won a breath of insubstantial amusement from Laurent.
Torveld’s voice changed, as though they stood closer together. ‘I have heard a great deal of gossip about you, but I judge as I find.’
Laurent said, in the same intimate voice, ‘And what do you find?’
Damen stepped forward determinedly.
Hearing his footfall, Torveld started and looked round; in Patras, affairs of the heart—or of the body—were usually private. Laurent, reclined elegantly against the balustrade, did not react at all except to shift his gaze in Damen’s direction. They were indeed standing close together. Not quite kissing distance.