by S. U. Pacat
Acquitart was small and old, and the village attached to it was a cluster of impoverished stone houses adhering to the base of the inner fort. There was no land available here for farming, and hunting might provide only a couple of chamois perched on rocks, that would disappear—leaping upward at the slightest approach of men—to a vantage where a horse could not follow.
And yet, when they approached, it was not poorly maintained. The barracks were in good repair, and so was the interior courtyard, and there were supplies of food and of weapons and materials to replace the damaged wagons. Everywhere he looked, Damen saw evidence of planning. Those stores had not come from Acquitart or its surrounds, they had been brought in from elsewhere, in preparation for the arrival of Laurent’s men.
The caretaker was named Arnoul, an old man who took command of the servants and the wagons and started directing everybody. His wrinkled face unfolded in pleasure when he saw Laurent. Then folded back in on itself when he saw Damen.
‘You once said that your uncle couldn’t take Acquitart away from you,’ Damen said to Laurent. ‘Why is that?’
‘It’s an independent governance. Which is absurd. On a map, it’s a speck. But I am Prince of Acquitart, as well as Prince of Vere, and the laws of Acquitart don’t require me to be twenty one to inherit. It’s mine. There’s nothing my uncle can do to take it,’ said Laurent. And then he said, ‘I suppose he could invade.’ And then: ‘His men could wrestle Arnoul in the stairwell.’
‘Arnoul seems to have mixed feelings about us staying here,’ said Damen.
‘We’re not staying here. Not tonight. You are going to meet me at the stables after dark, when you have finished all of your usual duties. Discreetly,’ said Laurent. He said it in Akielon.
It was dark by the time Damen had finished his duties. The men who usually looked after the supplies and the wagons and the horses had been given the night off, and the soldiers too had been given license to enjoy themselves. Barrels of wine had been cracked open and the barracks were a lively place to be that night. No sentries were posted near the stables, or towards the east.
He was turning a corner in the keep when he heard voices. Laurent’s directive to be discreet stopped him from announcing himself.
‘I’d be more comfortable sleeping in the barracks,’ Jord said.
He saw Jord being led by the hand by an intent-looking Aimeric. Jord had the same slight awkwardness about billeting in an aristocrat’s chambers that Aimeric had when he attempted swearing.
‘That’s because you’ve never slept in a royal keep’s residences before,’ said Aimeric. ‘I promise it’s much more comfortable than a tent roll or a lumpy inn mattress. And besides—’ He dropped his voice, shifting closer to Jord but the words were still audible. ‘I really want you to fuck me in a bed.’
Jord said, ‘Come here, then.’
And kissed him, a long, slow kiss with his hand cupping Aimeric’s head. Aimeric went attractively pliant, giving himself to the kiss, his arms winding around Jord’s neck; his antagonistic nature was apparently not one he exercised between the sheets. Jord, it seemed, brought out the best in him.
They were occupied, like the servants, like the soldiers in the barracks. Everyone in Acquitart was occupied.
Damen slipped past, and made his way to the stables.
It was more discreet and better planned than the last time they had left camp together, that lesson having been learned the hard way. It still made Damen uncomfortable to separate from the troop, but there was little he could do about it. He arrived in the quiet of the stables; amid muted whickers and shifting of straw he found that Laurent, while he was waiting, had saddled the horses. They rode east.
The sound of cicadas droned around them; it was a warm night. They left the sounds of Acquitart behind them, and the light, and rode under the night sky. As at Nesson, Laurent knew where he was going, even in the dark.
Now, he stopped. They were backed by mountains, surrounded by chasms of stone.
‘You see? There’s actually a place in worse repair than Acquitart,’ Laurent said.
It looked like a towering fortress, but moonlight shone clean through its arches, and its walls were of inconsistent heights, and trailed away in places, crumbling to nothing. It was a ruin, a once-great building that was now nothing but stones and the occasional arched wall. Everything that remained was vine- and moss-covered. It was older than Acquitart, so very old, built by some potentate long before Laurent’s dynasty, or his own. The ground was covered in a night-blooming flower, five-petalled and white, just opening to release its scent.
Laurent swung down from the saddle, then led his horse to one of the ancient protruding stone pieces, tethering it there. Damen did the same, then followed Laurent through one of the stone arches.
This place was making him uneasy, a reminder of how easily a kingdom could be lost.
‘What are we doing here?’
Laurent had walked a few steps from the archway, crushing flowers underfoot. Now he leaned his back against one of the broken-down stones.
‘I used to come here when I was younger,’ Laurent said, ‘with my brother.’
Damen went still, turning cold, but in the next moment the sound of hoofbeats had him turning, his sword singing from its sheath.
‘No. I’m expecting them,’ said Laurent.
It was women.
A few men, too. The Vaskian dialect was harder to penetrate when it was more than one voice at a time, speaking quickly.
Damen’s sword was taken from him, and the knife at his belt was taken too. He didn’t like it. At all. Laurent was allowed to keep his own weapons, perhaps in respect of his status as a prince. When Damen looked around, only the women were armed.
And then Laurent said something he liked even less: ‘It is not permitted to see the approach to their camp. We will be taken there under blindfold.’
Blindfold. He barely had time to absorb the idea before Laurent acquiesced to the nearest woman. Damen saw the blindfold being slipped over Laurent’s eyes and tied. Damen was a little stunned by the image. The blindfold covered Laurent’s eyes and emphasised his other features, the clean line of his jaw, the fall of his pale hair. It was impossible not to look at his mouth.
A moment later, he felt a blindfold slipped over his own eyes and tied with a hard tug. His vision was extinguished.
They were taken on foot. It was not an elaborate, serpentine deception of a path, such as he had walked under blindfold through the palace in Arles. They simply travelled to their destination. They walked for about half an hour, before they heard the sound of drums, low and constant, growing louder. The blindfold felt more like a requirement of submission than a precaution, because it seemed very possible to trace their steps, both for a man like himself with soldier training, and probably also for Laurent’s mathematical mind.
The camp, when the blindfold lifted, comprised of long tents of cured leather, picketed horses and two lit campfires. There were figures moving around the campfires, and they saw the drummers, the drumming echoing out into the night. It looked animated, a little wild.
Damen turned to Laurent. ‘This is where we’re spending the night?’
‘It’s a sign of trust,’ said Laurent. ‘Do you know their culture? Of food and drink, accept anything that is offered to you. The woman beside you is Kashel, she has been appointed your attendant. The woman on the dais is named Halvik. When you are presented to her, go to your knees. Then you may sit on the ground. Do not accompany me onto the dais.’
He thought they had shown enough trust by coming here alone, under blindfold, without weapons. The dais was a fur-draped wooden structure set up beside the fire. It was half throne, half bed. Halvik sat on it, watching their approach with black eyes that reminded Damen of Arnoul.
Laurent calmly ascended the dais and arranged himself in a languid half-sprawl beside Halvik.
Damen by contrast was shoved to his knees, and a moment later was pulled back to the side of
the dais, and made to sit. At least there were furs to sit upon, piled around the fire. And then Kashel came to sit beside him. She offered him a cup.
He was still annoyed, but recalled Laurent’s advice. He brought the cup to his lips warily. The liquid was milky white and harsh with the rasp of alcohol; one shallow sip, and he felt hot fire run down his throat into his veins.
On the dais, he saw Laurent wave away a similar cup when it was offered to him, despite the advice he had just given Damen.
Of course. Of course Laurent wasn’t drinking. Laurent surrounded himself with the opulent excesses of a courtesan, and lived in them like an ascetic. It was beyond Damen why anyone thought they were fucking. No one who knew Laurent would ever think that.
Damen drained the cup.
They watched a display fight—a wrestling match—and the woman who won was very good, subduing her opponent in a practised hold, and the fight indeed was worth watching.
He decided, after the third cup, that he liked the drink.
It was strong and rousing, and he found himself with a new appreciation of Kashel, who was refilling his cup. She was of a similar age to Laurent, and she was attractive, her body ripened and adult. She had warm brown eyes that glanced up at him through long lashes. She wore her hair in a long black plait that snaked over her shoulder, the tip resting on the firm mound of a breast.
Perhaps it was not such a terrible thing that they had come here, he thought. This was an honest culture, the women here were forthright, and the food was simple but hearty, good bread and spit-roasted meats.
Laurent and Halvik were engaged in talk. Their back-and-forth had the rhythm of a bargain being hammered out. Halvik’s flinty stare was returned by Laurent’s impassive blue gaze. It was like watching one stone negotiate with another.
He turned his attention away from the dais, and let himself enjoy, instead, the open exchange with Kashel, which was achieved without language, in a series of long, lingering looks. When she took the cup from his hands, their fingers slid together.
She rose and made her way over to the dais, murmuring something into Halvik’s ear.
Halvik sat back, and her attention fixed on Damen. She spoke words to Laurent, who also turned towards Damen.
‘Halvik inquires, respectfully, if you will perform a service for her girls,’ Laurent said to him in Veretian.
‘What service?’
‘The traditional service,’ said Laurent, ‘that Vaskian women claim from the dominant male.’
‘I’m a slave. You outrank me.’
‘It’s not a question of rank.’
It was Halvik who answered, in thickly accented Veretian, ‘He is smaller, and has the tongue of a cocotte. His seed will not breed strong women.’
Laurent looked entirely undisturbed by her description. ‘In fact, my bloodline does not throw girls at all.’
Damen was watching Kashel as she made her way back to him from the dais. He could hear the sound of drums from the other campfire, a low, constant thrumming.
‘Is this—are you ordering me to do this?’
‘Do you need orders?’ said Laurent. ‘I can direct you, if you lack proficiency.’
Kashel was looking at him with open intensity as she came to sit once more beside him. Her tunic had opened a little, and slipped down over one shoulder, so that it seemed that only the swell of her breast held it up. Her chest rose and fell with her breath.
‘Kiss her,’ said Laurent.
He didn’t need to be told what to do or how to do it by Laurent, and he proved that with a long, deliberate kiss. Kashel made a sweet, yielding sound, her fingers already following the path that her eyes had travelled moments before. His hands slid up her tunic and fit almost all the way around her small waist.
‘You can tell Halvik that it would be my honour to lie with one of her girls,’ said Damen when he drew back, his voice low with pleasure. His thumb brushed over Kashel’s mouth, and she tasted it with her tongue. They were both breathing expectantly.
‘A buck is happiest when mounting a herd.’ He heard Halvik’s voice, speaking to Laurent in Veretian. ‘Come, we will continue our negotiation away from the coupling fire. He will be brought to you when he is done.’
He was aware of Laurent and Halvik departing, as he was aware of the presence of other couples finding their way to the furs by the fire, a flickering peripheral awareness that was subsumed in his desire for Kashel, as their bodies primed to the same task.
It was a hot and fierce joining, the first time. She was a fine, well-made young woman, and she matched him with an intensity that grew out of her laughter as she pulled at his clothes; it had been a long time since he had enjoyed a free, uninhibited exchange of pleasure. She was better at taking off the Veretian clothing than he had been, the first time. Or more determined. She was very determined. She rolled on top of him near the driving, shuddering climax, dropping her head so that her hair, loosened from its plait, hung down and shifted with her movements, curtaining them both.
The second time, he found her more sweetly boneless and willing to be explored, and he roused her to the point that she became hotly, dazedly abandoned to him, which, above all things, he liked.
Later, she lay panting and spent on the furs, and he lay beside her, propping himself up on one arm, and looking down at her sprawled body, appreciatively.
Perhaps there was something in the milky white drink. He had climaxed twice, but he was not driven into lassitude. He was feeling quite pleased with himself, and thinking that Vaskian women did not truly have the stamina that was accredited to them, when another girl came to speak in a teasing voice to Kashel, and then to fit herself into Damen’s surprised arms. Kashel rose up into the sitting position of a spectator, and offered what sounded like cheerful encouragement.
And then, as this new challenge was met, as the drums from the nearby campfire beat in his ears, Damen felt the press of a new body against his back, and realised that they had been joined by more than one girl.
Clothes were difficult. Laces eluded him. He decided, after a few attempts, that he did not require his shirt. It was taking all his attention to hold his pants up.
Laurent was asleep when Damen found his way to the correct tent, but he stirred in the furs when the tent flap opened, his golden lashes fluttering, then lifting. When he saw Damen, he pushed himself up on one arm and gave a single wide-eyed blink.
Then, soundlessly, behind the press of a hand, he started helplessly laughing.
Damen said, ‘Stop. If I laugh, I’ll fall over.’
Damen squinted at a separate fur pile near Laurent’s, then made his best attempt: he wove, reached and then collapsed down onto it. This seemed the pinnacle of accomplishment. He rolled over on his back. He was smiling.
‘Halvik had a lot of girls,’ he said.
The words came out sounding like he felt, sated and sex-drenched, exhausted and happy. The furs were warm around him. He was blissfully drowsy, moments away from sleep.
He said, ‘Stop laughing.’
When he turned his head to look, Laurent was lying on his side, head propped on one hand, gazing at him, eyes bright.
‘This is instructive. I’ve seen you put half a dozen men in the dirt without breaking a sweat.’
‘Not right now, I couldn’t.’
‘I can see that. You’re relieved of your regular duties in the morning.’
‘That’s nice of you. I can’t get up. I’ll just lie here. Or did you need something?’
‘Oh, how did you know?’ said Laurent. ‘Take me to bed.’
Damen groaned and found himself laughing after all, in the moment before he pulled the furs over his head. He heard a final sound of amusement from Laurent, and that was all he heard before sleep reached up and claimed him.
The ride back through the dawn was easy and pleasant. The sky was clear of clouds, and the rising sun was bright; it was going to be a beautiful day. Damen was in good spirits and happy to ride in contented sile
nce. They were abreast, part-way to Acquitart before he thought to ask:
‘Your negotiations went well?’
‘We certainly left in possession of a great deal of new goodwill.’
‘You should do business with the Vaskians more often.’
His cheerfulness shone in this statement. There was a pause. Eventually, and with an odd hesitancy, Laurent asked, ‘Is it different than with a man?’
‘Yes,’ said Damen.
It was different with everyone. He didn’t say this aloud; it was self-evident. For a moment he thought Laurent was on the verge of asking him something more, but Laurent just kept looking at him, a long, unselfconsciously studying look, and said nothing at all.
Damen said, ‘Are you curious about it? Isn’t it supposed to be taboo?’
‘It is taboo,’ said Laurent.
There was another pause.
‘Bastards curse the line, and sour the milk, ruin the crops, and drag the sun out of the sky. But they don’t bother me. I pick all my fights with true-born men. You should probably bathe,’ said Laurent, ‘when we return.’
Damen, who agreed wholeheartedly with this last statement, went to do so as soon as they got back. They entered Laurent’s chamber by means of a part-hidden passage that was so narrow, Damen had to put a great deal of effort into squeezing himself through. When he pushed out of the door to Laurent’s rooms and into the hallway, he found himself face to face with Aimeric.
Aimeric stopped short and stared at Damen. Then he looked at Laurent’s door. Then back at Damen. Damen realised he was still radiating his good mood, and probably looked as if he had fucked all night and then crawled through a passage. He had.
‘We knocked and there was no answer,’ said Aimeric. ‘Jord sent men to find you.’
‘Is there some delay?’ said Laurent, appearing in the doorway.
Laurent was coolly immaculate from top to toe; unlike Damen, he looked fresh and well rested, with not a hair out of place. Aimeric was staring again.