Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST IMPACT of the alliance having fallen on Nikandros, the morning’s announcement was less personal, but more difficult, and done on a grander scale.

Heralds had been galloping back and forth between their camps since before dawn. The preparations for this announcement had been developed before the camp stirred in grey light. Meetings of this kind could take months to arrange; the speed at which it happened now was dizzying, if you did not know Laurent.

Damen summoned Makedon to the command pavilion, and called for his army to form up before him for an address. He sat on the audience throne, with a single oak seat empty beside him and Nikandros standing behind him. He watched the army wheel into place, fifteen hundred men in disciplined lines. Damen’s view commanded the whole sweep of the fields, his army arrayed in a two-block formation before him, with a clear path through their centre that led right to the base of Damen’s throne beneath its pavilion.

It had been Damen’s choice not to tell Makedon independently, but to gather him here for the address, as unaware of what was coming as the soldiers. It was a risk, and every aspect of it must be managed carefully. Makedon of the notched belt held the largest provincial army of the north, and though technically a bannerman under Nikandros’s command, he was a power in his own right. If he left in anger with his men, he would end Damen’s chances at a campaign.

Damen felt Makedon react when the Veretian herald came galloping back into their camp. Makedon was dangerously volatile. He had disobeyed kings before. He had broken the peace treaty only weeks earlier, launching a personal counterattack on Vere.

‘His Highness, Laurent, Prince of Vere and Acquitart,’ called the herald, and Damen felt the men in the tent around him react further. Nikandros kept his outward appearance unvarying, even if Damen could feel the tension in him. Damen’s own heartbeat sped up, though he kept his face impersonal.

When prince met prince there were protocols to observe. You did not greet each other alone in a diaphanous tent. Or thrown to the ground in chains in a palace viewing chamber.

The last time Akielon and Veretian royalty had met ceremonially had been six years ago, at Marlas, when the Regent had surrendered to Damen’s father, King Theomedes. Out of respect to the Veretians, Damen had not been present, but he remembered the satisfaction of knowing that Veretian royalty was bending its knee to his father. He had liked it. He had probably liked it, he thought, about as much as his men disliked what was happening today, and for the same reasons.

The Veretian banners were visible, streaming across the field, six abreast, and thirty-six in length, with Laurent riding at their head.

Damen waited, sitting powerfully on the oak throne, his arms and thighs bare in the Akielon style, his army stretching out before him in immaculate, unmoving lines.

It was not like the ecstatic entries Laurent had made into the towns and villages of Vere. No one swooned or cheered or threw flowers at his feet. The camp was silent. The Akielon soldiers watched him ride through the centre of their ranks towards the pavilion, marked out in sunlight, their own armour and sharpened blades and points of spears glinting; polished after having been so recently used to kill.

But the pure, insolent grace was the same, his bright head uncovered. He was not wearing armour, or any symbol of rank save for the gold circlet on his forehead, but when he swung down off his horse and tossed the reins to a servant, no pair of eyes looked anywhere else.

Damen stood up.

The whole tent reacted, the men standing, shifting, lowering their eyes for the King. Laurent strolled in, beautifully; he seemed sublimely unaware of the reaction that his presence was causing. He came down the path that was cleared for him, as though walking unmolested through an Akielon camp was simply his right. Damen’s own men watched as a man might watch his enemy sauntering into his house, unable to prevent it.

‘My brother of Akielos,’ said Laurent.

Damen met his eyes without flinching. Everyone knew that in the Akielon language, princes of foreign nations addressed each other in the fraternal.

‘Our brother of Vere,’ said Damen.

He was half aware of Laurent’s entourage, liveried servants and

some unidentified men outside, and several courtiers from Fortaine in attendance. He recognised Laurent’s Captain, Enguerran. He recognised Guion, the Regent’s most loyal Councillor, who, sometime in the last three days, had switched sides.

Damen lifted his hand, offering it palm up, with fingers outstretched. Laurent lifted his own hand calmly, resting it atop Damen’s. Their fingers met.

He could feel the eyes of every Akielon in the tent on him. They proceeded slowly. Laurent’s fingers rested infinitesimally above his own. He felt the moment when the men around him realised what was going to happen.

Reaching the dais, they sat, facing outward, the twin oak seats now twin thrones.

Shock; it travelled like a wave over the men and women in the tent; out, over the gathered ranks of soldiers. Everyone could see where Laurent and Damen sat: side by side.

He knew what it meant. This was the status of a compeer. It announced equality.

‘We have called you here today to witness our accord,’ said Damen, in a clear voice that carried over the noise. ‘Today we mark the alliance of our nations against those pretenders and usurpers who seek to assail our thrones.’

Laurent settled in as though the place had been made for him, and adopted the posture he typically favoured, one leg straight out before him, a fine-boned wrist balanced on the arm of the throne.

Explosions of outrage, furious exclamations, there were hands on the hilts of swords. Laurent did not look particularly concerned by this, or anything.

‘In Vere, it is customary to bestow a gift on a favoured companion,’ said Laurent in Akielon. ‘Vere therefore offers this gift to Akielos, as a symbol of our alliance, now and in all the days to come.’ His fingers lifted. A Veretian servant came forward, a cushion resting like a platter on his outstretched forearms.

Damen felt the tent fade away before his eyes.