Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

When he returned, Damen let Laurent towel him down, with the sweet, unanticipated attentiveness that was also part of the way Laurent behaved in bed. He sipped from the shallow cup that Laurent provided, and poured water for Laurent in turn, which Laurent didn’t seem to expect. Laurent sat awkwardly upright on the bedding.

Damen stretched out comfortably, and waited for Laurent to do the same. That took minutes longer than it would have with any other lover. Eventually, with that same stiff awkwardness, Laurent lay down next to him. Laurent was closer to the fire, the room’s only remaining source of illumination, and it created wells of light and shadow across his body.

‘You’re still wearing it.’

He couldn’t help but say it. Laurent’s wrist was heavy with gold, like the colour of his hair in the firelight.

‘So are you.’

‘Tell me why.’

‘You know why,’ said Laurent.

They lay alongside one another, among the sheets and the mattress and the flat cushions. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. He could feel the beat of his own heart.

‘I’ll be jealous when you marry your Patran princess,’ Damen heard himself say.

The room was quiet after he said it, he could hear the fire again, and was too aware of his own breathing. After a moment, Laurent spoke.

‘There will be no Patran princess, or daughter of the Empire.’

‘It’s your duty to continue your line.’

He didn’t know why he said it. There were marks on the ceiling, which was panelled and not plastered, and he could see the dark whorls and grain of the wood.

‘No. I’m the last. My line ends with me.’

Damen turned, to find Laurent was not looking back at him, but also had his eyes on some point in the dim light. Laurent’s voice was quiet. ‘I have never said that to anyone before.’

Damen didn’t want to disturb the silence that followed, the handspan that separated their bodies, the careful space between them.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Laurent. ‘I always thought that I’d have to face my uncle alone.’

He turned to look at Damen, and their eyes met.

‘You’re not alone,’ said Damen.

Laurent didn’t answer, but he did give a smile, and reached out to touch Damen, wordlessly.

* * *

They parted ways with Charls six days later, after they crossed into the southernmost province of Akielos.

It had been a winding, relaxed journey, the days passing in a drone of summer insects and afternoon rest-stops to avoid the worst of the heat. Charls’s wagon train lent them respectability, and they passed Kastor’s patrols without difficulty. Jord taught dice to Aktis, who taught him some choice Akielon vocabulary. Lazar pursued Pallas with the kind of lazy confidence that would have Pallas lifting up his skirt as soon as they stopped somewhere with any semblance of privacy. Paschal gave free advice to Lydos, who went away relieved about the medical nature of his problems.

When the days got too hot, they retreated to inns and wayhouses, and once a large farmhouse where they ate bread, hard cheese and figs, and Akielon sweets of honey and nuts that attracted wasps in the sticky heat.

At the farmhouse, Damen found himself at an outside table, across from Paschal, who nodded his chin at Laurent, visible in the distance under the cooling branches of a tree. ‘He’s not used to the heat.’

That was true. Laurent was not made for the Akielon summer, and during the day decamped to the shade of the wagons, or, at rest-stops, stayed under awnings or the leafy shade of a tree. But he gave little other overt sign of it, neither complaining nor shirking when work needed to be done.

‘You never told me how you ended up in Laurent’s faction.’

‘I was the Regent’s physician.’

‘So you ministered to his household.’

‘And to his boys,’ said Paschal.