Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

He said, ‘I think it’s Kastor’s child.’

Jokaste didn’t answer him, and there was a silence in which her gaze was on him. Laurent regarded her in turn. Around them, the camp stayed quiet, no sounds except for the breeze and the night.

‘I think you saw it clearly, in those twilight days in Akielos. The end was coming, and Damianos wouldn’t listen to anyone. The only way to save his life was to persuade Kastor to send him as a slave to Vere. To do that you had to be in Kastor’s bed.’

Her expression didn’t alter, but he felt the change in her, the new, careful way she was holding herself. In the cool night air, it transmitted something to him, against her will. It gave something away. And she was angry about it, and for the first time she was afraid.

He said, ‘I think it’s Kastor’s child, because I don’t think you would use Damen’s child against him.’

‘Then you underestimate me.’

‘Do I?’ He held her gaze. ‘I suppose we’ll find out.’

Laurent tossed the key into the wagon, in front of the place where she stood unmoving.

‘We’re alike. You said that. Would you have opened the door for me? I don’t know. But you opened one for him.’

Her voice was wiped clean of inflection, ruthlessly, so that nothing showed but a mocking, mild bitterness. ‘You mean, the only difference between us is that I chose the wrong brother?’

As the stars began to drift across the sky, Laurent thought about Nicaise, standing in the courtyard with a handful of sapphires.

‘I don’t think you chose,’ said Laurent.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IT WAS BETTER not to drag Jokaste out of her wagon until the exchange was guaranteed, Laurent said, and so the two of them rode to the Kingsmeet alone.

That suited the Kingsmeet’s own protocols. The Kingsmeet strictly enforced its laws of non-violence. It was a sanctum, a place for parley, with centuries-old rules of peace. Pilgrims could enter, but groups of soldiers were not permitted inside its walls.

There were three stages to their approach. First, across the long plains. Then, past the gates. Finally, they would enter the hall, and from there pass into the inner chamber that housed the Kingstone. The Kingsmeet on the horizon was a white marble crown, commanding its vantage from the only rise on the wide, dusty plain. Every white-cloaked soldier in the Kingsmeet would see Damen’s approach with Laurent: two humble pilgrims here on horseback to make their tribute.

‘You approach the Kingsmeet. Announce your purpose.’

The man’s voice was very small, descending from an immense height of fifty feet. Damen shaded his eyes and called back. ‘We are travellers, here to pay tribute to the Kingstone.’

‘Take the pledge, traveller, and be welcome.’

With the sound of a chain screaming, the portcullis rose. They took their horses up the rise to the gates, past the huge, heavy iron portcullis enclosed by four immense stone towers, as at Karthas.

Inside, they dismounted to meet an older man, whose white cloak was fixed to his shoulder with a gold pin, and who, when they ceremonially gave over a great deal of gold in tribute, advanced to put a white sash around each of their necks. Damen had to bend slightly for it.

‘This is a place of peace. No blow may be struck, no sword may be drawn. The man who breaks the peace of the Kingsmeet must face the King’s justice. Do you accept the pledge?’ said the older man.

‘I do,’ said Damen. The man turned to Laurent, who swore the same pledge. ‘I do.’ And they were inside.

He wasn’t expecting the summer tranquility of it, the tiny flowers growing on the grassy slopes that led up to the ancient hall, massive blocks of jutting stone remnants of its long-ago first structure. He had only ever been here during ceremonies, the kyroi and their men thronging the slopes and his father standing powerful in the hall.

He had been an infant the first time he had come here, presented to the kyroi held aloft by his father. Damen had heard the story many times, the King lifting him up, the nation’s joy at the arrival of an heir after years of miscarriages, the Queen seemingly unable to bring a child to term.

In the stories, no one spoke of nine-year-old Kastor, watching from the sidelines as a ceremony bestowed on an infant all that had been promised to him.

Kastor would have been crowned here. He would have called on the kyroi as Theomedes had called on them, and been crowned in the old way, with the kyroi in attendance, and the impassive faces of the Kingsmeet sentries looking on.

Now those sentries flanked them. They were a permanent independent military garrison, the finest chosen from each of the provinces with scrupulous neutrality to serve a two-year term. They lived in the complex of supporting outbuildings, filling the barracks and the gymnasiums, where they slept and woke and trained with immaculate discipline.

It was a soldier’s greatest honour to compete in the yearly games and be chosen from the best to serve here, to uphold the strict laws.

Damen said, ‘Nikandros served here, for two years.’