Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

He passed the traitor’s walk, thick with flies. He scanned the tops of the spikes, but the dead were all dark-haired.

A burst of a cavalcade came trotting out on horses. He stepped to the side; they trotted past him, red-cloaked and regimented, without a second glance.

It was all uphill in the city, because the palace was built on the peak, with the sea at its back. He realised as he walked that he had never done this on foot before. When he reached the palace square, a feeling of disorientation came over him again, because he only knew the square from the opposite angle: as a view from the white balcony, where his father used to emerge sometimes to raise a hand and address the crowd.

Now he walked into the square as a visitor from one of the city entrances. From this angle, the palace loomed impressively, the guards like gleaming statues, the bases of their spears fixed to the ground.

He locked his eyes on the closest of the guards and began to walk forward.

At first no one paid any attention to him. He was just one man in the busy columned square. But by the time he reached the first of the guards he had garnered a few looks. It was rare to approach the steps to the high gate directly.

He could feel the growing attention, could feel eyes turning to look at him, could feel the guards’ awareness of him, though they held their impassive positions. He put his sandalled foot on the first step.

Crossed spears blocked his way, and the men and women of the square began to turn, to create a semicircle of curiosity, nudging each other.

‘Halt,’ said the guard. ‘State your business, traveller.’

He waited, until he had the eyes of everyone near the gate on him, then he let the hood of his cloak fall back. He heard the shocked murmurs, the outbreak of sound as he spoke, his words, clear and unmistakable.

‘I am Damianos of Akielos, and I surrender to my brother.’

* * *

The soldiers were nervous.

Damianos. In the moments before they hurriedly ushered him in through the gate, the crowd grew. Damianos. The name spread from mouth to mouth, like a spark into a line of leaping fire, awed, fearful, shocked. Damianos of Akielos. The guard to the right just continued to look at him blankly, but there was growing recognition on the face of the guard to the left, who said, fatally, ‘It’s him.’

It’s him—and the spark ignited into a blaze, seizing the crowd. It’s him. It’s him. Damianos. Suddenly it was everywhere. The crowd was jostling, exclaiming. A woman fell down onto her knees. A man shoved forward. The guards were close to being overwhelmed.

They pushed him inside, roughly. His public surrender had accomplished that much: he had won himself the privilege of being manhandled into the palace.

If it worked, if he was in time—how long could a trial last? How long could Laurent stall for time? The trial would have commenced in the morning—how long until the Council returned their verdict, and Laurent was taken to the public square to be shoved to his knees, his head lowered, the sword brought down on his neck—?

He needed them to take him into the hall to face Kastor. He had given up his freedom for that single chance, gambling everything. He’s alive. Damianos is alive. The whole city knew, they couldn’t dispatch him in secret. They must take him to the hall.

In fact, they took him to an empty set of apartments on the eastern side of the palace, and discussed in hushed whispers what to do. He sat under guard on one of the low seats and didn’t scream in frustration, as time passed, and then more time. This was already different to all his hopes; there were too many things that could go wrong.

The latch on the doors was thrown open, and a new set of soldiers entered, heavily armed. One was an officer. Another carried irons. He stopped dead when he saw Damen.

‘Cuff him,’ said the officer.

The soldier holding the irons didn’t move, his wide eyes staring at Damen.

‘Do it,’ came the order.

‘Do it, soldier,’ said Damen.

‘Yes, Exalted,’ said the soldier, and then flushed, as though he had done something wrong. He might have. It might have been treason to say that.

Or it might be treason to step forward and close the iron around Damen’s wrists. Damen held his arms ready behind his back and still the man hesitated. This was a complex political proposition for the soldiers. They were nervous.

The moment the iron closed around Damen’s wrists, the nerves showed themselves in a different way. The soldiers had done something irrevocable. They had to think of Damen as a prisoner now, and they grew rougher, shouting and shoving him in the back, out of the apartment, blustering and too loud.

Damen’s heartbeat sped up. Was it enough? Was he in time? The soldiers pushed him around a corner, and he saw the first stretch of corridor. It was happening, he was being taken to the great hall.

High, shocked faces lined the passages as they passed. The first person to recognise him was a household official carrying a vase which smashed, dropping from his hands. Damianos. A slave, caught in a crisis of etiquette, fell half to his knees and then stopped, agonisingly uncertain whether he should complete his prostration. A soldier froze in his tracks, eyes wide with horror. It was unthinkable that any man should lay hands on the King’s son. And yet Damianos was being escorted in shackles, pushed forward by a spear butt when he walked too slowly.

Thrust into the crush of the great hall, Damen saw several things at once.