Damen reined in as they crested the hill, his army a dark fringe of banners and spears behind him. His order to ride had been unforgiving, calling on his men, the battle barely over.
Of the three thousand Akielons who had fought at Charcy, just over half had survived. They had ridden, fought and ridden again, leaving behind only a garrison to attend to the bodies, the scattered armour and ownerless weapons. Jord and the other Veretians who had stayed to fight were riding with him in a small clump, nervy and uncertain of what to do.
By that time, Damen had received the tally of the dead: twelve hundred of us, six and a half thousand of them.
He knew the men were behaving differently towards him since the battle’s end, falling back as he passed. He had seen their looks of fear and stunned awe. Most of them had not fought with him before. Perhaps they hadn’t known what to expect.
Now they were here; they had arrived, dirt and grime covered, wounded, some of them, pushing past exhaustion because it was what discipline demanded of them, to look out at the sight that greeted them.
Rows upon rows of peaked, coloured tents were pitched on the field outside Fortaine’s walls, the sun lighting the pavilions, the banners, and the silks of a graceful encampment. It was a city of tents, and it camped a fresh, intact force of Laurent’s men, who had not fought and died through the morning.
The constructed arrogance of the display was intentional. It said, exquisitely: Did you exert yourself at Charcy? I have been here examining my nails.
Nikandros reined in alongside him. ‘Uncle and nephew are alike. They send other men to do their fighting for them.’
Damen was silent. What he felt in his chest was a hardness like anger. He looked at the elegant silken city and thought about men dying on the field at Charcy.
Some kind of herald’s greeting party was riding towards them. He gripped the Regent’s bloody, torn banner in his hand.
‘Just me,’ said Damen, and put his heels into his horse.
About halfway across the field, he was met by the herald, who arrived with an anxious party of four attendants saying something urgent about protocol. Damen listened to four words of it.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Damen. ‘He’s expecting me.’
Inside the encampment, he swung down off his horse and tossed the reins to a passing servant, ignoring the flurry of activity that his arrival provoked, the heralds cantering in desperately behind him.
Without even pulling off his gauntlets, he strode to the tent. He knew its high scalloped folds; he knew the starburst pennant. No one stopped him. Not even when he reached the tent and dismissed the soldier at the entrance with a single order: ‘Go.’ He didn’t bother to see if his order was obeyed. The soldier let him through: of course he did; this had all been planned. Laurent was ready for him whether he came docilely behind the herald or, as he did now, the dirt and the sweat of the battle still on him, blood dried in the places where a cursory swipe with a cloth had not reached it.
He swept the tent flap back with an arm, and stepped inside.
Silken privacy, as the tent flap settled behind him. He stood in a pavilion tent, its high ceiling canopied like a flowerhead, supported by six thick interior poles wrapped in spiralled silk. It was enclosing despite its size, the fall of the flap enough to mute the sounds from outside.
This was the place Laurent had chosen. He made himself acquainted with it. There were a few furnishings, low seats, cushions, and in the background a trestle table hung with its own coverings, and set with shallow bowls of sugared pears and oranges. As though they were going to nibble at sweetmeats.
He lifted his gaze from the table to the exquisitely attired figure leaned with a single shoulder against the tent pole, watching him.
Laurent said, ‘Hello, lover.’
It was not going to be simple. Damen forced himself to take it in. He forced himself to take it all in, and to stroll himself inside the tent, so that he stood in the elegant surrounds in full armour, crushing delicate embroidered silks under his muddied feet.
He threw the Regent’s banner down onto the table. It clattered, in a mess of mud and stained silk. Then turned his eyes to Laurent. He wondered what Laurent saw when he looked at him. He knew he looked different.
‘Charcy is won.’
‘I thought it would be.’
He made himself breathe through that. ‘Your men think you’re a coward. Nikandros thinks that you deceived us. That you sent us to Charcy, and left us there to die by your uncle’s sword.’
‘And is that what you think?’ said Laurent.
‘No.’ Damen said, ‘Nikandros doesn’t know you.’
‘And you do.’
Damen looked at the arrangement of Laurent’s weight, the careful way he was holding his body. Laurent’s left hand was still casually resting against the tent pole.
Deliberately, he stepped forward, and clasped Laurent’s right shoulder.