Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

‘It’s Patran,’ said Damen.

‘You speak very good Akielon,’ he said, loudly and slowly.

‘Thank you,’ said Damen.

Nikandros had to stand awkwardly by the end of the table when he arrived. He frowned when he realised he had to give his report to Laurent. ‘The wagons are unpacked. Charls.’

‘Thank you, soldier,’ said Laurent, adding expansively to the group, ‘We usually operate in Delfeur, but I’ve been forced to come south. Nikandros is completely useless as the Kyros,’ Laurent said, loudly enough for Nikandros to hear him. ‘He doesn’t know the first thing about cloth.’

‘That is so true,’ agreed Mathelin.

Charls said, ‘He disallowed trading in Kemptian silk, and when I tried to sell silk from Varenne he taxed it at five sols a bolt!’

This was greeted with the exclamations of disapproval that it deserved, and the conversation moved on to the hardships of border trading and the unrest plaguing supply trains. If it was true that Damianos had returne

d in the north, Charls expected this to be his last consignment before the roads closed. War was coming, and they could expect lean times.

The speculation was on the price of grain in wartime, and of the impact on producers and growers. No one knew much about Damianos, or why their own Prince had allied with him.

‘Charls met the Prince of Vere once,’ Guilliame said to Damen, lowering his voice to the conspiratorial, ‘in a tavern in Nesson, disguised as a,’ lowering it further, ‘prostitute.’

Damen looked over at Laurent, who was deep in conversation, letting his eyes pass slowly over every familiar feature, the cool expression tipped with gold in the firelight. He said, ‘Did he?’

‘Charls said, think of the most expensive pet you’ve ever seen, then double it.’

‘Really?’ said Damen.

‘Of course, Charls knew who he was right away, because he couldn’t hide his princely style, and nobility of spirit.’

‘Of course,’ said Damen.

Across the table, Laurent was asking questions about cultural differences in trade. Veretians liked ornate fabrics and dyes, weavings and ornamentations, Charls said, but Akielons had a sharper focus on quality, and their textiles were in truth more sophisticated, every aspect of the weave revealed by their deceptively simple styles. In some ways, it was harder to trade here.

‘Maybe you could encourage Akielons to wear sleeves. You’d sell more cloth,’ said Laurent.

Everyone laughed politely at the joke, and then speculative looks crossed one or two faces, as if this young cousin of Charls’s might have stumbled by accident onto a good idea.

* * *

Their men were sleeping in the outbuildings. Damen the assistant checked in on both the soldiers and the wagons, and saw that Jord and most of the others had bedded down for the night. Guion was in the outbuilding too, uncomfortably. Paschal was snoring. Lazar and Pallas were sharing a blanket. Nikandros was awake, with the two soldiers who were guarding the wagons where Jokaste was spending the night, along with Guion’s wife, Loyse.

‘All’s quiet,’ reported Nikandros.

One of the inn men came out with a lantern in his hand traversing the courtyard to tell Lamen that his room was prepared, second door to the right.

He followed the lantern. Inside, the inn was dark and quiet. Charls and his party had retired, and only the last of the embers were burning in the spit fire. The stone stairs nestled along the wall were unbannistered, which was typical of Akielon architecture, but trusted a great deal in the sobriety of the patrons.

He ascended the stairs. Without the lantern, there was quite a bit of unlit gloom, but he found the second door to the right and pushed it open.

The room was cosy, simple, its stone walls thickly plastered, its fireplace with a warming fire. It had a bed, a wooden table with a pitcher, two small windows with deep sills, the glass panes black, the inside well-lit. Three candles burning: an extravagance, flaming low, giving the room a warm, welcoming glow.

Laurent was haloed in candlelight, all cream and gold. He was freshly bathed, his hair drying. He had exchanged his Akielon cotton for an oversized Veretian bed shirt, loose and trailing laces. And he had dragged all of the bedding from the small Akielon-style bed and heaped it in front of the fire, even dragging the clean mattress down to join the smaller pallet there.

Damen looked at the bedding, and said, carefully, ‘The innsman sent me here.’

‘At my instruction,’ said Laurent.

He was coming forward. Damen felt his heart begin to pound, even as he held himself still and tried not to make any dangerous assumptions.