Captive Prince: Volume One (16 page)

The arrival of a servant, trying not to show that he was out of breath, forestalled whatever Torveld might have said next.

‘Your Highness, forgive my interruption. The Regent sends that he is awaiting you inside.’

‘I’ve kept you to myself too long,’ said Laurent.

‘I wish we had more time together,’ said Torveld, showing no inclination to rise.

The Regent’s face, when he saw the two princes enter the room together, was a series of unsmiling lines, though his greeting to Torveld was genial, and all the right formalities were exchanged. Torveld’s servant bowed and departed. It was what etiquette demanded, but Damen could not follow his example, not unless he was prepared to wrench the leash bodily out of Laurent’s hand.

Formalities done, the Regent said, ‘Could you excuse my nephew and I for a moment?’

His gaze came to rest heavily on Laurent. It was Torveld’s turn to withdraw, good naturedly. Damen assumed that he was to do the same, but he felt Laurent’s grip tighten subtly on the leash.

‘Nephew. You were not invited to these discussions.’

‘And yet, here I am. It’s very irritating, isn’t it?’ said Laurent.

The Regent said, ‘This is serious business between men. It’s no time for childish games.’

‘I seem to recall being told to take on more responsibility,’ said Laurent. ‘It happened in public, with a great deal of ceremony. If you don’t remember it, check your ledgers. You came out of it richer by two estates and enough revenue to choke every horse in the stables.’

‘If I thought you were here to take on responsibility, I’d welcome you to the table with open arms. You have no interest in trade negotiations. You’ve never applied yourself seriously to anything in your life.’

‘Haven’t I? Well, then it’s nothing serious, uncle. You have no cause to worry.’

Damen saw the Regent’s eyes narrow. It was an expression that reminded him of Laurent. But the Regent said only, ‘I expect appropriate behaviour,’ before preceding them to the entertainments, displaying far more patience than Laurent deserved. Laurent didn’t follow him immediately; his gaze stayed on his uncle.

‘Your life would be a lot easier if you stopped baiting him,’ said Damen.

This time coldly, flatly, ‘I told you to shut up.’

E
XPECTING A SLAVE’S
inconspicuous place on the sidelines, Damen was surprised to find himself seated beside Laurent, albeit with a cool distance of nine inches interposed between them, not half in his lap, like Ancel and his master across the way.

Laurent sat consciously well. He was dressed as always severely, though his clothing was very fine, as befitting his rank. No jewellery except for a fine gold circlet on his brow that was mostly hidden by the fall of his golden hair. When they sat, he unclipped Damen’s leash, wound it around the handler’s rod, then tossed it to one of the attendants, who managed to catch it with only a slight fumble.

The table stretched out. On the other side of Laurent sat Torveld, evidence of a small coup for Laurent. On the other side of Damen was Nicaise. Possibly also evidence of a coup for Laurent. Nicaise was separated from Councillor Audin, who sat elsewhere, close by the Regent; Nicaise didn’t seem to have a master anywhere near him.

It seemed like a blunder of etiquette to have Nicaise at the high table, considering the sensibilities of the Patrans. But Nicaise was dressed respectably, and wore very little paint. The only flash of pet gaudiness was a long earring in his left ear; twin sapphires dangled, almost brushing his shoulder, too heavy for his young face. In every other way, he could be mistaken for a member of the nobility. No one from Patras would suppose that a child catamite sat at table alongside royalty; Torveld would likely make the same incorrect assumption that Damen had made, and think that Nicaise was somebody’s son, or nephew. Despite the earring.

Nicaise also sat well. His beauty at close range was striking. So was his youth. His voice, when he spoke, was unbroken. It had the clear fluting tone of a knife tapped against crystal, without cracks.

‘I don’t want to sit next to you,’ said Nicaise. ‘Fuck off.’

Instinctively, Damen looked around to see if anyone from the Patran delegation had heard, but no one had. The first course of meat had arrived, and the food had everyone’s attention. Nicaise had picked up a gilt three-pronged fork, but had paused before sampling the dish in order to speak. The fear he’d shown of Damen at the ring seemed to still be there. His knuckles, clenched around the fork, were white.

‘It’s all right,’ said Damen. He spoke to the boy as gently as he could. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

Nicaise stared back at him. His huge blue eyes were fringed like a whore’s, or like a doe’s. Around them, the table was a coloured wall of voices and laughter, courtiers caught up in their own amusements, paying them no attention.

‘Good,’ said Nicaise, and stabbed the fork viciously into Damen’s thigh under the table.

Even through a layer of cloth, it was enough to make Damen start, and instinctively grab the fork, as three drops of blood welled up.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ Laurent said smoothly, turning from Torveld to face Nicaise.

‘I made your pet jump,’ said Nicaise, smugly.

Not sounding at all displeased: ‘Yes, you did.’

‘Whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to work.’

‘I think it will, though. Bet you your earring.’

‘If I win, you wear it,’ said Nicaise.

Laurent immediately lifted his cup and inclined it towards Nicaise in a little gesture sealing the bet. Damen tried to shake the bizarre impression that they were enjoying themselves.

Nicaise waved an attendant over and asked for a new fork.

Without a master to entertain, Nicaise was left free to prick at Damen. He began with a stream of insults and explicit speculation about Damen’s sexual practices, pitched in a voice too quiet for anyone else to hear. When, at length, he saw that Damen was not rising to this bait, he turned his commentary on Damen’s owner.

‘You think sitting at the high table with him means something? It doesn’t. He won’t fuck you. He’s frigid.’

This subject was almost a relief. No matter how crude the boy was, there was nothing he could say about Laurent’s proclivities that Damen had not already heard speculated about extensively and in coarse language by bored guards on indoor duty.

‘I don’t think he
can
. I think it doesn’t work, what he has. When I was younger, I used to think he’d had it cut off. What do you think? Have you seen it?’

When he was younger?

Damen said, ‘He hasn’t had it cut off.’

Nicaise’s eyes narrowed.

Damen said, ‘How long have you been a pet in this court?’

‘Three years,’ said Nicaise, in the sort of tone that said: You won’t last here three minutes.

Damen looked at him and wished he hadn’t asked. Whether he had a ‘child’s mind’ or not, physically Nicaise had not yet crossed over from child to adolescent. He was still prepubescent. He looked younger than any of the other pets Damen had seen at this court, all of whom had at least passed puberty. Three years.

The Patran delegation continued oblivious. With Torveld, Laurent was on his best behaviour. He had apparently—incredibly—divested himself of malice and washed his mouth out with soap. He talked intelligently about politics, and about trade, and if every now and then a little edge glimmered, it came across as wit—not barbed, just enough to say: You see? I can keep up.

Torveld showed less and less inclination to look at anyone else. It was like watching a man smile as he surrendered himself to drown in deep water.

Thankfully, it did not go on too long. In a miracle of restraint, there were only nine courses, served ribboned and artfully arranged on jewelled plates by attractive pages. The pets themselves ‘served’ not at all. Sitting nestled alongside their owners, some of them were hand fed, and one or two of them even brazenly helped themselves, playfully filching choice morsels from their masters, like pampered lapdogs who have learned that whatever they do, their doting owners will find them charming.

‘It’s a shame I haven’t been able to arrange for you to view the slaves,’ said Laurent, as the pages began to cover the table with sweets.

‘You don’t need to. We saw palace slaves in Akielos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen slaves of that quality, even in Bazal. And I trust your taste, of course.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Laurent.

Damen was aware that beside him, Nicaise had started intently listening.

‘I’m sure my uncle will agree to the exchange if you push for it strongly enough,’ said Laurent.

‘If he does, I will owe it to you,’ said Torveld.

Nicaise got up from the table.

Damen bridged the nine chilly inches at the first opportunity. ‘What are you doing? You were the one who warned me about Nicaise.’ He spoke in a low voice.

Laurent went very still; then he deliberately shifted in his seat and leaned in, bringing his lips right to Damen’s ear. ‘I think I’m out of stabbing range, he’s got short arms. Or perhaps he’ll try to throw a sugar plum? That
is
difficult. If I duck he’ll hit Torveld.’

Damen gritted his teeth. ‘You know what I meant. He heard you. He’s going to act. Can’t you do something about it?’

‘I’m occupied.’

‘Then let me do something.’

‘Bleed on him?’ said Laurent.

Damen opened his mouth to reply, and found his words stopped by the startling touch of Laurent’s fingers against his lips, a thumb brushing his jawline. It was the sort of absent touch that any master at the table might give to a pet. But from the shocked reaction that rolled over the courtiers at the table, it was clear that Laurent did not do this sort of thing often. Or ever.

‘My pet was feeling neglected,’ Laurent apologised to Torveld.

‘He’s the captive Kastor sent you to train?’ said Torveld, curiously. ‘He’s—safe?’

‘He looks combative, but he’s really very docile and adoring,’ said Laurent, ‘like a puppy.’

‘A puppy,’ said Torveld.

To demonstrate, Laurent picked up a confection of crushed nuts and honey and held it out to Damen as he had at the ring, between thumb and forefinger.

‘Sweetmeat?’ said Laurent.

In the stretched-out moment that followed, Damen thought explicitly about killing him.

Damen leaned in. It was sickly sweet. He didn’t let his lips touch Laurent’s fingers. A great many people were looking at them. Laurent washed his fingers fastidiously in the gold washing bowl when he was done, and dried them on a little square cloth of silk.

Torveld stared. In Patras, slaves fed masters—peeling fruit and pouring drinks—not the other way around. It was that way also in Akielos. The conversation recovered from its pause and turned to trivial matters. Around them the creations of sugar and candied spices and glazed pastries in fantastical shapes were slowly being demolished.

Damen looked around for Nicaise, but the boy had gone.

In the relaxed end-of-meal lull before the entertainments, Damen was given free rein to wander about, and went to find him. Laurent was occupied, and for the first time there were not two guards looming perpetually over him. He could have walked out. He could have walked right out of the palace doors and from there into the surrounding city of Arles. Except he couldn’t leave this place until Torveld’s embassy departed with the slaves, which was of course the only reason he was off the leash at all.

He didn’t make very good progress. The guards might be gone, but Laurent’s caress had bought Damen another type of attention.

‘I predicted when the Prince brought him to the ring that he was going to become quite popular,’ Vannes was saying to the noblewoman beside her. ‘I saw him perform in the gardens, but it was almost a waste of his talents, the Prince wouldn’t let him take an active role.’

Damen’s attempts to excuse himself had no impact on her at all.

‘No, don’t leave us just yet. Talik wished to meet you,’ Vannes told Damen. She was saying to the noblewoman, ‘Of course, the idea of one of us keeping males is grotesque. But if one could—don’t you think he and Talik would make a good matched pair? Ah. Here she is. We’ll give you two a moment together.’ They were departing.

‘I am Talik,’ the pet declared. Her voice carried the strong accent of Ver-Tan, the eastern province of Vask.

Damen recalled someone saying that Vannes liked pets who could sweep the ring competitions. Talik was almost as tall as Damen, her bare arms well muscled. There was something slightly predatory about her gaze, her wide mouth and the arc of her brows. Damen had assumed that pets, like slaves, were sexually submissive to their masters, as was the custom in Akielos. But he could only guess at the arrangements between Vannes and this woman in bed.

She said, ‘I think a warrior from Ver-Tan would easily kill a warrior from Akielos.’

‘I think it would depend on the warrior,’ he said, carefully.

She appeared to consider him along with his answer, and, eventually, to find both acceptable.