Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince, #2)

by C.S. Pacat

‘If you bind your men to you with deception, how can you ever trust them? You have qualities they will come to admire. Why not let them grow to trust you naturally, and in that way—’ ‘There isn’t time,’ said Laurent.

I intend to survive, I intend to beat my uncle, and I will fight with every weapon that I have.’

‘All right,’ said Laurent. ‘Anything else?’ ‘Yes,’ said Damen. ‘Then speak your mind,’ said Laurent. ‘Not that you have ever done anything else.’

Damen said, ‘I will help you in whatever way I can, but there will be no time for anything but hard work, and you will have to do everything right.’ Laurent lifted his chin and replied with every bit of cool, galling arrogance he had ever shown. ‘Watch me,’ he said.

He had listened to everything Damen had said last night. He had listened to a great deal more than that.

from the first day, Laurent had worked hard without comment or complaint. That, too, had been calculated to within a hair.

The men returned to camp boneless and exhausted with no energy to complain that their leader was a blond, blue-eyed fiend, curse him.

‘It’s your first time in a company?’ he said. ‘I can keep up,’ said Aimeric. ‘I’ve seen that,’ said Damen. ‘I’m sure your Captain has seen it. You did a good day’s work.’

‘Wait,’ said Aimeric. ‘You really think Jord has seen it?’ And then he flushed as though he had given something away.

‘The post-mortem,’ Laurent said.

Laurent said, ‘What do you think of Jord?’ ‘I like him,’ said Damen. ‘You should be pleased with him. He was the right choice for Captain.’

‘No,’ said Laurent. ‘You were.’ ‘What?’ said Damen. He gave Laurent a startled look and was even more surprised to find that Laurent was gazing back at him steadily. ‘There isn’t a man here who’d accept orders from an Akielon.’ ‘I know that. It’s one of two reasons I chose Jord. The men would have resisted you at first, you’d have had to prove yourself. Even with the extra fortnight, there wasn’t enough time to play all of that out. It frustrates me that I cannot put you to best use.’

‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say,’ he admitted, a little wryly. ‘Did you think I was too proud to see it? I can assure you, the pride I have invested in beating my uncle far outweighs the feelings I hold on any other account.’ ‘You just surprised me,’ said Damen. ‘Sometimes I think I understand you, and at other times I can’t make you out at all.’ ‘Believe me, that sentiment is mutual.’

‘You said two reasons,’ said Damen. ‘What was the other?’ ‘The men think you bend me over inside the tent,’ said Laurent. He said it in the same calm way he said everything. Damen fumbled the vambrace. ‘It would erode my authority. My carefully cultivated authority. Now I have really surprised you. Perhaps if you were not a foot taller, or quite so broad across the shoulders.’

Except that when he turned back, Laurent had lifted his hand to his shoulder and was rolling it, obviously feeling slight stiffness. His lashes had dipped. Under the shirt his limbs were unknitted with languor. He was, Damen realised, exhausted.

He held his tongue. Two weeks here and two weeks travel to the border, see Laurent safely escorted, and he was done.

Laurent wasn’t loved. Laurent wasn’t liked. Even among his own men, who would follow him off a cliff, there was the unequivocal consensus that Laurent was, as Orlant had once described him, a cast-iron bitch, that it was a very bad idea to get on his bad side, and that as for his good side, he didn’t have one.

It was apparent why his uncle had kept Laurent away from the reins of power: he was good at leading.

Laurent didn’t order him put on the post. Laurent flayed him, verbally. It was not like his exchanges with Govart. It was cool, explicit, appalling, and it reduced a grown man in front of the troop as utterly as his sword thrust had done. The men got back to work after that. Damen heard one of them say, in a tone of awed admiration, ‘That boy has got the filthiest mouth I’ve ever heard.’

‘Aimeric,’ said Damen, raising his eyebrows. ‘What? You’ve seen him,’ said Jord, lips quirking. ‘I’ve seen him. Last week he had half the camp at each other’s throats.’ ‘He’s all right,’ said Jord. ‘It’s only that he’s highborn, and not used to rough company. He’s doing the right thing by what he knows, it’s just that the rules are different. Like how it is with you.’ That was chastening. Damen took another mouthful of the awful wine. ‘You’re a good captain. He could do a lot worse.’

‘You know,’ said Damen, ‘he’s going to let someone eventually. Better all round if it’s you.’ There was a long silence, and then, in an oddly diffident voice: ‘I’ve never bedded anyone highborn,’ said Jord. ‘Is it different?’ Damen flushed when he realised what Jord was assuming. ‘He…We don’t. He doesn’t. As far as I know, he doesn’t with anyone.’ ‘As far as anyone knows,’ said Jord. ‘If he didn’t have a mouth on him like a harlot in a guardsroom, I’d think he was a virgin.’

‘He just likes to be prepared,’ said Jord. ‘If he has to fight, he wants to be able to rely on his men.’ ‘I prefer that,’ said Aimeric, quickly. ‘I mean that I prefer to be part of a company that can fight. I’m a fourth son. I admire hard work just as…I admire men who can rise above their birth.’ He said that last with a look at Jord. Damen wisely made his excuses and rose, leaving them alone together.

It wasn’t the cheap mouth-rasping wine Jord was drinking, Damen saw. It was water.

‘It was an impressive fight.’ ‘Yes, I know,’ said Laurent.

‘You must have spent a lot of time in training,’ said Damen, and to his surprise Laurent answered him seriously. ‘I was never a fighter,’ said Laurent. ‘That was Auguste. But after Marlas, I was obsessed with…’ Laurent stopped. Damen could see the moment when Laurent decided to continue. It was deliberate, his eyes meeting Damen’s, his tone subtly changed. ‘Damianos of Akielos was commanding troops at seventeen. At nineteen, he rode onto the field, cut a path through our finest men, and took my brother’s life. They say—they said—he was the best fighter in Akielos. I thought, if I was going to kill someone like that, I would have to be very, very good.’ Damen was silent after that. The impulse to talk flickered out, like the candles in the moment before they were snuffed into darkness, like the last dying warmth of the embers in the brazier.

‘Tell me about Auguste,’ said Damen. ‘The Prince? What is there to tell? He was the golden star,’ said Paschal, with a nod at the starburst crest of the Crown Prince. ‘Laurent seems to hold him brighter in his mind than the image of his own father.’

Laurent was good with his mind, good at thinking, good at working his way through puzzles. Auguste was straightforward: a champion, the heir, born to rule. You can imagine how Laurent felt about him.’ ‘He resented him,’ said Damen. Paschal gave him a strange look. ‘No, he loved him. He hero-worshipped him, the way that intellectual boys sometimes do, with older boys who excel physically. It went both ways with those two. They were devoted to one another. Auguste was the protector. He would do anything for his little brother.’

He had seen Laurent open his mouth and strip paint from the walls. He had seen Laurent lift a knife and in cold blood slit open a man’s throat without so much as a flicker of his golden lashes. Laurent didn’t need to be protected from anything.

‘I have something to attend to in town.’ Instinctively, Damen moved his horse to block Laurent’s path. ‘No. The easiest way for your uncle to get rid of you is to separate you from your men, and you know it. You can’t go into town alone, you’re in danger just being here. We need to rejoin the troop. Now.’ Laurent glanced at their surroundings, and said, ‘It’s the wrong terrain for an ambush.’ ‘The town isn’t,’ said Damen. For good measure, he took hold of Laurent’s horse’s bridle. ‘Consider alternatives. Can you entrust the task to someone else?’ ‘No,’ said Laurent. He said it as a calm statement of fact. Damen forced down his frustration, reminded himself that Laurent was in possession of an able mind, and that therefore his, No, had a reason behind it other than pure stubbornness. Probably.

‘Whatever he needs. How many men is he taking with him?’ ‘One,’ said Damen. ‘Good luck,’ was all Jord said.

Laurent raised his fist and applied it to the door. Then he turned to Damen. ‘I assume that’s right? I have no idea how one usually proceeds. This is your arena, not mine.’ The viewing slit on the door slid open, Laurent held up a gold coin, the viewing slit shut with a slam that was followed by the sound of bolts being thrown open. Fragrance billowed out of the doorway. A young woman appeared, her brown hair brushed to a high gloss. She eyed Laurent’s coin, then she eyed Damen, then she appended a murmur about Damen’s size to a demurring comment about fetching the Maitresse, and they stepped through the doorway and into the perfumed brothel. ‘This is not my arena,’ said Damen.

Laurent was considering the women. He was far from wide-eyed, but there was a certain quality to his gaze. For Laurent, Damen realised, this experience was wholly new and highly illicit. Compounding Damen’s sense of the ridiculous was the sudden acute awareness that he was accompanying the chaste Crown Prince of Vere to his first brothel.

‘My slave and I want a private room,’ said Laurent, ‘at the back of the house. Something with a bed, and a latch on the door, and a window. We do not require company. If you try to send in one of your girls, you will find out the hard way that I don’t like sharing.’

‘After you,’ he said to Laurent, who was staring at him. Laurent almost looked as though he was going to speak, but then he just nodded, pulled himself through the window and dropped soundlessly into the alley behind the brothel. Damen followed.

‘I’m not the one who has to hide his identity,’ said Damen,

Until he drew something delicate and glittering out of a fold in his clothing. Damen stared at him. Laurent said, ‘After you.’ Damen opened his mouth. Closed it. He put his hand on the inn door, and pushed it open. Laurent followed him, after a moment spent affixing the long hanging sapphires of Nicaise’s earring to his own ear.

After no more than a brief, dismissive glance at Laurent, the innkeeper gave Damen his full attention, greeting him respectfully. ‘Welcome, my lord. Will you and your pet require lodgings for the evening?’

‘I want your best room,’ said Laurent, ‘with a big bed and a private bath, and if you send up the house boy, you’ll find out the hard way that I don’t like sharing.’ He delivered the innkeeper a long, cool look. ‘He’s expensive,’ said Damen to the innkeeper, by way of apology. And then watched as the innkeeper sized up the cost of Laurent’s clothes, and his sapphire earring—a royal gift to a favourite—and the likely cost of Laurent himself, the face, the body. Damen realised that he was about to be charged three times the going rate for everything. He decided with good humour that he didn’t mind being generous with Laurent’s coin. ‘Why don’t you find us a table. Pet.’ Enjoying the moment. And the sobriquet.

one of my favourite moments of the ENTIRE series

The earring was not a discreet disguise. Every man in the common room of the inn was taking the time to have a good look at Laurent. Pet. Laurent’s cool-eyed arrogance proclaimed that no one could touch him. The earring said that one man could. It transformed him from unattainable to exclusive, an elite pleasure no one here could afford.

Then Laurent rose and made his way around the table, sitting himself beside Damen, close as a lover. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Verisimilitude,’ said Laurent. The earring winked at him. ‘I’m glad I brought you along. I wasn’t expecting to have to tear things out of walls. Do you visit brothels often?’ ‘No,’ said Damen.

‘Akielos, the garden of delights. So you enjoy slavery in others. Just not in yourself.’

Damen shifted on the long bench, and regarded him. ‘Don’t strain yourself,’ said Laurent. ‘You talk more,’ said Damen, ‘when you’re uncomfortable.’

‘All right. Give me some coin. I want to play that man at cards.’ Laurent rose, leaning his weight against the table. Damen reached for the purse, then paused. ‘Aren’t you supposed to earn gifts with service?’ Laurent said, ‘Is there something you want?’ His voice was sinuous with promise; his gaze was steady as a cat’s.

The man’s name was Charls, and he was a trading partner of a significant merchant family.

The talk was of trade and politics, which was natural if you were a merchant. It proved impossible to prise out news of Akielos. Charls did not support the alliance. Charls trusted the Prince to stand firm in negotiations with the bastard Akielon King more than he trusted the Regent uncle. The Crown Prince was camped at Nesson this very minute, on his way to the border to stand up to Akielos. He was a young man serious about his responsibilities, Charls said. Damen had to make an effort not to look over at Laurent, gambling, when he said it.

‘If you wanted a drink and an old hat that badly, you could have just bought them from him. Cheaper and quicker.’ ‘It’s the game I like,’ said Laurent. He reached over and appropriated another coin out of the purse Damen carried, then palmed it. ‘Look, I’ve learned a new trick.’ When he opened his hand, it was empty, as if by magic. A second later, the coin dropped out of his sleeve onto the floor. Laurent frowned at it. ‘Well, I don’t have it quite yet.’ ‘If the trick is making coins disappear, I think you do have it, actually.’

It took a moment for those words to penetrate. By the time they did, Laurent had settled next to him on the long bench. Laurent straddled it, facing Damen. Laurent was really going to do it.

Laurent, when Damen brought the mouthful of bread to his lips, did none of those things. He maintained an essential fastidiousness. There was almost nothing of pet and master about it at all, except that Damen felt, just for an instant, the warmth of Laurent’s breath against his fingertips. Verisimilitude, thought Damen. His gaze dropped to Laurent’s lips. When he forced it upwards, it fixed instead on the earring. The lobe of Laurent’s ear was pierced through with the ornament of his uncle’s lover. It suited him, in the mundane sense that it matched his colouring. In another sense, it looked as incongruous as it felt to tear another mouthful of bread from the flat loaf, and lift it to feed him. Laurent ate the bread. It was like feeding a predator, the same feeling. Laurent was so close that it would be easy to wrap a hand around the back of his neck and draw him closer. He remembered the feel of Laurent’s hair, his skin, and fought the urge to press against Laurent’s lips with the pads of his fingers. It was the earring. Laurent was always so austere. The earring reframed him. It gave the appearance of a sensual side, sophisticated and subtle. But that side didn’t exist. The glint of sapphires was dangerous. As Nicaise had been dangerous. Nothing in Vere was as it seemed.

Another piece of bread. Laurent’s lips brushed against his fingertips. It was brief and soft. This wasn’t what he’d intended when he picked up the bread. He had some sense that his plans had been overturned, that Laurent knew exactly what he was doing. The touch resembled the first brush of lips in the kind of sensual kiss that begins as a series of smaller kisses, and then, slowly, deepens. Damen felt his breathing change.

giggling, squealing, kicking my feet

Laurent finished the morsel, then rested a hand on Damen’s thigh, and slowly slid it upward. ‘Control yourself,’ said Laurent. And shifted in, until, facing one another on the straddled bench, they were almost chest to chest. Laurent’s hair tickled against Damen’s cheek as he brought his lips to Damen’s ear.