Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince, #2)

by C.S. Pacat

‘If you served the King,’ said Damen, ‘how is it you now find yourself in the Prince’s household, and not his uncle’s?’ ‘Men find themselves in the places they put themselves,’

‘You’re so loyal to him. Why is that?’ ‘I’m not a turncoat Akielon dog,’ said Aimeric.

‘You owe the stableboy a copper sol.’ ‘The stableboy should learn to demand payment before he bends over.’

‘No,’ said Laurent. ‘I know exactly what it is to want to kill a man, and to wait.’

He had not known this about Laurent, that he was trained like this, capable like this. He wasn’t sure why he felt as though something, fundamentally, had changed.

The advice of his father came back to him: never to take your eyes off a wounded boar; that once you engaged an animal in the hunt, you must fight it to the finish, and that when a boar was wounded, that was when it was the most dangerous animal of all.

Round one: Laurent.

‘You’re wrong. We are on my uncle’s board and these men are all his pieces.’ ‘Then each time you move one of them, you can congratulate yourself on how much like him you are.’

‘Sometimes I think I understand you, and at other times I can’t make you out at all.’ ‘Believe me, that sentiment is mutual.’

Now I have really surprised you. Perhaps if you were not a foot taller, or quite so broad across the shoulders.’ ‘It’s considerably less than a foot,’ said Damen. ‘Is it?’ said Laurent. ‘It feels like more when you argue with me on points of honour.’

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.

Damen heard one of them say, in a tone of awed admiration, ‘That boy has got the filthiest mouth I’ve ever heard.’

‘If he didn’t have a mouth on him like a harlot in a guardsroom, I’d think he was a virgin.’

‘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 thought privately that princes needed seasoning not protection. Laurent in particular.

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.

‘Don’t strain yourself,’ said Laurent. ‘You talk more,’ said Damen, ‘when you’re uncomfortable.’

‘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.’

‘You’re in a strange mood,’ said Damen. ‘Stranger than usual.’ ‘I’d say I’m in a good mood.’ ‘A good mood.’ ‘Well, not as good a mood as Volo,’

‘But the food’s decent, the fire’s warm, and no one’s tried to kill me in the last three hours. Why not?’

‘Auguste was like you,’ said Laurent. ‘He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognise it in other people.’

‘Because a kingmaker would always choose the weaker man. The weaker the man, the easier he is to control.’

‘What makes you think Kastor is the weaker man? You don’t know him.’ ‘But I’m coming to know you,’ said Laurent.

‘But I told you. It’s the game I like,’ said Laurent, and with the toe of his boot he deliberately pushed a loose roof tile until it slid off the rooftop and shattered in the street below.

Damen felt it then, the first dizzy edge of new emotion, and he let go his hold of Laurent like a man fearing a precipice; and yet was helpless.

‘You’re alive,’ Damen said, and the words came out on a rush of relief that made him feel weak. ‘I’m alive,’ said Laurent. They were gazing at one another. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come back.’ ‘I came back,’ said Damen.

‘I didn’t think you’d say yes,’ said Damen. Laurent said, ‘I have recently learned that sometimes it is better to simply smash a hole in the wall.’

‘That,’ said Lazar, ‘is one mouth I’d love to ream out. A day of him ordering you around, you’d get to shut him up at the end of it.’ Jord gave a snort. ‘He’d take one look at you, and you’d piss your pants.’

‘All right, you’re not fucking him,’ said Lazar.

Laurent surrounded himself with the opulent excesses of a courtesan, and lived in them like an ascetic.

A prudent ruler would want a seasoned diplomat overseeing this fraught standoff, not Laurent, who had arrived like a wasp at an outdoor feast, annoying everybody.

The golden prince was at his best when viewed from sixty paces, out of spitting range of his nature.

‘I don’t blame insects for buzzing when someone kicks their hive over,’ said Laurent. ‘I find myself curious about who it is that wants to see me stung.’

Too many people want to kill you.’ After a moment, Laurent said, ‘Everyone to the south, but only half the people to the north.’

‘You have me over the back of your horse.’ ‘It’s not like you to give up the reins,’

‘We could try some other arrangement.’ ‘You’re right: it should be me in front and you carrying the horse.’

‘I give you too much leeway,’ said Laurent. ‘I think you give no more or less than you want to give, with anyone,’

‘It’s not naive to trust your family.’ ‘I promise you, it is,’ said Laurent. ‘But I wonder, is it less naive than the moments when I find myself trusting a stranger, my barbarian enemy, whom I do not treat gently.’

Damen now knew the precise number of arrows Laurent needed to have trained on him in order to shut him up. It was six.

Damen moved before he realised it, heard the sounds of impact and resistance, felt the burn in his veins. His faculties were obliterated by anger. He was not thinking about tactics. That man had laid hands on Laurent, and Damen was going to kill him.

It was like being pleased by a thorn bush, feeling fond of every prickle. Another second and he was going to say something ridiculous like that.

That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.

‘That’s right, I’m still captured,’ said Damen. ‘Your eyes say, “For now,” ’ Laurent said. ‘Your eyes have always said, “For now.”

‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘if you threw down a challenge to fight, I would not accept it?’

‘That is how Akielons win wars, isn’t it? Why fight the whole army, when you can just cut off the head?’

But Damen had seen Veretians ignore parley before, and was waiting for it; and Laurent was of course harder to surprise than most men realised.

Damen said, ‘Men, sometimes.’ ‘In the absence of women?’ ‘When I want them.’ ‘If I’d known that, I might have felt a frisson of danger, lying next to you.’ ‘You did know that,’ said Damen.

‘You know, the slaves you gifted to Torveld are worth almost the same as the men that he’s given you.’ ‘I would say exactly that much.’ ‘I thought you helped them out of compassion.’ ‘No, you didn’t,’ said Laurent.

‘Friends,’ said Laurent. ‘Is that what we are?’