Kings Rising (21 page)

Laurent stood alone, in a cleared space to the left of the dais steps, flanked by his own set of guards. He was still wearing the short Akielon chiton that he had worn to the Kingsmeet, but it was dirty and ripped. Skimpy and showing the signs of rough wear, it was a humiliating garment for him to stand in before the Council. Like Damen, he had his hands chained behind his back.

It was suddenly obvious that this spectacle was Laurent’s trial, and that it had been underway for hours, Laurent’s straight-backed posture by now held in place by will alone. The physical act of standing for hours in irons must be taking its toll, the sheer ache of muscle exhaustion, the
rough treatment, and the examination itself, the Regent’s questions, and Laurent’s steady, determined answers.

But he wore the clothes and the chains with disregard, his posture, as ever, coolly untouchable. His expression could not be read, except for, if you knew him, the courage that he sustained though he was alone, and tired, and without friends, and he must know that it was close to the end.

And then Damen was pricked into the hall at sword point, and Laurent turned and saw him.

It was clear from the open look of horrified recognition on Laurent’s face that he had not expected Damen—that he had not expected anyone. On the dais, Kastor made a small gesture to the Regent, as if to say,
You see? I have had him brought for you
. The whole hall seemed to swing around at the disruption.

‘No,’
said Laurent, swinging his gaze back to his uncle. ‘You
promised
.’ Damen saw Laurent take physical control over himself, forcing back further reaction.

‘I promised what, nephew?’

The Regent sat calmly on his throne. His next words addressed the Council.

‘This is Damianos of Akielos. He was captured at the gates this morning. He’s the man responsible for the death of King Theomedes, and for my nephew’s treason. He is my nephew’s lover.’

Close to, Damen saw the faces of the Council: the elderly, loyal Herode; the vacillating Audin, the reasonable
Chelaut, and Jeurre, who was frowning. And then he saw other faces in the crowd. There was the soldier who had entered Laurent’s rooms after the assassination attempt in Arles. There was an officer from the army of Lord Touars. There was a man in the clothing of the Vaskian clans. They were witnessess, all of them.

He had not been brought here to face Kastor or to answer for their father’s death. He had been brought here as a final piece of evidence in Laurent’s trial.

‘We’ve all heard the evidence of the Prince’s treason,’ said the Regent’s newest Councillor, Mathe. ‘We’ve heard how he planted evidence in Arles to incite a war with Akielos, how he sent clan raiders to slaughter innocents on the border.’

Mathe gestured to Damen. ‘Now we see the proof of all these claims. Damianos, the prince-killer, is here, giving the lie to all the Prince has been saying—proving once and for all that they are in league. Our Prince lies in the depraved embrace of his brother’s killer.’

Damen was shoved to the front of the hall, with every pair of eyes fixed on him. He was suddenly an exhibit, a kind of proof none of them had imagined: Damianos of Akielos, captured and bound.

The Regent’s voice searched for understanding. ‘Even with all that we have heard today, I cannot bring myself to believe that Laurent allowed the hands that killed his brother to touch him. That he lay in the sweat of an Akielon bed, and let a killer have his body.’

The Regent stood, and as he spoke he began to descend the dais. A concerned uncle looking for answers, he stopped in front of Laurent. Damen saw one or two of the Councillors react to the proximity, fearing for the Regent’s physical safety, though it was Laurent who was immobilised, held in the grip of a soldier, his wrists chained hard behind his back.

In a loving gesture, the Regent lifted his fingers and brushed a strand of yellow hair from Laurent’s face, searching Laurent’s eyes.

‘Nephew, Damianos is restrained. You can speak honestly. You are safe from harm.’ Laurent weathered the slow, caring touch, as the Regent said, gently, ‘Is there some explanation? Perhaps you were not willing? Perhaps he forced you?’

Laurent’s eyes met his uncle’s. Laurent’s chest rose and fell shallowly under the thin white fabric of the chiton.

‘He didn’t force me,’ said Laurent. ‘I lay with him because I wanted to.’

The hall erupted in comment. Damen could feel it: in a day’s worth of questioning, this was the first admission.

‘You don’t have to lie for him, Laurent,’ said the Regent. ‘You can tell the truth.’

‘I don’t lie. We lay together,’ said Laurent, ‘at my behest. I ordered him to my bed. Damianos is innocent of all the charges brought against me. He suffered my company only under force. He is a good man, who has never acted against his own country.’

‘I’m afraid the guilt or innocence of Damianos is for Akielos to decide, not Vere,’ said the Regent.

Damen could feel what Laurent was trying to do, and his heart ached at it, that even now, Laurent was trying to protect him. Damen let his voice carry, cutting across the hall.

‘And what am I accused of? That I have lain with Laurent of Vere?’ Damen’s eyes raked the Council. ‘I have. I found him honest and true. He stands before you wrongly accused. And if this is a fair trial, you will hear me.’

‘This is insupportable!’ Mathe said. ‘We won’t hear testimony from the
prince-killer of Akielos
—’

‘You will hear me,’ said Damen. ‘You will hear me, and if when you have heard me you still find him guilty, then I will meet my fate alongside him. Or does the Council fear the truth?’

Damen found himself with his eyes on the Regent, who had re-ascended the dais of four shallow steps and now sat, enthroned beside Kastor, supremely comfortable. His gaze rested on Damen in turn.

The Regent said, ‘By all means, speak.’

It was a challenge. To have Laurent’s lover in his power pleased the Regent, as a demonstration of his larger power. Damen could feel that. The Regent wanted Damen to entangle himself, wanted a victory over Laurent that was total.

Damen drew in a breath. He knew the stakes. He knew that if he failed, he would die alongside Laurent, and the
Regent would rule in Vere and in Akielos. He would have given over his life and his kingdom.

He looked around at the columned hall. It was his home, his birthright, and his legacy, more precious to him than anything. And Laurent had given him the means to secure it. At the Kingsmeet he could have left Laurent to his fate and ridden back to Karthas and his army. He was undefeated on the field, and not even the Regent would have been able to stand against him.

Even now, all he had to do was denounce Laurent and he could face Kastor with a real chance of taking back his throne.

But he had asked himself the question in Ravenel, and now he knew the answer.

A kingdom, or this.

‘I met the Prince in Vere. I thought as you did. I didn’t know his heart.’

It was Laurent who said, ‘No.’

‘I came to learn it slowly.’

‘Damen, don’t do this.’

‘I came to learn his honesty, his integrity, his strength of mind.’

‘Damen—’

Of course Laurent wanted everything done his own way. But today it was going to be different.

‘I was a fool, blinded by prejudice. I didn’t understand that he was fighting alone, that he had been fighting alone for a very long time.

‘And then I saw the men he commanded, disciplined and loyal. I saw the way his household loved him, because he knew their concerns, cared for their lives. I saw him protect slaves.

‘And when I left him, drugged and without friends after an attack on his life, I saw him stand up in front of his uncle and argue to save my life because he felt he owed me a debt.

‘He knew that it might cost him his life. He knew he’d be sent to the border, to ride into the very same plot to kill him. And he still argued for me. He did it because it was owed, because in the very private code with which he ran his life, it was right.’

He looked at Laurent, and he understood now what he had not understood then: that Laurent had known who he was that night. Laurent had known who he was and had still protected him, out of a sense of fairness that had somehow survived what had happened to him.

‘That is the man you face. He has more honour and integrity than any man I have ever met. He is dedicated to his people and his country. And I am proud to have been his lover.’

Damen said it with his eyes on Laurent, willing him to know how much he meant it, and for a moment Laurent just gazed back at him, his eyes blue and wide.

The Regent’s voice interrupted. ‘A heartfelt declaration is not evidence. I am afraid to say that there is nothing here
to change the Council’s decision. You offered no proof, only accusations of an unlikely plot against Laurent, with no hint as to who the architect of it might be.’

‘You are the architect,’ said Damen, lifting his eyes to the Regent, ‘and I do have proof.’

‘I
CALL GUION OF
Fortaine to speak.’

That is outrageous!
came the exclamation, and,
How dare you accuse our King!
Damen said it steadily into the furious shouts, his eyes locked with those of the Regent.

‘Very well,’ the Regent said, leaning back in his seat and gesturing to the Council.

Then they had to wait, while runners were sent to the place on the outskirts of the city where Damen had told his men to camp.

The Councillors got to sit down, and so did the Regent and Kastor. Lucky them. Next to the Regent, the brown-haired eleven-year-old was drumming his heels on the base of his stool, obviously bored. The Regent leaned in and murmured something into the boy’s ear, and then gestured
for one of the slaves to bring a plate of sweetmeats. It kept the boy occupied.

It didn’t keep anyone else occupied. Around them, the hall was stifling, the thick press of soldiers and onlookers a packed, fidgeting mass. The strain of standing in heavy irons was beginning to make itself felt in Damen’s back and shoulders. For Laurent, who had been here for hours, it would be worse: the ache that began in the back travelling to the arms, the thighs, until every part of the body was made of fire.

Guion entered the hall.

Not only Guion, but all the members of Damen’s party: Guion’s wife, Loyse, looking white-faced, the physician Paschal, Nikandros and his men, even Jord and Lazar. It meant something to Damen that he had given each of them the option to leave, and they had chosen to stay with him. He knew what they risked. Their loyalty touched him.

He knew that Laurent didn’t like it. Laurent wanted to do everything alone. But it wasn’t going to be like that.

Guion was escorted forward to stand before the thrones.

‘Guion of Fortaine.’ Mathe resumed his role as questioner as the spectators craned their necks, disliking the columns because they obstructed the view. ‘We are gathered to determine the guilt or innocence of Laurent of Vere. He is charged with treason. We have heard how he sold secrets to Akielos, how he supported coups, how he attacked and killed Veretians to further his cause. Do you have testimony that will bring clarity to these claims?’

‘I do.’

Guion turned to the Council. He had been a councillor himself, a respected colleague known to be privy to the Regent’s private dealings. Now he spoke clearly and unequivocally.

‘Laurent of Vere is guilty of every charge brought against him,’ said Guion.

It took a moment for those words to penetrate, and when they did, Damen felt the ground drop out from beneath him.
‘No,’
said Damen, as the hall erupted in comment for a second time.

Guion raised his voice. ‘I have been his prisoner for months. I have seen first-hand the depravity that he has fallen into, how he beds the Akielon every night, how he lies in the obscene embrace of his brother’s killer, sating his desires at the expense of our country.’

‘You swore to tell the truth,’
said Damen
.
No one was listening to him.

‘He tried to coerce me to lie for him. He threatened to kill me. He threatened to kill my wife. He threatened to kill my sons. He slaughtered his own people at Ravenel. I would vote him guilty myself, if I were still a member of the Council.’

‘I think we are satisfied,’ said Mathe.

‘No,’ said Damen, his involuntary struggle aborted by his handlers as shouts of agreement and of vindication came from the Regent’s supporters in the hall. ‘Tell them what you know about the Regent’s coup in Akielos.’

Guion spread his hands. ‘The Regent is an innocent man whose only crime is that he trusted a wayward nephew.’

That was enough for the Council. They had, after all, been deliberating all day. Damen swung his gaze to the Regent, who was watching proceedings with calm confidence. He had known. He had known what Guion would say.

‘He planned this,’ said Damen, desperately. ‘They are colluding.’ A blow from behind sent him to his knees, where he was held down. Guion calmly stepped across the chamber to take his place by the Council. The Regent rose and descended the dais, to put his hand on Guion’s shoulder and speak a few words to him, not loud enough for Damen to hear.

‘The Council will now pass their sentence.’

A slave approached bearing a golden sceptre. Herode took it up, holding it like a staff, end to the ground. And then a second slave came forward bearing a black square of cloth, symbol of the oncoming sentence of death.

The bottom fell out of Damen’s stomach. Laurent had also seen the cloth. He was facing it without flinching, though his face was very pale. On his knees, Damen could do nothing to stop it. He struggled hard, and was held down, panting. There was an awful moment in which all he could do was look up at Laurent, helplessly.

Laurent was pushed forward to stand across the width of the hall from the Council, chained and alone but for the two soldiers who held him by each arm in a hard grip. No
one knows, thought Damen. No one knows what his uncle has done to him. His eyes swung to the Regent, who was gazing at Laurent with sad disappointment. The Council stood alongside him.

It had a symbolic power, the six of them standing on one side of the hall, and Laurent—in his thin, tattered Akielon clothing held in the grip of his uncle’s soldiers—on the other. Laurent spoke.

‘No final advice? No uncle’s kiss of affection?’

‘You had so much promise, Laurent,’ said the Regent. ‘I regret what you became more than you do.’

‘You mean that I’m on your conscience?’ said Laurent.

‘It hurts me,’ said the Regent, ‘that you feel such animosity towards me, even now. That you tried to undermine me with accusations, when I have only ever wanted the best for you.’ He spoke in a saddened voice. ‘You should have known better than to bring Guion to testify against me.’

Laurent met the Regent’s eyes, standing alone before the Council.

‘But uncle,’ said Laurent, ‘Guion isn’t who I brought.’

‘He brought me,’ said Guion’s wife Loyse, stepping forward.

Damen turned—everyone turned. Loyse was a woman of middle years and greying hair that was lank after a day and a night on the road with little rest. He hadn’t spoken to her during the ride. But he heard her now, as she came to stand before the Council.

‘I have something to say. It’s about my husband, and this
man, the Regent, who has brought my family into ruin, and who ended the life of my youngest son, Aimeric.’

‘Loyse, what are you doing?’ said Guion, as all of the hall’s attention riveted on Loyse.

She paid him no attention, but continued to walk forward until she stood alongside Damen, addressing her words to the Council.

‘In the year after Marlas, the Regent visited my family in Fortaine,’ said Loyse. ‘And my husband, who is ambitious, gave him leave to enter the bedroom of our youngest son.’

‘Loyse, stop this now.’ But her words continued.

‘It was a gentleman’s agreement. The Regent could indulge himself in relaxed privacy at our home, and my husband was rewarded with lands and a position of greater prominence at court. He was made Ambassador to Akielos, and he became the intermediary between the Regent and the Regent’s conspirator, Kastor.’

Guion was looking from Loyse to the Council, and he gave a laugh, braying and too loud. ‘You can’t be giving credence to any of this.’

No one answered, the silence uncomfortable. Councillor Chelaut’s gaze shifted for a moment to the young boy sitting beside the Regent, his fingers sticky with powdered sugar from the sweetmeats.

‘I know that no one here cares about Aimeric,’ said Loyse. ‘No one cares that he killed himself at Ravenel because he couldn’t live with what he had done.

‘So let me tell you instead about what Aimeric died for—a plot between the Regent and Kastor to kill King Theomedes and then to take his country.’

‘These are lies,’ Kastor said in Akielon, and then he said it again in thickly accented Veretian. ‘Arrest her.’

In the uneasy moment that followed, the small Akielon honour guard put their hands on the hilts of their swords, and the Veretian soldiers moved in opposition, halting them. It was plain from Kastor’s face that he had realised for the first time that he was not in control of the hall.

‘Arrest me, but not before you’ve seen the proof.’ Loyse was pulling a ring on a chain from her gown; it was a signet ring, ruby or garnet, and on it was the royal crest of Vere. ‘My husband brokered the deal. Kastor assassinated his own father in exchange for the Veretian troops you see here today. The troops he needed to take Ios.’

Guion swung around to face the Regent, urgently. ‘She’s not a traitor. She’s just confused. She’s been deceived, and coached, she’s been upset since Aimeric died. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s being manipulated by these people.’

Damen looked at the Council. Herode and Chelaut wore expressions of repressed distaste, even revulsion. Damen saw suddenly that the obscene youth of the Regent’s lovers had always been repellent to these men, and the idea that the son of a councillor had been used in this way was disturbing to them beyond measure.

But they were political men, and the Regent was their
master. Chelaut said, almost reluctantly, ‘Even if what you say is true, it does not clear Laurent of his crimes. The death of Theomedes is a matter for Akielos.’

He was right, Damen realised. Laurent hadn’t brought Loyse to clear his own name, but to clear Damen’s. There was no proof that would clear Laurent’s name. The Regent had been too thorough. The palace assassins were dead. The assassins from the road were dead. Even Govart was dead, cursing boy pets and physicians.

Damen thought of that—of Govart holding something over the Regent. It had kept Govart alive, kept him in wine and women, until the day it hadn’t. He thought of a trail of death that extended all the way to the palace. He remembered Nicaise, appearing in sleeping clothes the night of the assassination attempt. Nicaise had been executed only a few months later. His heart started pounding.

They were connected in some way. He was suddenly sure of it. Whatever Govart had known, Nicaise had known it too, and the Regent had killed him for it. And that meant—

Damen was pushing himself up abruptly.

‘There’s another man here who can testify,’ Damen said. ‘He hasn’t come forward on his own. I don’t know why. But I know he must have a reason. He’s a good man. I know he’d speak if he were free to do so. Maybe he fears reprisal, against himself or against his family.’

He addressed his words to the hall. ‘I ask him now. Whatever your reason, you have a duty to your country. You
should know that better than anyone. Your brother died protecting the King.’

Silence. The spectators in the hall looked from one to another, and Damen’s words seemed to hang awkwardly. The expectation of a reply came and went with a lack of all answer.

Paschal stepped forward, his face lined and rather pale.

‘No,’ said Paschal. ‘He died because of this.’

He took from the folds of his clothes a bundle of papers, tied with string.

‘The last words of my brother, the archer Langren, carried by the soldier called Govart, and stolen by the Regent’s pet, Nicaise, who was killed for it. This is the testimony of the dead.’

He drew the string from the papers and unfolded them, standing before the Council in his robes and his lopsided hat.

‘I am Paschal, a palace physician. And I have a story to tell about Marlas.’

*   *   *

‘My brother and I came to the capital together,’ said Paschal. ‘He as an archer, and me as a physician—at first to the Queen’s retinue. My brother was ambitious, and rose quickly through the ranks, joining the King’s Guard. I suppose that I was ambitious also, and soon won a position as royal physician, serving both Queen and King.

‘They were years of peace and good harvests. The kingdom was secure, and Queen Hennike had provided two heirs.
Then, six years ago, when the Queen died, we lost our alliance with Kempt, and Akielos took it as an opportunity to invade.’

He had reached a part of the story that Damen knew, though it was different, hearing it told in Paschal’s voice.

‘Diplomacy failed. The talks fell through. Theomedes wanted land, not peace. He sent away the Veretian emissaries without hearing them.

‘But we were confident in our forts. No army had taken a Veretian fort in over two hundred years. So the King brought his army south to Marlas, in full complement, to repel Theomedes from its walls.’

Damen remembered it—the gathering banners, the swell of numbers, two armies of immense power, and his father confident, even in the face of those impenetrable forts.
They are arrogant enough to come out.

‘I remember my brother before the fight. He was nervous. Excited. Wild with a kind of confidence I had never seen in him before. He talked about a different future for our family. A better future. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned why.’

Paschal stopped, and looked across the hall right at the Regent, who stood beside the Council in his red velvet robes.

‘The Council will recall how the Regent advised the King to leave the safety of the fort, that our numbers were superior, that there was no danger in riding out onto the flat, and that a surprise attack on the Akielons would end the war swiftly, saving many Veretian lives.’

Damen looked at the Council. They did remember it, he saw; as he did. How cowardly he had thought the attack. How craven. For the first time, he wondered what had happened behind Veretian lines to cause it. He thought of a King convinced it was the best way of protecting his people.

‘Instead, Veretians fell. I was nearby when the word came that Auguste was dead. In grief, the King pulled off his helm. He was careless. I think in his mind, he had no reason left to be careful.’

‘A stray arrow took him in the throat. And with the King dead and the heir dead, the Regent ascended to the throne of Vere.’

Paschal’s eyes, like Damen’s, were on the Council
.
They would all recall the days after the battle. As Council members, they had sanctioned the creation of the Regency.