Damen snorted. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
The physician gave him an odd look. ‘My name is Paschal,’ was all he said.
‘Paschal,’ said Damen. ‘It’s your first time to ride with troops on campaign?’
‘No. I was the King’s physician. I tended the fallen at Marlas, and at Sanpelier.’
There was a silence. Damen had meant to ask Paschal what he knew of the Regent’s men, but now he said nothing, just held his bunched shirt in his hands. The work on his back continued, slow and methodical.
‘I fought at Marlas,’ said Damen.
‘I assumed you had.’
Another silence. Damen had a view of the ground under the awning, packed earth instead of stone. He looked down at a scuffmark, the torn edge of a dry leaf. The hands on his back eventually lifted and were done.
Outside, the courtyard was clearing; Laurent’s men were efficient. Damen stood, shook out his shirt.
‘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,’ Paschal said, closing his satchel with a snap.
*
Returning to the courtyard, he couldn’t report to Govart, who had vanished, but he did find Jord, directing traffic.
‘Can you read and write?’ Jord asked him.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Damen. Then stopped.
Jord didn’t notice. ‘Almost nothing’s been done to prepare for tomorrow. The Prince says, we’re not leaving without a full arsenal. He also says, we’re not delaying departure. Go to the western armoury, take an inventory, and give it to that man.’ Pointing. ‘Rochert.’
Since taking a full inventory was a task that would take all night, Damen assumed what he was to do was check the existing inventory, which he found in a series of leather-bound books. He opened the first of them searching for the correct pages, and felt a strange sensation pass over him when he realised that he was looking at a seven-year-old list of hunting weaponry made for the Crown Prince Auguste.
Prepared for His Highness the Crown Prince Auguste, garniture of hunter’s cutlery, one staff, eight tipped spear-heads, bow and strings.
He was not alone in the armoury. From somewhere behind shelves, he heard the cultured voice of a young male courtier saying, ‘You’ve heard your orders. They come from the Prince.’
‘Why should I believe that? You his pet?’ said a coarser voice.
And another: ‘I’d pay to watch that.’
And another: ‘The Prince has got ice in his veins. He doesn’t fuck. We’ll take orders when the Captain comes and tells us them himself.’
‘How dare you speak about your Prince like that. Choose your weapon. I said choose your weapon. Now.’
‘You’re going to get hurt, pup.’
‘If you’re too much of a coward to—’ said the courtier, and before he was even halfway through that sentence, Damen was folding his grip around one of the swords and walking out.
He rounded the corner just in time to see one of three men in the Regent’s livery draw back, swing, and punch the courtier hard in the face.
The courtier wasn’t a courtier. It was the young soldier whose name Laurent had dryly mentioned to Jord. Tell the servants to sleep with their legs closed. And Aimeric.
Aimeric staggered backwards and hit the wall, sliding halfway down its length as he opened and closed his eyes with stupefied blinks. Blood poured from his nose.
The three men had seen Damen.
‘That’s shut him up,’ said Damen, equitably. ‘Why don’t you leave it at that, and I’ll take him back to the barracks.’
It wasn’t Damen’s size that stopped them. It wasn’t the sword he held casually in his hand. If these men really wanted to make a fight out of it, there were enough swords, flingable armour pieces, and teetering shelves to turn this into something long and ludicrous. It was only when the leader of the men saw Damen’s gold collar that he shoved out an arm, holding the others back.
And Damen understood, in that moment, exactly how things were going to be on this campaign: the Regent’s men in ascendancy. Aimeric and the Prince’s men were targets because they had no one to complain to except Govart, who would slap them back down. Govart, the Regent’s favourite thug, brought here to keep the Prince’s men in check. But Damen was different. Damen was untouchable, because Damen had a direct line of reportage to the Prince.
He waited. The men, unwilling to openly defy the Prince, decided on discretion; the man who had laid out Aimeric nodded slowly, and the three moved off and out, Damen watching them go.
He turned to Aimeric, noting his fine skin and elegant wrists. It wasn’t unheard of for younger sons of the highborn to seek out a position in the royal guard, making what name for themselves they could. But as far as Damen had seen, Laurent’s men were of a rougher sort. Aimeric was probably exactly as out of place among them as he looked.