The Summer Palacee Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C.S. Pacat is the author of the best-selling Captive Prince trilogy. Born in Australia and educated at the University of Melbourne, she has since lived in a number of cities, including Tokyo and Perugia. She currently resides and writes in Melbourne.

  Follow C.S. Pacat on Twitter at cspacat, or on her website at cspacat.com.

  Sign up here for the C.S. Pacat newsletter for exclusive new release announcements, giveaways and content.

  ALSO BY C.S. PACAT

  THE CAPTIVE PRINCE TRILOGY

  Captive Prince

  Prince’s Gambit

  Kings Rising

  CAPTIVE PRINCE SHORT STORIES

  Green but for a Season

  Text copyright © C.S. Pacat, 2016.

  The right of C.S. Pacat to be identified as the sole author of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Cover design © C.S. Pacat

  ISBN 978-0-9876223-0-3

  The Summer Palace is a Captive Prince short story set after the events of Kings Rising. It is an epilogue to the Captive Prince series.

  THE SUMMER PALACE

  Damen swung off his horse with ease. Newly won ease. The moment his sandals touched the dirt he felt it thrumming in him. The last time that he had been here—nineteen, a sapling—it had been a time of exuberant hunts, enthusiastic sports in the daytime, enthusiastic bedding at night, tumbling a slave or a young fighter, thrusting about with the eagerness of youth.

  He found it just as he had remembered it, dismounting in the flower-bordered quadrangle. The scent of blossom, of high clear air, of sweet oils, and the delicate earth, all combined, here where shallow steps lead up to the first of the entrances, and the first of the arcs of branches that led to the gardens.

  Now Damen felt the bright, heady set of new desires that had had him breaking from his royal entourage in the last miles spurring his horse to gallop ahead alone as he wished—as he so giddily wished.

  He tossed his reins to a servant, was told, ‘By the east fountain,’ and pushed his way past the branches of myrtle hanging low over the paths to the marble flags, to a balconied garden where a figure stood, looking out. On the horizon, the sea was a sudden open view, huge and blue.

  Damen looked too—at one thing only: the breeze playing with a strand of blond hair, at the cool, pale limbs in white cotton. He felt his own rising happiness, the speeding of his pulse. Some part of him, absurdly, wondered how he would be received: the fluttering, enjoyable anxiety of a new lover. It was nice also to just look, to see him when he thought he wasn’t being observed, even as the familiar voice spoke in a precise, assured fashion.

  ‘Tell me as soon as the King approaches, I want to be informed right away.’

  Damen felt a burgeoning delight. ‘It’s not a servant.’

  Laurent turned.

  He was standing before the view. The breeze that was playing with his hair was also playing with the hem of his chiton. Laurent wore it at mid thigh, which was the fashion for young men. In Ios, he had worn only Veretian clothing, perhaps a testament to his fussy skin that would not darken, only pink, then burn. This blowy version of him was new, and wonderful. He hadn’t worn Akielon clothing since—

  —the Kingsmeet, and the trial that followed, two days and two nights in the same tattered garment, sleeping in it, even after kneeling in it at Damen’s side, until it was wet with Damen’s blood.

  ‘I was watching the road.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Damen.

  Behind Laurent the glimpse of coastline, where the arrival of Damen’s large retinue would have been seen, but his not own approach, a single rider, a speck on a quicker route. Laurent’s cheeks were slightly flushed, though it was not clear whether it was from summer heat or his admission.

  It was wildly impractical to be here. Laurent had not yet achieved his ascension, and Akielos had an unstable government, its kyroi and palace officials newly appointed after a purge of those who had involvement in Kastor’s treachery. In the palace at Ios, they had snatched moments together like illicit lovers, at sunset, at dusk, in the gardens, in the bedroom, mornings with Laurent sweetly above him. It had felt at times surreal: the wonder of what was newly between them set against the seriousness of their days, the difficulty of those early decisions.

  It felt that way now. ‘Hello,’ said Laurent, and Damen couldn’t help the spill of feeling at how close they had come to not having this at all. ‘It’s been too long, I’ve forgotten how. Remind me.’

  ‘We’re here. We can take our time,’ said Damen.

  ‘Can you?’ said Laurent.

  ‘It suits you,’ said Damen. He was running his finger helplessly along the hem of Laurent’s chiton where it ran from the pin at his shoulder down across his collarbone diagonally to his chest.

  ‘The mechanism’s simple.’

  Damen thought of it: unpinning the gold clasp at Laurent’s shoulder. The white cotton would not slip off completely, but catch at his waist, where Damen would only have to untie one further string.

  They weren’t alone, of course. A skeleton household had been sent ahead to open the palace for their arrival—to throw open doors, to place bedding, to put oil in lamps, to bring up wine from the cellars, to cut fresh flowers, to haul new-caught fish into the kitchens—and presumably Laurent had his own retinue. But here on the edge of the gardens, it was as if the birdsong and the hum of cicadas were their only adjunct.

  ‘I know how it works,’ Damen said softly, into Laurent’s ear. ‘I want to do things slowly. Oh, you do remember.’

  ‘They showed me to my rooms, they’re open like this, to the sea. I had them lay out these clothes for me, and I thought about you coming. I thought about what it would be like here, with you.’

  ‘Like this,’ said Damen. He kissed the top of Laurent’s bare shoulder, then his jaw.

  ‘No, I—thinking about you and being with you are different, you’re always more powerful, more—’

  ‘Go on.’ Damen felt a wellspring of pure pleasure, laughing against his neck.

  ‘Stop my mouth,’ said Laurent. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’

  Damen lifted his head and kissed Laurent tenderly, found him flushed, warm like summer. He could feel Laurent’s hands sliding up over his body, an unconscious mapping that was new, or rather, recent; like the new look in Laurent’s eyes.

  The weeks of bed rest had been a nuisance: the first hazy days that Damen couldn’t recall well, followed by the nuisance of physicians. A nuisance to lie around. A nuisance to limp. A nuisance to eat the broth.

  He remembered only impressions from the baths: Nikandros arriving, alone, white-faced. Laurent up to the elbows in Damen’s blood. Kastor dead. Damen on the ground. Laurent adopting the tone of emotion-stripped authority that he would maintain throughout those first days: Fetch a pallet to carry him on, and a physician. Now.

  Nikandros: I’m not leaving you alone with him.

  Then he’ll bleed to death.

  The blood loss, at that point, was possibly quite severe, because Damen recalled little beyond the pallet arriving, and his own blurry surprise at finding himself in his father’s rooms. The King’s rooms, with their outflung balcony and pillared view of the sea. My father died here. He didn’t say it.

  He remembered Laurent, g
iving orders in that even voice wiped clean of emotion—secure the city, prepare for regional resistance, send news north to their forces in Karthas. In the same voice, Laurent directed the physicians. In the same voice, Laurent called Nikandros in to kneel and rise Kyros of Ios. In the same voice, Laurent ordered Kastor’s body held under guard, for viewing. Laurent had a mind that took in problems, faced them, quantified them and then, steadily, solved them: keep Damianos alive; cement Damianos’s rule; don’t appear to be ruling in his stead.

  When Damen had woken next, it had been deep night, and his room had been empty of the people who had thronged it. He had turned his head to see Laurent lying beside him, fully clothed on top of the covers, still wearing that tattered, bloodstained chiton, in a sleep of utter exhaustion.

  Now Damen held Laurent’s waist, liking how little stood between him and skin: just light cotton that moved with the movement of his hands. It was hard to think beyond the curve of Laurent’s shoulder, the long line of his thigh, visible. ‘You look Akielon,’ said Damen, his voice warm and pleased.

  ‘Take off your armour,’ said Laurent.

  He said it with the wide ocean at his back. He stepped back, leaning slightly on the marble behind him that balconied the view, a barrier where the cliffs looked out. Overhead branches of myrtle shaded them from the sun, shifting light and shadow over Laurent’s body.

  A diffuse excitement at the idea of having the view as their witness stirred in Damen. He felt a momentary connection to the Veretian monarchy’s tradition of public consummation, a possessive desire to see and be seen. It was transgressive and outside the bounds of his own nature, even as the gardens felt private enough that it might be possible.

  He unbuckled his breastplate. He pulled off his sword-belt, a slow, purposeful gesture.

  ‘The rest can wait,’ he said. His voice was low.

  Laurent put a hand against the undercloth pressed warm against Damen’s chest by his armour. Kissing felt much more intimate when sword and breastplate were discarded on the path and it was body against body. Laurent’s mouth opened to him, and he tongued inside in the way he liked. Laurent encouraged it, fingers curling around his neck.

  Dressed like that, it was like having him naked; there was so much skin, and nothing to unlace. Damen pressed Laurent back against the marble. The bare skin of Laurent’s inner thigh slid along the inside of his own, the movement lifting his leather skirt slightly.

  It could have happened then, pushing up Laurent’s skirt, turning him and thrusting into his body. Instead, Damen thought, with indulgent slowness, about taking his time, about the pink nipple that was close to the asymmetrical line of Laurent’s chiton. The restraint was part of it, the competing desires of wanting everything all at once, and wanting to savour each increment.

  When he pulled back his skin felt flushed, his whole body much more hotly engaged than he realised. He managed to pull back further, to see Laurent’s face, his lips parted, his cheeks heated, his hair slightly disordered by Damen’s fingers.

  ‘You’re here early.’ As if only now noticing this.

  ‘Yes.’ Laughing.

  ‘I planned to greet you on the steps. Veretian protocol.’

  ‘Come out and kiss me in front of everyone later.’

  ‘How far behind did you leave them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Damen said it, his smile widening. ‘Come on. Let me show you the palace.’

  Lentos was a sea crag, where the mountains were wild and the ocean was visible from the eastern side, between headlands of tumbled rocks. Water crashed into cliffs and stone and the tumble of land into the sea was jagged and inhospitable.

  But the palace was beautiful, nestled in a series of gardens, with flower sprays and fountains, and meandering paths that offered startling views of the sea. Its marble colonnades were simple and led inside to atriums and further gardens, and cooler spaces where the heat of summer was distant, like the outdoor hum of cicadas.

  Later he would show Laurent the stables and the library, and the path that wound through the gardens, through the trees of orange and almond. He wondered if he could coax Laurent into sea bathing or swimming. Had he done it before? There were marble steps down to the sea, and a beautiful spot for diving, where the water was calm, with no undertow. They could set up a silk awning in the Veretian style, cool shade for when the sun was at its height.

  For now it was the simple pleasure of Laurent beside him, their hands linked, with only sunlight and fresh air about them. Here and there, they stopped, and everything was a delight: the leisure to kiss, to linger under the orange tree, the bits of bark that clung to Laurent’s chiton after he was pressed up against it. The gardens were full of small discoveries, from the shaded colonnades, to the cool waters of the fountain, to a series of balconied garden outlooks, where the sea stretched wide and blue.

  They stopped at one of them. Laurent plucked a white flower from the low-hanging branches, and lifted his hand to tuck it into Damen’s hair, as if Damen were a youth from the village.

  ‘Are you courting me?’ said Damen.

  He felt foolish with happiness. He knew courtship was new to Laurent, didn’t know why it felt so new to himself.

  ‘I haven’t done this before,’ said Laurent.

  Damen took a flower of his own. His pulse sped up, his fingers felt clumsy as he tucked it behind Laurent’s ear. ‘You had suitors in Arles.’

  ‘That was side stepping.’

  The view was wilder here, unlike in the capital, where on a clear day you could see Isthima. Here there was only the unbroken ocean.

  ‘My mother planted these gardens,’ said Damen. His heart was pounding. ‘Do you like them? They’re ours now.’ Saying the word “ours” still felt daring. He could feel it mirrored in Laurent, the shy awkwardness of what was so dearly desired.

  ‘I like them,’ said Laurent. ‘I think they’re beautiful.’

  Laurent’s fingers found his again, a small intimacy that had him overbrimming.

  ‘I don’t think about her often. Only when I come here.’

  ‘You don’t take after her.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Her statue in Ios is three feet tall.’

  The corner of Damen’s mouth twitched. He knew the statue, on a plinth in the north hall. ‘There’s a statue of her here. Come and meet her.’

  It was part of the nonsense they were sharing, a whim, to show Laurent. He tugged; they came to an arched open garden.

  ‘I take it back, you’re just like her.’ Laurent said it looking up. The statue here was bigger.

  Damen was smiling; there was delight in seeing Laurent explore himself, a young man who was sweet, teasing, at times unexpectedly earnest. Having made the decision to let Damen in, Laurent had not gone back on it. When the walls went up, it was with Damen inside them.

  But when Laurent came to stand in front of the statue of his mother, the mood changed to something more serious, as if prince and statue were communicating with each other.

  Unlike in Patras, it wasn’t the custom in Akielos to paint statues. His mother Egeria looked out towards the sea with a marble face and marble eyes, even though she’d had dark hair and eyes like himself and his father. He saw her through Laurent’s eyes, the old-fashioned dress of marble, the curled hair, her high, classical brow and outraised arm.

  Damen realised that he didn’t know how tall his mother really was. He had never asked about it, and had never been told.

  Laurent made a formal Akielon gesture that matched his chiton and the gardens, but was different to his habitual Veretian manners. Damen felt his skin prickle with strangeness. It was part of Akielon courtship to seek permission from a parent. If things had been different, Damen might have knelt in the great hall in front of King Aleron, asking for the right to court his youngest son.

  It was not that way between them. All their f
amily was dead.

  ‘I’ll take care of your son,’ said Laurent. ‘I’ll protect his kingdom as if it were my own. I’ll give my life for his people.’

  Above them, the sun was high and bright, and encouraged a retreat to the shade line. The boughs of the trees around them were heavy with scent. Laurent said, ‘I won’t let him down. I promise you.’

  ‘Laurent,’ said Damen, as Laurent turned back from the statue to face him.

  ‘In Arles, there’s a place… The statue doesn’t look that much like him, but my brother is buried there. I used to go there sometimes and talk to him... talk to myself. If I was having trouble in practice. Or to tell him how I hard I was trying to win the respect of the Prince’s Guard. The sort of things he used to like hearing about. If you like, I’ll take you there when we visit.’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Because the loss of family was so close between them, Damen pushed the words out. ‘You’ve never asked about it.’

  After a long moment: ‘You said it was quick.’

  He had said that. Laurent had said, Like gutting a pig? Laurent sounded different now, as if he had held that one small piece of information close, all this time.

  ‘It was.’

  Laurent moved away, to a place where the shifting shade once again opened out into a view of the sea. After a moment, Damen came to stand beside him. He could see the patterns of light and shadow on Laurent’s face.

  ‘He didn’t let anyone else intervene. He thought it was fair, between princes. Single combat.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was tired. He’d been fighting for hours. But the man he fought wasn’t. It was Kastor on the front at Marlas. Damianos had stayed back to protect the King. He rode from behind the lines.’

  ‘Yes.’