Chapter Text
The largest of the gifted slaves, Ambassador Guion of Vere noted, looked more like a warrior than a slave. He was easily a head taller than Guion, with broad shoulders and a head of tightly curled, thick black hair. His shoulders shifted against his taut bonds, barely constrained. The slave shivered against his bindings.
“Oh him,” Lady Jokaste said, noticing his attention, “He hasn’t been trained yet.”
The slave was bare from the waist up, save for a covering over his mouth. Pale yellow silk was wrapped the lower half of his face, tight like bandages. There was a shadow over his mouth that Guion realised was old blood.
“He certainly… stands out,” Guion said, diplomatically, “What happened to his mouth?”
Lady Jokaste smiled, coldly. “The rest of these slaves are multi-purpose, but Damen here is a pleasure slave. And pleasure slaves don’t speak.”
In that moment, the slave fixed his eyes on Guion.
The slave’s eyes were burning with such hot, dark fury it made the hairs on the back of Guion’s neck prickle. They reminded Guion of a ship he’d seen ruined by storm—the wild way the ocean had forced it over, the wood disintegrating and the unstoppable weight of the water drawing it under.
The slave wasn’t shivering, Guion realised. He was shaking in rage.
*
Damen was pushed to his knees. He winced as his teeth jarred painfully and shifted his mouth. There was no way he could hold his jaw that felt comfortable. He was keenly, painfully aware of absence of his tongue.
“An Akielon grovelling on his knees,” the prince of Vere said, silkily, “How fitting.”
Damen’s dark eyebrows knitted together. His throat ached savagely. He had not enjoyed being drugged, but it was sweet relief compared to this.
“I want to speak with him,” the prince said, waving a hand, “Remove the gag.”
The handler removed the gag immediately. Damen could not spit, so swallowed the taste of old fabric.
“Your highness,” Guion started, carefully, “if I might suggest—”
Laurent raised a hand and Guion felt silent. The prince’s attention was singular, focused entirely on Damen’s face. On the rest of his mouth, the flatness of the underside of his jaw. The prince bent, not quite kneeling, and stretched out a hand.
The prince’s touch was revolting. Damen felt the cold curl of his fingers on his cheek, not gentle but… restrained. Laurent’s thumb pushed into his chin, trying to push his mouth open.
“Open your mouth,” Laurent ordered.
Damen refused, muscles tightening.
Laurent slapped him.
Pain burst into the back of Damen’s throat like he was pressing a hot coal there. A thick warm liquid filled his mouth and he realised the stitches there had stretched. He tried to swallow it back but that only made it hurt more.
His mouth fell open in defeat.
The prince stared into his mouth. Blood pooled in the well behind his bottom teeth. It rolled over his bottom lip and stained the clean, perfect nail of the prince’s thumb.
Laurent’s expression shifted, the sharp lines of his mouth softening slightly. A look almost like pity cross his face.
Damen sunk his teeth into Laurent’s thumb. The prince flinched and tried to pull his hand away but Damen’s jaws only tightened. Blood stained his teeth, but for once, it wasn’t his.
The handler kicked his head and his mouth snapped open, releasing Laurent. The blow was so hard it made his head ring and his vision swim. Pain burned in the back of his throat. If his stitches had not torn before, they definitely had now, and blood flowed steadily into his mouth.
Damen could not spit, so instead he bowed his head with his mouth hanging open like a dead dog’s. Scarlet dribbled over his jaw and splattered into his lap. All eyes were fixed on his gory, hanging mouth. Blood soaked through his loin cloth and coated his thighs, a hot wetness like he had pissed himself. Damen had never felt so ashamed and exposed in his life.
Laurent stood up, cradling his wounded thumb to his chest. “Take him away,” he ordered.
*
Damen was visited by a physician who tended to him cautiously. Damen had no intention of biting him, and tried to make himself less frightening, which was hard to do while covered in blood. The physician informed him in halting Alkeilon that there was not much he could do—He could not bandage a tongue. Or the stump of one, to be exact. Instead, he simply spread thick liquid over the back of his mouth to aid the clotting and dull the pain. Damen was glad he couldn’t taste it.
When the physician had left, they let him eat.
Damen was famished. Without a tongue, he could not move the food around his mouth to chew so instead had to use his fingers. His guards on the boat had to unbind his hands to let him eat and, intimidated by his size and his silence, often did not let him finish his food and restrained him before he had his fill.
Eating was frustrating. Every time he touched the stitches he was rewarded with a dull throb of pain. He had to tear the crusty bread into tiny pieces and hold them his mouth until they were soft enough to chew gently to avoid jarring his stump. It was so slow-going the servant that waited for the empty plate to be returned left, asking the guard to fetch him when he was finished. It was lucky Damen had nothing better to do.
Finally, plate finished, Damen felt exhausted. The fatigue came on him in an instant, heavy and grim. He crawled into his sheets, pulling them over his head.
When he slept, he dreamed of nothing.
*
Sometime during the night, he was shaken awake. Damen touched the hinge of his jaw gingerly and blinked.
Lit torches were being set into the brackets that lined the walls, casting blazing light on his small room. The remnants of a dark dream still clung to the slave. Damen fixed his eyes on the man that stood at the foot of his bed. The Prince stared back, cooly.
“Get up,” The prince said.
Damen did not move. One of the guard snatched him by his elbow and hauled him to his feet.
“Can you understand me?” The prince asked, in Veretian.
Damen stared at him dully. Most of the Veretians had assumed he was simple as well as mute and he was in no hurry to disabuse him of the notion.
A muscle in Laurent’s jaw jumped but he didn’t challenge him. He pulled a handful of plain sheets from his servant’s hands and showed them to Damen. Quills and ink bottles had already been placed on his small desk.
“I want you to write down your answers to my questions,” Laurent said, sharply.
Damen had no desire to communicate with the stuffy prince, let alone painstakingly slowly scribe his thoughts while Laurent talked lightning fast over him. He continued to watch him with dead eyes.
Laurent slammed the papers on the desk, “I know you can write. There are callouses on your fingers from holding a quill.”
Damen shook his head sharply. He mimed swinging a sword.
Laurent’s eyes flashed, “So you can understand Veretian.”
Damen froze. Anger bit at him.
Laurent took a step towards him, apparently unafraid. He ran a finger over the side of Damen’s neck. The scar there was puckered, pink and new.
“Why did they silence you?” Laurent said, slowly, like he was talking to a simpleton. “How did you get that scar? It must have happened at the same time.”
Damen’s eyes grew dark. He remembered a knife in his neck, his brother pinning him to slit his throat, Jokaste’s sweet and poisonous voice cutting over his shouts, I have a better idea… Laurent apparently noticed his discomfort and his eyes brightened. He wouldn’t take his hands off Damen and continued to stroke long lines across his jugular.
Damen itched to snatch Laurent’s hand away, but didn’t want to risk another jolt to his mouth. The anger that had been hot and bubbling like in his heart like boiling tar rose through him. It irritated the back of his throat. His fingers twitched, wanting to curl into fists.
“Who cut out your tongue?” Laurent asked.
Damen boiled. He shoved past Laurent, ignoring the shouts from the guard. He snatched a quill up and tore the cork from the ink bottle, slamming the quill inside. He scratched the wet quill across the paper. Finished, Damen crossed to the other side of the room.
Laurent stared down at the paper. The quill’s ends were splintered and left streaky, blocked strokes. Only one word was written.
KASTOR.
*
A touch in the bath, two fingers against the small of his back to brush away a soap sud, and Laurent had Damen dragged out. Laurent watched them bind the slave to the whipping cross. There was a kind of dullness in the prince and he didn’t feel as vindicated as he thought he would. He felt cruel.
The lash of whip drew the first noise Damen had made on Veretian soil.
He screamed.
The whip cracked against him again. Blood splattered in the dust.
His voice was quaking and strange, unused for so many weeks, throat still inflamed and swollen. Stitches stretched and blood filled his mouth again, giving his bellows a wet noise. Between strikes, he shook with hacking coughs, trying to clear blood from his throat. The noises spooked even the servants, who were used to hearing whipping. It sounded like something dying.
It chilled Laurent, but for a different reason.
He touched the soft skin under his jaw and wondered if his uncle would ever make good on his promise to cut out his silver tongue.
*
Damen spent the next few days in a daze. His throat was thick and prickling. It felt like his back was aflame.
A physician treated him gingerly, changing bandages and filling his mouth with thick, cold herbal ointment. Some angelic soul at the palace kitchen had switched his meals to yogurts and thick creams so he didn’t need to sit up very long to eat them. Without a tongue, he could drain the bowls in barely a minute and settled back down.
Nobody talked to him.
The prince was the only one who ever talked directly to him, and he hadn’t visited in weeks. The rest of the Veretians directed questions over his head to the physician or the guards, or simply didn’t talk in his earshot at all.
Sometimes it felt like he’d lost more than his voice. It felt like he was ceasing to exist.
*
Damen sat in the garden, wet grass tickling his hands. Mud was collecting on his bare knees, slick and cold, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. If he had thought Laurent was a good talker before, it increase tenfold at court. Laurent himself had discarded him for the moment, gone to wonder around the gardens without him.
A boy padded towards him. He couldn’t have been older than twelve, with fine, clear skin and gems woven into his hair. He was painted and dressed like a pet and Damen remembered him from after the horrible wresting match. That night had seemed more like a nightmare than anything else, and Damen had tried his hardest to put it out of his mind.
The boy led another slave on a thin chain, an Akielon with fine features and thin, decorative gold shackles.
“My name is Nicaise,” the boy said, sharply, “You’re not important enough to refuse me. Even if you were, you’re not now—your master is impoverished.”
Damen stared at him, bemused. It was strange to imagine ever caring even a little bit about Veretian court politics, let alone moves with disadvantaged Laurent.
“The Regent sent me to find the prince,” Nicaise said, “Where has he gone?”
Damen watched him, eyebrow raised, and pointed towards the audience chamber.
Nicaise glared hotly, “Do you think I don’t even deserve your words? Impudent slave—I can see why the prince had you flogged!”
Damen let his mouth fall open.
Nicaise flinched back. He blinked, staring deep into Damen’s mouth, horror brightening his eyes. It took him a moment to find his voice again. “I’m going to look for him. Stay here!”
Nicaise dropped the slave’s chain and the slave obediently stood still, watching him go. The slave was pretty, with fair colouring and burnished gold hair.
Damen closed his mouth. The slave continued to watch him.
Damen pointed to himself, to the slave and then pressed the sides of his index fingers together.
“We are both… Akielon?” The slave guessed. Damen nodded. The slave smiled, “I suppose it’s nice to see a familiar face.”
Damen pointed at him.
“Oh, my name’s Erasmus,” The slave said. Damen smiled.
The slave knelt beside him, golden chain clinking. He looked like he was on the brink of saying something, but didn’t. Damen frowned and beckoned.
Erasmus bit his lip. Slaves were trained to understand both verbal and non-verbal commands, and so read Damen’s gesture easily. “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” The slave said, “but did that happen in Vere or Akielos?”
Damen frowned and pointed behind himself. Akielos.
Erasmus nodded.
Damen frowned pointedly at Erasmus and raised an eyebrow.
“What is it?” Erasmus asked.
Damen pointed into his mouth and then to the ground. Would that happen here?
“I-I...” Erasmus went pale, “I enjoy my service to the Veretian court. I only thought—...”
Damen beckoned again.
“I know there was a silent slave aboard the ship,” Erasmus said, looking down, “and I know you had been flogged. I thought, perhaps that had been a test that you had...”
Erasmus’s robes had become disordered and had ridden up over his thigh. There was a welt there, angry and thick. Despite himself, Damen reached out and touched it. Erasmus flinched.
Damen closed his eyes. He could feel anger burning like tar in his chest, rising to heat his face and scorch his throat. Right now, however, his expressions were one of the very few ways he had of expressing himself. He could not afford to frighten Erasmus away with an angry glare.
Expression neutral, Damen beckoned again.
“I-It was… on the first day. A test of obedience,” Erasmus said, very quietly, “I was ordered not to make a s-sound.”
Damen’s eyes were hard. He pointed at himself and then Erasmus, and clasped his hands together. He tried to channel his meaning through his expression.
Erasmus frowned.
Damen breathed very deeply, dragging cold air into his lungs. He wasn’t angry, but disappointed in himself. He longed for the days when he could express himself perfectly and quickly, without fears of being misunderstood or ignored.
Damen held out a hand, and, after a moment of hesitation, Erasmus took it.
With a sharp tug, the slave fell against him. Erasmus tensed, confused.
Damen hugged him.
Slowly, Erasmus relaxed. It was warm, with Damen’s arms around him. He was warm. The embrace was tight, but comfortable. He felt safe. For a single, ludicrous moment, Erasmus felt the urge to cry. Damen buried his face into the crook of Erasmus’ neck. A slight dampness spread across the shoulder of Erasmus’ tunic, and Erasmus found he was not alone in the urge.
*
Much later, Damen awoke among crushed pillows and disturbed silken sheets to find Laurent’s cool blue gaze on him. Laurent watched him like a hawk watches a mouse.
Damen bowed. His forehead pressed into cold silk.
“This is new,” Laurent said.
Damen kept his head bowed.
“Up,” Laurent said, sharply, “Why did you request my visit?”
Damen straightened up and pulled sheets of paper from under his pillow. On it was written: I have something to ask of you. It’s a bargain.
“Something to ask from me,” Laurent repeated, eyes narrowing, “As if you have anything to bargain with.”
Damen flipped the paper over. My obedience.
Laurent tilted his head.
Damen paused for a moment. There was tension in the atmosphere. It felt like he was play fighting with a tiger. He changed to the next sheet. Anything you ask of me, I’ll do it. Any humiliation, any performance.
Lauren looked at him, “And in return?”
The slaves in the regent’s retinue. They are being tortured and mistreated. Please help them.
Laurent’s perfect eyebrows drew together, “Why does it bother you?”
Damen floundered. He hadn’t predicted being asked that. The urge to help them had been so powerful and consuming—it hadn’t occurred to him that a slave wouldn’t feel that. A slave wouldn’t assume things could be changed.
Damen pointed at his throat and held a fist out, as if holding an invisible dagger. He turned the imaginary blade towards himself and stuck it in his mouth. Then he shook his shackles.
“Because it happened to you?” Laurent asked, quietly.
Damen nodded. It was close enough.
“You over estimate my control over my uncle,” Laurent sighed.
Damen pointed at Laurent and tapped his temple. You’ll think of something.
Laurent’s gaze was unreadable. He was silent and still. His shoulders tensed and something sharp surfaced in his expression. “Your obedience is not worth anything,” He said, leaning down. His cold fingers pressed into Damen’s windpipe, “You’re broken.”
Damen forced himself not to shift back and his expression to stay neutral. He was walking a tightrope—one misstep and it would all be lost. Damen held the prince’s gaze, unflinching.
Laurent finally moved back, regarding him with cold, sharp eyes.
Damen reached behind him and pulled out the last sheet of paper. He knew that, voiceless, he was less valuable a slave as he might otherwise had been. Laurent enjoyed taunting him, and when he couldn’t complain it lost some of its shine.
Damen held the folded sheet of paper in the space between him and hesitated. It was not something he ever thought he would offer anyone freely, let alone an enemy. It was demeaning, even more so than fighting in the ring again, even more so than obedience.
But it was the only thing he had left. He unfolded the paper.
Laurent read the paper. He paused, and read it again. Damen could tell it appealed to him: the cruel look was back in his eyes.
I will dance for you.