Froi of the Exiles (25 page)

‘And what happens when her royal uselessness comes of age?’ she asked. ‘I tell you, they’ll come for the lastborns.’ She turned to Froi. ‘You take care of your girl.’

‘Always,’ Froi murmured, grabbing Quintana’s hand and turning away. Suddenly they faced another, a man bigger in build than any Charynite Froi had ever seen.

‘I’ll smuggle her out of the Citavita,’ the man said fiercely. ‘What have you been waiting for?’

Froi felt Quintana take a quick breath beside him. She stepped away from Froi, but he pulled her back.

‘And who are you, Sir?’ Quintana asked.

‘I’m Perabo. The keeper of these caves.’

The man held out his hand to Quintana. ‘You know it’s safe to come with me.’

‘She knows nothing of the sort,’ Froi said, ‘and if you don’t step back, I’ll break that hand in places you didn’t think there were bones.’

Quintana stared from Froi to the man and then to Froi again, and there was sadness in her eyes.

‘It’s not my time to go, Sir,’ she said to the keeper of the caves. ‘Not yet.’

The man’s eyes bored into Froi’s.

‘There are those of us who treasure all lastborns,’ the keeper hissed. ‘If something happens to her because of you, I will feed every bone of yours that I break down your throat.’

It was late when they reached the palace entrance and this time there was no need for calling out. The drawbridge was lowered and two of the soldiers approached, dragging Froi back with them. The courtyard was illuminated by torches. Gargarin stood behind Bestiano and the rest of the advisors and riders. Dorcas’s face was swollen, either a gift from the street lords or punishment from the palace for losing the Princess. Bestiano approached and his backhand caught Froi across the face.

Gargarin pushed past the advisors and one of the riders pulled him back and Froi saw him wince in pain.

Count to ten, Froi. Your work here is yet to be done. You’ve not even seen a glimpse of the King.

‘The palace risks a war with both Sebastabol and Paladozza if anything happens to the lastborn,’ Gargarin called out, a warning in his voice.

‘What makes you think anything will happen to him?’ Bestiano said pleasantly before turning to Dorcas.

‘I think a night in the dungeon should arouse him enough to be of service to the Princess tomorrow.’

Later, on the hard cold ground of the cell, when the world seemed so still that it was as though Froi felt the heartbeat of every man and woman in Charyn, he heard the soft singing coming from the opposite tower. It wasn’t the high-pitched purity in Quintana’s voice, nor the fact that she recalled every word to a sad song she had heard only once today in the caves of the Citavita, sung in a language she had never known. It was that he knew that voice, had dreamt it over and over again in a lifetime of rot and misery, and Froi wanted to weep. For he knew he would break his bond to his queen not just with his body, but with his heart.

When he climbed through Lirah’s window that night, she was lying on her cot, reading. He was surprised that the Serker whore could read. As he watched her engrossed in the words on the page, he recognised that the manuscript she held was from Gargarin’s collection. Did that fool of a man bribe her guard to pass on the books he treasured?

‘Do you feel nothing for her?’ Froi asked, accusingly. ‘Is it why you tried to kill her?’

She stared up a moment and then turned her attention back to her reading. ‘That took you long enough to work out,’ she said coolly.

‘Do you feel nothing for her?’ he repeated.

‘I feel pity. Satisfied?’

At that moment, Froi hated her more than when Arjuro had revealed the truth of Lirah’s crime.

‘And you?’ she asked, putting the manuscript down. ‘What do you feel, Serker savage?’

Froi fought hard not to react to her words. ‘I’m just intrigued,’ he said. ‘I’m wondering what it is that you’re good at. Your skill in drowning children and attacking scholars with a dagger is poor,’ he added, cruelly.

Her smile was bitter.

‘Well, I must be good for something. The King has kept me alive for long enough.’

‘I want to know about the brothers from Abroi,’ he demanded.

‘I loathe the brothers from Abroi,’ she said coldly. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

‘No, I need to know more, Lirah.’ Froi had come to realise that somehow the clue to where the King was to be found was connected to Lirah, Gargarin or Arjuro.

His eyes were fixed on Lirah’s. Trevanion referred to this as a gnawing war, where you sit and stare at your opponent as though gnawing away at their souls. Lirah was not one to look away, but Froi could see that she wanted him to leave. So she spoke.

‘Arjuro was a Priestling. A greater deviant the godshouse has never known, but he was the only person who could twist the Oracle around his little finger. His brother Gargarin was the King’s prized protégé, cold and remote towards all except his twin and …’

She stopped. Froi waited.

‘And you?’ he asked.

Lirah ignored the question. Froi walked to the cot and grabbed the manuscript from her hands. He walked back to the window and held it outside, threateningly. He could see the rage in her eyes.

‘Talk,’ he snapped. She refused to.

Froi took a chance, and tore out a page, inwardly asking Finn and Isaboe for forgiveness. They loved words and books. They sent messengers far and wide to find manuscripts as gifts to each other.

Without waiting another moment he tossed the page out the window.

‘You dog,’ she said, with a bitter shake of her head.

‘Talk.’

She walked to him and took the manuscript, clutching it close to her body. They both knew he could take it from her in an instant, but he waited.

‘For too long the wisdom and intellect in this kingdom came from the teachings of those in the godshouses,’ she said. ‘Some believed the palace could be just as progressive and that the newly crowned King was the one to bring about the change. One of these believers, a lad who had been raised in Paladozza, travelled to the Citavita with his brother. He had the plans and drawings to prove that Charyn could be as mighty as Belegonia. He and his brother had spent years deciphering the books of the Ancients, discovering farm methods and surgical techniques that proved the brothers’ genius.

‘The King was impressed with the lad, but he also wanted the gods’ touched Priestling brother to serve him because he already had a reputation for being the best physician the Citavita had seen. But despite the wealth the King promised, the Priestling was not interested in being solely in his service. More importantly, the Oracle of the godshouse was not going to hand over her most gifted Priestling to the palace.’

Lirah looked up at Froi a moment, but she seemed far away.

‘Everyone believes the downfall of Charyn began with the godshouse slaughter and the sacking of Serker, but I know it began with the battle between the Oracle and the King over Arjuro of Abroi.’

Froi couldn’t fathom such a thing. Arjuro was a drunk with no hope. How could he have ever provided Charyn with anything?

‘Despite the tension that was brewing between the Oracle’s godshouse and the palace, the brothers from Abroi refused to involve themselves. They began and ended the day greeting each other across the gravina. When they walked through the Citavita together, people would stop in awe. They were beautiful to look at, with their dark curls and fierce blue eyes. They may have come from nothing, but they held a fascination for those around them. The King tried to do everything he could to use them to his advantage. He believed that if Gargarin spoke to his brother, and his brother came to be the physician in the palace, then Arjuro would also convince the Oracle to sanction any plans the palace had to wrest control from the Provincari. But the brothers made a pact to never allow the godshouse or the palace to come between them.’

‘How did you meet the brothers?’

‘I first made Gargarin’s acquaintance in the palace.’

It seemed difficult for Lirah to say Gargarin’s name.

‘We spent a lot of time in a cave the brothers called theirs at the base of the gravina.’

‘I know it,’ Froi said, thinking of the first time he saw Gargarin.’

‘De Lancey of Paladozza would be there too. It was all quite primitive at times,’ she said quietly. ‘They were strangely raw in their youth.’

‘And then?’

‘And then the godshouse was attacked, supposedly by the Serkers. It was a massacre. Forty of the Priestlings were killed. One day later, the palace riders found the Oracle with Arjuro of Abroi in the cave I spoke of. He claimed that he had not been present in the godshouse on the night of the massacre and had returned to find the carnage. He had found the Oracle Queen maimed, violated and close to death, and he had sworn to do anything to protect her.’

‘How did the palace know where to find him?’

‘He was betrayed. De Lancey did it without realising.’

‘De Lancey of Paladozza?’ Froi asked, surprised. He was the son of the Provincaro who had taken the brothers into his home.

‘They were lovers. Whatever De Lancey did, I’m sure he’s regretted it. After the capture, the palace held Arjuro in the godshouse on his own. Said it was a sound punishment to keep him chained inside the Hall of Illumination where most of the slaughter took place. During the next nine months, Gargarin was allowed to visit him. He never believed his brother was responsible and worked tirelessly to have him released.’

Lirah looked up at Froi, anguish in her eyes.

‘But ambition is an ugly thing and on the night of the lastborn, the King asked Gargarin of Abroi for the allegiance he had always desired from his prized pet.’

‘What type of allegiance?’ Froi asked, his blood beginning to run cold.

‘The type that ensures a man must sell his soul.’

Lirah walked away, her back to him, and Froi saw her stagger. If it were anyone other than Lirah he would have held out a hand to her. But Lirah did not seem the type of woman who invited help from any man. When he could see that she was composed, he walked around to face her.

‘What did he do, Lirah?’

‘Unbeknown to the people of Charyn, the King ordered Gargarin to kill the Oracle and the child she bore. To toss them out of the palace window into the gravina as though they were garbage.’

‘What?’

‘And the King’s guards dragged Arjuro to the balconette of the godshouse, chained him there and made him watch. It’s why Arjuro has never spoken to Gargarin again. That, and the fact that Arjuro spent more than eight years in the cell below this one for supposedly conspiring with the Serkers.’

‘Is that what you believe?’ Froi asked. ‘About the Serkers?’

She shook her head. ‘Never. If anyone knows the immoral habits of the Serkers, I do. But I would bet the life of this kingdom on the fact that no Serker would enter the godshouse and desecrate it. They may have resented the Oracle over the years for instructing them on how to live their lives, but they would never have despoiled the godshouse. The Serkers were begot from the Ancients. No province was more devoted to the gods.’

‘Gargarin couldn’t … I don’t believe you, Lirah.’

She studied him carefully and a cruel smile crossed her lips. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, bitterly. ‘Gargarin of Abroi bewitched you, did he? Don’t worry. He’s done it to the best of us.’

‘I’m bewitched by no man,’ Froi said furiously.

‘Then why are you here asking questions?’

‘Because I needed to know whether he was worth saving.’

Lirah stared. Froi saw something flare up in her eyes.

‘Saving? Aren’t you here just to plant the mighty seed of Charyn?’

‘I’m not here to plant a seed, Lirah, and if anyone can tell me about the King’s chamber, you can.’

Suddenly Lirah grabbed his face viciously.

‘Who are you?’

Froi was silent a moment.

‘I’ll find a way to set you free,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s a cloister in the kingdom of Sendecane. At the ends of the land. You take her there,’ he ordered. ‘She can live in peace and this kingdom can forget her. This land can forget her.’

‘And what makes you think that I would protect her? I tried to drown Quintana, remember? I’m the scum of this earth in your eyes.’

‘She’s your daughter. There’s no greater bond than between a mother and her child.’

Lirah of Serker laughed with little humour. ‘Let me tell you a truth, Serker savage,’ she said. ‘And then I want you to leave and not come back. I gave birth to one child on that wretched night. He was a boy child, torn from my loins and given to Gargarin of Abroi to toss from the palace window into the gravina below. I woke up with the Oracle’s bastard in my arms. Quintana the Wretched. Quintana the Cursemaker. Quintana the Whore.’

There were tears of fury in the woman’s eyes. ‘And she gnawed at my breasts day after day screaming for her own mother, because that savage babe knew the truth. That I grieved my son until I had nothing left inside to give to her. So when you slit Gargarin of Abroi’s throat, you tell him. Tell him that on that cursed night he didn’t murder the son of the Oracle. He murdered mine.’

F
roi crouched by the side of the bed, waiting. He wanted to be the first thing Gargarin saw when he woke. Wanted to see the fear. He had been trained by Trevanion to watch for the signals that showed the difference between a man sleeping and awake. He saw the flicker on Gargarin’s face and a moment later Froi held a hand to the man’s neck.

‘I could snap it in an instant.’

‘Then why didn’t you when you had a chance?’ Gargarin asked.

‘Because I wanted to hear the truth from your mouth first.’

The silence stretched without a flicker of emotion on the other man’s face. Gargarin of Abroi could do uncomfortable silence better than anyone Froi knew. Even Perri.

‘I never took you for a murderer,’ Froi said bitterly.

Gargarin sighed, as though a truth was revealed that had been waiting a long time to reveal itself.

‘There are rules, even amongst the most base of men,’ Froi hissed. ‘I’ve done things that shame me still, but if I killed a newborn babe I’d dash my head against a rock rather than live one moment with such blackness staining me.’