Froi of the Exiles (29 page)

‘Is the cart close by?’ he asked quietly, taking Vestie’s hand.

‘Just at the smithy,’ Beatriss said.

‘I’ll walk you there.’

Beatriss didn’t have the strength to argue.

‘A piggyback,’ Vestie pleaded, and he bent down so she could climb on.

As they walked alongside each other Beatriss felt the coarseness of his arm beside hers.

‘You don’t seem yourself,’ he said and she heard regret in his voice.

‘I’m not quite sure I know who myself is anymore,’ she said sadly. Who was Beatriss of the Flatlands without her village? Without her sorrow? Without Trevanion of the River?

When they reached the buggy, he lifted her up to the seat of the cart and she felt her lips against his throat, heard his ragged breath. She would have given anything to hold on a moment longer. When she was settled, he hugged Vestie to him and placed her beside Beatriss.

‘The Queen speaks of having Vestie come stay and help with Jasmina. She’s becoming a handful.’

‘It’s the age,’ she said quietly. ‘Tell the Queen we’ll speak of it soon.’

She rode away, all too aware of how long he stood waiting. Vestie waved until her arm was weary, but was quiet for most of the journey.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Beatriss asked, staring out at the village of Sayles where a plow team was at work preparing one of the fields for planting. Even the awful smell of cow dung in the air was progress. A richly fertilised field would produce a good crop and Beatriss could not help comparing the emptiness of her village to this one.

‘Mama?’

‘Yes, my love.’

‘What’s an abon … abobination?’

‘A what?’ Beatriss said, looking down at her daughter. Sometimes Beatriss thought she’d never see anything so magical as her child’s face. It made her think of the poor cursed Charynites. How strange it was to feel pity for a people who had been the enemy for so long.

‘Abobination.’

‘You mean abomination. Why?’

‘Kie, son of Makli of the Flatlands, called me one today. He said … he said I don’t have a father and that I’m an abob … abomination.’

The air seemed to whoosh out of Beatriss’s body and she steadied herself, fighting not to react.

‘It’s something bad, isn’t it?’

Beatriss forced a smile. ‘He was just being silly, my love.’

But Beatriss could not allow it to rest and that afternoon when Vestie was learning her letters with Tarah she rode her horse to the home of Makli, whose farm was in Fenton. Makli and his family were exiles and Beatriss had had little to do with them since the kingdom was reunited. She knocked firmly on their door and waited. When Makli’s wife Genova answered, the woman looked taken aback.

‘Lady Beatriss,’ she said, politely.

‘I was wanting to speak to both you and your husband,’ Beatriss said firmly, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. How many times had she heard Tesadora mock her in the days when they first became friends? ‘How can you fight the world with a quiver in your voice, Beatriss of the Flatlands?’

Makli came to the door and stood behind his wife. ‘Is there a problem, Lady Beatriss?’

‘Actually, there is. Your son spoke a word to my Vestie today. He called her an abomination and I presume that a wee boy would not know such a word without having heard it from an adult. A boy his age would not understand the absence of a father in my child’s life unless he heard it spoken in his home.’

‘I’m not sure I like what you’re accusing, Lady Beatriss,’ the woman said stiffly.

‘And I’m not sure I like hearing my daughter ask me what such a word means,’ Beatriss said, and there it was. The quiver. ‘And I would ask you to refrain from speaking my business in front of your boy or I will report it as slander.’

She walked away. Report it as slander? Was there such a thing? Would she go to Trevanion and Isaboe and say,
Makli of the Flatland has slurred my name in front of his family and I want him banished from the kingdom
?

‘I don’t like your threat, Lady Beatriss,’ Makli called out.

‘Leave it, Makli,’ his wife said. ‘Come inside.’

‘Don’t come here again threatening us. Someone like you,’ Makli said.

Beatriss stopped in her tracks and turned around, walking back up to their cottage door.

‘Someone like me?’ she asked.

Makli pointed a finger at her face and his wife pulled him back.

‘I say that if she is the daughter of a Charynite,’ he hissed, ‘she is an abomination, and if she is the daughter of a Lumateran, then you are a liar. Those of you who were trapped inside always believe you had it worse, but what are we to believe?’

‘How dare you!’ she cried.

‘I dare because good people like Lord Selric and his family lost their lives in exile,’ he shouted, ‘and no one celebrates their bravery or thinks to take care of those who have survived in Fenton.’

‘Enough Makli,’ his wife said.

‘Yet all we hear of is how brave those trapped inside were. Brave Lady Beatriss. Well, perhaps Brave Lady Beatriss was not as virtuous as they say. Perhaps she spread her legs for every Charynite or Lumateran who sang her praises.’

Beatriss slapped his face with a cry and it stung her hand. Makli’s wife closed her eyes a moment, an expression of regret on her face.

‘How could you possibly want to compete about who suffered most?’ Beatriss said sadly. ‘For if you want to covet that prize, take it! Take it, but don’t bring my child into your bitterness.’

Later, Beatriss sat on the front step of the long house with Tarah and Samuel.

‘Perhaps one more time,’ she said quietly to Samuel. ‘We’ll try one more time and it may just be the three of us. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to let you both go.’

‘We’ll go where you go, Lady Beatriss,’ Samuel said. ‘There’s plenty of work in town, so if you go to town, we’ll be there with you. But if you say let’s try one more time, then we’ll work these fields one more time. And if you say ten more times, then we’ll work the land ten more times.’

Beatriss looked away, fighting tears. She gripped their hands.

‘I’m forgetting what the truth is, friends,’ she said.

‘We were here, Lady Beatriss. We saw it all, so when you forget what the truth is, you come to us and we’ll remind you.’

In the days that followed, Beatriss could see the sadness on her child’s face as more of their neighbours left the village.

‘I was thinking of a special treat, my love,’ she said to Vestie one morning. ‘You could go to the palace and stay with Isaboe and Jasmina.’

‘And Trevanion?’

‘Of course.’

And on the day Vestie left, the blackness inside Beatriss was so fierce that she didn’t have the strength to get up the next morning. Or the morning after that. Or the morning after that.

T
hat night, his last in the palace, Froi was stuck beside two Dukes complaining about the scarcity of food at their end of the table, despite the bounty placed before them. They whispered that the Provincari were to blame. The Provincari in turn looked uncomfortable in the palace surrounds. The leaders of the provinces didn’t have the useless look of the nobility, but they did exude power, and Froi could understand the King and Bestiano’s need to keep them happy. These men and women had purpose and they had strength. United, they had once been a force against past kings. Divided, they had helped cause the misery that was Charyn today.

Gargarin was sitting beside one, a handsome man whose eyes seemed fixed firmly on Froi with the same horror and disbelief Froi had first seen on Gargarin and Arjuro’s face. Froi knew without being told the man was De Lancey of Paladozza.

‘They’re nothing, I say,’ the King’s inbred cousin hissed in Froi’s ear. ‘Nothing. Do they have a title? I dare say not.’

Quintana sat with the Aunts and it was obvious by the hideous lime-green dress she wore that Bestiano had managed to wrest the calico one from her. In his pocket he found a piece of parchment from Gargarin’s scribbles. Froi folded it into a shape most like a rabbit and asked for it to be passed towards her.

After much grumbling and scoffing it reached Quintana’s place. She stared at it a moment and then looked over to his table. Froi saw a glimpse of her teeth.

Later, he returned to the chamber to speak to Gargarin about the events of that morning. Froi hid Gargarin’s dagger under the mattress and waited a while for the man to return, but his thoughts were too much on Quintana and before he could stop himself, he walked out to the balconette, climbed and took the leap. From outside her window, he saw the flicker of light from where she was blowing out the last of the candles. She saw him standing on the balconette and walked to the doors, opening them. She went to say his name, but he held up a hand. He couldn’t bear the word ‘Olivier’ coming from her lips. Not tonight.

‘First I’m going to use my hands and then I’m going to use my mouth,’ he said, ‘and then you are going to teach me to be gentle and I’ll show you that not all men share your bed because it’s destined by the gods or written on the stone walls of this prison of yours. I’ve never had a lover and nor have you. So let’s be the first for each other.’

He caught her face between his hands and kissed her hard.

But she stepped away and he saw the hesitation in her eyes.

Wait, Froi. Wait.

‘I don’t come to you pure,’ she said.

‘Not interested in purity. Only willingness.’

She backed away from him to the end of the bed and his heart sank, already guessing her next move. Lying down and pulling her nightdress up to her thighs, asking him to undo the string to his trousers. But instead, slowly she lifted the garment over her head and stood before him and he stared at the fullness of her. He lifted his shirt above his head and held out a hand, drawing her to him, his body veiling hers from whatever it was that made her face flush red. Then he lifted her to him, felt her legs clasp around his waist as he knelt on the bed, laying her down. Gently he placed his hands on her knees and drew them apart, pressing his lips against her inner thigh.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, trying to raise herself.

‘Firstly, I thought I’d show you what a pity it would be if they cut off my wicked tongue.’

When Froi woke in the early hours of the morning, she was watching him. He raised himself, pressing a kiss to her mouth.

‘Happy Birthday,’ he said.

‘It’s the day of weeping,’ she corrected. She slipped out of bed and placed her cotton shift over her body. She seemed in a hurry.

‘My father’s agreed to see me,’ she said quietly. ‘Before he sees the Provincari.’

‘It’s too early,’ he said, not quite meeting her eye, knowing that by the time she saw her father, he would be dead at Froi’s hand.

She continued to put on her clothes without a word.

‘You need to get a dress from Aunt Mawfa,’ he said, needing to buy time. ‘You can’t go to see your father in that.’

Quintana looked down at her dress and then back to him, nodding. Then she was gone and Froi realised with an immense sadness that he would never see the Princess of Charyn again.

When he reached the cellar it was crowded with servants, chatting with urgency. Dorcas and another soldier were overseeing the activity.

‘What are you doing here, Olivier?’ Dorcas asked.

‘You’ve been demoted, I see, Dorcas.’

‘A proper lesson for losing the vessel,’ Dorcas responded.

‘She’s a girl, Dorcas. Not a vessel.’

Froi knew he’d have to wait. Quintana and the Provincari would see the King and then in the confusion of the Provincari’s exit from the palace, he’d take his chance.

Returning to the chamber he shared with Gargarin, Froi saw the rolled-up plans. They were tied neatly by a ribbon with the words
De Lancey of Paladozza
attached and all Froi could think was that the idiot Gargarin was off to see the King without his plans. Until he remembered that Gargarin wasn’t an idiot. Froi gripped the mattress, felt for the dagger, but it wasn’t there. He bit back his fury. An ice-cold finger of dread ran up his spine. He grabbed the drawings and ran down the tower stairs into the outer ward, dodging servants and soldiers. He saw Gargarin heading towards the fourth tower, pushing past those who stood in his way. Froi bolted towards him.

‘At it again, are we?’ he hissed into his ear.

Gargarin didn’t respond and kept on walking towards the soldiers guarding at the King’s tower.

Froi gripped his arm, forcing him to slow down. ‘You’ll fail!’

‘You want the glory, do you? To go back to whoever sent you and claim the kill was yours.’

‘No,’ Froi said with frustration. Three of the palace soldiers walked by. Froi and Gargarin nodded in their direction and continued without looking back. ‘But I can do something you can’t. If you can convince them to let me through with you, I can do what we both set out to do and get us out of this palace alive.’

‘Getting out of here alive isn’t part of my plan.’

Froi pushed him into a small hidden alcove in the wall, trapping him. ‘Listen to me, Gargarin. I’ve been trained to do this. You haven’t. Take your drawings, build your shitholes, but don’t give up your life for this.’

A hint of a smile appeared on Gargarin’s face. A softness unlike anything Froi had seen in his expression before. ‘Where did you come from?’ he asked, but it seemed a question Gargarin was asking himself and not Froi. ‘Will you do something for me?’

Froi shook his head.

‘I’ll ask you anyway,’ Gargarin said. ‘Give these designs to De Lancey of Paladozza. They also contain a letter of instruction to Tariq, the heir. If there is anarchy in the Citavita, promise me this.’

‘I’m promising you nothing, Gargarin. Tend to your own instructions and leave me to mine.’

Gargarin continued as though Froi hadn’t spoken. ‘Take my brother and Lirah out of the Citavita. Perhaps to Belegonia or Osteria.’

Froi was shaking his head, pushing the plans back into Gargarin’s hands.

‘It’s all I ask of you.’

‘Who are you to ask anything of me?’ Froi asked.

Gargarin was silent for a moment. He went to speak, but an ear-piercing scream echoed through the palace. Then more screams and shouts.