Froi of the Exiles (45 page)

It took Aldron and Tesadora’s help to hold Rafuel down. For one so slight, he fought like a demon, weeping with silent despair. Lucian had seen his father die before his eyes, but he couldn’t think of anything worse than seeing Finnikin or Froi or his Mont cousins being slaughtered while he stood and did nothing.

Later, when he tried to explain it to his
yata
, he spoke of the fear he saw in the eyes of those young men who knew that death was upon them. Fighting a battle to the death seemed a natural way for a warrior to die. It was the way Lucian’s own father had died. But waiting for death? Knowing the inevitable? That day innocent men died in front of Lucian’s eyes. They died savagely. Some were cut down with a dagger to the gut, others with a blade to the throat. Each time, Donashe of the Citavita asked for the leader. And each time, Rothen swore he was Rafuel of Sebastabol.’

‘Where is Rafuel of Sebastabol?’ Donashe asked when the sixth man lay dying at his feet. Rothen dropped to his knees, holding his companion in his arms.

‘
Forsake me, you bastard gods
,’ he prayed, ‘
but do not forsake beloved Charyn!
’ He was cut down within moments.

Beside Lucian, Rafuel wept quietly. ‘I need to call out their names to the gods. I need to call out their names.’

‘Open your mouth and they will kill you next, fool,’ Lucian said quietly.

Lucian caught Aldron’s eye and he could see the Queen’s guard was shaken by what they had witnessed. Death was death. That it had taken place this close to the Lumateran border would set the kingdom on edge.

‘Rafuel?’ Tesadora whispered. ‘What in the name of Sagrami are they doing?’ Her expression was a mask of horror and sadness. Lucian watched two of Donashe’s men line the seven bodies up across the edge of the stream.

But it was what the other horsemen were doing that sent an icy finger down Lucian’s spine. Screams were heard as the youngest of the women were dragged to where Donashe stood and forced to their knees, side by side. Each girl was searched for the sign on the napes of their necks. The sign of the lastborn, Rafuel explained.

When Donashe failed to find what he was searching for, the girls were pushed away and Lucian heard cries of relief. Until the next girls were pulled from the arms of crying mothers and helpless fathers.

‘They’re searching for lastborn women,’ Rafuel whispered, his voice broken. ‘Which can only mean Quintana of Charyn is dead.’

Tesadora gripped Lucian’s arm. ‘We have to do something.’

Suddenly Rafuel caught his breath, his eyes meeting Lucian’s.

‘What?’ Lucian asked.

‘Phaedra!’ Rafuel whispered hoarsely.

‘She’ll know to keep her head down,’ Lucian said.

‘No, you don’t understand. They’re looking for lastborns, Lucian. Phaedra is the only lastborn in this valley. Most other lastborn girls are in hiding. Their fathers and mothers knew this day of weeping would come.’

Lucian stared across the stream, searching for Phaedra amongst the camp dwellers. ‘Why would Sol of Alonso not have hidden his daughter?’ he asked.

‘He did,’ Rafuel said. ‘He made a pact with an enemy leader eighteen years ago to protect his daughter from this very moment. He sent her to Lumatere.’

Phaedra watched from where she knelt beside Florenza of Nebia. As a lastborn, she had known that this day would come, and had always told herself she’d be brave. Perhaps it was the wish of the gods for Phaedra to be taken by the men of the palace to create the first. But after what she had witnessed this day, Phaedra could not imagine the gods sanctioning such cruelty and horror.

Her only reprieve was that no girl in this valley had the mark of the lastborn. Phaedra had checked them all herself. No girl but her, and here she was on her knees, five women away from whatever it was that Quintana of Charyn had been called on to do for all these years.
The last will make the first
. What if there was nothing left of the spirit of the last to give to the first?

The men were almost upon her when the leader of the horsemen looked up across the stream. Phaedra could only see Kasabian and Cora from where she knelt and on a day when she didn’t think hope existed, she saw it in their eyes.

‘Introduce yourself, stranger,’ the leader of the horsemen ordered.

‘I’m no stranger,’ her Mont husband said, astride his horse. ‘I’m Lucian of the Monts, the custodian of this valley. State your business here, Charynite.’

She hadn’t realised until that moment that she had always enjoyed the sound of her Mont husband’s voice. It was strong and gruff and it spoke with little nonsense and a good deal of substance.

‘Regardless of whose valley it is, these people are ours and we do as we’re ordered,’ Donashe said.

‘Ordered by who?’ Lucian asked. ‘The palace?’

The man hesitated.

‘State your purpose, Charynite. Is this palace business?’ Lucian demanded, pointing to where Phaedra and the others knelt. ‘Are these girls palace business?’

‘We’re searching for our lastborns –’

‘Lastborns?’

‘We’ve come from the Citavita, friend,’ the man said, trying to keep a civil tone. ‘These are uneasy times in Charyn. We’re collecting any lastborn to ensure their safety.’

Lucian nodded, watching the man closely.

‘Wise of you, Charynite. I would do the same to protect the young women of my kingdom. I invite you to take any lastborn you can find. But you have the wife of a Mont leader, who also happens to be cousin of the Lumateran Queen, there before you.’

Lucian clenched his teeth. ‘On. Her. Knees.’

The Charynite stared at him with disbelief.

‘Your wife?’

Lucian pointed down to where Phaedra knelt.

‘Why would your wife be a Charynite in the valley, Mont?’

Lucian trotted his horse around the horseman to where Phaedra knelt and held out a hand.

‘The first step to peace between Lumatere and the closest province of Charyn was the betrothment of myself and the Provincaro of Alonso’s daughter.’

Phaedra raised herself onto trembling feet.

Donashe stared at them both. ‘Why would you allow your wife out of your sight, Mont?’

Lucian bent and grasped Phaedra’s arm, dragging her onto the horse.

‘She claims the blood of her people in the valley sing to her each day and if I don’t allow her to come down the mountain, then she gives me grief.’ Lucian placed his arms around Phaedra. ‘Let us say that I’m a very indulgent man and my Little Sparrow is most convincing.’

With that, Lucian steered the horse towards the stream.

‘Then we look forward to speaking to your Little Sparrow tomorrow,’ the horseman called out, ‘about the wellbeing of her people.’

Phaedra cried out at the threat in those words. She looked back to where the camp dwellers stood.

‘That was a warning, Luci-en. About what he is going to do to these people.’

‘Not your concern,’ he said.

‘It is my concern,’ she cried. ‘I’m a Provincaro’s daughter. It is our duty that we protect those not born with our privilege.’

They didn’t speak for most of the journey up the mountain, but his grip around her was tight and she felt the tremble in his body.

‘I saw it all,’ he said, as if he could no longer contain it. ‘I saw it all and did nothing.’

What would his father have done?

The first person Lucian could see when he reached his village on the mountain was Rafuel crouched in the dirt with his head in his hands, weeping. The Charynite was surrounded by Tesadora and Aldron and Tesadora’s girls. The Monts who had been there to see the prisoner off were here to see him return. They watched in tense silence.

Lucian could tell they had been told of the day’s events, for they all seemed shaken. He lowered Phaedra to the ground and a moment later
Yata
was there with a blanket around the girl.

‘I sent one of the lads to the palace,’
Yata
said. ‘Let’s hope the Guard will arrive tomorrow with instructions.’

‘What happened, Lucian?’ his cousin Yael asked.

‘Are we at war?’ another called out.

‘I don’t understand,’ Alda said. ‘What are those Charyn riders doing in the valley, Lucian?’

He looked at Rafuel and then Aldron. ‘I think it’s safer for him to be back in the cell.’

Aldron shook his head. ‘He’ll just find a way to smash his head apart against the stone wall.’

No one knew what to say about the Charynite. He was weeping, chanting the names of his lads over and over again.

‘I don’t understand,’ Jory said, staring down at Rafuel. ‘Tell him to stop.’

But Lucian understood. He grabbed Jory and dragged him to the younger lads who followed Jory day in and day out.

‘See these seven, Jory,’ he asked, fury in his voice. ‘Well, imagine you were on one side of the stream hiding, while on the other side of the stream someone slaughtered your lads and cousins, right in front of you. And there was nothing you could do, Jory, because we were holding you down to stop you from being slain yourself.’

Lucian then grabbed Phaedra.

‘Lucian!’
Yata
warned.

‘And see this woman, Jory,’ he said, turning Phaedra around gently and revealing the strange lettering on her neck. ‘This woman is just like our queen. Marked as a slave to do things we don’t want to imagine happening to our own.’

Lucian pulled Jory towards Phaedra. ‘Treat her as you would beloved Isaboe, Jory. Follow her everywhere she goes. Down the valley and across the stream. Everywhere. And if any man touches her, Mont or Charynite, you put a sword through his heart. Do you hear me?’

Jory stared at Lucian and then at his father. His father nodded.

‘Take your
pardu’s
sword,’ Yael said quietly.

Lucian looked around, searching for the older lads.

‘I want one of you in every tree in that valley. Not concealed. I want those animals to see us. I want them to know that if they dare slaughter
anyone
on our land, they die.’

And then he walked to Rafuel, gripping him by the arm. Lucian pulled him to his feet and took the Charynite to his home.

That’s what Saro of the Monts would have done.

I
n a mostly deserted village outside Jidia, Froi broke into a stable. He needed a horse and this dusty village of sunken empty wheel ruts and a wind that cried out its grief seemed his only option. Despite what these people had possibly endured, Froi’s necessity was greater and he felt little remorse at what he was about to take from them. That, in itself, brought him relief. He had become too soft in the palace and needed to find the ruthless warrior inside that Trevanion and Perri marvelled at.

‘You’re probably best not doing that,’ he heard a voice behind him say. Froi hoped the man wasn’t holding a weapon. He was desperate to get home and a man with a gentle voice was going to get in his way.

He turned to see a couple standing at the entrance of the barn. They were perhaps in their middle years, but it was hard to tell. Reed thin from the sorrow of life, they leaned against each other as though nothing else could hold them up but the other.

‘It will get you no further than half a day’s ride away,’ the man continued. ‘He’s an old thing, Acacia is. Belonged to our boy and refuses to die.’

Froi sighed. Why did everyone in Charyn seem to have a story in their eyes? And when had he started caring?

‘Have you come from the Citavita?’ the man asked.

‘No,’ Froi lied. ‘From Alonso.’

Both the man and woman studied him cautiously. ‘We watched you arrive, lad. You came from the south, not the north.’

Don’t let me hurt you, old man. Don’t let me hurt you both.

He knew he could easily fight these people and win. If he wanted the horse, he could take the horse. He had the power, regardless of who owned the stable. Power was everything. Until he realised that law belonged to the street thugs who had brought him up on the streets of Sarnak’s capital. Not Trevanion. Power, the captain had told him, meant nothing whether in someone’s home or their village or their kingdom or their palace. Respect and honour meant everything.

‘Can I beg of you a place to sleep in your stable, then?’ Froi asked. ‘And a plate of food? I’m good for a day’s work and if your second field isn’t weeded soon, you’ll have planted for nothing.’

So Froi worked alongside the man and woman all day. They were a quiet couple and like many of those Froi had met in Charyn, there was a sadness in their whole being that was years in the making. It was in the way they walked and toiled. It was in their silence and it was in their words. They grew barley and broad beans and cabbage. Not to trade, but to survive. The soil was poor from little rain, much the same as the rest of the kingdom outside the walls of the provinces. There was no future for them out here. Froi wondered what had happened to the rest of the villagers. He counted eight cottages in total but could see that it had been quite some time since they were lived in.

The man named Hamlyn asked him about his family, but Froi didn’t respond.

He could have lied to himself and said that he had thought little of Quintana, Lirah, Arjuro and Gargarin these past few days, but he didn’t. He had thought of the four of them every moment. But he was too close to home for regrets and he owed them nothing.

That night he waited on the porch for his food, but none came until Hamlyn stepped outside with an expression of irritation on his face.

‘We are hungry, lad. We can’t wait much longer for you,’ Hamlyn said before disappearing inside.

Froi entered the small cottage and looked around. It was plain and as clean as could be found in a place so dry and dusty. There was one bed at the end of the room. Outside he had noticed the woodfire oven, but inside was a large pot from where Hamlyn’s wife dished out a bowl of barley soup. When Froi saw the plate set for him at their table, he felt shame. Who was he to deserve their hospitality after what he had planned to do? Hamlyn’s wife placed a large chunk of bread at the side of his plate, but none beside hers or Hamlyn’s.

‘Life on a farm is hard enough,’ Froi said after a slurp, dividing his bread into three and placing a piece by both their plates. ‘Why stay here and not inside the walls of Jidia?’