Quintana of Charyn (42 page)

‘No,’ Froi said.

They all stared at him. Regardless of Froi’s fury and betrayal, it had been Gargarin’s order not to make contact with any of them and Froi’s pride demanded he honour that.

‘I’ll write the letter,’ Finnikin said. ‘Let it be seen that Lumatere was the first to make contact.’

In the weeks that followed, Froi found himself travelling to almost all corners of the kingdom. In the forest of Lumatere he attended a remembrance ceremony with Tesadora and the novices of both Lagrami and Sagrami. During his first year in Lumatere, Froi had spent much of his time with Perri guarding Tesadora, the Priestess and the girls. He had accompanied them when they moved their cloister back to the forest of Lumatere after ten years near the Sendecane border. Froi knew back then that he had earned trust from these women at a time when he was desperate for it, and each year when they had the remembrance ceremony, they invited Froi along.

The tree of remembrance had been planted in honour of the Charynite who had smuggled the Lagrami novices out of the palace village. It meant more to Froi now, knowing that Arjuro had been part of the escape. That morning he stood with the Priestess watching Perri carry earth to the separate plots surrounding the cloister. The novices had grown a spectacular garden of healing and Froi knew that Lumaterans from across the kingdom came to these women to cure their ailments.

‘Tesadora says you’re acquainted with the Charynite holy man who took us to her,’ the Priestess said.

Froi nodded. ‘His name’s Arjuro,’ he said. ‘He never spoke of his time in Lumatere.’

‘Yes, well who can blame him?’

‘What happened?’ Froi asked.

The Priestess held out her hand and he took it, escorting her for a walk around the gardens.

‘We met him through John, the Charynite soldier who smuggled us out of the village,’ she said. ‘The lad was working as a scout for the impostor King and heard of the heinous plans in the barracks. They wanted women in the palace as their … playthings and what better girls to have than those of the Lagrami cloister, who were close by in the palace village, and not protected by fathers and brothers?’

‘How did this … John make Arjuro’s acquaintance?’ Froi asked.

‘Earlier that month, John had been sent on a scouting mission by the impostor King’s captain to check the rest of the kingdom. The Charynites were hoping that the Sendecane and Sarnak borders were free of the curse. Your friend the holy man was camping close to the Sarnak border when John came across him. Despite the distance to the cloisters on the Sendecane border, Arjuro took John to meet Tesadora, for no other reason than that the holy man had read an instruction to lead the boy to the novices in his dreams. It would be a most symbolic meeting between them all because weeks later John of Charyn made a decision that would cost him his life. He smuggled us out of the village, for he had found the perfect place to hide us. He took us to your friend the holy man first but the palace riders had followed and we had little time for further acquaintance. The man we now know as Arjuro of Abroi drew us a map to where Tesadora was hiding the Sagrami novices, and then he and John became the decoys. We never saw them again. John of Charyn was seventeen years old when he died. Strange to think he’d be a man of more than thirty today.’

Froi looked out at the garden so similar to Arjuro’s on the roof of the godshouse.

‘Well, Arjuro survived. He’s a brilliant physician,’ Froi said, ‘and if there’s ever peace between Charyn and Lumatere, he’d welcome some of your girls as his students of healing. Your novices are smarter than the
collegiati
I came across in Charyn.’

Tesadora and Japhra joined them soon after and the Priestess took Tesadora’s hand. Two very different women stood before Froi, but the respect between them was fierce.

‘Are you ever going to allow him a bonding ceremony?’ the Priestess asked shrewdly.

‘Who? Froi?’ Tesadora asked and Froi laughed.

‘You know who she’s talking about,’ he said, looking over to where Perri was working.

‘She asks you every year,’ Japhra said, her voice soft.

‘I don’t need a ceremony,’ Tesadora said.

‘And what if a child comes to your union?’ the Priestess asked.

Tesadora sent her an annoyed look, but the Priestess persisted.

‘The end of the curse for Charyn means the end of the curse for you, Tesadora,’ she said.

‘I’m past the age,’ Tesadora said. Japhra made a sound of disbelief.

‘My mother birthed me at the same age as you,’ the Priestess said. ‘And the Queen’s beloved mother gave birth to her fourth and fifth children well past your age. He’s very virile, Tesadora.’

As if Perri suspected he was being spoken about, he looked across at them from where he was digging.

‘If you allow that man into your bed, be prepared to hold a child at your breast one day.’

‘Remember what John of Charyn said, Tesadora,’ one of the
novices joined in. ‘That his mother was a midwife and women came to her at all ages.’

‘Yes, and his father was a man of horses and old mares dropped dead when they were carrying,’ Tesadora said, her tone tart. ‘Enough. All of you.’

Froi accompanied Tesadora and Japhra and two of their girls back up to the mountain that afternoon, his mind going over the talk of the day. There were names and facts he couldn’t get out of his head, for some reason.

Japhra was quiet and when they were well ahead of the others, he asked her about Rafuel.

He had spoken to Japhra about Rafuel last time he was in the valley and she had introduced him to Quintana’s women of the cave.

‘Do you love him?’ he had asked. ‘Rafuel?’

‘Does it matter?’ Japhra said. ‘My heart belongs here with Tesadora and my work, and his heart belonged in Charyn with the Priests and their work.’ She smiled. ‘But he helped me heal and one day I want to do something to repay him.’

Down in the valley, he was taken again to the women who once shared Quintana’s cave. Froi always found it hard to believe Quintana had bonded with these three: two who grumbled and argued, one who giggled and preened. But Cora, Jorja and Florenza loved his girl and they had taken care of her. If there was any reason to spend time with them, it was that. More than anything, he loved the valley. Because the valley was Lumatere and Charyn. Forest and rock and mountain.

‘If I write a letter to the palace,’ he said quietly to Cora, ‘will you sign your name to it?’

‘Why can’t you sign your own name to it?’ she demanded, making a rude sound any time he attempted to take a blade to
one of the weeds in her vegetable garden that now lined the path along the stream.

‘Because I promised I wouldn’t,’ Froi said.

Florenza of Nebia nudged Cora.

‘Of course, you’ll do it, Cora. Or I will. I want to write to Phaedra anyway.’

Cora grumbled.

‘Don’t you go upsetting our little savage,’ Cora warned. ‘That’s all you men are good for. Upsetting women.’

‘What’s the letter about?’ Jorja asked.

‘It’s just a story I heard that may interest them,’ Froi said. ‘About a young man named John. John of Charyn.’

 

 

I
start my day counting. And it slows down the rage. And only then, when the rage is a melody, do I go see the little King, so he’ll hear a hum of joy the moment I speak. He knows me, this strange little creature. And it feels goods to be known this well. It makes me less lonely. Because I think I’ve lost my song to Froi. It was taken when the spirits of the unborn babes went away. I miss them. I miss blaming them for the rage and my cold, cold heart. In the end, the sum of my vices is all me. I was sired by a tyrant and a gods’ blessed. Sometimes, I’ve no idea which part of me is more frightening.

And most days we’re fine, the little King and me. Phaedra is by our side. ‘Because I’ll never leave you,’ she says, and she fusses and loves, but I hear her sadness deep in the night. There’s sadness all around. During the days, I watch Gargarin write and talk and fight and limp from one tower to the other. Those Provincari parrots are the bane of our lives. He goes to appease, to convince, to plan, to build, to try the guilty and release the innocent. Because the trials have begun and there’s death in the air. The Provincari have sent a judge from every province to assist
Gargarin in sentencing the Charynites who acted dishonourably, or worse. They want to try to execute them on palace grounds, but I don’t want their cries heard by my little king, because the cries of the wretched always find a way to wedge themselves deep in the marrow of one’s spirit. I don’t want that for my boy. And Gargarin wins this first battle and we adopt the Lumateran ways. Our traitors are executed out of plain sight of those from the Citavita.

Olivier of Sebastabol does not become one of those condemned to die. Much to my despair. The Provincari pardon him.
Brave, brave Olivier
, they say. But I remember the eight arrows that pinned Froi down to that rock outside Paladozza. And when he’s a free man, Olivier kneels at my feet and tells me he’ll spend the rest of his life in my service, even as a lowly soldier. Lastborns don’t play soldier, I say. They play nobleman. They play merchant. They play landowner. But Olivier will do anything to prove his worth, he tells me.

‘Where do you want him?’ Perabo asks.

‘In the dungeons,’ I say. ‘Because everyone knows the dungeon master is as much a prisoner as those he guards.’

And weeks pass and a letter arrives from Cora. It’s travelled from the valley to Alonso and to Jidia and then it reaches us. The scribe reads it aloud in the great hall because there are to be no secrets from the Provincari in Charyn. It’s the story of a lad named John of Charyn, hanged as a traitor fourteen years past. Hanged by his own men for saving the lives of twenty-three Lumateran novices. It’s a letter requesting that the mother and father of such a lad be told of their boy’s courage. But I see the letter, written in penmanship so alike to Gargarin’s that I know it’s Froi’s, and later I show it to the little King so he’ll know his father’s hand.
And I see the names of John of Charyn’s kin and I shudder at the power of the gods who steer our paths.

‘Do you believe in fate?’ I ask Arjuro when he comes to visit and reads the letter with watery eyes. He laughs, shaking his head.

‘You ask that of me?’

And more weeks pass and nothing changes, except Phaedra’s cries in the night are more muffled, hidden by her love for Tariq and myself.

‘Are you happy here, Phaedra?’ I ask one day.

And she looks up from loving Tariq’s perfect face and I see the fierceness in her eyes.

‘I will never leave you,’ she says.

‘It’s not what I asked.’

And most nights there’s no sleep to be had. There are too many things keeping me awake. Tariq’s cries. The shadow on my balconette that makes my heart leap with one name on my lips. And the cells where the traitors are imprisoned. I wish I could keep away, but I can’t.

Olivier of Sebastabol tells me he knows why I’m there, hovering in the bowels of the palace. He sits at a bench with no more than a flicker of candlelight, recording his facts, his once-handsome face pale and thin.

‘Don’t read my mind, traitor.’

‘You’re here about the girl, Ginny,’ he sighs, looking up. ‘She cries for you often.’

‘Ah, you know her well,’ I mock. ‘She’s knelt at your feet, has she?’

‘She’s condemned to hang a week from now,’ he says. ‘That’s all there is to know.’

But they gnaw at my sleep, these two, and I travel there each
day before dawn, hovering at the entrance, praying to the gods that Ginny will batter her head against the stone so her death will be at her own hand, and not mine.

‘This is no place for you,’ Olivier of Sebastabol says.

‘Do you think your concern for me is going to change my mind about you?’ I demand to know.

‘No, but I’ll still express it,’ he says. ‘Whatever has happened, my actions will always be determined by my need to keep you safe, my queen.’

‘I’m not a queen.’

‘You were Tariq’s bride,’ he says. ‘Tariq was a king. You are his queen in my eyes.’

Olivier stands and lights a lantern. ‘Come,’ he says quietly. ‘You need to say your piece before her death, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life.’ And I let him guide me through the damp darkness. It’s a place to get lost, this labyrinth of misery. But I know the way because I’ve been here before. Waiting for a noose. I know the terror that taunts, and the piss that stains your legs from fear. I know the stench wedged deep in the stone, I know the sounds of the rats scurrying, the touch of their whiskers on your skin.

And when I hold up the light and see her huddled in the corner of her filthy chamber, my hatred for her is even stronger.

‘I despise you,’ I say. ‘I always did. I despised your lamenting. I despised your need to blame everyone for lost dreams. Poor, poor pathetic Ginny. What a life she could have had if not for the lastborns,’ I mock. ‘I despise your weakness. Your desire to satisfy the needs of men, but not your own. I despise that I can’t remove from my memory the image of Phaedra and Cora and Florenza and Jorja on their knees waiting for death.’

And I’m weeping because I’m weak in that way. It’s another unwelcome gift the unborn savage spirits left me with: the need to cry for everything and everyone.

Ginny crawls to the iron bars to speak.

‘Not a word,’ I say. ‘I never want to hear your voice again, you wretch. I never want to see your face again.’

And the day is announced by the cock that crows and she’s on her knees begging, sobbing, and I remember the time with the street lords when they took this palace and wiped out my bloodline. I remember the begging. Aunt Mawfa. The cousins. The stewards. The uncles. All begging for life and Gargarin in the cell beside me saying, ‘Close your ears, Reginita. There’s nothing you can do to save them. We’re powerless.’

But I’ll never be powerless again.

‘There’s a tailor passing through from Nebia,’ I tell her, because today is not a day for dying. My son spoke that to me with his smile. ‘The tailor needs an apprentice and you’re going to join him. And you’re going to learn everything you believe was taken away from you by the lastborns. So when you fail again, you will have no excuse but your pathetic self.’

And I reach a hand inside the bars and grip at the filth of her hair till it binds to my hand. ‘Don’t dare show your face in this Citavita or in Phaedra’s valley as long as I breathe, or I will have you cut in pieces and fed to the hounds.’

‘Phaedra’s valley.’

I wake with those words on my lips on the day Grijio of Paladozza arrives and I know it’s a sign. I count so I can find a way to breathe, watching Phaedra of Alonso hold Tariq in her arms, and I know I have to do what is right, so I speak the words. And she weeps and she weeps and begs me, but I numb my heart to her cries.

‘Go back to where you came from, Phaedra,’ I say. ‘You’re not needed anymore.’

And for days after, I walk through that strange sleep with Tariq in my arms and he takes me places I don’t want to go. Searching for her. Isaboe of Lumatere. She with the stealth and She with the strength. And my son promises me that if we find her, I’ll sing my song again. He knows, because there’s a spirit inside him seeking her. But in Tariq’s waking hours he wails, and it curdles my blood because I know what is true. They’ve poisoned my son. So we stay in my chamber, Tariq and I, day in and day out, a dagger in my hand as he wails with all his might. Until Gargarin comes and sits by my side and I see the sadness in his eyes and for the first time I’ve known him, Gargarin of Abroi weeps.

‘You’re letting the demons win, Quintana,’ he says. ‘He won’t want this for you. Froi won’t want this for you.’

And he holds out a hand and takes me down the tower steps to the courtyard where travellers have arrived. A man and a woman, their faces gaunt and pale.

‘You sent for them,’ Gargarin said. ‘Be gentle, they’re frightened.’

And clutching Tariq to me, I walk to them, because I know who they are.

‘Your son was a traitor who was executed,’ I tell them and I hear Gargarin’s intake of breath beside me. I see the woman’s legs crumple beneath her as the man holds her upright.

Tesadora says to coat my words. So I try again. I try a gentle voice. I use the voice that belonged to the Reginita.

I tell them about their son who was taken to Lumatere fourteen years past. I tell them that he and Arjuro hid the young novices of Lagrami, who went on to save the lives of many. I tell them their son was arrested and sentenced to hang while Arjuro was imprisoned for ten long years. And I tell them that I want to understand. I beg them to share it with me.

‘How do you raise a boy of substance?’ I ask her. ‘Will you
stay and teach me?’ I look at them both. ‘Soon we’ll have a stable of the best horses in the kingdom, Hamlyn of Charyn. Is that not what you were known for? The best horse trainer outside Jidia? Will you and Arna stay and teach me how to raise a good man?’

My son wails in my arms. The little King wants to know, too. He wants to be that son.

And Arna holds out her hands to take Tariq in hers, her fingers going to his mouth, holding up his perfect lips and I see the rawness of his gums.

‘Your boy’s teeth are bringing him pain,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s why he cries. And he needs to be bathed.’

And so we bathe him, surrounded by his guards, just in case his little head slips. Tariq gurgles with laughter, his arms and legs flailing like the strange sea urchins I’ve seen in the books of the ancients. And Arna of Charyn places the cloth in my hand. ‘They love water,’ she says gently. ‘You try.’

We take Tariq from the tub and Dorcas holds up the blanket to wrap him, all the guards fussing. Arna shows me how to wipe him dry and I let Dorcas hold him. Because Dorcas is my favourite. He choked the life out of Bestiano of Nebia.

‘Can I hold him?’ Fekra asks.

‘Can I?’

‘Can I?’

But then I place Tariq in the crook of his
shalamon
’s arms and Gargarin’s mouth twists into its bittersweet beauty.

‘When a king hides behind the walls of a castle, his people are frightened,’ he says quietly.

So with Lirah and Arna by my side, surrounded by the riders, I travel through the Citavita and we jostle through the people, more people than I’ve ever seen except for the day of the hanging. I hear the weeping and the joy and I dare not look for the
noose because Gargarin says it is not there to be found. But when a woman grips my arm, I jump from fear.

‘I’ve not bled for months, Your Highness,’ she sobs. ‘I’m weary all the time and I don’t know what to do. I’m frightened to squat over the privy in case a babe slips out.’

Dorcas gently guides me along, but I pull free.

‘Are you a fool?’ I demand to know of her. ‘It won’t be slipping out for months!’

So I order the girl up to the godshouse where Arjuro will soften her fears, but the next day in our chamber, I hear a bellow from across the gravina.

‘Quintana!’

And I step outside to the balconette where a furious Arjuro is standing on the other side of the gravina.

‘Here. In the godshouse. Now!’

When we reach the path up to the godshouse with our guards, Gargarin and Arna and I stop in shock.

‘He’ll kill you,’ Gargarin mutters, and I see the road is lined with women, weeping. Desperate. Every woman carrying a child in her belly, from the Citavita and beyond, is waiting to see Arjuro. And inside, we push through the long line of people and suddenly Lirah is there, taking Tariq in her arms.

‘Arjuro is furious,’ she said. ‘And to make matters worse the
collegiati
arrived today and they may be good at reading books about women carrying babies but they have no idea how to speak to women carrying babies.’

Day after day we spend our mornings at the godshouse. There’s too much confusion and shouting and crying, most of it coming from the
collegiati
. And then a week later while Arna shows the women how to hold Tariq so one day they’ll know how to hold their own, we hear a voice outside from the godshouse entrance.

‘I’m here, my loves. No need for despair,’ Tippideaux of Paladozza says, and by that afternoon she’s created rosters and assigned chambers and shouted orders and terrorised the
collegiati
into submission. She tells us all, because she does enjoy an audience, that since the betrayal of Olivier of Sebastabol, she has no trust in men except for her father and brother.