‘Pitifully so.’
‘It’s a trait of the rock people, I’m afraid,’ Rhiannon said. She was from the Rock herself and was the best authority to say so.
‘Could you prepare a bath, Rhiannon? I’ll take care of the rest.’
Isaboe watched as he glanced up, not quite as sheepishly as she would have liked, but she did see his shoulders relax at the sight of her. It had been weeks since he left in rage and she still felt raw from the accusation he had made before they parted. She felt raw from everything. She remembered the time she had carried Jasmina in her belly, when the future had felt promising. But this time was different and she didn’t know how to put it into words. This fear. This premonition of doom.
She went back inside to where Rhiannon was pouring water into the tub and she waited. She knew him well. Now that his father no longer lived in the palace they would speak for some time at the stables about the outcome of their travels.
A short while later he shuffled into the chamber, and she could see his relief that the tub was filled. She imagined he was cold to the bone. His clothing seemed to weigh him down. Wordlessly she approached him and unhooked his fleece cloak, pushing it from his shoulders and dropping it to the ground, and then she pulled free his shirt. He held up his arms as she dragged it over his head, his eyes on her the whole time. Her hands went to the fastening of his trousers and his head bent towards hers, but she turned her face away, though not before she caught the flash in his eyes. Then he stepped out of his clothing and climbed into the steaming water with a deep sigh of pleasure. Isaboe crouched beside him and her hand tugged his hair back.
‘If you ever walk out of this palace accusing me of disloyalty to our spousal bed again, I’ll tear you apart, piece by piece.’
A hand as quick as hers gripped her face. ‘And if you wake with another man’s name on your lips again, I’ll tear him apart, piece by piece.’ His mouth was hard on hers but she matched his force and then he let go, lifting a hand to trace her lips with his thumb. She gently pushed him back and tended to him and she could see his eyes on the opening of her shift that allowed him a glimpse of the curve of her body, ripe with their child. He reached to clench her garment in a fist. ‘Take it off,’ he begged hoarsely. ‘Please.’ And she lifted it over her head and climbed into the tub, straddling his thighs as his hands wandered over her swollen belly. He pressed a kiss against it before taking her face between his hands, his mouth back on hers. She felt a hunger from him like never before, their mouths greedy for anything they could take, and when she moved above him, he thrust into her and she covered his mouth with her hand to stop his cries echoing across the quiet chamber to where their guard stood outside.
Later, they lay in each other’s arms in their bed. She pressed her lips against his pale chest, tracing a finger across a new bruise or two.
‘My queen …’
‘Yes, my king?’
‘I’m dying,’ he groaned.
She laughed.
‘You’ve caught a chill because you weren’t wearing an under-shirt, and every year you catch a chill for the same reason and you believe you’re dying. It’s a common cold, my love. The type that men catch. The one they believe is killing them.’
‘I’m speaking the truth. I am dying. My nose is red raw and my throat …’ He made a choking sound. ‘It hurts,’ he said hoarsely. ‘And you mock me when all I need is your tender care.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t go home with your father and have Beatriss fuss over you.’
His arms bound tightly around her. ‘If I spent one more night away from my wife I would have just laid down and died.’
She chuckled. ‘Ah, you’re a clever man for saying all the right things.’
She covered them both with a blanket and he tucked her in the crook of his arm.
‘Tell me everything,’ she said quietly.
‘From the sounds of things you’ve got as much to tell me.’
She tried to find the words, but still hadn’t spoken them aloud.
‘Tesadora … and I are no longer on speaking terms,’ she finally said.
‘Because she’s befriended a strange Charynite in the valley? That doesn’t sound enough of a reason for you to break with someone you love as dearly as you do that hostile woman.’ He peered down at her. ‘Why are there so many hostile women in this land?’
‘You’re not very good with women, Finnikin. Your father, on the other hand, has them eating out of his hands, but you’re just hopeless.’
‘I am not.’
‘This is how my Mont womenfolk refer to you,’ she said, doing an exaggerated movement with her eyes and mouth. ‘Finnikin!’
He laughed. ‘You are ridiculous and we’re digressing from Tesadora’s strange friend.’
Isaboe turned to face him.
‘Are you ready for this?’ she asked.
‘After the tales I’ve heard in Charyn, I’m ready for anything,’ he said.
‘Tesadora is hiding the Princess of Charyn from the Charynites.’
‘Mercy!’ Finnikin sat up, stunned.
She nodded.
‘You mean Quintana of Charyn has been here all along?’ he asked.
Isaboe looked at him, confused and irritated.
‘That wasn’t quite the response I was expecting,’ she said.
Finnikin sighed. ‘We found Froi. With Gargarin of Abroi, who isn’t exactly the man we thought he was.’
‘And how certain are we of that?’ she asked.
‘Quite certain. All three of us agree that we could have made a catastrophic error.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call killing a Charynite a catastrophic error,’ she said.
‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked.
‘I’m ready for anything,’ she said, but she felt the doubt of her own words. When it came to Froi, she wasn’t quite sure.
‘Gargarin of Abroi is not just a Charynite, Isaboe. He’s Froi’s father.’
‘What?’ She sat up instantly.
‘I met the mother as well.’
‘Froi has a mother?’
‘Awful woman. Beautiful beyond comprehension, but awful. Spat at me. Granted, I was about to kill her lover, but still … she hated me at first sight. But beautiful. Achingly beautiful.’
‘Yes, I do think I’ve got the point about her being beautiful,’ Isaboe said. ‘But tell me of Froi. How would he know such a thing?’
Finnikin slipped out of bed to get to his pack and she watched him shiver as he riffled through his belongings, holding up a letter before sprinting back to her and settling himself under the comfort of the blankets.
‘He’s written to you and Augie and the Priestking. It’s all strange. Lettering scorched into his head, hidden all this time. Wording on his back, only visible to the gods’ touched. That’s what they call their gifted. He’s been wounded and sewn up and he’s confused and I’m sure I saw a tear or two, and Perri hasn’t coped with any of it. Deep down I think Perri thought Froi was his. And the father … Gargarin. An intellect? Froi’s father an intellect? His body all mangled from palace beatings. The father’s, not Froi’s. And the father has a twin with the same face who was trapped in Lumatere for ten years and was almost poisoned by you and Tesadora with the rest of them.’
‘Finnikin, be serious.’
‘That was serious,’ he protested. ‘And they’re angry at each other, Froi and the father. And the mother is just cold.’
Isaboe studied Finnikin’s face for the truth and saw it there.
‘Poor Froi,’ she said, heartbroken for their friend. ‘Why didn’t you bring him home instead of leaving him with those hideous people?’
‘Because I think Froi loves those hideous people.’
Isaboe’s head was spinning from everything she was hearing.
‘It was strange … but he looked so foreign,’ Finnikin said.
‘Gargarin of Abroi?’
‘No. Froi. I’d never noticed before. Perhaps it was hearing
him speak Charyn. His manner with the father and the awful … but beautiful mother … ouch, that hurt.’
‘I’ll pinch you harder the next time.’ She reached for the letter.
‘Have you read it?’ she asked.
‘Over and over again. It’s a fantastical tragedy … and you’re going to have to prepare yourself.’
‘I think I know a thing or two about fantastical tragedies,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s the mad princess you’ll have to prepare yourself for. She’s with child.’
Isaboe sighed. ‘I know. It was the only thing that stopped me from slitting her throat.’
‘Yes, we’ll talk about you running savage in the valley with a dagger later,’ he said, and she could hear the anger in his voice. ‘But read the letter and you’ll understand.’
She felt him watching her as she read and she felt sick from dread as she took in the details before her. She read it twice. Three times. Looked at Finnikin with disbelief and he nodded because he knew it all well.
‘What are your thoughts?’ he asked quietly.
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Then she’d have to feel anger … and regret. Guilt, perhaps. But she didn’t want to. She had every right to despise Quintana of Charyn.
‘You think it’s his?’ she asked quietly.
‘Yes I do.’
‘What a mess,’ she said. ‘I hope Froi doesn’t think they’ll let him raise that child alongside her.’
‘He’s not thinking that far ahead. He’s desperate to know she’s alive and here she is in our valley. If you want to know the truth … I believe that the Charynites want her dead more than we do.’
‘Well, I’m not protecting her, regardless of who the father of her child is.’
She thought about it a little longer, and the more she did, the angrier she grew.
‘Don’t tell me he’s in love with her, Finnikin. You’ve got to see her. She’s … this vicious cold-looking viper. All small and round, much the same as Lucian’s supposedly dead wife. Little people irritate me. I felt like this monstrous giant alongside them.’
‘Well, it’s not as if we’re letting her up the mountain,’ Finnikin said. ‘That’s all we need. More of our people killed to protect a mad princess, regardless of what she means to Froi.’
They stayed in bed sorting through correspondence.
‘Nothing from Jehr?’ he asked and it pained her to hear the sadness in his voice. In exile they had taken refuge in Yutlind, a kingdom that had been at war with itself for as long as anyone could remember. Finnikin, Isaboe and Froi had all struck up a profound bond with the heir of the southern throne, Jehr, and they all despaired at not having heard from the southern Yuts for at least two winters now.
‘I think those northerners have done something to Jehr. It’s been too long. I think we’re going to have to accept that Yutlind Sud is gone,’ Finnikin said.
They heard a sound in the hallway and then Jasmina’s chatter, and Isaboe saw Finnikin’s face soften. Her heart sang to see his smile. Sometimes she was frightened that Finnikin would never understand their daughter, in the way he didn’t understand most women. Jasmina ran into the room, eyes wandering, searching, and lighting up with joy when she saw her father. Finnikin leapt out of bed and held out his arms, and she ran to him. ‘Fa,’ she said with delight, and he pretended to collapse from the weight of her until they were lying beside Isaboe.
‘I like the sound of Fa,’ he said.
‘She’s copying Vestie.’
‘Tell me again why she has to call us Isaboe and Finnikin?’ he asked.
Jasmina was smothering them both with kisses.
‘In case anything happens to us,’ Isaboe replied. ‘I read it in one of the chronicles of the ancients to do with child-rearing. The more a child gets used to comfort terms such as Fa and Mumma, the more they will grieve if something happens to them. It’s the words they miss using.’
Jasmina squeezed them all together, her little arms around both their necks, and she practised her counting with a kiss to each cheek.
‘Yes, I can see it working,’ Finnikin said dryly. ‘Can we rid ourselves of the child-rearing books and let her call us whatever she wants?’
Isaboe laughed at Jasmina’s antics and he kissed them both. Suddenly the three of them were knocked aside by a force beyond reckoning and she knew by the thunderous look on Finnikin’s face that she’d have to explain the hound’s presence on the bed.
‘We were all so sad and he cried and cried for you,’ she explained. ‘We all did.’
She patted the dog.
‘He’s only slept with us when he’s cold and lonely,’ she said.
Finnikin stared at her with disbelief.
‘Isaboe, he is a hound. He will feign loneliness for the rest of his life just to lie on this bed. My bed. I was the king of this bed.’
He was woeful, but at the sound of the dog snoring, Isaboe could see a ghost of a smile on his face.
She could already hear the world they had to tend to outside calling to them, but for now it was just the three of them … and the hound, and Isaboe understood that happiness came in such moments and she savoured it.
I see Tesadora in the woods, scraping sap from the trees. She knows I am there and she turns, holds my stare. She knows me, she knows me, she can see deep within.
‘Is it true that you love me more than the Lumateran Queen?’ I ask.
It’s the news that I’ve heard, it makes my blood sing. She walks to me, smiling, takes my face in her hands. But standing so closely, I see the truth in her eyes.
‘I love Isaboe of Lumatere with all my heart.’
I pull free from her grip and I clench both my fists.
‘Do you love her more than the scarred one?’ I demand.
‘His name is Perri and he doesn’t like to be reminded of his scar. So don’t mention it,’ she adds with a mocking whisper.
‘Would he be handsome to you without it?’
‘I was the one who put it there,’ she says with a shrug. ‘And he’s handsome enough with it.’
‘Do you love your Perri more than the Queen of Lumatere?’ I ask again.
‘If I love him less, does that make it less than love?’
‘But if you had to choose between them?’
‘I don’t want to live in a world where I have to choose,’ she says, and I hear fury in her voice and I dance on its embers. It’s for the other, that bitch queen who dared threaten my life. I’ll kill her for that, I’ll slice her to pieces. A jab to the side and a blade ear to ear.
‘And if your scarred lover doesn’t come down the mountain because she forbids him?’ I ask. ‘What then?’
‘Then so be it,’ Tesadora says. ‘They’ll both lose me.’
‘And it will just be you and me,’ I say. ‘That’s why you stayed in the valley. For me.’
And she looks at me sadly and I see tears pool in her eyes.
‘I stayed here because Isaboe can live without me. You can’t. You’re a pathetic lost spirit with no one.’
And I hold back my hurt, Froi. The hurt that you’ve seen.
‘Put away those savage teeth,’ she laughs. ‘They don’t scare me the slightest.’
And she grips my chin so I cannot break free.
‘Do you know what I just did, my broken little savage?’ she asks. ‘I told a truth. Do you understand the power truth has to hurt? Ask me why I stay again and I’ll find better words.’
If it was you, would you ask, Froi, or would you just walk away? But I’m desperate to know and I wait for the strength.
‘Is it true that you love me more than the Queen?’ I say and my voice is small and frightened. I don’t want to hear this truth twice.
‘I love the Queen with all my heart,’ she says. ‘But, for now, my place is here, because I’ll do anything to protect you. I can’t explain why. You’re on your own and I can’t bear the idea of someone hurting you.’
I unclench
my fists. I like her new words.
‘Better?’ she asks and I nod in relief.
‘Understand what your truth does to others,’ she says. ‘Others such as Phaedra, my savage cat. Think for a moment. Not every thought in your head has to come out of your mouth.’
I don’t understand.
‘Learn to cloak your words, Quintana. Not with lies, but without so much truth. Do you want everyone like Phaedra to walk away from you, bleeding in spirit?’
I stay next to her and I work alongside her, watching the way she tears the bark into strips, and when everything’s silent, she looks deep in my eyes.
‘Who else is in there with you? Who else, my noble little savage?’
And I feel the tears in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.
But she takes my hand and presses it to her cheek and I speak words I’ve never said aloud.
‘Sometimes … sometimes … it seems I’m bits and pieces and she … my sister, the Reginita … she was able to make sense of it all. I’d say, “Look after them! I don’t have the time,” and she’d say, “They’re part of us now. Not whole beings, but part of you. They want to go home, but they can’t. Because they’re not complete.”’
Tesadora stares at me, her face pale.
‘And I don’t understand her,’ I say. ‘So don’t ask me more.’
‘What are you hiding from me?’ Tesadora asks.
And I place my head against her heart. ‘Tesadora,’ I say. ‘I think the half-dead spirit of your child lives within me.’
Phaedra heard the crunch of leaves coming closer and closer and hid deeper inside the shelter, praying it wasn’t Donashe or one of his men. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that the camp leaders would not venture so far downstream, she had no trust in Donashe’s vow to the Monts that he would not cross. These men were opportunists of the worst kind and she feared what would happen if they ever found out the truth of who Phaedra and the women were hiding.
She saw two pairs of feet and caught her breath until Tesadora squatted down to stare inside.
‘We’ve been looking for you,’ Tesadora said, none too pleased. ‘She’s refused to return to the cave and we can’t have her running around without anyone keeping an eye on her.’