‘She’s angry and she’s hurt,’ he said. ‘She’ll be very frosty in her response to you because of your duty to the Queen and you might just find yourself back up that mountain, because when Tesadora’s furious, you have to give her space.’
Perri stared at Lucian, impassively.
‘Yes, we’ve actually become friends … almost,’ Lucian continued, ‘and I think she’s beginning to trust me. She’s not going to want to talk about what happened with the Queen and she’s especially not going to like the fact that you’ve come down this mountain with not so much as a note from Isaboe. So let me do the talking, Perri. This may not end well for you if you act too prematurely.’
Lucian watched as Tesadora stepped out of her tent, having heard their horses. Perri leapt off his horse and a moment later she was in his arms and they were kissing in a way that had even the horses tossing their manes in surprise.
‘Where’s Beast?’ she asked, staring at the strange horse.
‘A very long story,’ Perri said.
They walked into the tent, perhaps to talk about the Queen or where Beast was.
Lucian thought it best not to follow.
Serker was a wasteland. Cracked earth, dead stumps of trees and not a speck of fertile land as far north as the eye could see. Worse still were the piercing shrieks that sliced at Froi’s ears.
‘Can you hear that?’ he shouted to Gargarin, who rode with him that day. Lirah was riding ahead on Beast. It was only fitting that she entered her province on a Serkan horse.
‘The wind has a bite in these parts,’ Gargarin said.
‘It’s not the wind I hear.’
Froi dismounted, his knees buckling, fatigued by the sounds of the damned that called to him. He took in his surrounds, unable to fathom the horror of what had taken place in Serker nineteen years past. Low ruins of cottages burnt to the ground. Other dwellings so intact: an even crueller reminder that a people once existed here. Skeletal remains lay where people had been slaughtered. The once-thriving town void of breath. Even the air seemed to have stilled to nothing.
‘The land is so flat,’ Froi said, looking up at Gargarin. ‘How can an army possibly be hiding here?’
‘You know better than to ask that when you’ve spent so much time living as a trog these past months,’ Gargarin said.
But there was doubt even in Gargarin’s voice. What were the chances of an army and their horses hiding in this strange place? The only army Froi knew of was the one he had glimpsed in a valley between Sebastabol and Serker earlier that morning. He hadn’t told Gargarin and Lirah. He saw no reason to alarm them.
‘How could they not have seen the King’s army coming?’ Froi asked.
Gargarin didn’t respond, and Froi could see he was watching Lirah up ahead as she followed the road to the colossal theatre they had glimpsed the moment they entered Serker.
‘The Serker army was too busy attacking up north,’ Gargarin said. ‘They were lied to and misinformed by a spy that the northern province of Desantos was set to invade. That was Serker’s weakness. They’d fly into any skirmish at a moment’s notice, always to prove their power. Later, when the people saw the horses approaching from the north, they believed them to be their own returning soldiers. They didn’t realise it was the King’s men who had circled the province. And by the time the real Serkan army returned home, they didn’t realise they were walking into a trap and that most of their people were already slaughtered.’
Froi continued to walk alongside Gargarin in silence. He tried to remember Arjuro’s song calling the dead so he could sing it in his heart and perhaps stop the shrieks of the spirits that only he could hear, but it would not come to mind. And then finally they reached the place once called Il Centro: an open-air stage surrounded by tiered steps reaching so high that they disappeared beneath the low, filthy clouds. It was as if Serker had built a way to touch the gods.
‘I’ve never seen anything so mighty before,’ Froi said.
‘As young men, Arjuro, De Lancey and I travelled here to listen to great lectures about the planets and the philosophy of the ancients,’ Gargarin said. ‘It wasn’t rare to meet a Lumateran here, and if you ask your Priestking and the Priestesses of your cloisters, you’ll find they’ll all have visited Serker in their day.’
Froi wondered if Tesadora’s mother, Seranonna, had come to this place and lain with a Serkan.
‘It’s where most of the people of this province died,’ Gargarin said.
‘How did they all come to be there?’ Froi asked.
Gargarin put a finger to his lips as they approached Lirah and Beast. She had slowed down and seemed in her own world.
‘The census,’ Gargarin said quietly. ‘The Provincaro called one, which meant that every Serkan had to travel to Il Centro. The seneschal had recorded the name of every soldier who had gone off to fight, so what better time to complete the task of a province-wide reckoning? The people of Serker were all assembled in this great place of learning, waiting to have their names recorded. But it never happened and those names are lost. Almost the entire population was annihilated. It’s been said that those who survived later crawled out from under the bodies of their loved ones and have been hiding ever since.’
They listened to Lirah crooning to Beast.
‘Nineteen years ago we had children and babes in Charyn,’ Gargarin said.
Froi wanted to smash his head with a fist to keep the images from entering his mind.
‘It’s what happened in Sarnak to the river people of Lumatere,’ he said quietly.
‘We heard the stories of the Sarnak slaughter,’ Gargarin said. ‘Is it true that your queen bore witness and demands that the Sarnak King arrest the men responsible?’
Froi nodded. ‘Those riverfolk belonged to Trevanion. He and Lady Abian are the last of their village. Only now have the Queen and Finnikin allowed others to live in Tressor. The land is too fertile to waste, but there is a signpost with the name of every man, woman and child who ever lived there. When Princess Jasmina was born, the Queen and Finnikin had her blessed and titled Jasmina of the River in honour of her pardu. Her grandfather.’
But Gargarin’s attention was again drawn ahead to Lirah. ‘See to her, Froi,’ he said, his voice low.
‘She’ll not want me there.’
Lirah was weeping. It twisted Froi up inside to see Lirah the strong, Lirah the fierce and cold and unbreakable, weeping.
‘Go,’ Gargarin said.
Froi hurried to catch up with her, but the moment she saw him, Lirah wiped her tears fiercely, her attention on the bridle of Beast. Froi didn’t know what to say. He glanced around, trying to think of something. Everything was dead. Or so it seemed at first. But what he had come to understand in his travels with the Lumaterans and Charynites was that nature chose to defy man’s will to destroy. Close by, wild pink and purple flowers peppered the landscape on the road beside them.
‘Let me up,’ he said.
Lirah made room and Froi climbed onto Beast behind her. He pointed over her shoulder. ‘Bronshoi.’
She looked up and then nodded. Then she pointed to another. ‘Sajarai.’
And Froi understood Lirah’s passion for her prison garden. She had planted the Serker that she couldn’t forget.
They continued riding through the province, mostly in silence. Froi couldn’t help but think of Lumatere. It was less than a day’s ride from Isaboe’s palace to Lucian’s mountain. Here, it was more than a day’s ride from one end of Serker to the other.
Lumatere had never seemed so vulnerable.
When they reached another barren settlement of half-standing cottages, a murder of crows swooped close by. Froi dismounted and walked towards whatever had drawn them to the ground.
‘What is it?’ Gargarin asked, pulling up beside Lirah’s horse.
‘Someone’s here,’ Froi said. ‘Those birds would have nothing else to scavenge otherwise.’
Gargarin looked around and then struggled off his ho
rse.
‘We’re out here in the open,’ Gargarin said. ‘If they want me dead, they’d have killed me by now. Let’s set up camp and wait for whoever it is to politely come calling.’
‘I haven’t exactly been trained to wait for attackers to reveal themselves,’ Froi said, irritated.
‘Wait, I say.’
The three of them found refuge in a half-standing cottage that at least protected them from the wind. Gargarin built a small fire and Froi watched him cover Lirah with the robe he had borrowed from De Lancey and for a short while at least, she slept.
‘You asked before about the sound,’ Gargarin said later. ‘If it’s not the wind, what is it?’
Froi shook his head. He didn’t want to say the words.
‘You’ve got some of my brother’s gifts. That I’m certain of,’ Gargarin said. ‘Do you hear the Serkan dead?’
Froi felt Lirah’s eyes piercing into him.
‘I sense nothing,’ he lied. Because the truth was that he sensed agony and despair and unrest.
Something moved outside the shelter and Froi crept towards the sound. Gargarin gripped his arm, held him back.
‘Wait until he chooses to reveal himself.’
‘No,’ Froi said firmly. ‘We do this my way.’
He stepped outside and stared into the darkness. He could hear the sound of shallow breathing. It was a human sound, unlike the shrill whistle of the dead that he couldn’t block out. Froi knew they weren’t dealing with an army. It was one person, perhaps two. Good at staying concealed, but not good enough. Or perhaps their intruder wanted to be found.
Froi retrieved his dagger. ‘Reveal yourself!’ he called out. There was no response and he called out again.
‘Are you armed?’ came the response.
Froi recognised the voice and sighed with relief, regardless of its hostility.
‘Of course I’m armed,’ he said, irritated.
Gargarin was suddenly at Froi’s side.
‘Get back inside,’ Froi ordered.
‘Perabo?’ Gargarin called out. ‘Is that you?’
Froi heard the sound of something being lit and then a flicker of light appeared as a figure with a large bulk and craggy face and oil lamp in hand crawled out of the shadows.
‘You know each other?’ Froi asked. Perabo ignored him and held out a hand to Gargarin.
‘It’s been a long time,’ the keeper of the caves said, as the two men shook hands.
‘And sad days in between,’ Gargarin responded. ‘Our boy always spoke highly of you.’
Froi was confused. He had never mentioned Perabo at all, but then he realised with a wave of gut-deep envy that Gargarin was referring to Tariq. He felt Perabo’s accusing stare on him. Even after everything that had happened in the Citavita with Quintana’s rescue, Perabo would never forgive him for not getting her out sooner.
‘What are you doing here in Serker, Perabo?’ Gargarin asked. ‘On your own, at that?’
‘Waiting and hoping,’ Perabo said. ‘And here you are.’
Gargarin ushered Perabo into the shelter.
‘Tell me there’s an army here,’ Gargarin said. ‘One gathered in Tariq’s name.’
Perabo shook his head. ‘I’ve found nothing here but old ledgers hidden by a moneylender, and the town gossip’s chronicles.’
‘You have them?’ Lirah spoke up.
Perabo looked beyond Froi and Gargarin and stared at her, his expression showing appreciation at what he was seeing. He retrieved the chronicles from his pack and reached out to give them to her.
‘Lirah of Serker,’ he said, not needing to be told who she was. ‘This must cause you great pain.’
‘What in Charyn doesn’t?’ she said in a flat tone.
Perabo’s attention was back on Froi. ‘I heard it was you who lost her,’ the keeper of the caves said bluntly.
Froi bristled, but didn’t respond.
‘You’re being followed,’ Perabo finally said. Froi nodded, glancing at Lirah and Gargarin with a shrug.
‘I saw something when we rested in the valley of Sebastabol,’ he said.
‘Can you keep us informed of the “somethings”?’ Gargarin said sharply.
‘I reveal information when it needs to be revealed,’ Froi responded.
‘There is no army for us here,’ Perabo said, and Gargarin gave a sound of frustration. ‘But I can take you to one.’
‘Where?’
‘North,’ Perabo answered. ‘Two days’ ride beyond the great lake of Charyn.’
When five sacks of barley arrived on the mountain on a horse and cart from Lord Tascan’s river village, it caused more interest than Lucian cared for. At first, one or two of the Monts stopped their midday work to watch the sacks being offloaded outside Yata’s residence, but then Lucian’s kin began arriving in clusters of interest and intrigue, and by midafternoon there was no more work to be done on the mountain, just a whole lot of observations and opinions and rubbish.
‘Enough now. Back to work,’ Lucian ordered.
‘It’s a dowry,’ Jory said.
‘A what?’ Potts asked.
‘A dowry.’
Everyone turned to look at Jory, who was nodding with certainty, his stare fixed on Lucian.
‘Lord Tascan is offering you five sacks of grain as a dowry for Lady Zarah. That’s what this is.’
‘And what do you know about a dowry?’ Lucian asked, irritated because suddenly everyone was fascinated by what Jory had to say.
‘Phaedra,’ Jory said. ‘She explained them to me. The way I understand it is that if I want to betroth myself to a girl, her family will offer me something to take her off their hands.’
Lotte sniffed. ‘Oh, sweet Phaedra,’ she lamented.
‘Which I didn’t understand really, Lucian,’ Jory continued, ‘because wouldn’t Phaedra have been enough of a gift?’
Was there a challenge in his young cousin’s stance? Had Lucian been as obnoxious and bursting with all that thumping boy-blood energy when he was fifteen? He was sure he hadn’t. All that pent-up emotion that pointed down to one area of a lad’s body. Thankfully spring was coming. The Mont boys had been confined too long.
‘He’s right,’ Cousin Alda said.
‘I’m going to have to agree,’ Lucian’s uncle said.
Hmm. Yes, yes. Everyone had to agree. Everyone. Nothing better than a good death to create such affection for a Charynite.
‘Enough,’ Lucian snapped, well and truly sick and tired of it. All this talk of Lady Zarah and the two visits she had paid to the mountain had driven him to madness. Or was it Phaedra in the valley who had driven him to madness?
‘Let’s just agree that Phaedra was a gift and maybe I could have treated her better and kept her on this mountain and taken care of her like she deserved to be taken care of, the way men take care of women in all … ways, but the past is the past and we move forward!’
The Monts were gaping. Even Yata. Had he revealed too much?
‘No, I mean I agree about the fact that the sacks of barley are Tascan’s attempt at a dowry,’ Alda said.
Lucian watched Jory hide a smirk.
‘You can’t accept the barley, Lucian,’ Yata said practically. ‘Finnikin has chosen you as judge of the crop for market day and to accept five bushels of barley at this point from one lord over another will cause a feud.’
Wonderful. Now Lucian was going to be responsible for civil war in Lumatere.
‘But sending it back will seem an insult,’ Potts pointed out. Potts always pointed out facts with no good solutions.
‘A humiliation of Lord Tascan,’ one of the aunts said. ‘Imagine the sacks arriving back on his doorstep for the whole kingdom to see. The river lot don’t know how to keep their mouths shut.’
‘True, true,’ Lucian said, ‘and the gossip will spread like plague.’
‘Sweet Phaedra,’ Lotte cried. ‘Taken from us by a plague.’
‘Lucian! Respect.’
Perha
ps a wrong choice of word.
‘If Lord Tascan is insulted, there goes our exchange of pigs for crops,’ Alda said, irritated. ‘Don’t ruin this, Lucian!’
Everyone agreed that Lucian would ruin this.
‘Diplomacy is needed,’ Jory said.
‘You know what that means, do you?’ Lucian demanded. It was Jory who had started all this talk of dowries.
‘I didn’t,’ his young cousin said, ‘until Phaedra told me about it. “Diplomacy is better than war,” she would say.’
‘Phaedra’s not here!’ Lucian shouted.
Lotte cried into her apron and Lucian was the target of much headshaking and disgust.
The sacks of barley and Lotte’s crying and Jory’s smugness haunted Lucian all the night long.
‘So what would you do?’ he demanded out loud, as if Phaedra was in the room.
I’d be diplomatic, Luc-ien. And I’d do the right thing.
He fell asleep to those words and woke to them the next morning and found himself at Yata’s, where the sacks of grain were exactly where he had left them in the courtyard. He fought himself not to kick them hard for being the cause of a sleepless night.
From her kitchen, Yata knocked at the window and beckoned him in.
‘You are so hard on yourself, lad,’ she said when he was seated at her table drinking warm tea.
He could see outside the window where the mountain looked sublime with its crawling fog. On the slope close to his cousin Morrie’s home, Lucian saw a goat’s black face among the sheep. Beyond that were Leon and Pena’s vineyards. Sometimes Lucian forgot the beauty of his mountain, but here in Yata’s kitchen he truly understood why his ancestors had built the compound on this slope. So they could see their people.
‘Every decision I want to make hurts someone I love,’ he said. ‘Every decision I don’t make hurts someone I love. Fa never had doubt. Never.’
Yata sat before him. ‘On the day Saro decided to take us down that mountain and outside the kingdom walls during the five days of the unspeakable, he wept at this very same place you’re sitting now. Some of the Monts were furious. They weren’t going to leave their homes and Saro had to decide whether to stay or leave them behind. I asked him what his heart said and he didn’t hesitate. “Keep the Monts together, regardless of anger and resentment. Keep them together.”’