Quintana of Charyn

  ‘Then off you go,’ Cora muttered. ‘Keep an eye on her, Phaedra.’

  Quintana was up to something. That Phaedra knew. All the same, she followed her into the undergrowth, picking up anything that could pass as kindling. There was plenty to choose from and Phaedra hummed as she worked, pleased with what she was able to collect.

  ‘I’m getting good at this,’ she said to Quintana, holding up her bundle of twigs for emphasis.

  They reached a steep slope that afforded them a view of a lower clearing.

  ‘Put it down,’ Quintana ordered. ‘Let’s go.’

  Phaedra stared at her stash. ‘Go where?’ she asked.

  Quintana was already gripping a vine and half-sliding down the incline. Phaedra dropped the kindling and quickly followed.

  ‘You’re going to hurt yourself!’

  ‘He’s down there,’ Quintana whispered when Phaedra caught up with her, both of them hiding behind a waterberry tree.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’ll arm us. I know he will.’

  ‘Who?’

  Quintana pointed down. In a deep, narrow gully Tesadora was bent over, tugging at the exposed roots of plants growing around its edges. But it was her lover Perri that Quintana was pointing at. He sat with his back against a tree in some sort of contemplation. Quintana went to step out and Phaedra dragged her back.

  ‘If you dare mention what I saw them do, I will …’

  They both heard a sound and looked up to see the Lumateran on his feet, alerted to their presence.

  Tesadora noticed them as well, and climbed to where her lover stood, whispering to him, her eyes on Quintana with un bridled love.

  ‘You there, Lumateran,’ Quintana called out. ‘You’re to make me a few scabbards.’ Phaedra cringed, listening to the demand spoken in Charyn as if the Queen’s Guard would understand every word.

  Quintana walked closer, handing Phaedra her spear to hold.

  ‘Like the ones you made him. Here. Here. And here.’ She pointed to both wrists and her shoulders. ‘So when they come to attack, I’ll …’

  And then she did a quick show of what she’d do. Phaedra was quite enthralled. Perri studied Quintana and then a chuckle escaped from his lips. Quintana reached him and he held out a hand to gently touch her face. ‘What have we got here?’ he said in strange wonder.

  Tesadora’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Tell her,’ she urged her lover. ‘Tell her about Froi. She’ll want to know.’

  Quintana heard the name and clenched her fists so tight that Phaedra found herself dropping the spear and gripping both the girl’s hands, loosening her fingers.

  ‘You’re going to draw blood. Stop it.’

  And blood she drew, but not her own. Quintana’s nails dug deep into Phaedra’s hands.

  ‘Let Phaedra go,’ Tesadora ordered gently. ‘You’re hurting her, Quintana.’

  But she didn’t let go and Phaedra fought hard not to cry out in pain. And then Quintana was a heap on the ground before them as if she had willed the breath inside her to stop. Tesadora and Phaedra fell beside her. Perri didn’t speak, but when Quintana looked up to him, his smile was bittersweet.

  ‘So you’re the one Froi is running around Charyn searching for?’

  ‘Did he say my name?’ she asked, her voice cold. But Phaedra had learned to listen to the words and not the voice. The words craved love. The words were those that Phaedra thought over and over again at night. Did Lucian say her name? Did he think it or murmur it in his sleep like she did his?

  Phaedra translated the Queen’s words, but Perri understood them well enough.

  ‘Did he have to?’ he asked Quintana. ‘When your name is written all over his heart?’

  A smile appeared on Tesadora’s face. ‘Ah, you’re getting soft in your old age,’ she said to him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Perri held out a hand to Quintana and helped her to her feet, inspecting her wrists, as if measuring them for the scabbards.

  ‘You too, Phaedra,’ Perri said and her face flushed at the sound of him saying her name. She hadn’t even realised he knew who she was, despite the nights he had come up to the mountain and shared her table with Lucian.

  He made a gesture with his hand, asking them to turn around.

  ‘I don’t know how to use a weapon,’ Phaedra said over her shoulder.

  ‘You’re a Mont’s wife,’ he said gruffly. ‘So you better learn.’

  She heard an intake of breath and turned to watch as he traced a finger along the lettering on Quintana’s nape and then along the marks on Phaedra’s.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘The mark of the lastborns,’ Quintana said.

  ‘I thought they were supposed to be exactly the same,’ he said to Tesadora in Lumateran.

  Phaedra felt Tesadora’s coarse fingers on her neck.

  ‘They got it wrong,’ Tesadora insisted, surprise in her voice. ‘Those fools copied every lastborn with the same lettering as each other, but they’re different to yours, Quintana. Yours has stems on some of the letters. And a strange mark or two that seems nothing more than a dot.’

  Phaedra thought of all those years when the Priests and her father’s advisors had tried to work out the meaning of the strange lettering. ‘It makes no sense,’ they’d say. To think that Quintana’s differed from hers and those of the rest of the lastborns frightened her. It made the Princess seem even less of this world.

  ‘On my thirteenth day of weeping when they grabbed me and tried to keep me down to copy the lettering, I was a snake,’ Quintana said. ‘I squirmed and I squirmed and I bit any man who dared come close.’ There was glee in her voice at the memory, her sharp little teeth showing. ‘I knew what they’d do to the lastborn girls, so I made a decree.’

  Her stare was suddenly on Phaedra, blazing fiercely.

  ‘Did I keep old men from your bed of innocence, Phaedra of Alonso?’

  Phaedra couldn’t speak. She remembered the women in her father’s residence. How they wept and wept at the thought of what would happen to her after she was marked. She shivered just to think of those awful days.

  ‘I remember it well,’ Phaedra said. ‘And then it was decreed that you and only you would give birth to the first and that any man or lastborn girl who tried would be punished by the gods. The women in my father’s residence thanked the gods that you were delusional.’

  But there was nothing delusional about her. Phaedra stared at her in wonder. Quintana of Charyn had insisted on the decree to protect the lastborn girls. And in return, they mocked her madness.

  ‘You’re not going to start crying, are you, fool?’ Quintana asked bluntly. ‘It irritates me.’

  Tesadora made a clucking sound of annoyance.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ she said to Quintana in a reprimanding voice.

  Tesadora’s lover continued to study Quintana and in return she appraised him with arrogant curiosity, except for the flash of pain that crossed her face.

  ‘Did I imagine Froi’s arrows?’ she asked quietly. ‘I dream of them every night. I feel them.’

  ‘Where do you feel them in your dreams?’ he asked gently.

  Quintana touched her head, her arm, her belly, her side, her shoulder, her thigh, her breast and her ankle.

  Perri exchanged a look with Tesadora.

  ‘You remember exactly where they struck him?’ he asked, surprised.

  Quintana didn’t respond and Phaedra caught her shudder.

  ‘She has a very good memory for detail,’ Phaedra said.

  The great ice lake of Charyn lay beyond Serker and once crossed, it would mark the entrance into north country. Froi could have imagined it glistening white under the spell of a blue sky during the winter months. But spring was creeping over the land, and the snow that had covered the lake had melted, leaving the ice below exposed. Froi could see parts of the lake were darker already from the first signs of the thaw.

  ‘Black ice,’ Perabo muttered, pointing. ‘Not a good sign for c
rossing.’

  Gargarin dismounted. ‘Off the horses,’ he ordered. ‘We don’t want to be tangled up with these animals if the ground breaks beneath our feet.’

  And so their journey across the lake began with caution and not a word spoken between them for most of that day, every step taken with the fear of it being the one that would crack the ice and break the lake’s surface in its entirety. The sound of the wind was their greatest foe. Froi was coming to hate its taunting whistle. If it wasn’t mingled with the cries of the Serkan slaughtered, it was warning them of its power. How insignificant they must have looked in the eyes of the gods. Not even when he had climbed the gravina had Froi felt so vulnerable to the elements.

  The dying light of the day faded, and Froi watched until Gargarin and Lirah and Perabo were merely shapes around him.

  Darkness brought with it new fears and its only benefit was that it blinded them to the vastness of the lake. More than anything, they were weary, and Froi knew he would never take the feel of solid ground beneath his feet for granted again.

  ‘Look,’ Gargarin said, some time deep into the night. He pointed, and they looked up to see a spectacular sky, the stars so low that Froi felt he only had to hold up a hand to touch them. He’d never seen a night sky so perfect, so milky and magical.

  But what sunrise had to offer was worse than they could have imagined. In the far distance behind them, they saw riders beginning their journey across the lake. Bestiano’s army was closer than they had imagined.

  ‘It’s best not to run,’ Froi said. They still hadn’t reached land and he didn’t want to take a chance. ‘This ice won’t hold us all if they give chase.’

  ‘They’ll attack,’ Lirah said.

  ‘They’re out of range, so we just need to make sure that we keep up this pace.’

  ‘Can you attack from here?’ Gargarin asked.

  Froi shook his head. ‘Too far and too many. I could wait for them to get closer, but unless Perabo can strike from this distance, I’ll be outnumbered.’

  They turned to Perabo, but the keeper of the cave shook his head. ‘Only if they were closer, and we don’t want that. So we do as the lad says and we keep this distance between us. They could be travellers for all we know.’

  But no one believed that the men on horseback weren’t soldiers. These were Bestiano’s scouts, sent out to assess and report back to their leader and the Nebian army. Froi tried to count their numbers. Perhaps eighteen or nineteen in total. Too many to fight on his own, even with Perabo’s help. Too many to stand on thin ice.

  ‘Keep walking,’ he ordered the others. They had to get off this lake soon. But before they could take another step north, two of Bestiano’s horseman broke free and came riding towards them. Froi retrieved his bow and took aim.

  ‘Go,’ Froi shouted to the others.

  ‘They’re holding flags,’ Gargarin said.

  ‘They can’t be trusted,’ Perabo argued.

  ‘Go,’ Froi shouted again, but he felt Gargarin’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t shoot, Froi. Perhaps they come in peace.’

  They watched and waited, Froi’s fingers clenched on the bow. At the halfway point between both parties, the two horse-men stopped. The first dismounted, but Froi could see there was another astride his horse.

  ‘There’s three of them, not two,’ Froi said.

  Froi watched the first rider as he plunged a flag into the ice. They heard the moan of the ground beneath their feet, and before Froi could issue an order to keep on moving, the man on the second horse came riding towards them, leaving his two companions behind.

  Froi knelt, his aim on the target.

  ‘Wait, Froi. Wait,’ Gargarin said.

  Froi’s fingers ached from the hold he had on the longbow. Closer and closer the rider came until his face was recognisable.

  Dorcas.

  The King’s rider approached, the flag in his hand still raised. His face was drawn, his eyes almost void of emotion. Almost, except for a flash of fear when Froi retrieved his sword and stepped forward to press the point of the blade against Dorcas’s cheek.

  ‘A message, sir,’ Dorcas said to Gargarin. ‘From Lord Bestiano.’

  ‘Oh, a lord now,’ Gargarin said.

  ‘A message, sir,’ Dorcas repeated. Dorcas never steered far from the script he was given to follow.

  ‘Yes, we heard you the first time, idiot,’ Froi snapped. ‘Do you want to know why they’ve sent you, Dorcas? Because they know I can easily kill you and they don’t care if you live or you die.’

  Dorcas kept his attention on Gargarin, despite the pressure of the blade on his face.

  ‘If you would please surrender, Sir Gargarin. Only you. We have no need for the others.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Froi scoffed. ‘You ride over here and politely ask Gargarin to follow you? And he’s going to obey Bestiano’s wishes. Just like that?’

  Dorcas swallowed this time. ‘No,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Our Nebian friends are approaching. Four hundred men. They should arrive soon. If Gargarin of Abroi chooses not to surrender before their arrival, the Captain of the Nebian army will be forced into the uncomfortable position of … having to do something drastic and –’

  Froi removed his sword and shook his head, turning away. ‘Let’s go,’ he called out to the others. ‘He’s too useless to be a threat and he’ll be too easy a kill. See Dorcas, you’re not even worth my time to kill.’

  ‘… and your brother dies.’

  Froi froze. Gargarin made a sound, stumbling towards the rider. Dorcas pointed to a now-solitary man standing at the place where the flag was pitched into the ice. Although it was too far to see Arjuro’s face, Froi knew it was him. Dorcas raised his flag and waved it, and in the far distance beyond Arjuro, where the group of riders sat astride their horses, an arrow was lobbed into the air and landed within an inch of where Arjuro stood. Gargarin may have been out of attacking distance, but Arjuro wasn’t.

  ‘Regardless of what you do to me, sir,’ Dorcas continued, ‘your brother will die if you choose not to surrender. The moment the army arrives every soldier has been instructed to fire a bolt. Unless you surrender. No one wants the Priestling hurt, sir, but an order is an order. You can avoid the death of your friends here, but if you choose not to surrender, we cannot protect them.’

  Dorcas turned his horse and galloped towards his men, leaving Froi and Gargarin in stunned silence. When Dorcas rode past Arjuro, Froi saw a movement from the Priestling and he imagined he spat at the guard.

  Gargarin began to limp towards his brother, but Froi grabbed him.

  ‘They mightn’t be able to shoot from where they stand, but we don’t take chances.’

  Gargarin wasn’t listening. He shrugged free and continued to walk. Froi dragged him back again.

  ‘Gargarin, I must suggest that we continue,’ Perabo pleaded. ‘They want you so that Bestiano has no one stopping him from taking the Princess and her child back to the palace. If that happens to Charyn … then Tariq of Lascow died in vain.’

  Gargarin’s eyes were still fixed on Arjuro as if he could see into his eyes. And for the longest of time no one spoke. All around them the cracking and rumbling of the thawing ice rang in their ears and Froi knew that nature would be crueller than an approaching army.

  ‘Gargarin,’ Perabo prompted softly.

  ‘No,’ Gargarin said. ‘I won’t walk away from my brother.’

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ Perabo insisted. ‘You’re placing your emotions before this kingdom.’

  ‘This kingdom has taken my lifeblood!’ Gargarin shouted. ‘I’ve given it everything! What else does it want from me?’

  Perabo turned to Lirah.

  ‘Talk to him, Miss Lirah. Is this what you want for him?’

  ‘What I want for him is peace,’ she said, her voice low. ‘And if he walks away from his brother, he will never find it.’

  ‘His brother is a dead man standing,’ Perabo said.
‘You’ll lose them both. This kingdom will lose them both.’

  Gargarin’s stare had not strayed from where Arjuro stood and Froi knew Gargarin would not turn his back on his brother. Not after Arjuro had spent ten years in a Lumateran dungeon for him.

  ‘Give me your robe,’ Froi ordered. ‘And your staff.’

  Gargarin turned to him questioningly.

  ‘The moment I give the signal, you get on the horse and you ride and you don’t stop riding,’ Froi said, walking behind Beast, who would shield him from the eyes of the riders. He removed his own cloak and cap.

  ‘Perabo, you stay and when all hell breaks loose, you wait for Arjuro and then you follow them and don’t stop until you’re off the lake.’

  ‘What are you planning, Froi?’ Lirah demanded to know.

  ‘Give me your robe, Gargarin,’ he said again. ‘You want me to make decisions, then trust me.’

  ‘Why would I trade one misery for another?’ Gargarin demanded, but Froi heard sorrow in his voice.

  ‘Because the misery standing behind this horse has a better chance of surviving than Arjuro.’

  ‘No,’ Lirah said. ‘No!’

  ‘These are the options,’ Froi said. ‘Gargarin walks to his death. Arjuro is torn to pieces by four hundred flying arrows. Or else we all live and later speak about looking on the side of wonder!’

  ‘Take Froi’s offer, Gargarin,’ Perabo begged. ‘Let’s fight them on our terms.’

  Still Gargarin refused to move.

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Froi asked.

  Gargarin stared at him over Beast’s head and then wordlessly stepped behind the horse, hidden from the riders. He removed his robe with trembling hands and placed it around Froi, covering his head with the hood.

  ‘Remember,’ Froi said, taking the staff, ‘don’t let them suspect anything. Let them think we’re all watching Gargarin walk away. Don’t get on your horse until I give the signal.’

  Froi handed his longbow to Perabo and heard the protests.

  ‘All I need is your axe,’ he told the keeper of the cave.

  He didn’t dare look at Lirah. He didn’t wait for goodbyes or arguing. Instead, he began to limp towards Arjuro. From this distance, Dorcas and the riders would not suspect, but Froi could not be so certain once he reached midway. All he prayed for was that the riders didn’t move within striking distance before he reached Arjuro.