‘We should go,’ Abian said, understanding that the letters meant palace business.
‘No,’ Isaboe said. ‘Stay. This concerns Froi … and Froi concerns you.’
The Priestking spent some time reading the letters while Jasmina slept in Abian’s arms and Perri and August found more candles to light the room.
Finnikin took the time to look around the house that once belonged to Beatriss. It was as if it was always meant to be a house of learning. Once or twice he had attended a lecture here with Sir Topher on rhetoric and dialectics. When Celie of the Flatlands was home weeks ago, Finnikin had accompanied her to an Osterian godling’s lecture on philosophy. But they had a long way to go in their plan to create lessons for the young. Their greatest obstacle was convincing Lumaterans of the worth of their children learning when they believed they were better put to use on the farm or in the quarry on the Rock. Neither Finnikin nor Isaboe wanted the school filled only with the children of nobility. It was not what they wanted for Jasmina.
Back in the solar, the Priestking spread out the parchments on the bench. Finnikin could see the markings copied from Quintana of Charyn’s neck and those from Froi’s skull. The words differed, but the lettering style was similar. They belonged together in a way that the lettering on Phaedra and the Charyn Princess’s nape didn’t.
‘Here are the similarities in Tesadora’s account and Froi’s,’ the Priestking finally said. ‘A woman travelling the same road as Froi tells him that the spirit of her half-dead child lives within him. Her husband makes mention that she bled a child on the day of their weeping.’
He pointed to Tesadora’s letter. ‘A woman in our valley is suffering melancholy because her connection with a young girl who travelled to the valley has been severed. We assume the girl was Quintana of Charyn. The woman, according to her husband, bled a child on the day of weeping.’
He looked at Perri. ‘Tesadora is told by Quintana of Charyn that the half-dead spirit of Tesadora’s child lives within her. Tesadora bled a child on the day of their weeping.’
Abian’s reaction was much the same as Isaboe’s. A sorrow for Tesadora beyond words.
‘Are they possessed?’ Abian asked when she was composed. ‘Tesadora and the women?’
The Priestking shook his head. ‘I need to look into this more, but no. I don’t think so. And it’s not just the women. It’s the men as well. Perri?’
Perri hesitated and then nodded.
‘But what do these shared experiences have to do with Froi’s lettering and the Charyn Princess?’ Finnikin asked.
‘Well, you gave me the letters just after supper, Finnikin,’ the Priestking said, his eyes twinkling with laughter. ‘Do you expect me to have worked it out that fast?’
Finnikin laughed with him. ‘Yes, actually I do.’
‘Did you know?’ Isaboe asked the Priestking quietly.
The old man looked up at her and Finnikin saw the tremble in his shoulders. Finnikin wasn’t quite sure what Isaboe was asking, but the Priestking seemed to realise exactly what it was.
‘Why do you ask?’ the Priestking said.
‘Because of the markings on Froi’s back that only the gifted such as you can see. Different to the visible ones on his skull.’
The Priestking smiled. ‘Well, let’s not pretend that you don’t have a gift, Your Majesty. Did you know?’ he asked.
Isaboe looked at Finnikin and shook her head. ‘Froi was naked that time in Sorel when he was to be sold as a slave. I saw nothing written on his back.’
‘Nothing at all?’ the Priestking asked.
‘I knew where to find him,’ Isaboe said. ‘I always seemed to know where to find Froi, but never realised I was looking. So he was a beacon of some sort. But I don’t have the power of this second sight.’
They waited for the Priestking to speak.
‘And from the very moment you met him, you began to teach him,’ she said, after he remained silent. ‘Even in exile. As if you were preparing him for something.’
‘I never saw the writing,’ the Priestking said. ‘He worked my garden enough times without a shirt on his back, but I saw nothing. I’m not as powerful as the Priestling Arjuro. But I knew there was something about Froi.’
The Priestking’s smile was gentle. ‘Sometimes … sometimes, I can see the essence of the gods in another. Rich or poor. Man or woman. Lumateran or Charynite. I’ve seen yours, Isaboe. Its power only matched by a few. That doesn’t make you or me or Froi better or worse than others. It just means the gods have marked us for a journey, regardless of whether we want to take it.’
‘Who else?’ Finnikin asked. ‘Who else is marked by the gods?’ He prayed it wasn’t his daughter. He didn’t want Jasmina to walk a path without them. He could see Isaboe’s hand pressed against her belly.
‘Who?’ Isaboe asked, but the Priestking shook his head.
‘If I tell you that, my queen, you’ll do all you can to alter their path. The gods don’t like that.’
The Priestking sighed, tapping at the pages before him. ‘But we’re not here to discuss the essence of the gods. We’re here to talk about spirits.’
‘Wonderful,’ August muttered. ‘I was just getting to understand all the essence talk.’
‘We’re born with a spirit,’ the Priestking said. ‘It exists before we are shaped by time and place and wealth or poverty or circumstance. The lives we live tame and shape our spirits.’
Finnikin watched the various expressions around the room. He was glad to see that most were as confused as he was.
‘I think it’s quite clear that Froi and the Charyn Princess have acquired more than one spirit,’ the Priestking said.
He was pensive for some time. ‘I remember long ago when I was a child, my pardu died. We were very close. Around that time, my sister’s child was born and I could have sworn I sensed the spirit of my grandfather in that babe. Soon after, my pardu’s spirit left the boy. Once the departed rest in peace most of their spirit settles with them. But they do leave some of it behind and it becomes part of another’s traits.’
‘So Froi and the Charyn Princess …’
‘… unfortunately for now are a mystery.’ The Priestking smiled. ‘But what this enemy girl has to offer Froi and Tesadora and Perri is a thing of beauty rather than malice, my queen.’
‘Then why do I want to kill her?’ she said coldly.
‘Because you’re human and she shares the blood of a hateful man who tried to destroy our lives,’ Abian said.
The Priestking took Isaboe’s hand.
‘This will take me time. I don’t recognise the strange lettering on Froi’s scalp and Quintana’s nape. It’s not of the ancients. Whoever, or whatever, placed it there may have cursed Charyn. It might not be ours to solve, but it threads through the lives of those in Lumatere just as much.’
‘Then how do we solve it?’ Finnikin asked.
‘I’ll see what we can find in our library, but our neighbours, the Belegonians and Osterians, are the greatest pilferers of the sacred mysteries from all over this land.’
‘Perhap Celie can …’
Finnikin felt a kick under the table from Isaboe and remembered August and Abian’s presence.
‘… ask a few questions. She’s so very good at that.’
August looked at him suspiciously. ‘I don’t want my daughter embroiled in this.’
Finnikin nodded. ‘Yes, yes. Women asking questions never ends well.’
He felt another kick. It was best to keep his mouth shut now.
The Priestking studied Froi’s note and then he smiled.
‘Beautiful penmanship. And who would have thought he could express himself so eloquently? What a waste that all he wants to do is be a soldier and a farmer.’
He looked at Perri and August. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken … I think. Is it true that the … father is clever?’ August stumbled on the words.
‘Very,’ Finnikin said, nodding, ‘and the uncle
is apparently a gods’ touched genius. And the mother …’
‘Have you gone on about the mother’s beauty as well?’ Isaboe asked Perri.
Perri pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and displayed a bruise. ‘Twice. Tesadora’s fist.’
‘That would be interesting.’ Abian smiled at the thought. ‘Pitting the mother and Tesadora up against each other. Placing them in a room and seeing them fight it out.’
‘Mercy,’ Finnikin said.
‘Yes, I’d pay all the gold in the land to see that,’ Perri agreed. All the men agreed with gusto. Isaboe and Abian exchanged a look and Finnikin saw a gleam of cynical humour in their eyes.
‘Too predictable,’ Isaboe said. ‘You men are too predictable.’
‘We’ll be his cocoon and he’ll never doubt he was loved, regardless of everything.’
Froi woke lying between Lirah and Gargarin and wondered if he had heard those words out loud or in his dreams.
Arjuro crouched beside them and handed Froi a cup of something hot. He took a sip and tasted the bitter herbs, made a face, but took another sip. Arjuro held the back of his hand to Froi’s brow.
‘You’ve got your colour back, at least.’
‘Why? Where did it go?’ Froi joked, because Arjuro looked so serious.
‘It went to that place you seem drawn to,’ Arjuro said. ‘The dead are greedy for you!’
Arjuro’s eyes blazed with fury. Gargarin sat up and Arjuro handed him a brew.
‘I’ll say this once, and if you don’t honour my wishes I’ll find a way of making your lives unpleasant,’ Arjuro said to them all. ‘You never sacrifice your life for me again. No matter what they threaten me with, you move forward. You don’t look back!’
Gargarin’s response was a slurp. He passed the brew to Lirah, who was staring at Froi.
‘I dreamt you died.’
‘I’m here, Lirah.’
‘Those at the lake of the half-dead will never let me be,’ she said.
Lirah would always be haunted by her attempt to end her life and Quintana’s, all those years ago.
‘They trapped me in my dreams and I saw you there.’
‘I’m here, Lirah,’ he repeated. ‘Being threatened by Arjuro, who obviously woke up in a bad mood.’
Arjuro scowled. Froi smiled. Perhaps he was just relieved to be back with them.
‘I wasn’t actually sacrificing myself,’ Froi explained. ‘I came up with a plan and the plan went accordingly. Why would I sacrifice myself for any of you?’
‘It wasn’t a plan, though,’ Gargarin said, suddenly angry at Froi. ‘You didn’t talk it over with us. You just said, “Give me your cloak and your staff,” and then you started walking away.’
‘You would have talked me out of it,’ Froi said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I would have,’ Lirah said. ‘I would have said, “What a stupid idea. You’re sacrificing yourself for Arjuro.”’
She handed the brew back to Arjuro. ‘Despite the fact that he lost ten years of his life searching for you, trapped in that hell-hole Lumatere,’ she added.
Froi couldn’t help thinking how much smarter Lirah was than the rest of them. Everyone else would have danced around the truth for too long a time. Lirah was able to slap them in the face with it until it could be avoided no longer.
Arjuro was even more furious.
‘Who told you that?’ he demanded of Gargarin.
‘The Lumaterans.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, yes. You’ve missed out on some great excitement,’ Gargarin said, waving him off as if it was old news.
‘The ginger King tried to kill Froi,’ Lirah said.
Arjuro seemed to think they were playing with him and went to stalk away in disgust, but Gargarin gripped his robe and pulled Arjuro towards him.
‘We’re even, brother,’ Gargarin said, their faces so close and alike.
Arjuro grimaced with anguish.
‘We’ll never be even,’ Arjuro said. ‘You didn’t plan Lumatere’s curse, so my imprisonment was not your doing. But on the night of the Oracle’s death, I planned exactly what I’d do to you and it became your prison for all those years. So we will never be even.’
And Froi heard the self-hatred in Arjuro’s voice, but Gargarin didn’t let go. Instead he held a hand to Arjuro’s face.
‘I want my brother back. So I say we are even.’
Arjuro didn’t speak and it was too strange between them all.
‘Tell him about looking at the side of wonder,’ Froi said to Gargarin.
Gargarin seemed irritated. ‘Am I going to have to do that again and again?’
‘Already he’s sick of it,’ Lirah muttered.
Froi laughed. They were the maddest people he knew and he laughed until his side hurt.
‘What’s the side of wonder?’ Arjuro asked, confused. ‘Why is he laughing like a fool?’
‘Because there are two sides of a day according to Gargarin,’ Froi explained. ‘The side of despair and the side of wonder. On the side of despair, we’re freezing half to death. On the side of wonder, the four of us are together.’
The words lay unspoken between them. One was missing.
And all that time Perabo wordlessly watched them. Froi didn’t want to know what the keeper of the caves was thinking.
He slept and woke again, heard Gargarin and Arjuro’s murmuring beside him. They didn’t speak of their time in the dungeons of two rival palaces and they didn’t speak of love either, but it was all there in their voices. The brothers were talkers, after all. They were different to Trevanion and Perri in that way. In his time since Sarnak, Froi had come to learn as much about the power of silence as the power of words.
He slept on and off, but always woke to the sound of their voices.
‘… who knows, but there’s talk that the street lords are in the valley and they murdered those lads …’
‘… the Avanosh uncle? That idiot?’
‘… you shouldn’t have spoken to him that way. You know what De Lancey’s like …’
‘… it’s the star of the north and it’s only seen when the land is ready to thaw …’
‘… I’m telling you. They want me to set up a school in the godshouse and you have no idea how annoying those collegiati are …’
‘Did you see his hideous self?’
Froi was wide awake. He knew they were speaking of their father, the man Froi resembled.
Gargarin was silent.
‘In his letter, De Lancey said you refused to speak to him,’ Arjuro said.
‘But I saw him,’ Gargarin said. ‘I saw that wretched piece of shit. And I wanted to step outside and look him in the eye and say, “You don’t scare us anymore. You can’t hurt us anymore. Because you don’t exist to us anymore.”’
Froi sat up and Gargarin’s eyes were on him.
‘I wanted to say, “Your face has been taken by another, so I’ve forgotten the malice in your eyes and the bitterness of your mouth.”’
‘Why can’t you just kill him?’ Lirah said, her voice hard. ‘It’s easy. You wouldn’t think twice about killing an enemy. He was your enemy.’
‘I’d do it for you,’ Froi said quietly. ‘I’d do a good job.’
If there was contemplation, it was only brief.
‘No,’ Arjuro said. ‘Let Quintana bring our little one into this world without his spirit being stained by blood on our hands.’
‘Anyway,’ Gargarin said, his voice ragged. ‘I’ve seen you kill, Froi. You’re too quick and clean, and I saw his hideous self close enough to know the truth. That he’s dying. Of the same disease that took the stonemason in Paladozza, Arjuro. Do you remember?’
‘Oh, yes. Slow and painful. Good. Good.’
And all the while, Perabo still watched them.
‘Who are you people?’ he finally asked. ‘You’re no stranger to them, Lumateran.’
Froi stayed silent.
‘If we tell you
the truth, we’ll have to kill you, Perabo,’ Gargarin said, getting to his feet.
Sometimes … sometimes Froi wondered how far Gargarin would go to hide the truth. Was it jest in his voice, or a warning?
‘Then answer me this. Is Quintana of Charyn carrying Tariq’s child?’ Perabo demanded. ‘Or another’s?’ His eyes were fixed on Froi.
‘Does it matter?’ Gargarin asked.
‘It does to those of Lascow!’ Perabo said.
‘Then we give the people what they want to hear, Perabo,’ Gargarin said with a sigh. ‘And if the people want to hear that the child she’s carrying belongs to Tariq of Lascow, then we tell them that the babe belongs to Tariq.’
Gargarin stood before the man. ‘What did Tariq always say? Anything for Charyn. Anything for peace.’
Perabo was silent.
‘So it’s your choice. Take us to the Lasconian army or we continue this journey without you, as we have since he,’ Gargarin pointed down at Froi, ‘flew through the air and snatched the future mother of our king from death. No one else did that, Perabo. They planned it, they started it, but they did not see it through, and he did.’ Gargarin pointed at Froi again, just in case Perabo forgot who ‘he’ was. ‘So do you travel to the Lasconians and tell them that perhaps Tariq’s queen doesn’t carry his child? And do they turn their back on saving a king because they believe his mother is a whore? Does the cycle of shit in our lives continue, Perabo? Or do we give Charyn a fighting chance?’
Perabo extinguished the fire with the brew from his mug.
‘We don’t want to be travelling through the woods in the dark,’ was all he said.
Froi rode with Lirah that day.
‘Tell me again,’ she said, asking him to replay every conversation that had taken place between Froi and Quintana on their final night together. Lirah believed the answer to Quintana’s whereabouts lay in those words. ‘You’re leaving something out.’