Quintana of Charyn

  ‘Where are you going?’ Cora asked. ‘Lie down, you silly girl.’ There was a gentleness in her voice that Phaedra hadn’t heard before.

  ‘To find Tesadora,’ the Princess said. ‘She’ll know what to do.’ Quintana held out a hand to Phaedra. ‘Come Phaedra, we can’t stare at a corpse all night. It’s dark now and no one will see us. We’ll take the weapons.’

  The idea of holding a weapon made Phaedra sick to her stomach. She shook her head, refusing to move.

  ‘Don’t go out there, Your Majesty,’ Jorja said. ‘Another could be watching.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ Ginny asked with a cry. She had been the most hysterical of them all.

  ‘You stay,’ Cora said quietly to Quintana. ‘Ginny, come with me.’

  And then they were gone and Phaedra dared to look at what lay in the centre of the room and her eyes found Quintana’s and there it was. The savage satisfaction in her eyes, a glimpse of pleased little teeth showing through her lips.

  Much later they heard a sound and Florenza whimpered. Jorja was on her feet in an instant, the spear in her hands. She looked like one of those crazed women who lived by the swamp in Phaedra’s province. They all did. They were all filthy and wild and Phaedra hardly recognised what they had become.

  Cora and Ginny entered first and then Tesadora, Japhra, Rafuel. And Lucian.

  Tesadora walked to the corpse and Phaedra saw her flinch at the state of the body. It had taken strike after strike to stop the intruder coming towards Quintana. Fifteen strikes, Phaedra had counted. Quintana had told her just the other day that counting kept Froi focused, so Phaedra had counted the blows.

  The man had known exactly who he was looking for. He had grabbed Quintana by the hair and pulled her to her feet. The viciousness of his movements had awakened something in all of them.

  ‘What will we do with it?’ Cora asked.

  Lucian stepped forward to study the corpse.

  ‘Bury him,’ he said.

  The women gasped.

  ‘It’s not the Charynite way,’ Phaedra said quietly.

  ‘When you’re hiding a corpse, it’s the only way.’

  With Rafuel’s help, Lucian lifted the body and carried it away and when Phaedra saw the blood on the stone she took the bucket and travelled down to the stream in the dark once, twice, three times. More. She wanted the blood gone. She wanted to scrub it from existence.

  The men returned and Phaedra couldn’t bear to look at them. She knew Lucian was watching her. She felt it. If she had imagined herself to be in love with him during those last days on the mountain before Quintana’s arrival, now it made her ache. Once, she believed misery was a half-dead kingdom, or living among hostile people. Now she knew it also included loving a man who she’d never have.

  She felt Quintana’s hand on her shoulder, but Phaedra shrugged it free.

  ‘Just go rest, Your Majesty,’ she said, unable to look her in the eye. ‘All this can’t be good for the babe.’

  When Phaedra was a child she had watched her father and his men drag home the carcass of a boar. They hadn’t killed it for sport, but because it had raced towards them and attacked a young cousin. Upon seeing the lad’s mangled body, her father and his men had leapt off their horses and clubbed it in fury. ‘So it will never do harm again,’ her father had said. But later she heard him speak to her mother, his voice soft. Telling her that killing the boar required no thought, no logic, just instinct. ‘In the end, we’re just animals ourselves,’ he said.

  Kneeling on the cold, blood-soaked stone, Phaedra had never understood her father’s words so much.

  Lucian studied the women carefully. He was still unsure of what he had walked into. A last-minute trip down the mountain to see that all was well with his two cousins and Tesadora’s girls had led to this. He watched Rafuel crouch before Quintana of Charyn and hold out a hand to her. She gripped his fingers and drew him close.

  ‘Did they tell you what I did?’ Quintana said. ‘I couldn’t move.’

  Rafuel nodded. ‘Everything will be fine, Your Majesty. As long as you’re not hurt, everything will turn out fine. You know what they’re whispering about? Armies. Not just one, but many. For you and the little King.’

  Lucian studied her face. He had never looked at her closely. She was strangely fascinating, all cold suspicion with a quick flash of fear thrown in once in a while. Suddenly her attention was on Lucian.

  ‘I froze,’ she said again. ‘Don’t tell Froi I did. He’ll be disappointed. I promised I’d stay alive, that I’d protect the little King. But it was the hangman from the Citavita. He had put a noose over my head and when I saw his face, I froze.’

  Lucian glanced at Rafuel, confused.

  ‘They tried to hang her in the Citavita. Galvin was the hangman.’

  Lucian remembered the story from Phaedra’s excited whispers that time on the mountain. Hearing adventurous stories about Froi saving princesses was one thing, but this was different. There was nothing exhilarating about a girl with a noose around her neck.

  ‘Then if he was the one who put the noose over your head, it’s only right that he lies in the ground,’ Lucian said. He stole a look at Phaedra, who was scrubbing the ground and refusing to look at him.

  ‘Tell her to stop,’ he said to Tesadora softly.

  Tesadora was pale. Saddened.

  ‘There’s no more blood left, Phaedra,’ Tesadora said, firmly but gently. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Do you think he recognised Her Majesty from the time she arrived in the valley?’ Cora asked Rafuel.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Jorja said. ‘Why wait all this time to act?’

  ‘Could he have followed you, Rafuel?’ Cora suggested.

  Rafuel nodded. ‘Perhaps. Galvin wanted to prove his worth to Donashe. Let’s pray he kept all this to himself with the hope of dragging Her Majesty back to the valley tonight and declaring himself the mightier of us both. Let’s hope he didn’t tell Gies. All we need is for the fool to come sniffing around searching for his friend.’

  ‘Gies!’ Ginny cried out. ‘Does he know I’m here? Why hasn’t he come for me?’

  Lucian and Rafuel exchanged a look. ‘All your men have been instructed to keep away,’ Rafuel lied. Only Harker and Kasabian had been told to keep away. Rafuel had kept to their decision not to tell Gies about the women.

  They travelled through the woods in silence. Rafuel stayed ahead for most of their journey. Lucian had a strange feeling that Tesadora and Rafuel were keeping something from him. About the bloodied scene they had come across.

  ‘Doesn’t it concern you that the mother of your heir is so savage?’ Lucian asked, just before they reached Tesadora’s camp.

  Rafuel stopped. He glanced at Tesadora, who looked away, her expression closed.

  ‘Handy, of course,’ Lucian mused. ‘But her actions were savage and not at all princess-like. I’m not condemning, by the way. Just remarking that she’s certainly her father’s daughter.’

  ‘That’s condemning,’ Rafuel bit out. ‘If you’re comparing her to the dead King, in my eyes that’s condemning!’

  ‘Leave it,’ Tesadora said. ‘Go back and find out if Galvin was working alone, Rafuel.’

  Rafuel swallowed hard and Lucian saw the despair in his expression.

  The Charynite walked away, but then turned back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Lucian. ‘You didn’t have to be there tonight, Mont, but we were fortunate that you were in the valley all the same.’ He held out a hand and Lucian knew to shake it. Rafuel still didn’t walk away.

  ‘She recognised him as the hangman and she froze from the shock of it,’ he said.

  ‘Regardless, you saw what she did to him,’ Lucian reassured. ‘As I said, your princess knows how to look after herself.’

  Rafuel and Tesadora exchanged another look and then the Charynite was gone.

  They reached the camp where Tesadora’s girls slept. Tesadora walked Lucian to his horse and waited
as he mounted. Usually there were no goodbyes, but tonight he sensed that she wanted to speak. He embraced her quickly.

  ‘Lucian,’ she said quietly as he mounted his horse.

  When he looked down he saw tears in her eyes.

  ‘Quintana of Charyn didn’t kill the man,’ she said. ‘Phaedra did.’

  The days were long and the boredom turned the Lasconian lads restless.

  ‘We’ll run a race to see who’s fastest,’ one of Florik’s lads said. ‘No one on the mountain has been able to beat Florik. So we choose him to race you, Lumateran.’

  ‘What’s the prize?’ Froi asked.

  The lad who spoke for Florik shrugged. ‘There’s no need for a prize. It’s a friendly competition.’

  ‘We run this wall,’ Florik said. ‘Stand with your back to me and then we’re off. Whoever returns to this point first is hailed the winner.’

  It seemed too easy and it didn’t involve a beating and Froi could think of no better way to relieve the tedium on the watch at this time of the day.

  ‘Count of three,’ Florik’s lad said.

  Florik was off at the count of two. Froi bolted in the opposite direction and the more ground he covered, the more his pride demanded this victory. The only way to win against these lads was to show that their numbers weren’t enough to break him.

  His was a straight run to begin with, but then parts of the route plunged down steep spiral steps and up again and Froi took them, two at a time, heart hammering until its beat was a song that spurred him on, forcing him to fly the confines of this prison he had found himself in. He heard them chanting, ‘Florik! Florik! Florik!’ and he shut his ears and kept his pace, stealing a look below to the flicker of movement in the bailey where he suspected the lads and the older men had come from the keep to watch the race. But Froi blocked their voices from his mind and reached the second turret where he and Florik passed each other. Florik’s hand snaked out to hold him back, but Froi swiped at it with such force he heard a grunt from the Lasconian as he pulled himself free, racing through a section of the walkway concealed from the grounds below. Froi raced through its tunnel, heard the sound of his own breathing, grunting, echoing harshly, then came out into the light again as if he was flying straight into the blue of this early spring sky. He could smell his victory. But suddenly as he rounded the final turret he tripped over something wedged between the stone of the inner and outer wall. It was a short sword, there to do exactly what it had done; placed on so blind a corner because Froi would never have seen it coming. As he stumbled to his feet he knew he had lost.

  He heard the cheers for Florik as he neared the finishing place. Down below in the bailey, Dolyn and the elders were beckoning Florik to join them. Gargarin signalled and Froi knew he was being instructed to come down and stand beside the winner.

  ‘No man can outrun a Lasconian,’ the elder said as Froi reached them. He and Florik stood side by side, Florik’s arm raised in victory. ‘The little King’s blood runs from our spring.’

  Gargarin and Arjuro came to find Froi on watch late that night.

  ‘Are you sulking because he won a race?’ Gargarin asked.

  Froi didn’t respond. He preferred not to see it as sulking.

  ‘When you accomplish something it should be for no one but yourself,’ Arjuro said.

  ‘Yes, yes. If we could all be as wise as both of you,’ Froi said.

  ‘Gods,’ Arjuro muttered. ‘I wish I could go back to my youth and slap myself hard across the face for being as snarky as you are at times, Froi.’

  ‘You were very annoying,’ Gargarin said to his brother.

  ‘You, equally so.’

  Arjuro held out his ration of food to Froi, who stared at the dry horsemeat.

  ‘If they go anywhere near Beast, I’ll kill them all.’

  ‘They need to feed themselves,’ Gargarin said.

  ‘They should have thought of that before they holed themselves up in this place,’ he hissed.

  A shrill cry came from the darkness of the woodlands.

  ‘Something’s happening out there,’ Froi told them. ‘I’ve heard cries through the night. Humans and horses. Most of Bestiano’s army would have passed by now, heading north, but something in that woodlands is finishing off Nebia’s flanks.’

  ‘Yes, but who?’ Gargarin asked.

  They were eerie sounds, eaten up by the space between the little woods and where they stood. By the time the sound reached them, all that remained was a distant echo.

  ‘The sentinel in the tree hasn’t been there the whole day and that could only mean there’s been some sort of attack,’ Froi said. ‘I can take advantage of it. Venture out and see what’s happening.’

  Gargarin shook his head. ‘I don’t want to take the chance,’ he said. ‘Just say they’re lying in hiding, waiting for us to do just that. It could be a trap.’

  ‘But we can’t stay here,’ Froi said quietly, in case one of the Lasconians were listening. ‘Tariq’s people are idiots. They picked the worse place to set up camp. We might be protected by these walls, but we’re trapped and Bestiano knows we’re here. He wants you dead. For all he knows, Quintana is with us, and he wants her. We need to move.’

  ‘But where?’ Gargarin asked. ‘We’ll only end up wandering aimlessly searching for her, Froi. We have no idea which direction to turn.’

  ‘We’ve run out of chances, Froi,’ Arjuro said. ‘We’ve escaped death too many times. Gargarin. Me. You. I agree that we stay put. The next time it could cost us our lives. Maybe Lirah’s.’

  Froi looked away.

  ‘Did you have an argument with her?’ Gargarin asked quietly. ‘Lirah?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She doesn’t seem herself. She was angry and distant –’

  ‘That is herself,’ Froi interrupted.

  ‘… and hurt.’

  Fine, now he was also to blame for Lirah’s feelings.

  ‘If you really want to know,’ Froi said, ‘the matter of not living in the palace has gotten to her. Where will her home be, Gargarin?’

  ‘What?’ Arjuro asked, hearing it for the first time. ‘Why wouldn’t Lirah live in the palace? She’s Quintana’s mother in the eyes of Charyn.’

  Froi waited for Gargarin to explain, but he was silent so Froi spoke.

  ‘According to the Provincari, she’s part of Charyn’s shameful past,’ he said. ‘They want Gargarin in the palace, but not her, and Gargarin threatened to not take up the position of the little King’s regent. They, of course, have a second and even third option.’

  Arjuro looked at Gargarin.

  ‘There is no other,’ Arjuro said, fury in his voice. ‘And since when do the Provincari make all the decisions? Is that what took place in Sebastabol?’

  ‘Among other things, which is why it would help us to have the Lasconians in our favour,’ Gargarin said.

  Arjuro shook his head incredulously. ‘Those damned Provincari. They have no right to tell Lirah she can’t live in the palace and if they even try to take control of the godshouse I’ll curse every single one of them. Hypocrites. Bastards.’

  ‘And I think some of the lads and men here have said something to her,’ Froi said quietly.

  Arjuro’s eyes met Gargarin’s.

  ‘I don’t like these people.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start, Arjuro!’ Gargarin snapped. ‘First Froi, now you. What do you want me to do? Run a race around this wall and compete with them? They’re all we have. If we find Quintana, at least we have the numbers to get her into the palace safely. We need an army. This is the only one we have!’

  ‘And De Lancey promised you no army?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Gargarin said with frustration. ‘Do you think we’d be here with this lot if we had Paladozza behind us? De Lancey was all secretive and then he got on the defensive about both of us always ganging up on him.’

  ‘Well, we actually did,’ Arjuro said with a sigh.

  ‘You know him better than anyone
, Arjuro,’ Froi said. ‘What could he be hiding?’

  Arjuro shrugged. ‘I don’t know him anymore, despite our history. Before the day of weeping he was a Provincaro’s indulged son, bored and waiting to take over one day, so we were allowed to be as decadent and wild as we wanted to be. But he’s different now, and the De Lancey I got a glimpse of in both the Citavita and Paladozza is the type to have more than one plan up his sleeve.’

  They heard more cries and shouting come from the little woods and even the Lasconian lads gathered close by.

  ‘What do you think’s going on out there, sir?’ one of them asked Gargarin. As if he would know and not Froi.

  ‘Either Bestiano’s army is killing each other or we have more visitors.’

  Froi spent the rest of the night on watch with Perabo. The keeper of the caves had a disturbing way of staring at Froi and Gargarin and Arjuro as if he was going to reveal the truth about who he believed they all were to the Lasconians.

  ‘Nothing good will come of this for you,’ Perabo said quietly as the sun began to creep above the trees before them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Regardless of our hope that she carries the first, and that she’s somehow safe, nothing good will come of this for you … personally … and you seem the person to take things personally.’

  ‘You don’t know me, Perabo.’

  ‘I saw it the first time in the caves in the Citavita, and then again the next two times. You want her. Not like other men want to control her, but you want to take care of her. Love her. Make her happy.’ Perabo shook his head sadly. ‘And that will not happen. They will never give you an opportunity to be that man. The Provincari and even Dolyn’s people will want a lord, a man of title. Quintana’s consort will be our showpiece to the rest of the land. “See. Look what we got. We might have a history of shame, but look what we managed to snare for our mad princess.”’

  ‘Always pleasant to be on watch with you, Perabo.’

  But all the keeper’s words did was make Froi yearn for her more. He missed Quintana’s voice in his ear. Sometimes he tried to recall those early months in the palace with her and the indignant Reginita. But it wasn’t her voice he remembered. It was the clipped, cold voice of his ice princess. The one that could tear layers of skin from him by merely speaking. He had become used to listening to her words and not judging them by her tone.