‘You know we don’t want him.’ De Lancey was frustrated and Froi could see this conversation soon ending badly. ‘But for our plan to work, we can’t have one of the Provincari’s men as regent. If you refuse –’
‘He won’t refuse,’ Lirah said, as she stood and gathered her books. Gargarin’s eyes followed her across the room.
‘Is this about Lirah?’ De Lancey asked. ‘I said it in Sebastabol and I’ll say it again: you have a home with me, Lirah. You will be treated with the same respect my family receives and when Gargarin and Arjuro and Quintana and the babe come to visit, you’ll see them in my home. The other Provincari don’t have control over that. Some of the Provincari may not want you in the palace, Lirah, but there’s nothing to say that you can’t see your loved ones elsewhere.’
Froi knew that De Lancey’s heart was in the offer and it made him like the man even more. But it would never be enough for Lirah. Froi knew that for certain, because it would never be enough for him.
‘Lirah will live with me.’
Everyone stared at Arjuro.
‘In the Oracle’s godshouse,’ he said firmly. ‘She’s smarter and better read than any of the collegiati so I’ll put her to good use. She’ll be across the gravina from Quintana and the babe and Gargarin. You’ll see them every day, Lirah. I defy anyone who says Quintana and her babe and Gargarin cannot visit the godshouse.’
Arjuro’s eyes met Gargarin’s. ‘And of course we have the palace architect here, so if he can’t find a way of getting you into the palace some nights without the useless Provincari nobility’s spies watching, well, he can’t exactly be labelled the smartest man in the Citavita, can he?’
They all turned to Lirah, waiting.
‘We’ll kill each other, Priestling,’ she said softly, but her eyes were bright.
‘I’ll win most arguments, but you’ll get used to it,’ he said.
She came to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘Thank you.’ She kissed De Lancey as well. ‘And thank you.’
Gargarin took her hand. ‘And what about mine?’ he asked. ‘I’m the brilliant architect.’
They spent the rest of the evening together and with all the turmoil awaiting them beyond the first hill, Froi was surprised at how normal life could seem with their door closed to the rest of the fortress. They spoke of all things, including the girls.
‘At least you know where Tippideaux is,’ Gargarin said. ‘Olivier of Sebastabol’s actions placed Quintana in grave danger.’
‘Yes, well, it’s not that cut and dry,’ De Lancey said. ‘He has become more of a help than a hindrance.’
‘I don’t care what part Olivier’s played in helping,’ Gargarin said. ‘He gets tried as a traitor. The kingdom is going to be full of men and women who turned sides, and the palace is going to have to make decisions about what to do with them.’
‘Yes, but still, our runt of the litter would be dead if the lad hadn’t acted,’ Arjuro said.
There was more arguing. Froi suddenly heard a gasp from Lirah. She looked up from her page, her eyes on Froi’s, blazing with excitement. Froi stood and walked towards her. She gripped his hand.
‘How did Phaedra of Alonso die of a plague that doesn’t exist?’
Froi shook his head, confused, and Lirah pointed to her page where she had recorded every word Froi spoke, after weeks and weeks of her questioning.
And there he saw Phaedra’s name.
‘We keep asking the wrong question,’ she said.
By now, the others had heard and were crowded around her work.
‘What is it, Lirah?’ Gargarin asked.
‘We keep asking where Quintana would go. She had nowhere to go. She knows no one. But you, Froi, trusted how many? Thirty? It’s what you spoke of that last night together.’
She pointed to Phaedra’s name. ‘You trusted Phaedra of Alonso because of her kindness.’
Froi’s heart began to hammer inside of him and Lirah saw his realisation and nodded.
‘We keep asking where she would go. Our girl is a mimic. What we should be asking is where would you go, Froi?’
‘I’d go west,’ Froi said. ‘You know that.’
Lirah nodded.
‘I think our Quintana’s gone to Lumatere, and Phaedra of Alonso is hiding her.’
Isaboe woke with a start. She had felt her again. She knew it was Quintana of Charyn who crept into her dreams.
I know you’re there!
Keep away from my son!
She had no idea which were her own words, and which belonged to that insidious intruder. At times it seemed as if they were one.
Isaboe heard a sound. Thought she imagined it. But then Finnikin was out of bed, placing a dagger in her hand.
‘Stay,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going out onto the balconette. Someone’s in the courtyard. The moment you hear my shout, take Jasmina and hide.’
They were expecting no one tonight. Trevanion was in Fenton and Perri was on duty, and only Lucian and Yata had the authority to be in the courtyard outside the residence. But before Isaboe could imagine the death of any of her beloveds on the mountain, or an assassin in their garden, Finnikin was back at the bed, relief in his expression.
‘It’s the Priestking and Celie.’
‘At this hour of the night?’
‘Sefton let them in at the gatehouse and they took a wrong turn and ended up in the garden facing the end of Perri’s sword. They’re on their way up.’
She groaned, holding out a hand to him. ‘I need a catapult to get me out of this bed.’
The Priestking and Celie entered the residence, lugging chronicles in their arms, all apologies but flushed with excitement.
‘How long have you been home without seeing me, Celie?’ Isaboe asked, embracing her.
‘I arrived not even two days past and have spent the whole time with blessed Barakah. Not even Mama or Father or the boys have seen me.’
‘Blessed Barakah, you shouldn’t be out at this time of the night,’ Isaboe said.
‘Sit, sit,’ the Priestking said. ‘We’ve worked it out.’ His voice was full of emotion.
Perri joined them and then Sir Topher entered and they all sat around the long bench. The Priestking held a parchment out to Isaboe. Finnikin reached over to steady the old man’s hand. But it was excitement more than age that caused his trembling.
‘The markings on the nape and skull are written in a language very few know about,’ he said. ‘I searched everywhere. Had chronicles sent from Osteria and Sarnak, and Celie agreed to … deliver one home from Belegonia.’
‘Deliver?’ Isaboe asked Celie.
Celie and the Priestking were silent for a moment.
‘Perhaps … smuggle would be the correct word,’ Celie said.
Sir Topher buried his head in his hands and Isaboe heard the word ‘Augie’ muttered.
‘And no one suspected?’ Isaboe asked.
‘Well … the castellan of the palace searched my room. He’s very suspicious. But I was clever. And I wept, of course. You see, he accused me of theft in front of the King’s men.’ Celie looked pleased with herself. ‘My tears are very convincing. There was some quite pathetic snivelling.’
‘Oh so underrated, the sob and the snivel,’ Isaboe said. ‘I wish I had been taught. I would have used them more often in exile.’
‘If you had sobbed and snivelled when Sir Topher and I first found you in Sendecane, we wouldn’t be here today,’ Finnikin said. ‘I would have left you behind.’
‘Yes, because you had so much control over the situation, my love.’ Isaboe laughed.
‘Can we get back to why they’re here at this time of the morning?’ Perri asked politely. ‘I almost tackled blessed Barakah to the ground.’
‘Then let’s begin with insanity,’ the Priestking said. ‘All great curses do. Because you will always find some sort of genius amidst it. I found an interesting passage in one of my books from the Osterians. Three thousand years ago there was a Yut t
ouched by the gods. He was mad – those most touched by the gods are – and his greatest claim was remembering the moment of his birth.’
‘Mad, indeed,’ Finnikin said.
The Priestking shook his head. ‘You didn’t see your daughter come into the world, Finnikin. It’s our most savage entry into any place on this earth. One that killed your own mother. Imagine the state of one’s mind if they were to recall its details. All those months cocooned and then the onslaught of this ugly world. Light and noise and strangeness. It’s no wonder we scream with terror at our birth.’
‘And you found all this in the Osterian chronicle?’
The Priestking shook his head. ‘Just a mention of the Yut and his theory. So I continued my search. What kingdom has profited most from Yutlind’s mess and has become the greatest hoarder and pilferer of its works?’
‘Belegonia,’ Sir Topher said.
‘Although it could have been worse,’ Finnikin said. ‘The great works of Yutlind could have ended up in the hands of the Sorellians. At least the Belegonians have a love for words.’
The Priestking nodded. ‘Thus Celie’s achievement in their spring palace.’
‘I pride myself on being the greatest spy there is,’ Celie said. ‘When I was in the Belegonian capital, I had no such luck finding any foreign chronicles. In the spring castle, however, I found exactly what we were looking for.’
‘Celie,’ Isaboe reprimanded. ‘I told you to find yourself a lover, not hide yourself in a library.’
‘No, you said we could make these invitations to Belegonia work for us,’ Celie said.
‘Well, I don’t know what we would have done without her,’ the Priestking said.
‘Can’t you be both?’ Isaboe asked. ‘Someone’s lover and our greatest spy?’
‘I’ll try very hard to please you, my queen,’ Celie laughed. ‘But let me start as a spy. I searched the chamber of chronicles in the spring castle, every opportunity I could. There’s a foreign section. We’ll speak later about what they’ve pilfered from Lumatere. Finally I came across the chronicles of Phaneus of Yutlind. Of course, I couldn’t understand a word of it. So I returned home with the chronicles. It had been a strange time in the spring palace and I told the King that I was sick at heart and needed to be with my family. And here I am.’
‘And you were able to translate it, blessed Barakah?’ Finnikin asked, and Isaboe heard envy in his voice.
‘I promise it wasn’t easy,’ the Priestking said. ‘Phaneus of Yutlind’s writing rants and states that we all speak one tongue before we’re born.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Isaboe said.
‘There’s no Lumateran, Charyn, Yut, Sorellian, Sendecanese, Osterian, Belegonian, Sarnak,’ Celie said, excitement in her voice. ‘He called it the tongue of the innocents.’
The Priestking glanced down to where Isaboe held a hand on her belly.
‘I listen to you speak to the babe, Your Majesty. But according to Phaneus of Yutlind, that babe does not understand a word of Lumateran. All it understands is the universal language of the innocents. Untainted by life.’
‘Why can’t we remember it, then, according to this Phaneus?’ Finnikin asked.
‘Oh, Phaneus doesn’t have the answer to that. He was barely lucid at times. Dearest Celie had to witness some unmentionable sketches before we reached the pages of the unborns.’
‘Unmentionable,’ Celie said, her cheeks pink at the memory.
‘How unmentionable?’ Isaboe asked, intrigued.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Celie said. ‘Among other things.’
‘Celie, you have taken a lover,’ Finnikin said. ‘Why is it that Isaboe gets to hear everything and I get nothing but Phaneus the mad Yut?’
Sir Topher made a sound with his throat that meant he was irritated by the chatting.
‘Go on, blessed Barakah,’ Isaboe said.
‘My guess would be that we don’t remember the language because we don’t remember birth. Perhaps the shock wipes it from our memories. Who knows?’
The Priestking swung the chronicle around and pointed.
‘The mad Yut’s tongue of the innocents,’ he said, pointing to the strange but familiar lettering.
Isaboe recognised one or two symbols with stems and curves that she had seen in the letters sent by both Froi and Tesadora.
‘I found a strange code that matched every symbol to Yut characters I recognised, and then I tried to translate Yut into Lumateran, but the Yut words on both Froi and the Charyn girl’s bodies didn’t seem to exist.’
The Priestking retrieved the two parchments with Froi and Quintana’s lettering.
‘Until I did this,’ he said, placing them together. They all moved closer to study the words in Yut. ‘Half of the message was with Froi. The other half with Quintana of Charyn.’
‘We are incomplete,’ Finnikin translated.
Isaboe felt her breath catch.
‘Is this saying they’re incomplete without each other? Froi and that savage?’ she asked.
The Priestking didn’t speak for a moment.
‘I think it’s something even more powerful than that,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the spirits of the unborn babes that spoke.’
Perri was on his feet, pacing the room, and Isaboe felt the tension from them all.
The Priestking laid Froi’s letter out on the table. ‘We have to go back to the events of the night of our lad’s birth. A strange, horrific night when a mother and her son are wrenched apart, a man loses the love of a brother, another man loses faith in his king and himself, a babe loses her mother and twin sister. All those involved, the Oracle amongst them, were so powerful that their loss and pain and fury and grief became a splinter in the soul of a kingdom. We know it’s referred to as the day of weeping, when every Charynite woman who carried a child bled it from their loins.’
Isaboe held out a hand to Perri and he sat, his fists clenched.
‘Look at what Seranonna did to Lumatere,’ the Priestking continued. ‘All that rage and anguish. That wasn’t planned. It wasn’t conjured up in a spell. It came from in here,’ the Priest-king said, pointing to his heart. He flicked through another of the chronicles. ‘Two hundred years ago, it also happened in Sendecane. A young girl’s passion destroyed the kingdom and it is still a wasteland today except for the cloister of Lagrami. Five hundred years ago it happened to an island north of Sarnak, a place that no longer exists. Never underestimate the power of our raw emotions.’
Sir Topher was a man of logic and even he looked spellbound.
‘So the two babes and two brothers, and Lirah of Serker and the Oracle cursed the kingdom much the same way as Seranonna did?’ Isaboe asked.
The Priestking shook his head.
‘No. They didn’t curse the kingdom. They cursed a day and created the weeping.’
‘Destroyed only one day?’ Finnikin said.
‘Then who cursed the next eighteen years?’ Sir Topher asked.
The Priestking looked at them all, his eyes finally settling on Perri.
‘I believe the spirit of those bled babes had nowhere to go. Some were days from birth. They had no name, and no way of being called to rest. So they searched for the source. The vessels.’
‘Froi?’ Perri said.
The Priestking nodded. ‘And the Princess. Two vessels more powerful than we can ever imagine. Come to me. Come to me, they would have called out, hearing the cries of their lost brothers and sisters. All they wanted to do was protect them. And the spirits did come to them, but were splintered.’ He looked at Perri. ‘Part of the spirit of your unborn child went to Froi and the other part went to Quintana of Charyn.’
The Priestking paused a moment, looking at them all. ‘It’s what takes place during chaos, whether in this known world or that yet to be born. Look at what happened to us here all those years ago. Lumatere was divided in two. Those who were trapped and those in exile.
‘And the spirits of those babes have been full of fur
y and despair all these years. They’ve wanted the part of them that was lost returned. And now, finally, each has become one again, united in the babe that Quintana and Froi created. Let’s pray that it’s born, dear friends. Let’s pray that it stays safe in its mother’s arms.’
‘Mercy!’ said Finnikin.
Mercy indeed, Isaboe thought, placing a shaking hand on her belly. The kingdom of Charyn had not been cursed by evil. It had been cursed by innocence. By the power of the unborn.
Froi heard the words often that day.
‘We’re going to battle.’
They were said with uncertainty most of the time. Although the lads understood that they were going to war for Quintana of Charyn, there was still no guarantee that she would be found in the valley between Lumatere and Charyn. It was where they were heading. But first they had to get through the three hills and Bestiano’s army.
That night, they all gathered in the keep to listen to final commands, shuffling for room wherever they could. Froi was on the ground. He looked up at each archway, all the way to the top, and he felt the flatness of everyone’s mood. It wasn’t the way he wanted these men fighting for Quintana’s place in the palace. From the third-floor balcony, Gargarin spoke to them all. He called the next few days the most important hours in Charyn’s history. Said that they would be spoken about in years to come. As impassioned as his words were, the men still seemed lost. Froi remembered what Fekra had said. That the Nebian army Bestiano commanded didn’t know what they were fighting for anymore. Nor did these men.
They were about to leave when Dolyn’s voice was heard.
‘Priestling, can you sing Charyn’s ballad?’
Froi watched Arjuro look up to where Dolyn stood. The leader of Lascow was beside Gargarin and De Lancey.
‘I heard you once,’ Dolyn continued. ‘It was many, many years ago. Your voice rang clear in the crowd. More powerful than any other Priestling.’
‘No,’ Arjuro said bluntly.
His voice echoed strangely in the quiet space.
‘Arjuro –’ De Lancey called out.
‘My answer is no! It’s a song for a Charyn that no longer exists.’