Froi of the Exiles

  “Think?”

  “Someone with an abundance of wild hair and clothed in black from head to toe was heard calling one of the street lords a horse arse of gods-like proportions. Could only be him.”

  Froi closed his eyes a moment, feeling a relief that almost made him faint.

  “Are you going to take them with you?” he asked, clearing his voice of its hoarseness.

  “No. Should I?” De Lancey asked.

  “You’ll take Gargarin, but not Arjuro?”

  Froi could tell by the narrowing of De Lancey’s eyes that he was unimpressed with his tone.

  “Well, they’re not exactly attached, and Gargarin doesn’t owe Arjuro anything,” the provincaro said coldly.

  “But you do.”

  “Do I?”

  Froi bristled. The man was too calm and cool-blooded.

  “I would have done the same to Gargarin in that prison cell,” Froi said. “If I had seen Gargarin kill the child and the oracle, I would have escaped the exact way Arjuro did.”

  “So would I,” De Lancey said. “I think Gargarin’s accepted that, too. But ten years ago, when they released Gargarin from the prison, after they had broken every bone in his body, we searched this kingdom high and low for one of the most brilliant young physicians in Charyn. And Arjuro refused to be found. Gargarin’s bones mended twisted.”

  A plate of pigeon stew was placed before Froi, and he wolfed it down.

  “How long since you’ve eaten, you fool?”

  Froi burped and stood. “Not your concern.”

  De Lancey sighed. “Sometimes I think you and Grij and the lads are a punishment to us all for our wild youth.”

  “I’m not one of the lads,” Froi said. “I’m just someone’s bastard, remember?”

  There was regret on De Lancey’s face.

  “I did not mean for you to find out the way you did.”

  Froi shrugged. “You had a dalliance with Arjuro, and you wanted to pick a fight.”

  De Lancey gave a bitter laugh. “Dalliance? Is that what he told you?”

  “I knew he was lying,” Froi said with a sneer. “As if you would lower yourself. I know your type.”

  The provincaro was quick. He reached over and gripped Froi by his shirt, bringing him an inch away from his face.

  “No,” De Lancey said through clenched teeth. “You don’t. Never presume.”

  His guards were at the table in an instant.

  “We’ll take him outside, sir.”

  The provincaro shoved Froi back and waved them away. Froi studied him a moment. He wondered who was telling the truth. Arjuro or De Lancey?

  “He lied about the dalliance part,” the provincaro said quietly. “We were lovers from when we were sixteen years old until the night of the last born. Nine years. Not quite a dalliance, don’t you agree?” he added bitterly.

  “But you betrayed him?”

  A flash of regret crossed the other man’s face. “I betrayed many that night. But I believed I was doing the right thing.”

  De Lancey poured wine from the carafe. “Do you have trust in your king?”

  Froi pushed his mug toward the wine, and De Lancey poured another. “I have a queen, and you have caught me on a mellow day, De Lancey. Because if anyone dared to question my allegiance or trust in my queen and king, I’d take a knife to their throat.”

  “I trusted my king. I thought Arjuro was mad and in his madness he was risking the life of our beloved oracle. I felt there was no better place to protect her from the Serkers than in the palace. But I was a coward in my plan. It cost an innocent farrier his life, and I realized afterward that the Serkers were not involved.”

  De Lancey looked up, and Froi followed his gaze to where the three last borns entered the crowded room. Froi watched Grijio speak to one of the guards, who pointed to the provincaro.

  “Arjuro was your lover, but you had a wife who bore you a son?” Froi accused.

  “No,” the provincaro said. “I’ve not had a wife. It’s far more complicated and tragic than you’d imagine.”

  “Everything in Charyn seems far more complicated and tragic.”

  Froi stood, quaffing his wine.

  “By the way,” Froi said. “It’s no business of mine, but I would reconsider asking Tariq to travel into the center of Charyn, regardless of how many men your envoy promises him.”

  “My envoy?”

  Froi saw genuine confusion on the man’s face.

  “Lad, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  The hairs on Froi’s arm stood tall as he stared at De Lancey.

  “Are you saying you haven’t sent an envoy to meet with Tariq of Lascow?”

  The last borns arrived to hear Froi’s words.

  “Who told you that?” De Lancey asked.

  “Tariq.”

  “What?” De Lancey asked.

  Froi bolted, shoving through the crowd. He heard the provincaro call out Grijio’s name and felt someone at his shoulder and knew it was one of the last borns. They clambered up the stairs and out of the cave. Once outside, the wind tore at their skin, but they raced up the Citavita wall, flying over cave tops to reach Perabo’s home.

  “He’ll not let us in,” Grijio shouted over the wind. “The rule is that we are never to search him out.”

  Froi ignored him, fighting the images that came to his mind. You should never have left her, he raged to himself.

  When they reached the roof of Perabo’s cave, Froi grabbed a piece of stone and hammered, shouting out the man’s name over and over again, his voice raw. Olivier and Grijio and Satch collapsed beside him, their voices joining in with his, until finally they heard a sound from inside and the trapdoor was lifted, revealing Perabo.

  “They’ve been betrayed,” Froi shouted at the man. Perabo ushered them in. Froi leaped down into the room and pushed aside the chest placed over the trapdoor.

  “How can you be sure?” Perabo said, crouching down to where Froi pulled at the ring to lift the door.

  “They’re waiting for De Lancey’s envoy.”

  “And Father sent no envoy!” Grij said.

  Perabo grabbed Froi’s arm. “Then we do nothing!” he said, anguish in his voice. “That was the plan. That if there’s been an ambush, we do nothing.”

  “You do nothing, Perabo,” Froi said, climbing into the narrow cavern below. He landed on his feet and began to run down the tunnel. A moment later, he saw the flicker of light and knew the others had followed. At the place where two rafts were docked, Perabo pointed Grijio toward Froi and handed them a lantern before pushing their raft along. Perabo, Olivier, and Satch took the second raft, and there was a sickening somber silence for too long before someone spoke.

  “When?” Grijio whispered as they approached a familiar turn in the underground river. “When did he believe this so-called envoy was to come?”

  “He said a week,” Froi said. “That was eight days ago.”

  Froi looked back to the others. “I’ll go in first,” he said. “I need your sword, Perabo.”

  “No one goes in unless it’s secure.”

  “Give him your sword, Perabo,” Olivier protested. “If they live, the Lumateran has a better chance of getting them out alive.”

  When they reached the place where they had heard the three beats last time, they waited for the sound. But there was nothing. Perabo tapped the roof of the cave with his oar, but still no one came.

  “Gyer,” Perabo whispered. “Gyer.”

  Still nothing.

  “This is not good,” Froi heard Olivier whisper. “This is not good.”

  Froi stepped out of his raft, and Perabo reached across from the second vessel and handed him the sword with shaking hands.

  In the tunnel of speckled light, Froi began to clear his mind of all things that could spell doom and concentrated on what brought hope. He knew that if whoever had infiltrated the compound was smart, they would take Tariq’s people hostage and ransom them to the provincari
. The provincari would pay for the heir and his family. Any day now, De Lancey or one of the other provincari would get news and deals would be struck and Tariq would be safe. But would Quintana? Would the enemy have recognized her, or would they believe her to be one of the Lascow compound, waiting in exile?

  And then he saw the first corpse. Recognized the face of the gatekeeper. What had Perabo called him? Gyer. A small distance away was another corpse, throat slit from ear to ear. Froi’s legs almost buckled as he entered Tariq’s chamber, where they had first placed Quintana, his heart catching in his throat when he saw that Tariq’s nurse lay on the ground, her wounds identical to the men’s.

  Froi heard a sound and spun around, his sword pressing against the base of Olivier’s throat.

  “I told you to stay behind,” Froi said quietly.

  But Olivier could only shake his head.

  “We found others,” he whispered. “In the kitchen.”

  It was quick. They had been taken by surprise. The cook still had flour on her hands, the once-giggling cousins were clutching their grinders. Every one of them had the same wound, and Froi’s only consolation was that the deaths were quick. He reached over to an egg that had been shelled. Felt it was cold.

  “You don’t know how smart he is,” Grijio said. “He would have found a way to live. He would have.”

  Doesn’t matter how smart you are, Froi wanted to tell them. When you face the end of a sword, it has little to do with smarts.

  He walked among the dead. Sometimes he thought he saw her, recognized her dress, and his heart would sink as he crouched to gently turn the body toward him, and then for a moment, all he could feel was relief. Until the next girl and then the next.

  Some were still holding hands, as though they had gripped on to each other with fear as the dagger cut the breath out of them. Froi’s eyes swelled with a fury of tears. Knew they never had a chance.

  He heard a cry of anguish and followed the sound into the tunnel where only a week ago Tariq had stopped to weep for his dying cousin. At the end, where Froi knew there was nothing but steps leading down to the crypt, he saw the others. He couldn’t breathe. He could only watch. Olivier crouched down in sorrow. Satch stood with hands to his head, bewildered horror on his face. Grijio was weeping bitterly, his arms clasped around himself, while Perabo’s fist pounded at the stone wall until Grijio pulled him away before he could do further damage. When they heard Froi’s slow footsteps, they turned, and he saw the faces of men who had lost hope. Not even among the Lumaterans when they had discovered that their heir, Balthazar, was truly dead had he seen such desolation.

  Sprawled at the top of the steps was Tariq of Lascow’s body. Close by, a girl lay dead. Froi could see by the color of her hair that it was Ariel. He fell to his knees beside Tariq, saw the way one arm lay lifeless against the top step.

  “Perhaps they took Quintana,” Froi managed to find the words, staring down at the young king who had shown him nothing but kindness. Who had promised nothing but peace.

  Perabo shook his head, blood dripping from his fists. “You know better than me, Lumateran. This was a hunting party. No one was to survive. They would have had no idea she was here. They would have killed her not knowing who she was.”

  “There’s another chamber,” Olivier said, pointing farther on. “Where the corpses are piled onto each other.”

  Froi stumbled to his feet. “I need to find her,” he said.

  There was a trail of blood between the bodies, as though the wretched assassins couldn’t allow the two cousins to die side by side. Froi gently dragged Tariq’s body closer to Ariel’s and turned him on his back.

  He heard the swallows of grief around him as he reached out to close the young king’s eyes. He couldn’t help noticing that although Tariq was cut from ear to ear, much the same as everyone else, the assassins had also hacked at the inside of his arm, as though with a blunt sword.

  Froi had been taught that dead men sometimes spoke louder than those who breathed. He searched the space around them for a sign, and saw it there, close to Ariel’s body. A small decorative dagger, sharp enough to slice paper and do little else. Had Tariq tried to fight the assassins with a letter opener? And if so, why cut his arm so crudely? Suddenly Froi’s eyes were drawn to the wound on Ariel’s throat. Crudely hacked, much the same as Tariq’s arm, but unlike the precise wound at the heir’s throat.

  “What is it, Froi?” Grijio asked.

  Froi shook his head, unable to speak. He needed to think. Had Tariq’s visit to his cousin’s deathbed been interrupted by the assassins and had they tried to escape together? Had Tariq tried to fight them with the only weapon he had, which was then used against him? Yet the wound to his throat was delivered by the sharpest of weapons.

  “We need to find her corpse,” Perabo said, his voice rough in its sorrow. “And then we get out of here. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Come, Froi,” Grijio said. “We’ve seen enough.”

  The last born glanced at the two bodies one more time.

  “She was a beauty,” Grijio said softly. “I knew her before her illness. She had the brightest eyes I’d ever seen.”

  Froi had to agree about the beauty. Despite Ariel’s ghastly pallor, she looked peaceful, almost a hint of a smile on her face. But then a strange thought struck him.

  “Her eyes are closed,” he said. “Perabo, stop!” Froi called out to the keeper of the caves, who had already begun to walk away.

  “What are you saying?” Grijio asked.

  “Every body we’ve passed has had eyes that are wide open in death. Except for Ariel’s.”

  He reached a shaky hand to touch the girl’s face and froze. The others were back alongside him. Froi grabbed Perabo’s hand, placing it on Ariel’s face.

  He watched the man flinch. “She’s been dead for at least a day or two. The stiffness has already entered her bones!”

  “Why would they slit her throat if she was already dead?” Olivier demanded.

  “Fro,” Satch said urgently, his voice a gasp.

  “It’s Froi.”

  “There!”

  They looked back to the step where Satch pointed and where Tariq’s hand had first rested when they found him. And they saw the letters F — R — O written in blood. Froi studied Tariq’s hand. A finger was stained with blood.

  “He cut himself to bleed,” Froi said urgently, looking around for something else. Anything. “He hacked himself with the paper dagger so he could write those letters, but he was interrupted, and even after they slit his throat, he dragged himself from here to there,” he said, pointing to the trail of blood.

  “So he could finish your name?” Olivier asked.

  Tariq would have known that nothing would keep Froi away the moment he heard Quintana’s life was in danger. The young king was speaking to him beyond death.

  “Why hack at Ariel’s throat?” Froi asked the others, needing them to think with him.

  “He wanted them to believe she was already dead,” Perabo said. “That one of their own had already come across her.”

  “Because then”— Olivier’s eyes blazed with excitement — “then they wouldn’t go near her body!”

  “Because they’d realize she had died much earlier and he didn’t want them to know that,” Grijio suggested. “But it doesn’t make sense. Why?”

  “Sagra!”

  Froi flew down the steps, the others following. Tariq hadn’t dragged himself to the steps to complete Froi’s name. He had done so to point him in the direction of the crypt.

  “Quintana!”

  “Be as smart as you were kind, Tariq,” Grijio prayed.

  Froi burst into the crypt where two bodies wrapped in white linen were lying on a slab of stone. He began to tear at the cloth around the face of the smaller of the two.

  “Stop!” Olivier said, grabbing Froi’s shoulder to pull him away.

  “You’ll offend the gods!” Grijio shouted.

  Froi threw
the last born aside, desperate to get back to the gauze-covered body. He tore at the fabric around the mouth, trying to find a beginning or an end. The moment they heard the sound of a gasp beneath, the others were around him tearing at the bindings until the face was free. Froi grabbed Quintana to him, fighting back a sob as her breath returned.

  “Tariq?” she whispered hoarsely. “Where are you, Tariq?”

  He helped her to the steps, his own heart pounding as hard as hers.

  “You’re going to keep your eyes shut, Quintana. Do you understand?” he said as they stumbled up the steps. He wanted nothing more than to protect her from the sight that would meet them at the top. He covered her eyes with a hand, but she tried to pull free, struggling against Froi viciously.

  “Don’t look, Your Highness,” Grijio pleaded as they reached the top of the steps.

  She shook her head, clawing at Froi’s hand. “I want to see. I need to see. Tariq,” she shouted.

  Froi dragged her away and they struggled over the slippery surface of the bloodied ground around the bodies of the two cousins.

  “Perabo will keep us safe until we can travel to where De Lancey of Paladozza is staying,” Froi said in an attempt to comfort her. “The provincaro and Grijio will be the first to leave the Citavita when the bridge is open, and you’ll go with them.”

  And it was only when Froi almost lost balance that Quintana finally broke free and turned back to where Tariq’s body lay with Ariel’s.

  “Close your eyes, Quintana!” Froi begged.

  But she sank onto her knees, taking Tariq’s and Ariel’s lifeless hands in hers and pressing them to her face. And she wept a pitiful cry from a place in her spirit so hopeless that Froi thought she’d will her own death.

  Perabo placed a gentle hand on her arm.

  “It’s not safe here, Your Highness. We must go.”

  But she refused to move, and the keeper of the caves picked her up in the crook of his arm and dragged her away. Froi knew that he would remember her screams for days and years to come. Despite their pleas that she close her eyes, she looked into the face of every one of the Lascow dead and spoke their names out loud, until the gods took mercy on them all and broke her voice and she could speak no more.