“He lied, Your Majesty!”
Cruelty always seemed to stop Quintana’s tears. Froi’s cruelty had stopped them in Tariq’s caves when he told her why he was sent to Charyn. Gargarin’s words stemmed them now. Froi knew it was the indignant one who wept and the ice queen who knew how to endure the cruelty. He watched it all play out on her expression until Lirah took her hand and, sending Gargarin a scathing look, led Quintana away.
Froi joined Gargarin where he sat on the bale of hay, studying the maps.
“When do we leave?” Froi asked.
“Early. I want us to get to Paladozza through this mountain pass that becomes a thoroughfare for cattle and goods by midmorning. Then it’s a day or two across flatlands.”
“And then what?” Arjuro asked, from the stall beside them. “Are we going to travel from province to province, begging them for sanction?”
“De Lancey will take her. He will be pleased with Orlanda’s pledge of her men, and he’ll organize the rest. If De Lancey succeeds, Quintana will return to the Citavita with a Guard made up of the united provinces and there may be some hope for Charyn yet.”
“The provincara pledged the men to you, Gargarin,” Arjuro argued. “Not De Lancey. Not to another province.”
“And what do you propose I do?” Gargarin asked. “March into the Citavita as the captain of the future King’s Guard? Do I look the part?”
“Captains don’t make the plans,” Froi said quietly. “They carry them out. In the absence of a king, a First Man makes all the plans.”
“I’m no First Adviser,” Gargarin corrected. “I’m just one who doesn’t have to be gods’ blessed to predict what will happen.
“And what is that?” Froi asked. Arjuro came around to their stall, waiting for Gargarin’s response.
“Quintana of Charyn lives only until she births the first,” Arjuro said bluntly when Gargarin didn’t respond. “It will be the first who is returned to the Citavita, and whoever has him in their possession will rule as regent until the king comes of age. Let us hope that it is not Bestiano for the sake of the child and let us hope it is not a provincaro for the sake of the whole kingdom.”
“And if it’s a girl child?” Froi asked.
“You pray to every god you trust, Froi, that this child is not a girl,” Gargarin said. “Because she may end the curse, but they still need a king to rule. This is not Lumatere. They will break Quintana, producing another and then another until it’s a male, and if that does not happen, then they will begin on her daughter when she’s of age. Do not underestimate Charyn’s desire for the heir to come from royal blood, regardless of how they feel about the dead king.”
Froi shuddered. “What do you mean she’ll live only until she births the first?” he asked.
“If I were Bestiano and I knew the truth, I’d have her tried for the murder of a king. The people of Charyn would accept the ruling. Why care what happens to the princess if they have the heir and curse breaker?”
“And how will they rid themselves of Quintana the last?” Froi spat out the words. “Will they ensure that she dies in childbirth? Will they have some ambitious boy from the dregs of Charyn toss her from the window of a palace to please his master? Wouldn’t want her there as a reminder of Charyn’s curse, would you?”
Gargarin had proven himself to be a man who rarely lost his temper, but Froi could tell by his clenched fists that he had pushed him to the edge.
“If you do nothing to protect her, I’ll take her away.”
“Is that a threat?” Gargarin asked.
“No, a promise,” Froi said. “You try to stop me, Gargarin. Just try. I’ll break every bone in your body. You know I will. I’ll take her to Sarnak or even to Sendecane, where no one ever need know who she once was.”
“But do you know who will stop you, Froi?” Gargarin said. “She will. Allow her the dignity of being able to save her kingdom.”
“Dignity,” Froi spat. “You’re a coldhearted dog. You tell her there’s nothing beautiful about her and you call that dignity.”
Gargarin stared up at him coldly. “If that is the way you chose to interpret my words, then there is nothing I can do to change the way you think.”
Gargarin walked away. Arjuro was silent, but suddenly he flinched with surprise.
Froi turned to see Lirah, her hair hacked short, her stare toward Gargarin defiant. If anything, her furious work had made her more breathtaking. She was all face, all eyes of a storm, and Froi could not believe he was born from one so beautiful.
Gargarin stared at her coldly, shaking his head with bitter amusement. “I’m not the enemy, Lirah. Save your fury for when we confront Bestiano.”
Gargarin pushed past her to the back of the stall, where Quintana sat on the ground with her head in her hands. Her hair was not as short as Lirah’s. It rested at her chin, and she resembled one of the pages from the palace of Lumatere.
Froi watched Gargarin sit on the bale of hay before her, clearly uncomfortable. After a while he reached out to lift her chin, but she resisted and kept her eyes cast to the ground.
“It would have been feasible for the gods and oracle to choose another vessel to carry the first, but they chose you, Your Highness. Do you know why?”
Froi winced. He would have begun with an apology. Even he knew that. “No stories or explanations,” Finnikin had once told him. “When it comes to women, straight into an apology and you will find the rest of your life bearable.” Although Finnikin and Isaboe spent much of their time arguing, Froi still believed it to be sound advice.
Quintana was silent. Froi wondered if she had heard the question.
“Because I’m the king’s daughter,” she answered after a while. “That’s why the gods chose me. Because the royal bloodline is everything. It began with the gods.”
“True, but why not Tariq? He was still of royal blood.”
“But they did choose Tariq.”
“No, Quintana. They didn’t. You know that. They chose you and they chose Froi, not Tariq.” He glanced at Froi. “I can’t say why they chose Froi. I know little of him, despite everything. But I think they chose you because they were watching and saw that not once in this cursed and wretched life of yours have you lost hope or complained.”
The reginita looked up, indignant. “Oh, I complain all the time, Sir Gargarin. All the time. They must not have been listening close enough,” she said, “Once or twice I even threw a rock at one of the frescoes on the palace walls placed there by the gods. ‘Who cares if you can draw?’ I shouted. ‘Send us some hope.’ ”
Gargarin sighed. “But they did send us hope.”
She shook her head.
“Do you remember those days they had me chained to your father’s desk, believing me to be Arjuro? At first I wanted to hate you. When I believed you to be Lirah’s child, I knew in an instant that you were the king’s and not mine. You have one or two of his features. But I surprised myself. I lived for those moments when you came into the room with your wonder at the world. ‘Good morning, Arjuro,’ you would say to me, and although it wasn’t my name, and although I was chained to a desk like an animal, you made me feel human.”
She raised her eyes, almost shyly. Froi liked the way Quintana’s strange face was framed by the hacked length of hair.
“And if someone asked me to paint a picture of joy and hope, I would have painted you. In my eyes, that is beauty. Not what your father had to say about your hair.”
“You’re only saying that to make us feel better.”
Gargarin was amused by the idea. “No, not really. I have no idea how to go around making people feel better. Ask Arjuro. He always said I had the ability to walk into a room and make everyone feel instantly worse. And to be honest, I found your hair quite annoying. Too much of it, everywhere. You look much more handsome now.”
“But we don’t want to look handsome,” she cried. “We want to look beautiful.”
She touched her hair with regret. Gargarin l
ooked at Froi and then back to Quintana.
“Did you know that the queen of Lumatere’s head was bare when Froi first met her?”
Why did he do this? Froi wondered. Make Froi hate him one moment and then change his mind an instant later.
Quintana sat up, suddenly interested.
“Less hair than Lirah’s?” she asked, looking over Gargarin’s shoulder at Froi.
“Much less,” Froi said.
“She must have looked absolutely ridiculous.”
“Thankfully I’m drawn to absolutely ridiculous-looking girls,” Froi said, sitting beside Gargarin before her. He saw a flash in her eyes. Their irises were tinged with yellow today. He had lost count of how many times their color had changed.
“Lirah said my father would never let her cut her hair and that it was just a different type of shackle. Isn’t that strange, Sir Gargarin? That her beauty was her downfall and my plainness is mine.”
“You’re just fishing for compliments,” Froi said, annoyed.
“You said I was plain,” she said, pursing her lips. “I heard you on the balconette.”
“Princess —”
“Queen,” she corrected.
He leaned forward, his mouth close to her ear.
“Quintana,” he said instead. “You haven’t been plain since I saw those teeth.”
Later, Froi made sure the stables were secure and walked back into the godshouse baths the way they had come through the underground passage.
Inside there was no one, and Froi went into the room where they had undressed and found their clothing. He retrieved his dagger and short sword and placed the pack on his back. In the adjoining bath chamber, he heard a sound and walked to the door. Torches illuminated the space, giving it a ghostly hue in this light. From where he stood, he was surprised to see Arjuro in the water, his bony body even paler than Gargarin’s.
Froi approached and was about to call his name when he saw the true horror of what Arjuro’s long black robes concealed. The priestling’s back was a mess of puckered white flesh. It was as if someone had torn strips from every part of him. Worse was what lay scorched across Arjuro’s pale shoulders.
It was the Charyn word for traitor.
Chapter 30
Lady Beatriss,” Beatriss heard Tarah say gently from the door of her chamber. “Lady Beatriss, you have a guest.”
Tarah came to the bed and removed the blanket from around Beatriss and began laying out some clothing.
“Tell them I’m not myself today, Tarah,” Beatriss murmured.
It was what Tarah had told anyone who came to the house for the past week.
“But Lady Beatriss, it’s the queen.”
Beatriss did the best she could to look presentable, but nothing could be done about her limp hair and dull complexion. Tarah had chosen her favorite calico dress, but these days she resembled a scarecrow in it.
Beatriss was even more shamed to see the queen sitting in her kitchen.
“Come into the solar, my queen,” she said quietly. “My apologies that I was not here to meet you at the door.”
The queen embraced her, pressing a kiss to her cheek, and dismissed the idea of another room with the wave of a hand. “And when did you stop calling me Isaboe?”
Outside her kitchen window, Beatriss could see the Queen’s Guard, scattered to ensure Isaboe’s safety. Those who knew the land were running their fingers through dry dirt, shaking their heads.
“I can only stay awhile,” Isaboe said. “I have to get back to feed Jasmina.”
“Perhaps a mug of buttermilk and honey,” Beatriss said, making herself busy. “It’s Vestie’s favorite when the weather becomes cooler. I’m afraid it will be a short autumn, and next thing you know, we’ll all be confined indoors because of the cold.”
Despite her ridiculous chatter about weather and her refusal to look at the queen, Beatriss felt the younger girl’s eyes on her. When it was difficult to ignore her any longer, she turned to face Isaboe.
“Why do you look at me in such a way?” she asked huskily.
“Because I’m worried for you, Beatriss,” Isaboe said, not one to play with words. “So is Abian, but she says you won’t see her. And we don’t want to write to Tesadora. You’ll only end up living in that cursed valley, like every other woman or girl who comes in contact with her.”
They both managed a smile. “I miss her,” Beatriss said, searching for the sweets she had hidden from Vestie. “It’s an ache I feel. Who would have thought that Tesadora and I would form such a friendship?”
She placed the mug and sweets before the queen and sat opposite, fighting to keep back the tears. “She gave me purpose.”
Isaboe gripped both her hands. “You’ll always have purpose, Beatriss.”
“It shames me to think highly of those days … those awful, awful days,” Beatriss said, tears biting her eyes. “But … in the last five years of the curse, I knew who I was for the first time in my life. Not the daughter of a Flatland lord or even the woman loved by the captain of the Guard. I was Beatriss of the Flatlands.”
The tears did fall, and Beatriss despised her weakness.
“My people are scattered and miserable, Isaboe. I’ve failed them. I’ve failed everyone I love.”
The queen stood and led Beatriss to the window, pointing outside to the dead field.
“That is not failure, Beatriss. That is something beyond your control. Beyond any of our control. That land will not yield, and it’s not because of anything you did or didn’t do. Perhaps it will never yield, but you cannot stay here in ruin, waiting for that day.”
Beatriss shook her head. “I can’t leave this place, Isaboe. I can’t.”
“Why?” Isaboe asked, frustration in her voice. “For pride?”
Pride? Beatriss’s pride was long gone. It was smothered by the smugness in the expressions of the Flatland lords. It was shattered by the disappointment in Trevanion’s eyes.
“My daughter is buried here,” she said quietly, pained to say the words. “Down by the river. I can’t leave her spirit alone. I feel her every day, Isaboe. I can’t leave her behind.”
Beatriss saw a wince of regret in Isaboe’s eyes. In exile, the queen had taken the name of Beatriss and Trevanion’s first child to keep herself safe. Evanjalin had been the name of Trevanion’s mother, and Beatriss knew that each time the queen or Finnikin passed through Sennington, they visited the babe’s grave. She also knew that Trevanion didn’t.
“Forgive me, Beatriss. I beg of you. Idiot that I am,” Isaboe said.
“Nothing to forgive.”
Isaboe returned to the table, nursing her buttermilk. Once again, Beatriss felt the dark eyes studying her.
“Can I tell you of an idea I have?” the queen said. “I keep Finnikin awake with ideas, you know. I’ve been thinking of the tales Rafuel of Sebastabol has told Finnikin about Charyn during his interrogation up in the mountains. Even my idiot cousin Lucian is captivated. Our neighbors had schools of philosophy and art and studied the books of the Ancients. It wasn’t only Charyn. Belegonia is a place of learning too. The stories Celie comes back with fill Finnikin and me with envy. We can’t begin to think of the way they see us. Backwater cousins.”
“We’re no such thing,” Beatriss said firmly. “Our healers are gifted, taught by Tesadora. They’ve kept the fever out of this kingdom these past years, and we lose fewer women to birthing now than any other time.”
Isaboe shook her head. “But their talents are wasted. I can understand why Japhra followed Tesadora to the valley. It’s what you said, Beatriss. It’s all about purpose. And look at the priest-king. He manages to see the smartest of our kingdom in his overgrown garden. And for what? Where does a learned man or woman go in Lumatere? To quarry stone? To milk a cow?”
Isaboe looked around the sun-drenched room.
“This place, Beatriss,” she said, “this house could be a place of learning. Could you imagine the spirit of the first Evanjalin soaring
here?”
Beatriss was stunned by what the queen was suggesting.
“The priest-king’s shrine house has gold and they’ll pay you well, and I know Augie has said many times he’d buy your southern paddock and we could sell your north paddock to whoever runs Fenton. Your villagers will be taken care of between Sayles and Fenton. Tarah and Samuel, of course, will come with you to the palace to live with us.”
“The palace?”
Isaboe nodded emphatically, traces of a smile on her face.
“I’m selfish, Beatriss,” she said. “I have a room of men to help me rule a kingdom, but I need good women to help me raise my children.”
A look passed between them. “You’re with child,” Beatriss said, reaching out to clutch Isaboe’s hand.
Isaboe nodded, biting her lip and looking toward the entrance before leaning forward.
“I need help with Jasmina, Beatriss,” Isaboe whispered. “Just between you and me, my beloved daughter is the worst-behaved child in Lumatere.”
Beatriss laughed.
“No, it’s true,” Isaboe said. “No one will admit it because they think I’ll have them imprisoned or beheaded or whatnot, but Jasmina’s tantrums can be heard from the Rock.”
“You try to do it all, beloved,” Beatriss said. “You can’t.”
“My mother did,” Isaboe said. “She raised five children and helped my father run this kingdom.”
Beatriss scoffed gently at the words. “Isaboe, I was there as a companion for your sisters. No one loved the dear queen as I did, but she had help. A lot of help. Your yata was with her every second week, as were your aunts. Get those Mont girls off the mountain and into the palace. Some of them are stifled up there. Why do you think they’re down in the valley with Tesadora? They would be a delight to have around. And dare I say it, perhaps it’s time to remove Jasmina from the breast.”
The young queen seemed stricken at the thought.
“You will not lose your bond with her, Isaboe.”
Beatriss looked at the queen tenderly. “When Vestie was born, I couldn’t feed her. Tesadora found one of the River girls who had just birthed a babe, and later we fed Vestie goat’s milk. Can you ever deny the bond I have with my child?”