Quintana hadn’t spoken a word since she walked out of the cottage with Hesta. She merely rested her head in Lirah’s lap.
“I think it will be soon,” she whispered.
And soon it was. Hesta came outside to feed them goat stew, and when she returned to the cottage, the old man had died without her there.
“By his side all these years,” she said, weeping, “yet he died alone.”
Arjuro stood to follow her and sing his song, calling the spirit of the oracle and her father.
“Arjuro,” Quintana said, sitting up. “You must call hers as well.”
He nodded. “The oracle queen?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Regina of Turla. You need to return her spirit to where it belongs.”
Lirah froze. Froi leaped to his feet, shaking his head. “Quintana, what are you saying?”
Gargarin and Arjuro stared at her in anguish.
“We cannot protect this child if we are not whole,” Quintana said.
“Arjuro, don’t do it!” Lirah said.
“There’s nothing wrong with two people living inside of you,” Froi said. “You said it yourself. That I have more than one. We all do.” He turned to Arjuro. “Sing the old man and the oracle home, Arjuro, and let’s leave this place and take the princess to the safety of Paladozza.”
But Quintana’s eyes stayed on Arjuro. “If you loved my mother, blessed Arjuro, you’ll do it. You’ll do it for these people. Solange of Turla deserves to be with the spirit of her dead child and perhaps only then can she guide the little king into this world.”
Arjuro’s eyes filled with tears, shaking his head.
“They crave each other, Arjuro. Mother and daughter. It’s why we wanted to enter the godshouse all those times, remember?”
“These gifts are curses,” Arjuro cried. “Curses.”
Later that night, Froi heard Arjuro’s voice waver across the mountain, and under the light of the moon, he saw Gargarin’s wonder at the beauty of his song. Close by, Lirah held Quintana in her arms, waiting for Arjuro to sing the name they were dreading to hear.
“Solange of Turla, Argus of Turla, and Regina of Turla.”
At the sound of her name, Quintana’s cry was hoarse and full of a grief so profound. “Lirah,” she cried. “Lirah, I’m dying inside. I’m dying inside without her. Tell him to stop.”
Part of Quintana had left this world and Froi knew that part of him was gone as well.
Chapter 32
For two days, they rode in silence. Quintana had spoken only once on the morning after the old man’s death. She had taken Hesta of Turla’s hand in hers.
“You spent your life tending to the dying, kinswoman Hesta,” she said. “When my son is born, I’ll call for you to come help me take care of the living.”
She rode the first day with Lirah, whose own sadness seemed fierce, and there were few words spoken for most of their journey down the mountain.
It was a relief to reach the flat plains of Charyn after the backbreaking days on the steep narrow mountain track. Although there was little to see except brown tufts of grass haphazardly appearing from time to time between the rough and broken earth, Froi could tell that their mood had lifted.
“This is the worst hit area for lack of rain,” Gargarin told him. “It’s one of the reasons Paladozza is a jewel for those traveling from the capital to the east.”
That night, they came across a camp of nomads and exchanged a few copper coins for a meal of sugar beets and barley soup, and a tent to share.
“I’ll ride with her tomorrow,” Arjuro said as they watched Lirah coax Quintana into eating something. She had curled herself up inside the tent from the moment they had arrived and still had not spoken.
Froi walked to where Lirah was feeding the horses. He reached out toward one of the animals, who tossed its mane, its nostrils flaring.
“My captain is a great lover of horses,” he told her. “For his birthday last year, the king and queen found a mighty horse like this after sending the Guard out to search the kingdom high and low.”
“The Serker breed is the greatest in the land,” Lirah said. “When those from the palace ravaged the province, they kept the horses, and they took them to Lumatere five years later.” She pressed her nose against the animal.
“Gargarin once told me the ancient tale of a winged horse sent by the gods to Charyn,” she said. “As it fell to earth, its wings were clipped by the branches of a tree in Serker, but its might and beauty stayed. I’d been looking for a reason to love Serker all my life, and there it was with that story.”
“You must have been appreciative,” Froi said.
“Yes, so appreciative I let him into my bed.”
Froi looked back toward the tent, where Gargarin stood watching. He felt awkward listening to any story about Gargarin and Lirah, but he was more frightened by Lirah’s silence than her words.
“How did you cross each other’s paths in the palace?” he asked.
She stared across the open space, a restlessness to her.
“He liked to please the king,” she said quietly. “I was the reward.”
“You were Gargarin’s whore?” Froi asked flatly.
She sighed. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“Whenever Gargarin says those words, it means the end of a conversation,” he said. Her eyes met his, and then he saw a ghost of a smile on her face.
“He was shamed by the king’s offer. ‘We can sit and talk,’ he told me the first time. I knew the stories of his priestling brother and suspected that Gargarin preferred the company of men in the same way. I told him there was nothing to speak of. I had lived in the palace since I was thirteen, and before that I lived in savage Serker. The only thing I cared to remember from life in Serker was that I loved horses. It was my one indulgence in the palace. Gargarin, as you can probably tell by his riding, didn’t care for horses, and that ended our conversation the first night.”
She stroked the horse’s mane, looking across the plain once more.
“Do you want me to race you?” Froi asked. Lirah was used to a cell and a small garden. He should have known she would crave space. Her eyes, usually so cold and condemning, flashed with excitement, and they both mounted their horses. Lirah was off before he could give the command. She was a good rider, better than him, despite her years of imprisonment. Froi hadn’t been on a horse until three years ago, when he met Finnikin and Isaboe on their travels. It was Trevanion who had taught him to ride well, although he and Perri had conceded that Froi was not a natural on a horse. But it was in Froi to be fearless and reckless, so he took more chances with speed and caught up with Lirah.
“The next time Gargarin pleased the king, I was given a history of Serker,” she continued, her usual bitter expression replaced with a glow. “He loved to explain things, and in my twenty years of living, no one had ever treated me as anything but a possession. The time after that, he read to me. The times after that, he began to teach me to read. By winter, I could read and write, and by the summer, I knew I was in love with him.”
Lirah looked back to where Gargarin still stood in the distance, watching.
“Yet he had not laid a hand on me.”
Froi shook his head with disbelief. “Only Gargarin.”
She smiled. “Yes, only him. So I seduced him,” she said quietly. “All those years a whore, but I had never wanted to seduce a man until then.”
She looked at him with a wolfish expression. “Do you know how I did it?”
“Is it going to make me blush?”
“No.” She laughed. It transformed her face for a moment, and Froi loved nothing more than knowing he could make Lirah laugh.
“I recited love poetry written by the water god when he was courting the earth goddess. The man had taught me to read, so I rewarded him with words of passion.”
Froi waited, wanting more. “What did he do then?”
“He pleased the king every opportunity
he could.”
Froi couldn’t help laughing.
“And we spent that year with Arjuro and De Lancey. They hated me. I hated them. Gargarin loved us all. We all loved Gargarin, and those three lads felt as if nothing evil would ever touch their lives.”
The sadness was back there on her face.
“Then the slaughter in the godshouse happened and every thing changed. Arjuro was arrested, and Gargarin was inconsolable. Mark my words, he will never ever love anyone as much as his brother, despite everything.”
There was no envy in her voice, only regret.
“Gargarin was desperate to find a way to have Arjuro set free and began making plans to take us all to Lumatere.”
“Lumatere?” Froi said, surprised.
She nodded. “He said they had good rainfall.”
They both exchanged a look and laughed.
“You can imagine what type of strange man he’ll be as he grows old,” she said.
They made their way back to the nomad camp, and already Froi felt as if he was losing Lirah back to her cold spirit.
“Did Gargarin believe it was his child you carried?” he asked.
“I think he hoped,” she said. “But didn’t care. It’s strange to meet a man who doesn’t judge.”
She looked at Froi, the hard expression back on her face.
“In light of all our truths, do you wonder how I could imagine that he was a murderer of a blessed woman and a babe?”
“I think the proof was there,” Froi said with honesty.
“I knew how much he wanted Arjuro free,” she said bitterly. “I knew how much he wanted to take me away from the palace. I thought he sold his soul for it all.”
They reached the camp. Gargarin limped toward them.
“Even with his body straight, I can’t imagine him standing out,” Froi said quietly. “Why love him and not a man with more command?”
She stroked the horse’s mane.
“Don’t ever underestimate him. He’s the most powerful man you’ll ever know.”
Froi approached Quintana, who was sitting up with her hands wrapped around her knees.
“You’re going to have to ride with me now that we’re a day away from Paladozza,” he said. “If we have to bolt for our lives, I’m the only one who can protect you.”
She nodded, and then her eyes met Froi’s. His heart missed a beat. He felt a grief so deep. And a desire so fierce. Up until this moment, he had not known who the true Quintana was. Who they had lost when Arjuro sang his song for Regina of Turla. But now the relief in seeing her cold savage eyes made him feel guilty beyond reckoning.
He helped Quintana mount first, and then he settled himself behind her, his arms cautious around her waist. He could tell that her belly had grown, and he settled his hand flat against it, heard the bloodcurdling snarl in an instant. But Froi refused to remove his hands.
“I pledged that I would never do anything to hurt him,” he said. “Or you.”
It was some time before her body relaxed against his.
“Does it hurt to have him growing inside?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, and he could see the nape of her neck.
He traced a finger along the lettering there, but she shrugged him away with a growl. He remembered what the soothsayer had said about the little savage born to the palace. Without the indignant Reginita calming her, Quintana could not control her fury.
“Tell me more about this,” he said, his thumb gently caressing the mark. If he was going to protect her, he needed to know everything that made her who she was.
“My father had the female last borns branded,” she said. “His men went from province to province, village to village.”
“Why?”
“He said to protect them, but we … I feared for them. Have you seen Lirah’s branding? In Serker, one was branded with the name of one’s owner.”
He wanted to ask her so much more but couldn’t find the words without sounding like an idiot.
“Where did you go?” he asked, his voice husky. He saw her stiffen again. “Where did you go when the reginita was the one who presented herself? Where did she go when you did?”
“We went nowhere,” she said. “We would never have left each other alone. If I left her alone, she’d say strange things. If she left me alone, I’d do bad things. So we made a pact. To always be with each other.”
“What bad things would you do?” he asked.
She didn’t respond.
“Did you kill the king or did she?”
Still nothing. He wanted her to acknowledge that it was she who had bed him the night they gave themselves to each other. That his broken spirit and hers had created rather than destroyed something for the first time in their wretched lives.
But there was no more talk from her that day.
They saw Paladozza from a distance, and in the early evening light, it seemed a magical place of strangely shaped stones and flickering lanterns. Froi glanced at Gargarin and Arjuro, who were sharing the same mount. It was the first time the brothers were returning together to the home that had brought hope into their lives as children.
As was the case with the Citavita and Jidia, there was little beauty outside the province, but a promise of so much from afar. Unlike Jidia, Paladozza had no wall to guard it and, stranger still, no army except for a small troupe of soldiers and bodyguards who protected the provincaro and his family and kept order among the people.
“De Lancey’s great-grandfather wrote that there was something about a stone wall that invited invasion,” Gargarin said, “and something about an army that threatened war to its neighbors.”
“De Lancey’s great-grandfather was an idiot,” Froi said bluntly.
“The thing about Paladozza is that it has too much to offer. Art, music, enjoyment of life. Why would the palace want to ruin that by invasion when they are guaranteed a portion of the revenue?” Arjuro said.
“You ask such a question at a time like this?” Froi said in disbelief. “Do you honestly think Bestiano and the army of Nebia are talking each other out of invading Paladozza because they love art and music? Wouldn’t they invade Paladozza instead and enjoy what it has to offer by force?”
“You don’t know the people of Paladozza,” Gargarin said. “They would never cooperate with an invader.”
“So we just ride in?” Froi asked. “No papers. No explanation?”
“None at all.”
Froi stared into the distance, shaking his head with resignation.
“I suppose before the five days of the unspeakable, Lumatere was such a place. Anyone could come and go to enjoy what it had to offer.”
Arjuro spluttered. “I can’t believe you’re comparing Lumatere with Paladozza.”
Froi counted to ten. Arjuro was truly beginning to irritate him.
“I take great offense at your insult to my kingdom,” Froi said, trying to keep his tone even.
“It’s not your kingdom, you little Serker shit from Abroi! Charyn is.”
“Sagra,” he muttered. Quintana twisted around on the horse, her face so close.
“You’re easy to rile, Lumateran,” she said.
And there it was. He was no longer referred to as the assassin, so Lumateran would have to do. And he realized that despite the fact that he wanted to toss Arjuro from his mount and give a sermon on all things wondrous about Lumatere; despite his wish to attempt a mock raid on Paladozza to prove how stupid they truly were; despite wanting to lecture them on the appreciation Isaboe and Finnikin had for all things artistic, what Froi wanted to do above all else was kiss Quintana.
“Little Serker shit, we’re speaking to you,” Arjuro called out.
“Sagra!”
Quintana turned again and he saw the ghost of a smile on her face as he counted to ten, his mouth clenched with fury.
“I resent that you persist in labeling him a Serker shit and not a shit from Abroi,” Lirah said coolly.
“Thou
ght you didn’t care about Serker, Lirah,” Arjuro mocked.
She shot him a malicious smile.
“You know what I think, Arjuro?” she said. “I think you have suddenly come to life because De Lancey is beyond those poplar trees and you will always be a panting boy when it comes to Paladozza’s handsome provincaro.”
Arjuro was furiously silent after that.
Gargarin did what Gargarin did best and sighed. “I’m begging you all to allow me at least one night’s rest in Paladozza before De Lancey has us forcibly removed.”
Froi fell in love. He didn’t want to. Not with a Charyn city. But he did because people didn’t stand around in Paladozza and stare suspiciously; they sat around and spoke to each other and laughed. Because at the entrance to the city, they had a town square called the vicinata where the people of Paladozza would take a stroll at night or watch performances or set up market stalls where merchants sold sweet tea and pastries and let Froi and Quintana taste at least five before handing over a coin. Because it was the first time he saw Lirah animated with a stranger as she spoke to an artist about his paintings. Because Gargarin and Arjuro had their heads together over books in a stand. Because for once in Froi’s life, everything felt in place.
Similar to the Citavita, the road that ran alongside the entrance to the city was steep, but not as narrow. Unlike the Citavita, the stalls that lined the road were not selling goods for survival, but trinkets and beautifully crafted daggers and swords and fabrics full of color. When they reached the top, where the provincaro’s residence was built, there was a small piazza where soft-furred hounds were for sale. Close by, a fountain belched out water with great force.
Froi kept an eye on Quintana, who seemed to gravitate toward the hound, her eyes begging Gargarin for one of their young.
“No!” Gargarin said.
Who would have thought that their savage cat was soft for puppies?
It made Froi smile, despite the fact that arrows had been pointed at him from the moment they arrived. Gargarin stood beside him, looking straight up to where a group of De Lancey’s men were hiding.
“You were mocking me,” Froi said.
“Not quite.” Gargarin chuckled. “One doesn’t exactly have to have a wall surrounding them to be a firm believer in protection. The city is trained to go to ground within minutes of an army approaching. They’ve had drills ever since I can remember.”