Dorcas watched them for a moment, holding up a hand of acknowledgement to Gargarin, whose teeth were gritted. When Dorcas descended the steps, Gargarin struggled to pull free of Froi with a fury that almost had them both tumbling down.
‘Are you an idiot?’ Gargarin hissed. ‘Let go of me now.’
‘You look pale. Let me just get you to our chamber,’ Froi said. So I can avoid seeing Sir Berenson the banker, he added to himself.
‘I was born pale! I’ll die pale!’
At the top of the steps, Gargarin finally broke free and hobbled away.
‘I thought the room was mine for the day,’ he said, as Froi followed him to the chamber.
‘A decision I regretted the moment I left the room,’ Froi said. ‘I can’t bear the idea of you staggering around tomorrow with nowhere to go.’
Gargarin stared at him coldly. ‘A decision I have not regretted agreeing to. Go. Away.’
Froi spent the rest of the day in the stables avoiding the Princess, the banker of Sebastabol and Dorcas. As Gargarin had predicted, he was given a lesson or two by the stable hand and scullery maid about mating, as well as picking up a few choice words that the Priestking hadn’t covered when he taught him the language of Charyn.
When he arrived back at his room that night, feeling anything but amorous himself, the Princess was standing outside her chamber. Waiting. The cold stare was back.
‘You are certain you have nothing to tell the Reginita?’ she asked sharply.
‘The who?’ he asked.
She thought for a moment, her mouth twisting to the side. It was the strangest type of contemplation he had ever seen. She was waiting for something and Froi couldn’t understand what.
Unimpressed, the Princess beckoned him into her room with an arrogant wave of her hand. Her chamber, much like Froi’s and Gargarin’s, was simple, with a bed in the centre and no fireplace in sight.
She began to undo the hooks that fastened her dress.
‘Perhaps we started off on the wrong foot,’ Froi said. ‘I don’t want this week –’
She stopped for a moment. Squinted. ‘A week? What needs to be done should only take one night.’
What needs to be done.
Froi would need more than a night to understand the intricacies of this palace and to do what he was sent to do.
‘And here I was becoming so attached to your sweet disposition.’ He beat his breast with pitiful exaggeration. ‘If I go tomorrow, I’ll never have a chance to know you.’
Her brow furrowed, as though she didn’t quite comprehend him. Despite it all, he didn’t want to be cruel. If he was to do what he was sent to do, he didn’t want to feel anything, even hatred or dislike. But he pitied her. The way she spoke about herself as if she was another. The way her court dismissed her. Isaboe of Lumatere was loved. Adored. Isaboe knew who she was even when she took the name Evanjalin for all those years.
‘You’re not what we expected,’ she said, and there was disappointment in her voice. ‘They promised us more.’
There was something so strangely matter-of-fact in the way she spoke. Froi fought hard not to react and choked out a laugh.
‘They?’ he asked. ‘Bestiano and your father?’
She stepped out of the dress and pulled off her slippers, leaving her in only a white cotton shift that reached her knees.
Froi pulled the shirt over his head, inwardly rehearsing what he would tell her. How his inadequacy prevented him from planting the seed.
She stopped undressing for a moment, confused. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked. ‘You don’t need to remove your shirt.’ She indicated his trousers, pointing a finger.
This time, Froi sighed and made an exaggerated show of untying the string around his trousers while she lay down, raising her white nightdress to the top of her thighs, but no further.
Froi shucked his trousers and knelt on the bed. Buy time, Froi, he told himself. His hand travelled up her legs, his fingers gentle. She pushed them away, and there was that unrelenting stare again.
‘Do you not know what to do, fool?’
‘I know exactly what to do,’ he bristled.
‘Then be done with it. Hands are not required.’
‘Should your pleasure not be part of it?’
‘Pleasure.’ She shuddered. ‘What a strange word to use under such circumstances. We’re swiving, fool.’
‘That’s a filthy mouth you have there, Princess.’
She caught his eye. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a romantic,’ she said. ‘What would you like to call it? Making love?’
‘I just want to make it easier,’ he said, honestly. ’It’s not in me to be tender and I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘I’m not looking for tenderness,’ she said, turning her head to the side. ‘Just haste, and if your mouth or fingers come near me again, I’ll cut them off.’
But Froi could only remember his bond to Isaboe. You never take a woman if she doesn’t invite you to her bed, Froi. During the years it had changed to, I’ll never bed a woman again, my queen. He had wanted her to know that the bond came from his free will and not her order. Although this moment with the Princess was sanctioned, he felt like a demon.
‘I can’t continue if it’s not what you desire,’ he said, quietly, wanting her to turn back to look at him.
‘What has desire to do with it?’ she asked, cold fury in her voice. ‘If you would prefer a moment to conjure up passion, I’ll turn my back and you can use your hand on yourself and think of another.’
Froi spluttered with disbelief.
He stalled again, placing a hand gently on her thigh, and for a moment he saw wonder in her eyes. Until he realised that the wonder came from whatever lay above him. He twisted his head to see her holding up a hand to make the image of a bird on the shadowed ceiling.
And he knew he couldn’t go through with the mating. If he was going to do what he was sent here to do, he couldn’t feel pity or compassion or even desire. Not that he felt desire. How could he with this squinting ball of hair? Froi knew what desire felt like. He fought it daily. His bond to Lumatere was to rid them of the enemy, not to bed their abomination, their curse, their despised princess. He regretted not asking Trevanion what he meant by the words, What needs to be done. What did he mean for Froi to do to the Princess?
‘Begin,’ she said, turning back to look at him, and when he shook his head, she slapped him hard across the face. In an instant he had her body straddled, trapping it between his legs.
‘I’m not a whore and nor are you,’ he hissed, ‘so don’t treat us so. And next time we do this, I’d like a bit more involvement from you, Princess. I don’t like to feel as though I’m swiving a corpse.’
He saw the snarl curl her lips and the base savage inside of him was excited by the burning malevolence he saw in her eyes. But he leapt out of the bed, pulling on his trousers and slamming the door behind him. Bestiano stepped out of the shadow.
‘Is it done?’ he asked.
‘No. I’ll have to return to see her tomorrow.’
The next morning, Froi watched a party of men on horseback ride out of the courtyard and prayed the banker from Sebastabol was amongst them. When he thought he was safe he ventured to breakfast, starving from having missed out on food the night before.
‘Sir Berenson was disappointed to have left without seeing you.’ Quintana was at his shoulder the moment he walked in. She was wearing the same awful pink dress that she had worn the first time he saw her, and every other time, come to think of it. Froi decided it was either her favourite dress or the only dress she owned. The latter was ridiculous for a royal, so he settled on the former. It was obvious she had bad taste. She was back to being the Princess Indignant, all earnestness and incessant talking. It actually relieved him to see her in this mood.
‘Sir Berenson left?’ he asked, looking around the room for the best candidate to sit beside. Perhaps Lady Mawfa with all her gossip would be helpful to him today. ‘Alread
y? Without so much as a goodbye?’
‘He said he asked for you all night,’ Quintana said, indignantly.
‘I searched for him high and low.’ Froi feigned a hurt expression. ‘It’s always the same,’ he said, searching for an audience. ‘Despite being a lastborn I will never receive the same respect as my cousin. If I were Vassili, rest assured Sir Berenson would have made the effort to find me.’
Froi was placed opposite an elderly cousin of the King, who picked at the dry pieces of skin between his fingers and put them on the table beside Froi. Next to Froi were Gargarin and Quintana, who insisted once again on stealing food from his plate. He slapped her hand away more than once.
‘Do you have something to tell us?’ she whispered in his ear.
Froi gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what part of her he disliked more. The cold viper or this annoyance.
Suddenly he felt Bestiano’s attention from the head table. ‘What are you both whispering about?’ the King’s First Advisor asked.
Froi pointed to himself, questioningly. ‘I was just wanting to say how becoming the Princess looks in that gown. The colour is perfect for her complexion,’ he lied.
Her response was a shocked squint. She tilted her head to the side in confusion, as though contemplating whether Froi’s words were a compliment.
‘Quintana,’ Bestiano called out. ‘One responds to a flattering remark.’
The Princess seemed wary. ‘We’re not the recipient of many compliments, my lord, so we’re unsure about its sincerity.’
There was no bite in her tone. Just confusion. Froi realised too late that he had picked the wrong person to play with, and was beginning to feel uncomfortable about what he had started.
Gargarin of Abroi kicked him under the table as a warning.
‘Say thank you, Quintana!’ Bestiano barked.
‘We cannot offer thanks, because I doubt Olivier’s earnestness,’ she said. There was anxiety in her voice, as though she didn’t know what to do under the circumstances.
‘Say, thank you,’ Bestiano repeated.
‘It’s not necessary,’ Froi said. ’It was an attempt at humour between us and –’
‘Say. Thank you!’
The room was suddenly quiet. The Princess was trembling, but shook her head and spoke as though rehearsing a speech. ‘We only say thanks if we feel gratitude and the Reginita does not believe –’
A fist came down on the main table. Froi saw her close her eyes and flinch.
‘Enough of the Reginita.’
Froi watched as Bestiano made his way towards their end of the table. Froi stood to step in the man’s way, but Gargarin pulled him back into his seat just as Bestiano dragged Quintana out of her chair by her hair and pushed her out of the room.
‘It has a greater effect on morale when the girl takes her meals in her chamber,’ Froi heard one of the ladies say. The others went back to their breakfast as though the incident had never taken place.
‘Are you happy now?’ Gargarin asked, quietly furious.
With a shaking hand, Froi picked up his tea and drank.
A little while later, he walked to her chamber, practising a sincere attempt to make amends. If he wanted to know more about her father’s whereabouts he’d have to try to make things right with her. A part of him also felt guilt. He imagined that Bestiano had the authority to give her a blasting worse than any Froi received from Perri. But when he arrived at her chamber, the door was locked.
‘Princess,’ he said, knocking. ‘Your Highness. Open up, I know you’re in there.’
There was no response. Froi entered the chamber he shared with Gargarin and opened the doors, walking out onto the balconette. It was a short distance between the two chambers and despite the depth of the gravina, it was an easy jump. Froi climbed onto the wrought iron of his balconette and leapt, landing comfortably on hers.
He looked inside the room, his hands ready to knock at the glass.
But he recoiled in horror.
Later, when he couldn’t get the image out of his mind, he tried to work out what had made him sickest. Was it the way Bestiano would trap her hand in his grip, stopping her from making shapes in the nonexistent shadows over his head? She didn’t look as though she was struggling, but there was something dead in her eyes, so unlike the squints and inquisition or the coldness that had followed Froi around since he first stepped foot in the palace.
He turned away, taking deep breaths of air.
Across the gravina in the godshouse, he saw someone standing at the window. But a moment later the man was gone.
Chapter 8
What would Lucian’s father have done? About Orly’s prized bull? And the Mont lads running riot? And the Charynites in the valley? And the wife he sent back? And the fact that everyone in the kingdom had an opinion of what Lucian of the Monts was doing wrong? What would he have done about the loneliness that woke Lucian each day before dawn?
Except this morning, when it was Orly’s neighbours who woke Lucian before daybreak to tell him about the bull running riot across the mountain.
‘Every night, Lucian. Every single night that blasted idiot of a bull gets out, and if I see it again, I’ll kill it,’ Pascal said when Lucian managed to pull the animal out of Pascal’s wife’s rose garden.
‘You’ll do no such thing, Pascal,’ Lucian said with much patience. ‘I’ll speak to Orly.’
Splattered with mud and bleary-eyed, Lucian dragged the bull back to Orly.
‘Do you honestly think I wouldn’t check and recheck the latch each night, Lucian?’ Orly said, as they studied the pen to determine how the bull could have escaped. ‘Do you honestly think this bull stood on his hind legs and unlatched the gate himself? Find the culprit and lock him up with that Charynite, or I’ll find him myself and cut off his legs so he’ll be running away from me on his stumps.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Orly,’ Lucian said, looking from owner to bull. They strongly resembled each other and Lucian didn’t want to cross either of them. He waved to Orly’s wife, Lotte, hoping to make a dash for it, but Lotte wanted to stop and talk.
‘He’s awfully precious about that bull, Lucian,’ she said with a sniff, as they stood outside the cottage watching Orly sing soothing words to the bull. ‘He won’t even allow my Gert to breed with his Bert. Enough is enough, I tell him.’
Gert was Lotte’s cow and Lucian knew this because when both cow and bull went missing they would hear, ‘Gert, Bert, Gert, Bert,’ hollered in a singsong through the mountains at any time of the morning; Lotte’s high-pitched Gert followed by Orly’s grunting Bert.
‘Honest to our precious goddess, Lucian, if he doesn’t change his ways I’m going to pack up my things and go and live with your yata.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Lotte,’ he said. ‘Orly wouldn’t know what to do without you.’
‘Fix this, darling boy,’ Yata said later, handing him a mug of hot tea. ‘Because if Lotte comes to live with me, I’ll pack up my things and move down into the valley with Tesadora and the Charynites.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Yata.’
‘You know what I say,’ Pitts the cobbler said, as Lucian handed him a pair of boots to mend. Pitts waited for Lucian’s response and despite the fact that Lucian didn’t think a response was required, he responded all the same.
‘What do you say, Pitts?’
‘I say, it’s one of those thieving, stinking, gods-less Charynites down in that valley. Round them up, I say, and I’ll fix them all for you.’
‘I’ll do no such thing, Pitts,’ Lucian sighed. ‘And I think they have more gods than we can poke a stick at.’
Then there was the matter of the lads who snuck down the mountain half the night and were too tired to work for their ma and fa most the day. Lucian faced them all that afternoon and tried to look stern.
‘We want to keep an eye on Tesadora and the girls,’ his cousin Jory said. He was fourteen years old this spring, a thickset lad
with a stubborn frown and the leader of the lads.
‘And what is it you do down there?’ Lucian asked. Jory was his favourite, and showed great promise as a fighter.
‘Make sure they don’t come up here and rape our women because theirs are so ugly,’ another cousin said, and the lads laughed.
‘Men don’t rape women because their women are ugly,’ cousin Jostien said, but there was a protest at his words. ‘That’s what my fa said! He says that inside their hearts and spirits they are nothing but little men who need to feel powerful.’
‘I’ll tell you what else about Charynite men is little,’ another called out and they all tried to outdo each other with their boasts about their own big ‘swords of honour’.
There was something about the lads and their words that made Lucian feel uneasy, but lads were lads and he walked away, firmly reminding them that work was not going to be done with all of them standing around.
Most days he went to see the Charynite, Rafuel. A calmer man he had never encountered, despite the circumstances of his imprisonment.
‘Can I at least have something to read?’ the Charynite asked.
‘Strangely, we don’t have many Charynite books on the mountain,’ Lucian said, sarcasm lacing his voice. ‘And we’re not here to make your life more comfortable.’
Usually he checked the prisoner’s shackles for infection around his wrist and ankle.
‘You don’t have someone else to do this?’ Rafuel asked. ‘One would think a Mont leader had better things to do.’
‘A Mont leader does have better things to do,’ Lucian murmured, not looking up from his task, ‘but every man and woman on this mountain who volunteers to check your shackles is usually armed with a dagger and my queen is very particular about who gets the pleasure of stringing you up if Froi doesn’t return, Charynite.’
And then it was late afternoon and the day had passed with nothing really being accomplished. That was Lucian’s problem. It’s what plagued his thoughts as he travelled to check on Tesadora and the girls. Lucian hadn’t spent three years failing. He had spent three years accomplishing nothing.
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