The Princess stared after him as if she was trying to determine his meaning.
‘That was actually a compliment,’ Froi said.
‘What about when you told me about my dress that morning?’
Froi didn’t want to think of what he witnessed that day.
‘Not a compliment,’ he said, contrite. ‘Being rude, I was. You’ve got awful dress sense so don’t ever believe anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. But that,’ he said, pointing inside his chamber. ‘That was the real thing.’
He saw her face flush and she held a hand to both cheeks for a moment, as though surprised by the heat. Then she disappeared inside, and Froi wondered if she went in there to cry.
And then there was Lirah. It wasn’t as though Froi was half in love with her, but there was a force at play whenever he saw her. An ache he could not comprehend. He convinced himself he liked her garden more than her and so one day he found a more convenient way of visiting her rooftop prison from the battlement of his tower. Froi would break into a run, sailing through the air, his legs eating the gap between the two towers, his arms outstretched as though they would grab him space, his grunt muted by the shouts from the other side, until he landed on the opposite battlement, almost, but not quite, securely on his feet. When he stood up, brushing the debris from his trousers and inspecting the damage to his arm, he turned and saw the combination of awe and horror on the faces of Dorcas and the soldiers on the opposite roof.
‘Are you an idiot, or an idiot?’ Gargarin hissed, watching Froi climb back down to their balconette one time.
‘The first one. I really resent being called the second.’
Thankfully, the fool Dorcas didn’t try to stop him because there didn’t seem to be orders preventing the guest of one tower leaping over to visit the prisoner of the opposite tower. And Froi noticed each time that the battlements of the fourth and fifth tower were guarded by twice the number of soldiers of any other in the palace. Froi needed to find a way inside them.
Meantime he made use of his time with Lirah, although she wasn’t much one for talking, and most of their gardening was done in silence.
‘Tell me honestly,’ he demanded on a particularly boring day in the palace when he visited three times. ‘In the how many years that you’ve had this garden, has the petunia ever survived beside the tulip?’
Sometimes, without a word, she’d relinquish a plant to him and Froi would choose the best place for it to flower.
He found out little through Lirah. She asked of Quintana each time. Over the years, the King had allowed them in the same room only once, seven years after Lirah’s imprisonment when Quintana turned thirteen and her first blood came. ‘That’s when they decided to whore her to Charyn,’ she said bitterly.
Since then, Quintana and Lirah had only seen each other from the dungeon window. The three images of the Princess on Lirah’s prison wall now made sense. They showed the first time Lirah saw her babe, the last time before imprisonment, and the one and only time they had been in a room together between then and now.
‘Were you in love with Arjuro?’ he asked.
As usual, she didn’t stop what she was doing and refused to look his way. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because you’re both … I don’t know. Savage. Cruel.’
‘Are you trying to flatter me?’
He laughed. It was the first attempt at humour that Lirah had made. She turned to him, as though surprised by the sound.
‘Well, you both seem the kind who would find each other in a crowded room,’ he said.
Her study stayed intense until she went back to her digging. ‘Arjuro prefers men to women.’
‘Oh,’ he said, surprised for a moment. ‘Well that makes sense, come to think of it. I can’t imagine a woman putting up with that stench.’
‘Yes, well he always did have an aversion to bathing.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you weren’t in love with him.’
She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and it left a mark of dirt.
‘I can safely say we despised each other.’
‘Why?’
Lirah didn’t respond and then Froi understood. ‘Ah. You loved the same man.’
‘You could say that,’ she said quietly, and he knew that he had asked too many questions and that if he didn’t stop, she’d go back to her silence.
‘When I return home, I’ll find a way to send you lavender seeds,’ he said when the sky began to darken and he knew he’d have to leap back.
‘Lavender? In Charyn?’
He waited a moment.
‘About Quintana –’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘I don’t answer questions about Quintana to strangers.’
‘I’m forced to share her bed,’ he said. ‘How can I be a stranger to her?’
‘You ask that of a whore?’ Her eyes flashed with anger, but Froi saw pain there too.
‘Is it true that there’s more than one living inside her head?’
‘Are you asking me if she’s mad?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Do you know what those in the palace say?’ Lirah said. ‘That the King should have tossed her the moment she was born.’
Lirah shuddered at the sound of her own words.
‘Was she always so strange?’ Froi asked.
‘You find her strange?’ she said, harshly. ‘When as a child she managed to separate parts of herself and make them whole beings? Each situation requires a different Quintana. But she survived. In this cesspit. That’s not strange or mad.’ Lirah sent him one of her scathing looks. ‘It’s pure genius. Do you think she was like you or the rest of the lastborns? You may not have been born into wealth, Olivier of Sebastabol, but you’ve been pampered by your province and your mother and father all your life.’
‘Wrong person to say that to,’ he said quietly. ‘Anyway, aren’t you convinced I’m from Serker?’
She looked at him closely. ‘You’re orphaned?’
Froi didn’t respond. ‘Regardless, Quintana wasn’t orphaned. So it can’t have been that bad for her. She had the King, and she had you, her mother.’
Lirah’s laugh was bitter. ‘The King? Have you met the King? A more degenerate man doesn’t exist in Charyn or the land of Skuldenore. The only thing the gods did right was to instil a fear in him of his own daughter because if they hadn’t, his wickedness would have shattered her body and her mind.’
Froi’s blood ran cold. In Lirah’s mind, Quintana may have escaped the depravity of her father, but he knew she hadn’t managed to hide from Bestiano.
‘The gods gave her you,’ he said. ‘That must count for something.’
Lirah gave a laugh of bitter disbelief. ‘Do you know why I’m here? In this prison?’
‘You tried to kill someone. Apart from Gargarin. Was it a man you were forced to bed?’ And then a thought came to him. ‘Sagra! You tried to kill the King?’
She shook her head.
‘There are not many places to hide a dagger when you’re taken to the King’s chamber as his whore.’
Froi stared at her. Wanted to tell her he understood. Wanted to confess the depravity in his own life on the streets of the Sarnak capital as a child. But there was too much shame. Girls were small and helpless. Boys should be able to protect themselves, no matter how young or slight in build.
She stood, brushing the dirt from her shift.
‘What do you think of the cold one? The one that seems to be in charge?’ she asked.
Froi shrugged. ‘I like it better when she’s not around me.’
Lirah collected her pots and string and walked towards her prison. ‘She’s the one to fear. She’ll make you do things that break your heart.’
When it came time to visit Arjuro at the godshouse again, Froi didn’t have the nerve to leap over the gravina. The first time had been enough. Arjuro kept the window to the balconette shut and the curtain drawn most days, but Froi was patient, and one morning he i
ntruded on the brotherly ritual. ‘Arjuro! I’m knocking on the door at midday,’ he shouted. ‘Be sure to open for me.’
Gargarin stared at him with disbelief. ‘Does the word street lords not mean anything to you?’ he asked.
‘Two words, not one. Street. Lords. Care to join me?’ Froi asked. ‘As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Priestling’s messenger.’
Arjuro, of course, didn’t play by the rules and Froi was forced to hammer the door for what seemed hours.
‘Didn’t think you’d be back here,’ the Priestling muttered, bleary-eyed.
‘Why wouldn’t I when there’s so much fun to be had in the Citavita?’ Froi said. ‘This what you’re looking for?’ he asked, holding up a casket he had stolen from the cellars. The Priestling was drunk, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. They studied Froi fiercely.
Froi followed him up the dark space. He’d lost count of the steps and almost understood Arjuro’s reluctance to open the door. When they reached the Hall of Illumination, Froi walked to the balconette where he could see Gargarin watching them from across the gravina. Gargarin didn’t usually stand out on the balconette at this hour of the day, but Froi suspected he was there to see what Froi was up to.
‘Last night I dreamt of the three,’ Arjuro said over his shoulder. ‘Did he?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Gargarin, myself and a third who didn’t live. Throughout my life the third has returned to me in my dreams, and he has returned to me these seven nights past. I wager if you ask my brother, he’ll say the same.’
‘Is it because you have the same face? Do you dream the same things? Sense each other?’
‘It’s because of the third. He haunts us when he needs to. He was born dead.’
‘Arjuro, you’re not making sense,’ Froi said.
Arjuro was quiet a moment, as though he regretted speaking.
‘Tell me about the third,’ Froi persisted.
‘Our poor mother was a girl of fourteen. She refused to believe the third was dead and kept him in the cot alongside Gargarin and myself. Placed him on her breast as if he lived and had the life in him to suckle. Until flies and maggots crawled over us. It’s what our father used to say. “You should have been choked by the maggots and flies that shared your cot.” ’
‘He was a charming man,’ Froi said, repulsed.
‘Is,’ Arjuro corrected. ‘He’s still alive. A madman, frightened of anything strange, and three babes with the same face was too strange for him. So he told all in Abroi that there was only one.’
‘How could he do that if two lived?’
‘By hiding us in a hovel underneath the cottage. When we were four and old enough to work the farm, he would take us out to work one day at a time.’
Froi could not understand what Arjuro was saying. He placed a hand over the cup to stop the Priestling from pouring another drink. Arjuro looked at him and flinched. ‘You have the face of a cruel man, Olivier of Sebastabol.’
‘But it’s in me to be kind,’ Froi said. ‘Talk.’
Arjuro pointed to the cup and Froi removed his hand.
‘We had one name. The word for nothing in the Abroin dialect. Dafar. Nothing. One day I was Dafar and my brother stayed in the hole. The next day he was Dafar and I stayed in the hole.’
Froi was breathless. ‘Madness,’ he whispered.
Arjuro nodded. ‘We named each other. Gargarin is not a Charynite name. I liked Arjuro. Gar and Ari.’ Arjuro smiled for a moment. ‘They were two adventurers in the year one hundred who wrote tales claiming they had gone beyond the Ocean of Skuldenore.’
Arjuro swallowed a cupful of wine, soaking his beard.
‘There was never a time when my brother wasn’t taking care of me. It was Gar who always had the plans to protect us from our father. I received the gift of godspeak when I was six years old, and Gar and I clutched onto each other with such joy that day. The walls of our hovel were filled with words of wonder. Blessings from the gods, wisdom from the Ancients. Gargarin’s time would come soon, we’d tell each other. We could not imagine a gift bestowed on one and not the other. What it took others months to learn, I could do in a moment. Read. Write. Translate for the gods. I wrote the symbols and taught Gargarin, for only the gods’ touched could read the raw words written by the gods themselves, and in Abroi we had the oldest caves in the kingdom. And we waited for his gift and waited, telling ourselves we would escape from the swamp of Abroi the moment it came. But it didn’t. Gargarin had not been chosen.’
Froi saw tears in Arjuro’s eyes, as though the moment he remembered had taken place just the day before.
‘Our father, being an ignorant man, was frightened by intellect and reason. And he was even more frightened by what could not be explained. He believed he could thrash it out of me, this gift that had others in awe.’ A flash of pain crossed Arjuro’s face.
‘Gargarin always had a solution. “If we can take turns being Dafar, then we can take turns being you,” he’d say. So we would share the beating.’
Arjuro’s eyes were fierce with self-disgust. ‘I let him.’
All Froi’s young life he had prayed to the gods that someone would share the beatings and his pain. If anyone understood Arjuro, he did.
‘One day, when we were ten years old,’ Arjuro continued, ‘Gar packed a saddlebag. He took my hand and we walked four days to Paladozza. People stood agog by the side of the road, for they had never seen our two faces together. But Paladozza was a dream. The second capital, they called it. The godshouse was full of learned men and women and Gar demanded a meeting with the Priestess. “My brother is gods’ touched,” he said. “Take care of him.” He then walked all the way back to Abroi.’
‘You lived apart?’
Arjuro nodded. ‘Every night I spent away from home I dreamt of three babes. I knew I was dreaming of my brothers, one dead and one alive, until I could no longer stand being away from Gar. I walked four days back to Abroi to be with him. I told him about the dream and he had dreamt the same.
‘Finally, the Provincaro of Paladozza came to Abroi and took us both. The Priests were desperate to have me in their godshouse school. Despite the fact that our father tried time and time again to drag us back to Abroi, we found peace in Paladozza. Gar was the Provincaro’s servant boy and I went to school, but we still managed to see each other every day. We were treated with the same respect as the Provincaro’s son, De Lancey. Everything I learnt, I taught Gargarin. At sixteen I was sent to the Citavita to begin my time as a Priestling in the godshouse. Gargarin gave up the Provincaro’s offer of land and prosperity to stay close to me and he found himself work in the palace that once sat at the entrance of the Citavita where the bridge ends. Gar was the King’s errand boy.’
‘How does an errand boy end up being one of the King’s trusted few?’ Froi asked.
‘Because whether it was the Provincaro of Paladozza or the King of Charyn, Gargarin of Abroi was not easy to ignore. Within a year at the palace, he had drawn designs that everyone he met marvelled at. They said that one day this lad would be the King’s First Advisor.’ Arjuro’s words were slurred. ‘They began building the palace across the rock, the most impenetrable royal dwelling in the whole of the land. Years later when it was complete, the palace made the King feel like a god until he believed he had the status of one. And then this godshouse was raped.’
Froi leaned forward to stare the man in his eyes. ‘I don’t think for a moment that Gargarin believes you betrayed the Priestlings, Arjuro,’ Froi said. ‘You can’t possibly believe that.’
‘You don’t want to know what I saw,’ the Priestling said, his voice hoarse.
‘Was it the slaughter?’ Froi asked.
Arjuro shook his head, stumbled to his feet and pushed Froi away.
‘If I could tear out my eyes to stop what I saw on the day of weeping, I’d do it over and over again.’
‘Quintana’s birth?’ Froi asked, confused. ‘But you were imprisoned, Arjuro.
You couldn’t have seen anything.’
‘I saw everything,’ Arjuro said, his voice hoarse. ‘But ask me nothing of that night.’
Froi followed him down the dark passage. ‘Then I ask why Lirah is imprisoned.’
The Priestling’s shoulders collapsed. Froi could tell he didn’t want to answer that question either.
‘For an attempted murder,’ Arjuro said, quietly.
‘Who?’ Froi demanded.
‘Her daughter.’
Chapter 14
Phaedra watched her Mont husband carefully. She had been sitting on his side of the stream a while now. It was unnerving not to have her people around, especially in the presence of the white witch.
‘So answer the question,’ the white witch said. ‘Are your people not coming to see me about their ailments because they think they will be banished from the valley if I find something wrong with them?’
‘They’re frightened of you,’ Phaedra blurted out. ‘Curses frighten my people and so do Charynites of mixed blood.’
‘Well I’m glad I didn’t have to beat that out of her,’ Tesadora muttered to Lucian.
Phaedra had never met a more frightening woman. She noticed that even the Mont lads feared her and only ventured near when they knew the white witch was further downstream.
‘We need to know about whether Rafuel’s rebels have heard from their messenger,’ her Mont husband said. He didn’t seem worried about the ailments of her people and was impatient with the white witch’s questions.
‘I beg your pardon, my lord,’ Phaedra said, her eyes studying the patterns of dirt on the ground inside the tent.
‘I’ve told you before, I’m not your anything,’ the Mont said coldly.
She nodded. ‘I beg your pardon, Luci-en.’ She winced, knowing she said it wrong. ‘But if I did know something, I’m not certain why you think I’d tell you.’
She caught Tesadora and the three other girls exchanging surprised expressions.
‘What I’m trying to say … is that my allegiance is not with you. It’s with them. It’s why they don’t tell me anything. They fear that you and your Guard and the white witch, and perhaps the Charynite King’s riders if they come to the valley, will attempt to torture it out of me.’
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