"Mercy," Finnikin said, amazed that her actions still had the power to surprise him. But he had seen the bruises on her face, and he looked at the older man closely. "What did he do to her?"
"Enough to deserve what he got."
That night, as Finnikin lay in the loft nursing his arm, Evanjalin crouched beside him. He smelled leaves of rosemary and eucalyptus and watched as she stirred a substance into a paste and then administered the balm to his bruised and swollen face.
"Did I not tell you to bend to their will?" she reprimanded him.
"Have I ever given you reason to believe that I would bend to another's will?" he replied sharply. When the balm stung his face, he gripped her wrist with a firmness he knew caused pain.
"Why are you so angry?" she asked, pulling away.
"You betrayed me! Am I supposed to be grateful? Am I supposed to thank you?"
"You have your father. Lumatere has the captain of its Guard."
"Lumatere doesn't exist!"
"That is your belief, Finnikin!" she said. "I can tell by reading your Book of Lumatere."
"You have no right to touch that book," he said angrily.
"You dropped it when the soldiers took you away."
"Don't you mean I dropped it when you betrayed me?"
She studied his face for a moment. "You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?"
"You think you're worthy of the task?" he asked bitterly. "After what you've done? Go to bed, Evanjalin. Lumaterans sleep easier without your help."
He heard her sigh as she leaned toward him. "Only someone who has the comfort of two fathers sleeping close by could make such a statement."
She lifted his arm and he winced. "I'm going to have to dislocate your shoulder," she said. "I know exactly what to do, so you need not fear anything. Do you want a signal, or would you like to signal me?"
"What kind of a signal?" he said, alarmed. "Can I trust you?"
She looked hurt. "Of course you can. Maybe a count."
"As in one, two—"
His cry of pain echoed across the stable, and within seconds Trevanion was in the loft with Sir Topher at his heels.
"What have you done?" Trevanion bellowed, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her.
Finnikin was spluttering, his eyes rolling and watering from the waves of pain that paralyzed his arm.
"I know how to administer to cuts and injuries," she said in a small voice.
"Is that what you do? Administer suffering?" Trevanion snarled.
"Let her go, Trevanion," Sir Topher said. "She has suffered herself. She was with the exiles in Sarnak."
"And you believe her?" Trevanion asked coldly.
Evanjalin looked down, unable to meet his stare.
"Tell us who they were. What part of Lumatere did they come from?" Trevanion asked.
"Go on, Evanjalin," Sir Topher said gently.
But she would not respond, and despite the pain, Finnikin clenched his fist with fury.
"You lied to the High Priestess about Sarnak?" he accused.
"No, I didn't." Eyes still downcast, she handed Sir Topher the herbs. "On the arm, just below the joint," she said as she climbed out of the loft.
Trevanion's expression was hard. "We rid ourselves of her the first moment we get."
Chapter 9
Leaving Sorel became their only priority, and despite Trevanion's objections to anything Evanjalin suggested, they agreed with her that the lawless town at land's end was their best bet for survival. Speranza was a place that had been conquered, reconquered, and relinquished so many times that no one seemed to remember who governed it. In such a place, the presence of two escaped prisoners, even one who looked as if he had stepped out of the depths of hell, would go largely unnoticed.
At midday they entered the courtyard of the tavern in town. From the balconies, women beckoned to them with gestures that needed no interpreting. As they pointed and purred, Finnikin heard Evanjalin give a snort beside him before going off to tether their horse.
Inside, the women had descended into the main room. Finnikin watched as Trevanion quickly became the center of attention. He remembered how the ladies of Lumatere would fawn over the captain of the King's Guard. The brutal years in the mines of Sorel had not altered the striking features of his face. With his knotted hair tied back and his dark beard cropped, he still had a presence that attracted the opposite sex, despite the unhealthy pallor of his skin.
Sir Topher returned, holding a key. "Come, Evanjalin, I have booked us a room. Perhaps a rest?" he suggested, all too aware of what was on offer for the others.
Finnikin stole a glance at her, but then the women with wicked laughter in their eyes were upon them and he allowed one to take his hand.
Later, he stepped onto the tiny balcony beside the bed and watched the vendors pack away their stalls. The tavern girl playfully pulled him back toward her. He had enjoyed their time together. She had required nothing from him but pleasure. No intelligent banter, no request to save a kingdom or sacrifice a part of himself. But he resisted the temptation to stay and pulled on his clothes before grabbing his pack.
In the courtyard, he sat at a table and retrieved the Book of Lumatere. He thought of Evanjalin lying in the room above and remembered their conversation from the night of his arrest. He had trusted her, and she had deceived him. He flicked through the book, his fingers running over all the names he had recorded over the years. But then he turned to a page of unfamiliar handwriting, and his breath caught. There, in a small neat hand, was page after page of names, some written with self-assurance, others with a tremble.
He stood, about to make his way into the tavern to find her when he realized the horse post was empty.
"The horse?" he called out to the stable boy. "Who took our horse?"
"You brought no horse," the boy said.
"The novice did."
"Who?"
"Girl. Blue woolen cap. Dressed like a boy."
Recognition registered on the boy's face. "She came back for it."
"Where did she go?" Finnikin asked uneasily. The boy ignored him, and Finnikin walked away, trying to decide whether to call Trevanion and Sir Topher. Instead, he turned back to the boy. "If I were to continue down the road to the south, what would I see?"
"Not another village for at least a day."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," he repeated.
"And how far to the closest village going east?"
"I tell you there is nothing," the boy said as Finnikin began to walk away again. "Except for the camp."
Finnikin's heart slammed in his chest. "Camp?"
"Of the filthy exiles. Should round them up and —"
Finnikin did not stay to hear the boy's suggestion. He took the road out of town and headed east.
He smelled the camp before he saw it. But nothing had prepared him for the sight. It was spread over more land than the town he had left behind, but never in his travels with Sir Topher had he seen a camp more damned. Those standing at the edges watched him with empty eyes. This is not life, Finnikin thought, just day-to-day survival. He heard the heart-wrenching wails of babies crying from hunger.
When he saw no sign of the horse, he was torn between relief that Evanjalin might not be there and a fear of where else she could be.
"I'm looking for a girl. Bare head, dark eyes," he said to anyone who looked in his direction.
When no one responded, he began to make his way through the rows of makeshift tents. Children with bloated stomachs stared at him with the vacant expressions they had inherited from their parents. Flies hovered over their faces and fed from their open sores.
A hand reached out and gripped his arm. It was a man, little older than Finnikin, his skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. "You are heading toward the fever camp," the man said. "You had best be on your way, for it catches you fast."
Finnikin looked past him. Excrement lined the path to the next camp, and he could hardly breathe from the stench of vomit and shit and death and sickness. He stumbled to the side and emptied his stomach of the mutton soup and ale he had consumed at the tavern. As he stayed bent, he stared with horror at the body of a woman in front of him, eyes wide open, flies feeding.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the man again, compassion on his face. Somehow compassion survives, Finnikin thought in wonder. He stood up, ashamed, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
"Are you looking for the priest-king?" the man asked.
Finnikin was stunned. "The priest-king? Our blessed Barakah is here?"
The man nodded. "In the fever camp." Finnikin walked away, covering his mouth with his hand. "Come back for us," the man begged. "Whoever you are, do not forget us."
Beyond the tents, Finnikin saw a stretch of land that marked where the exile camp ended and the fever camp began. The fever camp was an assortment of the most basic living quarters, made up of sheets and blankets tied to posts. Bodies littered the space beneath them. Those who were bent over the sick looked like living dead themselves.
But worse was beyond the sick huts. A lad with a corpse slung over his shoulder walked by, and Finnikin followed him to a pit dug deep into the earth. Men. Women. Children. Those his age who would never lie with a woman as he had that afternoon. He saw girls, their hair the color of spun gold, or waves dark and thick. The beautiful girls of Lumatere. Dead. Piled on top of one another. Layers of wasted skin and bones. The lad passed him twice, each time carrying a dead body that he proceeded to throw into the pit of the dead. Finnikin noticed the boy's strong hands. Craftsman's hands. Made for rebuilding.
But there was no place for rebuilding here. Just burying.
He sensed her before he saw her. She was walking toward him from one of the blanket hovels, holding a baby in her arms. A baby so still, Finnikin knew it no longer breathed. Evanjalin looked up and their eyes met across the pit of the dead.
Look away, he told himself. Do not let yourself get lost in those eyes.
When she reached him, he watched her search for something, desperation in her movements.
"What are you looking for, Evanjalin?" he asked.
"His mother," she said in a broken voice. "She died earlier with the baby still attached to her breast."
He wanted to walk away. Go back to the sleepy girl in the tavern who asked nothing of him but three copper coins. Who made him forget for a moment, when he was deep inside of her, this girl with large pools of night-sky for eyes.
Evanjalin continued to search among the bodies, and then he saw where her gaze ended. At a woman sprawled in a pit, arms outstretched. Evanjalin looked at the babe she held and crouched down. He could see that she planned to slip into the grave. And before he knew what he was doing, Finnikin climbed into the pit and she handed him the baby. Stepping around the bodies, he made his way to where the mother lay and placed the child on her breast, wrapping the dead woman's arms around her boy.
He felt dry sobs rising inside him, carving up his throat, and when Evanjalin held out her hand and pulled him out of the pit, he knew she could read it all on his face.
"Do not cry," she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. "Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end."
He held her face in his hands, her tears catching in his fingers, his forehead against hers. Cursed land, Sir Topher had said. Cursed people.
The priest-king had altered so much since the old days of Lumatere that Finnikin hardly recognized him. Finnikin had been in awe of the holy man as a child. Even Lucian believed he was some kind of god in his elaborate robe trimmed with gold, each finger adorned with rings. Today he wore a grubby brown mantle and hood; his beard was long, his feet sandaled. A toe or two seemed to be missing, and the marks of age stained his hands. The only reminders of the man he used to be were the deep laugh lines around his eyes. The priest-king had always loved to laugh.
"You're still here," the holy man muttered when he saw Evanjalin. "I told you. This is no place for one so young and healthy."
"This is no place for anyone," she corrected softly. "You are the priest-king. You need to lead these people home."
The man shook his head. "A title that means nothing outside the kingdom."
"When we return to Lumatere—"
"If you want her to live, take her away," the priest-king said. Finnikin knew they were being dismissed. He turned to Evanjalin. "There will be no return," he said quietly.
She glared at him. "Look at them. Do you believe that a strip of land in someone else's kingdom will be any better than this?"
"How can you even ask that, Evanjalin?"
"What did they do to a newborn in your rock village, Finnikin?" she said, taking his hand and clenching it into a fist. "Wrapped their little hands around stone from the village, binding it tightly for days. As they did with those from the Flatlands. Earth from the fields clenched in their fists. Silt from the river clenched in their fists. Grass from the mountains. Leaves from the forest. Joining them to the land." She blinked back tears. "We don't want a second Lumatere. We want to go home. Take us home, Finnikin."
She turned to the priest-king. "Blessed Barakah, if you return with us, people will follow. Those who are well. We will return to Lumatere where healers—"
"The healers are all dead, Evanjalin," Finnikin said, his anger rising. "The Forest Dwellers, the novices of Sagrami, any of them who had the skill and gift to heal are all dead. I was there. I heard their screams as they burnt at the stake. Even if we were able to get inside Lumatere, there is nothing to go back to. Can you not understand that? The only hope for our people is a second homeland in Belegonia."
"Why do you fear returning, Finnikin? Were you not the one who swore an oath with Balthazar to save Lumatere?"
"Prince Balthazar?" the priest-king asked.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "For if he lives, he is now King Balthazar."
"And does he live?"
"Evanjalin dreams he does," Finnikin mocked. "Do you have a plan, Evanjalin?" he demanded. "Do you believe you will belong to him? A commoner to marry a king?"
Fury flashed in her eyes. "Remember this," she seethed. "Our queen was a commoner. From the Mountains of Lumatere. Do not dare scorn such a match."
"Quiet!" the priest-king said. He waited for their silence. "So you dream of King Balthazar and believe that this is enough to convince me to follow you across this godsforsaken land in search of a country cursed?"
"No, blessed Barakah. I believe you've been told many times that Balthazar lives, and each time has proved to be false. But I can give you another name," she said, staring at Finnikin.
"I have work to do," the older man said, getting to his feet. "Names mean nothing to me."
"Not even Captain Trevanion?"
He stopped and turned, stunned. Then he looked at Finnikin as the truth dawned on him. "Finnikin of the Rock? Son of Trevanion of the River?"
"The very same," she said.
"I can answer for myself," Finnikin snapped.
"He has escaped?" the priest-king asked.
Evanjalin nodded.
"Is he with his Guard?"
"No. With a whore," she explained.
"Evanjalin!"
She looked at Finnikin with disbelief. "Oh, so now we are bashful?" But then she turned her attention back to the priest-king. "If we bring him here with the king's First Man, will you be willing to convince these people to go north, blessed Barakah?"
"Bring them to me and we will speak."
Despite everything they had seen, Evanjalin looked pleased with herself as they set off back to town. Instead of taking the main road, she crossed into the woods. "A much more pleasant track for walking," she said. "The river runs by here."
Finnikin stopped suddenly. "The horse? Where's the horse?"
She shrugged. "I don't have my horse anymore."
"Your horse?
The horse was mine."
"Don't be ridiculous." Evanjalin continued walking up the track. "You would never have stolen the horse in Sarnak if I didn't encourage you. So I consider it mine."
"But I officially stole it," he argued.
"Fine. But the horse you officially stole was actually re-stolen and we had to trade the thief from Sarnak for it, so really the horse could be considered his," she said over her shoulder.
Finnikin tried to control his anger as he caught up to her. "So why don't you have his horse anymore?"
"Well, a wonderful thing happened while you were off whoring. I discovered that the thief spoke the truth and had sold the ring to a peddler from Osteria who happened to be traveling in these parts." Evanjalin dug into the pockets of her trousers and held out the the ruby ring. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, a smile of pure delight on her face.
"Dazzling," he muttered, bristling at the way she'd said "whoring."
"You'll like this route. The river will look lovely at this time of day," she said.
But there was nothing lovely about the river as far as Finnikin could see. Just the ugliness of the slave traders of Sorel, their young prey, male and female, trapped in cages set upon barges. The females looked no more than children and made up most of the cargo.
There was little room along the bank, yet greedy buyers were pressed against one another, bidding for humans as if they were livestock. Sorel was the only kingdom with no laws against slavery, and Finnikin had heard rumors that children were branded like animals. As always, he willed the voice inside of him to take over. The one that told him he did not know these people and could easily forget them the moment they were out of his sight. And then he saw, between the shoulders of the two buyers in front of him, the thief from Sarnak. Tied to a timber horse post, naked and shivering.
Finnikin knew the thief had seen him. He saw surprise in the boy's face, then something else. A pleading. The boy began to mouth something, his lips moving desperately.
Finnikin pushed his way through the crowd of buyers. The thief kept his gaze on him, his mouth moving even as they untied him. When one of the traders noticed him speaking, the back of his fist caught the boy across the face and the thief staggered to his knees. But still he lifted his head and his mouth continued to move.
Finnikin of the Rock lc-1 Page 10
