The Lumatere Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy

by Melina Marchetta

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked.

  “I’m ready for anything,” she said, but she felt the doubt of her own words. When it came to Froi, she wasn’t quite sure.

  “Gargarin of Abroi is not just a Charynite, Isaboe. He’s Froi’s father.”

  “What?” She sat up instantly.

  “I met the mother as well.”

  “Froi has a mother?”

  “Awful woman. Beautiful beyond comprehension, but awful. Spat at me. Granted, I was about to kill her lover, but still . . . she hated me at first sight. But beautiful. Achingly beautiful.”

  “Yes, I do think I’ve got the point about her being beautiful,” Isaboe said. “But tell me of Froi. How would he know such a thing?”

  Finnikin slipped out of bed to get to his pack, and she watched him shiver as he riffled through his belongings. Holding up a letter, he sprinted back to her and settled himself under the comfort of the blankets.

  “He’s written to you and Augie and the priest-king. It’s all strange. Lettering scorched into his head, hidden all this time. Wording on his back, only visible to the gods’ touched. That’s what they call their gifted. He’s been wounded and sewn up and he’s confused, and I’m sure I saw a tear or two, and Perri hasn’t coped with any of it. Deep down I think Perri thought Froi was his. And the father . . . Gargarin. An intellect? Froi’s father an intellect? His body all mangled from palace beatings. The father’s, not Froi’s. And the father has a twin with the same face, who was trapped in Lumatere for ten years and was almost poisoned by you and Tesadora with the rest of them.”

  “Finnikin, be serious.”

  “That was serious,” he protested. “And they’re angry at each other, Froi and the father. And the mother is just cold.”

  Isaboe studied Finnikin’s face for the truth and saw it there.

  “Poor Froi,” she said, heartbroken for their friend. “Why didn’t you bring him home instead of leaving him with those hideous people?”

  “Because I think Froi loves those hideous people.”

  Isaboe’s head was spinning from everything she was hearing.

  “It was strange . . . but he looked so foreign,” Finnikin said.

  “Gargarin of Abroi?”

  “No. Froi. I’d never noticed before. Perhaps it was hearing him speak Charyn. His manner with the father and the awful . . . but beautiful mother — ouch, that hurt.”

  “I’ll pinch you harder the next time.” She reached for the letter.

  “Have you read it?” she asked.

  “Over and over again. It’s a fantastical tragedy . . . and you’re going to have to prepare yourself.”

  “I think I know a thing or two about fantastical tragedies,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No. It’s the mad princess you’ll have to prepare yourself for. She’s with child.”

  Isaboe sighed. “I know. It was the only thing that stopped me from slitting her throat.”

  “Yes, we’ll talk later about your running savage in the valley with a dagger,” he said, and she could hear the anger in his voice. “But read the letter and you’ll understand.”

  She felt him watching her as she read and she felt sick from dread as she took in the details before her. She read it twice. Three times. Then she looked at Finnikin with disbelief, and he nodded because he knew it all well.

  “What are your thoughts?” he asked quietly.

  She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Then she’d have to feel anger . . . and regret. Guilt, perhaps. But she didn’t want to. She had every right to despise Quintana of Charyn.

  “You think it’s his?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What a mess,” she said. “I hope Froi doesn’t think they’ll let him raise that child alongside her.”

  “He’s not thinking that far ahead. He’s desperate to know she’s alive, and here she is in our valley. If you want to know the truth . . . I believe that the Charynites want her dead more than we do.”

  “Well, I’m not protecting her, regardless of who the father of her child is.”

  She thought about it a little longer, and the more she did, the angrier she grew.

  “Don’t tell me he’s in love with her, Finnikin. You’ve got to see her. She’s . . . this vicious cold-looking viper. All small and round, much the same as Lucian’s supposedly dead wife. Little people irritate me. I felt like this monstrous giant alongside them.”

  “Well, it’s not as if we’re letting her up the mountain,” Finnikin said. “That’s all we need. More of our people killed to protect a mad princess, regardless of what she means to Froi.”

  They stayed in bed, sorting through correspondence.

  “Nothing from Jehr?” he asked, and it pained her to hear the sadness in his voice. In exile, they had taken refuge in Yutlind, a kingdom that had been at war with itself for as long as anyone could remember. Finnikin, Isaboe, and Froi had all struck up a profound bond with the heir of the southern throne, Jehr, and they all despaired at not having heard from the southern Yuts for at least two winters now.

  “I think those northerners have done something to Jehr. It’s been too long. I think we’re going to have to accept that Yutlind Sud is gone,” Finnikin said.

  They heard a sound in the hallway and then Jasmina’s chatter, and Isaboe saw Finnikin’s face soften. Her heart sang to see his smile. Sometimes she was frightened that Finnikin would never understand their daughter, in the way he didn’t understand most women. Jasmina ran into the room, eyes wandering, searching, then lighting up with joy when she saw her father. Finnikin leaped out of bed and held out his arms, and she ran to him. “Fa,” she said with delight, and he pretended to collapse from the weight of her until they were lying beside Isaboe.

  “I like the sound of Fa,” he said.

  “She’s copying Vestie.”

  “Tell me again why she has to call us Isaboe and Finnikin?” he asked.

  Jasmina was smothering them both with kisses.

  “In case anything happens to us,” Isaboe replied. “I read it in one of the chronicles of the ancients to do with child-rearing. The more a child gets used to comfort terms such as Fa and Mumma, the more they will grieve if something happens to them. It’s the words they miss using.”

  Jasmina squeezed them all together, her little arms around both their necks, and she practiced her counting with a kiss to each cheek.

  “Yes, I can see it working,” Finnikin said dryly. “Can we rid ourselves of the child-rearing books and let her call us whatever she wants?”

  Isaboe laughed at Jasmina’s antics and he kissed them both. Suddenly the three of them were knocked aside by a force beyond reckoning, and she knew by the thunderous look on Finnikin’s face that she’d have to explain the hound’s presence on the bed.

  “We were all so sad, and he cried and cried for you,” she explained. “We all did.”

  She patted the dog.

  “He’s only slept with us when he’s cold and lonely,” she said.

  Finnikin stared at her with disbelief.

  “Isaboe, he is a hound. He will feign loneliness for the rest of his life just to lie on this bed. My bed. I was the king of this bed.”

  He was woeful, but at the sound of the dog snoring, Isaboe could see a ghost of a smile on his face.

  She could already hear the world they had to tend to outside calling to them, but for now it was just the three of them . . . and the hound, and Isaboe understood that happiness came in such moments and she savored it.

  I see Tesadora in the woods, scraping sap from the trees. She knows I am there and she turns, holds my stare. She knows me, she knows me, she can see deep within.

  “Is it true that you love me more than the Lumateran queen?” I ask.

  It’s the news that I’ve heard. It makes my blood sing. She walks to me, smiling, takes my face in her hands. But standing so closely, I see the truth in her eyes.

  “I love Isaboe of Lumatere with all my
heart.”

  I pull free from her grip, and I clench both my fists.

  “Do you love her more than the scarred one?” I demand.

  “His name is Perri and he doesn’t like to be reminded of his scar. So don’t mention it,” she adds with a mocking whisper.

  “Would he be handsome to you without it?”

  “I was the one who put it there,” she says with a shrug. “And he’s handsome enough with it.”

  “Do you love your Perri more than the queen of Lumatere?” I ask again.

  “If I love him less, does that make it less than love?”

  “But if you had to choose between them?”

  “I don’t want to live in a world where I have to choose,” she says, and I hear fury in her voice and I dance on its embers. It’s for the other, that bitch queen who dared threaten my life. I’ll kill her for that; I’ll slice her to pieces. A jab to the side and a blade ear to ear.

  “And if your scarred lover doesn’t come down the mountain because she forbids him?” I ask. “What then?”

  “Then so be it,” Tesadora says. “They’ll both lose me.”

  “And it will just be you and me,” I say. “That’s why you stayed in the valley. For me.”

  And she looks at me sadly, and I see tears pool in her eyes.

  “I stayed here because Isaboe can live without me. You can’t. You’re a pathetic lost spirit with no one.”

  And I hold back my hurt, Froi. The hurt that you’ve seen.

  “Put away those savage teeth,” she says with a laugh. “They don’t scare me the slightest.”

  And she grips my chin so I cannot break free.

  “Do you know what I just did, my broken little savage?” she asks. “I told a truth. Do you understand the power truth has to hurt? Ask me again why I stay, and I’ll find better words.”

  If it was you, would you ask, Froi, or would you just walk away? But I’m desperate to know, and I wait for the strength.

  “Is it true that you love me more than the queen?” I say, and my voice is small and frightened. I don’t want to hear this truth twice.

  “I love the queen with all my heart,” she says. “But, for now, my place is here, because I’ll do anything to protect you. I can’t explain why. You’re on your own, and I can’t bear the idea of someone hurting you.”

  I unclench my fists. I like her new words.

  “Better?” she asks, and I nod in relief.

  “Understand what your truth does to others,” she says. “Others such as Phaedra, my savage cat. Think for a moment. Not every thought in your head has to come out of your mouth.”

  I don’t understand.

  “Learn to cloak your words, Quintana. Not with lies, but without so much truth. Do you want everyone like Phaedra to walk away from you, bleeding in spirit?”

  I stay next to her and I work alongside her, watching the way she tears the bark into strips, and when everything’s silent, she looks deep in my eyes.

  “Who else is in there with you? Who else, my noble little savage?”

  And I feel the tears in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.

  But she takes my hand and presses it to her cheek, and I speak words I’ve never said aloud.

  “Sometimes . . . sometimes . . . it seems I’m bits and pieces and she — my sister, the reginita — she was able to make sense of it all. I’d say, ‘Look after them! I don’t have the time,’ and she’d say, ‘They’re part of us now. Not whole beings, but part of you. They want to go home, but they can’t. Because they’re not complete.’”

  Tesadora stares at me, her face pale.

  “And I don’t understand her,” I say. “So don’t ask me more.”

  “What are you hiding from me?” Tesadora asks.

  And I place my head against her heart. “Tesadora,” I say. “I think the half-dead spirit of your child lives within me.”

  Phaedra heard the crunch of leaves coming closer and closer and hid deeper inside the shelter, praying it wasn’t Donashe or one of his men. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that the camp leaders would not venture so far downstream, she had no trust in Donashe’s vow to the Monts that he would not cross. These men were opportunists of the worst kind, and she feared what would happen if they ever found out the truth of who Phaedra and the women were hiding.

  She saw two pairs of feet and caught her breath until Tesadora squatted down to stare inside.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” Tesadora said, none too pleased. “She’s refused to return to the cave, and we can’t have her running around without anyone keeping an eye on her.”

  She appeared a moment later, to peer into the shelter.

  “And this belongs to me,” Quintana said coldly, annoyed. “If you want to use it, Phaedra, ask me in the future.”

  “Well, if you must know, it belongs to the Lumaterans,” Phaedra said. “Perhaps we can travel to the palace and ask Isaboe of Lumatere for permission, so we can both use it. What say you? She seemed to have taken a shine to you last time we all met.”

  Quintana crawled in beside Phaedra, who shoved her hard out of the way.

  The princess hissed. “You could have harmed the little king.”

  “I shoved you in the arm, not the belly,” Phaedra said. “And I was here first.”

  She heard Tesadora’s sound of annoyance.

  “Are you sulking?” Tesadora asked.

  “She is,” Quintana said. “About the Mont.”

  Phaedra ignored them, not wanting to give Quintana the satisfaction of reacting. She was going to hold her tongue if it was the last thing she’d do.

  “You have no idea what it felt like that everyone knew the business of my spousal home!” she cried out, because Phaedra failed at most instructions to herself.

  Quintana stared at her with disdain. “No idea? What a thing to say.” She waved Phaedra off, as if an irritant. “One gets used to the whole kingdom knowing when you’re swiving,” she said to Tesadora as if Phaedra weren’t present. “If that’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to her, she’s fortunate indeed.”

  “Just go away, Your Majesty. Tesadora is right. You’re safer in the cave with Cora and the others.”

  Quintana’s lip curled with distaste. “I can’t bear another day with them. The hag was already at it with the slut this morning.”

  “Can she at least try to remember their names?” Phaedra said to Tesadora.

  “I remember their names perfectly well.” The princess sent her a look of irritation. “Have I not told you about my memory for detail?”

  Phaedra wanted to scream with frustration. The delusion would have been amusing if she wasn’t speaking to the future heir’s mother.

  “No? Well, I should have mentioned it.” Quintana spoke as though Phaedra had responded. “I know all their names. I know the name of every woman who slighted Ginny in her village and every lad who has so much as winked at Florenza and every person in the valley who irritates Cora. It’s all they speak of day in and day out.”

  “You do not,” Phaedra said.

  “Oh, I do.”

  Phaedra looked out to where Tesadora was still crouched. “She does not.”

  “I think she does,” Tesadora said with a sigh. “She’s quite extraordinary.”

  Phaedra bit her tongue, well and truly sick of Tesadora’s awe of the Queen of Uselessness.

  “Go on,” Tesadora said to Quintana. “Let’s get this over and done with. Prove her wrong. Florenza’s suitors to begin with.”

  “Josslyn, Kent, Freshier, Arns, Mitcheloi, Samule, Talbot, Patroy, Idiotjoy.”

  Tesadora gave Phaedra a meaningful look. “Don’t get her started on how many bricks held up her chamber in the palace of the Citavita, or how many steps there are in the second tower, or how many leaves with a red-gold tinge there are in this forest.”

  “She made up that last name. Florenza has never mentioned an Idiotjoy.”

  Tesadora laughed and finally stood.<
br />
  “Look after each other, you silly fools. All this running around will end with someone getting caught. Rafuel insists that one of those men is on to him.”

  “Which one?” Phaedra asked, her stomach twisting at the thought of being captured.

  “The squat one with fair hair,” Quintana responded. “The hangman.”

  They both stared at her. Phaedra shivered to see the look of terror on Quintana’s face.

  Phaedra knew exactly whom she was referring to. He was the one always whispering in Donashe’s ear.

  “He wants to impress Donashe and seems to resent our Matteo,” Tesadora said. “You’ll protect yourselves in numbers. Not on your own.”

  With that, she walked away.

  Phaedra felt Quintana studying her.

  “We’re going to need weapons,” Quintana said.

  “And where will we get these weapons?”

  “I watched Froi.” Quintana crawled outside. “We’re going to have to be practical. Come.”

  Phaedra followed reluctantly and watched the princess collect sturdy tree limbs and scrounge for stone.

  “We can’t survive with only a dagger and bare hands to find us food,” the now Princess of Practicality said. “We’re going to have to make spears. That way we can better catch the trout. Farther downstream I saw an elk, too.”

  “Spears? An elk? You’ll never catch an elk,” Phaedra said.

  “I’m hungry.” There was the cold determination again. “If I’m hungry, so is this child, and if I have to catch an elk to feed it, I’ll do it.”

  She ordered Phaedra to collect a certain type of stone, describing its features. Phaedra collected anything she could find, holding them up in her skirt to show her. Quintana chose carefully and made rude sounds of annoyance if Phaedra had collected one not to her liking.

  “It’s for a purpose, fool. We need to make a flint fuse. This,” Quintana said, selecting a stone, “will not do. And we need a hammer stone to shape it.”

  Then they collected more branches, and Quintana measured two to both their heights. And the more Phaedra watched the certainty in her movements, the more she found herself responding to the princess’s orders.