Quintana of Charyn

‘I expect nothing from you,’ he shouted back.

She was determined he would not get the last word and shouted a whole lot more until she had no idea what she was saying.

Inside, she walked to Jasmina’s bed, thinking of her dream again. Not of the savageness and not of the confusion, but of the part that she remembered most of all. That it wasn’t Tesadora and Vestie who had walked the sleep with her, as they had each month before her pregnancy when it was Isaboe’s time to bleed. It was a different spirit now, one that almost shared her heartbeat. She stared down at her daughter, but knew it hadn’t been Jasmina. She felt a kick in her belly and almost buckled, imagining the truth.

Had she walked the sleep of some savage beast with her unborn child?

Chapter 2

‘Froi?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you awake?’

‘I am now.’

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘About sad things, really. What if I never get to meet our little king, Froi?’

‘Don’t say that. Don’t think it!’

‘He’ll never know that the time I felt most brave was when I knew he was in my belly.’

‘You were brave long before that, Quintana. Sleep.’

‘Quintana?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you awake?’

‘I am now.’

‘I can’t sleep,’ he said.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘That time … that time you let go of my hand in the Citavita,’ he said, ‘when you thought I would hurt you and the babe, where would you have gone?’

‘Wherever our little king guided me.’

‘He speaks to you?’

‘No. But he used to speak to my sister, the Reginita. He liked the sound of her voice. He’s very clever in that way. I think he’s gods’ blessed like Arjuro.’

‘And where did our little king suggest you all journey without me?’

‘You’ll not believe it.’

‘But I will.’

‘Promise you won’t think me a fool.’

‘With all my heart.’

‘Then you’ll have to come closer, Froi. We can’t have the Avanosh lot hearing.’

Quintana? I can’t hear you. Speak louder. You’ve got to speak louder. I can’t hear you. Quintana!

‘Froi!’

Don’t wake up.

‘Froi!’

Fight it. Don’t let her go again.

‘Froi, wake up!’

The times he loved most were when his eyes were closed. So he could imagine he was still in his quarters in Paladozza on that long night when they talked and talked and lay naked against each other. They were like a cocoon, she said. She had seen one in the gardens of their compound and had sat and watched it for hours. So there they lay with her rounded belly between them, protecting their little king, studying each other’s face as if trying to work out which part of them would belong to the babe.

With eyes closed shut, Froi could also imagine Gargarin and Lirah down the hall in De Lancey’s home and he could go back to that room time and time again and change everything that happened. Take back every word he spoke.

But sleep was already gone and with its loss came truth and a flatness to his spirit that rendered him motionless. Barely opening his eyes, he could see Arjuro crouched beside him, a cup of brew in the Priestling’s hands that was sure to turn Froi’s stomach.

‘She whispered it to me, Arjuro,’ he said, his voice hoarse, and Arjuro lifted the cup to Froi’s lips. ‘I could almost hear her. I could almost hear the words telling me where she’d hide.’

‘Drink,’ Arjuro ordered gently. ‘She’s just about told you every night, Froi. For weeks now. You beg her in your sleep over and over again. Let it rest or you’ll drive us both mad.’

Arjuro lit another of the oil lamps, and then two more, and placed them in the crooks of the wall. It was the only light Froi had seen these past weeks and he wondered what it did to a spirit to not feel sun on the skin or the wind on one’s face.

Although he shared the cavern with Arjuro, passages linked it to every other cavern in the underground godshouse of Trist. The rest of Charyn had been led to believe that the Priests were hiding somewhere in the caves outside Sebastabol, but instead they lived beneath the city itself. It was a labyrinth so extensive it had three main entrances: one through a grate in the ceiling that led to a hospital for travellers, and two through cellars of Sebastabolians who had an allegiance to the Priests. It was outside one of those homes where Froi’s bloody body was left.

‘You have a habit of turning up on our doorstep, Dafar of Abroi,’ Simeon the Head Priest had told him the first time Froi woke. ‘Creating havoc in the kingdom beyond understanding.’

They were unable to tell him who his saviour was. ‘You were left and he was gone without a word,’ they said.

Froi dragged himself out of his bedroll and walked to the basin, dampening a cloth and wiping it over his face. Each morning had been a measure of how quickly he was healing and his only relief today was that there was less pain than the day before.

‘I’m ready,’ he said to Arjuro.

‘You said you were ready the day you woke up with eight barbs wedged in your body,’ Arjuro muttered, mixing a paste that he coated on Froi’s wounds each morning. It produced a stench that made them both want to retch, but Arjuro insisted the scars would fade and Froi would heal quicker. The faster Froi healed, the closer he came to finding her.

‘Arm up,’ Arjuro ordered.

Froi held up his arm as Arjuro smeared the paste onto the deepest of the wounds on Froi’s side. ‘It’s the one that brought you closest to death,’ Arjuro said most days, and Froi would hear the break in the Priestling’s voice each time.

The paste and Arjuro’s fingers were cold on his skin and Froi flinched more than once, although he tried hard not to. It was Arjuro who had to be convinced of his strength. Arjuro, Froi had come to understand, was respected by the compound of Trist, and Froi could see the Priests and their families were desperate to keep him. He was the last of the Oracle’s Priestlings and he still held a fascination for them all.

‘Are you ready for the collegiati?’ Arjuro asked. ‘You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to them for quite some time.’

‘You mean my injuries are,’ Froi said.

‘Yes, I suppose they will miss your wounds when you leave,’ Arjuro chuckled.