‘
‘He says that you don’t have time for your studies anymore. That you think there’s no merit in learning and stories.’
‘I’ve learnt all I need to,’ Froi said. ‘Studies and learning and stories won’t protect the kingdom and they won’t reap harvests.’
Perri shook his head. ‘I would have given anything to be taught at your age. The Priestking says you’re a natural, Froi. That you pick up facts and foreign words and that you understand ideas that are beyond many of us. Who would have thought that hidden beneath all the talking back and fighting was a sharp mind? But it means nothing to the Captain or me when you show little control over your actions and words.’
Froi took a deep breath and counted, making sure he didn’t take it out on the horse.
‘You’re not training anyone else, are you, Perri?’ he managed to ask, trying to hold back his fury at the thought. ‘Not Sefton or that scrawny fool from the Rock? They think too much. You can see it on their faces. And they’d never bear a torture. Never.’
Perri looked at him and Froi saw his eyes soften.
‘And you would?’
‘You know me, Perri,’ Froi said fiercely. ‘You know that if you wrote me a bond and told me what to bear, I’d bear it. You know me. Have I let you or the Captain down once these past three years, hunting those traitors?’
In the distance, a Flatlander was harnessed to his plough, working a field on his own. Froi and Perri held up a hand in acknowledgement and the man waved back.
‘When the time comes, we will have only one chance to get into that palace,’ Perri said. ‘There will be no room for mistakes. Their army combined is more than our entire people and if we make the slightest of errors, there will be a war to end all wars across this land.’
There was a flash of anguish on Perri’s face. Froi saw it on everyone’s expression once in a while, especially those who remembered life as it once was. Froi didn’t feel the sadness. Despite Isaboe and Finnikin’s belief that he was one of the children lost to the kingdom thirteen years ago when the impostor King took control, Froi remembered nothing about Lumatere. All he had known was life on the streets in another kingdom, where a chance meeting with Finnikin and the Queen changed his life. In a secret part of him, Froi revelled in what he had gained from Lumatere’s curse. He never looked back because if he did, he would have to think of the shame and the baseness of who he had once been without his bond. He would do anything to prove his worth to the Queen and Finnikin. Even kill. It was what he had been taught to do these past years. Over and over again.
Although every Lumateran had been trained to use a bow to defend the kingdom, Froi had stood out and was hand-picked by Trevanion and Perri to work alongside them. He was swift and had mastered any skill thrown his way. The first time Froi was sent into the home of a traitor with a dagger and sword, Captain Trevanion had made him vow it would not end with death. They needed the man alive. What they required was information about the bodies of ten Flatland lads who had gone missing in the fifth year of the curse under the cruel reign of the impostor King. Froi studied the information and had gone in with vengeance in his heart. This man had been a traitor, a collaborator. He had spied for the impostor King and betrayed his neighbours. In the end Froi had kept the man alive. Barely. From the information he forced out of him, they found the remains of the lads and were able to put them to rest seven years after they were slain. If the lads had lived they would have been a year or two older than Froi today. Despite the passing of time, the grief from the families on the day of the burials was indescribable. What Froi had done to get that confession was worse.
But the punishment of most other traitors was different. When the palace was certain beyond doubt of their guilt, Captain Trevanion and Perri would ensure that retribution was quick and out of plain sight of the people of Lumatere, who had already seen enough bloodshed.
‘Don’t you just want to tear out their hearts?’ Froi had asked both his captain and Perri one day when they had marked a traitor from a distance and shot an arrow into his chest. That the man died quickly with no fear or pain disturbed Froi.
‘You can’t go around feeling too much,’ Captain Trevanion had explained, watching a moment to ensure the man was indeed dead. ‘Because if you feel too much, enough to want to kill them so savagely, then one day you’re going to feel enough to spare their lives. Don’t ever let emotion get in the way. Just follow orders. Most times the orders you follow will be the right ones.’
Most times.
Sometimes it was a snap of the neck. Other times a dagger across the throat or a blade piercing the heart. But it was always clean and quick. More than once they found a small band of the dead impostor King’s soldiers in hiding, deserters from his army seeking refuge in the forest at the far corner of the western border. Many of them had fled when Trevanion and his Guard had entered the kingdom to set their people free. Although the impostor King was half-Lumateran, he was also a Charynite and his army was mostly made up of Charynites. Those soldiers now filled Lumatere’s prison while Finnikin and Sir Topher endeavoured to prove guilt or innocence by collecting evidence and testimonials. More than a hundred prisoners had been released and returned to Charyn.
Perri and Froi came to the outskirts of Balconio where cottages began to appear. They passed a fallow field and Froi heard Perri murmur words that he had heard over and over again each time anyone passed a fallow field. It was a prayer to the Goddess that the soil would regain its fertility. In the last days of the curse, the impostor King had set alight most of the Flatlands.
‘There’s talk that Isaboe and Finn will sell the village of Fenton,’ Froi said.
‘Queen Isaboe. The Queen’s Consort,’ Perri corrected.
Froi made a rude sound. ‘Every time I call Finn the Consort anything, he wrestles me and he’s no skinny thing anymore.’
‘It’s hard for him,’ Perri said quietly. ‘No matter how strong his union with the Queen, he has much to prove.’
‘He doesn’t have to prove himself to her,’ Froi said.
‘But he has to prove himself
Froi was distracted a moment by the rotted crop of cabbage that lined the road. He leapt off the horse and crouched, feeling the soil, shaking his head at the waste of it all. This year Lord August had decided to use a water system created by a soldier in the impostor King’s army. It was the only thing of worth the enemy had contributed, apart from some of the most stunning horses Froi had ever seen. But many of the Flatlanders refused to adopt the Charynite methods, despite the fact that their crops were dying.
‘They are fools,’ Froi said, looking up at Perri.
‘Don’t underestimate how deepfelt the hatred is,’ Perri said. ‘They see it as the method of an enemy and they don’t want a part of it.’
‘So they’d prefer that their crops die and their people half starve! I told Gardo of the Flatlands that he was a horse’s arse just the other day. What kind of man wastes his crop for the sake of pride?’
‘You need to refrain from insulting the villagers, Froi,’ Perri laughed. ‘They have daughters. You’re going to have to bond yourself to one of them sooner or later.’
Froi stiffened. ’I have a bond to my queen.’ He mounted his horse, steering it back onto the road.
He heard Perri sigh. ‘Froi, it was a worthy promise at the time, but you can’t spend the rest of your life refusing the pleasures of laying with a woman.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it alters nothing of the past,’ Perri said firmly. ‘You can’t change who you were. If anyone realises that, I do.’
Froi looked away. He didn’t know how much Perri knew. Didn’t want to know, really. It brought him too much shame. Three years ago on their travels, when the Queen was disguised as the novice Evanjalin, and Froi was a filthy thief they had picked up along the way, he had tried to force himself on her. On the streets of the Sarnak capital where he grew up, the men had taught him that power was survival. The Lumaterans had spent three years trying to unteach what he knew. Some nights he woke in a sweat remembering what he had done. The Queen had spoken about it only once since they entered Lumatere. It was when a member of her Guard, Aldron, was sent on palace business with Finnikin, and Froi had been chosen to replace Aldron.
‘Are you sure?’ he had asked her quietly as they stood at the bailey, watching Finnikin and Aldron ride away.
‘That you can protect me?’ she said, her eyes still out in the distance where Finnikin and Aldron were tiny
