The women chatted on and Phaedra was forgotten. She slipped out of the tent and looked between the trees to where the Queen stood with her consort’s arms around her. Phaedra recognised him from the day in Rafuel’s cell. They were speaking to the Captain who had the little Princess sitting on his shoulders. The little Princess pulled her
Phaedra watched as her Mont husband arrived from the mountain. He dismounted and walked towards the small party, tugging the Queen’s cap over her eyes, and the Queen of Lumatere laughed. Phaedra saw a beauty that she had not recognised in the tent. Secretly, she had always felt shame that her Mont husband’s cousin had not thought Phaedra significant enough to visit on the mountain. Or invite to the palace.
‘They meant no harm,’ she heard Tesadora speak at her shoulder.
Phaedra walked away, scrubbing away tears, not realising she was crying. She was tired of feeling shame. She was tired of feeling helpless all the time.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Tesadora asked, gripping her arm.
‘They say we’re dirty,’ Phaedra cried, pulling free. ‘Luci-en says we’re useless. Your queen says we’re murderers. I overheard the Mont lads say we should be rounded up and set aflame. We’re barren. We worship too many gods. Our bread is tasteless. Our faces are plain. We cry too much. Our fathers abandon us. We don’t understand kinship. We’re pitiful!’
Phaedra shook her head. ‘If your people mean no offence, they should not speak their thoughts out loud in front of their children, Tesadora. Because it will be their children who come to slaughter us one day, all because of the careless words passed down by their elders who meant no harm.’
Tesadora stared a moment and then a ghost of a smile appeared on her face.
‘Strange things happen when we stand face to face with our enemy, don’t they, Phaedra of Alonso?’
Tesadora leaned forward and sniffed at Phaedra’s clothing.
‘Why, you’re not so dirty after all.’ She smiled, mockingly. ‘And you just called me Tesadora, so that must mean I’m not the white witch anymore.’
The Queen returned to the mountain with her consort that night, but the others stayed. Phaedra had not been dismissed, so she spent a third night on the Lumateran side of the stream. She had little desire to sleep amongst the women in Tesadora’s tent, and chose to sleep under the stars in a bed of leaves, feeling lonelier than she ever had in her life.
She was awoken in the morning by the sounds from across the stream in the camp. During the night someone had placed a blanket over her and she folded it carefully to return it to the tent. The Lumaterans were already awake and soldiers of the Guard, including the Captain, were swarming the forest.
She approached the others, who were pottering around a fire being served tea by Tesadora’s girls, when suddenly Tesadora stopped, staring in the direction of the stream. She stood and then her eyes met Phaedra’s.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said.
Phaedra listened a moment. It was unnaturally silent. The world of the cave dwellers seemed to have stopped.
‘Trevanion!’ Tesadora called out.
The Captain and his Guard were there in an instant. ‘The stream,’ Tesadora said.
Phaedra and Tesadora followed the Guard. The silence could only mean one thing, that someone had arrived unannounced. Perhaps it was the riders from the Citavita searching for lastborns.
They reached the stream and came to an instant halt. Across the water, every camp dweller stood staring back at her. No, not her. They were staring at the little girl the Lumaterans called Vestie, who stood beside Lady Beatriss of the Flatlands. In the eyes of her fellow Charynites, Phaedra saw so much wonder and despair.
Lady Beatriss held her daughter’s hand while the Captain stood beside her. They would have been a striking couple in their youth and Phaedra had heard that it was Lumatere’s sadness these two had still not announced a bonding day.
Lady Beatriss turned to Phaedra and Tesadora, questioningly.
‘We came to splash some water on our faces,’ she said quietly. ‘Please speak our sorrow if they are insulted that we used the stream.’
Phaedra shook her head, unable to speak. The Mont girls arrived and stared across at the Charynites, bewildered.
‘Do we have mud on our faces?’ one asked. ‘The way they’re staring is strange.’
Celie of the Flatlands looked at Phaedra for an answer.
‘Phaedra?’ she prodded gently.
Phaedra’s face burned from the attention. ‘When Luci-en first took me up to the mountain, I cried for days and weeks,’ she said, ‘every single time I saw a child. I had not seen one before and I suddenly understood in my whole being what drove our people to madness. For the beauty of a child took my breath away.’
The Lumateran women looked confused.
‘Have they not told you? Your captain and his men?’ she asked. ‘It’s part of our curse. We’ve not birthed a child in Charyn for eighteen years.’
Celie of the Flatlands and the Mont girls gasped in horror. Lady Beatriss caught her breath, her eyes wide with shock. She stared up at the Captain, who looked away.
‘You’re pale, Lady Beatriss,’ Phaedra said.
Lady Beatriss held two hands to her face.
‘It’s been a tiring trip,’ she said. Phaedra could see she was lying. Even Tesadora looked away.
A moment later, Lady Beatriss seemed to have recovered and she held out a hand to Tesadora. ‘Would you accompany me across the stream?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to make their acquaintance.’
‘You’re better off with Lucian’s wife. They think I’m going to curse them.’
Then little Vestie held a hand to Phaedra and she took it, her skin tingling at how small and soft it felt.
‘They’re very withdrawn, so please do not take offence at their ways,’ Phaedra explained. ‘I’m trying to find a way to have them all speak to each other, but they tend to keep to their own dwellings. The vegetable patches have worked to bring them together to a certain degree.’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of a way,’ Lady Beatriss said.
The journey down the mountain was silent and Beatriss found it hard to swallow. It was as though something sour was lodged in her throat and she could not release it. Trevanion rode beside her and more than once she tried to speak, but the words failed.
When they reached the road that passed through Sennington she clicked at her horse to stop.
‘You don’t have to come in,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll take her.’ Vestie had insisted on riding with Trevanion and had fallen asleep in his arms.
‘I’ll carry her inside,’ was all he said.
They rode down the path through the village and past the cottage of Jacklin and Marta. Beatriss saw all their worldly goods packed onto their mule and her heart sank. They had come to her only days before, heartbroken to have to say the words that they could not stay in Sennington. They had been offered work in Lord Freychinet’s village. Their departure would mean that Beatriss’s village was now down to fifteen people. Three years ago there were forty-nine of them, all determined to put the past behind and work tirelessly on the crop. But the crop had failed to yield for three years and it was selfish of Beatriss to keep her village tied to a dead soil.
When they arrived back at the long house, Trevanion followed her into Vestie’s room and she watched him place her daughter on the bed before he followed her down into the kitchen.
‘Ask me,’ she said quietly.
He didn’t respond.
‘It’s what you have wanted to do since you found out about the Charynites. So ask me.’
He stood, dwarfing his surroundings, as he always did in her mind. As a young woman, his presence had consumed every part of her. She couldn’t bear being with him in a room because everyone in it disappeared from existence, except for him. Even parts of her disappeared.
‘I have to go,’ he said quietly, walking out of Vestie’s chamber and down the stairs.
‘Ask me,’ she cried. ‘Ask me something. You never ask me of the past and without questions, I can’t speak, Trevanion. These unspoken words choke me inside.’
He looked at her, shaking his head with despair at not being able to release the words himself.
‘What do you want me to ask you, Beatriss?’ he said, anguish in his voice.
