Gargarin stopped, shook his head as though to rid himself of a thought that seemed incomprehensible. He managed to turn and face Froi. This time it was Froi who wanted to look away because the stare was a force beyond reckoning. Gargarin stumbled back over uneven ground. Froi leapt forward to grab him, but Gargarin pushed him away and still he stared. Froi didn’t see sorrow in the man’s eyes, but he saw something. Confusion, perhaps. Was that hope? Gargarin swallowed hard.
‘Wherever you’ve come from, leave this place and never return,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Please.’
The plea was the last thing Froi expected to hear.
They were both silent as they walked out into the courtyard. Something Froi could not put into words had taken place in the bowels of the castle that had left them both shaken.
Around them, the courtyard was a beehive of activity. Servants swept the ground with vigour and the castle cooks carried a roasted pig on a spit towards the smaller drawbridge that led to the inner ward. Suddenly they found themselves face to face with Bestiano.
Gargarin passed the man without a word, but Bestiano’s hand snaked out and grabbed Gargarin by the arm.
‘The King has finally agreed to see you,’ the King’s First Advisor said coolly. ‘He felt it was best to do so with the Provincari here.’
Gargarin looked back to where Froi stood. Froi saw his eyes glance towards where he knew the dagger was hidden in Froi’s pocket. The fool wanted it back.
‘And what of me?’ Froi asked. ‘Don’t lastborns meet the King?’
‘You,’ Bestiano said, forcing a pleasant tone, ‘will travel home tomorrow with the Provincaro of Paladozza. I especially asked him as a favour on behalf of the absent Provincaro of Sebastabol.’
Froi knew that in the early hours of the morning he would have to return to the tunnel and do what he was sent here to do.
A parade of riders entered the courtyard through the portcullis. The Provincari, Froi suspected, here for the day of weeping. Froi turned to walk away, but saw Quintana standing by the gatehouse, peering out between the riders, into the Citavita below. He knew without asking that she was searching for him, believing him to have leapt to Arjuro’s godshouse.
She turned, her eyes finding Froi’s over Bestiano’s shoulder.
‘Get out of that filthy sack, you stupid girl,’ Bestiano grated. Quintana had taken to wandering through the castle wearing the calico shift Froi had stolen for her in the caves. It made her look even more ordinary. Even more human than the peculiar Princess in the hideous pink dress.
When Froi heard Bestiano’s footsteps retreat towards where the Provincari were dismounting, Froi approached her.
‘You’re going tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘Without having planted the seed.’
Froi tried to hide his frustration. Deep down he wanted her to be of a sound mind, but each time she mentioned the planting of the seed he knew she was nothing more than a half-mad girl.
‘If you fulfil the prophecy,’ she said, ‘we will let you kiss me.’
‘A kiss is the prize?’ he asked sadly. ‘Even more than giving me the rest of you? It should be the other way round, Princess. In the real world, it’s called courting. You let a lad kiss you and then you offer him more.’
‘Let me tell you something, Olivier,’ she said with tears of sorrow in her eyes, ‘this is my real world.’
Gargarin approached, returning from greeting the Provincari. He went to enter their tower, but stopped when he caught Quintana’s expression.
‘Has Olivier said something to distress you?’ he asked gently, noticing the tears in her eyes.
‘He has a wicked tongue, Sir Gargarin.’
‘Pity it’s not in our power to cut it out then,’ Gargarin said. ‘The Provincaro of Paladozza would like a word,’ he told Froi.
Froi looked back to where the portcullis was still raised and the drawbridge down.
‘I’ve someone to meet,’ he muttered, walking away from them both.
Froi hammered on the godshouse door for what seemed an eternity. He was always wary on this quiet part of the rock, away from the noise and business of the Citavita.
He stared into the peephole the moment he heard Arjuro slide it across. After a moment, the Priestling opened the door and stepped aside. Froi watched him look down towards the palace.
‘I suppose the Provincari have arrived?’
Froi didn’t answer. Arjuro shut the heavy door, pushing his weight against it before placing a piece of timber across the length of the entrance.
They stood silently in the dark.
‘Did you swap places?’ Froi asked.
Arjuro met his eyes. He didn’t pretend not to know what Froi was saying.
‘In a way.’
‘In what way?’ Froi demanded.
‘In the way where I beat him to a pulp and walked out of a prison as Gargarin of Abroi and the real Gargarin stayed locked up for eight years as the Priestling Arjuro.’
‘Oh,’ Froi said quietly. ‘That way.’
Arjuro was holding a bottle in his hand. He took a long mouthful. He looked worse than Froi had ever seen him. They both sat on the cold hard stone of the stairs.
‘Lirah told me the truth. About what Gargarin did all those years ago.’
Arjuro didn’t respond.
‘Is there any chance –’
‘No,’ Arjuro said, as though he knew what Froi was asking. ‘I saw him do it. You’ve seen the distance between the godshouse balconette and yours. They shackled me to the railings outside mine and they made me watch. First he tossed my beloved Oracle, then her child.’
Froi’s heart sank.
‘It was Lirah’s child,’ he told Arjuro quietly. Respectfully. ‘They swapped the babes.’
Not even a day’s worth of ale could numb Arjuro from those words.
‘
Froi grabbed him, taking the bottle out of his hand. Suddenly, a thought seemed to cross Arjuro’s mind.
‘Then the Princess …’
Froi nodded. ‘ … is the Oracle’s daughter.’
‘Well, that makes sense. There was no one madder than the Oracle.’
‘Was it quick?’ Froi asked. ‘The way they died, I mean?’
‘I could see the Oracle was already dead. The struggle had already taken place inside the chamber. Same with the babe.’
Arjuro took the bottle from Froi and was back on his feet, trudging upwards. Froi sometimes forgot that the brothers were no older than Trevanion and Perri and Lord August. But they walked like old men, as though the weight of evil stood on their shoulders.
Arjuro stopped at a landing that led to cell after small cell. Froi followed him into one of the rooms and watched the Priestling collapse onto the cot, the bottle hitting the ground, shattering into pieces. ‘They made me watch,’ Arjuro repeated over and over again. ‘They made me watch my brother kill innocence and goodness that day.’
‘And what of you, Arjuro? What of your innocence or guilt? Who was it that betrayed this godshouse to the Serkers the year before?’
‘There was no betrayal by me and no attack by Serker,’ the Priestling said.
Froi sat on one of the cots waiting. If he had to, he would wait all day.
‘I had fought with the Oracle. I always fought with the Oracle. It’s what she loved about me. I was her favourite, you know.’
Froi pushed the shattered glass out of the way and stepped closer.
‘I went to meet De Lancey. He was visiting from Paladozza and one thing led to another and we spent the night together. When I arrived here I found the horror. All dead, but her. Men and women I adored. Most no older
