Finnikin pushed past his father and grabbed the man to his feet, his teeth gritted. ‘How could you possibly win? My queen suffers with this curse.’
‘And so does her king, I hear.’
The Charynite had the power of saying so much in the most even of tones.
‘Did you not notice anything peculiar when you passed through Charyn during your exile?’ the Charynite continued.
Finnikin regained his composure and shoved the man away. ‘I passed through Charyn three times only. The first was when I was ten and visited the palace with Sir Topher, the Queen’s First Man. We were consigned to one chamber and spoke to no one. The second time was three years ago when we were searching for exiles and I can’t recall a friendly chat from a Charynite back then either. And the third time, a group of your soldiers took forty of our people hostage on the Osterian border and beat up our boy,’ he said, pointing back to Froi.
‘
Tesadora flew at him, but Perri held her back.
‘Why does he still breathe?’ she demanded. ‘It’s simple. Snap his neck.’
Rafuel was staring at her, almost in wonder. ‘That’s the Charyn Serker in you, Tesadora of the Forest Dwellers.’
This time Perri let her go and Froi watched Tesadora throw herself at the Charynite, her fingers clawing his face. Froi had heard stories of her half-Charyn blood, but no one dared speak of it. Perri waited a moment or two, enough time for her to draw more blood. Only then did he calmly step forward to pull her away. Froi felt an instant regret that it was over so soon. Somehow he would always be drawn to darkness and no one in the room had a darker core than Tesadora.
Rafuel continued as if his face wasn’t bleeding. ‘It is forbidden for a Charynite to speak to outsiders. Such a rule gets in the way of a “friendly chat”.’
‘Why forbidden?’ Lucian asked. ‘What have your people to hide that we don’t already know of you?’
Rafuel gave a small humourless laugh. ‘I could fill a chronicle of what you don’t know about us, Mont. But I leave such things to Phaedra, who writes of the arrival of our people on your land with a fairer hand than I ever will.’ Rafuel of Sebastabol turned to Tesadora. ‘I see you writing your chronicles from time to time, too. Have you not noticed anything strange about the valley? All those people, hundreds of them?’
Trevanion asked for a translation. Rafuel was speaking too fast.
They turned to Tesadora, whose cold blue eyes looked even more sinister.
‘What is it?’ Finnikin asked her.
Tesadora shook her head. Perri let go of her arm and for the briefest moment Froi saw her lean against him. He knew they were lovers despite a savage history between them, but like Tesadora’s Charyn blood, no one spoke of it.
‘There are no children,’ Tesadora guessed quietly. Lucian repeated the words in Charyn and they all looked to Rafuel for confirmation. Rafuel nodded.
‘Where are they?’ Finnikin asked, stunned.
‘They’re all grown up,’ Rafuel said.
Finnikin advanced towards him again with frustration. ‘I’d prefer not to have to guess, Charynite. If you’ve gone to all the trouble to get me up this mountain, then make it clear to us. Speak to us as if we are as ignorant as a Charynite.’
Something in Rafuel’s expression flickered. ‘We’re not all ignorant, Your Majesty,’ he said coldly, ‘and I don’t know how to make it clearer to you. Our women are barren. Our men, seedless. A child has not been born to Charyn for eighteen years.’
Again there was a stupefied silence as they tried to grasp Rafuel’s words. Froi caught the confused look that passed between Finnikin and Trevanion.
The Charynite turned to Lucian. ‘It is probably yet another thing that shames Phaedra,’ he said. ‘That she believes you spoke the truth when you called her worthless all those times.’
‘You seem to know too much about my wife,’ Lucian said, fury in his tone.
‘Last I heard, you denounced her as your wife,’ Rafuel of Sebastabol said. ‘So one would presume you forfeit the right to be indignant about my knowledge of her feelings.’
Froi marvelled at this fool’s lack of fear.
‘That first time I visited with Sir Topher,’ Finnikin said, his voice full of disbelief. ‘I remember children in the streets. There was one in the palace as well.’
‘If you were ten at the time, the youngest child in Charyn would have been six,’ Rafuel said. ‘Her Royal Highness, Princess Quintana,’ he added.
‘I never met her,’ Finnikin said.
The Charynite took a deep ragged breath. ‘It’s where the story of the curse begins. With her birth.’
‘We’re not here for a story,’ Finnikin said, frustrated. ‘Go back to the part where you get us into the palace without betraying us.’
‘I want to hear what he has to say,’ Tesadora said, flatly. ‘More importantly, your wife will want to, my lord,’ she said, turning to Finnikin with slight mockery in her expression.
‘I thought you wanted him dead a moment ago,’ Finnikin said.
There was little love lost between Tesadora and Finnikin. Froi put it down to jealousy. The Queen shared a bond with Tesadora, and Finnikin was envious of anyone who had a bond with the Queen. Froi knew that more than anyone.
Finnikin turned to the Charynite. ‘Then tell us a story, Rafuel of Sebastabol, and make it quick.’
Rafuel kept his eyes on Trevanion. ‘Could you perhaps ask your father to step back, Your Highness? I’m a small man and it’s not as if he can’t snap me in two from the other side of the cell.’
‘He’s more comfortable where he is,’ Finnikin said.
Rafuel sighed. ‘The year before the birth of Quintana, the Oracle’s godshouse was attacked and the Priestlings were murdered,’ he began. ‘The Oracle Queen survived, but her tongue and fingers were cut off. So she could not speak or write the truth. A young Priestling named Arjuro of Abroi was absent from the godshouse on the night of the attack and was charged with assisting the murderers.’
Finnikin quickly translated.
‘Your Priestking is your spiritual leader, but the Oracle of Charyn was more than that for us. Since the beginning of life in Charyn, most decisions made by the King and the provinces had to be sanctioned by the Oracle. The Oracle and the godshouse were Charyn’s moral and intellectual beacons.’ Rafuel’s eyes flashed with fervour. ‘You’re a scholar, I hear. Then you’ve not seen anything until you’ve seen the books once translated by our Priestlings. They will take your breath away, Your Highness.’
‘I have seen ancient books, you know,’ Finnikin said defensively. ‘In the Osterian palace. I spent more than a summer there.’
Rafuel made a rude sound. ‘Osteria? A more tedious race of people I’ve never come across. I can imagine their translations. You know what we say in Charyn? That man learnt to snore by being in the presence of an Osterian.’
Froi could see that Finnikin was trying to hold back a smile. Finnikin and Isaboe’s favourite pastime was outdoing each other with insults about the Osterians.
‘But everything changed nineteen years ago,’ Rafuel continued. ‘The Provincaro of Serker died, his successor refused to pay taxes to the palace. The Serkers claimed that the palace was robbing them blind. The King, in turn, stationed his army outside Serker. It was a step towards a war where Charynites would kill Charynites, and the Oracle’s greatest fear was that the other provinces would take sides in such a war. The Oracle ordered the King to remove his army from outside Serker and she ordered the Provincaro of Serker to pay his taxes to the King and swear allegiance. If not, she threatened to remove the Oracle’s godshouse from the Citavita and the sacred library from Serker. You could not imagine a bigger insult to the capital or Serker.
‘That spring the Oracle’s godshouse in the capital was attacked and we lost the brightest young minds of our kingdom when the Priestlings were slaughtered. They were young men and women trained to be physicians, educators, philosophers. They died unarmed and savagely. On that day, every Priest, Priestess and Order went underground and have stayed there.’
