‘We are hungry, lad. We can’t wait much longer for you,’ Hamlyn said before disappearing inside.
Froi entered the small cottage and looked around. It was plain and as clean as could be found in a place so dry and dusty. There was one bed at the end of the room. Outside he had noticed the woodfire oven, but inside was a large pot from where Hamlyn’s wife dished out a bowl of barley soup. When Froi saw the plate set for him at their table, he felt shame. Who was he to deserve their hospitality after what he had planned to do? Hamlyn’s wife placed a large chunk of bread at the side of his plate, but none beside hers or Hamlyn’s.
‘Life on a farm is hard enough,’ Froi said after a slurp, dividing his bread into three and placing a piece by both their plates. ‘Why stay here and not inside the walls of Jidia?’
Hamlyn’s wife looked up for a moment and then she went back to her soup.
When neither responded, Froi asked about news from the capital.
‘There’s confusion,’ Hamlyn said. ‘We had visitors ride through here seven days past. Their stories differed. Some claimed that one of the Provincari planned the murder of the King and that Bestiano is our only hope. Another believed it was the hidden Priests who managed to get an assassin inside. One or two of them whispered that Bestiano had killed the King and his riders are occupying the base of the gravina and raising an army from Nebia.’
‘And what are your thoughts?’ Froi asked.
Hamlyn shrugged. ‘We have nothing left of worth for a King’s army,’ he said bitterly.
Later, Hamlyn’s wife gave Froi a blanket and Hamlyn accompanied him to the stable.
‘I found it easy to break inside here,’ Froi said quietly when Hamlyn handed him the lantern. ‘Tomorrow I’ll secure some of these old planks.’
Hamlyn nodded. Froi couldn’t help but notice how large the stable was. How empty it was except for Acacia. Hamlyn caught the question in his eye.
‘I worked with horses,’ he said. He smiled at the memory. ‘Some would say that once I was the best in the outer reaches of the province. In the days before they put the walls around Jidia, men would travel for days to purchase a good horse from me.’
Hamlyn held out a handful of oats to Acacia and Froi watched the old horse nuzzle against its owner.
‘Thirteen years ago, the King’s riders came through this land and they took our horses,’ he said quietly. ‘And they took our sons. They took all the lads. Mine was of your age.’
‘Took him to the palace?’ Froi asked.
‘No,’ Hamlyn said. ‘They needed an army to support the new King of Lumatere.’
Froi fought hard to hide his shock.
‘For ten years we wondered what happened to him inside those walls,’ Hamlyn continued, as though he had waited a lifetime to speak. ‘When the Lumateran curse lifted we waited for him. One or two of our neighbours’ sons returned. The Lumaterans had released them, but the lads came back broken. They had shame in their eyes.’
Froi couldn’t speak. How much despair had this man’s son created in Lumatere? Worse still, had he died at Froi’s hands?
‘And then we began to hear the stories. Of what the Lumaterans claimed our sons did during those ten years.’
Not claims, Froi wanted to shout. What the impostor King’s army did to the Lumaterans was more than claims.
‘It keeps us awake at night,’ Hamlyn said. ‘What did a boy who was brought up with such kindness and love do to those people?’
Froi finally looked at Hamlyn.
‘You thought I was your son returning?’
Hamlyn gave a painful smile. ‘Foolish thoughts. He’d have reached his thirtieth year by now.’ He closed his eyes a moment, as though to recover himself. ‘But I dreamt of him two nights past. And in my dreams he told me a lad would arrive with the words of our gods written all over him.’
Froi flinched to hear Quintana’s words spoken by another.
‘The only thing written over me are my wrongdoings, Hamlyn,’ he said.
Froi tossed and turned half the night, but then he slept and dreamt, and when he woke, he couldn’t remember the dream. He could only remember its force. He convinced himself that he only dreamt because of Hamlyn’s words the night before. But the dream teased him all day, as though it was going to reveal itself any moment. All day he hacked at the earth with frustration alongside Hamlyn and his silent wife, trying to recall even a sliver of what had gone through his mind while he slept.
When Hamlyn’s wife walked towards the well, Hamlyn watched her, wiping the sweat from his brow.
‘It’s her way to be quiet and gentle,’ he said and Froi heard love in the man’s voice. ‘Long ago, she claimed to have lost her purpose.’
‘Because your son was gone?’
Hamlyn shook his head. ’No. Long before that.’ They both watched her lower a pail into the well.
‘Arna was the midwife for all of Jidia, as well as our village.’
A horse handler with no horses and a midwife in a barren kingdom.
‘She can be spirited at times. When she carried our son in her belly, she slept with a dagger, I tell you. A she-wolf, she was. She would have sliced open any man who was a threat to her boy.’
And here in this infertile field with two broken people, Froi remembered his dream.
Hamlyn’s wife, Arna, returned and gave a bowl of water to each of them and Froi drank thirstily.
‘I need to travel to the Citavita,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Not a good idea,’ Hamlyn said.
‘I need to be with my family,’ he said quietly. ‘They are hiding in the caves at the base of the gravina.’
‘Why would they be hiding in the same place as the King’s riders?’ Hamlyn asked.
‘For reasons that could get you killed if you knew the truth.’
The next morning Froi woke to find Hamlyn and his wife standing before him. He had dreamt again. This time it was of Arna, a she-wolf guarding her young. Except the teeth and snarl were those of Quintana. Arna crouched and handed him a pack and he smelt fresh bread and cheese and smoked meats. Hamlyn gave him a map.
‘Have you heard of the stairs to Jidia?’ Hamlyn asked.
‘They say there’s no such thing,’ Froi said.
‘Who says?’ Hamlyn said with a smile.
Froi dressed quickly and placed the food and map in his pack. He looked at Arna, placed his arms around her and she held on tight as though she was holding the son who would never return and he was holding the mother Lirah would never be to him.
‘You’re hiding something, Froi,’ Hamlyn said, handing him a crossbow with the letter
‘Everyone is hiding something, Hamlyn,’ Froi said. He shook the man’s hand. It was a Charynite’s gesture. ‘But it’s best you do not know what it is.’
He walked away, but turned back once.
‘What was the name of your son?’ he asked, his finger tracing the groove in the weapon they had given him.
‘John,’ the man said. ‘John, son of Hamlyn and Arna of Charyn.’
Chapter 28
Froi had been on his own now for the better part of the day, travelling through a labyrinth of caves as he followed Hamlyn’s map, which was peppered with a series of twists and turns and strange markings. He marvelled each time he came face to face with a matching symbol carved into a crevice, or the image of a bison scratched onto the ground, its hump pointing him in the direction of the people he needed to be with. Hamlyn had explained that the underground caves were built thousands upon thousands of years ago when those of Sendecane had taken on the worship of the goddess Lagrami. They had been persecuted by their godless king and escaped across two kingdoms to hide in Charyn, preferring to burrow their way into the earth rather than give up their faith. In later
