Quintana of Charyn

Lucian couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘There were daggers, Finn. Women with daggers. Not just any women. Your wife. Tesadora.’

They watched Perri walk the horse towards them, stopping to speak to the Priestess of the Lagrami novices. Through his ties with Tesadora, Perri had a friendship with the novices and the Priestess and it was known he visited both cloisters in the village and forest on occasion. It was strange to think of Perri sitting and drinking tea and eating cake with such women, as though he was civilised. But Perri had always been difficult to work out.

‘He’s on his way to the valley to see Tesadora, so finish your business and go with him,’ Finnikin whispered quickly as Perri approached. ‘It will be good for him not to be on his own.’

As much as Lucian enjoyed Perri’s company, he had wanted serenity on his journey home. He desired nothing more than silence as a companion and truly hoped Perri wanted the same. Trips home to the mountain were long and there was nothing worse than someone chewing at his ears with words.

‘… and then, not only am I dealing with the fact that she feigned her own death,’ he said to Perri as they passed the inn of Balconio hours later, ‘I also find out that she discusses our marriage with her companions. Our spousal bed. And do you want to know the truth, Perri? Without going into infinite detail about what took place between us those nights … two nights … did I mention that it was only two times? Have you seen how small she is? She reaches here …’ Lucian said, pointing to his chest. ‘What was I to do? The first time she cried, and the second time, I know I hurt her. No woman had ever wept in my bed so I spent some nights at Yata’s to relieve her of the fear and now I discover that she believed I was lying with one of the Mont girls …’

When they reached the mountain, all seemed calm among the Monts, so Lucian decided to accompany Perri down to the valley.

‘No, you stay. It’s fine,’ Perri said and Lucian heard weariness in his voice.

‘No, no. I’ll travel with you. It’s a good thing, because you seem quite drowsy.’

‘Pity … because I believe you’re needed on this mountain, Lucian,’ Perri said. ‘Here comes Potts.’

‘Ignore him.’

They took the path down to the valley.

‘Anyway, what I was saying,’ Lucian continued, ‘is that this business with Lord Tascan’s family has now become an issue because when I started seeing his daughter Zarah, I believed that my wife was dead and now she’s not, and although I know that all I need to do is see my cousin Isaboe to speak of the marriage with the Charynite … do you notice how I say that now? How I don’t refer to her by her name? Well, I know that Cousin Isaboe can sever this marriage based on the grounds of our separation and the fact that the union brought no peace between our kingdoms.’

‘Then why don’t you do that?’ Perri finally spoke, bluntly.

‘Do what?’

‘Have the marriage severed?’

Lucian stared at him, stunned. ‘With …’

‘With the Charynite,’ Perri said. ‘Have the marriage with the Charynite severed.’

‘Phaedra?’

‘I’d hate to refer to her by name, Lucian. Isn’t that what you want?’

Lucian bristled. ‘I think you should keep silent now, Perri. You’ve said too much.’

Lucian didn’t speak for the rest of the journey into the valley until they saw Tesadora’s tent in the hollow and he thought it wise to warn Perri.

‘She’s angry and she’s hurt,’ he said. ‘She’ll be very frosty in her response to you because of your duty to the Queen and you might just find yourself back up that mountain, because when Tesadora’s furious, you have to give her space.’

Perri stared at Lucian, impassively.

‘Yes, we’ve actually become friends … almost,’ Lucian continued, ‘and I think she’s beginning to trust me. She’s not going to want to talk about what happened with the Queen and she’s especially not going to like the fact that you’ve come down this mountain with not so much as a note from Isaboe. So let me do the talking, Perri. This may not end well for you if you act too prematurely.’

Lucian watched as Tesadora stepped out of her tent, having heard their horses. Perri leapt off his horse and a moment later she was in his arms and they were kissing in a way that had even the horses tossing their manes in surprise.

‘Where’s Beast?’ she asked, staring at the strange horse.

‘A very long story,’ Perri said.

They walked into the tent, perhaps to talk about the Queen or where Beast was.

Lucian thought it best not to follow.

Chapter 21

Serker was a wasteland. Cracked earth, dead stumps of trees and not a speck of fertile land as far north as the eye could see. Worse still were the piercing shrieks that sliced at Froi’s ears.

‘Can you hear that?’ he shouted to Gargarin, who rode with him that day. Lirah was riding ahead on Beast. It was only fitting that she entered her province on a Serkan horse.

‘The wind has a bite in these parts,’ Gargarin said.

‘It’s not the wind I hear.’

Froi dismounted, his knees buckling, fatigued by the sounds of the damned that called to him. He took in his surrounds, unable to fathom the horror of what had taken place in Serker nineteen years past. Low ruins of cottages burnt to the ground. Other dwellings so intact: an even crueller reminder that a people once existed here. Skeletal remains lay where people had been slaughtered. The once-thriving town void of breath. Even the air seemed to have stilled to nothing.

‘The land is so flat,’ Froi said, looking up at Gargarin. ‘How can an army possibly be hiding here?’

‘You know better than to ask that when you’ve spent so much time living as a trog these past months,’ Gargarin said.

But there was doubt even in Gargarin’s voice. What were the chances of an army and their horses hiding in this strange place? The only army Froi knew of was the one he had glimpsed in a valley between Sebastabol and Serker earlier that morning. He hadn’t told Gargarin and Lirah. He saw no reason to alarm them.

‘How could they not have seen the King’s army coming?’ Froi asked.

Gargarin didn’t respond, and Froi could see he was watching Lirah up ahead as she followed the road to the colossal theatre they had glimpsed the moment they entered Serker.

‘The Serker army was too busy attacking up north,’ Gargarin said. ‘They were lied to and misinformed by a spy that the northern province of Desantos was set to invade. That was Serker’s weakness. They’d fly into any skirmish at a moment’s notice, always to prove their power. Later, when the people saw the horses approaching from the north, they believed them to be their own returning soldiers. They didn’t realise it was the King’s men who had circled the province. And by the time the real Serkan army returned home, they didn’t realise they were walking into a trap and that most of their people were already slaughtered.’

Froi continued to walk alongside Gargarin in silence. He tried to remember Arjuro’s song calling the dead so he could sing it in his heart and perhaps stop the shrieks of the spirits that only he could hear, but it would not come to mind. And then finally they reached the place once called Il Centro: an open-air stage surrounded by tiered steps reaching so high that they disappeared beneath the low, filthy clouds. It was as if Serker had built a way to touch the gods.

‘I’ve never seen anything so mighty before,’ Froi said.

‘As young men, Arjuro, De Lancey and I travelled here to listen to great lectures about the planets and the philosophy of the ancients,’ Gargarin said. ‘It wasn’t rare to meet a Lumateran here, and if you ask your Priestking and the Priestesses of your cloisters, you’ll find they’ll all have visited Serker in their day.’

Froi wondered if Tesadora’s mother, Seranonna, had come to this place and lain with a Serkan.

‘It’s where most of the people of this province died,’ Gargarin said.