‘Rafuel?’ Harker’s head shot up in surprise.
Lucian sent Jory a warning look.
‘Matteo,’ Jory muttered.
‘Rafuel was the name of the leader of those poor slaughtered lads,’ Harker said.
A muscle in Rafuel’s cheek twitched with emotion.
‘You have a good memory for names, Harker,’ Jory said.
‘And you have a tongue that needs to be cut off,’ Lucian said to his cousin.
Lucian could see the confusion on Kasabian and Harker’s faces. Jory held the bottle out to Rafuel, who hesitated, but then took a swig and passed it on.
‘Phaedra’s alive, isn’t she?’ Jory asked, barely able to contain his excitement.
Rafuel stepped closer to them all. ‘Quintana of Charyn is hiding downstream,’ he whispered.
Kasabian and Harker stared at him, stunned. Lucian could tell even Jory couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Harker gripped Rafuel’s coat, his fists clenched and trembling.
‘Did my wife and daughter die to keep the spawn of that wretched king alive?’ he asked.
‘Well, the spawn of our wretched king is going to spawn another hopefully not-so-wretched king in less than three months …’
Lucian heard their intake of breath. He could see that Kasabian and Harker didn’t seem to know what to believe. He took the flask from Rafuel and raised it.
‘To the women … and whoever it is they’re protecting.’
‘Yes!’ Jory hissed, lifting Rafuel off his feet.
‘My sister Cora is alive?’ Kasabian asked, tears in his eyes.
Lucian nodded.
Kasabian clenched a fist and pressed a kiss to it, a thanks to the gods.
Rafuel shoved Jory away with affectionate irritation.
‘And this is why they couldn’t know,’ he said, pointing to Harker and Kasabian. ‘Look at them. Do they look like grieving men?’
Harker caught Rafuel in an embrace and Lucian watched as Rafuel held the older man in his arms, tenderly. ‘I’ve lost them twice,’ Harker wept. ‘I sometimes wake in the night and can barely breathe.’
‘We’ll have to tell that idiot Gies,’ Kasabian said. ‘He’ll want to know that his Ginny is alive.’
Rafuel shook his head emphatically.
‘Gies has become one of Donashe’s men. We cannot trust him. I need to go now. Trust no one.’
The men embraced again.
‘It may be some time before you see the women,’ Rafuel said. ‘I beg your patience, friends. Nothing gets in the way of Quintana of Charyn’s safety. She is the only hope we have left in this kingdom, and she is as helpless as the babe she carries.’
Phaedra watched as Quintana waited and pounced, saw the satisfaction on their strange princess’s face as she removed the writhing trout from her spear and tossed it onto the ground. Phaedra tried next and almost succeeded, but it was always Quintana who caught them.
‘I almost had it,’ Phaedra said.
‘Almost isn’t enough, Phaedra,’ Quintana said.
The women had joined them today, much to Quintana’s annoyance, but all seemed well-behaved. Florenza showed a great talent for trout-spearing and by the end of the afternoon she was looking as savage as Quintana. Ginny, on the other hand, did little to help.
‘Is there anything you’re good at except for complaining and pining for men?’ Cora asked Ginny as she scaled the fish with one of Quintana’s sharp stones.
‘Well, if you really must know, I’m a great seamstress,’ Ginny said.
‘Oh good, good. Much needed at the moment,’ Jorja said. ‘When we get invited to that feast at the Nebian ambassador’s home, you’ll be the first person we have in mind, Ginny.’
‘Why would you move from your village if you had such a talent?’ Phaedra asked, trying to grip a wriggling fish in both hands and failing. It hit the water with a plonk and she dared not look at Quintana.
‘Because I’m not privileged or born last, Phaedra,’ Ginny said, spite in her voice, as if she was speaking to a fool. ‘I had the misfortune of living in a village where the girls closest to me in age were lastborns. Five of them. Five!’ she said, as if the disbelief of it all was still raw. ‘Most villages had one, maybe two. But
‘Five, you say?’ Quintana murmured, not looking up. Phaedra hid a smile.
‘If you weren’t a lastborn girl in my village, you were nothing,’ Ginny continued, oblivious to Quintana’s mockery. ‘They were given gifts all the year long. Even the privy cleaner’s daughter was considered better than me.
Quintana seemed genuinely confused.
‘I’m not quite sure what your point is, Ginny,’ she said. ‘Were you poisoned? Were you pinned under the heaving body of a man who smelled of pig fat and onions? Was your head held under water so the half-dead could clamber for your spirit?’
They stared at Quintana, horrified. Was she speaking of her experiences or those of others?
‘It’s very easy for you to be so offhand, Your Majesty,’ Ginny said. ‘When there were those of us in Charyn who truly suffered while you enjoyed a privileged life in the Citavita.’
‘But you haven’t actually come to the point where you’ve suffered yet,’ Quintana said. ‘Apart from not getting as many presents when you turned ten. So I’m getting quite bored, Ginny, and I’m going to be tempted to slice off your tongue any moment now.’
Quintana was gutting the fish with savagery and Phaedra thought she would surely carry out her threat.
‘I was good with dyes, if you must know,’ Ginny continued. ‘What I could do with fabric was a gift from the gods. My mother was an alchemist who worked with colours and one time I made a dress of indigo.’
Florenza, who loved pretty things, seemed the only one interested.
‘What colour is that?’ she asked.
‘A much richer shade than the sky. The darkest of blue.’
Florenza liked the idea of it.
‘If we ever attend a feast again, Mother, I’ll have Ginny make me a gown.’
‘You crawled through shit, Florenza,’ Ginny said, her voice nasty. ‘Do you honestly think the nobility is going to invite you anywhere ever again?’
Florenza began to gag and they all sent Ginny scathing looks. Apart from what the memory of the sewers did to Florenza, it was a sickening sound to listen to. Jorja placed an arm around her daughter, fussing quietly.
‘You have the prettiest face in Charyn,’ she reassured Florenza. ‘The Lumateran nobility won’t be able to resist you when they let us in.’ But Florenza began to retch again and Jorja held her daughter’s hair from her brow. Phaedra wondered how long it would take Jorja to accept that the Queen of Lumatere was never going to allow any of them into her kingdom.
‘You people of privilege understand nothing,’ Ginny said.
‘I thought lastborns understood nothing,’ Quintana said, but her attention was on Florenza, who was still retching.
‘All of them. The privileged. The lastborns. The hags who could never get a man,’ Ginny added, looking at Cora.
‘Yes, well, I curse the gods every day for that one,’ Cora said, her tone dry.
‘The tailor’s sister was a hag,’ Ginny continued. ‘When the day came for the tailor to chose his apprentices, guess who he chose? A lastborn girl.
Phaedra face smarted, but she watched Quintana get to her feet, one hand on her belly, the other on her
