‘There’s nothing dirty about us,’ her mother said. ‘It’s a blessing. We’ve been given a gift of unity. It’s our gift to Quintana of Charyn and her child. The coming of the blood is renewal. So we celebrate it together.’
‘Bathe?’ The Princess stared at Cora, all savage teeth. ‘If you place my head under water, I’ll –’
‘Yes, yes. You’ll slice us from ear to ear,’ Cora said, dismissively. ‘We’ve heard it before. Up you get.’
Despite the warmer spring days, the evening air was cool. They undressed by the rocks on the stream, hanging their clothing on the branches nearby.
‘I don’t like to put my head in the water,’ Quintana said for the umpteenth time.
‘A bit of water over your head never hurts, and if –’ Cora stopped, a sort of horror and wonder in her eyes. The others followed her gaze and in the half-light of the moon, they stared in fascination at Quintana’s bare, scarred body.
‘It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Ginny said, referring to the belly. Phaedra had to agree. Sometimes when she was walking behind Quintana it was difficult to believe she was carrying anything. But it was Quintana’s scars that made Phaedra want to weep, a cruel reminder of what the Princess had endured at the hands of Charyn.
Phaedra suddenly felt conscious of her own bareness. They all did, except for Ginny, who was pleased with her form, as one would expect her to be. Charynite women were not like their Lumateran sisters. It was the way they were raised. Phaedra wondered if the curse had made them all more inhibited, or whether it had been like that since the beginning of time.
Florenza was the first to wade into the stream, squealing from the cold. Phaedra thought she was being precious and then she stepped in and squealed herself, until they all were there, shushing each other, but laughing all the same.
No matter how hard she scrubbed, Phaedra couldn’t remove the layers of dirt and grime, but after a while she didn’t care anymore. They all seemed bewitched by the moon’s glow on the water and they waded towards a place in the centre of the stream where its shimmering surface beckoned them. They held onto each other, arms around shoulders, in a circle of something so strange that it made Phaedra feel a lightness of being.
‘Did you like Florenza when you first saw her, Jorja?’ Quintana asked, teeth chattering as she gripped Phaedra and Cora around the neck.
‘We won’t let your head go under, so you mustn’t hold so tight,’ Cora said. At first Quintana refused to listen, but then Phaedra felt her hold loosen.
‘What a thing to ask,’ Florenza said with a laugh. ‘Of course Mother liked me.’
‘What I fear most is that I won’t like him,’ Quintana continued. ‘I don’t know what I’ll say to the little King when I first see him.’
‘You’ll know what to feel and say the moment you first see him and not a moment before,’ Jorja promptly said.
‘But what if Florenza was the ugliest babe in the world and you couldn’t bear to touch her?’ Quintana demanded to know.
‘Well, she was quite ugly, come to think of it,’ Jorja said and Florenza laughed even more. ‘All babies are quite ugly.’
Jorja pressed a kiss to Florenza’s cheek. Despite the broken nose and bruised face, Jorja still looked at her daughter as if she was the most beautiful creature the gods had ever made. Phaedra remembered her mother looking at her in such a way, those days before the plague took her. If Phaedra had been certain of anything, it had been of her mother’s love.
‘How did it feel, Jorja?’ Phaedra asked. Never had she dared imagine Lucian’s child in her arms. It was too cruel a dream. ‘To hold your babe for the first time, I mean?’
Jorja thought a moment. ‘I cried for my mother. I was a very spoilt young girl and my mother and the servants had done everything for me.’
They heard a snap of a twig and Ginny cried out softly.
‘We’ll be safe. Don’t you worry,’ she blurted out, staring out into the semi-darkness.
Despite everything, Ginny seemed more affected than anyone else by the incident of Galvin the hangman. She appointed herself guard of their cave, disappearing at times to ensure they were safe from intruders.
‘There’s nothing strange out there,’ Cora reassured. ‘It’s the night world scurrying around, going about their chores.’
‘Go on,’ Quintana said to Jorja.
‘Well, crying for my mother caused much friction between Harker and me,’ Jorja continued.
‘Father’s very practical and doesn’t like fuss,’ Florenza told the others knowingly.
‘Yes, well, your father grew up with fuss and resented it,’ her mother said. ‘He was furious to find himself betrothed to me and threatened to send me back to my mother over and over again.’
Phaedra was surprised by the words. ‘But you love each other,’ she said. ‘I saw you together.’
‘Well, I always loved him and he grew to love me,’ Jorja said haughtily. ‘It’s the power I have over him now.’
‘When did he fall in love with you, then?’ Quintana demanded to know.
Jorja thought for a moment. ‘It was during the drought when Florenza was five. He said I was resourceful and managed to keep the village fed.’
‘It’s very decent,’ Phaedra said. ‘Not many noblemen care whether their villagers are fed.’
‘Well, that was Harker for you,’ Jorja said. ‘Whatever food we had on our table, our neighbours would have on theirs. To be honest, I did it more for him than the villagers. If it pleased him, it pleased me.’
‘My father’s an idealist,’ Florenza said proudly. ‘And my mother is a secret one,’ she added, feigning a loud whisper. ‘It’s very unfashionable where we come from.’
‘Never marry an idealistic man,’ Jorja advised them, ‘because one day you’ll find yourself dragging your daughter through the sewers of your province, or living in a filthy cave with nothing but the putrid clothes on your back.’
It wasn’t a grumble in Jorja’s voice. Just sadness. She looked at her daughter. ‘We imagined a better life for you, Florenza.’
‘It’s good enough for now, Mother. You all did enough, those of your age. Those born in your time and before suffered most because you knew Charyn before the curse and after. Cora would agree.’
‘No,’ Cora said, her voice flat. ‘Not enough.’ She turned to look at Quintana. ‘Look at what wasn’t done for this one. Me. The mothers of Charyn. All of us. Turned our backs on Charyn’s last child. We knew what was happening in that palace and we did nothing. We should have been beating down the palace walls and protecting you. But we turned our backs in bitterness and did nothing!’
‘Isn’t it the place of men to protect?’ Florenza asked.
‘Men,’ Cora said with disdain. ‘What good are they?’
‘That’s because you’ve never had a man,’ Ginny said.
‘Oh, I’ve had a man,’ Cora said. ‘And a more useless species the gods have never created, apart from Kasabian and that young Mont.’
‘Lucian?’ Phaedra said, surprised to hear such praise from Cora.
Cora snorted rudely. ‘That idiot? Don’t be ridiculous. I mean the Jory lad.’
‘What happened to your man, Cora?’ Quintana asked. ‘Did he break your heart?’
Cora made a rude sound again. ‘The only reason I put up with the panting and the grunting was because I was expected to produce a child and I failed time and time again. Do you want to know when I stopped feeling like a useless woman? When every woman in Charyn was considered useless. Charyn’s curse set me free. I left that lump I was wed to, and all I took was four Klin tree seeds. Have you seen a Klin tree? They hail from Osteria and their seeds are hard to come by. Osterians say the Klin tree flowers hope. So I took hope in my pocket that day I left and joined my brother Kasabian on his farm outside Jidia. That year we felled the trees surrounding his cottage and we grew a garden of wonder. My brother says I have a gift with the land. That I can speak to it.’
‘Then why didn’t you stay there?’ Jorja asked.
‘Drought. Plague. The earth stopped listening and we had nothing to feed us. The Klin tree still grew, but I never saw it flower hope and was forced to leave it behind. We were convinced to travel north where we’d find a new life in Alonso. But Alonso did not want us. It was as though the gods were saying, “You don’t belong to this land.”’
