Quintana of Charyn

‘Well, he didn’t. He lied.’

‘No,’ Lirah said firmly, ‘he doesn’t lie to me.’

Froi made a sound of disbelief.

‘Especially about our son!’

Froi was on his feet pacing.

‘Do you think you can get me into the palace without the Provincari’s people knowing?’ he asked

Arjuro chuckled. ‘It’s our favourite sport,’ he said, winking at Lirah. ‘And you’ve picked an easy night.’

An easy night, Froi learnt, was when Perabo was on watch. The keeper of the keys studied him intently at the gatehouse, a lantern in his hand held up to Froi’s face.

‘You took your time,’ Perabo muttered as he escorted him to the second tower. ‘Head down. Let them think you’re Arjuro.’

It was Fekra who guarded the second level of the second tower. His eyes flashed with surprise to see Froi.

‘We have to be careful of the Provincari’s people,’ Fekra told him. ‘They don’t have a life of their own, so they’re fascinated with everyone else’s.’

Once they reached her chamber, Fekra poked his shoulder with a finger.

‘Don’t wake the boy. It took Dorcas all night to get him to sleep.’

Froi tiptoed into her room. At first he wondered why Gargarin would have kept her in this chamber and not a larger residence. Until he saw the fireplace and then the archway between Quintana’s chamber and the room Froi once shared with Gargarin. He crept to its entrance. He knew what was in there … who was in there. He could hear the steady breathing of the boy, the strange little sounds of sleepy satisfaction.

An arm was instantly around his neck. A dagger to his throat. A savage noise in his ear. Sagra. How he missed her.

‘You’ll only make a small hole there,’ he whispered. ‘Not fatal. Inconvenient, really.’

He leant his head back onto her shoulder, exposing his throat to her blade. He felt her arm linger, her cold cheek against his. They stayed there for a time with trembling bodies.

And then he turned to face her. How could he ever have thought this face plain? How could he ever have imagined that the savagery would leave her, just because she birthed a child?

‘You’re a stranger,’ she said coldly, but her body spoke of warmth, pressed so close that the thin fabric of her shift seemed not to exist.

He saw tears in her eyes, anger. Sadness. He searched her face in the light from the godshouse across the gravina, his fingers on her cheeks, mouth.

‘Who do you see?’ she demanded. ‘Am I a stranger in return?’

He took her hand and linked his fingers with hers.

‘Why say that?’ he asked.

‘Because I calculated,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ve become good with your counting. You and I have known each other for fewer days than we haven’t.’

‘Does that matter to you?’ he asked as she clenched their hands together. He sensed his arousal, knew she felt it strongly pressed against her.

‘I can live without you,’ she said. ‘I can live without a man I’ve only known for one hundred and eighty days.’

‘And how have those calculations helped?’ he demanded to know.

She didn’t respond except for a look down her nose at him and a curl of her lip. So much for the angry half- spirits being responsible for the savages within them both. This was pure Quintana.

‘Then step away,’ he taunted. ‘If you can live without me, step away.’

He felt her warm breath on his throat.

‘Because you can’t,’ he said. ‘You think you can, but we’re bound, and not just by the gods or by a curse or even by our son. We are bound by our free will. And you can’t step away, because you are not willing.’

He bent, his mouth close to hers.

‘Step away,’ he whispered. ‘If you step away I’ll learn from you. I’ll find the desire in me to live without you. Much the same as you want to live without me.’

‘I didn’t say I wanted to live without you,’ she said, angry tears springing in her eyes. ‘Only that I can. I’ve practised. I’ve been very good in that way.’

She stepped away, but not too far and his eyes travelled down her nightdress, transparent in the moonlight. He could see the fullness of her beneath it all. He reached out a tentative hand to her breast, but she flinched and this time he stepped away.

‘It’s full of milk, fool,’ she said. ‘It’s tender. You’ll have to find another place to put your hand.’

‘You tell me where?’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Because it’s not in me to be gentle.’

‘Then you’ll just have to learn, won’t you?’

She swayed towards him, playing with him. Had she turned temptress, this cat of his? And then their mouths were fused, the cloth of her nightdress bunched in his hands, his arm a band around her body, lifting her to him as one tongue danced around the other, until her legs straddled his hips and he dragged the shift over her head, desperate to remove anything that lay between them, his mouth not wanting to leave hers as he fumbled with the drawstring of his trousers. Soon they were skin against skin and he tried to be gentle; chanting it inside his head while saying her name and they rocked into each other with a rhythm played out by the gods who had guided their wretched way. Where have you been? Where have you been? I’ve lost our song, he thought he heard her cry inside his heart, until finally Froi felt her shudder, her fingers gripping the place her name was etched across his shoulders.

‘Our bodies aren’t strangers,’ he said, his voice ragged. ‘Our spirits aren’t strangers.’ He held her face in his hands. ‘Tell me what part of me is stranger to you and I’ll destroy that part of me.’

And she wept to hear his words.

Later, as they lay in silence, Quintana kissed each one of his scars from the eight arrows.

‘Do you want to see him?’

He nodded like a hungry man, and they shivered naked in the cool night air as she led him into the other room.

‘We’re not to wake him,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m very strict about rules, you know.’

She lit a candle, and Froi stared into the cot and saw the most amazing creature he had ever seen, the babe facing them, his arms outstretched.

‘What kind of rules?’ he whispered.

‘Well, I don’t wake him just because I want to hold him. I wait until he wakes on his own. And I only give him four or five cuddles a day. Sometimes a few more if he’s fretful. We don’t want to spoil him.’

He smiled.

‘And look,’ she said. She pointed above the little King’s cot where a cut-out piece of parchment hung from the ceiling. Froi’s eyes followed her finger across the ceiling to the wall where the light from the moon made a shape of a rabbit.

And because Froi was overwhelmed with emotion, he buried his head into her shoulder.

‘Are you crying?’ she asked.

He didn’t respond, but his tears were wet against her and he felt her pat his back. ‘He likes me to do this,’ she said, her voice practical. ‘It calms him down if he wakes up with the night terrors.’

They watched Tariq for a long time until he woke and Quintana reached out to pick him up, and Froi’s son suckled as she fed him on her bed.

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked, fascinated.

‘It did to begin with.’

When she was finished and Tariq burped in a way that would have made Arjuro proud, she held him out to Froi. He took his son gently and Quintana placed his hand securely against Tariq’s head.

‘It used to roll all over the place if I didn’t put my hand there. Sometimes I fear it still will,’ she said and he stared in amazement as Tariq stared back at him.

‘Sagra,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve gone and stolen Lirah’s face, you thief.’

The three fell asleep in each other’s arms, and when the sun began to rise, Froi woke and kissed Quintana