Froi of the Exiles: The Lumatere Chronicles

by Melina Marchetta

  Froi was beginning to feel better about Gargarin. The man seemed to dislike everyone, not just him.

  Bestiano led them into a bustling courtyard, past the barracks where soldiers trained with practice swords. Two men carrying large vats pushed past them and disappeared into a doorway to their left. Froi imagined it must lead to the cellar, according to the sketches Rafuel had shown him in Lumatere. There was bellowing from kitchen staff – between the cook and one of the serving girls by the sounds of things – and when Froi wasn’t competing with servants for space, or tripping over the young man sweeping the courtyard grounds and the not-so-young page handing Bestiano a message, he found himself surrounded by livestock.

  ‘Your brother took up residence in the Oracle’s godshouse a year ago and refuses to meet with the King,’ Bestiano said, watching Gargarin closely. ‘It is the King’s greatest desire that there is peace between the palace and the godshouse after all this time. It’s what the people of the Citavita want.’

  ‘What’s stopping you or the King from entering the godshouse and dragging my brother out? It’s not as though you haven’t done it before.’

  It was a taunt and despite Froi’s short hostile history with Gargarin, he was intrigued.

  ‘Let’s just say that the King has become a superstitious man and our only surviving Priestling is not to be touched. The King is frightened of consequences from the gods.’

  Gargarin’ s laugh was humourless. ‘From what I know of the gods, they seem quite considerate and only send one curse to a kingdom at a time.’

  Bestiano forced another smile. ‘From what I know of your brother, no one can irritate the gods more.’

  Despite the politeness, the tension between the two men was strong. Froi would have liked nothing more than to see where it would take them, but his attention was drawn towards a figure standing half-concealed at the entrance of the first tower to their left. Her tangled hair was so long it seemed to weigh her down, forcing her to raise her head when peering.

  Bestiano shushed her away with an irritated hand, before turning back to Froi and Gargarin. ‘It’s best that you go to your chamber before dinner.’

  The King’s First Advisor walked away and they followed a guard into the first tower where the girl had disappeared. Froi saw her again, looking down from the stairwell, but each time they climbed closer to her, she would turn and disappear.

  When they reached the second floor, they followed the guard down a dank narrow corridor until he stopped at the first of two doors.

  ‘Yours,’ the guard said.

  ‘Mine?’ Both Gargarin and Froi said at once, exchanging looks.

  ‘Both of yours.’

  ‘Both?’

  They stared at each other again. Froi couldn’t imagine that his expression was any less horrified than Gargarin’s.

  ‘There’s been a mistake,’ Gargarin said, patiently.

  ‘No mistake, Sir.’

  Gargarin made no attempt to enter the room. Instead he studied the ornate design of the timber door, a bitter smile on his face.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the guard.

  ‘Dorcas, Sir.’

  Dorcas would have been around Rafuel’s age. He had a look Froi knew only too well. The look that said he understood nothing if it was not spoken as an order.

  ‘Well, Dorcas, I think it’s best that you place us in separate chambers and I’d prefer not to have this one,’ Gargarin said.

  ‘Not my decision to make, Sir.’

  ‘Bestiano’s idea, I suppose?’ Gargarin asked, and Froi heard a quiet fury in the question.

  ‘My orders are to take you to this room, Sir. Both of you.’

  Dorcas walked away and Froi waited for Gargarin to enter the room.

  ‘Bad memories?’ Froi asked.

  Gargarin ignored him and finally reached out to open the door. ‘It’s not your place to ask questions that don’t concern you. It’s your place to do what you’ve come here to do.’

  ‘And what is it, according to Gargarin of Abroi, that I have come to do?’

  The cold blue eyes found Froi’s. ‘If you want a demonstration I would advise you to go down to stables and watch what the serving girls get up to with the farriers.’

  Gargarin entered the room and Froi followed. It was small, with one bed in the centre, doors leading outside to a balconette and nothing else. Froi hated being cold and couldn’t imagine a guest room in Isaboe’s palace without a giant fireplace and rugs warming the chamber. Gargarin poked under the bed with his staff and pulled out a straw trundle mattress.

  ‘You take the bed.’

  ‘No, you take the bed,’ Froi said. ‘I do have a conscience, you know.’

  ‘And I prefer to sleep on the floor,’ Gargarin snapped. ‘So plunge that fact into your conscience and allow it to rotate for a while. Until it hurts.’

  Froi walked to the doors that opened to the balconette. Across the narrow stretch of the gravina, the outer wall of the Oracle’s godshouse tilted towards them.

  ‘Is it that they don’t like me or that they don’t like you?’ Froi called to Gargarin inside.

  Beside their own balconette was another that belonged to the room next door. After a moment the girl with the mass of awful hair stepped out onto it. She peered at Froi, almost within touching distance. Up close she was even stranger looking and it was with an unabashed manner that she studied him now and with great curiosity. Her brow furrowed, a cleft on her chin so pronounced it was as if someone had spent their life pointing out her strangeness. Her hair was a filthy mess almost reaching her waist. It was straw-like in texture and Froi imagined that if it were washed, it might be described as a darker shade of fair. But for now, it looked dirty, its colour almost indescribable.

  She squinted at his appraisal. Froi squinted back.

  Gargarin appeared beside him and the girl disappeared.

  ‘I’m presuming that was the Princess,’ Froi said. ‘She’s plain enough. What is it with all the twitching? Is she possessed by demons?’

  ‘Lower your voice,’ Gargarin said sharply.

  ‘Does she know what they think of her out in the provinces?’ Froi continued. ‘That she’s a useless empty vessel and that they call her a whore?’

  After a moment the girl peered out from her room again.

  ‘Well, if she didn’t before, she certainly does now,’ Gargarin muttered.

  That night, the great hall was set up with three trestle tables joined together to accommodate at least sixty of the King’s relatives and advisors. Froi had met most of the advisors, each titled according to their rank.

  ‘Why would you want to be the King’s Eighth Advisor?’ he said to Gargarin, as they were escorted to their chair by the King’s Seventh Advisor.

  ‘Once upon a time Bestiano was the King’s Tenth Advisor,’ Gargarin replied. ‘If you stay long enough, you get rewarded.’

  ‘And what were you back then?’ Froi asked.

  ‘A fool,’ Gargarin said flatly. ‘With a bond.’

  Froi was placed beside the strange Princess, who was dressed in the most hideous pink taffeta dress, bunched up in all the wrong places.

  ‘Good evening, Aunt Mawfa,’ she called out, her voice indignant where indignance wasn’t required. ‘Good evening, Cousin Robson.’

  No one responded to her greetings. Most belonged to what Finnikin would have called the vacuous nobility, and droned on and on about absolutely nothing worthwhile.

  Froi was hungry and before him were steaming platters of roasted peacock, salted fish, pastries stuffed with pigeon meat and the softest cheese he had ever tasted. He had been warned about the flatbread of Charyn and watched the way the others gathered their food with it.

  But what caught his attention was most people’s reaction to Gargarin. He seemed to be the man everyone wanted to speak to.

  ‘Interesting talk in Paladozza, Sir Gargarin, of the Provincaro’s plans to dig up his meadows to capture rain,’ one man called out fro
m the head of their table.

  ‘Not a Sir,’ Gargarin corrected, ‘and not so strange at all. I was disheartened to see the outer regions of the Citavita today. I drew up plans for water catchment here long ago, yet they seemed to have gone astray,’ he continued, his attention on the King’s First Advisor.

  ‘Would you contemplate visiting Jidia to speak to the Provincara Orlanda when you leave here?’ another asked.

  ‘No, he’s to visit Paladozza this winter,’ a man spoke up from the end of their table. ‘Is it not what you promised the Provincaro, Gargarin?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Gargarin kept his head down. Something told Froi that Gargarin was making no plans to go anywhere. The talking had caught Bestiano’s attention and he watched Gargarin carefully. Enviously? Was Gargarin a threat to Bestiano’s role as the King’s First Advisor? Gargarin hardly noticed. Once or twice, Froi caught Gargarin looking at the strange Princess Quintana, while the Princess blatantly stared in turn at Froi throughout the entire meal, with little apology or bashfulness.

  As Rafuel had explained, the Charynites gathered their food with soft breads to soak up the juices and wipe their plates clean. The Princess chose to share Froi’s plate. Froi liked his food all to himself, it came from years of having to fight for his own. Worse still, the Princess made a mess around the dish. Her hair fell into the plate often and Froi was forced to flick its filthy strands away more than once. She resorted to leaning over to grab pudding from the plate of a whining duke who had called the servant over four times already to fill his cup of ale, complaining in a loud whisper that there was wine as per usual on the other side, but not theirs. When Quintana spilled food for the umpteenth time the Duke of Who-Cares-Where grabbed his cup and slammed it hard on the table, catching the tips of her fingers. ‘Beastly child.’

  Bestiano excused himself from where he sat and walked down to them, tugging the Princess by the sleeve of her dress. ‘Perhaps you can show Olivier to your chamber,’ he hissed. ‘Make yourself useful rather than making people sick to their stomach, Quintana.’

  One of the women tittered, putting a hand on Gargarin’s shoulder. ‘She’s no more useful in the bed chamber.’

  Gargarin moved his shoulder away.

  The Princess smoothed down the creases in the awful gown and stood, beckoning with a gesture for Froi to follow. Froi stared at the food before him, reluctant to leave it behind.

  ‘Good night to all,’ she called out. No one looked up except for Gargarin, and the noise of the big hall continued as though she had never spoken.

  The Princess continued her farewells down the shadowy narrow passageway lit only by one or two fire torches that revealed a guard in every dark crevice.

  ‘Good night, Dorcas.’

  ‘Good night, Fekra.’

  ‘Good night, Fodor.’

  Some muttered under their breath. No one responded. But she greeted them all the same.

  Froi used the time to take in the various nooks and crannies and count each guard he passed.

  When they reached their quarters, Quintana stood at his door and waited. He wondered if she was expecting him to perform tonight.

  ‘I’m very tired,’ he said. He yawned for effect.

  ‘Do you not have something to tell us, Olivier of Sebastabol?’ she asked in an indignant whisper.

  He tried to think of what he should say. Was there something Rafuel had left out in his instructions?

  ‘Perhaps tomorrow we can go for a walk down to the Citavita,’ he said pleasantly. Dismissively. ‘How about that?’

  She shook her head. ‘We prefer not to leave the palace.’

  ‘We?’ Froi asked, curiously, looking around. ‘We who?’

  After a moment she pointed to herself.

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen if we go for a walk around the Citavita?’ he asked.

  ‘We could come across assassins, of course,’ she said, as though surprised he wouldn’t think of such a thing.

  ‘Of course.’

  She studied his face for a moment.

  ‘How is it that you don’t know much, Olivier of Sebastabol?’

  He shook his head, ruefully. ‘Exhaustion turns one into a fool.’ He bowed. ‘If not a walk around the Citavita tomorrow, then a walk around the palace walls will have to do.’

  He shut the door on her before she could say another word.

  Early the next morning a sound from outside the room alerted Froi. The mattress below was empty and from where he lay, he could see out onto the balconette where the sun had just begun to creep up. There Gargarin stood, staring across the gravina. Froi couldn’t see much in the poor light, but when he looked across towards the godshouse he saw the outline of a man on the balconette opposite and suspected it was Gargarin’s brother. A moment later, Gargarin turned and hobbled back inside.

  As Gargarin stood at the basin and splashed water onto his face, Froi stepped outside, curious about the Priestling. He marvelled once again at how the godshouse could sit so high on a piece of tilted granite, promising to plunge towards them at any time. Froi went to turn away, but suddenly he felt ice-cold fingers travel down his spine. He swung around, his hand grabbing at the fingers, and saw that it was the Princess, leaning over the cast-iron of her balconette and reaching towards him, standing on the tip of her toes.

  Her stare was cold and it made him flinch, but he saw fear and wonder there, too.

  ‘You are indeed the lastborn,’ she said, her tone abrupt. No indignation now. ‘It’s written all over you.’

  Froi didn’t respond. He could only stare at her. It seemed as though he was facing a completely different girl. She had the same dirty-coloured hair and eyes, but her stare was savage.

  ‘You’ll have to come to our chamber this night,’ she said.

  Froi could have sworn he heard her snarl in disgust at the thought before she turned and disappeared into her room.

  ‘Our?’ he questioned, and for the first time since he had left Lumatere, Froi wondered what he had got himself into.

  The day went from bad to worse. Gargarin of Abroi was in a wretched mood and they almost came to blows over an ink pot that Froi spilled on the man’s papers. Not that it was Froi’s fault. If it wasn’t Gargarin’s staff tripping Froi, it was his scrolls and quills laying everywhere, or his muttering filling the small space of their chamber.

  ‘Let’s make a pact, Gargarin. I keep completely out of this room today and every second day, and you do the same on the other days.’

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Gargarin said, without looking up from his work.

  Froi spent the rest of the morning avoiding the Princess, who had returned to being the indignant girl who had escorted him to his room the night before. Everywhere Froi turned, the Princess was there. Peering. Staring. Squinting. At every corner. From every height. It almost became a game of him watching her watching him.

  Later that day he hovered around the well, which seemed the perfect place for talking rot and finding out vital information from people whose ancestors had spent too much time breeding with each other. The King’s very simple cousin, for example, pointed out that the tower Froi could see from where he was standing was the prison and currently held only one prisoner. ‘The rest of the scum are kept in dungeons close to the bridge of the Citavita,’ the man explained.

  ‘And the King?’ Froi asked.

  ‘We try not to refer to him as scum out loud,’ the cousin whispered.

  ‘No, I mean, where is he kept?’ Froi said.

  The King’s cousin shrugged. ‘I’ve not seen him since the last day of weeping.’

  Froi looked around hastily, not wanting to be obvious about his scrutiny. There were five towers as well as the keep. He had seen the Duke of Who-Cares-Where walk into the keep and knew for certain that if the man didn’t get wine at his table then there was no possible way he slept in the same compound as the King. So apart from the tower Froi shared with Gargarin and the Princess opposite the godsh
ouse, and the prison tower alongside of theirs, that left the third, fourth and fifth towers as possible locations for the man Froi was sent to assassinate. He knew that if he could get up to one of the battlements, he’d at least have a better view of the entire fortress. But as he excused himself from the King’s cousin, he walked into Dorcas.

  ‘Just the person I was looking for,’ Dorcas said, full of self-importance. ‘I have a message.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘The banker of Sebastabol is passing through on a visit to Osteria,’ Dorcas advised. ‘He would like a word. Apparently your families are acquainted.’

  Froi’s heart began to thump against his chest. Less than a day in the palace and his lie was about to be discovered.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Dorcas asked.

  ‘You mean Sir … Roland is here? In the Citavita?’

  ‘Sir Berenson,’ Dorcas corrected, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘Oh, you mean Sir Berenson the banker, and not Sir Roland the baker?’

  ‘Since when is a baker a Sir?’ Dorcas asked.

  ‘In my father’s eyes, he is,’ Froi said, nodding emphatically. ‘ “Yes, yes, that man deserves a title,” Father says, every time my mother comes home with a loaf.’

  Dorcas didn’t seem interested in stories about bakers. But Dorcas was intent on following instructions.

  ‘He’s in Lady Mawfa’s sitting room in the third tower,’ Dorcas said. ‘Run along.’

  ‘The third tower?’ Froi asked, eliminating it as the King’s residence. He had watched Lady Mawfa the night before whispering gossip to anyone who came close to her. He couldn’t imagine the King sharing his residence with such a parrot.

  ‘Are you sure it’s not the fourth tower?’ Froi tried. ‘Didn’t you say he was visiting the King?’

  ‘I didn’t say that at all,’ Dorcas said, irritated. ‘And he won’t be staying for long, so run along, I say.’

  Froi had to think fast. Dorcas wasn’t moving until he did and the Princess Indignant had just revealed herself from behind the well, beckoning Froi with an impatient hand. Then he heard the tapping of Gargarin’s staff and looked up to see the man limping towards the steps of their tower. Froi took his chance.