The girl with the smile, the one you once spoke of, she enters the cave and can see what is true. And she thinks with her heart and shouts out, “It’s plague!” and calls for a man who has seen plague before. I beg her, I beg her, but the man named Matteo is the lad with the cats from when I was a child. “Your Highness,” he whispers, his eyes full of wonder. “Did you mate with the last born I sent to save Charyn?”
And the women, they stare with fear in their hope, but it’s hope drenched with tears, and it smothers me whole. And the Mont’s wife, she covers my belly and speaks. “We’ll be dead to all Charyn, from plague in the north.” There’s keening and wailing from those left behind: the men of the valley who lose all they have.
And here where we’re hidden, I sleep in a corner. My dreams are consumed by She who has stealth. I feel her, I fight her, I grit through my teeth, “Keep far from my king or I’ll tear you to pieces.”
I call out your name to help fight this demon. I call out your name. “Froi! Save Charyn’s son.”
And day after day it is dull in my heart, for there’s nothing to say when you’re dead to the world. And the Mont’s wife, she looks to the valley and mountains with pain and regret, but such hope and fierce love.
“Is it rain?” someone asks, and I wait for the answer. Though winter still shrouds this land, I’ve prayed for the sun.
“Froi!”
In the dark of their chamber, Isaboe awoke. She heard Finnikin stir beside her and climbed out of their bed, pulling back the curtain that partitioned their sleeping quarters from the rest of their private residence. Despite the thickness of the rug, her feet felt icy as she tiptoed to the hearth. Her hands shook as she lit a taper with the embers of last night’s fire, trying to understand the savage strangeness of her dream. But when she returned to their bed, she saw, through the flicker of the flame, what the darkness had hidden. Finnikin lay awake, staring at her with fury. And it made her shiver even more.
“What is it?” she asked, as if facing a stranger, not her king. And because she feared the malevolence of Finnikin’s gaze, she gathered Jasmina into her arms and carried their daughter away, settling her to sleep in a moonlit corner of the room. There was a sound behind her, and Finnikin’s shadow was on the wall. Isaboe despaired at the wickedness that had crawled into their lives this night.
“What?” she demanded to know, her mood eased only by the smile of sleepy satisfaction on Jasmina’s face.
Finnikin didn’t respond, and this time she turned to face him, the light of a cruel moon mocking her belief that she had nothing to fear from her king.
“You wake with another man’s name on your lips and you ask me what the matter is?” he said.
Froi?
She could hardly remember it now, but she had certainly dreamed that she had heard his name.
“It’s the walk,” she said, pressing a kiss against the soft skin of her daughter’s cheek. “Every night now it seems as if I’m in another’s sleep, but they reveal nothing.”
Unable to stand his accusing stare, she brushed past him and returned to their bed. “It’s a mind full of strangeness,” she mused. “There’s cunning beyond reckoning there. Snarls. Whispers. And something else. I can’t explain it.”
“You’ve not bled for months, Isaboe,” Finnikin said, his voice blunt. “Since you began carrying the child. How can you walk the sleep if you don’t bleed?”
And then fear left her and anger set in and she matched the gray stoniness in Finnikin’s eyes with dark rage.
“Are you calling me a liar?” she asked softly. “Because I’d be careful of that, my love.”
They heard the sound of horses in the courtyard outside and she suspected it was Trevanion and Perri returning from the mountains where she had sent them to question Rafuel of Sebastabol. Finnikin walked away, without so much as a word. They had all been tense these past weeks after the return of Froi’s ring by a Charynite brigand. They had also received news from inside the kingdom of Belegonia about the man who may have planned the slaughter of Isaboe’s family, thirteen years past: Gargarin of Abroi. Isaboe had insisted that they were to collect information about the suspect. She knew what her next order would be. Slowly, every man responsible for Lumatere’s pain would be gone, and she prayed to the goddess that it would bring her peace.
When she heard the voices from the entrance of the chamber, Isaboe wrapped her fleece around her body and pulled across the curtain that separated their bed from the rest of the room. Informal meetings with Sir Topher and Trevanion always took place here in their private residence. It was Isaboe’s favorite place in the castle, and when she had first seen the vastness of the room, she had insisted that they include a dining bench and settees to accommodate the closest of their friends when they came to visit. It was beautifully decorated with rich tapestries and ceiling frescoes, and Isaboe was proud of how at ease those nearest to her heart felt in her home. But there was little of that today.
She watched her lady’s maid serve hot brew to Trevanion and Perri, who were hovering near the doorway.
“Your shoes, my queen!” Rhiannon reprimanded, turning her attention to Isaboe and staring down at Isaboe’s bare feet.
She hadn’t noticed. She had only noticed Finnikin brooding by the window. Isaboe greeted Trevanion, who embraced her, and she felt the icy wetness of his coat. Taking his hand, she led him closer to the fire, where Finnikin’s hound pressed himself against Trevanion’s leg in recognition.
“Where are your shoes, Isaboe?” he asked with disapproval.
Finnikin’s father had one gruff tone for everything, and she was finally becoming used to it after all these years.
A bleary-eyed Sir Topher entered with a knock, and then they were all huddled before the warmth.
“Sit,” Isaboe ordered everyone, and they made themselves comfortable before the fire.
“Rafuel of Sebastabol has become somewhat difficult to get alone these past weeks,” Trevanion said. “Impossible, actually.”
“Since Phaedra of Alonso . . .” Isaboe said.
Trevanion nodded.
“How are they all?” she asked quietly. It had been three weeks since the death of Lucian’s wife.
“Grieving. I left Beatriss and Vestie with them.”
“Yata sent a letter,” Isaboe said. “Tesadora is taking it hard, I hear,” she added, looking at Perri. He nodded but said nothing more. Isaboe had never known him to speak of Tesadora. Whatever it was that they shared was a private matter.
“Tesadora and her girls insist on going down to the valley again,” Trevanion said.
Isaboe shook her head. “I want Tesadora here keeping me company until I deem it safe for her to return to her work with those Charynite valley dwellers.”
She noticed the flicker of annoyance on Perri’s face and stared at him questioningly.
“Tesadora claims they are suffering greatly,” Trevanion said.
“The Monts?” Isaboe asked.
“The valley dwellers.”
“Why so much concern for the valley dwellers?” she asked, exasperated. “They’re not our problem.”
“Well, they may just be,” Trevanion continued. “The province of Alonso has stopped sending grain carts. The valley dwellers are sharing meager rations, and it’s beginning to show. Tesadora says that in their weakened state and in this cold, they’re more at risk of illness. The older ones are beginning to die far too quickly.”
“Why would the provincaro of Alonso leave them to starve?” she asked angrily.
“Grief,” Sir Topher said. “He believes his daughter’s death would have been avoided if she wasn’t in the valley. He blames the valley, and he blames us. Perhaps if we write to offer our —”
“I don’t grieve for Charynites,” Isaboe said, her voice cold. “I don’t recall receiving a letter from the provincaro of Alonso when my family was slaughtered, nor was there a note of sympathy when my uncle Saro of the Monts was killed. I owe the provincaro nothing.
He, on the other hand, owes Lumatere for relieving him of the problem of a crowded province. Write to him, Sir Topher, and demand that he feed his people. I will not have them dropping like flies on my land!”
Rhiannon returned with Isaboe’s slippers and another shawl, and they all waited until she stopped her fussing.
“You’re quiet, Finnikin,” Sir Topher said after Rhiannon had left the room.
“I agree with Isaboe,” he said, his voice flat. “Regardless of whose problem they are, the valley dwellers are Charynites, and Alonso has no right to stop the grain carts. Explain to the provincaro that every death in the valley will be recorded, and one day when a benevolent king sits on the Charynite throne, Alonso will be held accountable.”
It was the wavering in Finnikin’s voice that marked the difference between them both. Isaboe knew that. He was the better person. He wrote the letters of outrage to the king of Yutlind Nord about the injustices in Yutlind Sud. He wrote the letters to every leader of the land challenging the Sorellian laws of slavery. He was the only person she had ever known to use the word Skuldenorian. As if those in the land of Skuldenore were one people. But Isaboe could not think of being one with their enemies. Not with the memory of what had been done to her family. Finnikin’s father was close at hand. Hers was dead and she had prayed these past years for the grace of forgiveness, but the goddess refused to send it.
“We’re not here to speak of the valley dwellers,” Isaboe said. “What else have we discovered about Gargarin of Abroi?”
Trevanion gestured for Perri to speak first.
“I’ve interrogated every Charynite prisoner we have,” Perri said, leaning forward in his seat. The blaze of the hearth illuminated the scar that ran across his brow. “Those who have heard of Gargarin of Abroi all speak the same thoughts. He was the king’s favorite adviser in the palace eighteen years ago. The Charynites in our prison say that the king favored Gargarin of Abroi’s opinion over all others. It was well known in the capital that if young Gargarin of Abroi had a plan, the king would follow it.”
“And what does the Charynite in possession of Froi’s ring have to say?” Finnikin asked.
“Every word that comes out of his mouth seems a lie, so he’s not the most reliable of sources, but he certainly knows who Gargarin of Abroi is.”
Trevanion and Perri exchanged looks. “According to the Charynite, the ring was given to him by a lad to bargain for Gargarin of Abroi’s life. And the province leaders paid three hundred pieces of gold as ransom to have Gargarin of Abroi returned to them when he was held hostage by these men called the street lords.”
There was an uneasy silence in the room.
“Are we suspecting that Froi has joined the enemy?” Isaboe asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“We’re suspecting that anyone can be an enemy to Lumatere,” Trevanion said. “If it was Froi who bargained with the ring, then he was begging for the life of a man who could easily have been the mastermind behind events in this palace thirteen years ago.”
“Easily have been?” Isaboe asked. “If we’re going to hunt a man down, we need to be more certain than that.”
“Gargarin of Abroi dazzled the king with his ideas,” Sir Topher said. “Perhaps he has a way about him.”
“Froi is the least likely to be dazzled by another,” she said. “Even when he had a choice between life and death, he refused to be influenced by powerful men. His choices are about survival.”
She heard a sound come from Finnikin and dared to glance at him.
“How is it that you came to speak about such things with him?” her husband asked.
She shrugged. “We were exchanging stories of horror from our childhood. I told him about my time as a slave in Sorel, and he shared with me some of his more . . . sordid moments on the streets of the Sarnak capital.”
Again she felt Finnikin’s cold stare. How could a man who stared so coldly possess a smile that made her mood change in an instant? But that smile was far away now.
“I’ll say this again because it’s the life of a man we are playing with,” Isaboe said. “Gargarin of Abroi worked for the king of Charyn eighteen years ago and then disappeared. But he did not work for the king thirteen years ago, when Lumatere was attacked. How can we be sure he was involved?”
“We intercepted a letter he sent to the Belegonians, Your Majesty,” Sir Topher said. “Gargarin of Abroi wants to talk to them about Charyn’s unborn king. He has ambition.”
“Is that a crime? Most people in this court have ambition,” she said.
“He mentioned Lumatere.” Sir Topher removed the letter from his pocket and began to read. “The Lumaterans need not know of our alliance. We’ll talk later about what to do with them. Leave it to me, for I have a plan for Lumatere that will eliminate them as a threat.”
Eliminate Lumatere? Isaboe shuddered. “Then we must set a trap,” she said.
Trevanion nodded. “Already done, my queen. We sent a letter in response to his, asking him to meet with us on the Charyn-Osteria border.”
“And you don’t think Gargarin of Abroi knows the look of an authentic Belegonian seal on a letter?” she asked.
Trevanion and Sir Topher exchanged a look.
“Our spy in the Belegonian palace managed to stamp the letter with a Belegonian seal,” Sir Topher said, and she knew him well enough to understand that he was hiding something. She looked from her First Man to Trevanion.
“Who’s your spy?” she demanded. “Lord August? On his last visit? Does Abian know?”
There was silence and she almost choked at the realization.
“Celie?” She stared at them in horror. “August will kill you.”
Sir Topher sighed. “Celie came to us. She’s bored. She says she’s too plain to dazzle the Belegonian court but that they all confide in her. She says her insipid looks are the perfect weapon. Her words, not ours.”
Isaboe rubbed her face, knowing that soon she would be dealing with Celie’s parents, Lady Abian and Lord August.
“What about Rafuel of Sebastabol?”
“According to Lucian, the Charynite has made contact between us impossible,” Perri said.
“I don’t like the fact that he’s out of our sight,” Finnikin said. “He’s still a prisoner, and the agreement was that he would be spying in the valley for us.”
Isaboe agreed. “I want Lucian to send down the lads again. I want Rafuel’s every movement noted.”
“If you send down the Mont lads, Tesadora will insist on returning to the valley for good,” Perri said.
“Last I knew, Tesadora was not in charge of this kingdom,” she said coolly. “I’ll say it again. I want her to pay me a visit. Can you ensure that she receives that request, Perri?”
He nodded. “I’ll send Moss.”
“Hunt Gargarin of Abroi down,” she said to Trevanion. “I don’t want him alive. And I don’t want him in Lumatere. What needs to be done.”
She spoke a few moments more with Sir Topher about their upcoming market day and then turned to find Finnikin packing.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Where are you going?”
He refused to speak and continued to place items in his pack.
“What is wrong with you?” she cried.
She grabbed the cloak from his belongings and threw it back into the chest.
He stood her aside and retrieved the cloak and placed it back in his pack before pulling on calfskin trousers, which she knew he used only for travel.
“I’m going with my father and Perri.”
“No!”
He laced up his boots, continuing to dress as if she hadn’t spoken.
“You’re not going to Charyn, Finnikin.”
“I don’t follow a wife’s orders,” he said.
“I’m not speaking to you as your wife,” she shouted. “I’m speaking to you as your queen, and my order is that you are not going to Charyn.”
In her corner, Jasmina awoke and began to
cry.
“Ah, so that’s what is meant by the queen’s consort,” Finnikin said with bitterness. “A page who answers to her demands.”
She grabbed his arm, but he shook it free.
“Is that what this is about?” she asked. “Being my consort?”
He ignored her.
“Answer me!”
“You spoke another man’s name in my bed!”
She stared at him, stunned. He had shouted at her this way once before when she had been disguised as the novice Evanjalin. It was almost four years past when he discovered the truth about Balthazar and had accused her of sedition.
“I go to Charyn with my father and Perri,” he said, his voice hard. “Because I speak the language in a way they don’t, and if we are fortunate enough to cross the path of our wayward lad, I’ll bring him home to you safe and sound. Perhaps you can murmur his name to him while he shares your bed.”
She slapped his face with a cry of outrage, and he pulled her close to him, his arms shaking.
“You’ve never spoken to me of your time in Sorel as a child,” he said, and she saw tears in his eyes. “You’ve always said it was too painful. That apart from Balthazar’s death and what you witnessed in Sarnak, it was your worst memory. Yet you told him. You trusted another man with your pain.”
He shook his head, anguished and full of fury. “I’ve told you everything. Every fear I have. How can we be equals in this union if you can’t trust me?”
“Not telling you about Sorel has nothing to do with trust, Finnikin!” she said.
He walked out the door before she could speak another word.
Soon after, she saw his fleece on their bed and knew he would freeze without it. Let him, she thought. Let him. But she grabbed the fleece and walked outside, flinging it over the balcony down to where Finnikin was already mounting his horse in the courtyard alongside his father and Perri. It caught him in the face, and her only satisfaction was that the weight of it almost toppled him from his horse.
“And don’t expect any sympathy if you catch your death out there,” she shouted. “You didn’t even pack an undershirt.”
The Lumatere Chronicles Page 88