“Lirah says it’s her garden. She’s livid. So she’s determined to make our garden better.”
Our? Froi shook his head with disbelief. The idea of Arjuro and Lirah having something together was too strange.
“Are you not going to come down for me, Lirah?” Froi called out softly. “I’ve come a long way, and I’d hate to return to the Lumaterans and tell them how inhospitable you are here in Charyn.”
There was no response, but suddenly Lirah peered down the steps, the sun behind her illuminating her face. She had kept her hair short, and without the grime of travel and with her sea-blue dress, she looked regal.
She descended the steps and Froi helped her down the last few, and then she was there before him.
“What’s this?” she asked gruffly, touching the fluff of hair on his chin.
“A pathetic attempt at a beard,” he said. “It’s not working, is it? Which is so unfair when you think of the face of hair Arjuro had when I first met him.”
She smiled. “Regardless of their might as warriors, the Serkan lads could never grow one.”
Lirah reached out and touched Froi’s face as if she couldn’t believe he was standing before her.
“Wait until you see him,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “Wait until you see the wonder that’s our boy. Sometimes when they smuggle me into the palace, we lie there, Gargarin and I, with this little bundle between us and we count all his fingers and toes. And in all the joy, it’s only a reminder of how much we lost and there are some days that I don’t think he can bear the memory.”
Froi took her hand and pressed a kiss to it.
“Gargarin thought he found a way,” she said. “But now he believes it’s lost and he’s bitter, Froi. Why were your Lumaterans so cruel? If they loved you, they would not have been so cruel.”
“Cruel?” he asked. “Lirah, Gargarin left me behind without a thought. That’s cruel. The Lumaterans have proved themselves to me over and over again. What has he done?”
Arjuro joined them with a jug of brew and a bowl of broth.
“Have you seen our guest?” Lirah asked quietly, and Froi shook his head and followed her into a chamber. Its walls were adorned with rugs on one side, books stacked high on the other. A cot and fireplace occupied one corner. At first Froi thought there was a child lying on the bed, but then he realized the truth.
“You can speak to him. He can hear you.”
Froi took a step closer, wincing at the skeletal figure that lay before him.
“Hello, Rafuel. Do you remember me?” Froi asked, his voice catching to see the man in such a state.
Lirah took Rafuel’s hand. “He’s to save his breath and get himself well,” she said. “If anyone can get you back on your feet, it’s Arjuro, isn’t that so, Rafuel?”
There was no response. Just the stare. Rafuel was all eyes in a shrunken body. His left eye was half-closed, and there was a scar across his lip.
“Let’s get you seated upright,” Arjuro said to Rafuel. Froi helped, suddenly overcome by emotion. He couldn’t recognize Rafuel as the same animated man who had shown him the way a Charynite danced, even though he had been in chains. Froi sat down beside Rafuel on the bed.
“This one loves nothing better than when the little king visits,” Arjuro said, placing a spoon to Rafuel’s mouth. “His eyes light up like a beacon.”
Froi looked away, unable to watch. He had never seen a man look so much like death. It almost seemed too cruel to keep him alive.
“How did you come to be here, Rafuel?” Froi asked, knowing that it would be one of the others who would answer. But he didn’t want to insult the man into believing he didn’t exist.
“Gargarin demanded it the moment we found out he lived,” Lirah said. “Rafuel belongs here with us. It all began with him, didn’t it, dear friend, with those silly cats? Where would we all be without Rafuel?”
“I can take over here,” Froi said, holding his hand out for the bowl. “I’ve got much to tell you, Rafuel. About the valley and the women who beg for news of you.”
He returned to where Lirah and Arjuro sat in the hall, his emotions ragged.
“Will he get better?”
Arjuro shrugged. “We don’t know what’s broken inside of him up here,” he said, pointing to his head. “We don’t know how much of it came from the beating he received upon his arrest or from being left for dead in that mine shaft.”
“But when he arrived, he could barely open his eyes,” Lirah said. “Quintana visits with Tariq every day, and it’s been a revelation to see how much he’s changed in the presence of the boy.”
Froi was suddenly envious of them all. Even Rafuel with his decrepit body. They had each other, despite the fact that they lived in separate places. Quintana and Tariq and Lirah and Arjuro and Gargarin and even Rafuel hadn’t needed Froi. They had begun to thrive without him.
“Will she want to see me?” he asked quietly.
Lirah didn’t respond.
“Would that stop you?” she asked.
“That means she doesn’t want to.”
“I didn’t say that at all.” Lirah sighed. “I think . . . I think Quintana believes you’ve forsaken her.”
“Me?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting for Gargarin to do something. He promised to do something! I’ve been waiting.”
“Gargarin said he wrote,” Lirah said.
“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 favorite sport,” he said, winking at Lirah. “And you’ve picked an easy night.”
An easy night, Froi learned, 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 leaned 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 practiced. I’ve been very good in that way.”
She stepped away, but not too far, and his eyes traveled 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 toward 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 crib 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 crib where a cutout 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 one another’s arms, and when the sun began to rise, Froi woke and kissed Quintana and Tariq, then dressed quickly. He stepped out into the hallway and found himself face-to-face with Gargarin.
“So it is true,” Gargarin said, furious. “I thought the guards were making up stories.”
Froi shoved past him. Six months without a word and that’s all Gargarin could say to him.
Gargarin dragged him back. “Where are the Lumaterans?”
“In Lumatere! Where else?” Froi said, pulling free and walking away.
“So they had to have you all to themselves?” Gargarin demanded. Froi stopped and turned back to face his father. There was no amount of counting that could control him.
“They have me all to themselves because my real father doesn’t want me! He never did. He regrets not tossing me out —”
“Don’t!” Gargarin shook his head with disbelief. “Don’t say those words to me.”
“If you weren’t a cripple, I’d beat you senseless,” Froi said. “What would it have taken for you to acknowledge me? That’s what I wanted. To hear those words from you. And all you could say to me through Scarpo was that in weeks to come, not to make contact with the Charyn palace. ‘You wait,’ Scarpo said. ‘Trust me. These are his words.’ I know them by heart, Gargarin. And I waited and waited.”
Gargarin gripped Froi’s cloak, pulling him closer, tears of anger in his eyes.
“I begged them for you because I thought I found a way,” Gargarin whispered. “That despite never being able to claim you as mine or Lirah’s, I found a way for my son to get everything he wanted. Here. In this palace.”
“You’re lying.”
Gargarin shoved him away.
“Go back to your greedy dishonorable people who’ll do anything to keep you away from those who love you. And you tell them that Lumatere has made an enemy of me, and they’ll regret that for the rest of their lives.”
Phaedra spent the next few days in the valley being visited by the Monts. Many of them. All expressing disappointment in Lucian.
“He’s an idiot,” Constance said to Phaedra. “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again,” she continued, taking one of the honey cakes Florenza had made. They were sitting inside Jorja and Harker’s cave with Tesadora and anyone who came to put their thoughts into the matter.
“What’s she saying?” Cora demanded.
“Lucian’s an idiot,” Tesadora translated with alacrity.
Cora sighed. “I’m biting my tongue because of a vow I made when he carried our little savage to safety,” she said.
Phaedra had refused to condemn Lucian’s absence. She had made the choice to follow Quintana to the Citavita. It was Lucian who had been left behind. He owed her nothing.
“I understood his pride,” she told anyone who
asked. “And I’ve changed. I’m a different Phaedra,” she said with determination. “No more weeping. No more begging the gods for what I want and can’t have. We learn to live with our disappointments. It’s one thing I’ve learned from our brave Quintana.”
The others, Charynites and Lumateran alike, stared at her disbelievingly.
Goddess. Gods. Anyone listening, she cried all the night long. Let him come down the mountain tomorrow.
Tomorrow came and there were more Mont visitors. Jorja borrowed rations from the other valley dwellers because it was rude to have visitors, especially foreigners, and not feed them. They were all forced to move outside the cave, where there was more room. Harker built a fire, and everyone seemed happy enough discussing Lucian out in the open.
“Is that Orly and Lotte?” Sandrine exclaimed as they watched the Mont couple cross the stream, leading a cow.
“Orly doesn’t come down the mountain,” Constance said.
But today Orly and Lotte had decided to pay their respects.
“A gift,” Orly said to Phaedra. “She belongs to Gert and Bert.”
Phaedra embraced them both. She understood the significance and worth of this cow.
“The milk will come in handy once you all start breeding like normal people,” Orly said, pulling away from Phaedra, not liking the fuss. “I’ll be off now.”
“Orly! Stay awhile,” Constance argued, rolling her eyes at the awkward ways of her kin.
“We’re to go now,” Lotte said woefully. “He’s feeling this very strongly, Phaedra. He thought the moment you returned, Lucian would take you back up to the mountain, but the lad’s gone to the palace village and we are fearing the worst, we are. The worst,” Lotte cried.
“What is she saying?” Cora asked. “This one talks too much.”
“That Lucian is still an idiot,” Tesadora said.
Another day passed. Another set of visits from the Monts. The Charynite valley dwellers also joined the discussion. The men lay bets.
“Five days,” one said.
“Ten,” another argued. “She was the one who left him this time.”
“But he sent her back the first time, so he’ll feel contrite for that. Seven.”
The Lumatere Chronicles Page 129