Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

Vestie shook her head.

‘Can we guess?’ Beatriss said. ‘Vestie so enjoys guessing games with her father.’

Vestie liked the idea and nodded emphatically. ‘Father guesses every time. He knows everything.’

‘Oh, wonderful,’ Isaboe said, winking at Beatriss. ‘Another besotted child of Trevanion’s.’

‘You’ll have to give us a clue,’ Abian said.

Vestie hesitated and then she took Jasmina’s hand and swung it. ‘She’s just like Jasmina.’

‘She’s pretty?’ Beatriss said.

‘She’s bossy?’ Abian said.

‘She’s incorrigible?’ Isaboe said.

Vestie giggled. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

Isaboe looked at her daughter, who loved nothing more than hearing her name. ‘Aren’t you incorrigible, beloved?’

Jasmina thought about it a moment and nodded emphatically, liking the word.

‘What else are you, Jasmina?’ Vestie asked, excited.

Jasmina thought another moment and everyone laughed to see her pensive face.

‘Pwincess.’

The others laughed again at the joy of hearing her speak and Vestie clapped with glee.

‘Yes. Yes.’

Isaboe froze, the hair on her arms standing tall.

‘Your friend in the valley is a princess?’

Vestie put a finger to her lips to silence herself, but nodded, giggling.

‘And does this princess have a name?’ Isaboe asked.

Beatriss shook her head at the same time as Vestie’s nod. Beatriss stared at her daughter, surprised.

‘You’ve not mentioned a name, Vestie,’ she said, worry in her voice. ‘You said she didn’t have one.’

‘It’s a secret.’

‘Whose secret?’ Beatriss asked, alarmed. ‘Who said it’s a secret?’

‘She did. And so did Tesadora when I told her. Tesadora said that the Charynites have the biggest ears in the whole world and even if I told someone my secret in Lumatere, they’d hear it.’

Isaboe, Abian and Beatriss exchanged looks.

‘All these secrets,’ Isaboe tried to jest. ‘Who said there were any secrets from me in Lumatere, Vestie?’

Isaboe bent down to her.

‘You can whisper it to me. The Charynites will never hear. I’ll make sure of that.’

Vestie took the time to think and then leant forward.

‘It’s a strange name, Isaboe. I can hardly say it.’

‘I’ll help you, my sweet.’

Vestie placed her lips against Isaboe’s ears.

‘Her name is … Kintana. Kintana of Charyn.’

Arjuro insisted on escorting Froi for at least part of his journey. Their exit was through the cottage of a draper wed to one of the Priests. It lay on the northern outskirts of Sebastabol and as they crept out of the cellar into the early-morning blustery wind, Froi smelt a difference in the air, one that seemed foreign, yet still strangely familiar.

‘The ocean,’ Arjuro said. ‘We’re not even a half day’s walk from it to the east.’

The map Arjuro had drawn for Froi would take him across the centre of the kingdom to Charyn’s border with Osteria. Froi knew they would pass Abroi in the morning and Serker later that afternoon. He thought of Finnikin and Lucian and the pride they felt having come from the Rock and Mountain. Froi felt no such pride in the homes of his ancestors.

‘Stop thinking about it,’ Arjuro said, when Froi looked back over and over again after they passed north of Abroi.

‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’

‘I just know,’ Arjuro said. ‘Shit to the south and killing fields ahead. You want neither in your life.’

The terrain south of Serker was a slush of melted snow and dirt, and above them was a whirl of filthy clouds that lay low all the day long. A wind whistled an eerie tune and even the horses responded to the misery, tearing across the country as if they wanted to get as far from this place as possible.

‘Do you ever think of travelling through Serker?’ he asked Arjuro.

‘Nothing we can do,’ Arjuro said. ‘I have no chronicle of their names, so I can’t sing them home. Never have been able to.’

Which meant that Arjuro had tried. Froi pulled up a sleeve and rubbed his arm, shivering at the raised hair on it. Arjuro stared at him.

‘The unsettled spirits are dancing on your skin.’

‘I thought we only danced for joy,’ Froi said.

‘Not in Serker, they don’t.’

When it was time to say goodbye they stood huddled by their mounts, fussing with reins and comforting the horses. Being with Arjuro these weeks had been Froi’s only relief from the torment of Quintana’s absence.

‘You died twice in my arms,’ Arjuro said quietly.

Froi looked up at him.

‘It would have been the last thing I could have endured.’ Arjuro said, his eyes filling with tears. ‘Your death would have been the very last I could have endured.’

Froi thought of those strange moments after the attack outside Paladozza. When he knew he was dying, he had heard the Reginita’s voice ordering him away.

‘When I was removing those barbs,’ Arjuro said, ‘and your thoughts and words were feverish, you wept and wept from the memories … from the horror of your memories in Sarnak.’

Froi saw the rage in Arjuro’s eyes, his clenched fists.

‘If I could find the men who did those things to you as a child I would tear them limb from limb.’

Froi embraced him.

‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I’d pick the wretched life over and over again.’

He kissed Arjuro’s brow. Finnikin called it a blessing between two male blood kin. It always had made Froi ache seeing it between Finnikin and Trevanion.

‘I’d live it again just to have crossed all of your paths. Keep safe, Arjuro. Keep safe so I can bring your brother home to you.’

Froi felt an acute loneliness the moment Arjuro mounted his horse and rode away. The sleet half-blinded him and the cold brought a new sort of pain to his bones. But he travelled all day and night, not wanting to rest in a place where he couldn’t shelter from the malevolence of nature. This was ancient land, filled with spirits, and apart from his journey to Hamlyn and Arna’s farm, Froi hadn’t been alone since his days in Sarnak. He fought the need to weep, but blamed it on his aches.

On his second day alone, he saw lights from afar and knew he had reached the Charyn River and the road south to the Osterian border. He couldn’t bear another night of sitting in the saddle with only the horse and his fleece for warmth, and the lights promised everything. They delivered little but a rundown inn that was full to the brim. Froi’s heartbeat quickened when he saw the sign to Alonso. How easy it would be to change path and take the road home to Lumatere. But there was something about De Lancey’s news that made him uneasy. Gargarin was no fool, yet if there was a lesson Froi had come to learn from living with Lord August’s family, it was that the Belegonians could not be trusted.

So he paid a coin for a corner in a crowded stable a mile south of the inn. It was mostly filled with Citavitans who had not found refuge in Jidia and were heading upriver to Alonso. Froi knew how their journey would end. Alonso would turn these people away, forcing them to travel to the Lumateran valley. As he watched these desperate, landless people, he couldn’t fight the crippling fear that Quintana was somewhere out there on her own with no coins to trade, cold to the bone.