Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

‘Wherever our little king guided me.’

‘He speaks to you?’

‘No. But he used to speak to my sister, the Reginita. He liked the sound of her voice. He’s very clever in that way. I think he’s gods’ blessed like Arjuro.’

‘And where did our little king suggest you all journey without me?’

‘You’ll not believe it.’

‘But I will.’

‘Promise you won’t think me a fool.’

‘With all my heart.’

‘Then you’ll have to come closer, Froi. We can’t have the Avanosh lot hearing.’

Quintana? I can’t hear you. Speak louder. You’ve got to speak louder. I can’t hear you. Quintana!

‘Froi!’

Don’t wake up.

‘Froi!’

Fight it. Don’t let her go again.

‘Froi, wake up!’

The times he loved most were when his eyes were closed. So he could imagine he was still in his quarters in Paladozza on that long night when they talked and talked and lay naked against each other. They were like a cocoon, she said. She had seen one in the gardens of their compound and had sat and watched it for hours. So there they lay with her rounded belly between them, protecting their little king, studying each other’s face as if trying to work out which part of them would belong to the babe.

With eyes closed shut, Froi could also imagine Gargarin and Lirah down the hall in De Lancey’s home and he could go back to that room time and time again and change everything that happened. Take back every word he spoke.

But sleep was already gone and with its loss came truth and a flatness to his spirit that rendered him motionless. Barely opening his eyes, he could see Arjuro crouched beside him, a cup of brew in the Priestling’s hands that was sure to turn Froi’s stomach.

‘She whispered it to me, Arjuro,’ he said, his voice hoarse, and Arjuro lifted the cup to Froi’s lips. ‘I could almost hear her. I could almost hear the words telling me where she’d hide.’

‘Drink,’ Arjuro ordered gently. ‘She’s just about told you every night, Froi. For weeks now. You beg her in your sleep over and over again. Let it rest or you’ll drive us both mad.’

Arjuro lit another of the oil lamps, and then two more, and placed them in the crooks of the wall. It was the only light Froi had seen these past weeks and he wondered what it did to a spirit to not feel sun on the skin or the wind on one’s face.

Although he shared the cavern with Arjuro, passages linked it to every other cavern in the underground godshouse of Trist. The rest of Charyn had been led to believe that the Priests were hiding somewhere in the caves outside Sebastabol, but instead they lived beneath the city itself. It was a labyrinth so extensive it had three main entrances: one through a grate in the ceiling that led to a hospital for travellers, and two through cellars of Sebastabolians who had an allegiance to the Priests. It was outside one of those homes where Froi’s bloody body was left.

‘You have a habit of turning up on our doorstep, Dafar of Abroi,’ Simeon the Head Priest had told him the first time Froi woke. ‘Creating havoc in the kingdom beyond understanding.’

They were unable to tell him who his saviour was. ‘You were left and he was gone without a word,’ they said.

Froi dragged himself out of his bedroll and walked to the basin, dampening a cloth and wiping it over his face. Each morning had been a measure of how quickly he was healing and his only relief today was that there was less pain than the day before.

‘I’m ready,’ he said to Arjuro.

‘You said you were ready the day you woke up with eight barbs wedged in your body,’ Arjuro muttered, mixing a paste that he coated on Froi’s wounds each morning. It produced a stench that made them both want to retch, but Arjuro insisted the scars would fade and Froi would heal quicker. The faster Froi healed, the closer he came to finding her.

‘Arm up,’ Arjuro ordered.

Froi held up his arm as Arjuro smeared the paste onto the deepest of the wounds on Froi’s side. ‘It’s the one that brought you closest to death,’ Arjuro said most days, and Froi would hear the break in the Priestling’s voice each time.

The paste and Arjuro’s fingers were cold on his skin and Froi flinched more than once, although he tried hard not to. It was Arjuro who had to be convinced of his strength. Arjuro, Froi had come to understand, was respected by the compound of Trist, and Froi could see the Priests and their families were desperate to keep him. He was the last of the Oracle’s Priestlings and he still held a fascination for them all.

‘Are you ready for the collegiati ?’ Arjuro asked. ‘You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to them for quite some time.’

‘You mean my injuries are,’ Froi said.

‘Yes, I suppose they will miss your wounds when you leave,’ Arjuro chuckled.

Each morning, a group of young men and women, a little older than Froi, came to visit their quarters. Although not lastborns, some were in hiding because they were believed to be gods’ blessed. Others were the children of the Priests and Priestesses who had hidden their families all those years ago when the Oracle’s godshouse was attacked. That a school for the brightest minds in Charyn existed in the bowels of a province didn’t surprise Froi. In the nook of any given cave in this kingdom were a people refusing to give up.

‘The way they grovel to you makes me sick to my stomach,’ Froi said as he watched Arjuro arrange his tools of healing. Froi thought of them more as tools of torture. When he had first awoken from his injuries, one of the collegiati had told Froi how excited all in the compound had been when Arjuro returned to them.

‘He was considered the greatest young surgeon in Charyn before the attack on the Oracle’s godshouse,’ the girl, Marte, had explained to Froi. ‘My mother was one of his teachers in Paladozza and said that even as a boy he showed brilliance.’

Marte and her fellow collegiati were hungry for any type of learning and they hovered around the entrance of Arjuro’s chamber all day long, just for a chance to spend more time with the Priestling.

Arjuro found them as annoying as he found most people and would tell them exactly where he would prefer they go. But they returned each day while he treated Froi’s wounds, which they analysed and discussed, poking at Froi as if he was nothing but a slab of mutton. Froi would see their eyes blaze with excitement each time they saw his scars.

Whoever had taken him to these caves had tried to yank out the arrows, but once the shafts were pulled, they had come unstuck from their stems and Froi was left with eight arrowheads lodged inside his body.

‘Cat gut goes a long way, blessed Arjuro,’ Marte said that morning when they all shuffled in. ‘The stitching is perfect.’

‘But how did you remove the barbs, Brother Arjuro?’ a collegiato asked in awe.

‘An arrow spoon,’ Arjuro said, showing them the instrument.

There was much oohing and aahing.

‘The spoon is inserted into the wound and latches onto the arrowhead,’ Arjuro said, looking at Froi. ‘You might want to close your ears for this next bit, Froi.’ Arjuro turned back to the others. ‘Next moment, the barb is ripped out and look what we have?’ Arjuro said. ‘Beautiful.’

This was what produced joy for Arjuro. Inflicting pain.

‘It’s a work of art, Brother Arjuro,’ an annoyingly fawning collegiata said. ‘You’re a genius.’

‘Yes, I’m going to have to agree,’ Arjuro said, pleased with himself. ‘See how clean this one is,’ he said, pointing to Froi’s shoulderblade. ‘But I think it could have been a tighter stitch. I only wish I had a chance to do it again. If I could get myself some bronzed wire, rather than using sheep bone, I think I could have done a neater job of this sewing.’