Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

Despite Phaedra’s warnings to stay put, the Princess crossed the stream most days. It was as if she was drawn to the Lumateran side with its gullies and tall tree canopies. The girl had a tendency to disappear for hours upon end, which unnerved them all. And then they’d be unnerved again by her return.

Phaedra didn’t know what was worse. Quintana of Charyn’s absence or presence. This afternoon’s behaviour was quite dramatic: she had tossed one of the hares at Florenza and ran off like a wild savage.

‘Her father’s daughter,’ Jorja had muttered. Jorja and her husband Harker despised the dead King more than anyone Phaedra had ever met, except for the Lumaterans.

Phaedra caught up with the Princess near a moss-covered stone.

‘You can’t wander away, Your Highness.’ Phaedra used a brisk tone, despite the fact that she was speaking to the daughter of a king. ‘We must keep to the cave. We’ve been beside ourselves with worry.’

The stare that met hers was hard and cold. Cora and the other women believed an entity inhabited Quintana of Charyn, and that deep inside, she was not quite human. It made Phaedra despair even more. What hope did Charyn have if this creature carried the first?

‘I’m the Queen, Phaedra of Alonso. Did I not mention that?’

Oh, you’ve mentioned it many, many times, Phaedra wanted to say. Once with a hand around Jorja’s neck, squeezing tight because Jorja had dared to question what type of authority the Princess had now that the King was dead.

‘And I’m not going back,’ announced the Princess or Queen or whoever she wanted to be. ‘They’ll kill me in my sleep. I heard them say.’

Phaedra sighed. ‘They said no such thing, Your Majesty.’

And there was the ice-cold stare again.

‘I heard the words,’ Quintana said, with a curl to her lip that spoke of a threat. ‘Are you calling me a liar, Phaedra of Alonso?’

Phaedra hesitated, choosing her next words wisely. ‘You frighten them,’ she finally said. ‘You snarl and rage and sometimes we believe that our sacrifice was for nothing. “She’ll kill us in our sleep.” That’s what you heard. Their fear is that you will kill us all.’

With as much courage as she could muster, Phaedra walked to the Princess and pulled her to her feet, dragging her along in much the same way she had seen a Mont mother drag her protesting boy towards the bathhouse. She was sick and tired of being the one to keep the peace between the women. It was about time everyone else did their duty. When they reached the stream, Phaedra tore a strip from Quintana’s dress and soaked it in the water, cleaning the girl’s bloodied hands and face. If Quintana of Charyn knew anything, it was how to hunt. A frightening thought in itself, but Phaedra had to admit that the hares had filled their empty stomachs for the first time in days. And there was the satisfaction of seeing one of the hares lobbed at Florenza’s nose. Jorja believed that she and her precious daughter were above everyone else, despite their journey through the sewers. ‘She was the most sought-after girl in our province,’ Jorja had boasted just the night before.

‘Yes, but where are these suitors now that Florenza has crawled through shit?’ Cora asked.

Each time Jorja and Florenza’s escape was mentioned, Florenza whimpered and made gagging sounds, and Ginny would laugh. Ginny laughed at anything that was mean. Phaedra had learned to dislike them all since their so-called deaths. If she had to hear Jorja boast, or Florenza whimper, or Cora mock, or Ginny being snide one more time, she’d find a hare or two to throw at them all herself.

‘What are you smiling about?’ the Princess asked, breaking Phaedra’s thoughts. Quintana sat on one of the stepping stones in the stream and Phaedra had no choice but to squat beside her. She felt the skirt of her dress soak, but refused to allow her discomfort to show.

‘It’s a grimace, not a smile,’ Phaedra said.

‘It was a smile.’

She felt Quintana’s strange gaze and met it. Months on the mountain had made Phaedra less afraid of bullies and no people knew how to intimidate her more than the Monts. But as she returned Quintana’s stare, all Phaedra saw was that the mother of their future King was nothing but a broken, bloodied girl.

‘I think he’s dead,’ the Princess said quietly.

Phaedra froze. ‘The babe?’

The Princess shook her head.

Phaedra waited, gently scrubbing Quintana’s face clean.

‘I looked back once,’ the Princess continued, ‘and counted eight arrows, and I heard his cries and saw his spirit fight to leave his body.’

Phaedra was confused. She had heard the Princess tell Rafuel that the father of her child, the heir Tariq of Lascow, had been slaughtered in the underground caves of the Citavita. Who was this ‘he’ she was speaking of?

‘Is there a chance that Tariq of Lascow is alive?’ Phaedra asked, hope in her voice.

‘Tariq’s dead,’ Quintana said. ‘I saw his corpse. I saw them all. They died protecting me … protecting this,’ she said, pointing to her belly. ‘Maybe I’ll see your corpse, Phaedra of Alonso. Everywhere I go, I leave behind corpses.’ There were tears of fury in the girl’s eyes. ‘I left him behind, dying.’

Phaedra failed to hide a shudder. ‘Who are you speaking of?’ she dared to ask. She thought of Rafuel’s warning on the day Quintana of Charyn had entered their life. The less they knew, the better it was for them all.

‘Who, if not Tariq of Lascow?’ Phaedra persisted.

The Princess leaned forward, pressing her lips against Phaedra’s ear. Phaedra smelt the stench of hare’s blood.

‘Froi of Lumatere.’

Phaedra stumbled back into the water, stunned. She remembered the story she had heard of the rescue in the Citavita. He had swung through the air to save Quintana. The audacity of his actions had made Phaedra like Froi even more than she had the one or two times they had met on the mountain. She knew what he meant to Lucian and Tesadora, as well as Perri, the guard who shared Tesadora’s bed. Some said the Queen and her consort loved the lad as if he were a brother.

And then Phaedra remembered Rafuel’s strange words: Did you mate with the lastborn?

‘Is he the father?’ she asked, horrified. ‘Froi of Lumatere?’

‘Don’t let me have to kill you for knowing that, idiot girl,’ Quintana threatened. ‘Don’t let me hear you speak it out loud to those parrots in the cave.’

‘Then why tell me?’ Phaedra cried, getting to her feet and following the stepping stones across the stream to get as far away from the girl as possible. She couldn’t bear the idea of what the Lumateran’s death would do to those on the mountain and beyond. Worse still, it would mean true war between the two kingdoms.

When they returned to the cave, Phaedra heard the hushed fighting in an instant. They called it their prison. It was a small shrinehouse that from the outside looked like any other cave, much like those upstream, half-concealed with shrubs and vines. But once inside, there were two chambers. The larger one was dedicated to the Goddess Sagrami, a fact that unnerved them all. Sagrami was the goddess of blood and tears and was said to have cursed Lumatere. It was also further proof that despite Phaedra’s people being allowed in the valley, the earth still belonged to their Lumateran neighbours. Through a narrow walkway, the cave opened up to another smaller chamber. It had a wind hole that gave a view of downstream, but most of the time they kept it covered with vines and shrubs to keep out the cold. No one dared sleep in the shrine room, so here they were, living in too small a space for five women who could hardly endure each other’s company.