Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

There was a strange, twisted smile on Gargarin’s face. Phaedra didn’t understand their humour. It bordered on wicked when Arjuro joined them.

‘Then, Princess –’

Quintana shook her head. ‘I can’t say I enjoyed being princess of this kingdom, either. It’s best that the people of Charyn forget that title until I have a daughter. She can be the spirited princess. The gentle princess. The sweetest princess in the land. The bravest. The feistiest. But when the people of the Citavita think of me as princess, they’ll remember the cursed princess. The Princess Abomination.’

They waited.

‘I’ll be referred to as Quintana of Charyn, mother of the King. And Lirah of Serker will be referred to as shalamar of the King.’

Gargarin sighed and then nodded, and then gave a twisted, shy smile again. It made him quite striking. ‘When did you work all this out?’ he chided gently.

Quintana looked down at Tariq. ‘Quite some time ago. Tariq loved the idea. We just thought we’d wait until you were ready, Gargarin. It’s about time and compromise.’

Gargarin looked around the room, already imagining how the residence would be if they made an entrance between the two rooms. He walked to the wall and knocked hard.

‘In the fortress beyond the little woods where we hid with the Lasconians and Turlans, they had fireplaces on every floor without so much as a chimney,’ Gargarin said. ‘They used vents in the wall. We’ll put fireplaces in both these chambers.’ He liked the idea. ‘And I dare say I think we can make another entrance into the room adjoining the next. All three could make a strange private residence.’

Quintana seemed pleased. She held Tariq out to Gargarin.

‘My arm –’ he said.

‘You won’t drop him, Gargarin. Froi would want you to hold him.’

Phaedra wondered what had taken place when Quintana escaped with Froi, Gargarin and Lirah all that time ago. They shared a bond, a secret. She knew that Froi was the father of the child. Very few did, except for Lirah, Gargarin, Arjuro, Perabo and the Provincaro of Paladozza. But there was more, and she knew the answer lay with Froi of Lumatere.

She tried asking once.

‘Better that we don’t tell, Phaedra,’ Quintana said.

‘We’d have to kill you,’ Arjuro added, ‘and we don’t really want to do that.’

But regardless, Phaedra knew she was trusted by them all. She liked the Priestling best. Arjuro was besotted by the little King and visited as often as possible.

‘Did you see that?’ he asked Gargarin one time. ‘He stared straight at me with understanding when I explained the symptoms of gout. Pure genius.’

But despite some of the compromises, Phaedra could see that Gargarin and Lirah and Arjuro feared for Quintana. The way she had imprisoned herself in the castle with Tariq, and her belief that an enemy was sent to kill him. It meant that if Phaedra wanted to walk the streets of the capital, she did so with a guard, and not Quintana. At first she had been frightened that the stone walls would come tumbling down on her. As time passed, she was accompanied by Lirah and she warmed to the people and wished Quintana could hear the yearning in their voices when they asked Phaedra and Lirah about the little King. But no one could convince Quintana. Not even Lirah, whose only means of seeing Tariq was through her nightly visits.

‘I’d love to see him during the light of the day, Quintana,’ Lirah said one night.

‘But you see him from across the gravina, Lirah,’ Quintana said coolly. ‘I hold him up every morning.’

‘You know that’s not enough,’ Lirah said. ‘And you know that Dorcas and Fekra and Scarpo and Perabo and his men would never ever let anything happen to Tariq. Even I trust them. How many people have I trusted in my life?’

Gargarin blamed it on the little sleep Quintana had. Arjuro and Lirah said they’d seen her this way before and were lovingly patient, despite not seeming to be lovingly patient people.

‘If I don’t guard Tariq, Lirah, they’ll kill him,’ Quintana explained. ‘They’ll kill my guards to get to him.’

‘The only person I know who’ll get through those guards is Froi,’ Lirah said. ‘Do you want him to return to this? To a frightened Quintana and an unwashed babe?’

The washing of the babe had become an even bigger issue.

‘It’s been months, Quintana,’ Phaedra pleaded. ‘It’s not enough to clean him with a cloth. You need to bathe him.’

‘I don’t want his head to go under the water,’ Quintana whispered. ‘You see awful things down there. Those from the lake of the half-dead are desperate for him.’

Gargarin later explained to Phaedra about the soothsayer. The ritual that had happened each year before the day of weeping. And it shamed Phaedra even more to have known so little of Quintana’s suffering in the Citavita for all those years. It made her want to take back every moment of their time hiding in the valley when Phaedra and the women had dismissed her as nothing but a delusional, half-crazed girl.

But memories of the valley were dangerous for Phaedra. It was deep in the night when she allowed herself to think of Lucian. Was he thinking of her? Had he moved on with his life? And she thought of the valley and realised that it was more of a home to her than Alonso was, and that she missed its people in a way that she hadn’t missed those of her province. When she was young, she had been kept protected from the world outside her father’s compound. In the valley and mountain she had truly begun to live.

And on one such night Quintana lay beside her, tense with fear of what the unseen enemy would do to her little king. Sometimes when the breeze spoke from outside the balconette and the shadows played with their eyes, Phaedra would hear the hope in Quintana’s voice.

‘Froi! Is that you?’

And then the disappointment. Phaedra would take her hand.

‘You need to sleep, dear friend.’

‘And dream of what, Phaedra?’ Quintana asked, getting out of bed. ‘The Provincari are beginning to make suggestions for a Consort. Should I dream of choosing the one that turns my stomach least?’

After Quintana had checked Tariq’s breathing for the umpteenth time, she crawled back into bed exhausted.

‘I’ll never leave you,’ Phaedra said, tucking the blanket around the Princess. ‘The Consort can find himself another chamber.’

‘I know you’ll never leave me,’ Quintana said. ‘But when it comes to you, Phaedra, I’m afraid of worse.’

Froi was led through the gilded doors and into the palace throne room. He had never been in here before and marvelled at the rich tapestries of fierce men battling impressive boars with bare hands. On the ceiling was a fresco of women, stupendous in their girth and beauty, the serpents they had conquered beneath their feet. Froi understood with great clarity why he wasn’t meeting Finnikin and Isaboe in their private residence. But he had been waiting for this day. Regardless of his time spent with Finnikin, riding around the kingdom; and with Trevanion, fishing in the river; and with Perri and Tesadora down in the valley, laughing with the camp dwellers; and blessed Barakah , translating a journal in the shrinehouse; and with Isaboe, suggesting changes to her garden; and with Sir Topher, beating him in a game of kings – today they weren’t those people to him. They were the Queen, her king, the Captain of the Lumateran Guard and his second-in-charge, the Queen’s First Man, and the Priestking.

And he wasn’t Froi. He was their assassin who had spent nine months in an enemy kingdom. He had a head full of information they wanted, and this was the time to give it.