Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

Froi looked out at the garden so similar to Arjuro’s on the roof of the godshouse.

‘Well, Arjuro survived. He’s a brilliant physician,’ Froi said, ‘and if there’s ever peace between Charyn and Lumatere, he’d welcome some of your girls as his students of healing. Your novices are smarter than the collegiati I came across in Charyn.’

Tesadora and Japhra joined them soon after and the Priestess took Tesadora’s hand. Two very different women stood before Froi, but the respect between them was fierce.

‘Are you ever going to allow him a bonding ceremony?’ the Priestess asked shrewdly.

‘Who? Froi?’ Tesadora asked and Froi laughed.

‘You know who she’s talking about,’ he said, looking over to where Perri was working.

‘She asks you every year,’ Japhra said, her voice soft.

‘I don’t need a ceremony,’ Tesadora said.

‘And what if a child comes to your union?’ the Priestess asked.

Tesadora sent her an annoyed look, but the Priestess persisted.

‘The end of the curse for Charyn means the end of the curse for you, Tesadora,’ she said.

‘I’m past the age,’ Tesadora said. Japhra made a sound of disbelief.

‘My mother birthed me at the same age as you,’ the Priestess said. ‘And the Queen’s beloved mother gave birth to her fourth and fifth children well past your age. He’s very virile, Tesadora.’

As if Perri suspected he was being spoken about, he looked across at them from where he was digging.

‘If you allow that man into your bed, be prepared to hold a child at your breast one day.’

‘Remember what John of Charyn said, Tesadora,’ one of the novices joined in. ‘That his mother was a midwife and women came to her at all ages.’

‘Yes, and his father was a man of horses and old mares dropped dead when they were carrying,’ Tesadora said, her tone tart. ‘Enough. All of you.’

Froi accompanied Tesadora and Japhra and two of their girls back up to the mountain that afternoon, his mind going over the talk of the day. There were names and facts he couldn’t get out of his head, for some reason.

Japhra was quiet and when they were well ahead of the others, he asked her about Rafuel.

He had spoken to Japhra about Rafuel last time he was in the valley and she had introduced him to Quintana’s women of the cave.

‘Do you love him?’ he had asked. ‘Rafuel?’

‘Does it matter?’ Japhra said. ‘My heart belongs here with Tesadora and my work, and his heart belonged in Charyn with the Priests and their work.’ She smiled. ‘But he helped me heal and one day I want to do something to repay him.’

Down in the valley, he was taken again to the women who once shared Quintana’s cave. Froi always found it hard to believe Quintana had bonded with these three: two who grumbled and argued, one who giggled and preened. But Cora, Jorja and Florenza loved his girl and they had taken care of her. If there was any reason to spend time with them, it was that. More than anything, he loved the valley. Because the valley was Lumatere and Charyn. Forest and rock and mountain.

‘If I write a letter to the palace,’ he said quietly to Cora, ‘will you sign your name to it?’

‘Why can’t you sign your own name to it?’ she demanded, making a rude sound any time he attempted to take a blade to one of the weeds in her vegetable garden that now lined the path along the stream.

‘Because I promised I wouldn’t,’ Froi said.

Florenza of Nebia nudged Cora.

‘Of course, you’ll do it, Cora. Or I will. I want to write to Phaedra anyway.’

Cora grumbled.

‘Don’t you go upsetting our little savage,’ Cora warned. ‘That’s all you men are good for. Upsetting women.’

‘What’s the letter about?’ Jorja asked.

‘It’s just a story I heard that may interest them,’ Froi said. ‘About a young man named John. John of Charyn.’

I start my day counting. And it slows down the rage. And only then, when the rage is a melody, do I go see the little King, so he’ll hear a hum of joy the moment I speak. He knows me, this strange little creature. And it feels goods to be known this well. It makes me less lonely. Because I think I’ve lost my song to Froi. It was taken when the spirits of the unborn babes went away. I miss them. I miss blaming them for the rage and my cold, cold heart. In the end, the sum of my vices is all me. I was sired by a tyrant and a gods’ blessed. Sometimes, I’ve no idea which part of me is more frightening.

And most days we’re fine, the little King and me. Phaedra is by our side. ‘Because I’ll never leave you,’ she says, and she fusses and loves, but I hear her sadness deep in the night. There’s sadness all around. During the days, I watch Gargarin write and talk and fight and limp from one tower to the other. Those Provincari parrots are the bane of our lives. He goes to appease, to convince, to plan, to build, to try the guilty and release the innocent. Because the trials have begun and there’s death in the air. The Provincari have sent a judge from every province to assist Gargarin in sentencing the Charynites who acted dishonourably, or worse. They want to try to execute them on palace grounds, but I don’t want their cries heard by my little king, because the cries of the wretched always find a way to wedge themselves deep in the marrow of one’s spirit. I don’t want that for my boy. And Gargarin wins this first battle and we adopt the Lumateran ways. Our traitors are executed out of plain sight of those from the Citavita.

Olivier of Sebastabol does not become one of those condemned to die. Much to my despair. The Provincari pardon him. Brave, brave Olivier , they say. But I remember the eight arrows that pinned Froi down to that rock outside Paladozza. And when he’s a free man, Olivier kneels at my feet and tells me he’ll spend the rest of his life in my service, even as a lowly soldier. Lastborns don’t play soldier, I say. They play nobleman. They play merchant. They play landowner. But Olivier will do anything to prove his worth, he tells me.

‘Where do you want him?’ Perabo asks.

‘In the dungeons,’ I say. ‘Because everyone knows the dungeon master is as much a prisoner as those he guards.’

And weeks pass and a letter arrives from Cora. It’s travelled from the valley to Alonso and to Jidia and then it reaches us. The scribe reads it aloud in the great hall because there are to be no secrets from the Provincari in Charyn. It’s the story of a lad named John of Charyn, hanged as a traitor fourteen years past. Hanged by his own men for saving the lives of twenty-three Lumateran novices. It’s a letter requesting that the mother and father of such a lad be told of their boy’s courage. But I see the letter, written in penmanship so alike to Gargarin’s that I know it’s Froi’s, and later I show it to the little King so he’ll know his father’s hand. And I see the names of John of Charyn’s kin and I shudder at the power of the gods who steer our paths.

‘Do you believe in fate?’ I ask Arjuro when he comes to visit and reads the letter with watery eyes. He laughs, shaking his head.

‘You ask that of me?’

And more weeks pass and nothing changes, except Phaedra’s cries in the night are more muffled, hidden by her love for Tariq and myself.

‘Are you happy here, Phaedra?’ I ask one day.

And she looks up from loving Tariq’s perfect face and I see the fierceness in her eyes.

‘I will never leave you,’ she says.

‘It’s not what I asked.’

And most nights there’s no sleep to be had. There are too many things keeping me awake. Tariq’s cries. The shadow on my balconette that makes my heart leap with one name on my lips. And the cells where the traitors are imprisoned. I wish I could keep away, but I can’t.