Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

Olivier of Sebastabol tells me he knows why I’m there, hovering in the bowels of the palace. He sits at a bench with no more than a flicker of candlelight, recording his facts, his once-handsome face pale and thin.

‘Don’t read my mind, traitor.’

‘You’re here about the girl, Ginny,’ he sighs, looking up. ‘She cries for you often.’

‘Ah, you know her well,’ I mock. ‘She’s knelt at your feet, has she?’

‘She’s condemned to hang a week from now,’ he says. ‘That’s all there is to know.’

But they gnaw at my sleep, these two, and I travel there each day before dawn, hovering at the entrance, praying to the gods that Ginny will batter her head against the stone so her death will be at her own hand, and not mine.

‘This is no place for you,’ Olivier of Sebastabol says.

‘Do you think your concern for me is going to change my mind about you?’ I demand to know.

‘No, but I’ll still express it,’ he says. ‘Whatever has happened, my actions will always be determined by my need to keep you safe, my queen.’

‘I’m not a queen.’

‘You were Tariq’s bride,’ he says. ‘Tariq was a king. You are his queen in my eyes.’

Olivier stands and lights a lantern. ‘Come,’ he says quietly. ‘You need to say your piece before her death, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life.’ And I let him guide me through the damp darkness. It’s a place to get lost, this labyrinth of misery. But I know the way because I’ve been here before. Waiting for a noose. I know the terror that taunts, and the piss that stains your legs from fear. I know the stench wedged deep in the stone, I know the sounds of the rats scurrying, the touch of their whiskers on your skin.

And when I hold up the light and see her huddled in the corner of her filthy chamber, my hatred for her is even stronger.

‘I despise you,’ I say. ‘I always did. I despised your lamenting. I despised your need to blame everyone for lost dreams. Poor, poor pathetic Ginny. What a life she could have had if not for the lastborns,’ I mock. ‘I despise your weakness. Your desire to satisfy the needs of men, but not your own. I despise that I can’t remove from my memory the image of Phaedra and Cora and Florenza and Jorja on their knees waiting for death.’

And I’m weeping because I’m weak in that way. It’s another unwelcome gift the unborn savage spirits left me with: the need to cry for everything and everyone.

Ginny crawls to the iron bars to speak.

‘Not a word,’ I say. ‘I never want to hear your voice again, you wretch. I never want to see your face again.’

And the day is announced by the cock that crows and she’s on her knees begging, sobbing, and I remember the time with the street lords when they took this palace and wiped out my bloodline. I remember the begging. Aunt Mawfa. The cousins. The stewards. The uncles. All begging for life and Gargarin in the cell beside me saying, ‘Close your ears, Reginita. There’s nothing you can do to save them. We’re powerless.’

But I’ll never be powerless again.

‘There’s a tailor passing through from Nebia,’ I tell her, because today is not a day for dying. My son spoke that to me with his smile. ‘The tailor needs an apprentice and you’re going to join him. And you’re going to learn everything you believe was taken away from you by the lastborns. So when you fail again, you will have no excuse but your pathetic self.’

And I reach a hand inside the bars and grip at the filth of her hair till it binds to my hand. ‘Don’t dare show your face in this Citavita or in Phaedra’s valley as long as I breathe, or I will have you cut in pieces and fed to the hounds.’

‘Phaedra’s valley.’

I wake with those words on my lips on the day Grijio of Paladozza arrives and I know it’s a sign. I count so I can find a way to breathe, watching Phaedra of Alonso hold Tariq in her arms, and I know I have to do what is right, so I speak the words. And she weeps and she weeps and begs me, but I numb my heart to her cries.

‘Go back to where you came from, Phaedra,’ I say. ‘You’re not needed anymore.’

And for days after, I walk through that strange sleep with Tariq in my arms and he takes me places I don’t want to go. Searching for her. Isaboe of Lumatere. She with the stealth and She with the strength. And my son promises me that if we find her, I’ll sing my song again. He knows, because there’s a spirit inside him seeking her. But in Tariq’s waking hours he wails, and it curdles my blood because I know what is true. They’ve poisoned my son. So we stay in my chamber, Tariq and I, day in and day out, a dagger in my hand as he wails with all his might. Until Gargarin comes and sits by my side and I see the sadness in his eyes and for the first time I’ve known him, Gargarin of Abroi weeps.

‘You’re letting the demons win, Quintana,’ he says. ‘He won’t want this for you. Froi won’t want this for you.’

And he holds out a hand and takes me down the tower steps to the courtyard where travellers have arrived. A man and a woman, their faces gaunt and pale.

‘You sent for them,’ Gargarin said. ‘Be gentle, they’re frightened.’

And clutching Tariq to me, I walk to them, because I know who they are.

‘Your son was a traitor who was executed,’ I tell them and I hear Gargarin’s intake of breath beside me. I see the woman’s legs crumple beneath her as the man holds her upright.

Tesadora says to coat my words. So I try again. I try a gentle voice. I use the voice that belonged to the Reginita.

I tell them about their son who was taken to Lumatere fourteen years past. I tell them that he and Arjuro hid the young novices of Lagrami, who went on to save the lives of many. I tell them their son was arrested and sentenced to hang while Arjuro was imprisoned for ten long years. And I tell them that I want to understand. I beg them to share it with me.

‘How do you raise a boy of substance?’ I ask her. ‘Will you stay and teach me?’ I look at them both. ‘Soon we’ll have a stable of the best horses in the kingdom, Hamlyn of Charyn. Is that not what you were known for? The best horse trainer outside Jidia? Will you and Arna stay and teach me how to raise a good man?’

My son wails in my arms. The little King wants to know, too. He wants to be that son.

And Arna holds out her hands to take Tariq in hers, her fingers going to his mouth, holding up his perfect lips and I see the rawness of his gums.

‘Your boy’s teeth are bringing him pain,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s why he cries. And he needs to be bathed.’

And so we bathe him, surrounded by his guards, just in case his little head slips. Tariq gurgles with laughter, his arms and legs flailing like the strange sea urchins I’ve seen in the books of the ancients. And Arna of Charyn places the cloth in my hand. ‘They love water,’ she says gently. ‘You try.’

We take Tariq from the tub and Dorcas holds up the blanket to wrap him, all the guards fussing. Arna shows me how to wipe him dry and I let Dorcas hold him. Because Dorcas is my favourite. He choked the life out of Bestiano of Nebia.

‘Can I hold him?’ Fekra asks.

‘Can I?’

‘Can I?’

But then I place Tariq in the crook of his shalamon ’s arms and Gargarin’s mouth twists into its bittersweet beauty.

‘When a king hides behind the walls of a castle, his people are frightened,’ he says quietly.

So with Lirah and Arna by my side, surrounded by the riders, I travel through the Citavita and we jostle through the people, more people than I’ve ever seen except for the day of the hanging. I hear the weeping and the joy and I dare not look for the noose because Gargarin says it is not there to be found. But when a woman grips my arm, I jump from fear.