Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

‘Now that doesn’t surprise me,’ the guard escorting him said. ‘A welcoming party.’

‘My favourite type of party in the world,’ Froi muttered.

Could he expect less, leading a Serker horse?

‘I’m actually on my way to the godshouse to see the Priestling Arjuro,’ Froi explained. He wasn’t much in the mood for being interrogated by a group of soldiers who didn’t know him and wouldn’t believe a word he said.

‘The Priestling’s a busy man.’

Before they could exchange another word, one of the approaching soldiers broke free and lifted Froi off the ground in an embrace.

Mort.

‘Where you been, Froi?’

Mort was shoved out of the way and Florik was there.

‘We’ve been taking odds to see whether you’d return,’ the Lasconian said.

Froi looked from one to the other, laughing. ‘You’re both on the same duty?’

Mort and Florik placed arms around each other’s shoulders. They looked strange in uniform, but it suited them.

‘I’m teaching him thing or two,’ Mort said. ‘Lasconian lads know nothing.’

‘Except how to speak better than Turlan lads,’ Florik said. ‘So I’m teaching him a thing or two.’

Within moments, more of the fortress lads were surrounding him and Froi embraced and shook hands with as many as he recognised.

‘We take things from here,’ Mort told Froi’s guard. Mort moved in closer. ‘I got rank,’ he whispered. ‘Turlans outrank everyone on this rock.’

‘Who says?’ Froi asked.

‘She say. She don’t get much power, but she picks whoever protects Citavita, and our Quintana pick the Turlans.’

Smart girl. No one would protect Quintana and Tariq better than her kin.

‘How are things here?’ Froi asked.

How is Quintana and Gargarin and Lirah and Arjuro and my son? he meant.

‘Gettin’ there slow-wise,’ Mort said. ‘But gettin’ there all the same.’

‘What you doin’ here, Froi?’ another Turlan asked. ‘You here for the –’

The lad was nudged into silence. Froi saw their unease, so he held up his pack. ‘Palace business from Lumatere,’ he said.

Mort shoved Froi playfully. ‘Told you lads this one no soldier boy. He’s a palace big man.’

Froi laughed at the description.

‘We’d take you up there, but Scarpo would skin us if we left our post,’ Florik said.

Mort pointed up to the roof of the Crow’s Inn. ‘That’s where I aim from and if there a problem, fastest lad in Charyn here races to the castle and let ’em know,’ he said, shoving at Florik’s head.

Florik looked slightly sheepish. ‘Second fastest.’

‘Did you see Grij on your travels?’ one of the lads from Lascow asked. ‘He was on his way to Lumatere to deliver Phaedra of Alonso back to the valley.’

Froi shook his head, annoyed to think he missed seeing Grij in Lumatere of all places.

‘He would have travelled another path,’ he said. ‘I came through Osteria.’

‘He’ll be back soon,’ Florik said. ‘So you wait for him, Froi. He’ll not like missing you twice.’

‘And come see us at our post.’

Froi promised to return to the inn and made his way up the city wall to the road that led to the godshouse. He couldn’t avoid seeing the castle battlements, but he forced himself to look away.

On the path above the caves towards the godshouse, he was bewildered to see a cluster of women coming and going.

The Priestling’s a busy man, the soldier had said. Busy doing what?

Inside the godshouse it was stranger still. More women, as well as the collegiati Froi recognised from his days in the caves under Sebastabol. The entire lower level of the godshouse was bustling with activity. Questions were being asked, orders were being given. And then Froi noticed the swollen bellies and understood why.

He gently pushed past the women up the steps, and at each floor Froi glimpsed well-lit rooms and once-empty cells now decorated with a sense of home. He thought of these steps. Where he had first discovered that Gargarin was his father. The cells where he had found out for certain that Lirah was his mother. Each flight he climbed was a memory and the closer he got to the top, the more hurried his steps became. Because he had missed them all with an ache that had never gone away and he was desperate to see them. That was it, he convinced himself. Just one glance at them all. The higher he climbed, the less noise he heard, and by the time he reached the Hall of Illumination, the godshouse had returned to its quiet self.

Inside the room, he could see through the windows out onto the Citavita, and from the balconette out onto the palace.

Arjuro sat at a long bench, head bent over his books; plants and stems spread across the space before him. Froi caught his breath.

‘If you’re here about the Jidian invitation, tell them I’d rather swive a goat,’ Arjuro murmured, not looking up.

Froi stepped closer.

‘Must I, blessed Arjuro?’

Arjuro looked up in shock.

Froi grinned. ‘For those of us at the godshouse are well known for swiving goats and I’d prefer not to give them weapons of ridicule.’

Arjuro stood and grabbed Froi into an embrace, his arms trembling. Froi pushed him away, unable to get rid of the grin on his face.

‘Sentimental, Arjuro? You of all people.’

Arjuro studied his face. ‘Me of all people can be as sentimental as he pleases.’

And then he was taking Froi’s hand, leading him to the steps of the roof garden.

‘Lirah,’ Arjuro called out. ‘Come down and greet our guest.’

Froi caught his breath again.

‘If it’s about the Jidian invitation, I said no,’ she shouted back.

‘The Jidian Provincara’s in town, I’m supposing,’ Froi said quietly.

‘They’re all coming to town,’ Arjuro said with a grimace. ‘And everyone wants to visit the godshouse.’

Froi nodded, and suddenly he understood. It’s what Mort and Florik stopped the lad from saying outside the inn.

‘They’re here for her betrothment?’ Froi asked.

Arjuro nodded. ‘Five days from now, they decide who he is.’

‘Lirah!’ Arjuro bellowed again. He pointed up, rolling his eyes. ‘They say the Ambassador of Nebia’s wife has taken over Lirah’s roof garden in the palace.’

‘Lirah’s prison garden, you mean,’ Froi said.

‘Lirah says it’s her garden. She’s livid. So she’s determined to make our garden better.’

Our? Froi shook his head with disbelief. The idea of Arjuro and Lirah having something together was too strange.

‘Are you not going to come down for me, Lirah?’ Froi called out softly. ‘I’ve come a long way and I’d hate to return to the Lumaterans and tell them how inhospitable you are here in Charyn.’

There was no response but suddenly Lirah peered down the steps, the sun behind her illuminating her face. She had kept her hair short and without the grime of travel and with her sea-blue dress, she looked regal.

She descended the steps and Froi helped her down the last few and then she was there before him.

‘What’s this?’ she asked gruffly, touching the fluff of hair on his chin.

‘A pathetic attempt at a beard,’ he said. ‘It’s not working, is it? Which is so unfair when you think of the face of hair Arjuro had when I first met him.’

She smiled. ‘Regardless of their might as warriors, the Serkan lads could never grow one.’

Lirah reached out and touched Froi’s face as if she couldn’t believe he was standing before her.

‘Wait until you see him,’ she said, and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Wait until you see the wonder that’s our boy. Sometimes when they smuggle me into the palace we lie there, Gargarin and I, with this little bundle between us and we count all his fingers and toes. And in all the joy it’s only a reminder of how much we lost and there are some days that I don’t think he can bear the memory.’