Melina Marchetta - Finnikin of the Rock

Yet he also knew that to lose the queen to another man would be a slow torture every day for the rest of his life.

Lucian walked with him down the mountain. "I will meet with her this evening," Lucian told him, "when we celebrate her return to the palace."

Finnikin did not respond.

"She said it's cruel that everyone she loves is together while she is miserably alone. I could have told her you were turning into a miserable bastard yourself, but instead I told her how much time you've spent working on the archives, flirting with your scribe. Your sweet and passive scribe who lets you be in charge."

Finnikin shook his head, amused in spite of himself.

"I think she was jealous, you know," Lucian continued, waving to a family of Monts who had settled further down the mountain. "Said she would have me beheaded if I said another word."

"We don't behead people in Lumatere," Finnikin said dryly.

"Ah, Finnikin, in Lumatere we do whatever our queen wants."

At the base of the mountain, Lucian embraced him and handed him a package. "Yata wants you to give this to Lady Beatriss of the Flatlands. Can you find time to pass by today before the celebrations?"

Celebrations indeed, Finnikin thought bitterly. It would be a long time before the kingdom remembered how to celebrate.

Finnikin knocked on the front door of the manor house in Sennington, the package under his arm. When there was no response, he entered the house and walked toward the kitchen.

"Finnikin?" he heard Lady Beatriss call, her tone warm and welcoming. He reached the doorway but stopped when he saw Tesadora standing by the stove, her arms folded, an expression of disapproval and hostility on her face. Lady Abian sat with Lady Beatriss at the table.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, cursing himself for his bad timing. "But Yata of the Monts requested that I pass by this way to give you a package." He placed it on the table as the three women stared at him.

"Stay, Finnikin," Lady Beatriss said. "Drink tea with us. You must be exhausted after your travels, and you'll need to rest before tonight."

"Your appearance is a disgrace," Tesadora said sharply.

He touched his hair self-consciously. It resembled tufts of lamb's wool. Yata had managed to braid it, although she had found it difficult to separate the knotted strands. The color had dulled to a murky shade.

"I will have it taken care of tomorrow," he conceded.

"Sit," Tesadora said firmly. "You are fortunate that I have time today."

Fortunate indeed, he thought. He reluctantly sat, and Lady Beatriss handed Tesadora a cloth to place around his neck.

Tesadora tugged at his hair as she cut at it with a knife. It was easy to hate her. There was no gentleness in her hands, no softness in her eyes, despite the beauty of her face. He watched the thick clumps of his hair carpet the floor. Already he felt naked with half of it gone. As he went to feel the bristles of his hair, Tesadora slapped his hand away.

He stared at the package on the table and then at Lady Beatriss. He realized too late that she had expressed no interest in it. She looked at him solemnly.

"What is it that you fear, Little Finch?" she asked gently.

"I fear that the queen accuses me of running the kingdom from my rock village, yet she runs it from the hearts of you women, along with her yata," he said, anger in his voice. "Is this where you planned the poisoning of the impostor king?" There was silence.

"No," Lady Abian said finally. "But if such a thing were to be spoken about, Finnikin, it would have been in my parlor. Next to the room where my three sons play. Oh, to think of a world where I would have to give them up to a futile war."

"Why is it that you keep our queen waiting?" Tesadora demanded.

Finnikin longed to leave, but Tesadora had the knife against his scalp.

"I believe I know what it is, Finnikin," Lady Beatriss said. "To be king would mean your father would one day lie prostrate at your feet."

Tesadora held him down by his remaining hair as he tried to leap to his feet. "I will never allow my father to lie prostrate at my feet!"

She kept a firm hold on his hair. "Then you are not the man for our queen. So let her go, Finnikin. Go to her now and tell her that she must choose a king. When she hears it from you, she will know there is no future between you. She will not listen to anyone else. The prince of Osteria will have no problem with your father lying prostrate at his feet and in time she will find happiness with him. I hear he's a strapping boy."

Finnikin snorted.

"Nothing will make Lumaterans happier than to know our beloved queen is being taken care of by one who loves her," she continued, pulling viciously at his hair. "Waking each day in the arms of a man who will keep her marriage bed warm and fertile."

He realized he did not hate Tesadora. He despised her. "What would a novice of Sagrami know about a bed being kept warm and fertile, Tesadora?" he sneered. "It seems to me that you hate all men."

"Never presume to know my needs or who warms my bed! And if you believe it is men I hate, you are wrong. I despise those who use force and greed as a means of control. Unfortunately for your gender, such traits are found more often in the hearts of men than women. But place me in a room with those women who aligned themselves with the bastard king and I promise there will be a bloodbath I would relish soaking in." She grabbed him by the chin. "What is it about you that stirs the blood of the strongest in our land? For she is the strongest, make no doubt of that."

"Do not underestimate her vulnerabilities," Finnikin said, fuming. "I've seen them. They can destroy her."

"Do you see my hair?" Tesadora asked, tugging at the white strands. "It is this color because I walked some of those sleeps to protect Vestie from the horror of what she would see. This is what the darkness and the terror of the human soul did to me. But the queen? It is not her youth that keeps her hair from going white at such images of horror, Finnikin. It is her strength."

He was silent for a moment. "Then why was she almost lost to me ... to us," he corrected himself, "when we entered the kingdom?"

"Because your grief at what you saw in those moments was too much for her to bear. Your pain made her weak. Her pain made you strong. Light and dark. Dark and light." Her ice-blue eyes stared into him. "I wonder what it was that my mother saw in you that time in the forest. To look at a boy of eight and see such strength in his character. Enough strength for our beloved girl who would one day rule. Do you remember what Seranonna said to you? Because I remember clearly what she told me that very night when I was no more than your age now."

"Her blood will be shed for you to be king," he said quietly.

"No." Tesadora shook her head. "For you to be her king. There's more than one way for you to shed her blood, fool!"

The women stared at him, and he felt his face redden. Lady Beatriss smiled and it embarrassed him even more.

"It's why my mother cursed you with Isaboe's memories as you entered our kingdom. Not as a punishment. 'His pain shall never cease.' How can it, Finnikin, when your empathy for her is so strong? It's so our beloved will never feel alone. Have you not seen her in those moments, Finnikin? When she disappears inside herself and almost lets the darkness consume her. I saw it in the cloister when she was with us. It chilled me to the bone. Your power lies in never allowing her to get lost in those voices."

He remembered a morning the week before, when he was passing the royal entourage on one of their visits to the River people. He watched her from a distance, the distance he had carved out between them since he had discovered her true identity. For one moment, she seemed removed from what was taking place around her. She stood completely still, her gaze fixed on a distant point. She had gone inside herself, as she'd done many times on their journey back to Lumatere. And now he knew what it was that weighed her body down. The agony of those voices he heard as they entered the main gate. The ones she had lived with for years. So he whistled from where he stood and her body stiffened with awareness and slowly she turned in his direction. He held her gaze, knowing her moment of despair had already passed.