It took almost two days to climb the ravine to what was called Upper Charyn. It had taken longer because Froi was slowed down by Gargarin of Abroi’s limp and half-dead arm. Most of the time, Froi would reach higher ground and wait, taking in the walls of stone that seemed to close in on him from the opposite side. He understood flatlands. He understood forests and rivers and mountains, even rock villages. What he didn’t understand was how anyone would want to live in the base of a ravine, except for the purpose of fishing in a stream. But, then again, as he watched this half-crippled man tackle the climb, Froi was beginning to suspect that Gargarin of Abroi was no ordinary sane man.
The path up the gravina was marked with surprises. Stones that infrequently became steps to their destination would disappear into a backbreaking climb. Near the top, at its steepest point, Froi gripped a ledge and held a hand out to Gargarin, yanking him up by the cloth of his undershirt, dragging him over the jagged stone until they both lay facedown, catching their breath.
“You tore my shirt, idiot,” Gargarin muttered, wincing from pain, his dark hair matted to his forehead.
“Pity. Never seen a finer piece of woven cloth,” Froi said, gasping.
When he stood, Froi was breathless to see the great depth they had left below. Up so high, the jagged walls of the gravina looked unrelentingly cruel and there seemed nothing to soften the grayness of the stone. But somehow Froi saw a beauty to it that was different from the monotony of the flatland that now spread before him. At least caves and gorges brought an aspect of intrigue. Here in Upper Charyn, he was back in a world of unrelenting tufts of dull-brown grass, gnawed to its edges by overgrazing such as he had seen on the road from Alonso.
He watched Gargarin hobble to the side of the road and feel the dry earth in his hands. Moments later, Gargarin stood and threw the dirt to the ground in anger.
“Idiots,” he muttered. “Idiots.”
It was the only word Froi would hear for the rest of the day. They traveled in silence, and Froi’s dislike for Gargarin of Abroi increased with every step the man stumbled.
That night, they set up camp under a star-speckled sky, one that Froi felt he could almost reach out and touch. He’d not seen anything like it since his time with Finnikin, Isaboe, Trevanion and Sir Topher in the grasslands of Yutlind Sud. With Gargarin of Abroi sitting silently before him, he missed those moments of their journey more than ever.
“Do you think it was the Serkers?” he asked Gargarin abruptly when the silence almost forced him to break his bond and strangle his companion.
Gargarin looked up. Through the flickering flames, Froi could see there was no question in Gargarin’s eyes. He knew exactly what Froi was asking — whether it was the Serkers who had killed the oracle queen and priestlings. He merely looked annoyed.
“You’re bored, are you?” Gargarin asked. “You don’t have Zabat to play word games with, so now you’re going to riddle me about the past?”
“Actually I am bored and it’s not a riddle,” Froi said. “It’s a question I have every right to ask if I’m going to travel to the Citavita and break a curse that began with the Serkers.”
Perhaps Gargarin of Abroi was bored as well, because he chose to respond.
“Pick a province that the rest of Charyn despised because of their arrogance, and use them as the scapegoats. Every kingdom needs a scapegoat for one reason or another. The Yuts have their southerners, and the Lumaterans had their Forest Dwellers.”
Froi flinched to hear his homeland named.
“The Forest Dwellers were murdered by … the man they refer to as the impostor king, the way I hear it,” he muttered.
“Because the Lumaterans allowed it to happen,” Gargarin said flatly.
“If you say the Serkers are scapegoats, then you’re implying that the Serkers were not capable of brutality?” Froi said.
“I’m not implying that at all.”
“The provincari say —”
“The provincari will believe anything that will keep their provinces safe,” Gargarin interrupted coldly. “Why would they want to believe anything else but that the Serkers murdered the priestlings and tortured the oracle? What’s the alternative? Believing the attack came from the palace?”
“They’re dangerous words you speak, Sir Gargarin,” Froi said.
“Truth is dangerous and I’m not a ‘sir.’ ”
The next morning, they continued on the path that ran alongside the edge of the ravine. The walls of it had widened until Froi could barely see the other side. He felt as though he and Gargarin were the only two people left in the land, that at any moment they would topple off the edge of their world, never to be seen again.
Throughout the day, he tried again and again to make conversation with Gargarin, but the man refused to speak.
“Did I do something to displease you in another life?” he finally asked.
Gargarin continued walking. When Froi reached out and gripped his arm, Gargarin swung around, breaking free viciously and stumbling. Froi went to grab him, and they both toppled to the ground. As they lay there a moment, Froi felt the man’s eyes bore into his. I know you, the stare seemed to say. I know the evil of your core.
“I don’t care what you think of me, cripple!” Froi said. “I answer to a more powerful bond. To people I respect.”
“A bond? Men with bonds are controlled by the expectations of others,” Gargarin said, his cold tone cutting. “Men with bonds are slaves.”
Froi jumped to his feet, counting again and again. “Be assured that once inside the palace, I won’t breathe in your direction,” he snarled.
“Good to hear,” Gargarin said, struggling to stand. “Because my promise to your provincaro was that I would only escort you into the palace. I’ve given enough to this kingdom.”
The road to the capital dipped and rose and then dipped, and when it rose again, the Citavita appeared before them across a long narrow timber bridge. As Rafuel had promised, the walls of the ravine came into view again, mightier in height than Froi had seen on their journey so far. They traveled across the bridge of the Citavita, with its planks swinging and swaying. Through the mist, Froi saw a tower of uneven rock in the distance, but as they traveled closer, he realized that he was looking at a cluster of dwellings carved out of the stone, perched atop each other precariously, as if about to spiral into the chasm below.
Against the dirt-colored capital was the white of the castle. Froi saw turrets higher than any he had ever seen before. But looming even higher over the castle battlements was another rock.
“What is that?” Froi asked.
“The oracle’s godshouse,” Gargarin responded.
“What’s keeping it from toppling down?” Froi asked, trying not to sound aghast, but aghast all the same.
He heard Gargarin of Abroi’s ragged breath. “That would be the gods.”
After they stepped off the bridge and onto the more solid ground of the Citavita, they began the steep climb on a winding road that wrapped around the rock of dwellings. Froi couldn’t tell where one home began and another ended and realized that the roofs of the houses were the actual path to the palace.
Lining the winding path, people worked silently selling their wares, but it was clusters of men, their heads bent low in whispers, their eyes promising malevolence and spite, that Froi noticed the most. These men were no different from the thugs he had answered to on the streets of the Sarnak capital. In Sarnak, these men had, in turn, answered to no one. Froi could tell that the Citavita’s street thugs were armed and he could have pointed out every concealed weapon. He itched for his own.
When they finally stood in front of the castle gates, he understood why no one had ever entered uninvited. Isaboe’s castle in Lumatere was built to provide a home to the royal family. It was only recently that Finnikin and Sir Topher had sat with Trevanion and an architect from the Lumateran Rock village to discuss the extra security measures required for their young family and their kingdom.
But this castle was built for defense. Froi stared up at the soldiers, their weapons trained on them. The soldiers stared down at him. Up close, he could see that the castle was built on its own rock, a fraction higher and separate from the rest of the Citavita. Although it was a narrow space between the portcullis and where they stood, there was no moat surrounding it. Instead there was a drop into the gravina separating them, which seemed to go on forever. Rafuel had given him a strange description of how the gravina narrowed in a serpentine fashion past the palace and godshouse of the Citavita.
“Gargarin of Abroi?” a voice rang out toward them.
Gargarin raised his hand in acknowledgment. The drawbridge began to descend across the space, stopping where Froi and Gargarin stood. Once on the bridge, it was a short but steep climb to the gate. On each side, a thick braided rope provided a place to grip firmly. Gargarin’s staff fell to the steel beneath their feet, and he struggled once, then twice, to retrieve it.
Waiting for them at the gate stood a man of Gargarin’s years, his hair longish around the ears, his mottled skin covered with a coarse, fair beard. He was all forced smile and Froi caught a gleam of pleasure in his eyes as Gargarin continued to struggle for his staff.
Froi picked it up instead.
“Put your arm around my shoulder,” Froi ordered, and for the first time since they had met, Gargarin didn’t argue. Froi wondered what it did to a man of Gargarin’s age to be hobbling like an old man.
“Welcome back, Abroi’s Gargarin,” the man at the portcullis greeted. There was mockery in the way he spoke the words. Froi remembered what Zabat had said. That Abroi had produced nothing of worth but Gargarin and his brother, the priestling. Perhaps this man’s words were a reminder to Gargarin of where he came from.
“May I present to you, Olivier, last born of Sebastabol. Olivier, Bestiano of Nebia, the king’s First Adviser.”
Froi held out a hand. But Bestiano’s attention was already drawn back to Gargarin. Last borns seemed insignificant to the king’s adviser.
“The king wept when I told him the news, Gargarin. That the brilliant one who left us too soon is back in our midst.”
“When one hears there is a price on their head, they tend to feel quite uninvited,” Gargarin said politely.
Bestiano made a scoffing sound. “You exaggerate.”
Gargarin held up the scrolls. “I come bearing gifts. Perhaps my way of buying forgiveness for my long absence.”
“Only you would consider words on parchment a gift,” Bestiano said smoothly. “Eighteen years is a long time. You may have to offer him your firstborn if you truly want his forgiveness. Or your brother.”
Froi watched Gargarin stumble, saw the flicker of emotion on his face.
“Then it’s true that he has returned to these parts?” Gargarin asked flatly. They entered the barbican and, up above, Froi saw at least ten soldiers standing beside the murder holes, just as Rafuel had described. On the ground, four soldiers approached and searched them thoroughly. Froi noticed that they were more careful with Gargarin. They studied his staff and patted his entire body.
“I could bend over if you prefer,” Gargarin said, his voice cool, staring at one of the men. “Perhaps you weren’t thorough enough.”
Froi was beginning to feel better about Gargarin. The man seemed to dislike everyone, not just him.
Bestiano led them into a bustling courtyard, past the barracks where soldiers trained with practice swords. Two men carrying large vats pushed past them and disappeared into a doorway to their left. Froi imagined it must lead to the cellar, according to the sketches Rafuel had shown him in Lumatere. There was bellowing from kitchen staff — between the cook and one of the serving girls by the sounds of things — and when Froi wasn’t competing with servants for space, or tripping over the young man sweeping the courtyard grounds and the not-so-young page handing Bestiano a message, he found himself surrounded by livestock.
“Your brother took up residence in the oracle’s godshouse a year ago and refuses to meet with the king,” Bestiano said, watching Gargarin closely. “It is the king’s greatest desire that there be peace between the palace and the godshouse after all this time. It’s what the people of the Citavita want.”
“What’s stopping you or the king from entering the gods house and dragging my brother out? It’s not as though you haven’t done it before.”
It was a taunt, and despite Froi’s short hostile history with Gargarin, he was intrigued.
“Let’s just say that the king has become a superstitious man and our only surviving priestling is not to be touched. The king is frightened of consequences from the gods.”
Gargarin’s laugh was humorless. “From what I know of the gods, they seem quite considerate and only send one curse to a kingdom at a time.”
Bestiano forced another smile. “From what I know of your brother, no one can irritate the gods more.”
Despite the politeness, the tension between the two men was strong. Froi would have liked nothing more than to see where it would take them, but his attention was drawn toward a figure standing half concealed at the entrance of the first tower to their left. Her tangled hair was so long, it seemed to weigh her down, forcing her to raise her head when peering.
Bestiano shushed her away with an irritated hand before turning back to Froi and Gargarin. “It’s best that you go to your chamber before dinner.”
The king’s First Adviser walked away, and they followed a guard into the first tower, where the girl had disappeared. Froi saw her again, looking down from the stairwell, but each time they climbed closer to her, she would turn and disappear.
When they reached the second floor, they followed the guard down a dank narrow corridor until he stopped at the first of two doors.
“Yours,” the guard said.
“Mine?” Both Gargarin and Froi said at once, exchanging looks.
“Both of yours.”
“Both?”
They stared at each other again. Froi couldn’t imagine that his expression was any less horrified than Gargarin’s.
“There’s been a mistake,” Gargarin said patiently.
“No mistake, sir.”
Gargarin made no attempt to enter the room. Instead he studied the ornate design of the timber door, a bitter smile on his face.
“What’s your name?” he asked the guard.
“Dorcas, sir.”
Dorcas would have been around Rafuel’s age. He had a look Froi knew only too well. The look that said he understood nothing if it was not spoken as an order.
“Well, Dorcas, I think it’s best that you place us in separate chambers, and I’d prefer not to have this one,” Gargarin said.
“Not my decision to make, sir.”
“Bestiano’s idea, I suppose?” Gargarin asked, and Froi heard a quiet fury in the question.
“My orders are to take you to this room, sir. Both of you.”
Dorcas walked away, and Froi waited for Gargarin to enter the room.
“Bad memories?” Froi asked.
Gargarin ignored him and finally reached out to open the door. “It’s not your place to ask questions that don’t concern you. It’s your place to do what you’ve come here to do.”
“And what is it, according to Gargarin of Abroi, that I have come to do?”
The cold blue eyes found Froi’s. “If you want a demonstration, I would advise you to go down to the stables and watch what the serving girls get up to with the farriers.”
Gargarin entered the room, and Froi followed. It was small, with one bed in the center, doors leading outside to a balconette and nothing else. Froi hated being cold and couldn’t imagine a guest room in Isaboe’s palace without a giant fireplace and rugs warming the chamber. Gargarin poked under the bed with his staff and pulled out a straw trundle mattress.
“You take the bed.”
“No, you take the bed,” Froi said. “I do have a conscience, you know.”
“And I prefer to sleep on the floor,” Gargarin snapped. “So plunge that fact into your conscience and allow it to rotate for a while. Until it hurts.”
Froi walked to the doors that opened to the balconette. Across the narrow stretch of the gravina, the outer wall of the oracle’s godshouse tilted toward them.
“Is it that they don’t like me or that they don’t like you?” Froi called to Gargarin inside.
Beside their own balconette was another that belonged to the room next door. After a moment, the girl with the mass of awful hair stepped out onto it. She peered at Froi, almost within touching distance. Up close she was even stranger looking, and it was with an unabashed manner that she studied him now, and with great curiosity, her brow furrowed. A cleft on her chin was so pronounced, it was as if someone had spent their life pointing out her strangeness. Her hair was a filthy mess almost reaching her waist. It was strawlike in texture, and Froi imagined that if it were washed, it might be described as a darker shade of fair. But for now, it looked dirty, its color almost indescribable.
She squinted at his appraisal. Froi squinted back.
Gargarin appeared beside him and the girl disappeared.
“I’m presuming that was the princess,” Froi said. “She’s plain enough. What is it with all the twitching? Is she possessed by demons?”
“Lower your voice,” Gargarin said sharply.
“Does she know what they think of her out in the provinces?” Froi continued. “That she’s a useless empty vessel and that they call her a whore?”
After a moment, the girl peered out from her room again.
“Well, if she didn’t before, she certainly does now,” Gargarin muttered.
That night, the great hall was set up with three trestle tables joined together to accommodate at least sixty of the king’s relatives and advisers. Froi had met most of the advisers, each titled according to their rank.
“Why would you want to be the king’s Eighth Adviser?” he said to Gargarin as they were escorted to their chair by the king’s Seventh Adviser.
“Once upon a time Bestiano was the king’s Tenth Adviser,” Gargarin replied. “If you stay long enough, you get rewarded.”
“And what were you back then?” Froi asked.
“A fool,” Gargarin said flatly. “With a bond.”
Froi was placed beside the strange princess, who was dressed in the most hideous pink taffeta dress, bunched up in all the wrong places.
“Good evening, Aunt Mawfa,” she called out, her voice indignant where indignance wasn’t required. “Good evening, Cousin Robson.”
No one responded to her greetings. Most belonged to what Finnikin would have called the vacuous nobility and droned on and on about absolutely nothing worthwhile.
Froi was hungry and before him were steaming platters of roasted peacock, salted fish, pastries stuffed with pigeon meat, and the softest cheese he had ever tasted. He had been warned about the flatbread of Charyn and watched the way the others gathered their food with it.
But what caught his attention was most people’s reaction to Gargarin. He seemed to be the man everyone wanted to speak to.
“Interesting talk in Paladozza, Sir Gargarin, of the provincaro’s plans to dig up his meadows to capture rain,” one man called out from the head of their table.
“Not a ‘sir,’ ” Gargarin corrected, “and not so strange at all. I was disheartened to see the outer regions of the Citavita today. I drew up plans for water catchment here long ago, yet they seemed to have gone astray,” he continued, his attention on the king’s First Adviser.
“Would you contemplate visiting Jidia to speak to Provincara Orlanda when you leave here?” another asked.
“No, he’s to visit Paladozza this winter,” a man spoke up from the end of their table. “Is it not what you promised the provincaro, Gargarin?”
“Indeed.”
Gargarin kept his head down. Something told Froi that Gargarin was making no plans to go anywhere. The talking had caught Bestiano’s attention, and he watched Gargarin carefully. Enviously? Was Gargarin a threat to Bestiano’s role as the king’s First Adviser? Gargarin hardly noticed. Once or twice, Froi caught Gargarin looking at the strange princess Quintana, while the princess blatantly stared in turn at Froi throughout the entire meal, with little apology or bashfulness.
As Rafuel had explained, the Charynites gathered their food with soft breads to soak up the juices and wipe their plates clean. The princess chose to share Froi’s plate. Froi liked his food all to himself; it came from years of having to fight for his own. Worse still, the princess made a mess around the dish. Her hair fell into the plate often, and Froi was forced to flick its filthy strands away more than once. She resorted to leaning over to grab pudding from the plate of a whining duke who had called the servant over four times already to fill his cup of ale, complaining in a loud whisper that there was wine as per usual on the other side, but not theirs. When Quintana spilled food for the umpteenth time, the Duke of Who-Cares-Where grabbed his cup and slammed it hard on the table, catching the tips of her fingers. “Beastly child.”
Bestiano excused himself from where he sat and walked down to them, tugging the princess by the sleeve of her dress. “Perhaps you can show Olivier to your chamber,” he hissed. “Make yourself useful rather than making people sick to their stomach, Quintana.”
One of the women tittered, putting a hand on Gargarin’s shoulder. “She’s no more useful in the bedchamber.”
Gargarin moved his shoulder away.
The princess smoothed down the creases in the awful gown and stood, beckoning with a gesture for Froi to follow. Froi stared at the food before him, reluctant to leave it behind.
“Good night to all,” she called out. No one looked up except for Gargarin, and the noise of the big hall continued as though she had never spoken.
The princess continued her farewells down the shadowy narrow passageway lit only by one or two fire torches that revealed a guard in every dark crevice.
“Good night, Dorcas.”
“Good night, Fekra.”
“Good night, Fodor.”
Some muttered under their breath. No one responded. But she greeted them all the same.
Froi used the time to take in the various nooks and crannies and count each guard he passed.
When they reached their quarters, Quintana stood at his door and waited. He wondered if she was expecting him to perform tonight.
“I’m very tired,” he said. He yawned for effect.
“Do you not have something to tell us, Olivier of Sebastabol?” she asked in an indignant whisper.
He tried to think of what he should say. Was there something Rafuel had left out in his instructions?
“Perhaps tomorrow we can go for a walk down to the Cita vita,” he said pleasantly. Dismissively. “How about that?”
She shook her head. “We prefer not to leave the palace.”
“We?” Froi asked curiously, looking around. “We who?”
After a moment, she pointed to herself.
“What’s the worst that can happen if we go for a walk around the Citavita?” he asked.
“We could come across assassins, of course,” she said, as though surprised he wouldn’t think of such a thing.
“Of course.”
She studied his face for a moment.
“How is it that you don’t know much, Olivier of Sebastabol?”
He shook his head ruefully. “Exhaustion turns one into a fool.” He bowed. “If not a walk around the Citavita tomorrow, then a walk around the palace walls will have to do.”
He shut the door on her before she could say another word.
Early the next morning, a sound from outside the room alerted Froi. The mattress below was empty, and from where he lay, he could see out onto the balconette, where the sun had just begun to creep up. There Gargarin stood, staring across the gravina. Froi couldn’t see much in the poor light, but when he looked across toward the godshouse, he saw the outline of a man on the balconette opposite and suspected it was Gargarin’s brother. A moment later, Gargarin turned and hobbled back inside.
As Gargarin stood at the basin and splashed water onto his face, Froi stepped outside, curious about the priestling. He marveled once again at how the godshouse could sit so high on a piece of tilted granite, promising to plunge toward them at any time. Froi began to turn away, but suddenly he felt ice-cold fingers travel down his spine. He swung around, his hand grabbing at the fingers, and saw that it was the princess, leaning over the cast iron of her balconette and reaching toward him, standing on the tip of her toes.
Her stare was cold and it made him flinch, but he saw fear and wonder there, too.
“You are indeed the last born,” she said, her tone abrupt. No indignation now. “It’s written all over you.”
Froi didn’t respond. He could only stare at her. It seemed as though he was facing a completely different girl. She had the same dirt-colored hair and eyes, but her stare was savage.
“You’ll have to come to our chamber this night,” she said.
Froi could have sworn he heard her snarl in disgust at the thought before she turned and disappeared into her room.
“Our?” he questioned, and for the first time since he had left Lumatere, Froi wondered what he had gotten himself into.
The day went from bad to worse. Gargarin of Abroi was in a wretched mood, and they almost came to blows over an ink pot that Froi spilled on the man’s papers. Not that it was Froi’s fault. If it wasn’t Gargarin’s staff tripping Froi, it was his scrolls and quills laying everywhere or his muttering filling the small space of their chamber.
“Let’s make a pact, Gargarin. I keep completely out of this room today and every second day, and you do the same on the other days.”
“What are you waiting for?” Gargarin said, without looking up from his work.
Froi spent the rest of the morning avoiding the princess, who had returned to being the indignant girl who had escorted him to his room the night before. Everywhere Froi turned, the princess was there. Peering. Staring. Squinting. At every corner. From every height. It almost became a game of him watching her watching him.
Later that day, he hovered around the well, which seemed the perfect place for talking rot and finding out vital information from people whose ancestors had spent too much time breeding with each other. The king’s very simple cousin, for example, pointed out that the tower Froi could see from where he was standing was the prison and currently held only one prisoner. “The rest of the scum are kept in dungeons close to the bridge of the Citavita,” the man explained.
“And the king?” Froi asked.
“We try not to refer to him as scum out loud,” the cousin whispered.
“No, I mean, where is he kept?” Froi said.
The king’s cousin shrugged. “I’ve not seen him since the last day of weeping.”
Froi looked around hastily, not wanting to be obvious about his scrutiny. There were five towers as well as the keep. He had seen the Duke of Who-Cares-Where walk into the keep and knew for certain that if the man didn’t get wine at his table, then there was no possible way he slept in the same compound as the king. So apart from the tower Froi shared with Gargarin and the princess opposite the godshouse, and the prison tower alongside of theirs, that left the third, fourth and fifth towers as possible locations for the man Froi had been sent to assassinate. He knew that if he could get up to one of the battlements, he’d at least have a better view of the entire fortress. But as he excused himself from the king’s cousin, he walked into Dorcas.
“Just the person I was looking for,” Dorcas said, full of self-importance. “I have a message.”
“For me?”
“The banker of Sebastabol is passing through on a visit to Osteria,” Dorcas advised. “He would like a word. Apparently your families are acquainted.”
Froi’s heart began to thump against his chest. Less than a day in the palace and his lie was about to be discovered.
“Did you hear me?” Dorcas asked.
“You mean Sir … Roland is here? In the Citavita?”
“Sir Berenson,” Dorcas corrected, his eyes narrowing.
“Oh, you mean Sir Berenson the banker, and not Sir Roland the baker?”
“Since when is a baker a ‘sir’?” Dorcas asked.
“In my father’s eyes, he is,” Froi said, nodding emphatically. “ ‘Yes, yes, that man deserves a title,’ Father says every time my mother comes home with a loaf.”
Dorcas didn’t seem interested in stories about bakers. But Dorcas was intent on following instructions.
“He’s in Lady Mawfa’s sitting room in the third tower,” Dorcas said. “Run along.”
“The third tower?” Froi asked, eliminating it as the King’s residence. He had watched Lady Mawfa the night before whispering gossip to anyone who came close to her. He couldn’t imagine the king sharing his residence with such a parrot.
“Are you sure it’s not the fourth tower?” Froi tried. “Didn’t you say he was visiting the king?”
“I didn’t say that at all,” Dorcas said, irritated. “And he won’t be staying for long, so run along, I say.”
Froi had to think fast. Dorcas wasn’t moving until he did, and Princess Indignant had just revealed herself from behind the well, beckoning Froi with an impatient hand. Then he heard the tapping of Gargarin’s staff and saw the man limping toward the steps of their tower. Froi took his chance.
“The proud fool,” he said to Dorcas, clucking his tongue and shaking his head. “I’ve told him again and again to rest. Gargarin!” Froi called out, before running toward him. He reached Gargarin halfway up the steps to their chamber and placed an arm around his waist to assist him, despite the fact that Gargarin neither wanted nor needed help.
“What are you doing?” Gargarin growled, trying to pull away. They both balanced unsteadily on the spiral steps.
“I’m here, nothing to worry about,” reassured Froi loudly, waving Dorcas away as the guard approached, looking slightly concerned.
“Do you need assistance, sir?” Dorcas asked Gargarin.
“Did I ask for it?”
“No, sir,” Dorcas said.
Regardless, Froi dragged a fuming Gargarin up the rest of the steps, causing them both to trip forward. Froi turned back to Dorcas, mouthing, “Too proud,” rolling his eyes, and shrugging haplessly. “I’ll take care of this, Dorcas.”
Dorcas watched them for a moment, holding up a hand of acknowledgment to Gargarin, whose teeth were gritted. When Dorcas descended the steps, Gargarin struggled to pull free of Froi with a fury that almost had them both tumbling down.
“Are you an idiot?” Gargarin hissed. “Let go of me now.”
“You look pale. Let me just get you to our chamber,” Froi said. So I can avoid seeing Sir Berenson the banker, he added to himself.
“I was born pale! I’ll die pale!”
At the top of the steps, Gargarin finally broke free and hobbled away.
“I thought the room was mine for the day,” he said as Froi followed him to the chamber.
“A decision I regretted the moment I left the room,” Froi said. “I can’t bear the idea of you staggering around tomorrow with nowhere to go.”
Gargarin stared at him coldly. “A decision I have not regretted agreeing to. Go. Away.”
Froi spent the rest of the day in the stables avoiding the princess, the banker of Sebastabol, and Dorcas. As Gargarin had predicted, he was given a lesson or two by the stable hand and scullery maid about mating, as well as picking up a few choice words that the priest-king hadn’t covered when he taught him the language of Charyn.
When he arrived back at his room that night, feeling anything but amorous himself, the princess was standing outside her chamber. Waiting. The cold stare was back.
“You are certain you have nothing to tell the reginita?” she asked sharply.
“The who?” he asked.
She thought for a moment, her mouth twisting to the side. It was the strangest type of contemplation he had ever seen. She was waiting for something, and Froi couldn’t understand what.
Unimpressed, the princess beckoned him into her room with an arrogant wave of her hand. Her chamber, much like Froi’s and Gargarin’s, was simple, with a bed in the center and no fireplace in sight.
She began to undo the hooks that fastened her dress.
“Perhaps we started off on the wrong foot,” Froi said. “I don’t want this week —”
She stopped for a moment. Squinted. “A week? What needs to be done should only take one night.”
What needs to be done.
Froi would need more than a night to understand the intricacies of this palace and to do what he was sent to do.
“And here I was becoming so attached to your sweet disposition.” He beat his breast with pitiful exaggeration. “If I go tomorrow, I’ll never have a chance to know you.”
Her brow furrowed, as though she didn’t quite comprehend him. Despite it all, he didn’t want to be cruel. If he was to do what he was sent to do, he didn’t want to feel anything, even hatred or dislike. But he pitied her. The way she spoke about herself as if she was another. The way her court dismissed her. Isaboe of Lumatere was loved. Adored. Isaboe knew who she was even when she took the name Evanjalin for all those years.
“You’re not what we expected,” she said, and there was disappointment in her voice. “They promised us more.”
There was something so strangely matter-of-fact in the way she spoke. Froi fought hard not to react and choked out a laugh.
“They?” he asked. “Bestiano and your father?”
She stepped out of the dress and pulled off her slippers, leaving her in only a white cotton shift that reached her knees.
Froi pulled the shirt over his head, inwardly rehearsing what he would tell her. How his inadequacy prevented him from planting the seed.
She stopped undressing for a moment, confused. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You don’t need to remove your shirt.” She indicated his trousers, pointing a finger.
This time, Froi sighed and made an exaggerated show of untying the string around his trousers while she lay down, raising her white nightdress to the top of her thighs, but no further.
Froi shucked his trousers and knelt on the bed. Buy time, Froi, he told himself. His hand traveled up her legs, his fingers gentle. She pushed them away, and there was that unrelenting stare again.
“Do you not know what to do, fool?”
“I know exactly what to do,” he bristled.
“Then be done with it. Hands are not required.”
“Should your pleasure not be part of it?”
“Pleasure.” She shuddered. “What a strange word to use under such circumstances. We’re swiving, fool.”
“That’s a filthy mouth you have there, Princess.”
She caught his eye. “Don’t tell me you’re a romantic,” she said. “What would you like to call it? Making love?”
“I just want to make it easier,” he said honestly. “It’s not in me to be tender, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not looking for tenderness,” she said, turning her head to the side. “Just haste, and if your mouth or fingers come near me again, I’ll cut them off.”
But Froi could only remember his bond to Isaboe. You never take a woman if she doesn’t invite you to her bed, Froi. During the years it had changed to, I’ll never bed a woman again, my queen. He had wanted her to know that the bond came from his free will and not her order. Although this moment with the princess was sanctioned, he felt like a demon.
“I can’t continue if it’s not what you desire,” he said quietly, wanting her to turn back to look at him.
“What has desire to do with it?” she asked, cold fury in her voice. “If you would prefer a moment to conjure up passion, I’ll turn my back and you can use your hand on yourself and think of another.”
Froi spluttered with disbelief.
He stalled again, placing a hand gently on her thigh, and for a moment he saw wonder in her eyes. Until he realized that the wonder came from whatever lay above him. He twisted his head to see her holding up a hand to make the image of a bird on the shadowed ceiling.
And he knew he couldn’t go through with the mating. If he was going to do what he was sent here to do, he couldn’t feel pity or compassion or even desire. Not that he felt desire. How could he with this squinting ball of hair? Froi knew what desire felt like. He fought it daily. His bond to Lumatere was to rid them of the enemy, not to bed their abomination, their curse, their despised princess. He regretted not asking Trevanion what he meant by the words, What needs to be done. What did he mean for Froi to do to the princess?
“Begin,” she said, turning back to look at him, and when he shook his head, she slapped him hard across the face. In an instant he had her body straddled, trapping it between his legs.
“I’m not a whore and nor are you,” he hissed, “so don’t treat us so. And next time we do this, I’d like a bit more involvement from you, Princess. I don’t like to feel as though I’m swiving a corpse.”
He saw the snarl curl her lips, and the base savage inside of him was excited by the burning malevolence he saw in her eyes. But he leaped out of the bed, pulled on his trousers, and slammed the door behind him.
Bestiano stepped from the shadows. “Is it done?” he asked.
“No. I’ll have to return tomorrow.”
The next morning, Froi watched a party of men on horseback ride out of the courtyard and prayed the banker from Sebastabol was among them. When he thought he was safe, he ventured to breakfast, starving from having missed out on food the night before.
“Sir Berenson was disappointed to have left without seeing you.” Quintana was at his shoulder the moment he walked in. She was wearing the same awful pink dress that she had worn the first time he saw her, and every other time, come to think of it. Froi decided it was either her favorite dress or the only dress she owned. The latter was ridiculous for a royal, so he settled on the former. It was obvious she had bad taste. She was back to being Princess Indignant, all earnestness and incessant talking. It actually relieved him to see her in this mood.
“Sir Berenson left?” he asked, looking around the room for the best candidate to sit beside. Perhaps Lady Mawfa with all her gossip would be helpful to him today. “Already? Without so much as a good-bye?”
“He said he asked for you all night,” Quintana said indignantly.
“I searched for him high and low.” Froi feigned a hurt expression. “It’s always the same,” he said, searching for an audience. “Despite being a last born, I will never receive the same respect as my cousin. If I were Vassili, rest assured Sir Berenson would have made the effort to find me.”
Froi was placed opposite an elderly cousin of the king, who picked at the dry pieces of skin between his fingers and put them on the table beside Froi. Next to Froi were Gargarin and Quintana, who insisted once again on stealing food from his plate. He slapped her hand away more than once.
“Do you have something to tell us?” she whispered in his ear.
Froi gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what part of her he disliked more. The cold viper or this annoyance.
Suddenly he felt Bestiano’s attention from the head table. “What are you both whispering about?” the king’s First Adviser asked.
Froi pointed to himself questioningly. “I was just wanting to say how becoming the princess looks in that gown. The color is perfect for her complexion,” he lied.
Her response was a shocked squint. She tilted her head to the side in confusion, as though contemplating whether Froi’s words were a compliment.
“Quintana,” Bestiano called out. “One responds to a flattering remark.”
The princess seemed wary. “We’re not the recipient of many compliments, my lord, so we’re unsure about its sincerity.”
There was no bite in her tone. Just confusion. Froi realized too late that he had picked the wrong person to play with and was beginning to feel uncomfortable about what he had started.
Gargarin of Abroi kicked him under the table as a warning.
“Say thank you, Quintana!” Bestiano barked.
“We cannot offer thanks because I doubt Olivier’s earnestness,” she said. There was anxiety in her voice, as though she didn’t know what to do under the circumstances.
“Say thank you,” Bestiano repeated.
“It’s not necessary,” Froi said. “It was an attempt at humor between us and —”
“Say. Thank you!”
The room was suddenly quiet. The princess was trembling but shook her head and spoke as though rehearsing a speech. “We only say thanks if we feel gratitude, and the reginita does not believe —”
A fist came down on the main table. Froi saw her close her eyes and flinch.
“Enough of the reginita.”
Froi watched as Bestiano made his way toward their end of the table. Froi stood to step in the man’s way, but Gargarin pulled him back into his seat just as Bestiano dragged Quintana out of her chair by her hair and pushed her out of the room.
“It has a greater effect on morale when the girl takes her meals in her chamber,” Froi heard one of the ladies say. The others went back to their breakfast as though the incident had never taken place.
“Are you happy now?” Gargarin asked, quietly furious.
With a shaking hand, Froi picked up his tea and drank.
A little while later, he walked to her chamber, practicing a sincere attempt to make amends. If he wanted to know more about her father’s whereabouts, he’d have to try to make things right with her. A part of him also felt guilt. He imagined that Bestiano had the authority to give her a blasting worse than any Froi received from Perri. But when he arrived at her chamber, the door was locked.
“Princess,” he said, knocking. “Your Highness. Open up. I know you’re in there.”
There was no response. Froi entered the chamber he shared with Gargarin, then opened the doors out onto the balconette. It was a short distance between the two chambers and despite the depth of the gravina, it was an easy jump. Froi climbed onto the wrought iron of his balconette and leaped, landing comfortably on hers.
He looked inside the room, his hands ready to knock at the glass.
But he recoiled in horror.
Later, when he couldn’t get the image out of his mind, he tried to work out what had made him sickest. Was it the way Bestiano would trap her hand in his grip, stopping her from making shapes in the nonexistent shadows over his head? She didn’t look as though she was struggling, but there was something dead in her eyes, so unlike the squints and inquisition or the coldness that had followed Froi around since he first stepped foot in the palace.
He turned away, taking deep breaths of air.
Across the gravina in the godshouse, he saw someone standing at the window. But a moment later, the man was gone.