Froi of the Exiles (64 page)

‘Kill him,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘No, you won’t,’ she said gently.

Trevanion kicked the stool out of the way and it bounced off the wall and splintered. ‘I’ve killed traitors before, Beatriss. It’s my job. In what way would this be any different?’ he asked.

Beatriss calmly picked up what was left of the stool. ‘Because you don’t have proof. Nettice was smart in that way. He would come to this house often in the early days to talk about the soldiers and his hatred for the impostor King. Later he’d tell me he was lonely. His wife kept a cold bed. I would send him away each time. And then suddenly he was a guest of the impostor King in the palace. A fact I knew because I was dragged down there often enough.’

She caught Trevanion’s wince of pain.

‘Nettice would tell all who would listen that his visits to the palace were to make life easier for us, but the only families who had an easy life were those who collaborated.’

She swallowed, trying to keep down the bile that always rose when she thought of those years.

‘He must have made a deal with the impostor King and somehow I became part of that bargain because the King and his men didn’t touch me again. And do you want to know the truth, Trevanion?’ she asked. ‘I felt relief. Each time he came up that path, I felt relief. Better a demon I knew, better one man than any of the others in the palace. Relief,’ she cried. ‘Nothing more. Nothing. And that relief shamed me and he knew, trading on that shame all these years.’

Trevanion closed his eyes, his expression so pained that she wanted some kind of magic to take away all their suffering. But that type of magic didn’t exist.

‘He stopped the visits when I was carrying Vestie and then of course there was Tesadora. Nothing frightened those cowardly men more than Tesadora. Her friendship saved my life. It saved my spirit.’

Beatriss began to clear away the plates and cakes. She looked away, so she wouldn’t have to see his face. Would there be judgement? Had it been easier for him to love Vestie knowing that the father was nowhere in their lives?

Trevanion stayed, his silence frightening. And there they sat opposite each other, two people who had grown older without the comfort of the other. She wanted to weep for the lost opportunities. But deep in the night when she thought there would never be words between them again, he spoke.

‘The reason I couldn’t ask questions all this time, is that I feared I’d have to respond to yours in return.’ His voice was low and hoarse. ‘That I’d have to speak of being imprisoned in the mines and my first months there and what I let them do to me and how I couldn’t save those two brothers from the Rock who came to join me there.’

He looked away, the tears biting at his eyes.

'We didn’t let them do anything to us, Trevanion,’ Beatriss said fiercely. ‘They did it without our permission.’

She walked to where he sat and placed her arms around him. He turned and buried his face against her waist and she thought she felt a sob against her and they stayed wrapped around each other, bathed by the sounds of this house that had seen the worst and best of times. But all Beatriss had to hear was the sound of his breathing and her child mumbling in sleep to know that perhaps for tonight alone all was good in her world.

‘Do you remember the day three years ago when we spoke at the babe’s grave?’ he asked. ‘Do you remember your words? Has anything changed? About how you can never go back to the way things were?’

She took his face in her hands. ‘I only remember the words that haven’t changed, Trevanion.’

She pressed her brow against his.

‘I still wake with your name on my lips every morning.’

F
roi’s only consolation as they crawled through the underground caves of Paladozza was that the tunnels were too narrow and long to allow an army to invade. And in that way, Gargarin and Lirah would stay safe in Paladozza. Try as he might, he couldn’t get their faces out of his head and already felt a strong sense of loss knowing he might never see them again.

They rested that night close to the stone that would take them out into the hills of the north. The space was too small for comfort, but Quintana curled against him, asleep in an instant. Froi couldn’t help thinking of Isaboe when she was carrying Jasmina in her belly. The way everyone in the palace fussed over her. How Finn would prop her up against him and knead her shoulders and back while she gave Sir Topher instructions on how to deal with the merchants in the main village who refused to work with some of the Flatland lords. Froi couldn’t count the amount of times he’d ride from Sayles to the palace on an errand for Lady Abian, who insisted that the Queen have the best apples their orchard had to offer, or the days he had accompanied Finn to the mountains because the juiciest berries in the kingdom were grown there and Isaboe deserved the best.

‘You are all becoming tiresome,’ she’d complain. ‘I’m carrying a child, not dying of an ailment.’

And Froi wanted all of that for Quintana. He wanted to hear her complain how tiresome they all were with the attention they were giving and how she was sick of resting and sick of taking warm baths and sick of her people waiting on her hand and foot. Yet here Quintana was, crawling through the bowels of a city for a kingdom of people who would never truly understand what she had sacrificed for them.

Hours later he shook her awake gently and their journey continued.

‘I’ll hurt the babe,’ Quintana said, as they used their elbows to crawl along the jagged contours of the ground beneath.

‘It won’t be for too long, Your Highness,’ Olivier gasped. ‘My mother told me often that she took a tumble a time or two on the docks of Sebastabol when she was carrying me.’

‘That’s no comfort, Olivier,’ Froi said. ‘You’re an idiot most times.’

The tunnel finally spilled out into a larger cave and soon they’d be out in the hills. Froi felt the breeze come through the cracks in the stone and he smelt their freedom. His eyes met Quintana’s and he saw hope there. The hills would be a safe enough refuge and in days to come they would be back with the Turlan mountain goats. It made Froi laugh to think of it.

‘When we get to Turla, Olivier, do not try to prove your manhood,’ he said, as they followed the lastborn.

‘I’ve never really been one to do that,’ Olivier said.

‘Then you’ve not met the Turlans,’ Quintana said.

They reached the last stone and pushed it aside, shielding their eyes as light poured into the cave. Crawling out first, Froi could see they were in a small ravine with a stream between them and the hills on the other side. He climbed up to the cave top they had come from and saw the woodlands further north.

When he jumped back down, he took Quintana’s hand and they walked further along the stream, ready to cross where the water was a trickle. Quintana looked up in the distance and the rare smile she gave Froi lit up his heart.

‘To the hills we go,’ she said. He pressed her palm to his cheek.

The arrow took him by surprise and he grunted from the pain as it ripped through his thigh. Froi pulled Quintana down to him, crawling behind the closest rock. Olivier followed, and Froi could hear his ragged breath. He stole a look over their hiding place and his blood ran cold. Men were scattered across the stream and throughout the hills with their bows cocked, pointing down at them. At least fifty. Neither unprepared nor surprised. Waiting. Some were dressed in the uniform of the palace riders and Froi knew that Bestiano’s men had been waiting. They had been betrayed.

Froi took in his surrounds. He had to think fast. It was safer to climb the rock behind them and run for the woodlands than it was to return to the tunnel.

‘There,’ he said, taking a quick painful breath and pointing to a large boulder.

Olivier was panicking. Froi could see from the sweat on the lastborn’s brow and the tremble in his body.

‘Olivier, help me with this,’ Froi gasped, placing a hand over the arrow in his thigh. He needed to get it out. But Olivier could only stare at it in horror.

‘Squeamish? You idiot!’

Without Olivier’s help, Froi placed both his hands around the arrow’s base and pulled it free with a hoarse shout of pain. He stole a look again and saw that Bestiano’s riders were still waiting. He wondered if the three of them stood a chance.

‘Froi, listen to me,’ Olivier said. Pleaded. ‘They’ll protect her. And they won’t kill you. I promise.’

Froi froze. No, he thought. Not Olivier. He trusted this lad with his life. With Quintana’s life and that of his unborn child. His eyes met the lastborn’s and he saw the truth there.

‘Olivier?’ Froi said the word, his voice broken. ‘Have you betrayed us? Have you led us into a trap?’

Quintana gasped and Froi saw her horror and fear.

‘Not a betrayal, friends,’ Olivier said. ‘A reprieve. You can’t keep her safe, Froi. You can’t. The Avanosh people almost took her from us. They would have made her a puppet to Sorel. Who will be the next lot to try to take her, Froi? At least Bestiano –’

Quintana cried out at the sound of Bestiano’s name, her arms clutching her body as she wept with futile rage.

‘How could you do this to your queen?’ Froi bit out with fury.

‘How could I not?’ Olivier shouted back. ‘I love my kingdom, Froi, and I will keep it safe. It was the pledge I made to the men you sent to keep me prisoner while you became Olivier of Sebastabol. And they gave me worth. All my life a useless lastborn, and for once, I had purpose.’

Froi took deep breaths to alleviate the pain and to think. Think, Froi. Think.

‘Rafuel of Sebastabol despised the King and Bestiano, you fool,’ Froi said.

‘No,’ Olivier said shaking his head, emphatically. ‘Zabat said –’

‘Zabat? Zabat was a traitor. He switched sides, Olivier. Took you with him without you even noticing. The men who kidnapped you belong to the Priests of Trist and Zabat betrayed them to the riders. Bestiano’s men killed Tariq.’

Olivier shook his head, refusing to believe.

Froi secured the bow and placed the quiver of arrows on his back.

‘You are putting her life in danger, Froi!’ Olivier said, a plea in his voice.

Froi snarled. ‘The first man who fires a bolt at Quintana and the child she carries puts her life in danger.’

Froi held a hand to Quintana’s frightened face. ‘She does not go to Bestiano,’ he promised.

He took in another deep breath of pain, his eyes fixed on Quintana’s. ‘We’re going to run up to that boulder,’ he said, pointing up. ‘They won’t shoot at you, so don’t stop until you reach it.’

‘But they’ll shoot at you,’ she said.

‘And I’ll shoot back.’

‘You’re putting both your lives at risk,’ Olivier cried.

‘A curse on you, Olivier,’ Froi shouted. ‘A curse. You put both our lives at risk and if I ever know that you’ve returned to Paladozza to taint the lives of Grij and Tippideaux and De Lancey and Lirah and Gargarin, I will hunt you down and tear you apart limb by limb.’

Froi looked at Quintana, struggling to his feet. He drew his bow, gave her a nod, and they both ran.

He never stood a chance. The arrows came for him. Another to his thigh. One to his calf. One to the side of his torso. All those drills in the meadows of Lumatere and all that instruction, but Froi never stood a chance. When they reached the boulder and she saw the arrows, Quintana’s cry was full of rage and Froi could have sworn he felt the earth move around them. But the despair was also Froi’s, the knowledge that he could not protect her and his child. It made him want to weep.

He pressed her down behind the rock, trying with all his might to keep the grimace of pain from his expression. Her hands hovered around him, as if she had no idea where to place them. Froi reached out and gripped one of them.

‘It’s not that I liked you least,’ he croaked through his pain, ‘it’s that I feared you most. The Reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love you. And you’re going to have to promise me something.’

‘Don’t ask me to leave you,’ she cried through clenched teeth. ‘I can’t do this on my own.’

‘You can. You did it before. That last day in the Citavita when you let go of my hand. You thought I was a threat to you and you chose to protect the little King on your own rather than put him in danger. On your own, Quintana. You can do it again.’

She shook her head over and over again.

‘The moment I stand and begin lobbing my arrows, you run,’ he ordered,’ and keep on running. Try to get to Turla. Keep away from the north. Satch has written to say there’s plague in Desantos. But you run, Quintana, and you keep yourself alive.’

‘We’ll do it together, Froi,’ she said with determination, pressing the skirt of her dress to the wound on his thigh to stop the bleeding.

He shook his head. Too much pain. Too much pain.

‘I can’t protect you,’ he gasped. ‘Not like this. I will slow you down and Bestiano will take you. He will kill you the moment you birth the babe.’

‘But they’ll kill you.’

He shook his head, biting back the pain. ‘They would never chance a battle with Lumatere now. They know it will involve Belegonia and Osteria. Their orders are to shoot me to slow me down, but not to kill me. I know such an order, Quintana. I’ve followed them myself. I’m worth more to them alive than dead.’

They both knew he was lying.

‘I’m counting, Froi,’ she cried. ‘I’m counting in my head.’

‘Good girl.’

He took her face in his bloody hands. ‘I’ll come and find you wherever you are. I’ll not stop breathing until I do. So you’re going to have to promise me that you won’t lose hope. That you will keep yourself alive.’

He tried to wipe her tears, but there were too many.

‘I heard your song the moment we were born,’ she sobbed. ‘And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.’

She pressed cold lips against his and they tasted the salt of each other’s tears.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked.