‘Blessed Sagrami,’ Tesadora muttered.
‘I have an idea,’ Phaedra said, looking at Rafuel, as though he was in charge and not Lucian.
‘About having another spy in the camp with me.’
‘You’re not a spy,’ Lucian pointed out.
She looked up at him, almost vexed. ‘I’m overhearing conversations and retelling them back to you,’ she said. ‘In Charyn, that’s called spying, Luci-en.’
‘Yes Luci-en,’ Tesadora mocked. ‘I believe it goes by the same name in Lumatere.’
‘Don’t even suggest that Tesadora and the girls come down with you,’ Lucian said. ‘Isaboe and Finnikin have forbidden it.’
‘Yes, well, forbidding always works on me,’ Tesadora murmured.
‘Go on with your idea,’ Rafuel instructed Phaedra. Lucian bristled.
‘I heard Donashe complaining that they cannot get any of our men to assist them with keeping order,’ she continued. ‘His men may be armed, but there are too few of them, and sooner or later, there’ll be too many of us.’
‘How can they possible believe any of your men would act as guards against their own people?’ Yael asked.
‘With you Monts in the trees, they know they can’t use force,’ Phaedra said. ‘What they need is for a newcomer to arrive and put up his hand for the work.’
‘A Mont spy,’ Jory said excitedly.
‘Monts speak Charyn like fools, Jor-ee,’ she said. ‘Not possible.’
Phaedra pointed to Rafuel. ‘He would be perfect.’
Rafuel was the only one who thought it was a good idea.
‘They don’t know who I am,’ the Charynite argued. ‘No one does. The other valley dwellers would not have seen me with …’ He swallowed hard. ‘With my lads,’ he said huskily. ‘Let me befriend the murdering bastards. Find out the truth of what’s going on in the Citavita and the rest of Charyn. Then when I have their trust, I can escape. Perhaps try to get to Sebastabol. Find out the fate of your assassin.’
‘No,’ Lucian said.
‘What am I doing here?’ Rafuel asked, rage and grief in his eyes. ‘Nothing. Your lad Froi is out there, who knows where, and I’m hiding on your mountain while they’re slaughtering the finest minds in Charyn!’
‘It’s not my decision to make,’ Lucian said. ‘I’ll take it to the Queen and Finnikin.’
Rafuel shoved back his chair and left the cottage. Lucian knew exactly where the Charynite was heading, as though he was a guest and not a prisoner. He spoke of it with Tesadora later as they stood outside after the others had left.
‘Talk to Japhra, Tesadora,’ he said. ‘Her sharing his bed is madness.’
‘I can’t stop her any more than you can. She was sharing his bed long before now. Even before he took a knife to her throat.’
She secured the shawl around her shoulders, staring out into the darkness. Lucian had underestimated how hard she had taken the death of the Charynites. She’d been quiet these last days, more fragile. He had no idea what to do with a fragile Tesadora. He was even thinking of sending for Perri, but Lucian knew the guard was escorting Lady Celie to Belegonia where she would spend time in the royal court.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he persisted. ‘Japhra and Rafuel.’
‘Why should it make sense, Lucian?’ Tesadora argued, irritated.
‘Because Japhra was dragged out of her home and violated by his people.’
‘By one of our people,’ she said fiercely. ‘The impostor King was half-Lumateran. I think we all forget that sometimes.’
‘But why choose a filthy Charynite?’
Tesadora looked over his shoulder and he knew that Phaedra stood there at his cottage door.
‘Good night,’ Tesadora said, walking towards Yata’s home.
Inside, Phaedra was preparing her bed.
‘You still speak of us as if we’re animals,’ she said quietly.
‘You were listening to a conversation that had nothing to do with you,’ he said, his voice cool, placing more logs on the fire.
‘I’m one of those filthy Charynites,’ she said. ‘In what way has it nothing to do with me?’
Later they lay in the dark, Lucian in his bed and Phaedra in her cot on the floor. He wanted to speak. Perhaps tell her that of course he didn’t see her as a filthy Charynite.
‘Japhra told me,’ she said quietly as though she had waited half the night to speak. ’That Rafuel is the first person … the first man she’s encountered who doesn’t see her as broken. He sees her as gifted. In Charyn we call the gifted ones gods’ blessed. Lumaterans seem frightened by the gods’ touched, but Rafuel is in awe of her.’
Lucian was beginning to get used to hearing Phaedra’s small observations at night. Whether Lumateran or Charynite, people revealed things to her that they told no other. More than anything, he realised that he liked her voice in the dark. It made him feel less lonely. Only last night he had spoken to her about life in exile, and had found himself recalling memories cast aside since his father’s death.
And then there was cousin Jory who was experiencing a bout of puppy love for Phaedra that irritated Lucian.
‘Off home now, Jory,’ Lucian said for the fourth night in a row when everyone else had left.
‘We’re still talking, Phaedra and I,’ Jory said. ‘Don’t let us keep you up, Lucian.’
‘Go,’ Lucian ordered. ‘Home.’
Jory rolled his eyes. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow, Phaedra,’ he said.
Lucian shut the door behind the lad. ‘If he’s annoying you, tell him so,’ he said gruffly.
‘He’s very sweet,’ she said, standing to push aside the table where her bed was to be laid out. Lucian ushered her away and placed the table against the wall.
‘Without a word from me the other day I heard him make his apologies to Cora and some of the other women about his past behaviour.’ Phaedra laughed. ‘Except he decided to actually use the word for the body part he exposed, which I think horrified the women even more.’
‘What was the word?’ he asked.
She whispered it and he laughed, wincing.
‘The idiot. They’re a bit raw, our lads.’
One night when Perri was in the mountain, Phaedra came home from the valley, flushed with excitement.
‘I overheard a story today,’ she told Lucian and the others. ‘About the events that took place in the Citavita after the King was murdered.’
‘Was this Donashe in the capital then?’ Rafuel asked, his hands clenched. Lucian had noticed that the Charynite spent his day brooding with fury, wanting nothing more than to kill the men who slaughtered his lads.
‘Indeed he was there. They say he was one of the leaders of the street lords who stormed the palace,’ Phaedra said.
‘Who does he answer to?’ Cousin Yael asked. But Lucian could only think of Froi.
‘Have they seen our lad?’ he demanded.
‘And the Princess?’ Rafuel said.
‘Let her finish the story,’ Tesadora snapped at them all, nodding to Phaedra to continue.
‘It’s hard to believe any of them,’ Phaedra said, ‘but those closest to the King were hanged one by one each day in front of the Citavitans. On the last day the Princess Quintana was dragged out to the podium. A noose was placed around her neck and the Princess’s body did indeed swing.’
Tesadora shuddered. After watching her mother burn at the stake, Lucian imagined that any public execution horrified her, regardless of whether it was the enemy or not. Rafuel buried his head in his hands.
‘But listen,’ Phaedra continued, ‘they say a barrage of arrows flew from one of the trees above, maiming the street lords who stood guard. Then a lad charged through the air, capturing Quintana’s body and freeing it from its noose.’
Phaedra stared around at them all, a feverish excitement in her eyes. ‘Both the Princess and her rescuer have not been seen since.’