She could smell the bread wafting out from the baker’s cottage. The Monts were finally beginning to awaken, the start of another miserable day for Phaedra.
‘Secondly, Orly’s bull is my problem, not yours. Understood?’
Phaedra didn’t respond.
‘And thirdly, you’ll have to forgive my people. They are still grieving their leader.’
She stopped and looked up at him. ‘Their leader is living,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s standing in front of me and the only person in this mountain who is not acknowledging him these days is the leader himself.’
Phaedra saw Lucian’s fury first and then she saw his eyes water. Was it from the cold bite of the morning air or something else?
‘I’ll never be as good as him,’ he said. ‘They know that. We all know that.’
She shook her head. ‘Speak the truth, Lucian.’
‘What truth?’ he asked angrily.
‘You don’t want him here because of the mistakes you think you’re making. You want him here because you loved him and he’s gone and you can’t say those words out loud.’
He stared down at her, but Phaedra refused to look away. And then he moved closer, his lips close to her ears as though he was afraid the mountain itself would hear his words.
‘Sometimes … I miss him so much I can barely breathe.’
He joined them in the valley later that day and Phaedra took him for a tour of the caves. He was polite and attentive to all he met, including Kasabian and Harker who she felt Lucian was trying hard to impress after Jory’s reports about how cold and unforgiving the men of the valley were to Mont lads. Phaedra could tell her Mont husband liked Kasabian best. Kasabian reminded Phaedra of her own father and he was gentle in a way that his sister Cora wasn’t. But Cora was trustworthy and worked hard. Both were good people who Phaedra believed had much to offer Lumatere if they were ever allowed to enter.
After a brief, terse conversation with Donashe and his camp leaders, Phaedra took Lucian to Cora’s cave. There was always tension in that dwelling because Cora disliked Florenza and Jorja. She believed they had airs and graces despite their journey and referred to them as the Ladies of the Sewer. There was a lazy girl named Ginny, who Cora called Lady Lazy Muck. Cora had a name for everyone.
‘I want to be placed with my brother,’ she snapped.
‘You know they’ll never allow that, Cora,’ Phaedra said patiently.
There was a new woman in the cave. An older woman who came from the north and never stopped speaking. Yet no one understood a word she spoke.
‘Dialect,’ Phaedra explained to Lucian.
‘Her mouth never stops,’ Cora muttered.
The woman from the north spoke to Lucian, and Phaedra wanted to giggle, watching him nod seriously. ‘Hmm, yes,’ he would say every once in a while.
Outside he stared at Phaedra, slightly stunned.
‘If you ever take me into that cave again, I’ll lock you up with my great-aunts, Yata’s sisters!’
‘You would not enjoy that, Phaedra,’ Jory piped up, as they walked back to the Lumateran side of the stream.
‘Rafuel said the same about that cave,’ Phaedra laughed. ‘He calls it the cave of she-devils. The women hate him most of all.’
‘They don’t hate me,’ Jory boasted. ‘I can charm Angry Cora. She says she hates idiots and everyone she meets is an idiot.’
When they reached the stream, Lucian grabbed Phaedra around the waist, lifting her over the water so her feet wouldn’t get wet. She had seen him do the same thing with his Mont cousins and Tesadora. Phaedra’s face flamed when he did it for her, so absently.
‘You’re a good spy too,’ Lucian said to her. ‘Except spies usually have more important subjects than women named Lady Lazy Muck and Angry Cora and the Ladies of the Sewer.’
She found herself laughing again and he looked at her strangely.
‘You don’t do that enough,’ he said quietly.
It was strange what Phaedra became used to living amongst the Monts. She liked their directness and lack of pretence. She liked the way they worshipped in the open at shrines that could be planted at the side of the road wherever someone pleased, rather than godshouses that were built thousands upon thousands of years ago. She liked having her hair braided by Yata, who once took Phaedra’s face in her hand.
‘I had granddaughters with eyes as pretty as yours once,’ the old woman said sadly, and Phaedra knew she was speaking of the Queen’s sisters who were slain in the palace all those years ago.
What Phaedra didn’t like was their food. It was very plain and it lacked taste.
Finnikin of Lumatere, his father and Perri the Savage were visiting one night with Tesadora, and the Consort noticed Phaedra’s lack of appetite.
‘Best food I ever had was in Yutlind,’ he said.
‘The best food in the land is in Paladozza,’ Phaedra insisted.
‘You’ve been there?’ he asked with excitement.
She nodded. ‘The Provincaro invited my father during one of Charyn’s very brief moments of peace between the Provincari. He is very handsome, De Lancey of Paladozza is.’
‘Then why didn’t your father marry you to him?’ Lucian asked, sharply.
‘Because he’s old. Nearing at least forty-five years.’
The Captain and Perri looked up, mid-mouthful, and exchanged looks. Tesadora laughed at their reaction.
‘Regardless, the Provincaro De Lancey loves the company of women, but not in his bed,’ Phaedra said.
‘Ahhh,’ they all said, intrigued.
It was late in the night when everyone left. The Consort and the Captain were staying in Yata’s home with Perri and Tesadora.
‘They asked quite some questions tonight,’ Lucian said from his bed. ‘I never know what they’re up to.’
‘Should the valley dwellers be worried?’ she asked.
‘No, but I get a sense that my cousin Isaboe wants to travel down the mountain again, so perhaps Trevanion and Perri are ensuring it is safe for her.’
‘If they won’t allow Tesadora amongst Donashe and his men, I can’t imagine them permitting the Queen.’
Lucian gave a short laugh. ‘The Queen doesn’t wait for permission.’
Phaedra thought about it. ‘It would mean so much to the valley dwellers if she visited, especially with the child. That precious girl would lift their spirits for days and days.’
‘Try having Jasmina for days and days and she’ll lift your temper,’ he said with a laugh. ‘She’s a minx, that one.’
‘Sometimes I imagine Charyn children in the valley,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t that change everything? Closer to Lumatere, I wonder if the children would feel a stronger kinship to it.’
‘Will you ever feel that?’ he asked quietly.
‘Never. Regardless of where I live, I will always know I’m a Charynite. Even with the shame of our past, I’ve never wanted to be anything else, and I pray to the gods that one day I will love the person who sits on our throne as much as you all love your queen and her consort.’
And that was how Phaedra became part of two worlds. Up in the mountains, if it wasn’t the Queen’s Guard who wanted to speak to her, it was the ladies of the Flatlands who were keen to send her seed for the valley’s vegetable patches. She met the Queen’s First Man one night when he wanted to see the census she had been chronicling. Sir Topher, the most distinguished man she’d ever met apart from De Lancey of Paladozza, wanted the names of those who were landless first and promised to take their names back to the Queen. Perhaps soon the first of the valley dwellers would be given permission to enter Lumatere.
Down in the valley, more people arrived and there was talk of a plague in the northern province, causing fear to flare up amongst the people again. From her cot on the ground Phaedra spoke to Lucian about her memories of the plague from years past. She became used to the strange conversations where she spoke Charynite and he responded in Lumateran, except now it was done out of convenience rather than spite. And it was on those nights that she imagined that she loved him and it shamed her that he did not love her in return. He was the only man she had laid with and she hadn’t enjoyed the experience. But it was this Lucian that she had learned to love.