‘That’s the best you can do?’ he scoffed. ‘Point the tip of a dagger under my chin?’
‘We thought you were an assassin,’ she said in the strange indignant voice. He was relieved. He had little time for Quintana when she was in her cold savage mood.
‘We?’ he looked around.
She pointed to herself.
‘And that’s how you protect yourself from an assassin?’ he demanded, removing the dagger from her hand. ‘If you really want to be successful, you give yourself five seconds to kill a man. In one second,’ he said, positioning her before him with her hands on both his shoulders, ‘you place a knee between the intruder’s legs, and with great speed and force you make sure that he is left … legless.’
‘Legless?’
‘In so much pain, Princess, that he can hardly hold himself upright.’
‘Second,’ he said, placing the dagger in her hand, ‘you plunge it into the side of his body and twist. Right about here.’
‘And then,’ he said, guiding her hand that was holding the dagger, ‘to make sure he’s dead, you take it from one ear to the other across the throat and you press hard and make sure he’s bleeding.’
She was contemplating what he said. He could see that from the concentration on her face.
‘Think you can do that?’ he asked.
For a moment she didn’t respond and then she asked, ‘Is this part of the plan, Olivier?’ There was excitement in her voice.
‘I don’t know what plan you’re talking about,’ he said.
She looked disappointed for a moment and then nodded with determination.
‘You’ll have to creep in again,’ she said. ‘But not straightaway. The Reginita needs to be surprised.’
‘Oh, she’s here, is she?’ he mocked.
He left the room, climbed onto the wrought-iron trellis, leapt onto his balconette and returned to where Gargarin was still at his desk.
‘It would probably be a good idea if you lay down a while,’ Froi said. ‘From what I’ve heard of dagger wounds, the loss of blood catches up with you.’
Gargarin ignored him. Froi was becoming used to it.
A short while later, Froi quietly leapt back onto the Princess’s balconette and crept inside.
This time when he tiptoed into the room, he felt an arm come around him instantly, the tip of a blade under his chin.
‘See, now you’re irritating me,’ he snapped, pushing her away. ‘Wrong place for the blade! All it will do is make a hole. Did I not tell you that already?’
She refused to look at him. ‘One more time?’ she suggested, her eyes downcast.
‘Are you pretending to be meek?’ he asked.
She looked up at him, pleased, and nodded. ‘Did it not work?’ she asked in her practical tone.
‘No.’
‘We were trying to impersonate Aunt Mawfa when she looks at Sir Gargarin. We’ve not seen that look on her face before, so there’s been little time to practise.’
‘You practise being Aunt Mawfa, do you?’ he asked.
‘Oh, all the time. It’s very important for us not to be noticed and no one notices Aunt Mawfa.’
Back in Froi’s chamber, Gargarin looked up at him when he entered.
‘You’re making me dizzy,’ he muttered.
‘That would be the dagger wound. I’m going to insist that you sleep on the bed tonight. I’ll take the floor.’
The next time Froi crept into the Princess’s chamber she had improved slightly and managed to draw blood.
‘Again?’ he asked. She went to nod and then shook her head.
She walked to the bed and lay down, as she had the night before, and lifted her shift to the top of her thighs. Froi lay beside her, contemplating how many nights he would have to go through this charade.
‘You need to be atop of me,’ she instructed.
Froi sighed and shifted himself closer to her.
‘You need to remove your trousers.’
Froi thanked her politely for the instruction. The moment his body touched hers, she did as she had the night before. Her hand left her side and reached over his head. Froi twisted away from her to study the shape on the wall. It made him think of Bestiano capturing her hand.
‘What is that?’ he asked quietly.
‘A bird.’
He rolled away from her and lay back staring at the ceiling.
‘You can do what you have to do at the same time,’ she said quietly. ‘It won’t interfere.’
She shivered.
He reached over and smoothed her nightdress down past her thighs and pulled a sheet over their bodies. ‘Why can’t they put a fireplace in here for you?’ he asked. ‘It will only get colder in the weeks to come.’
‘Bestiano says it will teach me to be strong,’ was all she said.
‘Bestiano needs to be taught a lesson.’
She looked surprised by his words and he had to remind himself that he was Olivier of Sebastabol and not Froi of the Exiles.
‘Show me how it’s done,’ he said, holding up his hand to the wall, trying to imitate the image she had made.
Quintana made a clicking sound of irritation and reached over to adjust his fingers. ‘Or else it will look like a rabbit,’ she said, and he heard exasperation in her voice.
‘Oh, we couldn’t have that.’
He practised for a moment. ‘I saw a low cave at the bottom of the gravina with the prettiest picture of a fan bird etched on it,’ he murmured, trying to give his bird a tail like that of a fan.
‘Do you want me to show you a bull?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me think of how to make one myself.’
He looked at his hands in the shadows and thought for a moment, hiding his middle fingers. She reached up and tried to alter them, but he slapped hers away, irritated. He tried another movement. She made a sound of approval. But then a light flickered across the gravina and she leapt out of bed, creeping to the window.
‘What is it?’ he asked, grabbing his trousers and beginning to dress.
She peered out. ‘It means Gargarin’s on the balconette.’
From where they stood, Froi couldn’t see Gargarin next door, but he saw the dark shape standing at the godshouse balconette across the gravina, the Priestling illuminated by a lantern he held in his hand.
‘It’s what the brothers did last night, and you’ve seen them first thing in the morning. One comes out first and then the other. They don’t speak. They haven’t for such a long time, you know.’ She opened the balconette door. Gargarin was exactly where she said he’d be.
‘Sir Gargarin, is it true that my mother Lirah took a dagger to your chest today?’ she asked, as though it was the most natural thing to ask.
A woman knifed Gargarin. Froi was intrigued and impressed.
‘True indeed,’ Gargarin said.
‘Thankfully she missed your heart.’
‘Many have said it’s in the wrong place anyway, so it was a blessing for me,’ Gargarin said.
‘Poor Lirah.’ Quintana shook her head with dismay. The way she said the words was very dramatic, as though she was in pain.
‘Poor Lirah? What about poor Gargarin?’ Froi said. ‘How did this happen?’
‘Gargarin went to see my mother, Lirah, who’s imprisoned just there across the way,’ she said, pointing up to the prison tower beside them. ‘Lirah managed to retrieve a dagger from her guard and plunged it into Gargarin’s chest.’
Quintana’s tone was as matter-of-fact as the one she used to instruct Froi on how to make shadow puppets.
‘Never thought you were the type to summon such passion from a woman, Gargarin,’ Froi said.
But Gargarin wasn’t listening and Froi followed his gaze across the gravina.
‘Blessed Arjuro!’ Quintana called out with a wave, as if greeting a neighbour. ‘Blessed Arjuro,’ she called out again, just in case he didn’t hear her holler the first time. Blessed Arjuro was either deaf or rude.
She sighed with disappointment. ‘I call out to him each morning, Sir Gargarin, and he gestures with his finger but won’t say a word.’