‘About Quintana –’ he began, but she cut him off.
‘I don’t answer questions about Quintana to strangers.’
‘I’m forced to share her bed,’ he said. ‘How can I be a stranger to her?’
‘You ask that of a whore?’ Her eyes flashed with anger, but Froi saw pain there too.
‘Is it true that there’s more than one living inside her head?’
‘Are you asking me if she’s mad?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Do you know what those in the palace say?’ Lirah said. ‘That the King should have tossed her the moment she was born.’
Lirah shuddered at the sound of her own words.
‘Was she always so strange?’ Froi asked.
‘You find her strange?’ she said, harshly. ‘When as a child she managed to separate parts of herself and make them whole beings? Each situation requires a different Quintana. But she survived. In this cesspit. That’s not strange or mad.’ Lirah sent him one of her scathing looks. ‘It’s pure genius. Do you think she was like you or the rest of the lastborns? You may not have been born into wealth, Olivier of Sebastabol, but you’ve been pampered by your province and your mother and father all your life.’
‘Wrong person to say that to,’ he said quietly. ‘Anyway, aren’t you convinced I’m from Serker?’
She looked at him closely. ‘You’re orphaned?’
Froi didn’t respond. ‘Regardless, Quintana wasn’t orphaned. So it can’t have been that bad for her. She had the King, and she had you, her mother.’
Lirah’s laugh was bitter. ‘The King? Have you met the King? A more degenerate man doesn’t exist in Charyn or the land of Skuldenore. The only thing the gods did right was to instil a fear in him of his own daughter because if they hadn’t, his wickedness would have shattered her body and her mind.’
Froi’s blood ran cold. In Lirah’s mind, Quintana may have escaped the depravity of her father, but he knew she hadn’t managed to hide from Bestiano.
‘The gods gave her you,’ he said. ‘That must count for something.’
Lirah gave a laugh of bitter disbelief. ‘Do you know why I’m here? In this prison?’
‘You tried to kill someone. Apart from Gargarin. Was it a man you were forced to bed?’ And then a thought came to him. ‘Sagra! You tried to kill the King?’
She shook her head.
‘There are not many places to hide a dagger when you’re taken to the King’s chamber as his whore.’
Froi stared at her. Wanted to tell her he understood. Wanted to confess the depravity in his own life on the streets of the Sarnak capital as a child. But there was too much shame. Girls were small and helpless. Boys should be able to protect themselves, no matter how young or slight in build.
She stood, brushing the dirt from her shift.
‘What do you think of the cold one? The one that seems to be in charge?’ she asked.
Froi shrugged. ‘I like it better when she’s not around me.’
Lirah collected her pots and string and walked towards her prison. ‘She’s the one to fear. She’ll make you do things that break your heart.’
When it came time to visit Arjuro at the godshouse again, Froi didn’t have the nerve to leap over the gravina. The first time had been enough. Arjuro kept the window to the balconette shut and the curtain drawn most days, but Froi was patient, and one morning he intruded on the brotherly ritual. ‘Arjuro! I’m knocking on the door at midday,’ he shouted. ‘Be sure to open for me.’
Gargarin stared at him with disbelief. ‘Does the word street lords not mean anything to you?’ he asked.
‘Two words, not one. Street. Lords. Care to join me?’ Froi asked. ‘As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Priestling’s messenger.’
Arjuro, of course, didn’t play by the rules and Froi was forced to hammer the door for what seemed hours.
‘Didn’t think you’d be back here,’ the Priestling muttered, bleary-eyed.
‘Why wouldn’t I when there’s so much fun to be had in the Citavita?’ Froi said. ‘This what you’re looking for?’ he asked, holding up a casket he had stolen from the cellars. The Priestling was drunk, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. They studied Froi fiercely.
Froi followed him up the dark space. He’d lost count of the steps and almost understood Arjuro’s reluctance to open the door. When they reached the Hall of Illumination, Froi walked to the balconette where he could see Gargarin watching them from across the gravina. Gargarin didn’t usually stand out on the balconette at this hour of the day, but Froi suspected he was there to see what Froi was up to.
‘Last night I dreamt of the three,’ Arjuro said over his shoulder. ‘Did he?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Gargarin, myself and a third who didn’t live. Throughout my life the third has returned to me in my dreams, and he has returned to me these seven nights past. I wager if you ask my brother, he’ll say the same.’
‘Is it because you have the same face? Do you dream the same things? Sense each other?’
‘It’s because of the third. He haunts us when he needs to. He was born dead.’
‘Arjuro, you’re not making sense,’ Froi said.
Arjuro was quiet a moment, as though he regretted speaking.
‘Tell me about the third,’ Froi persisted.
‘Our poor mother was a girl of fourteen. She refused to believe the third was dead and kept him in the cot alongside Gargarin and myself. Placed him on her breast as if he lived and had the life in him to suckle. Until flies and maggots crawled over us. It’s what our father used to say. “You should have been choked by the maggots and flies that shared your cot.” ’
‘He was a charming man,’ Froi said, repulsed.
‘Is,’ Arjuro corrected. ‘He’s still alive. A madman, frightened of anything strange, and three babes with the same face was too strange for him. So he told all in Abroi that there was only one.’
‘How could he do that if two lived?’
‘By hiding us in a hovel underneath the cottage. When we were four and old enough to work the farm, he would take us out to work one day at a time.’
Froi could not understand what Arjuro was saying. He placed a hand over the cup to stop the Priestling from pouring another drink. Arjuro looked at him and flinched. ‘You have the face of a cruel man, Olivier of Sebastabol.’
‘But it’s in me to be kind,’ Froi said. ‘Talk.’
Arjuro pointed to the cup and Froi removed his hand.
‘We had one name. The word for nothing in the Abroin dialect. Dafar. Nothing. One day I was Dafar and my brother stayed in the hole. The next day he was Dafar and I stayed in the hole.’
Froi was breathless. ‘Madness,’ he whispered.
Arjuro nodded. ‘We named each other. Gargarin is not a Charynite name. I liked Arjuro. Gar and Ari.’ Arjuro smiled for a moment. ‘They were two adventurers in the year one hundred who wrote tales claiming they had gone beyond the Ocean of Skuldenore.’
Arjuro swallowed a cupful of wine, soaking his beard.
‘There was never a time when my brother wasn’t taking care of me. It was Gar who always had the plans to protect us from our father. I received the gift of godspeak when I was six years old, and Gar and I clutched onto each other with such joy that day. The walls of our hovel were filled with words of wonder. Blessings from the gods, wisdom from the Ancients. Gargarin’s time would come soon, we’d tell each other. We could not imagine a gift bestowed on one and not the other. What it took others months to learn, I could do in a moment. Read. Write. Translate for the gods. I wrote the symbols and taught Gargarin, for only the gods’ touched could read the raw words written by the gods themselves, and in Abroi we had the oldest caves in the kingdom. And we waited for his gift and waited, telling ourselves we would escape from the swamp of Abroi the moment it came. But it didn’t. Gargarin had not been chosen.’
Froi saw tears in Arjuro’s eyes, as though the moment he remembered had taken place just the day before.
‘Our father, being an ignorant man, was frightened by intellect and reason. And he was even more frightened by what could not be explained. He believed he could thrash it out of me, this gift that had others in awe.’ A flash of pain crossed Arjuro’s face.