He followed Lirah and Arjuro beyond the level that housed the Hall of Illumination and onto the rooftop where Froi was surprised to see a garden. Lirah looked over to where her palace prison tower could be seen. How many times had these two former enemies caught sight of each other tending to their gardens?
No one spoke for a while. The scene with the soothsayer had unnerved them all and there were too many unanswered questions.
Arjuro began yanking out his plants, placing those with roots inside a glass bottle, preserving the seed. Froi recognised a white plant from the Priestking’s garden. The yarrow plant was a physician’s best friend, according to the Priestking. Zabat had spoken of Arjuro being a physician once, and the herbs and saplings in his garden would have been the tools of Arjuro’s trade.
Froi sat beside Lirah. They studied each other, her beautiful eyes confused and full of disbelief, as though wondering how someone as plain as Froi could have come from her loins and Gargarin’s seed. He reached over and took her hand, placing a bag of coins in her palm.
‘Get out of the Citavita, Lirah,’ he said quietly. ‘They’ve got nothing else to loot and they’ll come here next.’
‘Where did you get this?’ she asked, her voice husky.
‘Where do you think? I’m a thief.’
She pushed the bag back into his hands. ‘Then use it to return home, wherever that is. I’m a whore, so I think I can find my own means out.’
Arjuro stood, sighing. ‘When you’re both finished trying to frighten each other away with the sordidness of your pasts, can you help me please?’
Froi and Lirah collected the baskets of bottles and seedlings and followed Arjuro inside.
‘Have you heard anything?’ Froi asked over their shoulders as he stooped down into the low stairwell.
‘Good news or bad news?’ Arjuro asked.
‘Bad.’
‘De Lancey has lost contact with the street pigs.’
‘Good news.’
‘They’ve not returned a corpse,’ Arjuro said flatly.
Arjuro stopped and waited for Lirah to be out of earshot. They watched her disappear into the Hall of Illumination.
‘The scribe has almost accounted for everyone,’ Arjuro said. ‘They’re down to the last few.’
‘Is there anything …’
Arjuro shook his head. ‘None of the Provincari will risk their lives or their men’s lives on her. Even if one or two were willing, they’d be outnumbered. The street pigs have control of the whole Citavita.’
‘She’s their Princess,’ Froi said angrily.
‘But not their heir, Froi. At least if she was the cursebreaker she would hold some power, but she’s worth nothing. The Provincari need to secure the kingdom. The only way to do that is to place Tariq of Lascow on the throne.’
Froi bristled to hear the words. Too many lives worth nothing.
‘You may as well toss yourself into the gravina now if you’re fool enough to try and save her,’ Arjuro said.
‘I wasn’t sent here to save her,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not part of my bond.’
For the rest of the week he stood alongside Arjuro and Lirah to watch the hangings. When they were certain that Gargarin and Quintana remained alive for one day more, all three would walk back up to the godshouse where talk of the street lords entering the sacred space would send those taking refuge into a frenzy. The streets became even more crowded, with most Citavitans now desperate to escape the violence that was rife. Looting had begun. A potter had been killed trying to protect his stall. A stampede at the bridge caused the death of seven others. It was each man or woman out for themself.
At the end of the week, it was Aunt Mawfa’s turn, and her hanging was hideous beyond imagining. Froi thought of the men he had killed in Lumatere. If he was grateful for anything, it was that most times, he did not see their fear. But here in the Citavita, fear made people beg. Fear was piss running down the legs of those who once stood pompous and proud. Fear was a bloodcurdling cry that rang through one’s ears for days to come. All he would ever remember about Lady Mawfa’s hanging were her little plump legs dangling and how, out of all the deaths, it would have been the one to make Quintana weep.
But he returned day after day, waiting for her to appear. She is worth nothing, Arjuro had said. If Froi understood anything, it was that in this world one’s worth came from others. He had no worth until he crossed the path of the novice Evanjalin and Finnikin. So he found himself writing his own bond to Quintana of Charyn. Her worth would come from him and Lirah and the idiot lastborns. She would not die alone. That would be his bond to her.
And then the day they were dreading came when there was no one to account for but Quintana and Gargarin. When the street lords dragged them out, Froi had a moment’s foolish thought that perhaps he could rescue them, but he was unarmed and there were too many desperate Charynites surrounding him, begging for more blood. He reminded himself, as he had every day since the death of the King, that he had not been sent to this kingdom to rescue a Princess. He had been sent to wipe out the royal seed of Charyn, but there had been too many men in this kingdom ready to do that for him.
He was barely able to recognise Quintana with her bloodstained ugly dress, her filthy face, hair in knots. The crowd cried out for blood. Hers. Froi prayed to whoever was listening that Quintana the ice maiden would be in her head this day. But he knew in an instant it was the Princess Indignant. It was the way she wept and fell on her knees begging, crying out the words, ‘I carry the first! I carry the first!’ until the street pigs dragged her to her feet by her hair.
Gargarin was trussed, and it had been a savage beating he had received this past week. But Froi knew that Gargarin would be released. De Lancey had paid half the amount of gold only and the street pigs would get the other half when Gargarin was safe. Today, it would be Quintana’s day to die.
Without his staff, Gargarin collapsed on the raised floor above them for the umpteenth time. Froi heard Arjuro’s broken whisper, ‘Stay down, my brother. Stay down,’ and Froi wanted to reach out to him in some sort of comfort. He had realised many times in the past weeks that if anything, Arjuro of Abroi was blood. Without thinking, Froi pushed through the crowd until he was at the platform, his head level with Gargarin who lay face down, blood pouring from his nose.
‘Are you finished with him?’ Froi asked the street lords. The man guarding Gargarin kicked him off the platform viciously and he fell at Froi’s feet. In an instant, De Lancey and his guard were there, half-carrying Gargarin away.
‘Do something,’ Froi begged the Provincaro. ‘Do something for her.’
‘We’ve been promised the road out of here, lad,’ De Lancey whispered. ‘The best I can do is leave and raise an army to take back the Citavita.’
Froi watched two of the street lords drag Quintana to the raised block, and oh, how she fought. To the very last moment she fought, and when the hangman placed the noose around her neck, Froi knew it was Lirah who cried out in a way that tore at him. Froi finally understood what she had tried to do so long ago, in that tub of water. She had tried to take this wretched creature to a better place. To prevent this moment of horror.
And then a bellowing cry rang out. A war cry? Froi swung around, searching for anything. Any sign. He thought he saw something, but couldn’t quite believe it. The lastborns? Three of the most useless fighters in existence. He had seen Trevanion teach Vestie of the Flatlands to use a bow and even she could hit a target, despite the distance. One of them, Grijio of Paladozza perhaps, fell out of a branch overlooking the platform. In the crowd, Olivier of Sebastabol bellowed yet another war cry, while Satch of Desantos tried to jab at the legs of the street lords on the podium.