Arjuro’s eyes filled with tears, shaking his head.
‘They crave each other, Arjuro. Mother and daughter. It’s why we wanted to enter the godshouse all those times, remember?’
‘These gifts are curses,’ Arjuro cried. ‘Curses.’
Later that night, Froi heard Arjuro’s voice waver across the mountain and under the light of the moon he saw Gargarin’s wonder at the beauty of his song. Close by, Lirah held Quintana in her arms, waiting for Arjuro to sing the name they were dreading to hear.
‘Solange of Turla, Argus of Turla and Regina of Turla.’
At the sound of her name, Quintana’s cry was hoarse and full of a grief so profound. ‘Lirah,’ she sobbed. ‘Lirah, I’m dying inside. I’m dying inside without her. Tell him to stop.’
Part of Quintana had left this world and Froi knew that part of him was gone as well.
Chapter 32
For two days they rode in silence. Quintana had only spoken once on the morning after the old man’s death. She had taken Hesta of Turla’s hand in hers.
‘You spent your life tending to the dying, kinswoman Hesta,’ she said. ‘When my son is born I’ll call for you to come help me take care of the living.’
She rode the first day with Lirah, whose own sadness seemed fierce and there were few words spoken for most of their journey down the mountain.
It was a relief to reach the flat plains of Charyn after the backbreaking days on the steep narrow mountain track. Although there was little to see except brown tufts of grass haphazardly appearing from time to time between the rough and broken earth, Froi could tell that their mood had lifted.
‘This is the worst hit area for lack of rain,’ Gargarin told him. ‘It’s one of the reasons Paladozza is a jewel for those travelling from the capital to the east.’
That night they came across a camp of nomads and exchanged a few copper coins for a meal of sugar beets and barley soup, and a tent to share.
‘I’ll ride with her tomorrow,’ Arjuro said, as they watched Lirah coax Quintana into eating something. She had curled herself up inside the tent from the moment they had arrived and still had not spoken.
Froi walked to where Lirah was feeding the horses. He reached out towards one of the animals who tossed its mane, its nostrils flaring.
‘My captain is a great lover of horses,’ he told her. ‘For his birthday last year, the King and Queen found a mighty horse like this after sending the Guard out to search the kingdom high and low.’
‘The Serker breed is the greatest in the land,’ Lirah said. ‘When those from the palace ravaged the province, they kept the horses and they took them to Lumatere five years later.’ She pressed her nose against the animal.
‘Gargarin once told me the ancient tale of a winged horse sent by the gods to Charyn,’ she said. ‘As it fell to earth, its wings were clipped by the branches of a tree in Serker, but its might and beauty stayed. I’d been looking for a reason to love Serker all my life and there it was with that story.’
‘You must have been appreciative,’ Froi said.
‘Yes, so appreciative I let him into my bed.’
Froi looked back towards the tent where Gargarin stood watching. He felt awkward listening to any story about Gargarin and Lirah, but he was more frightened by Lirah’s silence than her words.
‘How did you cross each other’s paths in the palace?’ he asked.
She stared across the open space, a restlessness to her.
‘He liked to please the king,’ she said quietly. ‘I was the reward.’
‘You were Gargarin’s whore?’ Froi asked flatly.
She sighed. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘Whenever Gargarin says those words it means the end of a conversation,’ he said. Her eyes met his and then he saw a ghost of a smile on her face.
‘He was shamed by the King’s offer. “We can sit and talk,” he told me the first time. I knew the stories of his Priestling brother and suspected that Gargarin preferred the company of men in the same way. I told him there was nothing to speak of. I had lived in the palace since I was thirteen and before that I lived in savage Serker. The only thing I cared to remember from life in Serker was that I loved horses. It was my one indulgence in the palace. Gargarin, as you can probably tell by his riding, didn’t care for horses and that ended our conversation the first night.’
She stroked the horse’s mane, looking across the plain once more.
‘Do you want me to race you?’ Froi asked. Lirah was used to a cell and a small garden. He should have known she would crave space. Her eyes, usually so cold and condemning, flashed with excitement and they both mounted their horses. Lirah was off before he could give the command. She was a good rider, better than him, despite her years of imprisonment. Froi hadn’t been on a horse until three years ago when he met Finnikin and Isaboe on their travels. It was Trevanion who had taught him to ride well, although he and Perri had conceded that Froi was not a natural on a horse. But it was in Froi to be fearless and reckless so he took more chances with speed and caught up with Lirah.
‘The next time Gargarin pleased the King, I was given a history of Serker,’ she continued, her usual bitter expression replaced with a glow. ‘He loved to explain things and in my twenty years of living, no one had ever treated me as anything but a possession. The time after that he read to me. The times after that he began to teach me to read. By winter I could read and write, and by the summer, I knew I was in love with him.’
Lirah looked back to where Gargarin still stood in the distance, watching.
‘Yet he had not laid a hand on me.’
Froi shook his head with disbelief. ‘Only Gargarin.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, only him. So I seduced him,’ she said quietly. ‘All those years a whore, but I had never wanted to seduce a man until then.’
She looked at him with a wolfish expression. ‘Do you know how I did it?’
‘Is it going to make me blush?’
‘No,’ she laughed. It transformed her face for a moment and Froi loved nothing more than knowing he could make Lirah laugh.
‘I recited to him love poetry written by the water god when he was courting the earth goddess. The man had taught me to read, so I rewarded him with words of passion.’
Froi waited, wanting more. ‘What did he do then?’
‘He pleased the King every opportunity he could.’
Froi couldn’t help laughing.
‘And we spent that year with Arjuro and De Lancey. They hated me. I hated them. Gargarin loved us all. We all loved Gargarin and those three lads felt as if nothing evil would ever touch their lives.’
The sadness was back there on her face.
‘Then the slaughter in the godshouse happened and everything changed. Arjuro was arrested and Gargarin was inconsolable. Mark my words, he will never ever love anyone as much as his brother, despite everything.’
There was no envy in her voice, only regret.
‘Gargarin was desperate to find a way to have Arjuro set free and began making plans to take us all to Lumatere.’
‘Lumatere?’ Froi said, surprised.
She nodded. ‘He said they had good rainfall.’
They both exchanged a look and laughed.
‘You can imagine what type of strange man he’ll be as he grows old,’ she said.
They made their way back to the nomad camp and already Froi felt as if he was losing Lirah back to her cold spirit.
‘Did Gargarin believe it was his child you carried?’ he asked.
‘I think he hoped,’ she said. ‘But didn’t care. It’s strange to meet a man who doesn’t judge.’
She looked at Froi, the hard expression back on her face.
‘In light of all our truths, do you wonder how I could imagine that he was a murderer of a blessed woman and a babe?’