‘He’s filling out more than we imagined, Perri,’ Finnikin said. ’Perhaps it’s true what they say, after all. That he comes from River folk.’
‘Wouldn’t mind being known as a River man,’ Froi said.
Still nothing from Perri.
‘Not as a Flatlander?’ Finnikin asked.
Froi thought about it for a moment. ‘Perhaps both.’
He saw Perri’s look of disapproval.
‘You can’t stay working on Augie’s farm much longer,’ Perri said firmly. ‘Sooner or later, you’ll have to join the Guard.’
The topic of where Froi belonged came up more often these days. What had begun as a roof over his head three years ago with Lord August and his family, had become home. And Froi’s kinship with the village of Sayles had strengthened as he toiled alongside them, day in and day out, to restore Lumatere to what it had been before the unspeakable. But Froi’s place was also with the Captain and Perri and the men of the Guard in the barracks of the palace, protecting the Queen and Finnikin and their daughter, Princess Jasmina. Once a boy with no home, Froi now found himself torn between two.
‘I can do both.’
‘No, you can’t,’ Perri said.
‘I can do both, I tell you!’
‘You’ve a warrior’s instinct and the skill of a marksman, Froi,’ Perri said. ‘You’re wasted as a farm boy. It’s what I tell Augie every time I see him.’
‘Lady Abian says I’m probably eighteen by now, so you’ll have to start treating me as one of the men,’ Froi muttered. He hated being called a boy.
This was followed by another stare from Perri. Another round of counting to ten from Froi.
‘I’ll treat you like a man when you act like one,’ Perri said. ‘Agreed?’
Finnikin shoved him again and Froi tried not to laugh because Perri hated it when Froi didn’t take things seriously.
‘When I’m as old as my father, they’ll still be calling me a boy,’ Finnikin said. ‘So why shouldn’t you endure the indignity of it all as well?’
‘Oh Finn, Finn, the indignity of it all,’ Froi mocked and Finnikin grabbed him around the neck, squeezing tight.
At the horse posts, Froi tossed the stable boy a coin as they collected their mounts. The boy gave Finnikin a note and Froi saw irritation and then a ghost of a smile appear on his friend’s face.
‘I’ll ride ahead to the inn,’ Finnikin said.
‘Not unescorted, you won’t,’ Perri said.
‘It’s around the bend in this road. Nothing can happen to me from here to there.’
Froi rubbed noses with his horse. He knew this argument would last a moment or two.
‘Anything can happen,’ Perri said.
‘Suppose around the bend are ten Charynite scumsters, waiting to jump you,’ Froi said, mounting the horse.
Finnikin shot Froi a scathing look. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side, Froi. And how do you suppose Charynite –’
‘Scumsters,’ Froi finished.
‘How do you suppose Charynite scumsters got up the mountain and passed the Mont sentinels?’
‘All it takes is for one of them to slip through,’ Perri said.
But Finnikin was already on the horse, trotting away.
‘I’ll see you at the inn,’ he called out over his shoulder. He broke into a gallop and was gone.
‘I think he forgets his place sometimes,’ Perri murmured, staring after Finnikin. ’He still believes he can come and go as though he’s some messenger boy.’
There was silence between them again as they rode to the inn. Froi watched Perri carefully. He wondered if Perri would stay mad for long. Despite most things from Froi’s mouth coming out wrong, he hated disappointing Perri or the Captain.
‘I can take leave from the farm, Perri,’ he said quietly. ‘Especially when it comes time to travel into Charyn and do what we have to do.’
Perri was silent for a moment. ‘What makes you think I’m taking you to Charyn?’
‘Because you’ve taught me everything I know about …’ Froi shrugged. ‘You know.’
‘Killing,’ Perri said bitterly.
‘And when I’m not training with you or working on the farm, then I’m with the Priestking being taught to speak the tongue of our enemy.’ He gave Perri a sidewards glance. ‘So the way I see it,
that
says you’re taking me to Charyn.’
Perri was silent for a moment. ‘You know what the Priestking says?’
‘
Sagra!
’ Froi cursed. He knew he was going to get another serving from Perri.
‘He says that you don’t have time for your studies anymore. That you think there’s no merit in learning and stories.’
‘I’ve learnt all I need to,’ Froi said. ‘Studies and learning and stories won’t protect the kingdom and they won’t reap harvests.’
Perri shook his head. ‘I would have given anything to be taught at your age. The Priestking says you’re a natural, Froi. That you pick up facts and foreign words and that you understand ideas that are beyond many of us. Who would have thought that hidden beneath all the talking back and fighting was a sharp mind? But it means nothing to the Captain or me when you show little control over your actions and words.’
Froi took a deep breath and counted, making sure he didn’t take it out on the horse.
‘You’re not training anyone else, are you, Perri?’ he managed to ask, trying to hold back his fury at the thought. ‘Not Sefton or that scrawny fool from the Rock? They think too much. You can see it on their faces. And they’d never bear a torture. Never.’
Perri looked at him and Froi saw his eyes soften.
‘And you would?’
‘You know me, Perri,’ Froi said fiercely. ‘You know that if you wrote me a bond and told me what to bear, I’d bear it. You know me. Have I let you or the Captain down once these past three years, hunting those traitors?’
In the distance, a Flatlander was harnessed to his plough, working a field on his own. Froi and Perri held up a hand in acknowledgement and the man waved back.
‘When the time comes, we will have only one chance to get into that palace,’ Perri said. ‘There will be no room for mistakes. Their army combined is more than our entire people and if we make the slightest of errors, there will be a war to end all wars across this land.’
There was a flash of anguish on Perri’s face. Froi saw it on everyone’s expression once in a while, especially those who remembered life as it once was. Froi didn’t feel the sadness. Despite Isaboe and Finnikin’s belief that he was one of the children lost to the kingdom thirteen years ago when the impostor King took control, Froi remembered nothing about Lumatere. All he had known was life on the streets in another kingdom, where a chance meeting with Finnikin and the Queen changed his life. In a secret part of him, Froi revelled in what he had gained from Lumatere’s curse. He never looked back because if he did, he would have to think of the shame and the baseness of who he had once been without his bond. He would do anything to prove his worth to the Queen and Finnikin. Even kill. It was what he had been taught to do these past years. Over and over again.
Although every Lumateran had been trained to use a bow to defend the kingdom, Froi had stood out and was hand-picked by Trevanion and Perri to work alongside them. He was swift and had mastered any skill thrown his way. The first time Froi was sent into the home of a traitor with a dagger and sword, Captain Trevanion had made him vow it would not end with death. They needed the man alive. What they required was information about the bodies of ten Flatland lads who had gone missing in the fifth year of the curse under the cruel reign of the impostor King. Froi studied the information and had gone in with vengeance in his heart. This man had been a traitor, a collaborator. He had spied for the impostor King and betrayed his neighbours. In the end Froi had kept the man alive. Barely. From the information he forced out of him, they found the remains of the lads and were able to put them to rest seven years after they were slain. If the lads had lived they would have been a year or two older than Froi today. Despite the passing of time, the grief from the families on the day of the burials was indescribable. What Froi had done to get that confession was worse.
But the punishment of most other traitors was different. When the palace was certain beyond doubt of their guilt, Captain Trevanion and Perri would ensure that retribution was quick and out of plain sight of the people of Lumatere, who had already seen enough bloodshed.
‘Don’t you just want to tear out their hearts?’ Froi had asked both his captain and Perri one day when they had marked a traitor from a distance and shot an arrow into his chest. That the man died quickly with no fear or pain disturbed Froi.
‘You can’t go around feeling too much,’ Captain Trevanion had explained, watching a moment to ensure the man was indeed dead. ‘Because if you feel too much, enough to want to kill them so savagely, then one day you’re going to feel enough to spare their lives. Don’t ever let emotion get in the way. Just follow orders. Most times the orders you follow will be the right ones.’
Most times.
Sometimes it was a snap of the neck. Other times a dagger across the throat or a blade piercing the heart. But it was always clean and quick. More than once they found a small band of the dead impostor King’s soldiers in hiding, deserters from his army seeking refuge in the forest at the far corner of the western border. Many of them had fled when Trevanion and his Guard had entered the kingdom to set their people free. Although the impostor King was half-Lumateran, he was also a Charynite and his army was mostly made up of Charynites. Those soldiers now filled Lumatere’s prison while Finnikin and Sir Topher endeavoured to prove guilt or innocence by collecting evidence and testimonials. More than a hundred prisoners had been released and returned to Charyn.
Perri and Froi came to the outskirts of Balconio where cottages began to appear. They passed a fallow field and Froi heard Perri murmur words that he had heard over and over again each time anyone passed a fallow field. It was a prayer to the Goddess that the soil would regain its fertility. In the last days of the curse, the impostor King had set alight most of the Flatlands.
‘There’s talk that Isaboe and Finn will sell the village of Fenton,’ Froi said.
‘Queen Isaboe. The Queen’s Consort,’ Perri corrected.
Froi made a rude sound. ‘Every time I call Finn the Consort anything, he wrestles me and he’s no skinny thing anymore.’
‘It’s hard for him,’ Perri said quietly. ‘No matter how strong his union with the Queen, he has much to prove.’
‘He doesn’t have to prove himself to her,’ Froi said.
‘But he has to prove himself
because
of her.’
Froi was distracted a moment by the rotted crop of cabbage that lined the road. He leapt off the horse and crouched, feeling the soil, shaking his head at the waste of it all. This year Lord August had decided to use a water system created by a soldier in the impostor King’s army. It was the only thing of worth the enemy had contributed, apart from some of the most stunning horses Froi had ever seen. But many of the Flatlanders refused to adopt the Charynite methods, despite the fact that their crops were dying.
‘They are fools,’ Froi said, looking up at Perri.
‘Don’t underestimate how deepfelt the hatred is,’ Perri said. ‘They see it as the method of an enemy and they don’t want a part of it.’
‘So they’d prefer that their crops die and their people half starve! I told Gardo of the Flatlands that he was a horse’s arse just the other day. What kind of man wastes his crop for the sake of pride?’
‘You need to refrain from insulting the villagers, Froi,’ Perri laughed. ‘They have daughters. You’re going to have to bond yourself to one of them sooner or later.’
Froi stiffened. ’I have a bond to my queen.’ He mounted his horse, steering it back onto the road.
He heard Perri sigh. ‘Froi, it was a worthy promise at the time, but you can’t spend the rest of your life refusing the pleasures of laying with a woman.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it alters nothing of the past,’ Perri said firmly. ‘You can’t change who you were. If anyone realises that, I do.’
Froi looked away. He didn’t know how much Perri knew. Didn’t want to know, really. It brought him too much shame. Three years ago on their travels, when the Queen was disguised as the novice Evanjalin, and Froi was a filthy thief they had picked up along the way, he had tried to force himself on her. On the streets of the Sarnak capital where he grew up, the men had taught him that power was survival. The Lumaterans had spent three years trying to unteach what he knew. Some nights he woke in a sweat remembering what he had done. The Queen had spoken about it only once since they entered Lumatere. It was when a member of her Guard, Aldron, was sent on palace business with Finnikin, and Froi had been chosen to replace Aldron.
‘Are you sure?’ he had asked her quietly as they stood at the bailey, watching Finnikin and Aldron ride away.
‘That you can protect me?’ she said, her eyes still out in the distance where Finnikin and Aldron were tiny specks on the horizon. ‘Trevanion claims there’s no one better than you, Froi. But if you’re asking if I’m sure you won’t hurt me, then yes I am.’
Froi had felt pride and relief.
Her dark eyes were suddenly on him and he shivered at the memory of their fierceness. ‘But I’ve told you before, I will never forget.
Ever
. And nor will you. It’s part of the bond you made to me that day we freed you from the slave traders. Do you remember?’
Froi would never forget. ‘That if I ever harm a woman you’ll have me hanged and quartered.’ And she would. That he knew.
Most days, he feared that a monster of great baseness lived inside him, fighting to set itself free. Killing the traitors of Lumatere for Isaboe made sense. But killing also fed the monster. He could not bear the idea of letting that monster free amongst the girls of Lumatere. So Froi kept away from them.
‘It’s the only way of proving myself to the Queen,’ he muttered to Perri as they entered Balconio.
‘Find another way,’ Perri said.
Froi shook his head. ’I don’t trust myself.’
They reached the inn where they would wait until Finnikin’s meeting with the Ambassador of Sarnak was over. The village of Balconio sat on the Skuldenore River at the foot of mountains. It could easily have been a village of ghosts. Many of its people had died in exile. But the Queen and Finnikin had decided that an inn in such a place would attract customers and give life to Balconio. They had approached the people of one of the surviving villages and proposed their plan. Froi had once heard Lord August tell Lady Abian that it was a smart decision. One day when the gates of Lumatere were open to the rest of the land, the inn would be the perfect place for trade. Despite their wariness of foreigners, the Queen and Finnikin knew that to survive they would have to do business with neighbours. This inn and the export of silver from the mines to their neighbouring allies, Belegonia and Osteria, was the first step. Most nights, the Balconio Inn was filled with Monts on their way to the palace village or merchants and farmers trading their goods and skills, but this past year the people of the neighbouring villages had begun to venture out of their homes for enjoyment rather than necessity. It helped that the inn also boasted the best ale in the kingdom.