When he approached Evanjalin, she stared up at him, as if questioning the time it had taken him to join her. He squatted beside her, refusing to give in to his anger. Living with Sir Topher had taught him how to harness his feelings.
“Who is in charge here?” he asked quietly.
Without speech, she had only her eyes to communicate, but she used them well.
“This hand,” he said, pointing to his left, “if I am. Or this hand,” he said, pointing to his right, “if you are.” He held them out to her, and she tapped his left hand gently.
He pulled her to her feet. “Good,” he said, pleased with her choice.
Suddenly her body tensed. She looked over his shoulder, and then she was pushing past him. He had no choice but to follow. He could see the young thief disappearing into the maze of alleyways beyond the square.
She was fast; that he knew from the night before. Although she was hindered by her shift, Finnikin struggled to keep up with her. The chase was short, for the boy made the same mistake he had the previous night and led them into an alleyway that seemed to go nowhere.
He’s not from here, Finnikin thought.
Evanjalin backed the boy into a corner and held out her hand. She received a backhand to her face for her effort; and she staggered from the impact. Finnikin gripped the thief by the coarse cloth of his jerkin and threw him against the stone wall, pinning him there with a hand to his throat. He went through the thief’s pockets and found four pieces of silver. When he showed the girl the coins, she grabbed them, flinging them with the same rage he had glimpsed the night before.
“What did you do with the ring?” Finnikin asked the thief, shaking him.
The boy spat in Finnikin’s face.
“Not the response I’m after,” Finnikin said, hurling the thief away from the wall. “Now we play it this way. Back there by the spring are slave traders from Sorel. I’d recognize them anywhere. They stink of shit because that’s all their victims do around them, from the fear of knowing where they are going to be taken.”
The thief mocked a whimper. He spat in Finnikin’s face again, this time straight in his eye. Wiping it slowly, Finnikin stared at him furiously, then dragged him out of the alleyway, with the novice trailing behind. “Get the silver, Evanjalin,” he ordered.
The boy tried to escape by pulling out of his clothing.
“What you doing?”
Finnikin could hear a trace of alarm in the thief’s voice. He’d used Sarnak words, clumsily spoken.
“Trading you for a horse.” Finnikin took a long deliberate look at the boy. “Oh, and they do like them young.”
The thief continued to struggle, but Finnikin held on tightly, almost choking him. “Peddler from Osteria,” the boy wheezed. “Said it fake anyway.”
The novice slapped him. Her eyes were glinting with tears. Finnikin tried not to imagine what he would do if the thief had sold Trevanion’s sword.
“He’s not worth it. Let’s go.”
But the novice would not move. She stared at the youth, eyes blazing.
The thief repeated his favorite gesture by spitting in her face. He wore a black felt cap that came down to his eyes. They were a nondescript color, strawlike perhaps, and Finnikin could see his features were beginning to display a blunt cruelty, a mouth forever in a sneer. He had the build of one who would thicken with age, evident by the size of his fists. But he was young, at least five years their junior. Finnikin wondered how many more of his kind were roaming these streets.
“They come hunting,” the thief said. “Hunt you people down.”
He spoke like a foreigner, and it was in that moment Finnikin realized where the boy came from. There was a glassy look in his eyes that Finnikin had not seen since he was separated briefly from Sir Topher at the age of twelve and placed in a prison in the Osterian capital. There had been Lumateran exiles with him, children whose parents had either been killed during the five days of the unspeakable or died of the fever. Some of the children did not know their own names and couldn’t speak a word of any language. A shared origin meant nothing in that prison, and he could tell it meant nothing to this boy, who would have been no more than three or four when his family escaped from Lumatere.
Finnikin didn’t need to ask who would be hunting them. In Sarnak there was always someone. Perhaps a pack of youths. Or bitter men, no longer able to put food on the table for their families. Finnikin was certain the thief would betray them to the first person who would listen, for any price. When the novice caught his eye, he knew what they had to do.
Sir Topher stared at the three of them with his usual aplomb. “So now our little party has a horse and a thief?”
Finnikin secured the rope around the boy’s hands. “It’s either him or a pack of Sarnaks he will send in our direction.”
Sir Topher looked at the thief. “What’s your name, boy?”
The thief spat.
“It’s his favorite response,” Finnikin said dryly. “We can dump him in Charyn.”
“Not if we find exiles there, and I suspect we will. Perhaps Sorel.”
“I think he’d like Sorel,” Finnikin said. He turned to the thief. “Heard of the prison mines there?”
The boy paled, and Finnikin looked at Sir Topher, pleased. “Good. He seems familiar with them.” He glanced over to where the novice was huddled under the tree, her hands covering her head. “He sold her ring.”
Sir Topher sighed. “As soon as we’re in Sorel, we won’t have to worry anymore.”
A fortnight, Finnikin calculated as Sir Topher began loading up the horse. That was all they needed before the thief from Sarnak and the novice Evanjalin were out of their lives forever.
It was always their eyes that gave away their Lumateran heritage, and this time was no different. As they entered the gates of Charyn, the two guards snickered and Finnikin heard one of them mutter, “Dogs.” Whether from the Rock or the River or the Flatlands, whether dark or fair, Lumaterans all had eyes that were set deep in their sockets. Finnikin had heard that the king of Charyn had once ordered his guards to measure the distance of a Lumateran prisoner’s eyes from his nose, deeming them too close and therefore not human. He hated this kingdom. The one time he and Sir Topher had visited the Charyn court in the early years of their exile, he had feared for their lives. There were strange and sinister occurrences in the palace that week, bloodcurdling screams in the night and shouts of rage. Many claimed that the royal blood was tainted and that the king and his offspring were all half-mad.
The path that led to the capital was lined with stone houses. They were bare except for their doorways, which were crowned with rosebushes that had not yet bloomed. Although it would take them at least ten days, they planned to travel along one of the three rivers in Charyn that ran into Sorel. If there were exiles to be found, the river was the place to find them. Lumaterans were nothing if not sentimental, drawn to any place that resembled the physical landscape of their lost world.
Four days later, they found a camp. From where they stood at the top of a ridge, they could see a small settlement of about fifty exiles. Finnikin led the way down, clutching onto branches as he slid toward the flat narrow bank where the tents were pitched.
Two of the exiles, a man and a woman, came forward to meet them. As usual, there was a moment’s distrust in their eyes. Despite the distance between camps, the exiles had heard stories of what had taken place in other kingdoms and were aware of their own vulnerability. In their travels, Finnikin and Sir Topher had often come across the same exiles year after year, but these people were unfamiliar. They had obviously kept themselves well hidden.
Sir Topher made his introductions, and the man stared at Finnikin. Then he nodded and extended his arm, bent at the elbow, fist clenched. The greeting of Lumateran River people.
“Son of Trevanion,” the man acknowledged.
Finnikin raised his arm in a similar way and clasped the other man’s hand.
“We lived on the riv
er as children, when Trevanion returned to defend it,” the woman explained. “My name is Emmian, and this is my husband, Cibrian.”
It did not surprise Finnikin that the Lumateran River people had taken charge of the exiles here, as they had in many of the other camps. Along with the Monts, they had been the toughest of their people.
“Your mother’s kin were from the Rock, Finnikin,” Cibrian said.
Finnikin nodded. “I spent most of my childhood there, with my great-aunt, except when my father was on leave.”
“Have you crossed their paths on your travels? I have a sister wed to the shoemaker of the Rock.”
“I remember him well,” Finnikin said with a smile. “But we have encountered few from the Rock Village. We think that most stayed when the elders gave the order. I doubt that any of them left the kingdom unless they were in the square that day.”
“It is hard to say whether that is a blessing or a curse,” Emmian said quietly.
Cibrian led them to the rest of his people, and Finnikin exchanged nods of acknowledgment with a group of exiles his own age. Seeing them made him think of Balthazar and Lucian, imagining the lads they would have grown up to be.
A sprinkle of rain began to fall, and they followed Cibrian to his dwelling. The exiles were well equipped. Their tents were made of tough horse hide; there were plenty of provisions and even a few goats. Finnikin suspected that some of the exiles had found work in the nearest village. The children seemed healthier than most camp children, and he wondered if there was a healer among them.
“We have been lucky this spring to have received the benevolence of Lord August of the Flatlands, an acquaintance of yours, I hear,” Cibrian said to Sir Topher. “He requested that we look out for the son of Trevanion and the king’s First Man.”
Sir Topher exchanged a glance with Finnikin. “Why is it that Lord August finds himself in Charyn when he belongs to the Belegonian court?” he asked.
“Palace business. He was on his way home when he paid us a visit. He asked that you pass through the Belegonian capital if you were in these parts.”
“It is our intention to travel south into Sorel,” Sir Topher said.
“He was very definite in his request, sir.”
Emmian and Cibrian’s tent was large. Two children, no more than eight or ten, lay in the corner. They soon scampered across the space to join their parents. Finnikin watched Emmian gather them against her, her fingers lingering on their arms. These children were loved. He looked over to where the thief of Sarnak sat in a huddle of hate alongside the novice and could not help but make a comparison.
The little girl was looking at him with wide eyes. “Can you tell us the story of Lady Beatriss and Captain Trevanion?” she asked.
The adults stiffened, their expressions a mixture of alarm and guilt. Finnikin remembered how much Lumaterans enjoyed a romance. He had grown up hearing over and over again the story of the young king who went riding through the mountains and encountered a wild Mont girl who captured his heart. He had not realized that Beatriss and Trevanion’s story had ignited the same interest.
“They are tired, Jenna. They don’t have time for telling stories,” her father said abruptly.
Finnikin watched as every adult in the tent looked away or busied themselves with the nothingness of their lives. It was as if the child’s request had never been made. Even Sir Topher was focusing on the river outside, and suddenly Finnikin felt lonely for his father, a luxury he rarely allowed himself.
But Evanjalin was staring at him, refusing to look away. There was something in her expression, a question in her eyes, that made him clear his throat.
“It was a fierce love,” he said gruffly. “Very fierce.”
The little girl’s cheeks flushed with pleasure, while the shoulders of the boy slumped with disappointment. The same way Finnikin’s would whenever he had to sit through his great-aunt Celestina’s ramblings about the wedding vows spoken by the king to his Mont girl. Finnikin would have much preferred to hear about the jousting and fencing entertainment provided by the King’s Guard as a part of the celebrations.
“But I need to go back further, if you will let me,” he said to the boy. “To the time when Trevanion of the River defended his people with just one mighty sword and forty dedicated men!”
Evanjalin bit her lip as if holding back a laugh, and he found himself grinning. The young boy sat up, a look of excitement on his face. He nodded, willing Finnikin to continue.
“My father was once a lowly foot soldier. As a young man, he watched each year as the barbarians, who lived far beyond the borders of Skuldenore, came down his beloved river with dragonships that seemed to appear from out of the sky. First they would raid Sarnak to our north, and then Lumatere. They were brutal, these foreigners, plunderers of the worst kind.”
“Did they take their tents and food?” the boy asked eagerly, and for a moment Finnikin saw a glimpse of Balthazar’s face in his expression. It made him numb with sadness and he failed to find the words to continue.
He heard a small sound, like the clearing of a throat, and glanced up to see Evanjalin. She had a look in her eye as if she somehow understood, and he found his voice once more.
“They took gold, of course,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “And silver. Lumatere had the best mines in the land and became the barbarian invaders’ dream. Unfortunately the king had inherited a lazy, cowardly Guard headed by his cousin, who made it easy for the foreigners to do what they liked.”
“Where was Trevanion?” the little girl asked.
“He was protecting a worthless duke on the Flatlands. But things changed in his twentieth year. The barbarians returned and decided that gold and silver were not enough. They would take the young people of the river to work as slaves in their land. The older ones who tried to stop them died in battle. That’s how Trevanion lost his parents and sisters. During the same time, my mother died in childbirth, so you can imagine his fury and sadness.
“One day when the king was visiting the worthless duke, Trevanion pushed past the Guard and stood face-to-face with the leader of the kingdom. He demanded to know what the king was going to do about protecting his people. Little did he know, the king would toss and turn each night, feeling helpless in his palace while his river was plundered and his people were taken. But what could a king with a weak Guard do? He had Trevanion arrested, of course.”
“Did they torture him?” the boy asked in a hushed tone.
“No. The king had a plan. Each night, while pretending to demand an apology, he would speak to Trevanion about the barbarian invaders and his lazy Guard. Trevanion made him a promise. If the king released him, he would choose forty of the best fighters in Lumatere and put an end to the annual plundering, and the king agreed.
“Trevanion was ruthless in training his men, but it was worth it. One year later, when the barbarians returned, they failed to conquer Trevanion’s river. By the time he was twenty-one, he was made captain of the Guard. His men were fearless warriors, and the country stayed safe. No one dared to challenge Trevanion’s Guard. Even the Monts kept quiet and out of trouble, and everyone knows how hard it is to keep the Monts under control.”
“But what happened to the other captain of the Guard? The king’s cousin?” the boy asked.
Finnikin heard an intake of breath, and he knew it was not right to mention the impostor king to these children. But the adults knew the rest of the story. The cousin of the king had been offered a place in the Charyn royal court, where he waited for the next ten years for a chance to take the throne of Lumatere.
“Don’t you want to hear about Trevanion and Lady Beatriss?”
“Oh, yes, please,” the little girl begged.
“Are you sure? Because perhaps the story about Trevanion working at the palace as the new captain will bore you.” He directed his remark to the young boy, who shook his head solemnly. “This is where Lady Beatriss comes into it. From the outside, she seemed fragile.
She was a novice of Lagrami, as most of the privileged girls were. They were taught to be good wives. To be accomplished. I’ve heard some say it was a weakness for the captain to fall in love with such an indulged child of Lumatere. But Trevanion saw more in her than most.”
“She was almost as beautiful as the princesses,” Emmian murmured.
“No one was as beautiful as the princesses.” The voice came from one of the exiles standing outside. Finnikin saw that, despite the drizzle of rain, he had acquired an audience.
“Trevanion would disagree. But that wasn’t always the case. You see, Lady Beatriss was the nursemaid of Balthazar and Isaboe, as well as being a loyal friend to the three older princesses. Now, I will be the first to admit that the royal children, and me included, did not make Beatriss’s task easy. Balthazar and Isaboe were very . . . shall we say, high-spirited at times? They had little fear of anything and spent many a day hanging out of the tower of the palace, calling out, ‘You, there!’ to the children of the villagers, while poor Beatriss would hold them back, begging them to behave.
“But Balthazar loved the villagers. He used to call them ‘the neighbors,’ and as he’d make his way down to the palace village, he would call out to them one by one. ‘Your rose beds are a vision, Esmine. I will have to take one for my mother.’ Or ‘I hope you will be sharing that wine with my father once your grapes are ripened, Mr Ward.’ The queen raised her children to see no difference between themselves and the poorest villagers. Although there was many a time she boxed our ears for teaching the village boys how to shoot arrows from the roofs of their cottages.
“One day, Balthazar was hanging precariously out of the tower when the captain of the King’s Guard happened to be walking across the moat, into the palace grounds. I can remember an almighty roar and Trevanion ordering us down from the tower. ‘Including you!’ he shouted, pointing a finger at Lady Beatriss.”