Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta Page B

closer to her, she would turn and disappear.
    When they reached the second floor, they followed the guard down a dank narrow corridor until he stopped at the first of two doors.
    ‘Yours,’ the guard said.
    ‘Mine?’ Both Gargarin and Froi said at once, exchanging looks.
    ‘Both of yours.’
    ‘Both?’
    They stared at each other again. Froi couldn’t imagine that his expression was any less horrified than Gargarin’s.
    ‘There’s been a mistake,’ Gargarin said, patiently.
    ‘No mistake, Sir.’
    Gargarin made no attempt to enter the room. Instead he studied the ornate design of the timber door, a bitter smile on his face.
    ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the guard.
    ‘Dorcas, Sir.’
    Dorcas would have been around Rafuel’s age. He had a look Froi knew only too well. The look that said he understood nothing if it was not spoken as an order.
    ‘Well, Dorcas, I think it’s best that you place us in separate chambers and I’d prefer not to have this one,’ Gargarin said.
    ‘Not my decision to make, Sir.’
    ‘Bestiano’s idea, I suppose?’ Gargarin asked, and Froi heard a quiet fury in the question.
    ‘My orders are to take you to this room, Sir. Both of you.’
    Dorcas walked away and Froi waited for Gargarin to enter the room.
    ‘Bad memories?’ Froi asked.
    Gargarin ignored him and finally reached out to open the door. ‘It’s not your place to ask questions that don’t concern you. It’s your place to do what you’ve come here to do.’
    ‘And what is it, according to Gargarin of Abroi, that I have come to do?’
    The cold blue eyes found Froi’s. ‘If you want a demonstration I would advise you to go down to stables and watch what the serving girls get up to with the farriers.’
    Gargarin entered the room and Froi followed. It was small, with one bed in the centre, doors leading outside to a balconette and nothing else. Froi hated being cold and couldn’t imagine a guest room in Isaboe’s palace without a giant fireplace and rugs warming the chamber. Gargarin poked under the bed with his staff and pulled out a straw trundle mattress.
    ‘You take the bed.’
    ‘No, you take the bed,’ Froi said. ‘I do have a conscience, you know.’
    ‘And I prefer to sleep on the floor,’ Gargarin snapped. ‘So plunge that fact into your conscience and allow it to rotate for a while. Until it hurts.’
    Froi walked to the doors that opened to the balconette. Across the narrow stretch of the gravina, the outer wall of the Oracle’s godshouse tilted towards them.
    ‘Is it that they don’t like me or that they don’t like you?’ Froi called to Gargarin inside.
    Beside their own balconette was another that belonged to the room next door. After a moment the girl with the mass of awful hair stepped out onto it. She peered at Froi, almost within touching distance. Up close she was even stranger looking and it was with an unabashed manner that she studied him now and with great curiosity. Her brow furrowed, a cleft on her chin so pronounced it was as if someone had spent their life pointing out her strangeness. Her hair was a filthy mess almost reaching her waist. It was straw-like in texture and Froi imagined that if it were washed, it might be described as a darker shade of fair. But for now, it looked dirty, its colour almost indescribable.
    She squinted at his appraisal. Froi squinted back.
    Gargarin appeared beside him and the girl disappeared.
    ‘I’m presuming that was the Princess,’ Froi said. ‘She’s plain enough. What is it with all the twitching? Is she possessed by demons?’
    ‘Lower your voice,’ Gargarin said sharply.
    ‘Does she know what they think of her out in the provinces?’ Froi continued. ‘That she’s a useless empty vessel and that they call her a whore?’
    After a moment the girl peered out from her room again.
    ‘Well, if she didn’t before, she certainly does now,’ Gargarin muttered.
    That night, the great hall was set up with three trestle tables