Free Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta

us!’ Perri said, exasperated. ‘You do that all the time.’
    ‘Apart from that,’ Froi said sheepishly.
    Perri grabbed hold of his ear and pulled Froi towards him in an embrace. ‘You keep safe, Froi. Keep safe and come home to us.’
    On his final day in Lumatere, Froi said his farewells to Lord August and Lady Abian and their sons who were the brothers of his heart. He was glad Lady Celie was in Belegonia. She would have cried and no one enjoyed watching Celie cry.
    ‘Where are you really going, Froi?’ Talon asked. He was Lord August’s oldest son and shrewd despite his younger years.
    ‘Sarnak,’ Froi lied. ‘I’m a messenger for the Queen. I know the language well.’
    It was the story Trevanion had instructed him to use. He looked Lord August squarely in the eye and wondered if he knew the truth. Lord August shared a strong friendship with Trevanion.
    ‘You know where your home is,’ was all Lord August said before walking away.
    Lady Abian kissed his cheek. She said little for once, but he saw tears in her eyes.
    ‘When you return, we will choose that day to celebrate your eighteenth birthday,’ she said.
    He nodded, his throat tightening with emotion. A birthday. What did the Charynite call the day their Princess was born? The day of weeping.
    ‘I’ll count down the days,’ he said.
    He went to see the Priestking next. The old man was teaching some of the younger Lumaterans in the front garden of his hovel. Froi waited for them to leave, pulling out thistles from the herb patch he had planted for the Priestking that spring. Oregano, garlic, chives and rosemary were dwarfed by creeping thistles.
    ‘I’ve told you before, blessed
Barakah
,’ Froi said when the youngsters left. ‘Pull them out the moment you see them or you’ll be slurping the blandest of soup.’
    ‘But they’re so beautiful in colour,’ the Priestking mused, getting to his feet and straightening his back with a groan.
    ‘And what happened to the chair I made you?’ Froi asked, frustrated, looking around at the hovel. When Rafuel spoke of the godshouse of Charyn where the Priests and Priestlings once lived and learned, Froi could not help comparing it to this shack in a meadow. Once, the Priestking of Lumatere lived in a grand shrinehouse in the palace village, but the blessed
Barakah
claimed to have been another man back then.
    ‘You need to move to a bigger home. Did you know that in Charyn they used to have schools for Priestlings, taught by those less powerful than you? They’d learn about the Ancients, become the scribes of the people, learn how to be physicians.’
    The Priestking chuckled and beckoned Froi to him so that he could lean on his shoulder. ‘Let’s walk a moment or two, lad,’ he said.
    Froi propped up the old man, frustrated by his stubbornness.
    ‘Anyway, I thought you said learning was a waste of time,’ the Priestking said.
    ‘We don’t want the Charynites being better than us.’
    They walked an overgrown path through the small meadow that looked over the outskirts of Lord August’s village. Even if the Priestking agreed to build a larger house, the land surrounding it would be too small to make a proper impression. Froi knew Finnikin’s dream, but he usually fell asleep while Finnikin was speaking about it over and over again. Finnikin dreamed of a library filled with the greatest books Lumatere ever saw in a school where holy men and scholars from Belegonia and Osteria would come to teach as guests. It was the Queen’s dream as well. ‘We’re going to lose our smart ones like Celie to Belegonia,’ she said. ‘We need a school for them.’
    Froi felt the Priestking’s stare. He knew the time was coming for him to say his goodbye. He didn’t want the Priestking asking where and why he was going. Then he’d have to lie again and this blessed man was the first person to treat Froi as an equal.
    ‘Can you sing me the Song of Lumatere?’ Froi asked quietly.
    There was a ghost of a