Tamir - The Bone Doll's Twin Part 31

Tobin craned his head back for an upside down look at the impatient woman. "Ki hurt his foot." "Are your legs broke?"

'Nothing wrong that I can see," Ki said, throwing a handful of cold water onto Tobin's belly.

He yelped and sat up. "Traitor! See if I help you..." Brother stood watching him on the far bank.

Tobin had called him earlier that morning, then forgotten about him. Brother had matched Tobin in growth, but stayed gaunt and fish-belly pale. No matter where Brother appeared, the light never struck him the way it did a living person. At this distance, his unnatural eyes looked like two black holes in his face. His voice had grown fainter, too. It had been months since Tobin had heard him speak at all. He stared at Tobin a moment longer, then turned and gazed down the road.

'Someone's coming," Tobin murmured. Ki glanced down the meadow, then back at him. "I don't hear anything."

A moment later they both heard the first faint jingle of harness in the distance. "Ah! Brother?" Tobin nodded.

By now they could both hear the riders clearly enough to know there were at least a score. Tobin jumped to his feet. "Do you suppose that's Father?"

Ki grinned. "Who else could it be, coming here with that many?"

Tobin scrambled back up the rocks and ran onto the bridge for a better view.

The sun-baked planks burned his feet. He danced impatiently from foot to foot for a minute, then set off along the gra.s.sy verge to meet the riders.

'Tobin, come back! You know we're not supposed to."

'I'll just go part way!" Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Ki limping toward the bridge. The other boy pointed at his hurt foot and shrugged.

Tobin's heart beat faster as he caught the flash of sunlight off steel through the trees. Why were they coming so slowly? His father always took the last mile at a gallop, raising a cloud of dust that could be seen above the trees long before the riders appeared.

Tobin stopped and shaded his eyes. There was no dust cloud today. Uneasy, he stood poised to run if it proved to be strangers after all.

When the first riders came into sight at the bottom of the meadow, however, he recognized Tharin in the lead on his roan, with old Laris and the others close behind. There were two other lords with him, too. He recognized Nyanis by his s.h.i.+ning hair and Solari by his bushy black beard and green-and-gold cloak.

The fighting must be over. He's brought guests for a feast! Tobin let out a whoop and waved both arms at them, still searching for his father among the press of riders. Tharin waved an answering salute but didn't spur his horse. As they came up the hill Tobin saw that the captain was leading a horse on a long rein-his father's black palfrey. It was saddled but riderless. Only then did Tobin note that all the horses' manes were shorn close to their necks. He knew what that meant. The men had told him tales in the barracks yard- The air beside Tobin darkened as Brother s.h.i.+mmered into view. His voice was scarcely audible above the sound of the river but Tobin heard him clearly enough.

Our father has come home.

'No." Tobin marched on stubbornly to meet the riders. His heart was pounding in his ears. He couldn't feel the road beneath his feet. Tharin and the others reined in as he reached them. Tobin refused to look at their faces. He looked only at his father's horse and the things strapped across the saddle: hauberk, helm, bow. And a long clay jar slung in a net.

'Where is he?" Tobin demanded, staring now at one worn, empty stirrup. His voice sounded almost as faint as Brother's in his ears.

He heard Tharin dismount, felt the man's big hands on his shoulders, but he kept his eyes on the stirrup.

Tharin turned him gently and cupped his chin, making Tobin look at him. His faded blue eyes were red-rimmed and full of sorrow. "Where is Father?"

Tharin took something from his belt pouch, something that glinted black and gold in the sunlight. It was his father's oak tree signet on its chain. With shaking hands, Tharin placed it around Tobin's neck.

'Your father died in battle, my prince, on the fifth day of Shemin. He fell bravely, Tobin. I brought his ashes home to you."

Tobin looked back at the jar in the net and understood. The fifth of Shemin? That was the day after Ki's name day. We went swimming. I shot two grouse. We saw Lhel.

We didn't know.

Brother stood beside the horse now, one hand resting on the dusty jar. Their father had been dead nearly a month. You once told me about a fox dying, he thought, staring at Brother in disbelief. And about lya coming. But not that our father was dead?

'I was there, too, Tobin. What Tharin says is true." That was Lord Solari. He dismounted and came to stand by him. Tobin had always liked the young lord but he couldn't look up at him now, either. When he spoke again, it sounded as if the man was far away, even though Tobin could see Solari's boots right there next to him in the road. "He gave his war cry until the end and all his wounds were in the front. I saw him kill at least four men before he fell. No warrior could ask for a better death."

Tobin felt light, like his body was going to drift away on the breeze like a milkweed seed. Perhaps I'll see Father's ghost. He squinted, trying to make out his father's shade near the jar. But Brother stood alone, his black eyes dark holes in his face as he slowly faded from sight.

'Tobin?"

Tharin's hands were firm on his shoulders, holding him so he *wouldn't blow away. Tobin didn't want to look at Tharin, didn't want to see the tears slowly scouring twin trails through the dust on the man's cheeks. He didn't want the other lords and soldiers to see Tharin crying.

Instead, he looked past him and saw Ki running down the road. "His foot must be better."

Tharin brought his face closer to Tobin's, looking at him with the oddest expression. Tobin could hear some of the other men weeping softly now, something he'd never heard before. Soldiers didn't weep.

'Ki," Tobin explained, as his gaze skittered back to his father's horse. "He hurt his toe, but he's coming now."

Tharin took a scabbard from his back and placed the duke's sheathed sword in Tobin's hands. "This is yours now, too."

Tobin clutched the heavy weapon, so much heavier than his own. Too large for me. Just like the armor. One more thing to be saved for later. Too late.

He heard Tharin talking, but it felt as if his head was stuffed with milkweed fluff; it was hard to make sense of anything. "What do we do with the ashes?"

Tharin hugged him closer. "When you're ready, we'll take them to Ero and lay them with your mother in the royal tomb. They'll be together again at last."

'In Ero?"

Father had always promised to take him to Ero.

Instead, it seemed that he must take his father.

Tobin's eyes felt hot and his chest burned as if he'd run all the way from the town, but no tears would come. He felt as dry inside as the dust beneath his feet.

Tharin mounted his horse again and someone helped Tobin up behind him, still clutching his father's sword. Ki met them halfway, breathless and limping. He seemed to know already what had happened and burst into silent tears at the sight of the arms lashed to the empty saddle. Going to Tobin, he clasped his friend's leg with both hands and rested his forehead against his knee. Koni came and gave Ki a hand up onto his horse.

As they rode the rest of the way up the hill, Tobin could feel his father's gold signet swing heavily against his heart with every beat of the horse's hooves.

H I ari and the others met them at the main gate and set up an awful wailing before Tharin could even tell them what had happened. Even Arkoniel wept.

Nari caught Tobin in a fierce embrace as he climbed down. "Oh, my poor love," she sobbed. "What will we do?"

'Go to Ero," he tried to tell her, but doubted whether she heard him.

The arms and ashes were carried into the hall and laid before the shrine. Tharin helped Tobin cut off Gosi's mane and burn it with a lock of his own hair in the barracks yard to honor his father.

Then they sang sad songs at the shrine that everyone except Tobin seemed to know, and Tharin kept both hands on Tobin's shoulders as he said prayers to Astellus and Dalna to take care of his father's spirit, then to Sakor and Illior, asking them to protect the household.

For Tobin it was all a blur of words. When Brother appeared and placed one of his dirty, twisted tree roots on the shelf of the shrine, Tobin was too tired to sweep it away. No one else noticed.

When the prayers and songs were done, Tharin took Tobin aside and knelt beside him, pulling him close again. "I was with your father as he died," Tharin said softly, and he had that odd look in his eyes again. "We spoke of you. He loved you more than anything in the world and was so sad to be leaving you-" He wiped at his eyes and cleared his throat. "He charged me to be your protector, and so I shall for the rest of my life. You can always depend on me."

He drew his sword and placed it point down before him. Taking Tobin's hand, he placed it on the worn hilt and covered it with his own. "I pledge by the Four and my honor to stand by you and serve you the rest of my days. I gave the same oath to your father. Do you understand, Tobin?"

Tobin nodded. "Thank you."

Tharin sheathed his sword and embraced him for a long moment. Pulling back, he stood and shook his head. "By the Four, I wish it was my ashes in that jar and not his. I'd give anything for it to be so."

'aylight was failing by the time it was all finished. Mealtime came and went, but no one lit a fire or cooked, and everyone spent the night in the hall. A vigil, Tharin called it. As night fell, he lit a single lamp in the shrine but the rest of the house was left dark.

Some of the servants lay down to sleep, but the warriors knelt in a half circle around the shrine, their swords unsheathed before them. Nari made a pallet for Tobin by the hearth, but he couldn't lie down. He joined the men for a while, but their silence made him feel shut out and alone. At last he crept away to the far end of the hall and slumped down in the rushes near the staircase.

Ki found him there and sat down beside him. "You've never seen anything like this, have you?" he whispered.

Tobin shook his head.

'They must have done something when your mother died?"

'I don't know." Thinking about that time still sent a s.h.i.+ver through him. Ki must have noticed, for he s.h.i.+fted closer and put an arm around him, just as Tharin had. Tobin slumped against him and rested his head on Ki's shoulder, grateful for the solid, simple comfort. "I don't remember. I saw her lying on the ice, then she was just gone."

He'd never asked what had happened to her. Nari had tried to speak of it once or twice soon after, but Tobin hadn't wanted to hear it then. He'd put his fingers in his ears and burrowed under the covers until she went away. No one in the house had spoken of it since, and he'd never asked. It had been bad enough, knowing that his mother's spirit still walked in the tower; it hadn't mattered to him where her body was.

Sitting here in the dark now, though, he considered what Tharin had said. His mother was in Ero.

Little as he recalled of that terrible day, he knew that the king had been gone by the time he'd been letout of bed. And so had his mother.

Like a tiny seeding stone dropped into one of Arkoniel's alchemical solutions, the thought crystallized years of half-realized memories into a single sharp-edged conviction: the king had taken his mother away.

His grief-clouded mind worried at this like a bad tooth too painful not to touch and prod.

No, Brother whispered in the dark.

'My mam died when I was six," Ki said softly, drawing him back to the present.

'How?" For all their talking, they'd never spoken of this before.

'She cut her foot on a scythe and the wound wouldn't heal." A hint of the old upcountry accent crept back. "Her leg went all black and her mouth locked shut and she died. The ground was froze, so Father left her wrapped in the byre loft'til spring. I used to climb up and sit by her sometimes, when I was lonesome. Sometimes I'd even pull back the blanket, just to see her face again. We buried her in the spring before the leaves came out. Father had brought Sekora home by then and her belly was already big. I remember staring at it whilst we sang the songs over my mam's grave." His voice broke high.

'You got a new mother," Tobin murmured, suddenly feeling heavy and tired beyond words. "Now I've got no mother or father at all."

Ki's arm tightened around him. "Don't suppose they'd let you come back home with me, eh? We'd hardly notice one more underfoot."

Still dry-eyed and aching inside, Tobin drifted off and dreamt of sleeping with Ki in a great pile of brown-haired children-all of them snug together like a litter of pups while dead mothers lay frozen in the byre outside.

Chapter Arkoniel woke with a stiff neck just after dawn. He'd propped himself in a corner near the shrine, meaning to keep the vigil with the others, but dozed off sometime in the night.

At least I wasn't the only one who fell asleep, he thought, looking around the hall.

The lamp in the shrine still burned, and by its dim light he could see dark forms sprawled on benches and in the rushes by the hearth. He could just make out Ki and Tobin near the stairs, slumped together with their backs to the wall.

Only the warriors had stayed awake, spending the night on their knees to honor the man whom they'd followed for so long.

Arkoniel studied their worn faces. Nyanis and Solari were new to him; from what he'd heard from Nari and Cook last night, both had been loyal liegemen, and so perhaps future allies for Rhius' daughter.

He looked over at Tobin again; in this light he could have been any urchin from the slums of Fro, sleeping against a wall. Arkoniel sighed, recalling what lya had told him of her own visions.

Too uneasy to sleep again, Arkoniel went outside and wandered onto the bridge to watch the sun come up. A few deer were grazing at the edge of the meadow, and several others had picked their way over the river's stony banks to the water's edge. A tall white heron stalked the shallows, looking for its breakfast. Even at this hour the day promised to be hot.

He sat down at the middle of the bridge and let his legs dangle over the edge. "What now, Lightbearer?" he asked softly. "What are we to do, if those who protect this child keep being taken away?"

He waited quietly, praying for some answering sign. All he could see, however, was Sakor's fiery sun staring him in the face. He sighed and began composing a letter to lya, trying to convince her to come back from her long wandering and help him. He hadn't heard from her in months, though, and wasn't even sure where to send it to reach her.

He hadn't gotten very far with this when he heard the gate open behind him. Tharin strode out to join him on the bridge. Sitting down beside the wizard, he stared out over the meadow, hands clasped between his knees. His face was pale and deeply lined with grief. The morning light leeched the color from his eyes.

'You're exhausted," said Arkoniel.

Tharin nodded slowly.

'What do you think will happen now?"

'That's what I came out to talk to you about. The king spoke with me at Rhius' pyre. He means tosend for To-bin. He wants him in Ero with Prince Korin and the Companions."

It was hardly a surprising turn of events, but Arkoniel's gut tightened all the same. "When?"

'I'm not certain. Soon. I asked him to give the boy some time, but he didn't give me an answer on that.

I don't imagine he wants Tobin out of his reach for too long."

'What do you mean?"

Tharin didn't answer at once, just stared out at the deer. At last he sighed and said, "I knew you as a boy when you and lya guested in Atyion. Since you've been here I've seen the man you've become. I've always liked you and I believe I can trust you, especially where Tobin is concerned. That's why I'm about to put my life in your hands." He turned and looked Arkoniel in the eye. "But if you prove me wrong, by the Four, you'll have to kill me to put me off your trail. Do we understand one another?"

Arkoniel knew this was no idle threat. Yet behind the man's harsh words he also heard fear, not for himself but for Tobin.

Arkoniel held up his right hand and pressed his left over his heart. "By my hands, heart, and eyes, Sir Tharin, I swear to you I will lay down my life to protect Rhius and Ariani's child. What is it you want to say to me?"

'I have your word you'll tell no one else?"

'lya and I have no secrets, but I can vouch for her as I do myself."

'Very well. I've no one else to turn to anyway. First of all, I believe the king wanted Rhius dead. I think he may have even had a hand in getting him killed."

Arkoniel had little experience of court, but even he realized that Tharin had just placed his life in Arkoniel's hands twice over. Tharin must have known it, too, but he didn't hesitate as he went on. "Ever since the princess died Erius has pushed Rhius into the worst of any battle. Rhius saw it, too, but he had too much honor to say so. But some of the orders we followed were just foolhardy. There are hundreds of good Skalan warriors who'd still be upright and drawing breath in Atyion and Cirna if the king had shown a bit more sense in his placement of attacks.

'The day Rhius was killed, Erius ordered us into marshland on horseback. We were ambushed as we tried to get out the other side."

'What makes you think the king had anything to do with that?"

Tharin gave him a bitter smile. "You don't know much about cavalry, do you, Wizard? You don't send hors.e.m.e.n into such ground in the summer, with no decent footing and no cover. And not when there's a good chance of the enemy being well entrenched on the other side and all ears for your approach. An arrow took Rhius in the thigh before we got anywhere near solid ground. I was struck in the shoulder, and another shaft killed my horse under me. I fell and he charged on- It was a d.a.m.n ma.s.sacre. There must have been two or three hundred foot soldiers and archers, and if they weren't waiting just for us then someone was making d.a.m.n poor use of their forces. Even with the arrow wound, Rhius fought like a wolf, but Laris told me a pikeman killed the duke's horse and took him down. Rhius was pinned under the beast and the enemy was on him with axes before- Before I could get to him."

A tear rolled down and clung to the stubble on Tharin's cheek. "The life was running out of him by the time I found him. We got him away, but there was nothing we could do."