Tamir - The Bone Doll's Twin Part 32

More tears fell, but Tharin didn't seem to notice. Something told Arkoniel that he'd grown accustomed to weeping. "Rhius felt Bilairy coming for him. He pulled me down close and spoke so only I could hear.

His last words in this life were, 'Protect my child with your life, by any means. Tobin must rule Skala.'"

Arkoniel's breath caught in his chest. "He said that to you?"

Tharin looked him in the eye, holding his gaze. "I thought then that it must be death addling his thoughts. But looking at your face right now, I think I'm about to change my mind. Do you know what he meant?"

Trust your instincts, lya had counseled before she left. Those instincts had always told him to trust Tharin. All the same, Arkoniel felt like a man about to leap off a high cliff with only mist below. The secret was a danger to whoever carried it.

'I do. It's all lya and I have -worked for since before Tobin was born. But you must tell me truthfully, can you still serve Tobin knowing no more than you do right now?" 'Yes. Only-"

Arkoniel studied Tharin's stricken face as the man groped for words. "You're wondering why Rhius didn't tell you more... before?"

Tharin nodded, mouth pressed in a tight line.

'Because he couldn't," Arkoniel said gently. "Rhius never doubted your loyalty; you must believe that.

One day I'll be able to explain everything to you and you'll understand. But don't ever doubt the duke's faith in you. He proved it with his last breath, Tharin. What he pa.s.sed to you was the most sacred trust of his life.

'What Tobin needs now is protection, and allies later on. How many troops could we summon today if we needed them?"

Tharin rubbed a hand over his beard. "Tobin's not quite twelve, Arkoniel. That's too young to command, too young even to inspire much of a following without a powerful lord to back him." He pointed back at the keep. "Nyanis and Solari are good men, but Rhius was the warlord who led. If Tobin were sixteen or seventeen, say- perhaps even fifteen-it might be a different story, but as things stand, the only close kin he has with any power is the king. Still-"

'Yes?"

'Between you and me, there are those among the n.o.bles who won't stand by and watch any child of the female line of Skala come to harm, and others with good cause to remember who Tobin's father was."

'You know who these n.o.bles are? Whom Tobin can trust?"

'There are few people I'd stake my life on, the court being what it is these days, but I've spent my life at the duke's side and in his confidence. I have a fair sense of how the wind blows."

'Tobin will need your guidance there. What about the soldiers who owed their loyalty to Rhius?"

'The common men are tied to the lands they work. By right, they serve whoever holds those. Until Tobin is of age to lead, I imagine that will be whoever the king wants it to be." He shook his head. "A lot can change between now and then, I'm afraid. Erius is sure to appoint his own regents and stewards for the estates."

'Too much has changed already for the child," murmured Arkoniel. "All the same, he's fortunate to have a man as loyal as you to stand by him."

Tharin clapped Arkoniel on the shoulder and stood up. "Some serve for loyalty or glory, some for pay," he said gruffly. "I served Rhius for love, and Tobin, too."

'Love." Arkoniel looked up, struck by something in the man's tone. "I've never thought to ask before.

You have an estate somewhere. Do you have a family of your own there?"

'No." Before the wizard could read his face, Tharin turned and strode back to the keep.

'That a good man," Lhel whispered unseen, her voice mingling with the rus.h.i.+ng of the water below his dangling feet.

'I know," Arkoniel replied, comforted by her disembodied presence. "You know about Lord Rhius?"

'Brother tell me."

'What am I going to do, Lhel? The king wants him to go to Ero."

'Keep Ki by him."

Arkoniel let out a bitter chuckle. "Is that all? I'm glad to hear it. Lhel?"

But she was already gone.

'"phe morning after the vigil Tobin woke filled with a A strange stillness. Ki was still asleep against his shoulder, head pressed against Tobin's cheek. Tobin sat very still, trying to fathom the strange emptiness under his ribs. It wasn't the same as what he'd felt when his mother died; his father had died a warrior's death, falling with honor in battle.

Ki was heavy. Tobin s.h.i.+fted to ease his weight and Ki jerked awake. "Tob, are you well?"

'Yes." He could still speak, at least. But the sense of stillness inside him felt like a lightless hole, or the cold deep spring by Lhel's house oak. It was as if he was staring down into that dark water, waiting for something. He just didn't know what it was.

He got up and went to the shrine to pray for his father. Tharin and the n.o.bles were gone, but Koni andsome of the others were still there on their knees.

'I should have kept the vigil with you," he mumbled, ashamed at having slept.

'No one expected that, Tobin," Koni said kindly. "We shed blood with him. You could make the offerings for the shrine, though. Fifty-one wax horses, one for each year he lived."

Koni saw the root that Brother had left and moved to sweep it away. Tobin stopped him. "Leave it."

There was an acorn next to the root now, too.

He and Ki spent the morning sitting on the toy room floor with his chunks of beeswax. He'd never made so many figures at once and his hands were soon sore, but he wouldn't stop. He let Ki knead the wax to soften it for him, but insisted on shaping all the horses himself. He made them as he always had, with arched necks and small pointed heads, like the Aurenfaie horses he and his father rode, but this time his thumbnail pinched out short strokes for the manes, making them cropped for mourning.

V,'hey were still at work when Solari and Nyanis came to the door in their riding cloaks.

'I've come to take my leave, Prince Tobin," Nyanis said, coming to kneel beside him. "When you come to Ero you must count me among your friends."

Tobin looked up from his wax and nodded, wondering at how faded and dull Nyanis' hair had become since he'd last seen the man. When he was little he'd always liked to watch the firelight s.h.i.+ning on it as they played goose stones by the fire.

'You can always depend on me, too, my prince," said Solari, touching his fist to his breast. "For your father's sake, I shall always consider myself the ally of Atyion."

Liar, Brother hissed, hovering just behind the man. He told his captain he would be lord of Atyion himself in a year.

Stunned, Tobin gasped out, "In a year?"

'In a year, and always I hope, my prince," Solari replied, but as Tobin looked into the man's eyes, he knew Brother had spoken the truth.

Tobin rose and gave both men a bow, just as his father would have.

As they went off down the corridor Solari's loud whisper echoed back to him. "I don't care what Tharin says. The boy's not-"

Tobin stared at Brother. Perhaps it was only a trick of the light, but the ghost seemed to be smiling.

K I ari wanted to fuss over Tobin, even offering to sleep in the bed with him again as she had when he was little, but he couldn't bear it and pushed her away. Arkoniel and Tharin kept their distance, but always seemed to be close by, quietly watching.

The only company Tobin could bear was Ki's, and over the next few days they spent hours together outside the keep. Riding was forbidden during the four days of official mourning, as were hot meals or fires after sundown, so they walked the trails and the riverbanks instead.

The feeling of inner stillness persisted; Ki seemed to sense it and he stayed uncommonly quiet. He never questioned Tobin's lack of tears for his father, either, though he shed enough of his own.

And he wasn't the only one. During those first few days Tobin often caught Nari and Tharin dabbing at their eyes, and a good many of the men around the barracks, too. Clearly something was wrong with him. He went to the shrine alone at night and stood with his hands on the jar of ashes, trying to find tears, but they wouldn't come.

The third night after the vigil it was too hot to sleep. He lay awake for hours, watching the moths flittering around the night lamp and listening to the chorus of frogs and crickets in the meadow below. Ki was fast asleep beside him, sprawled on his back with his mouth open, bare skin dewed with sweat. His right hand lay a few inches from Tobin's thigh and every so often the fingers would twitch in some dream.

Tobin watched him, envious of the ease with which his friend slept.

The more Tobin longed for sleep, the more it eluded him. His eyes felt dry as cold embers and the beating of his heart seemed to shake the bed. A ray of moonlight fell on the suit of mail on its stand in the corner, complete now with the sword that they said was his. Too soon for the sword, he thought bitterly, and too late for the armor.

His heart was beating harder than ever now. Abandoning the bed, he pulled on a wrinkled s.h.i.+rt and crept out into the corridor. There would be servants sleeping in the hall, he knew, and if he went upstairs,chances were Arkoniel would still be awake. Tobin didn't feel like talking to him. Instead, he went into the toy room.

The shutters were open to the moon. In its glow the city looked almost real. For a moment he imagined himself an owl, flying over Ero in the night. He stepped closer and it was just a toy again, the wonderful creation his father had made for him and spent so many happy hours with, teaching him the streets and byways.

And the queens.

Tobin didn't need to stand on a chair anymore to reach the shelf that held the box of figures. Taking it down, he sat beside the city and lined the kings and queens up on the roof of the Old Palace: King Thelatimos and his daughter, Gherilain the Founder stood together, as always, then poor poisoned Tamir, victim of a brother's pride. Then came the first Agnalain, Klia and all the others up to Grandmama Agnalain, -who'd been as mad as her own daughter. Arkoniel's history lessons had been far more detailed than any he'd had from his father or Nari. He knew about Grandmama's crow cages and her gibbets, and all her poisoned and beheaded consorts. No wonder the people had let Uncle Erius put aside the Prophecy and take the throne after she died.

He took the last battered, much-repaired wooden figure from the box: The King Your Uncle. He was still hardly more than a name in a story, a face glimpsed once out a window.

He took Mama away.

Tobin turned the little figure over in his hands, thinking of all the times his father had brought out the glue pot and pieced it back together after one of Brother's attacks. Brother hadn't bothered to break the carving in years.

A tiny sound made him blink; looking down, Tobin found he'd snapped the king's head off. He dropped the pieces into the shadows of the citadel and listened to the brief clatter of their descent.

His father wouldn't come with the glue pot to mend it.

This memory brought others with it, image after image of his father laughing, teaching, playing, riding.

Yet he could not weep.

Just then Tobin heard a soft step behind him and smelled wood smoke and crushed green shoots.

Lhel's black hair tickled his cheek as she pulled his head down on her breast.

'I tell you a true thing now, keesa," she whispered. "Your father, he make this city for you and you for this city."

'What do you mean?" He pulled away and found himself alone in the moonlight.

'What're you doing in here?" Ki mumbled, leaning sleepily in the doorway. When Tobin didn't reply, Ki shuffled over and led him back to bed. Sprawling down beside him with a hand pressed over Tobin's heart, he was asleep again as soon as his eyes closed.

Tobin wanted to puzzle out what Lhel could have meant, but the sure pressure of Ki's hand and the witch's^ lingering scent lulled him to sleep, free of dreams for now.

Erius didn't wait long. Less than two weeks after Tharin's return Arkoniel glanced out his workroom window to see a cloud of dust rising on the Alestun road.

It would take at least a squadron of riders to raise such a cloud, and Arkoniel had no doubt who'd sent them.

Cursing himself for not being more vigilant, he was about to cast a sighting for the boys when he spied them at the far end of the meadow. Half naked as always in the heat, they crouched under a thick clump of willow bay by the riverbank.

'Run!" Arkoniel called out, knowing they couldn't see the dust rising from there, or hear the horses over the river noise. They couldn't hear him, either, of course, but something spooked them. They took off through the long gra.s.s, making for the woods on the far side of the meadow.

'Good boys," he whispered.

'Riders!" Tharin shouted in the yard below.

He and the others had been making repairs to the barracks roof. Tharin stood there now, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked up at the wizard. "Who is it?" he called.

Arkoniel covered his eyes and quickly cast the sighting. "Two score or so armed men coming on at agallop. They're led by a King's Herald, and a n.o.bleman-I don't know him."

'What colors?"

'I'm not sure, with the dust," Arkoniel replied. The tunics he could see could easily be grey. When he opened his eyes again, Tharin had already disappeared down the ladder.

The wizard's legs felt shaky as he locked up his rooms and dashed downstairs. What if there was a Harrier wizard among those riders? He had no idea what powers he was facing, or if he had the skill to best them.

He met Nari coming out of Tobin's room. "I saw riders!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "Oh Arkoniel, what if something's happened at last? What if they know?" "Calm yourself. I think it's only a herald," he told her, convincing neither of them. Together, they ran down the stairs and found Tharin and the others armed and ready in the hall.

'Quite an escort for a messenger, wouldn't you say?" Tharin observed grimly.

'It won't do for them to see me here," Arkoniel told him. "You greet them. I'll find the boys and keep them out of sight until we see which way the wind is blowing. Send Koni down the meadow for us if you think it's safe." "Let me come, too!" begged Nari. "No. Stay here and welcome them." He slipped out the front gate and ran for the woods. He could hear the riders clearly now. They'd be in sight any moment.

He was halfway down to the river when Lhel's face and shoulders s.h.i.+mmered into view in front of him.

"Here!" she urged, pointing him back to a spot he'd just pa.s.sed.

Arkoniel dashed into the trees, then let out a startled cry as the ground went out from under him. He tumbled down a small slope and found himself at the bottom of a leaf-choked gully just inside the trees.

He landed with his feet uphill and one arm in a muddy runnel. Righting himself, he climbed back up to join Lhel and the boys, keeping watch over the edge of the gully. In their stained kilts, with dead leaves stuck to their arms and legs, and knives at the ready, Tobin and Ki looked like a pair of young forest bandits.

'Who's coming?" Tobin asked, watching the mouth of the road.

'Just a messenger from the king, I hope."

'Then why did Brother tell Tobin to hide?" Ki demanded.

'Well, he does have rather a lot- You say Brother told you?" He glanced at the witch. "But I a.s.sumed-"

'I be watching, too." Lhel waved toward the road. "Brother say there's a wizard with them."

'Is it those Harriers?" Ki asked.

'I don't know." Arkoniel felt for the crystal wand in his belt pouch, praying he and Lhel together could hold them off long enough for Tharin to get Tobin away. "We must be very careful until we find out."

Tobin nodded, showing no hint of fear. Ki left his side just long enough to find a stout stick, then settled back beside the prince, ready to face down a legion of wizards.

The riders emerged from the forest and thundered up the hill to the bridge. Creeping to the edge of the trees for a better look, Arkoniel could make out their leader speaking with someone at the gate. A dozen or so of the newcomers went in, leaving the rest to water the horses at the river.