The Bone Doll's Twin (12 page)

“Would you like to have that one?” he asked, pointing to the fox she still held.

She bowed slightly, smiling. “Why, thank you, my lord.”

Returning to her chair, she placed it on the table between them and handed him the quill. “Can you draw this for me?”

Tobin had never thought to draw anything when it was so easy to model them. He looked down at the blank parchment, flicking the feathered end of the quill against his chin. Pulling the shape of something from soft wax was easy; to make the same shape real this way was something else again. He imagined a vixen he’d seen in the meadow one morning and tried to draw a line that would capture the shape of her muzzle and the alert forward set of her ears as she’d hunted mice in the grass. He could see her as clearly as ever in his mind, but try as he might he couldn’t make the pen behave. The crabbed scrawl it drew looked nothing like the fox. Throwing the quill down, he stared down at his ink-stained fingers, defeated again.

“Never mind, love,” his mother told him. “Your carvings are as good as any drawing. I was just curious. But let’s see if we can make your letters easier for you.”

Turning the sheet over, she wrote for a moment, then sanded the page and turned it around for Tobin to see. There, across the top, were three As, written very large. She dipped the pen and gave it to him, then rose to stand behind him. Covering his hand with hers, she guided it to trace the letters she’d drawn, showing him the proper strokes. They went over them several times, and when he tried it alone he found that his own scrawls had begun to resemble the letter he was attempting.

“Look, Mama, I did it!” he exclaimed.

“It’s as I thought,” she murmured as she drew out more practice letters for him. “I was just the same when I was your age.”

Tobin watched her as she worked, trying to imagine her as a young girl in braids who couldn’t write.

“I made little sculptures, too, though not nearly as nice as yours,” she went on, still writing. “Then my nurse taught me doll making. You’ve seen my dolls.”

Thinking of them made Tobin uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to seem rude by not answering. “They’re very pretty,” he said. His gaze drifted to her doll, slumped in an ungainly heap on the chest beside them. She looked up and caught him staring at it. It was too late. She knew what he was looking at, maybe even what he was thinking.

Her face softened in a fond smile as she took the ugly doll onto her lap and arranged its misshapen limbs. “This is the best I ever made.”

“But—Well, how come it doesn’t have a face?”

“Silly child, of course he has a face!” She laughed, brushing her fingers across the blank oval of cloth. “The prettiest little face I’ve ever seen!”

For an instant her eyes were mad and wild again, as they had been in the tower. Tobin flinched as she leaned forward, but she simply dipped the pen again and went on writing.

“I could shape anything with my hands, but I couldn’t
write or read. My father—your grandfather, the Fifth Consort Tanaris—showed me how to teach my hand the shapes, just as I’m showing you now.”

“I have a grandfather? Will I meet him someday?”

“No, my dear, your grandmama poisoned him years ago,” his mother said, busily writing. After a moment she turned the sheet to him. “Here now, a fresh row for you to trace.”

They spent the rest of the morning over the parchments. Once he was comfortable with tracing, she had him say the sounds each letter represented as he copied them. Over and over he traced and repeated, until by sheer rote he began to understand. By the time Nari brought the midday meal up to them on a tray, he’d forgotten all about his grandfather’s curious fate.

From that day on, they spent part of each morning there as she worked with surprising patience to teach him the letters that had eluded him before. And, little by little, he began to learn.

D
uke Rhius stayed away the rest of the winter, fighting in Mycena beside the king. His letters were filled with descriptions of battles, written as lessons for Tobin. Sometimes he sent gifts with the letters, trophies from the battlefield: an enemy dagger with a serpent carved around the hilt, a silver ring, a sack of gaming stones, a tiny frog carved from amber. One messenger brought Tobin a dented helmet with a crest of purple horsehair.

Tobin lined the smaller treasures up on a shelf in the toy room, wondering what sort of men had owned them. He placed the helmet on the back of a cloak-draped chair and fought duels against it with his wooden sword. Sometimes he imagined himself fighting beside his father and the king. Other times, the chair soldier became his squire and together they led armies of their own.

Such games left him lonesome for his father, but he
knew that one day he would fight beside him, just as his father had promised.

T
hrough the last grey weeks of winter Tobin truly began to enjoy his mother’s company. At first they met in the hall after his morning ride with Mynir. Once or twice she even went with them and he was amazed at how well she sat her horse, riding astride with her long hair streaming free behind her like a black silk banner.

For all her improvement with him, however, her attitude toward the others of the household did not change. She spoke seldom to Mynir and almost never to Nari. The new woman, Tyra, saw to her needs and was kind to Tobin, too, until the demon pushed her down the stairs and she left without even saying good-bye. After that, they made do without a maid.

Most disappointing of all, however, was her continuing coldness toward his father. She never spoke of him, spurned any gifts he sent, and left the hall when Mynir read his letters by the hearth each night to Tobin. No one could tell him why she seemed to hate him so, and he didn’t dare ask his mother directly. All the same, Tobin began to hope. When his father came home and saw how improved she was, perhaps things might ease between them. She’d come to love him, after all. Lying in bed at night, he imagined the three of them riding the mountain trails together, all of them smiling.

T
obin and his mother were at his lessons one cold morning at the end of Klesin when they heard a rider approaching the keep at a gallop.

Tobin ran to the window, hoping to see his father on his way home at last. His mother followed and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t know that horse,” Tobin said, shading his eyes. The rider was too muffled against the cold to recognize at a distance. “May I go see who it is?”

“I suppose so. Why don’t you see if Cook has anything nice for us in the larder, too? I could do with an apple. Hurry back now. We’re not done for today.”

“I will!” Tobin called, dashing off.

There was no one in the hall, so he went through to the kitchen and saw with delight that it was Tharin being greeted by Nari and the others. His beard had grown long over the winter. His boots were filthy with mud and snow, and he had a bandage wrapped around one wrist.

“Is the war over? Is Father coming home?” Tobin cried, throwing himself into the man’s arms.

Tharin lifted him up, nose to nose. “Yes to both, little prince, and he’s bringing some guests with him. They’re just behind me.” He set Tobin back on his feet. He was trying to smile, but Tobin read something else in the lines around the man’s eyes as he glanced at Nari and the steward. “They’ll be here soon. You run along and play now, Tobin. Cook doesn’t need you underfoot. There’s much to do.”

“But—”

“That’s enough,” Nari said sharply. “Tharin will take you out for a ride later. Off with you now!”

Tobin wasn’t used to being dismissed like this. Feeling sulky, he dawdled back toward the hall. Tharin hadn’t even said who Father was bringing. Tobin hoped it was Lord Nyanis or Duke Archis. He liked them the best of all his father’s liegemen.

He was halfway across the hall when he remembered that his mother had asked for an apple. They couldn’t very well scold him for coming back for that.

The kitchen door was open and as he approached, he heard Nari say, “What is the king doing coming here, after all these years?”

“For the hunting, or so he claims,” Tharin replied. “We were on our way home the other day, nearly in sight of Ero, when Rhius happened to mention the fine stag hunting we have here. The king took it into his head for an invitation. He’s struck with these strange whims more often now—”

The king!
Tobin forgot about apples as he scurried back upstairs, thinking instead of the little wooden figure in the box—The Present King, Your Uncle. Tobin wondered excitedly if he’d be wearing his golden crown, and if he’d let Tobin hold Ghërilain’s sword.

His mother was still by the window. “Who was that on the road, child?”

Tobin ran to the window but couldn’t see anyone coming yet. He flopped down in his chair, panting for breath. “Father sent Tharin ahead—The king—The king is coming! He and Father are—”

“Erius?” Ariani shrank back against the wall, clutching the doll. “He’s coming here? Are you certain?”

The demon’s cold, angry presence closed in around Tobin, so strong it felt hard to breathe. Parchments and inkpots flew from the table and scattered across the dusty floor.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” he whispered, suddenly afraid of the look in his mother’s eye.

With a choked cry, she lunged for him and half dragged, half carried him from the room. The demon raged around them, blowing up the dry rushes into whirling clouds and knocking the lamps from their hooks. She paused in the corridor, looking wildly around as if seeking some way to escape. Tobin tried not to whimper as her fingers dug into his arm.

“No, no, no!” she muttered. The rag doll’s blank, dingy face peeped out at Tobin from under her arm.

“Mama, you’re hurting me. Where are we going?”

But she wasn’t listening to him. “Not again. No!” she whispered, pulling him toward the third-floor stairs.

Tobin tried to pull away, but she was too strong for him. “No, Mama, I don’t want to go up there!”

“We must hide!” she hissed, gripping him by both shoulders now. “I couldn’t last time. I would have. By the Four, I would have, but they wouldn’t let me! Please, Tobin, come with Mama. There’s no time!”

She pulled him up the stairs and along the corridor to the tower stairs. When Tobin tried to pull away this time, unseen hands shoved him forward from behind. The door flew open before them, slamming back against the wall so hard that one of the panels splintered.

Panicked birds flapped and screeched around them as she wrestled Tobin up the stairs to the tower room. This door slammed shut behind them and the wine table flew across the room, narrowly missing Tobin’s shoulder as it smashed across the doorway, blocking his escape. Dusty tapestries flew from the walls and the shuttered windows banged wide. Sunlight flooded in on all sides, but the room remained dim and deathly cold. Outside they could hear a great company of riders now, coming up the road.

Ariani released Tobin and paced frantically around the room, weeping with one hand pressed over her mouth.
Tobin cowered by the broken table. This was the mother he knew best—hurtful and unpredictable. The rest of it had all been a lie.

“What are we to do?” she wailed. “He’s found us again. He can find us anywhere. We must escape! Lhel, you bitch, you promised me …”

The jangle of harness grew louder outside and she dashed to the window overlooking the front court. “Too late! Here he is. How can he? How can he?”

Tobin crept up beside her, just close enough to peek down over the sill. His father and a group of strangers in scarlet cloaks were dismounting. One of them wore a golden helmet that shown in the sun like a crown.

“Is that the king, Mama?”

She yanked him back, clutching him so close that his face was pressed against the doll. It had a sour, musty smell.

“Mark him,” she whispered, and he could feel her trembling. “Mark him, the murderer! Your father brought him here. But he won’t have you this time.”

She dragged him to the opposite window, the one that overlooked the mountains to the west. The demon overturned another table, spilling mouthless dolls across the floor. His mother whirled at the noise, and Tobin’s head hit the corner of the stone sill hard enough to daze him. He felt himself falling, felt his mother pulling at him again, felt sunlight and wind on his face. Opening his eyes, he found himself hanging out over the still, looking down at the frozen river.

Just like the last time she’d brought him here.

But this time she was crouched on the sill beside him, tear-stained face turned to the mountains as she grasped the back of Tobin’s tunic and tried to pull him out.

Overbalancing, he thrashed back wildly, grasping for anything—the window casing, his mother’s arm, her clothing—but his feet were already tipping up over his head. He could see the dark water moving like ink beneath the
ice. His mind skittered on ahead; would the ice break when he landed on it?

Then his mother screamed and tumbled past him, skirts and wild black hair billowing around her as she fell. For an instant they looked one another straight in the eye and Tobin felt as if a bolt of lightning passed between them, joining them just for a second eye to eye, heart to heart.

Then someone had Tobin by the ankle, dragging him roughly back into the room. His chin struck the outer edge of the sill and he spun down into darkness with the taste of blood in his mouth.

R
hius and the king were about to dismount when they heard a shriek echo behind the keep.

“By the Flame! Is it that demon of yours?” Erius exclaimed, looking around in alarm.

But Rhius knew the demon had no voice. Pushing past the other riders, he ran out the gate, seeing already in his mind’s eye what he should have anticipated, what he would see again and again in his dreams for the rest of his life: Ariani at an upper window that should have been tightly shuttered, catching the glint of her brother’s golden helm at the bottom of the meadow, imagining—

He stumbled along the riverbank, following the keep wall around a final corner. There he stopped, and let out an anguished cry at the sight of bare white legs splayed awkwardly between two boulders at the river’s edge. He ran to her and tugged down her skirts, which had blown up around her head as she’d fallen. Looking up, he saw the tower bulking over them. There were no other windows on this side but the single square one directly overhead. The shutters were open.