The Bone Doll's Twin (55 page)

Tobin turned in surprise, realizing that Ki meant Brother. “You can feel him?” he whispered back. He’d lost track of the spirit upstairs and hadn’t seen him since.

“Sometimes. Am I right?”

Tobin looked around and, sure enough, there was Brother behind them, beckoning for Tobin to follow him down the passage in the opposite direction. “Yes. He’s there. I didn’t call him, though.”

“Why should he act any different here?” muttered Ki.

Following Brother, the boys passed through a succession of narrower passages and out into a small disused courtyard surrounded by a high wall. There was a summer kitchen here, but the mossy roof over the outdoor oven had fallen in years ago and never been repaired. Near the center of the yard stood a huge, dead chestnut tree. Its twisted branches stretched their broken fingers over the yard like a netted roof, grey and scabrous against the blue sky. Its knobby roots humped up out of the packed earth like serpents writhing across the ground.

“Can you still see him?” Ki whispered.

Tobin nodded. Brother was sitting at the base of the tree between two big roots. His legs were drawn up tight against his chest and his forehead rested on his knees. Tangled black hair hung down, covering his face. He looked so forlorn that Tobin slowly moved closer, wondering what the matter could be. He was within a few feet of the spirit when Brother raised a pale, tear-streaked face
to him and whispered in a dry, weary voice Tobin had never heard before, “This is the place,” and faded from sight again.

Baffled, Tobin stared up at the tree, wondering what was remarkable about this spot. He’d understood about the bed; Brother had been stillborn upon it and seemed to remember it. But why would he remember this yard, or this tree? He looked back at where Brother had been sitting and spied a small opening beneath one of the roots. Squatting down, he examined it more closely. It was larger than it had looked at first glance; eight or ten inches wide and a few inches high on the outside. It reminded Tobin of the sort of place he used to look for in the forest as a hiding place for the doll.

The soil here was sandy and hard, well sheltered by the tree. Curious, he reached inside to see if the hole was as dry as it looked.

“There could be snakes,” Ki warned, hunkering down beside him.

It was larger inside than he’d have guessed, large enough for the doll if he could get it through the opening. His fingers found no snakes, only a few spiky chestnut husks among the dead leaves. As he moved to withdraw his hand, however, his fingers brushed across a rounded edge. He felt more closely, then got enough of a grip on it to dislodge it from the soil. Drawing it out, he saw that it was a gold ring set with a carved stone like the one Lord Orun had given him. He rubbed it on his sleeve to clean it. The large flat stone was the same deep purple as the throat of a river iris, and carved with the intaglio profiles of a man and a woman, side by side with the woman’s foremost.

“By the Flame, Tobin, isn’t that your father?” asked Ki, peering over his shoulder.

“And my mother.” Tobin turned the ring over in his hands and found an
A
and an
R
engraved on the gold band behind the stone.

“I’ll be damned. Brother must have wanted you to find it. See if there’s anything else.”

Tobin felt again, but there was nothing more in the hole.

“Here you are!” said Tharin, coming out into the yard. “What are you doing down in the dirt?”

“Look what Tobin found under this dead tree,” said Ki.

Tobin showed him the ring and Tharin’s eyes widened. “It’s been years—How did that get out here?”

“Was it my mother’s?”

The tall man sat down and took the ring from him, gazing at the two profiles on the stone. “Oh, yes. It was her favorite among the betrothal gifts your father gave her. It’s Aurënfaie work. We sailed clear to Virësse just so he could have the finest carvers make it for her. I remember the look on her face—We never did know what happened to it after she got sick, or some of her other things either.” He looked down at the hole. “How do you suppose it ended up out here? Well, it’s no matter. It’s found now, and yours to keep. You should wear it in their memory.”

It was too large for Tobin’s fingers so he hung it on the golden chain with his father’s seal, then looked at the carving again. His parents looked young and handsome together, not at all like the troubled people he’d known.

Tharin reached down and took the ring and seal together on his palm. “Now you can carry something of both of them close to your heart.”

T
he weeks that followed passed in a glittering blur. Life at the keep hadn’t prepared either boy for such company, though neither wanted to trouble the other with his doubts at first.

Each morning the Companions ran to the temple to make their offerings, then worked hard on the training field until midafternoon under Porion’s demanding direction.

Here, at least, Ki and Tobin both excelled. Porion was a strict taskmaster, but he was as quick to praise as to chastise. He taught the Companions the fine points of buckler work and how to fight and shoot on horseback, but they also learned to use the javelin and the axe, and how to wrestle and fight with knives.

“You fine nobles may start the day in the saddle, but only Sakor knows how long you’ll stay there,” Porion was fond of telling them, and devised a good many drills designed to unseat them in various jarring ways.

After practice the remainder of the day belonged to the boys to amuse themselves as they pleased until mess time. Sometimes they rode about the city to see players or visit their favorite artisans and tailors. Other times they went to the hills to hunt and hawk, or to the seaside to bathe, enjoying the last warm days of summer.

In these pastimes they usually were accompanied by a great crowd of young nobles, and some not so young. Lord Orun frequently came along, together with others of his ilk—men who wore ear bobs and scent and hadn’t gone off to fight. There were women and girls, too.

Ki soon realized that girls like pretty Aliya and her
friends were beyond his grasp, and that a pretty face didn’t necessarily mean a pretty heart. Aliya was Alben’s cousin and proved to be as spiteful as her kinsman. Prince Korin liked Aliya well enough, though, and through the gossip of the squires Ki learned that she was one of several mistresses who regularly visited the prince’s bed, hoping to get him an heir so he could go off to war. What the king would say to that no one cared to speculate.

Still, there were plenty of other girls who found Ki good enough to flirt with. One in particular, Mekhari, had given him several encouraging looks while endeavoring to teach him to dance. Skilled as he and Tobin might be at the arts of war, neither had a proper dance step between them, nor played an instrument; and despite Arkoniel’s best efforts, they had the singing abilities of a pair of crows. Their ill wishers took no end of delight in this lack of graces and made certain to include them in any situation that would call attention to these shortcomings.

Tobin managed to redeem himself quite by accident one night at dinner when, in a fit of boredom, he whittled one of his little sculptures from a block of cheese. Soon the girls were pestering him to carve charms and toys for them, offering kisses and favors in return. Tobin modestly refused payment as he hemmed and blushed and carved away furiously for them, clearly not knowing what to do in the face of such attentions.

This puzzled Ki. Tobin was nearly twelve and had heard enough of his tales to know what girls were about. While he might not be old enough to want one yet, it seemed odd that he’d be so standoffish about it. Two in particular seemed to plague him. Pale Lilyan, Urmanis’ sister, had taken to flirting outrageously with him, though Ki was certain she only did it because she knew it made Tobin squirm.

But the other one, a slim brunette named Una, was another matter. She was skilled at hunting and riding, and had a quiet way about her that Ki found both pleasant and
unsettling; she looked at you like she could read your thoughts and liked them fine. Yet Tobin was more stumble-tongued around her than anyone else. He’d nearly sliced off one of his fingers whittling her a cat.

“What in Bilairy’s name is the matter with you!” Ki had chided, bathing the gash in a basin that night as they got ready for bed. “I bet Una would let you kiss her if you tried, but you act like she’s got the plague!”

“I don’t
want
to kiss her!” Tobin snapped, pulling his hand away before Ki could wrap the finger. Scrambling across the bed, he burrowed under the blankets as far from Ki as he could get and remained there, refusing to talk to him for the rest of the night.

That was the first time Tobin had ever been truly angry with him. Ki laid awake heartsick half the night and vowed never to tease Tobin about girls again.

He had enough to trouble him as it was.

P
rince Korin had thrown several more of his lavish banquets since their arrival, ordering them up whenever the whim took him and he thought he could brook Porion’s disapproval. Although this meant a respite from table service for the squires, Ki could have done without them. Everyone drank more, especially Korin, and Ki liked the Prince Royal a good deal better when he was sober.

Tobin had taken to his cousin in his usual good-hearted way, but Ki wasn’t so sure of his friend’s judgment this time. Korin struck him as a weak reed when drunk, too likely to take on the colors of those around him instead of shining with his own. He was more likely to tease then, and overlook the rudeness of others.

And rudeness abounded, though it was often thinly veiled in jest. Their skill on the training field had sparked jealousy among the older Companions, and Tobin’s odd behavior that night in the old audience chamber had set a few tongues wagging. But they’d probably wagged before they ever arrived.

Still, seeing Tobin here brought back to Ki how strange the boy had seemed to him when they’d first met: the way Tobin talked to ghosts and witches and wizards as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and how he could read people’s faces like others read tracks or weather, without even knowing he was doing it. He’d changed some since Ki had known him, but Tobin still had the eyes of a man, and still made little distinction in his manner toward noble or servant, highborn or low. He treated them all well. Ki had grown accustomed to that, too, during the slow, easy years at the keep. Here among these young lords, it was quickly brought home to him how unusual that was, and in ways that Tobin just didn’t seem to understand.

But Ki understood, and so did the Companions—even the ones who were kind. Tobin hadn’t understood the shame Ki felt when a drunken prince had slapped him so carelessly with a sword and dubbed him “Sir,” bestowing on him a grass knight’s hollow title—with its boon of a warhorse and a yearly purse of money. For all the lessons and proper speech he’d learned from Arkoniel, everyone here knew who his father was and had seen how his “knighthood” had been earned.

No, Tobin couldn’t understand any of that, and Ki kept his promise to Tharin and didn’t tell him. Pride kept him from confiding even in Tharin, though they visited him as often as they could.

Still, it wasn’t all bad, he often reminded himself. Tobin was like a drink of sweet water in a swamp, and there were those who knew how to appreciate him. Korin did, when he was sober, and so did the better ones among the Companions: Caliel, Orneus, Nikides, and little Lutha. Their squires were courteous to Ki out of respect for that, and some of them accepted him as a friend.

On the other side of the fence were Squire Mago and his faction; it hadn’t taken Ki long to peg them as trouble. They spared no effort to remind him that he was a grass
knight, and a poor man’s son. Whenever they could corner him out of earshot of the prince—at the stables, in the baths, or even when they were sparring in the sword circle—they hissed it at him like rock vipers: “Grass knight!”

To make matters worse, Moriel, the boy whose place Ki had taken, was fast friends with Mago and cousin to Quirion’s squire, Arius. Evidently Moriel’s appointment was to have been his way into the Companions.

There was something wrong there, Ki thought. Korin didn’t seem overly fond of some of his own Companions, even though they were touted by all as a closely bound elite, the future generals and councilors of a future king. It seemed to Ki that Korin would do well to rid himself of a good many of them when he was old enough to choose for himself.

None of that is my concern
, he reminded himself. He was Tobin’s squire and in that he was content. Nothing the other squires could say to him would interfere with that.

Or so he thought.

B
y the end of Rhythin Ki was beginning to get his bearings at table. He could serve any type of dish through a twelve-course banquet without spilling a drop, knew all the right serving dishes, and was feeling rather proud of himself.

That night at mess it was only the Companions and Porion at table. Tobin was seated between the arms master and Zusthra. The older boy was still hard to read; he seemed sullen, but Porion treated him with high regard and Ki took that for a favorable sign.

Tobin seemed happy enough, if quiet. Korin was drinking and going on again about the latest report from Mycena. Apparently the king had routed a Plenimaran attack along some river and everyone was drinking to celebrate the victory, and growing more morose as they grew drunker, convinced the fighting would be over before they were allowed to go.

Ki went out for more platters, and by the time he came back Caliel and Korin were arguing about why hounds didn’t like Tobin and hawks did. Ki wished them luck with that one; even Arkoniel had had no answer for the dog question. They’d had to give Tobin’s gift hounds away, but he’d turned to out be a fine hand with falcons. Caliel spent a great deal of time with him, teaching Tobin how to use the hoods, jesses, and whistles. In return, Tobin had fashioned a beautiful ring for him from wax, in the shape of a hawk with outstretched wings, and had a goldsmith cast it. Caliel wore it proudly and was the envy of the Companions. Thanks to that, Tobin had switched from wood carvings to jewelry making and their room was littered with gobs of wax and sketches. Tobin already knew half the goldsmiths near the Palatine, and was making inroads among the gem carvers as that took his fancy. Korin dubbed him the Artist Prince.